Ohana Christmas Party

We celebrated Christmas with our Ohana last Saturday.  It was such a fun time!

 Since we have been an Ohana and everyone living in GA/AL (we all live right on the border - two families in GA and two in AL) I've made us ornaments.

 Training dummy became Santa and held all the secret Santa presents that we drew names for at Thanksgiving.

 Put the combat cubes together and made a table.

 I don't know why this is so blurry :( , we are missing one family that was at a wrestling tournament 2 hours away, trying to get back in time.  We brought two of their kids that stayed back with us.  As you can tell we take a theme seriously.

 My little family.

 We try to go youngest to oldest for the kids lining up for food, but this time some kids got in line and some didn't.  So it was first come first serve.  Aunties and Uncles jumped in where they could to help little ones get food.

 Time for Secret SANTA!

 Kids tearing into their presents!

 Cale got a steak and shake gift card and he was so excited!

 Kennedie got oreo's, external battery charger and a movie theater gift card!

 Kids playing bunco, or trying atleast!

 New leggings. They aren't my usual lularoe - but they were cute!

The adults playing bunco.  I truly love this group of people.  We are helping raise each others children, any one of these parents would run to help the minute we would need them.  Our kids have cousins that live in town and not far away and they get a sense of family and community even if we aren't related by blood.

Week before Christmas!!!

It's the last few days before Christmas!  I'm not ready for the season to be over with yet!!

Here are some of our festive outfits from this week!  We have our Ohana Christmas Party this weekend so I'll have a separate entry with that because it will be JUST as epic, if not more so!

 First up - my work Christmas party!  I went with a Santa Theme.

I always come with options!!!

 I got her cute llama Christmas leggings from Walmart the night before and she wore them to school on "ugly sweater day" Tuesday. 

 The sweater she found at Ross and said she wanted it because it was "ugly" I actually thought it was cute!  It's super warm too!  I wore it the next day! :)

At her school if you have A/B's and have less than a few absences (I think you can have up to 3 if you have an A) you are exempt from your finals.  So because she had A's and B's and PERFECT ATTENDANCE she didn't have to go to school Wednesday, Thursday or Friday!  Wednesday morning she was really excited to wake up, eat breakfast and start drawing!

That night we finally were able to get the star on top of the tree.  Daddy was gone when we decorated it (and I feel I'm missing a TON of ornaments, but I'm too exhausted to search for them at this point), but it's their tradition to put the star at the top.  He used to prop her up on his shoulder or hold her above his head and she would bend over and place it.  That obviously is becoming a problem! :P

I have a picture of Cale lighting the tree as that's his job, but he is in his underwear!

Cale had his class party today.  He got a new shirt and wanted to wear lights.

I haven't noticed this week these towers and I did on my way to work this morning.  The drop towers (where the airborne trainee's practice with their parachutes) were lit up this morning!

Trees for Troops - Fort Benning 2018

This is my favorite event that my work puts on.  I LOVE volunteering to work it.

 Families from all over the country donate trees to "The Christmas Spirit Foundation" and then fedex ships them to Military Installations.  This year we received 500 trees to distribute.  Some years we have gotten 800-900.

 It's a fun event to work because I get to wear my christmas finest.  This year I choose a reindeer theme.

 I wore my reindeer lularoes that I got last year.  With my sparkle red toms.  I had a great soft brown dress I wore with it.  I thought I looked quite cute/festive!

 My husband facetimed me for his daily good morning call (since he is still gone, we don't do this when he is home).  He chuckled when he answered the phone and was dressed like this!

 Been working with John for 10 years.  We laughed because the sun hitting his name tag shining on his teeth made it look like an Orbit gum commercial.

I brought this hat because I didn't know how cold it would be.  I ended up just wearing it because it was so freakin cute! 

 

Oh man the truck finally got here.  It was stuck at the gate because it was graduation day for the basic trainee's, and there was ALOT of traffic.  Then on the 3 miles it takes to get from the gate to the field, he broke down.  They got him going again, and once on the field his truck just sank in the grass. He was spinning tires.  You can tell that they tried to pull him out but that didn't work.  So any of the detail or an employee that came with a truck rallied and we filled up all the beds and drove them to the set up point.

 I usually take Tim's truck this event because I'm taking a tree home or a friend without a truck's tree to their house when it's over. I was so thankful we had it today.

 Offloading the trees.

 We stand them up along the fencing and that's how the soldiers/family members pick them.  But they can't open them from the bundling.  It's kinda a surprise how they look when you get them home.

 Alot of fedex workers show up to help offload and carry trees to cars.

 Anther load in Tim's truck.

I mean because why not?  I love being festive!

Thanksgiving Weekend 2018

We had a great weekend celebrating Thanksgiving and the start of the Christmas season!!  We didn't get to celebrate in person with daddy - but he was with army family in Colorado with one of the other dads of our Ohana.  Somehow that made it easier to get through a holiday without him because I knew he was with family.  Though in the grand scheme of things he has been with us ALOT of holidays lately, and in most army families sometimes it's not a big deal to miss a holiday every once in a while - we are fortunate to get our soldiers for ANY holiday.

 My ladies!  Incase anyone was wondering I'm the "Rose" of the group! :P

 Our Ohana minus two of the daddies, but we facetimed with them during our dinner while they were at their dinner in Colorado!  There is two extra families.  20 kids total!  They out number us!

 After dinner it was time to go home and break out the Christmas clothes for Black Friday shopping!  I got this hat last year on clearance and he was so excited to try it on!

 I got to break out my Christmas lularoes!!!  I LOVE THESE ONES!!

 The tradition in our family is that you have to be middle school to be able to go Black Friday shopping, AND you must wear your Christmas finest!  I had enough LLR leggings for all 5 of us, I'm not even ashamed!  I never got a full picture of our group!

 Cousins!  This is where Kennedie says "are we done after this store!?"

 The moms went back out at 6am Friday morning and the kids slept in.  We came home around 10 after hitting a couple stores and made breakfast tacos.  After a quick nap and the "Christmas Chronicles" movie on Netflix I started the Christmas cookies.  We let them cut out two cookies a piece and then I got the rest done, and in the oven.  Once they were cooled Dusty and her daughter made the royal icing.

 I know our 6 kids well, they will fight over what cookies they are decorating and it ruins the fun!  So I didn't let them choose we mostly had 5 of each so it was pretty easy and they didn't complain when they realized I picked for them.  I put the sprinkles in bowls and we let them go to town!

 

 There was two extra cookies so Dusty and myself got to decorate one.  Royal icing is no joke, I normally work with buttercream so I used a little too much - oops!

 Everyone hard at work!

 Kennedie's cookies.

 Cale's plus my candy cane cookie.

 Saturday morning we laid around until about 11 when we packed up to run some errands and then went to see the Grinch.  On our way to the movies this guy facetimed us! (yes I'm in a parking lot talking not on the road!)

 I got to wear my new LLR shirt to the movies!  I got it from a going out of business sale for less than $10!!!  I love it!  We are at the Grinch waiting for the movie to start!

Also on Friday afternoon my new Christmas Tom's came in!  I wore them Saturday!  They are even glow in the dark!!  Today we are getting all the Christmas Decorations out of the shed and hopefully getting our tree up!  The star at the top will have to wait for daddy to come home.  Him and Kennedie always put it at the top!  (I have a picture of it every year!)