2011 Christmas with the Flynt's...

After celebrating at my Nana & Pawpaw's house, we always stay the night over at my parents house...and have Christmas the next morning with my parents, brothers and wives and nieces and nephews. I love our time together that day. We have a big, yummy breakfast together, open gifts, eat lunch and spend the day together playing games and talking. I absolutely cherish our time together as a family, and praise God for the family he has given me.

Every body gathered in my parents living room, about to open gifts! Yay!

My hot-Todd-ey...love my man!

My brother Jason and wife Lindsay...

Maggie and her cousin Macy...

My niece Morgan and nephew Joshua...

We all chipped in together and got my Dad a new set of binoculars. The ones he had were older than my oldest brother. Ha!!! 

Gigi opening her gifts...with a little help from Maggie.

Justin's turn to open gifts. We open one at a time, starting with the oldest down to the youngest. Never pass on an opportunity to teach your kids patience, right?!?

Todd's turn...all the boys got some nifty new magnetic, super bright flashlight. Boys and their toys....HA!

Morgan was so excited about her "fancy" duct tape. It is a new fad...crazy, huh? The kids these days design crazy objects out of colorful duct tape. I have seen bags, flip flops, wallets, phone cases, folders...etc made from it.

Macy's turn...crazy about make up and nail polish!

All the boys got new tractors from Gigi and Papa!!!! Score!!!!

And Jerod got tools...like father like son, for sure!!! All the men in my family are super handy!

Jackson got new remote control helicopters.

This excited face of Joshua's is so CUTE!!! He was super thrilled about every single present he opened.

Mags got a new McDonald's cash register set. So much fun!!!

My Sadie got some new sound/shape/color toys from Aunt Lissa and Uncle JD. She was having so much fun with it!

Maggie loved her new ponies too!

This was #2 Christmas out of 4. More pics to follow soon. What a wonderful, blessed time together! Thank you Mom and Dad for hosting all of us.

Love to all,

Leah

2011 Christmas at Nana & PawPaw's...

Every year we gather together to celebrate Christmas with my Mom's side of the family. It is by far the most unique of gatherings for our Christmas celebrating. My Nana & Papaw always make our time at their house memorable. We celebrate with a theme...decorations, a program, theme-y food and dress and games galore. In years past, we have had an "old prairie" Christmas, a "Cruise ship" Christmas, Chinese, Mexican and Cajun Christmas...just to name a few. This year was as great as years past. I love the time with my family!

My little family of 4...

Nana & Maggie...playing a game of ball.

My Mom, niece Morgan and sis in law Melissa...

My oldest brother Justin and Pawpaw...

My parents and their 7 grandkids...what a precious crew!!!

My original family of 5...turned into 15!!!

My beautiful cousins...Hilary & Karis.

My brother Jason and Uncle Tom.

My Aunt Diana and cousin Tammy.

All the gang gathered in the kitchen. We had 27 there to celebrate!

We always have a birthday cake for Jesus and the kids blow out the candle.

My Mom makes the best homeade birthday cakes! Yumm!

All the kiddos surrounding Nana...playing a balloon blow up game.

A little Karoke from 17 month old Sadie. Ha!

All listening to Pawpaw read the Christmas story from the Bible.

Nana setting up an indoor bowling game.

More games...

And time for presents. Maggie loves her Barbie!

And Sadie got a new baby doll, and was sooooo excited about it. Love this sweet little grin!

This was #1 of celebrations for us....with 3 more to follow.

Love to all,

Leah

A Ginger-bread barn...

I stumbled across this Ginger-bread BARN, not a house, but a barn. How appropriate for my family, with all our country roots?!?

 I bought it for Maggie to do with her Gigi. My Mom had come to watch the girls for me for a few hours after I had worked one night. I thought it would be a super fun thing for them to do together. They seemed to have a ball! It has a little "Maggie flare" to it...complete with many barn yard animals and a candle so she could sing "Happy Birthday" to Jesus. LOVE that she is getting the real reason for our season.

