Wrapping up 2010

I know it may seem like I've fallen off the earth sometimes, but with a busy family of 6, we have no choice but to maintain a constant state of organized chaos.  Although I have great aspirations to maintain by blog more frequently it is quickly falling down my priority list. Unfortunately.

But I want to do what I can, when I can. 

I find it ironic that my last post was about Cade cutting his own hair which we haven't had any of the kids do.  Now we've had 2 kids join the "self-haircut" club...more on that in a later post.  In the interest of catching up with myself, I'm going to try to wrap up 2010 in one single post.  So grab a cup of coffee and hunker down.  This might take a while...I will do my best to keep it brief.  

In the final weeks of the year, we had Wade's parents visit from Tulsa, JP got his first haircut, Wade had a birthday,we hosted our 1st 'Cousin Camp' sleepover, Cade and Riley had their school Christmas parties, a 5 day visit to Tulsa, and one fabulous Christmas celebration for our little big family.

Here is the last 2 weeks of the year documented in pictures:

JP in desperate need of a haircut. 

This one was hard.  My baby.  I have always had a hard time cutting the kids hair.  At the time of JP's haircut, Brooke still had never had a haircut except for the bangs.  He is (and has often) been mistaken for a girl.  But a man at Walmart called him a princess and I figured we'd better git r' done.  Cade's first haircut was on Wade's birthday when he was 15 months old, so I decided to keep the tradition alive and do it on Wade's birthday - JP was 19 months. 

Side note: it snowed on his birthday and so I went the day after--but close enough. 

 It wasn't pretty

but what a difference...

Wade's folks came to visit. His parents both turned 60 this year and we gave him tickets to see a Rams game here in StL. Rams lost, but they still had a great time at the game.

 

Wade had a birthday...

Growing old is mandatory, growing up is optional.

 

(I just LOVE this photo)

and the boys in it.

  

We hosted our 1st "Cousin Camp" where we had our local nieces over for a sleepover.  It was so much fun.  Everyone got to make their own gingerbread house for our Gingerbread Village. 

We watched movies, played the wii, took the spotlight out to the woods and saw deer. 

This video is great.  The girls were all playing Just Dance on the Wii.  I love it for so many reasons. 

•  Brooke shaking her toosh and not at all on the beat
• Kelsey having a hard time keeping up, but trying her best
• Cade being all big brother-y.  I had this amplified by 3 growing up.  Just being a pest so she'd mess up.  Really reminds me of my childhood. 
• Wade conducting business in the background...he's such a hard working man...always one hand on the pulse, even on his vacation.  He worked 1/2 the days he "supposedly" took off. 

Back to our sleepover..we decorated Christmas cookies, made snowflake candy necklaces and drank hot chocolate. 

Just had a really fun time doing lots of Christmas-y stuff.  Plus it gave their mom and dad a chance to go to dinner and finish Christmas shopping.  Grammy came out to help with the cookies and the gingerbread houses because basically I wanted the kids to learn from the best.  And mom is definitely the best cook I know.   

Along with the good, sometimes comes the bad.  I got my long-awaited kitchen table and chairs...which Brooke promptly autographed.

  

Riley and Cade had their school holiday parties.  The nice thing about our new school is that they split the Christmas parties up between 2 days. We lucked out into different days.  Usually I'm running back and forth from one class to the next which is really difficult, really loved being able to focus on one class at a time with all the crafts we had lined up.  This was the big hit of the kindergarten class...build your own coffee can snowman.

Riley's favorite was making her own reindeer food.  Oats and sprinkles (so that it will glitter in the moonlight).

We Clarks had a fabulous Christmas.  Everyone got the top thing on their list. 

Whoa...that's a lot of stockings.

  So many blessings this year, we're so grateful for all of them.   

 

Left for Tulsa the day after Christmas. 

Always good to spend time with family, but we were able to see a few friends too. 

There's never enough time to see everyone, but we were able to see a few old neighbors and as luck would have it, I was able to join my old book club for their Dec meeting and it was SO good to see all of them for so many different reasons.  Really a remarkable group of ladies, and a great support system for each other as they are all in different stages of life. 

And no trip to Tulsa at Christmas time would be complete without a trip to Rhema.  A favorite holiday tradition.   

So that's it.  2010.  Whew.  Sorry for lengthy entry, but I use this blog to help me remember events when it comes to scrapbooking.  Hoping to be more regular in my updates in 2011.  Realistically I'm aiming for twice a month.  

Had a really eventful year this past year, loved most parts of it, and we're just enjoying the ride.