Wedding Day

Most people are probably getting ready to celebrate the new year but our family is preparing for my dad's wedding! Today is the big day and the ceremony will take place at 3 pm. There's lots of family around and we are about to eat Paul's gumbo before getting dressed and heading over to the church. Michael fell down my aunt's front steps yesterday and is all scraped up! Will try to post photos later!

Hanging out in Hayneville

Our family is down in Alabama for a little vacation and my father's wedding. We're staying the first part of the trip in Hayneville, a small town in Lowndes county, south of Montgomery. My aunt's house is a lot of fun with people everywhere, sleeping on couches, floors, chairs and last night our family was in a room with twin beds. Mallory fell in the crack between the bed and the wall while she was sleeping. (we then pushed the bed against the wall when Paul got in bed with her, not sure why we hadn't thought of that before!) Michael had a bad night and I had to get him out of his pack n play. He was sleeping with me in the other twin and fell out of the bed in the night! Tonight we're moving in to another room with a bigger bed! Tomorrow's the wedding and Mallory's first stint as a flower girl!

Out to lunch.

Today the kids and I drove over to Lexington to run a couple of errands before our trip to AL. After stopping by the mall, a couple of resale shops and Target we had lunch at Chik-fil-A, a real treat when you don't have one in your town. Frugal mom that I am, we all split an 8-piece nugget meal. Michael thought it was so intresting to dunk the fry in the polynesian sauce and see it slowly drip back in the container! They had fun in the play area after lunch. Then we got an ice dream to share for the road. A great day!

Check out these prices!

My mother has this menu/placemat from Joe Namath's restaurant back in the 70's I believe. I am so fascinated by the cheap prices for things like filet mignon (6.95) and beverages (35 cents)! And the meals came with a baked potato and salad bar. When you look at it, prices haven't really gotten that much worse in 30 years. Sure a beverage is more like 2.25 now but that's not too bad for three decades worth of inflation. Joe signed the placemat for my mom. She and Lothar are looking in to how much this might be worth for collectors.

Cookies for Santa

Yesterday Mallory and I made cookies for Santa. We had fun cutting out the cookies and decorating them with yummy buttercream frosting! Tonight Mallory said she wanted to put out a gingerbread girl cookie and a gingerbread boy cookie for Santa. That way he would know there was a boy and a girl who lived here. Very smart.

Southern Lights

Tonight we went to the Southern Lights display at the Kentucky Horse Park. It has become a tradition to go at Christmastime when Grandaddy is in town. We had dinner at our favorite Lexington Italian place, Joe Bologna's and then went to see the lights. The kids really enjoyed the petting zoo after we saw the lights.

How about a ride?

Mallory got this little doll umbrella stroller for Christmas and Michael has had fun pushing it around the house. This morning I gave him a banana for breakfast and a few minutes later caught him giving his banana a morning stroll. He's all boy though, look at that face.

Mommy, when are we going to do the gingerbread house?

Today Mallory did her first gingerbread house. We used one of those Wilton kits you see in Wal Mart. They were marked down a few days ago so we got one and Mal had been wanting to do it ever since. My dad and June went to Ohio today to visit one of her cousins so we had a little downtime and Mallory got to make her creation!

Christmas Sunday

Today was Christmas Sunday and we had a wonderful service with lots of special music from the children and adults. Mallory did the bells and signed Away in a Manger with the kids' choir. She did a great job! Grandaddy and Grandma June were there to worship with us today. We went to lunch at Claudia Sanders' restaurant in Shelbyville KY after the service. This place used to be the Colonel's wife's. We had a big yummy buffet and then went to the airport in Louisville to retrieve a lost suitcase from the flight yesterday. It was a great day!

We've changed our name!

Paul came up with the new title for our blog, a play on matte vs glossy finish. (you still get here with the mattemusings.blogspot.com address) He's very talented in the writing department and came up with "Worth the wait" which is engraved in our rings. I was throwing out all the cheesy inscriptions in the wedding books. He's much better that way. I love when he puts captions on our Picasa albums. One picture had a much younger Mallory eating beans and he came up with "messy in, messy out".

Breakfast with Santa

This morning I took Mallory and Michael to a Breakfast with Santa at a local elementary school. A lot of the schools have them and we have gone the past two years so wanted to keep up the tradition. I went ahead and put them in their Christmas jammies last night and we woke up and just went like we just got out of bed, which we did. Well, I did change Michael's diaper and put a bow in Mal's hair. The Santa was not happy to be there as you can tell.

Winter Picnic

The weather was so nice today we went to the local game farm for a December family picnic. The kids rustled around in the leaves, you would have thought it was a nice fall day. The wind did kick up a bit during lunch but we enjoyed being outside. After the snow earlier in the week it was strange to be playing outdoors with no coats on! When we got ready to leave we discovered major deer poopie on our shoes!

I love these kissing pictures!

So sweet!
Awwww!

Christmas is here!

Merry Christmas from the Matte family! We hope you and your family have a wonderful holiday season!