grinNberrett

The Nutty the Cracker

Amanda and her friend River were in the Nutcracker this year. Shantell, T-y, and myself were not. Turns out I was just a scab last year. They had plenty of people to fill all the parts this year. Amanda did an awesome job. She had lots of fun. I swear that she dances cause she likes to socialize. Regardless, she is a very pretty dancer.

I went and watched her performance tonight. Shantell and the kids will watch her performance tomorrow night.

Family Birthday Party

We have family get-togethers every month to celebrate the family member, or members, birthdays. Today we got together to celebrate Brielle's and Amanda's birthdays. We will have to get together later in the month to celebrate Bryon's and Floyd Robert's birthdays.

We had the get-together at our home.

We had sandwiches for dinner and a pumpkin cheese cake for dessert. The girls got some neat gifts. Bryon got Brielle the best gift of all, a Barbie. Brielle stated "What the crap?" when she opened the gift. Everyone got a good laugh out of it. Thanks Uncle Bryon.

The Original Brielle
Prior to Brielle's birth 7 years ago to this date, I never heard the name Brielle. I didn't really start noticing that there were other girls named Brielle until about 3 years ago. Now I know at least three other Brielle's. Brielle Scott, a classmate no less), Brielle Rasor, and Brielle Gillum . I refer to each of these girls as a fake Brielle. The real Brielle is mine!
She celebrated her 7th year of life today. What a quick 7 years it has been. She is by far the most stubborn of the three. She has her own way of doing things and her own sense of style. She is definitely not your girlie girl. For awhile I was calling her Tommy because she referred to herself as a "Tom Girl". Shantell says that she is the perfect sibling. She is a brother to T-y and a sister to Amanda.
I made Brielle breakfast in bed. Eggs, bacon, and orange juice is what she requested.

Shantell lets the kids open their presents before they go to school.

She wanted to do two things for her birthday; Go to Subway and build her own bear. So that's what we did. She built a monkey instead of a bear and named him Jake. Santa was at the mall so we stopped by and said hi to him. She had a fun day.

Santa Claus is Coming to Grandpa's House

It's always fun when Santa comes, when Santa comes. All during my childhood, or at least for the parts that I remember, my paternal grandparents would always have a family get together around Christmas. They would always invite Santa to the party and he would always show up. I remember one year that Santa showed up with a bit to much Christmas spirit.

My parents decided to carry on this tradition and Santa came to visit our Christmas party this year. Luckily he enters through the basement door and not from the garage roof top.

The best part of the night was the conversation Santa had with Amanda.

Santa: Why hello there Amanda.
Amanda: Hi Santa.
Santa: I hear there are two special boys in your life.
Amanda: (She was at a loss for words.)
Shantell: You don't have to answer that!!!

I don't think that Amanda had any clue how Santa found out about the two special boys. :)

Oh yeah. That was just some random video I found on youtube.

I thank the Indians for this feast.

We had Thanksgiving at my moms house today. All three of my brothers and their families were in attendance. It was a good time. Being around my brothers bring back a lot of good memories. I am pretty sure that me bring around them brings back a lot of bad memories for them. I wasn't always the bestest brother to them. I had a lot of energy growing up. My parents thought that sugar was the cause of it. It wasn't later that I found out that it was really just a bad case of artificial poisoning. I think Mark got the worst of it. I used him for a bunch of magic tricks. I attempted to make him disappear into walls and doors. The magic trick only worked when screen doors were involved.

The feast was prepared by the head chef of the family. The sous chefs were in charge of various side dishes. The cranberry orange relish is my absolute favorite thing to eat turkey with. Remind me to get the recipe.

Mom and Dad have been married for 40 years and have 13 grandkids.

Random photos of the day.

We took the advantage to take a family portrait.

School Pictures
Here are copies of the kids 2008 school pictures.

WOW!
This year T-y participated in the the 2008 Reflections contest. This years theme was "WOW!". T-y wanted to enter a photo in the contest. I asked him why, and he said cause I take a lot of pictures. What a good kid. Here I thought that he hated it when I would take all those pictures of him and his sisters.
Here is T-y's entry.

Apparently, Mr. Z makes it a requirement for all his students to enter the contest. I being the great father that I am failed to check his notes, so T-y spent a long day at school earlier in the month finishing up his entry. So all of the credit for helping T-y with this entry belongs to Mr. Z and the school librarian. It warms my heart to know that T-y has such a loving and caring teacher and school librarian.
The school had their reflections award ceremony today. T-y's entry won and award and moved on to the district competition. The district competition will happen sometime in December. At least that is when I think they announced.

The Penny President

T-y gave another literary response today. He gave it on a Abraham Lincoln book that he had been reading. Shantell rented an Abraham Lincoln costume for him to give is response in. I wasn't able to attend, but Shantell was and said that it went over very well. Thank you Mr. Z for taking these pictures for me.

November Scout Camp

We took the scouts camping this weekend. We were going up to Squaw Peak. I say going because the road was closed. This was a shock, as it was open just two weeks earlier. So we had to make a change of plans. We decided to go to Aspen Grove and camp. We had a good time despite the couple of inches of snow on the ground.

It is polite to Pointe.

Amanda received word from her ballet teacher that she could start performing on pointe. If you are a dancer, then you know how cool this accomplishment is. IF you are not a dancer, then go ahead and dance around the room on the tip of your toes for a couple of minutes.
Congratulations Amanda!!!

P.S.
Amanda colorized the B&W photo of her pointe shoes.