Christmas Memories :)

I saw these ornaments at a cheer competition and decided I could do that. I give the kids an ornament for the tree every year. I decided this year to make this for Ashley. I hope each year she puts this on her tree she remembers all of her wonderful cheer memories.
I also made some for my family too. I am a sentimental sucker. I have an ornament my now deceased aunt made that I charish tremendously. I hope later my kids have fond memories of me and the ornaments I make each year. Last year the kids made marbelized green and red ball ornaments and passed them out to their teachers and when we had to have miscellaneous gifts from them. Needless to say all of our cherished ornaments need to be hung at the extreme top of the tree.

Here are all of them before I put ribbon on them to hang them. They were extremely easy to make. I just put colored toil inside the glass ball, hot glued the decorative ribbon around the silver part at the top, and hand wrote the year and "Powerhouse" on the red and blue ones. When I saw them at the cheer competition they had anything in them colorful. Some had feathers and cutsie colors. Others matched the cheer teams mascot or colors.

Last night Brooke & Jarrett made their cookies for Santa. I rolled sugar cookie dough up in a ball and let them smush them on the pan. Then they decorated them with colored sprinkles. Jarrett picked all green sprinkles and Brooke made a variety of Red, clear, and green cookies. I let them each have one of their creations. You should have seen their face when they were done. They were so proud to show my hubby the cookies they made all by themselves. I just did the stove work. Next year we might try cookie cutters. Who knows I might get adventureous. :)

Tonight we are going to let Brooke pick Ashley and Jarrett out a gift and then we are going to look at the Christmas lights. I'll try to take some good pictures for my memories. Ashley is in Tenessee with MeeMee & PawPaw. Hopefully it is snowing there. She is praying for that. I just hope it snows while we are there. We might get lucky one of these years.

If I don't see any of you all before Christmas Have a Very Merry Christmas :)

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Gripe about Girl Scout Camp :(

I tried to pick a mad color. I guess red will do. I just found out recently that girl scout camp will go from $160.00 per week to $325.00 per week per girl. It will be a struggle for me to be able to let one of my girls go neverless both of them. That would be $650.00 plus spending money for one week. I want so bad to be able to share the camp experience with my younger daughter since she hasn't gotten a chance to go yet. I may scrape together enough for her to go, but I feel bad that my older girl won't be able to go. I thought about trying to hold camp myself with several other leaders who's troops probably won't be able to go as well due to costs. We'll see. I have a parent meeting to discuss ideas with my troop's parents. If we do fundraisers we can't do them from Jan 22nd- April due to cookie sales. They won't allow it. That doesn't leave us much time to fundraise to help out with camp costs. Myself and my daughters are also raising money to go to Savannah next Thanksgiving. That cost me $1500 plus spending money for each of us. I think camp just isn't an option this year. Maybe if everyone boycotts camp they'll rethink their cost increase. I can see an increase but not that much. That just isn't feasable for everyone. Especially families with more than one girl in girl scouts. I did email my opionion about it to the New York Girl Scout office. I got an email back from our Monroe office saying if I'd like some ideas for some free ideas to take the place of camp to contact them. Like anything will take the place of the camp experience. They get to go for a week and be completely responsible for themselves. I think it would be good for Brooke. It was great for Ashley. Ashley was going to be a counselor in training this upcoming year. She is already a QuaPaw and she is so proud of that accomplishment. I still may ask Brooke's Dad to help pay half so we can send her. I don't know what to do. I am just sad about this for everyone's sake not just ours. :(

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Mommy's Big Boy

Jarrett finally spent the night at my inlaws house. Yeahhhhh..... He said he would when he got his drivers license. Welllllll.......... see what is in his hand? He is calling that his drivers license.
He also can drive the little 3 wheeler all by himself. Of course my hubby has it rigged so he doesn't go very fast.

See how little and cut he looks in his cousin Blake's helmet? Awwwww!!!!!

Here is Daddy leading him around the yard. He still turns curves a little too sharply. He'll learn, but for now Daddy will walk beside him and protect him. Yeah my hubby is a little over protective but that's ok in my book. It's better to be over protective then not to care. That's just love.

Here's Jarrett and Daddy racing around the yard. Jarrett in his FORD truck adn Daddy on one of his many 3 wheelers.

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It's beginning to look alot like Christmas !!!

Brooke Milestone: This is Brooke's new hair style. She has reached the age where I let her decide her hair styles within reason. I think this little bob makes her look tooooooo cute. :)
This year we invited PawPaw who was in town, MeeMaw, & PaPaw to watch the kids decorate the tree. I fixed supper and we ate and had a blast watching the kids get excited over their own ornaments. Here's Jarretts cute self decorating the bottom of the tree with his.

You'll find all of Brooke's ornaments around the middle in one spot. (Yes I had to disperse the ornaments after they went to bed so they were more even on the tree.)

And you'll find Ashley's and all of our "Mommy will cry if they break" ornaments at the top. I hope this isn't her last year to help with the tree. She acted like she didn't want to decorate it this year. We'll see how the picture with Santa goes also. Yes I still like a picture with all 3 kids with Santa. She hasn't said no yet. I think she realizes it is for me and that is why she does it.

