"Young" Girls Party

For the past 6 years, my mom and her friends have done a Girls' Christmas Party. They have 5 hostesses and invite a huge group of girls to a party that is just a ton of fun. 

Last year, at her party, the idea was sprouted that we should do a "younger" version of the girls' party.  We ran with the idea and had the party this past week.  It was soooo much fun! We also had 5 hostesses and we all have a variety of friends, so there was a fun mix of people there. 

We took a few pictures before the party started so I thought I would post them here...

 (I am a giant)

The party was a big success-- I think we had almost 70 people there.  The best part of the party was we asked people to bring a donation to the Family House (similar to the Ronald McDonald House, but for adults).  The amount of goods we were able to take to them was heart-warming and mind-blowing. 

We are already thinking about next year's party!


 

American Tobacco District

In Durham, there is the most fantastic area called the American Tobacco District. This is where the Durham Bulls play and where the DPAC is and it is just awesome there.  It is all open and there are lots of restaurants and bars and outside things to do. 

Eddie heard they rally decorated for Christmas so we took the kids there Wednesday night for dinner at Mellow Mushroom and some outside fun. 

It really was beautiful.  The kids had a lot of fun running around and it wasn't the least bit crowded so we all really enjoyed it!

I tried to take some pictures, but they didn't turn out very good...

Andy wanted to hold my hand and point at everything.

They had a little mat you could dance on and Christmas music would play.  I caught Cal mid-jump.

 Who me?

 The Lucky Strike tower

 Andy let go of my hand to ride on daddy's shoulders for a bit...

But he soon returned to his momma...

 Snuggled up...

Apparently, we failed at cleaning his face after dinner....ignore the pizza sauce, please. 

This little guy had a ball running around seeing it all!

It was such a fun night! I love doing things like this with just the four of us.  It makes me happy.  If you are local, you should definitely go out there to see all of the lights and take it all in.  It was awesome!!

 

Andy's Christmas Performance

On Wednesday, we had Andy's Christmas performance at his school. It was pretty stinkin' cute.  My mom and Cal came with me (Eddie thought it was Thursday so he missed it--whoops!!!). 

The older kids come out first and tell the story of Baby Jesus's birth.  As they wrap up, we could hear some noise in the back of the room so we knew they were bring out the little guys.  I love this fist few picture.  Andy is just kinda walking along... woah, there are people in here. 

 Then he sort of froze, so Ms. Stephena took his hand to lead him to a spot...

 I wish I could cut this teacher out of this (sorry, Mr. Mike), because Andy's face is hilarious in it.  If you can, click on it to see it larger.  It's like he's thinking, "okay. soooo....now what are we gonna do?"

Love his hands in this one...

The little guy next to Andy, Charlie had a big brother taking pictures (walking in front in black).   Andy was just kind of looking around.  Not singing, not really smiling... just taking it all in....

 And then, he spotted me. 

 It was like he wasn't sure if it was really me, or just someone who looked like me.  So he just stared and got a little grin.

And then he came running.  In the middle of the song.  See all the other kids still sitting nicely?

He was SO excited to see us! I mean, I don't think I've ever gotten a picture like this before with both of us looking at the camera and smiling!

After hugging for a minute, he ran back to the class.  Then, as I started taking pictures again, he stood up, held up his hand like a stop sign and started saying "no. no. no. no." But he waves his hand as he does it.  Again, wish I could make this one bigger too... it cracks me up!

He would walk back and then peek back at us to make sure we were still there.  How cute is this little nugget??

After the "performance" (and I will use that word loosely), the class had a little lunch back in the room.  I love seeing them sit at the little table.

Andy has such a sweet little class.  I am friends with most of the moms outside of school, so it is always fun to have something like this where we all get together.  It's also great knowing he's around such great kids. 

Even though Andy didn't really "perform" I thought it was pretty spectacular.  But, hey, I am slightly bias.