Holiday Cheer

We have no shortage of Holiday CHEER and FUN in the month of December.  At the beginning of the month, we gathered with my dad's side of the family to celebrate the Pogue Family Christmas.

Our family hosted the gathering this year at Paul and Shannon's.  We started a new tradition years back to celebrate Christmas the first weekend of the month with our extended family in Louisville.  It is simply to hard to get everyone together on the actual holiday with our ever-expanding family. Each of the Pogue siblings rotate yearly, and this year, it was our turn to host.  

Paul and Shannon have the perfect home for entertaining.  It's always a blessing getting together with our family.  The are tons of laughs, stories shared and memories made.

Mamaw Pogue and her children ~ Far Left (back and front) Uncle Ron and Aunt Linda; dad and mom; behind Mamaw is my Aunt Bev (not pictured Uncle Dave); Uncle David and Aunt Sharon; and Uncle Jackie and Aunt Lois, my other parents =).  I spent most of my Louisville time (growing up) at Jackie and Lois's.  My cousin Brittany was and still is one of my best friends.  She has a blogspot as well and currently lives in Germany: Brittany's Blog

We had a surprise visitor come and deliver Christmas gifts to the kiddos.

Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas!

Me and my multiple twins.  I love my cousins, simply awesome people.  My cousins Kim and Lori also blog.  I feel like I get to keep up with them and their lives.

Kim (in the red sweater): Kim's Blog

Lori (in the black sweater): Lori's Blog

Mom thought it would be a nice idea to have a family photo made. I believe we will make this a new tradition.

Our crazy crew and ....

our crazy crew in training!

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Here is my "shotgun" Christmas card.  I call it that because creating a Christmas card hadn't even crossed my mind at the end of November.  Since we celebrate so many November birthdays in our family, Christmas preparations aren't on the top of my list.  However, since all of my family would be in town the first of December, I wanted to get my card completed so I could hand them out at the party.  I'm to cheap to spend the .45¢ postage if I can avoid it--hah.  Sam's Club was running a special at the end of November where you could get 100 photo cards for $15--SOLD--see I'm a cheapie!  I managed to create a picture collage for this year's card.  It didn't turn out to bad since it was seriously thrown together within minutes.  I'd love to have my talented friend Melissa create a beautiful Christmas card at her studio for us next year if I can just REMEMBER to get it done in early November.  Sheesh, the years fly by to quickly for me.

 My Karson has become a skilled pianist.  She started taking lessons last spring.  Her music teacher at Plano taught her and Isaac after school every Thursday afternoon towards to end of the school year.  She's only had a handful of lessons but absolutely loves playing.  I was sad when her teacher told us that she would no longer be able to accommodate the kids this year.  She recommended a couple of different options for us.  Isaac decided he was done with piano, but Karson wanted to continue. She ended up at Richpond Fine Arts Academy.  She had an 8-week semester with teacher Megan Puckett.  Ms. Puckett is a choir teacher at a local high school here in BG.  Karson has learned so much at RFAA and even got to participate in the Christmas recital.   I am have no instrumental musical talent whatsoever--can't read music or help her in ANY way.  I'm thankful she has such natural talent with piano and can't wait to continue her studies this winter and spring.

Heading up to the stage to perform "Jingle Bells". 

Karson was super nervous the night of her performance. She started off a bit shaky but quickly recovered and played a beautiful piece.

This may be the only picture the kids get with Santa (also known as Santa Bob) this year.  I doubt we'll make it to the mall Santa, and Santa Bob actually looks REAL.  This picture was taken at SKyPAC where I work.  The kids attended my dad's barbershop performance "Christmas is Coming".  The show was done as a benefit concert for Courageous Kids, a medical camp in Scottsville.  I had to work the show or would've made a more concerted effort to make my children look  "Christmas-y" for the occasion, especially the picture.  Oh well, this is THEM al-naturale! The show was a hit, and the kids really enjoyed it.

This might be the only picture I have of mall Santa this year.  My friend and I were mall walking early one morning and apparently Santa stalking.  She snagged this excellent photo of Santa getting his hair done at Mastercuts before heading to his post at the North Pole.  Classic!

