Anthony's 17th Birthday

Well Friday was Anthony's birthday. I can't believe he is 17 years old now. We started the day in the traditional fashion with the "Breakfast Donut". Needless to say we could not fit 17 candles on one donut. He had requested that the "Birthday Fairy" not come to visit him so she paid someone else a visit somewhere. We sang and did presents and then he picked up Ben Hansen to go to Mr. Higgins bible study. We took lunch to him, Lenny's chicken philly. Then that night we went on to a basketball game at Hillcrest. (disaster) On Saturday, Uncle Jim had gotten us tickets to go to a MSU basketball game vs. Arkansas! How exciting. We were down at 15 at the half and went on to win by like 8 or 9.....GO DOGS! Amanda and I had never been to a game in the Hump. It was so fun. Bailey Howell's jersey got retired at the half. That is Anthony's friend Ben Hansen's grandaddy. Ben's uncle is also an assistant Athletic Director at MSU and will hopefully be a great help getting Anthony a job with the team while he is in school there. We went to see Mamaw after the game and then came on home. What a great birthday weekend!

Amanda's Birthday.....11

Amanda turned 11 today. We started the day off with a visit from the birthday fairy. She always leaves our rooms much nicer than she found them. We had birthday lunch at school (Chick Fil A) and a cookie cake. Finally, we ended up the night with Mama and Grandaddy and Mom and Pop joining us at Cock of the Walk! We missed you all....ate some fish for you.

Daddy's Birthday

We had a small celebration this year. No cake for us.....strawberry parfaits were the dessert of choice this year served in the same parfait glasses that grandmother used to use.

Gingerbread Houses

Making gingerbread houses is one of our longest standing Christmas traditions that we started with our kids. This year we expanded our circle to include our dear friends Lindsay and Lara Moriarity from church. We love to have Lindsay and Lara over to do fun things!

Angel Alert

These are some pictures from the Christmas production of "Angel Alert" by the 5th and 6th grade chorus! Doesn't Amanda have some sweet friends!

Prelude to Christmas

I accidentally did this post after the Christmas one.....forgive me! Sari got to be home with us to cut down our tree! Everyone else had gone home. We had picked out our tree much earlier this year due to them being picked over last year. Don't Sari and Amanda look burly.......

Christmas at the Rays

Well, Christmas was quiet. A nice break from basketball, Anthony rested for a week solid. Some days he didn't wake up until 2:00! Robert and Brittany came home again. The gift of the year was the McCarty squirrel. On Brittany's first visit to Star, she had an encounter with a flying squirrel during the night! (So did mother.) Mom thought that it would bring her fond memories in years to come to be able to see her fake squirrel and think of Star! As always, breakfast at Mama's was fabulous! My DVD gift was a flop because the DVD player that we took to mama's was too old for the technology that we used to create it. Oh well! Everyone had to take their copy home and watch it.