Visit with Mimi, Papa, and Aunt - What's-her-name?

My kiddos just love their Mimi and Papa!

So happy together - but not all happy to be taking pictures! :)

Handsome Papa - can't you just see the Call charm!

Bowen was basically Aunt Emily's shadow! However, he had some trouble remembering her name!

He still LOVES her - and has plans to live with her when she is old. He said they would live in a RV and park in movie theater parking lots every night and go see a movie. He will be a FOX news man during the day!

He really loves her, just doesn't know her name half the time!

Kate Kate chilling out!

Clair on her Papa's knee! They are practically twins! Call genes here for sure!

My wonderful parents! Thanks for coming mom and dad! We LOVED having you!

The day after they left Kate came downstairs and said, "Mom, I miss mimi and papa and Aunt Emily! My room smells just like mimi and makes me miss them more!"

Have to have the silly photo - of course!

Now it's just the five of us! I really miss you guys being here! It was fun! Thank you so much for coming! Love ya mucho mucho!

Christmas Morning

My sweet, sleepy but excited kiddos waiting to go downstairs to see what Santa brought them! It was a good Christmas and the kids must have made the nice list, because they got what they asked for!

Quilting @ Christmas

So I got this bright idea that the Young Women should come over and we should tie a quilt. How was Grandma ever so patient teaching me? We got the quilt done, but it wasn't easy and it didn't go as smoothly as I'd hoped. I have to say that I missed having Grandma guide me in getting the quilt ready. I don't think it was really up to par with the way Grandma did it.





I have to say that getting out that quilt frame made me a little teary...thinking about Grandma. I had lots of good times quilting with her.

Christmas Traditions

It's that time of year again. We did our annual Gingerbread construction night. The boys did a train and the girls did a house. As always it was great fun, but we've learned that papa is the best at putting the things together. I was in charge of putting the house together and it kept falling apart. At the end of the night, as I was taking pictures of the final products, I declared the girls as the "winners!" Jack completely melted down. Yes, he is that competitive. I had to then declare the boys the winner of the gingerbread trains. That made him happy. We've decided that next year we are using graham crackers and everyone is doing there own and we will make a real competition of it. :)

Tangled in 3D

The day after Thanksgiving we went to see the movie Tangled. It was such a cute movie. I really wanted to see it in 3D, because I had never done that before. It was pretty neat. The kids loved the glasses, well Jack got about 3/4 through the movie and decided that they kind of hurt his head and he took them off. They rest of us kept them on and enjoyed seeing the new Disney princess in 3D.



Here is the whole gang, except for me and Brit. We were there, just not in the picture. I especially liked Jack and Papa. They look really cool!


There was only 1 thing about the movies that was missing...the Brights! We sure wish they could have joined us.

More of Clair

Clair's Violin Photo Shoot

Friday Night Lights

Football is KING in Texas. Most Friday nights you can catch us all at a Judson football game. This has been a really great season and this weekend the district games come to a close. It will be PLAYOFF season! YAY!

Annual Halloween Lunch...well sort of!

So this year, do to crazy weekend schedules and Brooklyn being in school full time we opted for a Halloween after school snack party. Brooklyn came as a peacock and Jack was a Jack in the Box. Both were darling.

We had a nice little spread.

We had popcorn ball ghosts, egg monsters, kiwi-steins, monster toes, and big mouths. All was yummy, but the popcorn ball ghost was the hit of the afternoon. My favorite was the kiwi-steins, but the kids did not like them.



We decorated felt pumpkins and painted pictures with edible paint onto brownies. Those turned out lovely.


Can you guess which 3 are Brooklyn's and which 3 are Jack's? Brooklyn's is a "brewja" - witch in Spanish...no clue if I'm spelling it correctly, a jack-o-lantern, and a vampire. Jack's are all race cars. I guess he didn't quite understand the Halloween part of the assignment. :)

My favorite part of the afternoon was watching them dive into the popcorn ball ghost. I turned around only to find them each head first in the ghost. Yummy!


The only thing missing was 3 little Bright children. Maybe one day we will all live close enough to have a BIG Halloween lunch together.

I have to say that I was a little disappointed in myself this year. Visit my post about last year's Halloween lunch and you will understand. I wasn't nearly as creative...Ros said, "This is your rebuilding year." I guess that's true...I've got to start planning now for next year. As Brooklyn was getting in the car to leave, she said, "Thanks Aunt Emily, and don't forget to do this again next year!" So she is already planning too. :)