Christmas eve pictures

W had a pretty relaxing Christmas Eve. We slept in, watched movies, headed to town to run some errands and eat lunch with gift certificates, then went back home. That's when I got the bright idea to take pictures with those cute hats! Yeah....great idea...no coats in the freezing cold. However, the girls really did not complain...I am so thankful that they are pretty cooperative with my crazy ideas for photographing them.
Then I decided it would be fun to get all of us...well great idea if I remembered how to do the self timer! It took a long time to figure that out, and of course I had to wait til we were all outside to figure it out! We had a good time though! And I got new editing software, so I am having a good time figuring that out....notice the TrinityTinsleyPhotography watermark on these first two. I am just trying things out and figuring out what I like. I am really having a blast!

It's almost midnight, but I will post the "out takes" from trying to get all 8 of us in the picture! And...making his debut on the blog......Hudson the dog! We got Hudson in July after Coby died in June. I guess you can probably tell from the fact that I haven't posted pictures of him that I like Coby a lot better. He is a really sweet dog, but he has separation anxiety and pees in the house if you don't let him out every 2 hours! Are you kidding? An 80 lb. dog can't hold it? Anyway, he is growing on me.

Musical

I thought I would share some pictures from the musical we had at our church. All of the girls were in the program, and they had a whole fan club, which made all 6 of us feel very special! H, Becky and B....Bethany came too, but didn't seem to make it in any pictures!

Aunt Jan always has fun with them!

Aunt Connie was so kind to play with A and keep her entertained (or be entertained)....and A was in rare form!

M and Emily....Aunt Deborah came, but didn't seem to make in the pics.

Grandma!

Becky

Aunt Connie and Uncle Scott!

H sang in a trio to "Tell Me the Story of Jesus" with her good friends. They did so good and it was just the sweetest thing! H walked up with a smile and confidence to sing...I was SO proud of her!

M sang the song "Miracle" with her two good friends. The did an awesome job! The song talked about how before time began, God had planned to send his son Jesus to the earth to die for our sins. Right before the song, M gave a testimony:

"Before time began, God had a plan for my life. Before time began he knew which family I would be born into. He knew the hard things I would go through there. Before time began, he had a family picked out to be my forever family (that was Trinity and Autumn). Before time began, God knew he would send Jesus to die for MY sin. It was a miracle!!!"

I am so so so proud of ALL of these kids! They worked so hard and they are just so sweet! I LOVE them!!!

Tree and tooth

Creative title huh? We finally put up the Christmas tree about a week or so ago. I would have just said forget it (actually I did say forget it, but there were a lot of tears so I used it as leverage to clean house!) I love putting up the tree, but for some reason I just felt like a scrooge this year and didn't feel like putting it up. Although, now that it is up, I love it! I say it, but I really don't mean one tree, I mean 4 trees. Yes, we have four trees in our house, although just three of them made it up this year. We have collected trees through the years by getting them really cheap after Christmas! So each of the two girls rooms has a tree. And we have two trees for the living room....Autumn has one and I have one.
M and S share a room and they have the pink tree in their room. It has white lights and a white feather boa with ballet/dance type ornaments on it. H and A share and they have a white tree with colored lights and bright ornaments...purple, hot pink, turquoise, lime green, etc. This year we let them put up and decorate those trees all by themselves, so they are just "lovely" and perfect!
If I just saw mine and Autumn's trees and was guessing which tree was whose, I would guess wrong, cause it seems opposite of what we normally would like kind of, but kind of not. We found my tree several years ago on sale at Hobby Lobby and i just had to have it. It isn't the kind of tree I went out looking for, but I loved it so. It is tall and skinny, with pine cones and a little frost. It is simple with white lights and we put all of our childhood and sentimental ornaments on it. Autumn's is big and huge and really really full. It is a big huge ordeal to get out and put together and fluff. She waited years and years to get the right tree cause the kind she liked were so expensive, but finally found this one for like 75% off. She loves it. It has white lights and we have ornaments on there that all match and are color coordinated. That is the tree that didn't make it up this year....too much trouble!
Anyway, on the night of putting up the trees, A's long awaited loose tooth was finally pulled! The girl is 7 and this is her first lost tooth. I was getting a little worried that she was going to have her baby teeth forever, but she didn't! And then, as we were putting up the ornaments, Autumn found one of those tooth necklaces that was empty, so we put the tooth in there, taped it, and wrote on it....a Christmas Miracle is what I call it!

Here is her new toothless grin! Actually, it is about grown in now....in just a week! And that sucker had a really really long root on it....it was stuck good!

Our mother made these ornaments....they are very very special to us!

We write on all of the ornaments we get....who we got it from and when. We love pulling them out and sharing the stories again about when we got it or about the person that gave it to us!

We also go and each pick an ornament every year. It is fun to see what they pick each year, and when they grow up and move out, they will have a good start for their own tree....filled with lots of memories! This was Autumn's ornament from two years ago...the little theatre nearby had the play "A Christmas Story"....Autumn got this Christmas Story lunch pail ornament and put the tickets in it and that is how we told the girls we were going. The tickets are still in there....we love going to plays together!

