Looking Back - December 2021

 

Heidi gifted the squad with tickets to see Ellie Holcolm for Christmas.

It was a sweet night out.

Christmas services at church were moved to Christmas Eve evening.

It was a packed house both services and the creative elements were so awesome.

Pai celebrated her 40th birthday!

The day after Christmas we headed to VA to have the Via Christmas

Now THAT was a packed house!

On the way home we brought back Poppie's truck to test drive it for a few weeks to see if Rainy wanted to buy it as her own.  She followed us all the way home and did great, but as soon as we turned into the neighborhood to pick up Berkley we heard the sound of metal on gravel.  The tailpipe had fallen off and we realized the entire underside of the car was rusting through.  It took a while to get an appointment to get it fixed, but as soon as it was ready Rainy was ready to go!

And of course we ended the year with our traditional string party.

Missing Pieces of 2017 - Christmas Shenanigans and String Party

Matching girls for Jingle Jam
(Alethia didn't have one of the matching sweatshirts so Rainy got one of Laithy's red shirts
and cut out letters to make her own for her!)

Piper's Christmas lights is a yearly tradition

Alethia was in her school Christmas production!

Jude and Nonie making hot chocolate

Lake Myra lights in Wendell is another Christmas tradition

The Via girls went to Hotel Roanoke for High Tea

String Party Set-up

Waiting for string party entry

Alex and the aftermath

And these kinds of things are what they get at their string party, lol

String Party 2015

If you have followed our family for a while you know what I'm talking about when I say "String Party".  If not, let me explain...

...when I was a child my mom and her sisters concocted a brilliant idea called a string party.  Instead of drawing names or getting standard Christmas presents, the three moms would spend the year collecting small (but AWESOME) gifts from dollar stores and other such places for each of the nieces and nephews.  Then, one night, when we were all together for the holidays, they would stay up (way past their bedtime) and decorate a designated room (usually a living room that would be covered with a sheet until the big reveal the next morning) while having way too much fun (moms and dads aren't EVER supposed to have fun).

Then, after breakfast, us kids would anxiously wait by the sheet to be given our designated yarn color, the sheet would be dropped, and we would excitedly follow our yarn string around the living room to retrieve our clothes pinned toys and gifts.

Now, years later, we have continued this tradition with my family.

Each family is in charge of 3 gifts for each child (but sometimes we get a little out of control;).
 

We come together (the current string party gathering place is my parent's barn) and us adults are able to use our ninja-like skills to string the yarn all over the barn and disperse the toys for each kid on their particular colored string, which is half the fun!

The next day (or after nap time) when the adults say it's time, the kids wait outside the barn with their bags awaiting instructions.

Once the doors are opened they know to start at the potty (because every old barn has an extra toilet sitting around in it that has all the leftover string party strings sitting inside, ha!), and jump in the fun!

This is the newest String Party attender.  She was SO excited to be joining us this year!

The littlest active members of the string party have their own little string that they follow on the side with an adult.  That way they don't get clobbered in the mass of strings toys and children!

It has become a highlight for our kids (and us adults)!

It's way more fun when all my siblings and their kids can join us, but life happens:(  Hopefully next year we will all be back together again.

UNclever : words from an unmotivated mom

I believe that I have taken the longest blog hiatus since the birth of my blog on November 3, 2007.

But we've had a lot going on:)

We did the whole fake Christmas thing in VA with Josh's family.

Then we did the whole real Christmas thing at our home as we brought in the flu together.
My kid's have never watched so much TV in their lives!  When everyone is down for the count with not even enough motivation to get up for meals we sit...and watch another movie.  When Josh and I sat down, after putting all the sickies in bed for the night, we decided that we were so over SuperHero Squad and The Littlest PetShop and opted for our default show.  It took me 3 1/2 lines of "recently watched" shows to find ours.  THAT's how much TV the kids watched that day.
Awful parenting? Maybe
Feeling guilty? Absolutely NOT!

As soon as we were fever-free we headed down to do another fake Christmas thing with my family and participate in the Annual String Party festivities.

Then I started getting sick...again...awesome.

Out of all the fun we had I got nary a photo to capture any of it.

There's always next year right?
And that next year begins in just a few hours!

Here's to a brand new year with more intentionality and (hopefully) less sickness.
Happy New Year ya'll!

Litke String Party 2012

If you are new to my blog you may not know about our annual String Party.

It is a New Year's tradition that began when I was in grade school

and we've continued to celebrate it with our own kids!

This year was no exception!

I can't even imagine the images Alethia was trying to conjure up 

as her siblings tried to explain this strange phenomenon.

Here's what you need to do:

Scavenge all your $1 spot and $1 Stores all year.

Then divide it up among all the participants.

Assign each participant a color of yarn.

Find the perfect place for the party.

It must be spacious and out of sight until the big release.

String the yarn up in a web-like fashion.

The messier the better:)

Close-pin the $1 store delights on each participants designated yarn strand.

Have the kids grab a bag and GET READY!

Tell them what color they are.

(and explain the rules to any new comers)

And let 'em loose!

(you may need to make it more challenging for the older participants)

Watch as their faces look in wonder at all their new-found treasures!

Here's to another successful year of string party scavenging:)

Story In Pictures - String Party 2010

We did it again.

The Annual String Party, that is:)

Oh, the anticipation was almost unbearable...

...but it was SOOOO worth it!

I'd say our annual String Party was a success this year!

I think the only reason we don't have more excitement from Zeke

was because I made him stop playing with his treasures to take a picture:)

Black Friday and New Thanksmas

It was Wednesday morning and I had several errands to run before heading up north for "New Thanksmas".  I decided to get all my deals together because Tasha + Black Friday + Way Too Many People + Long Lines All Alone = Well, it doesn't equal anything, because it just doesn't exist, ha!

But, I did decide that I have GOT to get back into the CVS game.  This decision was made after I actually had to pay for my last tube of toothpaste.  I know *gasp*...  I haven't had to do that in 3 years!  Anyway, I got my load of ECB's (I only had 3 left ya'll!) and headed out to get my pre-black-friday deals.  I scored HUGE!  I also got an amazing deal at Kroger.  I finished up my errands getting almost $100 worth of stuff from CVS and Kroger and only spending $11!  What?!  It feels so good to be back in the game.  Now, let's see if I can keep this up.

I got home and we packed up the car.

My side of the family met this year to celebrate Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year all smooshed into one big holiday - "New Thanksmas".  We squeezed a year's worth of tradition into 2 days.  It was short and sweet, but man, oh so fun!

I'll be sharing more about our time with my family because I KNOW you all are dying to see String Party Pictures!
_______________________________________

So, even though I don't venture out into the world the day after Holidays, I L.O.V.E. to hear about all the deals that everyone else gets!  It's way more exciting for me than waking up at the butt-crack of dawn, or camping in a parking lot, or whatever else you crazy people do, ha!

So, let me know how your Thanksgiving was (because I missed you all, although I did enjoy the short blogging hiatus) and if you went out and scored big...on Christmas Presents, silly, this is a G-rated blog;)

Soooo, share...ready...GO!

String Party 2009

Keeping up with our yearly String Party Tradition. It is the much-anticipated event of the year for us...I mean, uh, the kids=)

Organize the bootie piles

This year one of my Aunts made customized bags for each kid to put their "stuff" in

It was Zeke's favorite prize, HA!

String It Up

We always make the youngest their own little string

Wait...wait...

Now.........................GO!

Another successful String Party!