Our wild and crazy Christmas!

Friday, December 28, 2007
Our Christmas started on the Friday before the 25th. We hosted our annual Stocking Stuffer Party with several of our friends. We had about 25 people here, and we all pigged out on cookies and pie. Our stocking stuffer party is unique as far as I know. Every year my mom and I head out the week after Christmas and snatch up all of the stocking stuffers we can find for under $1 or $2. We usually have five boys, five girls, eleven women and ten men. We look for stuff for everyone. This year we had gag gifts and all kinds of other goodies. Most of the guests bring stocking stuffers, too, so our big camoflage (yes, we're rednecks!) stockings are filled to the top.

On Saturday we had our Christmas at Nana and Papaw Gary's house. The food was great, the kids got too many presents and we all went home happy! What could be better?




On Sunday we went to my Uncle Bob's house to celebrate with him and his family. We ate chili dogs and talked and talked and talked. We hardly ever get together with them and I just hate that... They live in Sherwood, which is only about 45 minutes from here, but somehow we never meet up...

Monday we didn't do too much. It was Christmas Eve, but it was a perfect day to relax. We had to get ready for Santa!!!

Santa came to our house sometime Monday night. We all slept in, but once the kids were up it was all fun! Katie got a "Streak -n- Style" so that her hair can be all different colors, a set of hot rollers, a cutting tool for her artistic endeavors, and some clothes. Reese got a couple of toys and some great clothes. Her favorite gift from Santa was a 'Fridge DJ' radio made by Leap Frog. She hasn't put it down since she got it! The girls both got a computer to share. Santa took my mom's old computer, painted it pink and set it up with all their games. They loved it. My mom and daddy came up for breakfast, and we spent the rest of the day just hanging out.


Katie's Christmas program at school

Saturday, December 15, 2007
Katie's class did several, and I do mean SEVERAL renditions of Jingle Bells for their Christmas program. It was actually pretty cute. They did a 'Country Jingle Bells'(Jangle bells, jangle bells...), a 'Rock n Roll Jingle bells', a 'Soul Jingle Bells', a 'Spiritual Jingle Bells', an Indian 'Jingle Bells' and several others. Katie was one of Mrs. Ellis' "ding-a-lings". She got to ring the handbells for the song "The First Noel". She did really great! My pictures weren't very good, but here is the one that halfway came out...

So be good for goodness STEAKS!

Monday, December 10, 2007
Katie is getting ready for her Christmas program at school. If I have to hear Jingle Bells one more time I think I will lose my mind...

I have heard some interesting lyrics come out of her mouth. My favorite is her rendition of "Santa Claus is Coming to Town".

"You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout I'm telling you why! Santa Clause is coming to town.

He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake, he knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness STEAKS!"


I love it.

Here are a few other "Katie-isms" that crack us up.

"Gracias!" - to the Asian girl in the Chinese restaurant. Katie thought she was Mexican...

"Are you going to take down her door, too?" After I slammed my bedroom door during a fight with David.

"Don't go in there Daddy, she's gonna yell at you!" After the same fight...

"We've been to Miami, is Papa Nort going to HIS-ami?"

"Daddy, stop driving my mama crazy!" On the way to the VA Tech stadium when David was backseat driving.

"Mama-Day" - What Katie called David for the first two years of her life... Never Daddy, always Mama-Day...

"I want to watch a woooo-beeeee!" It's movie time!

But you promised you would put the dot com on my computer, too! Katie talking to David about adding internet access to her computer.

But, mama, I just can't help it! I'm a talking machine! Katie after getting in trouble for talking in class.


I will add more as I remember them, so keep checking this post!

We have our Christmas lights up!

Friday, December 7, 2007
Today is the day... I am going to hang our outdoor Christmas lights. The first thing I have to do is make sure all of the kids are unconscious. Both of the Reeses are down for a nap. (I babysit a little boy named Reese along with my Reese. It's like Reese squared!)

