Happy Birthday Grandma!

It's my Grandma's birthday today...and she is awesome! I'll tell you why:

  Things to know about Grandma Fran:
She has the best sense of humor
She's the most delish cook in town. You never leave her house hungry!
She's a total servant. We always have to force her out of the kitchen. 
She can out-fish all of us. She might be tiny, but she always catches the biggest fish
She loves her family more than anything
She's still dances a mean fox trot
She can beat all of us in poker. Don't let that kind face fool ya, she's good!
She calls me all the time to check on me
She's the best grandma (and great grandma) ever
She loves her grand dogs and used to bake oatmeal cookies for Lincoln
Also, I'm her favorite granddaughter. (sorry wes)

she helped me bake my first pie...raspberry apple crumb. yum!

 A classmate of Michael's heard Gabe loves trains...so he gave us this whole train getup for around the Christmas tree. Needless to say, Gabe is obsessed, enthralled..etc. He wouldn't tear his eyes away for a picture.

 It's pretty cute..plays christmas carols and lights up. Santa waves and says "Ho, Ho, Ho". So now Gabe says Ho ho ho.

 He's only allowed to touch the buttons when supervised...

 Today we had an "ice" storm. I didn't think it was that bad, but Michael got a 2 hr delay, so we'll take it! I strapped on my yak tracks and we took a walk!

 Gabers all bundled up

 Being a ham.

 Who does he look like here? I can't decide...but it's someone!

 cutie face

My amazing yak tracks! My dad got me these puppies my first winter in Missouri. They allow me to walk all over the ice with out falling on my face! Good stuff.

Oh, Christmas Tree!

 We started the day shaving with Daddy...

 

No, mommy don't take my picture....i'm not done yet!

 There she is in all her glory. And yes, she is fake. Michael was determined to have a real tree because a). they're giving out free ones to the troops this Wednesday and b). "I don't like fake boobs or fake trees" (that's a direct quote). Well after Sunday school today and he realized live trees are a fire hazard and we wouldn't be able to leave it up before our big Colorado extravaganza (he also didn't want to have to vacuum)...so he decided we should head to lowes and check out the selection. It was slim pickins' but we did find this 7.5 ft pre-lit beauty. So much easier than my p's tree...it comes in three sections, no messing with bags of lights to see which ones work..took us about 10 mins to assemble. The bummer is we can't find where the movers stashed our ornaments. So we made do with the few we did have and bought a cheap set of colored balls.

The tree skirt we bought previously is also lost somewhere with the ornaments. So i improvised...yes that's our 1st Cav throw. I think it looks rather charming.

Obligatory family photo in front of the tree. Gabe has 1/2 a piece of pizza in his cheeks. Do i mention this a lot about food in his cheeks? That's because it's a recurring problem. The kid thinks he's a hamster.

Thank you Hubby for buying us this awesome tree!!! PS I'm wearing the hat because my hair is greasy. I'm not obsessed or anything.

Last night we went to "Christmas on the Square" in the lovely town of Waynesville. There was live music, free food and drinks and a live nativity scene. We met up with some people from church and it was really fun. Gabe liked watching the horses go by (there were hay rides) and eating a hot dog. Afterward we went over to a friends house for milk and cookies. Gabe stayed up till 9:30 and never threw a fit once! He was totally enthralled with all the new stuff to check out.

kisses for mommy. Note: I made the flowers for my hat!

the men in their christmassy flannel

flexing

Gabe eating his hotdog at the square. Yes i totally forgot my camera after the flannel pic sesh, so we had to rely on Mike's not so great camera phone.

New friends: Daniel & Kristi Walkup and little 4-mth old Cooper.

cutest lil' guy

chillin' in the square

petting the lambs at the live nativity. We tried to talk our friends into letting Cooper be baby Jesus, they didn't go for it.