Weekend In Review...

We had a full weekend filled with family time and an adventure.

Friday night was my nephew's birthday.  He's 13.  How is that possible?  Because that means my girl turns 14 in February -- which will be here before we know it.

The kids checking out Sam's new baseball cards...

Saturday started with reading an article in our local paper about the USMC and Toys for Tots using our local blimp hangar for a drop-off point.  You could drive through the decorated blimp hangar, wave to Santa, and drop off your toy.  Well, we've donated to Toys for Tots before, and we are all about the blimp around here. (It flies over us all. the. time.). So, we decided to make it an adventure.

We stopped at the store, and bought some toys to contribute, and were on our way.

There was a long line!

And then...

And then...

And then...

There it was!  And there was Santa Claus too, sitting in the gondola.  (You can barely see him in my photo.  I think he was giving his waving arm a break!)  And where were the Marines, you ask?  Oh yes, I took pictures of them for sure!  The only thing is that they were so busy accepting gifts from all of the cars that every single picture I took of them was a complete blur.  No joke!

Saturday night we were honored to be invited to a Christmas Concert at a friend's church.

And Sunday was 2nd Sunday, and you know what that means.  Not only did we enjoy lunch with our extended family, but the kids got to help Grandma frost and decorate Christmas cookies -- a fun project for the 5 grandchildren (17, 13, 13, 12, & 11).

 Notice that even the Pillsbury Dough Boy showed up! 

As you can see, it was an "anything goes" project, and they were a little heavy-handed with the sprinkles.  No complaints here!  

(This one's mine on Christmas Day!)

But my very favorite might be this one (below).  My sweet nephew's cookie broke while he was frosting it.  He kept right on going, added sprinkles, and then added the broken piece on top for good measure.  I love that he didn't waste the broken piece.  (Too cute!)

Phew!  And now it's time for a nap.  Wouldn't you say?  We finally got the Christmas Tree all decorated, so after my nap, yeah, right, a nap! I'll vacuum up the pieces of tree and garlanding that got left behind, and try to get all the shopping bags in order.  My girl is ready to wrap some gifts for me tomorrow.  I'm not going to miss taking her up on that!