Now that they're asleep I am headed outside to tackle this project..... I bought new C9 lights to outline the perimeter of the roof. I have about seven strands of these lights. Hope it'll be enough! The first time I hung them, I got everything up and was ready to attach the extension cord for power. Well, I plugged it in, then dropped the cord. All of the lights fell off domino style, so I'm back to square one. I finally got them all up on the third try, but every time I plug in the cord all of the fuses blow. I guess I plugged too many in at one time. Back to the drawing board!

I finally got all of the C9 lights glowing, and now I'm working on the twinkle lights that will go on our front porch columns. The good thing is that all of the lights work, the bad thing is that I never dreamed it would take so many lights to cover those columns! Even though the pictures don't show it, all of our lights were multicolored, not white.

The finishing touch was our door wreath. I don't have a good Christmas wreath, so I improvised... I took a round swim ring and blew it up, then I wrapped white tinsel all around the ring until it was completely covered. After that, I took glue dots and attached plastic mulitcolored Christmas balls to the tinsel. It turned out cute, but when the weather got really cold all of the air went out of my swim ring. My wreath was a little saggy, but we just pretended it was supposed to be shaped like an oval!

The Turner Christmas party - Park City, UT

Monday, December 3, 2007
Well, the time is here for our first Christmas party of the season! I can't wait, it should be a lot of fun. This year David's employer is flying us to Park City, Utah, for the party.

I flew into Salt Lake City on Thursday night so that I could be there in time for the party on Friday night. For some reason, there isn't a decent flight out of Little Rock headed to SLC until late in the evening. I met David at the airport and we headed out to our hotel. I was starving, so soon after we dropped off our bags I was ready to go. We walked to a nearby restaurant and had a mediocre meal. I wanted to go to 'The Melting Pot' in SLC, but David wasn't interested. Bummer...

Saturday morning we headed out to our hotel in Park City. It was called the Hotel Park City, and it was FABULOUS! The bellman took our bags and we went inside to see the hotel. The first thing I noticed when we walked in was the massive rock fireplace in the lobby. It was amazing. There was also a huge picture window looking out on the area behind the hotel. It was beautiful.

Our rooms weren't ready yet, so we decided to go downtown for lunch with some of David's fellow employees. We ate at a little cafe. Everything was great there, but the best was coming! By the time we left the restaurant it was snowing like crazy! Living in Arkansas we don't see much snow, and we never see snow like this! Some of the flakes were the size of a silver dollar pancake. It was great! The sidewalks soon became slippery, but we decided to shop a little anyway. After David and I walked the length of Main street we were cold and ready to go back to the hotel. The hotel shuttle picked us up and carried us back to the warmth of the lobby. Our room was ready, to we went ahead and checked in.

Let's see, what can I say about the rooms!?! I have never stayed in a nicer place. There was a fireplace in our living room, a balcony that overlooked the (heated) pool, a big whirlpool bathtub and a separate shower. Everything was gorgeous. Our bed was set up so that we dould see the view lying down. We also had a microwave, a fridge, a DVD player, a dishwasher, a washer, a dryer and a small stove. It was so nice to go home with a suitcase full of clean clothes after our weekend away!

The company Christmas party was fun. The drinks were free and there were tons of people taking full advantage of that! David and I lasted until about 11pm, then we decided to turn in for the night. We're just not the party animals that we used to be. I guess we're getting old!

Saturday turned out to be a pretty sorry day. David woke up with some kind of stomach flu, so we didn't do anything. I did go to the spa and get a hot stone massage. It felt good, but I have yet to find a massage therapist as good as the one here in Searcy. She's amazing, and she's ruined me for everyone else! I was disappointed to spend over $100 (almost $200) on a massage that didn't loosen me up. Oh well, another lesson learned!

We did make it out to the Blind Dog Grill for sushi and seafood at dinner time. I guess that was the real highlight of our day...

Sunday morning we had to catch our shuttle at 7am to go to the airport, so we were up early. The flight home was uneventful, and we were glad to see the girls after a weekend away.

Here are some pics of the Hotel Park City.



David in front of the hotel.


The Christmas tree behind the hotel.


The view from our balcony.



The kitchen in our suite.



The fireplace in our suite.