Two of my favorite people!!!!

She really did a good job. See her little horses head coming out the barn door?

Thank you, Gigi for loving my Maggie!

Christmas pj's and a sweet sisters...

It has been such a fun Christmas season so far. This year, for me, has been the most fun...mainly because Maggie has been so "in" to all the Christmas fun. It has been a joy to see the season through a childs eyes. She couldn't wait to get all of our decorations up! She has been making up her own Christmas carols, and telling everyone we meet out in town "Merry Christmas". I love her zeal for life and her joyous, peppy little attitude about it all. Sadie seems to be a fan of the season, too. She loves looking at our tree and touching our "pink tree" in Maggie's room.

We bought the girls Christmas pj's and shot some pictures in front of our trees. I have included some pics from last year...I love to reminisce!

Sweet sisters...Maggie 4 years old, Sadie !7 months.

Could their grins, BE any more contagious?!?

In front of our "pink tree"! Every house with girls needs a "pink tree", right?!?

This was from last year, 2010. My Sadie was only about 6 months old...sniffle! My oh my...time just flies by!

They have both changed sooooo much!

I CANNOT believe how different Maggie looks, here! You can see in this picture, her little face is so full and round. She had been on her steroids at this time, for about 5 months. Poor thing!

I am so thankful to report that Maggie is STILL in a pretty solid remission, and has been off her steroids for almost 23 weeks!!!! A true Christmas miracle!!!! What a difference I see in her sweet face, with out those awful steroids. Love my Maggie Caroline, so much.

Merry Christmas! Hope you are enjoying time in front of your tree, with your loved ones!!!

Love to all,

Leah

Thankful...

*Disclaimer: I am way behind on blogging lately. The only excuse I can claim...is just the busy season of life I am in right now. Between, my girls, hubby and animals...working a little extra...and spending time doing "life" stuff (you know--laundry, keeping house, grocery/Christmas shopping, church, etc) my down time has become, zero. I know all of you fellow bloggers and blog readers are in the same boat. But it does make me a little sad to be so behind on keeping up my blog. We use this as a personal family scrap book. So this is a quick effort to report on several past times I want to remember! I have pics uploaded and plan to blog lots over the next few days. Happy reading~!!!

Thankful...

We had a great Thanksgiving 2011. We spent an equal amount of time with both Todd and my family. This is a rarity with so many schedules. But somehow we made it work.We had the annual Flynt Family Fish fry for Thanksgiving with my side of the family. We love to do things a little different...and none of us except Todd are all that particular about "traditional" Thanksgiving food. Yummo! We had fish, hush puppies, stuffed jalapeno peppers, coleslaw, beans and tons of fixins'. We had a total of 23 people there, which I think is something extra special to celebrate.

We celebrated with the Hunts too. We all met for dinner and fellowship at Todd's brother Clays house. We had the traditional Thanksgiving food, and it was delicious. We all ate ourselves into comas, ha! The cousins played and it was a great evening together. There was a total of 17 of us there. I treasure my BIG family, and am so thankful to get to see the majority of them on a regular basis!!!

We all have so very much to be thankful for. Our families, homes, jobs, health, freedom, happiness...but most of all our Salvation! I adore the holiday season...starting with Thanksgiving.

Below is the one and only (which is so rare for me to only take one picture???) picture I have from Thanksgiving. It's our annual "ladies" picture we take from the Flynt side of the family. Love the ladies in my life!!!

My Nana, Maggie, Morgan, my Grandma Flynt, Macy then Sadie, myself, my mom, sis in law Melissa and sis in law Lindsay...ages 87 down to 16 months...HA! Quite the group!

This is our pic from the last year...2010. Sadie was so tiny! Just 4 months old.

Here is our 2009 picture. Love it! Maggie still had a little toddler look about her. And Sadie was just starting to grow in my belly. I was about 8 weeks preggo here.

So fun to look back over the last few years!

Praise God for family.

Love to all,

Leah