The "Finnster, et al."

These are a few good pictures that I wanted to post but don't have a lot to say about them.  I love these pictures of Will because he looks so cute with a fresh haircut. Sam's 6 year well check.  Yes, he is one month shy of turning 7 at his 6 year check up, but hey, I got it done. Our date night at Brixx.  I thought Michael looked handsome so I took his picture. Will helping Michael do his shoulder stretches. Callie and I representing Juvenile Court at the presentation of the Attendance Cup to Beech Elementary. Finn and Meg sound asleep in my bed.

Every year Gran had the whole family over to her house and we make gingerbread houses together.  This was the first year that Will was really able to be involved and participate.  I'll say that Will had more fun than anyone making Gingerbread houses.  He was focused and intentional and really tried his best. I worked with Finn and Sam helping them get their houses in tip-top shape.  NOT.  Gingerbread houses stress me out because I want everything to be neat and symmetrical and make since on the color spectrum.  Finn and Sam slop icing on and put candy in whatever order they feel like at the time.  I guess the important thing is that they are having fun. My teeth might be on edge - but they are having fun.  Gran is good at chilling out and letting the boys have fun and be creative.    I can't really comment on this other than it looks like a bad wrestling promo.

This year Finn's Third Grade class did a "Who Was" class project.  Finn chose to do his project on Abraham Lincoln (since his first choice - Davy Crockett - had already been selected).  The students were all required to prepare a report, write a speech, and present the speech to his class in full costume.  Unfortunately we missed the presentation because we were in Belize.  But I can say from spending the time helping Finn write both his report and his speech that he learned a lot and did a great job.   Not to say that this was an easy project.  Finn and I spent many hours - some tear filled - sitting at the island in the kitchen preparing for this presentation.  But I bet Finn would say that it was all worth it. Thank you to Grandad and Gigi for helping Finn memorize his speech and thank you to Gran for helping Finn with his costume and going to watch Finn give his speech.

This year Will watched the Grinch for the first time.  Like Sam before him, Will thought the Grinch was scary. These pictures show how Will feels about the Grinch - specifically the part where the narrator says, "Then he got an idea. An awful idea. The Grinch had a wonderful, awful idea."  Finn watched with Meg.

We always spend Thanksgiving at Nana and Papa's house.  Thanksgiving is always a fun holiday for the boys because they get to camp out with their cousins in Nana and Papa's garage.  This year we did something a little different - we spent the morning at Old Stone Fort.  The boys loved it and Nana and found a new place for family pictures. Coop hopped in our family photo.  He is so precious. I hope we do this every year because the boys loved running around - and we wore them out. He looks so handsome in this photo. Sam got rocks in his shoes. The old Paper Mill. Looking at the waterfall. After returning to Papa and Nana's, the boys opened their Christmas Ornaments. After lunch Finn and Papa pulled out the leftover Roman Candles from this past 4th of July. That night Michael and I met Dad at the theater in Tullahoma to watch Creed II which should be called Rocky IV the sequel.  It was so good!

As a resident of the Middle Tennessee area, I have grown accustomed to tornado watches and warnings (thought I can't for the life of me remember which is which).  In early December we had some pretty intense tornado warnings in the north end of Sumner County.  It was about 10:00 p.m. when the meteorologist announced that people in our area should take cover.  Even though both Michael and I have been in the eye of a tornado (which caused pretty extensive damage), Michael refuses to get our boys out of bed and go to our safe zone.  When I saw that the new was singling out our road, I broke protocol and went upstairs to get Will.  They least I could do was go get the baby - the only member of our family that sleeps upstairs. After all, it was a really bad storm. Well, Michael was right (as usual). The storm didn't touch our home and we could have left Will snoozing safely in bed.  But, even though I was technically wrong, I still came out the winner because I was able to hold