The Christmas miracle tooth necklace/ornament!

One of the girls made this ornament last year.

Love all of our ornaments!!! I love it because they remind us of so many memories and people we love! I am so glad they didn't let me cancel the tree this year!

Haircut???

H's teacher texted me this conversation yesterday:

H: Mrs. Ripley, did you get your hair cut?

Mrs. Ripley: Yes H I did.

H: Oh, I just thought you took a shower today!

Mrs. Ripley: Well H, I try to take a shower every day!


She is SO funny! I love this girl! AND I love Mrs. Ripley. I am just so thankful for H's two teachers. They both have challenged her and really helped her come out of her shell. Well, come to think of it, I really really love ALL of my girls' teachers. They have all helped them develop and blossom. S's teacher pushes her and makes her obey. She loves her and rewards her and does not let her get away with things....LOVE that! A's teacher loves her through good days and bad. She encourages A in her artwork. She lets her be unique and appreciates her differences! M's teacher is structured and creative and has really opened the world of science to her. She is solid and wonderful! I really didn't intend for this to be an ode to the teachers, but it did! Just thinking about their teachers makes me really happy. LOVE them all!!!

One hundred...

Well guess what folks....look to the right of the blog and just look at how many posts there have been.......yep....this is the big 1-0-0!!!!!!! WOW....one hundred posts. I know, if I would have written like I did in June, we would have been at a hundred a long time ago, but you see, I didn't for whatever reasons! So I had been thinking how fun it would be to do a hundred of something for the hundredth post, but then I just couldn't think of the right things. Here are some of my ideas though:

• one hundred people that I love --but there are way more than 100 and I could never choose
• one hundred people that have greatly influenced my life--I would want to explain why on each one and that would take forever
• one hundred of my favorite pictures--again....way too long to upload
• one hundred of the funniest things the girls say

I just couldn't do it. BUT, I will say thank you (a hundred times thank you!) to all of you who have and continue to invest in our family. Really, so many people do so much for us and I am so often overwhelmed by people's generosity and love. I was having a conversation with my friend the other day and I was telling her how grateful I am that so many people love my kids so much that they don't just give them hugs and smiles, but they also give them guidance and correction. For that, I am so so so grateful!

Soooooooo.........maybe I will hit 200 posts soon!

hmmm....maybe yall could leave 100 comments!!!!

STOP!!!

Our girls are good eaters. They usually aren't real picky, although they don't necessarily pick what most kids pick. When we go out to eat, they would usually rather pick something different than what is on the kids' menu. When we go to fast food, they sometimes would rather have a salad rather than fries and burger or chicken. Anyway, we were eating lunch at home the other day. We were having homemade tamales, which they love; hominy and cheese, which is ok for them; rice and green chili, which they like except it was pretty spicy; and edamame, which they love. A ate pretty much everything and was going to town on the edamame when she said (as she was stuffing more in her mouth,) "I love this food, but I gotta quit cause my stop sign is going to come out."
It took me a minute. I guess I wasn't paying much attention until H informed us that A has a stop sign that comes up when she is full! I CRACKED up!!! What a great image though and I wish I could listen to my stop sign better! She is so interesting and has a unique perspective on life! Tonight she informed me that when she eats sweets, her stop sign says "stop" with candy canes. Nice to know!

Halloween (yes, even though it is December)

Since it is December, I thought I should finally post some Halloween pictures. I also noticed that I have written stories and such and haven't posted pictures in a long time, so here you go. We grew up having a lot of fun on Halloween. We never dressed in scary costumes, but we had fun with the whole day, so we are passing that tradition along. For a couple of years, we have had a Halloween party with just the six of us and made some fun/creepy foods. We have a lot of fun and the girls love to cook. Sometimes we look up recipes and try festive things, but most of the time, we think of what foods we want to eat and how we can make it fit the Halloween theme!

"ghosts"--Potatoes and sweet potatoes sliced thin, baked with olive oil and cheese, put sour cream and chives.
"eyeballs"--deviled eggs with olives.

Autumn came up with the idea of "witches cauldrons". We got those tortilla chip scoop bowl things and let the girls make their own personal 7-layer dips...They put beans, tomatoes, cheese, sour cream, and whatever else in there.

"bones or fingers or something"--little smokies baked with bacon

yum...."creepy punch or something"

All dressed up and ready to go trick-or-treating.

Miss USA--Isn't she lovely?

Lolly the Clown--she was the cutest thing. The costume was passed down from a friend and is just so cute. She loved it because it at night, it glowed in the dark!

She called herself princess Rosabelle or something like that....she was so pretty!

Here is Cinderella. She has been Cinderella, in this same costume for at least two years. We keep trying to get her to be something else, but she loves Cinderella. The dress is about too short though. I'm pretty sure she will be forced to be something else next year!