Christmas Night - part 2

Christmas night was at Nannie Kim's house this year, and we had a great time. Juju and Paw paw gave the girls kind of a "stocking" bag filled with little treats including this lovely teeth. Here Katie models hers:




... and Emma:



Here Emma shows my nephew Jason and his girlfriend Stephanie her new camera. Emma was totally in love with them that night.






Emma and Jason messing around:




Emma and Chad (my other nephew) were our "elves" that night and handed out the presents (a Weimer family tradition):

But the most fun of the night was dancing to our new Wii Michael Jackson game. Everyone including the grown ups took a turn at it. Here Katie and Juju "bust a move":

Katie and Emma, including Michael Jackson fedoras (not sure where those came from):

It was a great time! Happy holidays!

Christmas - part 1

Because I am the family photographer, I am in very few photos, which is fine, but every now and then I'd like a family photo of the whole family. So, Christmas Eve when we got dressed for church, I decided I might try the timer on my camera and get a picture of the four of us. So here is Katie and Emma in fron of the tree:

And here is the family photo:

Nice... huh? (I should have married a shorter man).

Then, Christmas morning, the girls were up at some INSANE hour, but I made them wait to open up anything. Finally around 7, then couldn't stand it any longer and we had to get up! Here they are opening some presents (I think this was one labeled to both of them):

Here we are with the grand prize from Santa. The Barbie house. Much nicer than the first place Mark and I lived in! Santa was very tired after putting this one together (....I would imagine).

The girls have really enjoyed playing with this one. We have a very Barbie house right now (poor Mark!)

The girls also got new American Girl dolls. These are so pretty. Katie got Felicity:

And Emma got her friend, Elizabeth.

These will be great when we visit Nannie Jane next month in Dallas and go to the American girl store there.

Didn't take too many pics of Mark b/c he was reading the book I got him, but here is one.

Jovi also got a stocking full of treats. Here she is with a new chew toy. Her favorite is one of those furry animals that you put an empty water bottle in. She loves it. I'll have to get a picture of that one:

And here is the sexy author of this blog with her new Rachael Ray cook book and her new one cup coffee maker. Mark and I have been using the coffee maker every afternoon. (maybe not so great for a coffee addict like myself!

Stay tuned for part 2 about Christmas night at Nannie Kim's house!

"Real" bowling

Since the Carroll's got a Wii 2 years ago, many people in my family consider themselves quite the bowling experts. Emma, for example can get a "Turkey" several times over. (A turkey, for you bowling novices is 3 strikes in a row - not like I knew that before Wii days!)

Anyway, I had always wanted to take them "real" bowling b/c since Katie has been at Northside, they always get these free passes for games over the school holidays. So right before Christmas, we decided to use these passes. It was quite fun, but slightly harder than the Wii!

Here, Emma takes a swing down the alley.



Funny story, the bowling places have the rails that you can raise for the younger bowlers. Well, in our lane, only one would go up (as you can see on the left) and it never went down. So even Mark and I got the benefit of the left side rail. And it came in handy!

Mark:


Katie:


Emma poses for a second:

Katie poses too:

My favorite part was Emma's "English" on the ball as it went down the lane. Hopefully it helped her ball to go straight!

This lovely picture of me is titled: "look who's in the lead now, um-hum"

The winner poses with the purple ball. I ended up beating Mark by one whole point! And guess who was the only one to get a strike during the game!

See you on the Wii!

Nutcracker 2010

So this past weekend was the Nutcracker ballet that Katie danced in (with the Baton Rouge Ballet). Last year was her first year to do this, and she really enjoys it. She gets to meet girls from other schools and be part of an amazing production. This year was the 50th anniversary of the BR Ballet's version of the Nutcracker and it was super. We don't get to take any pictures during the performance and the costumes don't ever come home with us, so I told Katie to take a bunch of pictures in her costume back stage. I sent her with an old camera, and she came home with a bunch of bad close ups of her friends' faces!! She did take these 2 with her iTouch, and they aren't that great, but at least you can see a little of the costume. She was a cook and the dance was super cute:

Katie and Danielle:



Katie and her new buddy London:

The annual post - Nutcracker photo with the family. That's my sister Kim by Mark and my stepmom Judy and my dad:

The family unit:

My other sister Jane and my niece Emily were in town from Plano to visit also. They missed the "family photo" b/c they were visiting with some old friends:

After the show we all went eat at Parrain's. Here Nannie Jane toasts Katie who was about the fall asleep at the table (no, she didn't have any beer!):

Nannie Kim and Emily:

Later that night (or maybe the next morning), Jovi fell asleep on the sleeping bag in the living room, and Emma put her blanket on her. She loved it!

Christmas Santa photo

The girls and I went to Bass Pro this afternoon to get this year's Santa photo. It was great because we walked right up to him and Mrs. Claus. I think it came out pretty cute!

What happens in New Orleans....

