the weekend wrapup

We had a really nice, festive weekend!

Friday evening, we had our Sunday school class Christmas party.

You may have noticed that my hair is a little darker. 

I switched to low lights for the winter and I'm loving it!

We are some cool cats and we play Bingo at our party!

My friend, Maegan has did the number calling two years in a row. She is such a hoot to listen to! We all laughed so much!

Thanks to my friend, Kelly, here are pictures of some of the couples who came to the party! 

I love our class!

Saturday morning, I had a honey do list for Tim! C Girl had choir rehearsal and the boys got to work while we were gone. Tim put Christmas lights up outside, did a little landscaping upkeep, helped me do a few things around the house, and he cleaned up the garage. It was a beautiful day and it felt so good to get those things accomplished! I know that we won't feel like doing much when the cold winter weather sets in.

I love the way our house looks with lights outside! This small thing really thrills our kiddos!

We watched football Saturday night gearing up for college playoffs season. That still sounds so strange!

Sunday morning, the children's choir was joining the adult choir for a few songs during our annual Sing Christmas musical program.

She loves to get dressed up and have her hair curled!

Our church is so beautiful at Christmastime!

Everyone did such a great job singing!

The full children's choir program was in the evening.

The kids did such a great job!

Tim took this photo of C Girl and I at Walmart because he thought we looked very festive!

We also ran into the real Santa at Walmart! ;-)

This guy is student of the week this week!

Tim and I went to Crystal Bridges last night while the kids were in Awana.
We were excited to see Maman (the giant spider sculpure) the Frank Lloyd Wright Bachman-Wilson House,  and Picturing the Americas: Landscape Painting from Tierra del Fuego to the Arctic.
It's just amazing having this in our town! We had a fun time!

Busy, but fun!

It has been a busy, but good past few days!

Last Thursday evening, I had my monthly book club meeting. We went out to dinner and to chat and we had a great time!

Friday night was our Sunday school class Christmas party - we had a lot of fun! We met in one of our church buildings and had a great potluck and played Bingo! I'm so grateful for our church and this class. We have made such great friends and I love having them in my life!!!

Saturday morning, we had to be back at church for rehearsal of the choir Christmas program.

We spent the rest of the afternoon going to see Santa, listening to the Bentonville Tigers win state, and doing a little shopping.

Sunday was the choir programs (video below) at church. The kids choirs sang with the adult choir in the morning service and then had an additional kids program in the evening. 

The kids did amazing and I'm so proud of C Girl being in the choir and singing her heart out for Jesus!

We have had wonderful things happening at church. It is so joyful to see friends finally knowing for sure that they have asked Jesus into their heart. We had baptisms throughout the morning program and it was so special. One of my friends getting baptized even gave a mini sermon. We saw more people come forward for salvation at the end!

A trip we won't soon forget

We had C's choir program at church last Sunday night. 

This was her second year in choir and she loved it!

For this program, she participated in a group ribbon dance. We were so proud of her!!! She has bloomed so much this year! Her shyness around everyone is virtually gone!

She did a great job!

When we got home from church, terrible tornados were ripping through our state. Mayflower and Vilonia took a direct hit from a large, destructive tornado. It is so heartbreaking. 

I had trouble sleeping and we were also awoken around 10:30 by hail hitting our house. 

Waking up at 4 am Monday morning was rough. We finally hit the road by 5:30 am. 

We had hoped to reach Gulf Shores by 6 pm. Our trip was going great, but we knew would be delayed around the tornado damage on I-40. The radio has told us that it would be about a 45 min delay. It ended up taking 3 hours for us to get 9 miles.

The damage was just awful and we only saw around the interstate. I know the residential areas were more heart wrenching.

Things went pretty smooth after that until we got to Mississippi. Bad storms had fired up above and behind us. We pretty much had to outrun them. These storms did develop tornados. It was scary knowing that we just missed them. We were so thankful though. After all of that, we finally arrived around 10 pm. We were exhausted, carried our stuff in and went to bed!

It was so nice to sleep in after such a long day the day before. We woke up to a very windy day with storms in the forecast. We enjoyed a leisurely morning before heading to Hazel's Nook for breakfast and then to Walmart for groceries and stuff. We spent the afternoon relaxing and them the storms started rolling in. It stormed all evening. Tim and the kids played lots of Farkle. 

It rained over 16 inches and 12 hours straight and our condo area was flooded.

Wednesday, we spent a few hours at the beach. The waves were crazy and the red flags were up, but at least there was no rain!

We had dinner at a yummy Mexican restaurant. 

Thursday was a sunny day!!!

I was quoted in the newspaper back home-

We spent the whole day at the beach.

Because of spending the whole day at the beach, we are all sunburned :-(

I feel SO bad for my babies. We are all in pain.

We ate at Louisiana Lagniappe. It was highly recommended and it did not disappoint!!!

We flew kites on Friday morning. It was a beautiful day! We spent pretty much the whole day at the beach!

I'm so thankful for my tripod. It makes me happy to capture a picture of all of us.

I don't know if it was because of the storms, but we were extremely lucky with our seashell finds this time!

Saturday morning, we left out bright and early to head back home. It was also Tim's birthday! We gave him cards and gifts before we left the condo.

We made it back really late Saturday night and we were so glad to see our beds!

Sunday afternoon, C and I attended the GA's mother/daughter tea. We had a great time and she received her 2nd charm for her GA's bracelet!

2nd grade GA's!

This morning, C Girl received her Accelerated Reader t-shirt for reaching her goal for the year! We are super proud of her!!!