This blog has three different Santa's in it, can you spot them all?

HO HO HO, more Christmas festivities coming....

BAH Humbug

What do you get when take a pizza box combined with a cereal box and a can of black spray paint...

Add a thrift store plaid Christmas jacket...

and a colorful scarf from a donating Grandmother...

Plus, a pair of reading glasses from the large selection of lost and found at SKyPAC...

and an old pair of black gloves with the fingers cut out....

You get Ebenezer Scrooge, of course!

Plano had their Christmas program, "Melton the Warm-Hearted Snowman" for 1st and 2nd graders last night at the school.  Normally, the kindergartners also participate, but with our growing school (and 80+ kinders), there wasn't enough room for everyone.  I can't imagine if there had been 80 more sets of people in the crowd last night.  It was a packed house.  What's cool about being a 2nd grader is that many of the children get speaking parts. Click on this link for Karson's "How the Penguin's Saved Christmas" 2nd grade performance.  Isaac isn't the most organized of chaps so I knew about the performance but never received the permission slip that was supposed to come home granting children speaking parts (it may have been deliberately lost?).  I knew he wouldn't be interested in a part so it never crossed my mind.  I even asked him about it, and he said "NO, I don't want a speaking part."  I can't remember at what point I spoke to Ms. Cothran, our music teacher, but she told me she had assigned Isaac the speaking part of Scrooge.  My jaw dropped.  I told her I would do my best to convince him to do it.  When he got home from school that day, we had a long talk about the process.  Ms. Cothran had told me that the teachers hand picked students they felt would be good in these roles, and Isaac's teacher had selected him because he's one the strongest readers in her class.  I explained this to him and what an honor it was to be selected--blah, blah,blah---you need to do this---blah, blah, blah---you will do this---blah, blah,blah---all your friends will be up there with you and so on.  He finally agreed after three hours (j/k) of pleading, begging, urging, encouraging, you get the point.

This is my new favorite picture!!!

I immediately got to work on the costume which I knew would be tricky to pull off.  There are lots of pictures of Ebenezer in his PJ's, but I was determined to make Isaac business Scrooge, not nighttime Scrooge.  I solicited ideas from some creative friends along with the internet and viola, a Scrooge masterpiece was formed. 

My Christmas Elves!

The kids did a practice performance in front of the entire school yesterday.  I asked Karson how it went and she said Isaac did really good.  I was so proud of him.  There is nothing easy about speaking in front of large crowds, especially your peers.

We arrived at the school around 5:20 to drop Isaac off, get a good parking spot and a good seat.  I was flying solo because Matt had a bowling match and wouldn't be able to get the performance until showtime or later.  I should've known my wonderful mother would already be there reserving some great seats.  Thanks Mom!  I went into Ms. Cothran's classroom to tell her Scrooge had arrived (and to show off my lil' cutie pie).  She pulled him aside and told him, "now remember what we talked about today.  You told me Isaac has a soft, gentle voice, but not Scrooge, he is LOUD.  And you're Scrooge so you need to be loud so everyone can hear you."  I thought that was the cutest thing ever!  She's just plain awesome!

The program was so sweet.  They always are!  

The synopsis of the musical: Melton is everyone's friend. In fact, he's so full of love and cheer, that the tiniest thing sets his heart aglow and his body a-meltin'. One chorus of Oh Christmas Tree and he shrinks an inch! Not a good situation if you are a snowman! With a heart that warm, he'll soon be nothing but slush!  The children are trying their best throughout the play to figure out a way to keep Melton from melting.  They plead with different groups to help them with their task.  Finally, Santa comes to the rescue.

Here is Isaac's video clip.

And here is his CHEERING squad after the performance.  My children certainly have a large support system--very COOL!

Getting some love from his family!  We are incredibly proud of our Scrooge.  He did wonderfully, like we all knew he would!  BAH Humbug!!!

Are You Smarter Than a 4th Grader?