We had a great time. I'll try to set this up for every year. Maybe we can start it as a tradition.

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1st Place !!! (Shreveport Cheer Competition)

I got extremely lucky at this cheer competition. Ashley's best friend Kaitlyn could join us. That meant someone to sit with me throughout the 6 hour event. I do have to spill the beans on sweet little Kaitlyn------ She fell asleep during part of the competition. Lucky her. This competition was great we got to go down front
and watch when Ashley performed. I thought they did great and they did. They made 1st place out of 5 teams and beat out another place who had won all of the divisions they competed in that day except ours. Yeah us!!!!

Doesn't she look sooooo proud. I know I am. She does a great job. She gives it 150% everytime and it shows. We are going to work on her back handspring so maybe next year she can do some harder tumbling.

I know you can't see Ash very good, but I love the other girls facials in this pictres. They really do a great job with them.

You can see Ashley in the back holding up that little girl. She really has developed some arm muscles.

Last but not least her is my little Paige. She is one of my Girl Scouts and I love watching her compete in cheer. She does really great facials too. This group is tooooo cute. Future stars!!!!

The Powerhouse raffle booth sales were today. Ashley helped at the Mall by JcPenny's incase any of you all had gone shopping today. They did great. They sold around 400 tickets. These fundraiser helps pay our competition registration costs. I know the next competition we are going to cost me $125 registration at least along with travel expenses and misc charges here and there. But it is priceless in my book to see her perform and love something. I am sooooo glad Powerhouse is available. She didn't make the scholl squad, but loves cheer. This to me is better than school cheer. Way better!!!!

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GIRL SCOUT CHRISTMAS SKATING PARTY :)

Sorry I didn't take much pictures. I tend to be too busy. I'll try harder in the future or if any mom's that stay would like to help take pics for me I'll be glad to share. I can upload them to Wlagreen's and anyone can buy some if you all would like. Just let me know. First I feel the girls had a blast. I know my own children did. I barely even saw Brooke. She loves skating that much. She even showed me that she can almost skate backwards. (I tried teaching my girls that last time) We had pizza, cookies, cupcakes, & coke along with we played a fun little pass the gift game. (Sorry the story didn't make since. The edges got cut off and made it not have all of the words. Personally I don't think the girls even listened to the story. HaHa) The did have a blast passing the gifts over and over again. Each year it gets less confusing. Maybe next year it will go perfectly. Of course we had the occasional got their own present situation. I think that was b/c we they didn't start off with their own present. I think it turned out great and the girls had a good time.

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My Trickster Family. I just love 'em sooooo much. :)

This is what my Dad handed me last night for my birthday. It really is an awesome card. I enjoyed it tremendously. Then he asked if I liked what was in it. It looked again thinking maybe I missed something. I didn't look up in time to see him grinning. The he said "Oh we figured you'd want this."
and handed me this !!!!!! Yeahhhhhhhh!!!!! It was all I could not to buy this for myself the day after Thanksgiving. I proved selfless (HaHa) and only bought other people Christmas presents.

Yeahhhhhh I can't say it enough. I really need one. (GPS for those who can't tell in the picture.) And No not for around town. We have to travel for Ash's cheer monthly and I always call my other GPS- my Dad everytime. If he's near a computer he tells me real quick how to get there. I even missed 3 turns on the way to the girl scout camp in Arcadia 2 weekends ago and I had someone following me. That was embarassing. I am super excited!!!! I can't wait to try it out this upcoming weekend on our cheer trip. Maybe I can find a scrapbook store with it in Shreveport. We seem to have lost all of ours in Monroe/West Monroe. And I want some variety from Hobby Lobby and Michaels. I love them, but would love to see somewhere else too.

And here is my loving set of parents....... Can't wait to go up to there house after Christmas. I get to see my Dad right now b/c he brought the girls home and is spending time with my grandparents and us before heading back. Hopefully he'll get in some fishing before he leaves. Hopefully he brought some warm clothes. It is cold right now to me. I slept in a long sleeve shirt, sweatshirt, jogging pants, and socks the other night and was extremely cozy. I guess I was the only one cold since I was the only girl home. Jarrett & hubby seemed to be fine.

On a funny Jarrett note: He seems to think everyday is Christmas and we can't convince him that Santa isn't coming that night. I have had to work and am gone before he wakes up so I'm not sure how he reacts when he wakes up and realizes Santa hasn't come. I took him to ToysRUs to get some gift ideas. I really wanted to get him the Smart Cycle, but he told me to tell Santa he didn't like it. Oh well, back to the drawing board. I also tried him on a bike. He can ride it, but I couldn't tell if he really wanted it. Oh well I don't know what to tell Santa to make him at the north pole. I even tried to get him to talk to santa last night at the mall. He wouldn't without his siters he said. Yeah Ashley I want a picture of you all with santa so get yourself prepared so you won't be too embarrassed. We'll plan on a nonbusy night at the mall so hopefully no one will see ya. You're growing up toooooo fast!!!!! You all are. Jarrett is now in the big kid clothes. Another milestone passed. Ahhhhhhhh. Brooke choses her own hair styles. Another milestone..... I'll post a picture next time of her new hair style. She is sooooo proud of it.

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