This will be a nonphotographic post as some of my coworkers and possibly my father read this blog. This weekend was the annual Carroll couples only trip to New Orleans for the highschool football finals and coaches clinic in the Superdome. Every year my WONDERFUL sister, also known as "Nannie Kim" keeps the girls so that Mark and I get a weekend by ourselves in NO. We do not get many of those ever, so we really enjoy it. The girls also love staying with Kim b/c she always has fun toys to play with and crafts. Thanks one million Nannie Kim.

We left Friday morning, after we got the kids off to school and the dog off to the spa. We checked into our hotel and had some lunch at a place near the hotel (our coaches regular hangout on this trip). Then we met up with everybody and headed down town for some food and fun. This is where I will become extremely vague about the details of the trip and say "a good time was passed by all!"

Saturday Mark and I went to the D-Day museum b/c we had not been there since it first opened and had not seen the Pacific part. It was, of couse, wonderful and we really enjoyed it. We also ate lunch at the John Besh restaurant there called The American Sector and it was delicious. Mark got chicken and dumplings and I got the meatloaf and mashed potatoes.

After a nap, we went to the superdome to watch some of the 4A game. We met up with some of the other coaches and then Mark and I headed back downtown for dinner at Dickie Brennan's steakhouse - absolutely amazing. As we walked back to the hotel, we stumbled upon a little street Christmas party with Santa Claus and real reindeer. It made me wish the girls were there with us. All weekend, Katie would text me how she missed us - and appropriately enough, Emma didn't even want to talk to us when I called. (Too busy to worry about mom and dad)

Sunday morning, we left NO after breakfast and headed to Nannie Kim's house to get the girls and go home. It was a great time, but also glad to be home and get ready for Christmas!

Miss popularity!

So, the other night at the girls' school we had Family Literacy Night, and the theme was a travel - passport one - very cute and the girls really enjoyed it. I didn't bring my regular camera, so wasn't planning on taking any pictures..... but then as Mark was standing outside Emma's kindergarten classroom (while I was inside helping the girls with the craft for that room), he noticed a certain penguin picture. The students hang their pictures outside the room with their names over it. He noticed this one had something written on it:



"Is that Emma's penguin?" you ask,why no, that is Aiden's penguin - her sometimes "boyfriend" and it says "I love Emma" (sorta). I just had to get a picture of it with my phone.

Here Emma poses in her most modest way with the picture:

Doesn't she just seem embarassed by it (that's sarcasm, in case you can't tell in my writing).

And if you think that was her only admirer that night, then you should have seen her sitting with Jacob when we ate dinner in the cafeteria.

I'm not sure if I should be happy that she is well-liked by her classmates or worry that she may be a kindergarten "player"! Good thing her dad is a big guy!

A festive weekend

So, as mentioned in a previous blog, the girls' birthdays are December 3rd and the festivities involved continue for about 2 weeks because of family trips at Thanksgiving and Mark's baseball camp (see earlier blog). But... the actual day of their birthday, I decided to take a half day and meet them for lunch at school and bring cupcakes to the class. I didn't take a lot of pictures, but here are a few:

Emma and her friend Cameron being quiet as they line up for lunch (maybe I should try the finger over the lips in my 5th hour):



A few more of her classmates. Who is this strange boy hanging on my child? Wait until your father sees this!




This is the only actual picture of Emma I got at lunch - pretty, huh? After I took this one, everyone around me had to have their picture taken with food in their mouths (you should see these!):

The girls and I with one group pix as Emma was leaving lunch, and Katie was coming in:

Katie and her BFF, Jessica:

Now why don't they do the birthday hats in 4th grade?

After school, Katie had 2 friends and Emma had one friend join us at the movies to see Tangled (very cute). Afterwards, Katie's two friends, Ali and Jessica spent the night. Here we are opening gifts:

This is the only other picture I got. I was tired and fell asleep quickly. No telling what time they actually went to bed:

The next day, after Nutcracker practice, Katie had a "cookies with Clara" thing. All they really did was hand them cookies and a jingle bell necklace with nutcracker ribbon. Katie was too embarassed to stand with one of the Clara's and take a picture, so I had to get an "action shot".

Lastly, we picked out the tree Saturday night and Emma helped me decorate it, which she really loved b/c Katie spend the night out next door with my neighobor's granddaughter and so we were all by ourselves (oddly, Mark didn't want to help - but he did help me put the lights on).

Look, Mrs. Julie, the ornaments are not geometrically aligned and measured to be placed at right angles! (tee-hee). I love my little tree with our homemade ornaments and momentos from trips and such. My favorite ornament is the ceramic one I made in 1978 (3rd grade for me, junior year for Mark - tee-hee). I'll have to remember to take a picture of it and post it later - it has a lovely school picture of me!

Here's my little Disney Village display of the houses I collect on our WDW trips. I wonder if they sell a Christmas cruise ship!

... and evidently Lilo also enjoys Mickey!