Umm, NOPE!  Karson is on Plano's Quick Recall team this year.  I honestly had no idea what we were getting ourselves into by committing to this.  Last year Karson was selected to be on the academic team in the area of Language Arts.  The focus was on the book "Bridge to Teribithia", and she had to study a wide variety of materials like Newberry and Caldecott Medal winners, literature genres, vocabulary words, grammar, and parts of speech.  It was small potatoes compared to this year.  She qualified for Language Arts again, along with Arts and Humanities and Quick Recall.  Once I saw the practice schedule, I knew she couldn't commit to it all--lots of morning practices and loads of material.  She decided to do Quick Recall and Arts and Humanities this year.  She has three practices a week:  Monday morning at 7:15, Tuesday morning at 7:30 and Thursday after school 'til 4:30.  She's one busy gal!  

She had her first match at Lost River on Thursday.  I had no idea what to expect.  Practices started about two weeks ago.  One of our more experienced mom's took upon herself to copy study packets for all the kids covering almost all of the subject areas.  I've tried to get Karson to study at least 10 minutes each day which is usually around 7:50-8:00 before school (on days she doesn't has practice).  We're going to have to get some more study time in though because I felt like we were on Jeopardy Thursday.  The questions were so random, wordy, specific--I don't think 10 minutes of daily study will cut it.  I may pick up some of those Brain Quest cards or the iPad app. for extra study.

Ms. Tinsley and Ms. Strode getting the team fired up!

The 5th graders played the first half of the match and did very well, winning both rounds.

The coaches made some substitutions for the second half of the match including some of the 4th graders.  They didn't do as well as the 5th grade but still pulled out wins for the team.

I think Karson's highlight of the afternoon was being with her best friends, Jameson and Nathan.  We still have about eight more matches at different schools.  I hope the kids continue to improve and STUDY!

Let's Go Spartans

Karson is back in action for her fourth season of basketball.  

We've been fortunate the past two years playing on teams with friends from Plano.

Practices started about a month, and the team's first game was today at Jody Richards Elementary.

Karson is on her friend Elizabeth Warder's team this year.  Elizabeth's dad Jamie is the coach.  When I heard he was coaching this year, I specifically requested him on Karson's player application. **A few weeks prior to registration, I went and ate lunch with the kids and Jamie was there eating as well.  I  asked if he was coaching again, and he said yes.  I told him I was going to request him as a coach.  He replied, "well just know that we did not win a game last year."**  His coaching history changed today--his team got their first win of the season.  The game didn't start off in our favor though.  The other team had a girl that looked at least 6 ft. tall compared to everyone on the court.  My dad referred to her as Amazon.com, which was a good description.  Karson had to guard her and couldn't even come close to blocking a shot or rebounding over her.  She was a giant compared to the other girls.  The team we played had two plays:  one designed for their quick little point guard and one that was designed for Amazon.com.  They scored a couple of baskets right at the start.  Our team kept up but was trailing behind 'til the half.  Their coach took both of those girls out in the 3rd quarter, and our team caught up to them.  YESSSS! 

With 28 seconds on the clock (4th quarter), we were all tied up, and I got this video clip. You can see in the video, the last heart racing seconds (for me), as Karson takes a shot, is fouled and then NAILS one of her free throws to make our team up a point.  The score was 16 - 17 with only 12 seconds left on the clock, and we have the ball in our possession.  Our coach calls a time out and tries to set up a play. 12 seconds is NOTHING in basketball and goes by in a blink.  HOWEVER, if the clock keeper does not start the clock, 12 seconds can turn into 24 seconds.  Of course, this happened to us.  My heart stopped--my daughter had just scored the game winning shot and we had possession of the ball and the clock wasn't running.  The other team grabbed our missed shot and headed down the court and managed to get two shots off but fortunately missed them both.  Matt was yelling like a madman "START THE CLOCK, THE CLOCK'S NOT RUNNING...."!!!!  They finally started it back up once the other team made it all the way down to their end.  We came off with the second rebound and the buzzer went off.  WHEW!  So, I can say with confidence, my daughter WON the game, the first game of the season, with her free throw.  YEAH!!!

