Christmas 2007

This year, Jordan was at his dad's Christmas morning and James at his mom's. We let Jasmine, Jacob and Jenna open their stockings and a few gifts. They really did a great job of waiting until their brothers were here. I don't know how; I wouldn't have been able to as a kid!

The presents after Santa came



Jordan ~ I only got two pictures of him. He showed up with Oma and Opa and then everything went nuts and we didn't get as many pictures. Jordan is also trying to grow his hair out right now.



James ~ Contrary to what the first picture looks like, he was very excited about his PSP.



Jasmine



Jacob




Jenna



Chad opening his gift from Uncle Jamie. Jamie has been talking about this since we found out Becky was pregnant. Boy or girl, this kid was getting a Gator!



The kids *BIG* gift from Santa



Finally, Opa opening his gift from us. BB King tickets!!!

A Blanket for Jazzi's Teacher

Jasmine wanted to make a special gift for her teacher. She came up with the idea of doing a blanket. After emailing her teacher's husband, who just happens to be a teacher at the school as well, we found out what colors to work with. Jasmine picked out the fabrics and sewed the smaller squares together. After that, I did the rest. It was just too big for Jasmine to handle yet and her machine couldn't handle the thicker fabrics.



Embroidered with their name ~ The Howingtons



The back embroidered with a special message

Alexandra's Blanket

I just simply love this quilt kit at JoAnn's. The colors are just beautiful and it makes for a great quilt for any little girl. My wonderful neighbors, Justin and Nicki, have a sweet little girl, Alexandra. I whipped this one up for her.

Hope's Lovey

With my awesome machine, I'm able to do embroidery. I whipped this up in a few minutes just so I could test out the embroidery part of my machine. Joanna said Hope loves it. Yeah!

Curtains for the Boys' Room

I finally did the curtains for the boys' room. Only took me an hour so I don't know why I didn't get them done sooner.

Our First Snow

Well we finally got a few inches. Jacob and Jenna were itching to get out there and play so I let them go out on the deck. I sure do love that deck!

Bear totally loved it! Just loved it!



Cleaning off the table



Mommy's Pretty Snow Bunny



Jacob could not figure out how to get the snow off of his gloves



And I just have to share this picture of Jenna on her laptop.



Isn't that how all the kids use it?

Rest in Peace Sean Taylor!

Article on Washington Redskins site

Showing off our attempts at a nice Christmas picture together...

Do you even know how hard it is to get a nice picture of five children together? You tell the older ones to just keep looking at the camera and smiling. Then you tell the younger ones to look at you. Then the older ones look at them to see what they are doing. Then you remind them to keep looking at you and smiling. Then you try to get the younger ones to stop picking their nose, start smiling and to look at you. Then the older ones aren't smiling. When told to smile, they complain that their face hurts. I think next year they will take individual shots and I will come up with some other creative idea for our card!

Here are a bunch of our attempts...

Oh yeah. Jenna insisted on wearing gloves and her Dora beach hat. I have bigger fish to fry than worrying about that! And yes, the first one is great after everything I took. I should have got out while the getting was good!



So after that, I told them to go nuts!



And it's not a true photo shoot moment if Jasmine doesn't pose for us!





And our finished Christmas card which turned out to be a tribute to Papa and Granny.



Finally, our picture with Santa. Jenna wouldn't go near him, even if Jordan was holding her. I wasn't going to force her so this will just be *The Year Jenna Didn't Want to See Santa*.