Time Flies

It's February 13th, the day before Valentine's Day. Sadly, I am just now putting out our pictures and videos from Christmas. Life was just busy. We came home from celebrating Christmas with our family in California on Sunday on the red eye. The kids slept the entire way. It helped that we went in first class (and used the very last of our miles) and there were seats that laid all the way down. Peyton is so funny! He kept telling everyone about these great seats that turn into bed and said he never wants to fly any other way. Little does he know! We arrived home Monday morning and all slept until about noon while Scott went to work. Wednesday we turned around and went to Savannah to celbrate with Scott's family. We came back from Savannah to clean up Christmas - then Scott and I went to Florida for the Orange Bowl. It was COLD! We came back from the Orange Bowl and the next weekend was Scott's 40th birthday. We had a very big party at the house. So, we cleaned up from that. Then, it was school, basketball on weekends and birthday parties. Also, it snowed in there so we had days off and more disarray. Well, the kids are at Scott's parents this weekend and finally, we spent all day organizing and it is so nice to be able to sit in a semi-organized house. Our bedroom is cleaner than it has every been. Laundry is done. We had a nice dinner of crab legs and steak, and now, it's time so sit down. So, here are the pictures of Christmas.....next up, it's birthday season

Here we are, getting ready to ski, for the first time.

Kayleigh's holiday program.

Kayleigh doing her little dance in the Jewish part of the program.

Here we are at the Vinings Club after brunch with Santa. Really we did have a good time.

Peyton in his Christmas program. They memorized several verses.

The kids from with Santa.

Kayleigh, skiing for the first time...

These are only what I have on my camera. Lot's more pictures on my iphone. I will upsdate soon.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Life in the Golden home has gotten so very busy over the last several weeks. It seems like Halloween comes and life gets crazy. As a result our home is devoid of any sort of order, which I do not handle well. In addition, my poor husband has had very few good meals. If they were good, they were probably eaten at a restaurant. He's pretty much fending for himself while I am happy with cheese and crackers for every meal. He doesn't even like cheese, so that really doesn't work for him. Thank goodnesss Muss and Turner's has takeout!

Now that we have all kinds of events coming up at our house, it's time to start organizing. I am hosting a "host parent event" next Saturday night, then it's Thanksgiving, the next weekend we are having a nice big dinner party, then closer to Christmas we are having the DFT Holiday party here. Busy, busy, busy, but that's the way I like it. I am starting with the playroom (should have taken a before picture) - I have spent about 7 hours in it so far and it still looks pretty bad. I am thinking maybe 5 more hours to go. What I am trying to figure out now is where did all those pieces come from and how did we get so much stuff! We have so many boxes to give away it's embarrasing. And yes, with the encouragement of my husband, I am throwing away the little parts!!!! We are getting rid so many books we could have had our own library. There were even duplicate books.

The playroom, in the middle of my organizing

OK, now I know this really isn't what you are reading for, you want to know what's going on with the kids. Well, the kids are doing well. We had a wonderful visit to Savannah over Halloween weekend. The weather was so perfect we were able to go to the beach. The kids really enjoyed giving out candy in the front. I think they liked that better than trick or treating. Kayleigh had Monday off and we all went to make nametags at a church for the homeless. They do a big dinner - The Daisy Scout troop made hundreds of "welcome" tags. We ended the week with a family day at the Georgia Tech vs. Wake Forest football game.

This weekend brings the kids' last soccer games. It's amazing how much they improved this season. Peyton made a couple of goals and Kayleigh came close. She is s great defender and prefers defense to offense. After soccer we have basketball evaluations and then, then an event at church called Hands on Christmas where the kids get to make Christmas crafts. It's one of our favorite events of the year.

Halloween Celebrations....1 & 2.....(one more to come!)

Every year Kayleigh and Peyton get more and more excited about Halloween. This year, they started talking about what they wanted to be way back in August. Peyton did not waver, he was going to be Optimus Prime (the transformer) and that was that. Kayleigh wanted to be Hannah Montana, then she wanted to be iCarly (not sure how we would pull that one off). In the end though, she just wanted to be a pretty witch. Not a witch with black hair and a green face, but a pretty witch instead. We started our Halloween preparations with a trip the the pumpkin patch at church a couple of weeks ago. Every day they wanted to know when they could carve their pumpkins, but we told them they needed to wait until Halloween got closer so the pumpkins would not rot. Friday night we had a pumpking carving party for the au pairs. The kids were so excited to help prepare for it. They picked out stencils for carving and set everything out that the au pairs would need. Once the au pairs started carving their pumpkins, Scott and the kids carved theirs (I think he thought the au pairs would help the kids and he would get out of it, but no such luck)

Happy kids carving pumpkins with daddy!

Looks like daddy is doing all the work!

Last night was Trunk or Treat at church. This year, with all that has been going on we decided to skip dinner at the church and just eat at home. Eating at home made for a much mellower time. Mom likes this!

The transformer and the pretty witch before getting their loot!

Pet Day, Brrrrr!

Earlier this week Kayleigh had pet day. It was a really big deal for the first graders. They learned about taking care of pets, made a t-shirt iron on with a picture of their pets, and then, on Monday all the pets were brought to school. There were dogs, cats, hampsters, and even rabbits. Now, I personally was hoping that Kayleigh would choose to bring Mocha as I feel more comfortable with her around other dogs. But no, she decided that Murphy would be the dog. Let me paint a picture of this day for you. It was 37 degrees outside. There was a circle with a spot for each of the 1st graders and their animals. Thankfully, animals were separated by type. We were in the dog section. There was not a mean dog section, so we were just praying that Murphy got along with the dog next to us. He actually did ok. So, each grade level came out and walked around the circle and met all the dogs. In all, it took about an hour, and it was cold. Poor Murphy shivered the entire time.

Kayleigh with Murphy and her 5th Grade Buddy Kate.

Kayleigh and Murphy

Kayleigh's First Bike Ride

It was pretty amazing how quickly that Kayleigh learned to ride her bike without training wheels. It was Sunday afternoon and it had stopped raining for a little while. We decided to go outside and we just suggested she try riding her bike (it already had the training wheels off) - Well, within about 5 minutes she was riding on her own.

Yes, I Went Camping....Sort of....

A couple of months ago, a friend from church asked if our family would like to go camping. Actually, she asked if we wanted to go yurting. For those of you who don't know, a yurt is like a tent that is permanent. It has windows, power, and bunk beds. I figured I could do that for a couple of nights, even if I had to share bathroom. And, I knew the kids would love it. Scott, on the other hand was not pleased with me as Georgia Tech was playing FSU on Saturday night. What would he do if he could not see (or hear at least) the game? As the week went on, it looked like rain. I was seriously thinking about trying to get out of the trip if it rained, but the kids were so excited! So, we stuck with our plans and as it turned out, the weekend was fabulous. We made it through Saturday and Sunday with no rain. Monday morning we woke up to pouring rain, just in time to go home. It was so much fun, I think I could do it again.

Here are Kayleigh and Peyton on our falls hike

No fish for us this weekend!