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Elizabeth has a little brother, Ethan, who is Miles's age.  

This will certainly make attending the games more fun for him.

The boys were inseparable the entire game.

Warming up for the big game.

Can you look at these pictures and tell which girl is Amazon.com?

We're gearing up for another exciting season of Division II basketball.

It's Beginning to Look A lot Like ....

CHRISTMAS

We are in FULL Christmas mode at the Deaton house. Decorations are put out and the tree is UP.  Why does that feel like an accomplishment and relief all rolled into one?  Miles was SO excited about getting the tree up this year.  He asked us everyday last week, "when we were going to put the tree up?"  We managed to hold off until after Thanksgiving. 

You can tell by the pictures how happy he is!

I'm certain all of my ornaments had hooks on them and were in fairly good shape before Miles got into the ornament box.  We only had a few that needed repair =).  It's amazing how handy a hot glue gun is when decorating a tree. The ornament triage was set up on my dining room table and going at all times.

The kids holding up some of their favorite Hallmark's.  I love my Hallmark tree.  Isaac is holding a snowman relaxing in a hot tub which is a musical ornament that sings "feelin' hot, hot, hot".  You have NO IDEA how many times that button has been pushed since putting up the tree.  I may have to secretly hide that one before I lose my COOL, COOL, COOL.

I'll occasionally catch Miles just looking around the tree and beaming with pride at all the decorations.  

We have sadly never made it to the L & N Train Depot for the Polar Express.  This is an annual free event sponsored by the public library.  I was determined to get tickets for us this year. The tickets were available on Election Day.  I spent 20 minutes on the phone, madly dialing and redialing the ticket hotline number over and over again and continually getting busy signals.  Finally, I got THROUGH, got our date scheduled, hung up and then realized I'd told them the WRONG date (there are multiple dates for this event).  Ugh, are you kidding me?  My sweet husband Matt said he'd take care of it.  I was glad because I didn't have another 20 minutes of dialing in me and was very frustrated with myself. 

The correct date was chosen--Tuesday, November 27 at 6:45 p.m.
Anxiously waiting to board the Polar Express.

 The train schedule.

We arrived at the Depot about 15 minutes early so we could get our tickets and enjoy the lobby which was decorated so Christmas-y for the event.  They had also put out cookies and hot chocolate for everyone to enjoy.  Fun!  Miles immediately noticed a school friend, and they were inseparable.  I tried to get picture of them but his friend was quick and to excited to sit still.

 Isaac's buddy Jonathan was there too.  He had just gotten off the train so we only got to see him for minute.  On a different note, completely unrelated, Jonathan's dad is the bowling coach for Greenwood High.  I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned in a post that Matt is the bowling coach for South Warren, but he is.  Jonathan's mom and I have been trying to coordinate bowling schedules so we can send both boys to the match (with their dads) so they can play together.  Guess what?  It's happening this afternoon, GHS vs. SWHS at Southern Lanes.  

Back to the bi-polar, I mean Polar Express post....

Me and my precious cargo!

I don't know that I've ever been on a train before, or at least, I have no memory of going on one.  I was like a mad woman snapping pictures of each little room and holding up the entire line that was slowly snaking their way down the tiny corridors to get to the dining cart.

I'm thinking we may need to travel by train to our next vacation?

We finally made it to the dining cart area and found a spot at a table.

Can you see Miles's little friend peaking over my shoulder?

The reading of the Polar Express began.  I was to distracted to listen to the story.  I was busy looking at all the train decor and imagining what it would've been like to go on an actual train ride and how cool that would've been.  My mind feels like it's in a million places this time of the year.  I think Miles had more fun playing with tickets than looking and listening to the book.  Like mother, like son =).

Santa greeted all the kids as they exited the train and gave them all a jingle bell.  I think the look on Isaac's face is priceless.  Jolly ol' Santa brings out the joy in everyone!

Farewell from the Polar Express and Deaton Christmas beginnings....more to come....!