What's New With The Carter Family

I'm going to post some Christmas photos in a few days time....but for now, you will have to settle for a Christmas message from Jem (to his Nunna, Papou and Uncle Con). Watch. It's cute :)

This Christmas was the first one in 10 years where I got to actually "see" my family. Thanks to the marvels of modern technology (a computer and a webcam), I got to have a Christmas chat with my folks, my brother, and their lunch guest.....my grandfather (also known as Nunnu). It was an amazing experience, seeing my grandfather again - but the most incredible part of it was that he actually SAW and HEARD me too. Kind of a miracle, seeing as my Nunnu is legally blind, hard of hearing, and sometimes not always aware of what's going on around him.... But it was like a light clicked inside of him and he realised who I was and that he could indeed see and hear me :) It was priceless. We actually had a short conversation, something I wasn't even able to do with him when I visited in 2007. Brings tears to my eyes just remembering it :) What a great gift this was...it's something I will NEVER forget.

This year's Christmas concert was great :) As a second grader, Jem learned and performed songs with the third grade classes....so unfortunately he had no speaking part this year (that honor always goes to the older class). Nevertheless we thoroughly enjoyed listening to him sing the songs he'd long practiced -- my personal favorites were "The perfect 10" (a song about the Ten Commandments) and "I Trouble" (a song about man's selfishness). Great job Jemaroo! Here he is after the concert with his best friend, Heather. And a picture with his second grade teacher, the lovely Mrs Inks.

While the AMOUNT of snow was fairly pitiful, this was indeed the first day of snow for the Winter Season :) Jem INSISTED he put on his full snow gear and head outside - and was happy enough to be out there while the white stuff was falling from the sky.

Every year for the past few years we've hosted a Christmas Cookie Exchange with some of Jem's friends from preschool. We started off with some playtime, then sat down for a Christmas story, played a game of Christmas Bingo, wrote a letter to Santa, had a snack.......and exchanged Christmas cookies! It's always nice to have Jem's preschool buddies over....and while we may not see them often, we are grateful to still keep in touch with these wonderful children and their families :)

WHAT! I can't believe I forgot to post some Halloween pictures on here! I've been so pre-occupied with my 'other' blog (the stamping one) that I have kind of neglected this one....so sorry! Here are a few photos of Jem from this year's Halloween night - where he recycled his costume from 2 years ago, added a little to it, and became - a Hammer Bro. from Paper Mario (a Nintendo video game).

This weekend we said goodbye to an old friend (or foe as Cathy remembers it)...Brandon's 1999 Chevy Malibu. It had gotten to the point where it needed the same repair done on it (a third time) and along with it's other issues, became too much trouble to keep. So we went car shopping. We were looking for another Sedan, and since Cathy was happy with her Hyundai Santa Fe, we decided to go with the same brand, different model - a Silver Hyundai Sonata V6. It's a good little car, gets decent gas mileage, has great safety features and will be a perfect little commuter car for Brandon. Plus with the warranty we won't have to worry about any 'repairs' for a long, long time! Welcome home new car :)