The Brown Brick Road

Capturing our adventures one photo at a time...

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve we went to the noon church service and everyone was looking holly jolly!

xmas eve

Especially Samantha in my old dress (that she also wore last year!)…

xmas eve

xmas eve

Samantha did “ok”…I’m hoping by next year we’ll all actually be able to enjoy the service! That afternoon I had some helpers while making food for Christmas day…

xmas eve

Best bowl cleaners around!

That night we had GJ, Daddo, and Susu over for dinner and Daddo gave the kids these neat Santa lanterns to put by their stockings so Santa could be sure to find them in the dark!

lantern

We then got on our Christmas pjs and got the cookies and milk ready!

cookies

The kids were excited!! (and here you either get Samantha picking her nose or Spencer’s eyes closed. Take your pick! ha!)

chrismas eve

xmas eve

We did get a cute pic under our lanterns though!

xmas eve

Everyone then snuggled in with their special Christmas pillowcases…

santa

and went fast asleep hoping that Santa would come!

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Other Christmas fun

Just a few more fun things we did leading up to Christmas…

I got to go up to Maxwell’s class to help them make a craft! I took pics of all the kids one day when I was at school one day and cut them out so they could “elf” themselves! These were my samples (which might hang on my fridge all year long!)…

elves

It was fun to be up in the classroom with the kids and all of their elves turned out great!

class

I also went up to help with the Christmas party and they did a book exchange which was funny. I love seeing Maxwell in his element at school!

class

The boys got to go make gingerbread houses with James and his cousin, Rex. Maxwell has done this for a few years now but this was Spencer’s first time to get to to go!

gingerbread

Spencer also got invited to a Santa breakfast party the Saturday before Christmas – such fun!

santa

santa

These boys loved seeing Santa…and each other!

santa

Samantha didn’t get invited to any special parties but, don’t worry, she fully enjoyed the spoils of the season too!

samantha

We loved having Susu in town before the holiday…

susu

and got plenty of wear out of our Christmas pjs!

pjs

We were ready for Christmas!!

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Highlands for Thanksgiving 3

On Saturday we were feeling pretty proud of ourselves after our strong showing hiking Whiteside and decided to tackle Scaly Mountain with the Woods. It was marked as “moderate”, the same as Whiteside so we thought we would be fine. We got off to a strong start…

scaly

scaly

scaly

But, this path was much more of a wooded trail and had big steps, tricky parts, and slippery rocks. Samantha was just having trouble. So, we did what we had to do! This was my view for much of the hike…

scaly

and when I wasn’t looking at that, I was doing this! ha!

scaly

The boys had no trouble at all and kept running up ahead and finding cool things to check out!

scaly

scaly

scaly

Because this trail was so wooded, we were pretty protected from all the wind and, when you’re carrying a 40 lb medicine ball on your back and hiking up a hill, you get pretty hot! We were peeling out of our layers and trying to figure out ways to hold everything and hold Samantha!

scaly

It was a 2 mile hike up and 2 mile hike down the mountain. We probably carried her 3 of those 4 miles! But, that’s ok. As always, it was totally worth it when we got to the top!

scaly

scaly

scaly

Spencer and his new best bud, Shadow…

scaly

It took about an hour and a half to get up the mountain and about 30 minutes to get done. A great hike! Not 2 minutes after getting in the car, Samantha looked like this…

scaly

it’s exhausting being carried!  🙂

That night we watched a disappointing Iron Bowl. Oh well, Roll Tide anyway! There’s always next year! Sunday we packed up and headed back to Birmingham, but had to stop for a nutritious breakfast first!

samantha

spencer

maxwell

What a wonderful trip!! Good family time (thanks for everything Lulu and Granddaddy!), excellent food, and plenty of fresh air and adventure! I think we all felt about like Samantha on the drive home…

home

Thankful for a great Thanksgiving!

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Birthday!

A break in the Thanksgiving recap to wish our favorite Daddo a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! He’s the very best Daddo to this now 7 year old…

daddo

this now 5 year old…

daddo

and this now 2.5 year old!

daddo

Daddo, we hope you have a Zip-a-dee-doo-da kind of day!

daddo

We love you!!

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Highlands for Thanksgiving 2

On Friday we headed into town for breakfast and then back to the house to walk over and check out the waterfall!

waterfall

waterfall

waterfall

waterfall

waterfall

Robert tried to throw a trick pass with the football and it backfired and ended up in the creek! Robert made a mad dash to save it – thankfully he got it and he didn’t fall in!

waterafll

The kids were playing in the water too and thankfully they didn’t fall in either!

waterfall

waterfall

After lunch, I got Samantha down for a nap while Robert took the boys over to see Patrick and Henry and hike up Satulah! We definitely wore them out this trip!

mountain

Samantha didn’t miss out though – she had plenty of fun playing with Baby Margaret all weekend!

highlands

Even more mountain fun tomorrow!

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