Christmas!!

Christmas is always fun around the Rice household. It is actually a week long event most years. This year we started our Christmas festivities on the Saturday before Christmas, when we went to celebrate with Nick's family at his mom's house.

After that, the festivities did not resume until Christmas Eve when we went to Mamaw Judy's house. Here we took a "Happy Birthday Jesus" cake and sang happy birthday before cutting and eating the cake. We also sang happy birthday again Christmas morning when the kids woke up.
Here is my masterpiece of a cake...

(No, the icing isn't lumpy, it is chocolate chip icing)

Christmas continued on Christmas day where we celebrated at home, Mamaw Sharlett's, Nick's dad's house, and my mom's house. What a full, but exciting, day!

This year Santa brought the kiddos Big Wheels. Gracie got a pink and purple "princess" big wheel and Evan got the traditional yellow and red one. They loved them! Poor Gracie's pedal kept falling off (Santa didn't bring one of the pieces that holds the pedal on, so we will be calling the manufacturer to get one) and poor Evan's seat wasn't on right because we didn't know which position it would best fit him. But even with the mishaps, they loved them and wanted to test drive them around the living room. So, of course we let them!

Santa also brought Evan (and Nick) a Wii! Evan was so excited, although he wanted to know where the Lego Batman (Wii game) was because it wasn't under the tree and he had asked for it. He was excited to be reminded that he had already received the game as a Christmas present from MiMi last Saturday. Here they are with their new pride-n-joy...

So, that's Christmas in a nutshell for the Rice's!

I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas this year!

Gracie's 1st Award!!

Gracie received her first award on Dec 11! Her "preschool" (Doss High School Kiddieland) took part in the "Unite to Read" program. With this program students were encouraged to read at least 15 books from the week after Thanksgiving through December 10. If they read at least 25 books, they received a special star sticker on their award certificate.



The high school students (Gracie's "teachers") kept track of how many books their students read while at school (she goes M, T, Th from 12-2). Gracie read a total of 48 books!!! This was one of the highest numbers achieved. Yay Gracie!!! We are sooooo proud of you!!!!

Florida scrapbook

Ugly/Tacky Christmas Sweater Party

This year our Life Group had our traditional Christmas party with a twist! We all were to find and wear the ugliest/tackiest Christmas sweaters around town. At the party, we were to model our outfit and there would be a winner. Some people found them in their mom's or grandma's closets!! Some were actually told that they wanted the sweater back to wear this season! Those mom's and grandma's will remain nameless...

I know you all are wanting me to explain why on earth I didn't stop with the too small ugly Christmas vest. So, here's the story.......

After putting my size medium ugly Christmas vest on, my husband told me that I didn't look tacky enough. I had planned that just the fact that it was 2 sizes too small was funny and tacky enough. So, I thought, "Hmm...what could I do to make it tackier??" That's when the tackiness began! Unfortunately for anyone who is related to me, it began and I couldn't stop!

As you can see in the picture above, I did a pretty good job of making myself look a little more tacky. What began as an ugly vest became an ugly outfit. First, I added a door hanger (from my bedroom door) to the back of my vest. I tucked my jeans into my red and white toe socks so they would look like boots. And then the greatest idea of all came as I was walking through the living room. The Christmas tree skirt looked up at me and said "Wear me! I am definitely ugly enough, and you would look really, really tacky with me on" How could I say no to that??!! On it went. When I walked back into the bedroom, Nick laughed, and I knew that I was now tacky enough.

So, there you have it, an explanation of that hideous picture of me!

As for Nick's outfit, the women's sweater vest/dickie combo couldn't have looked better on anyone else!

Oh, and by the way, I did not win the grand prize :( BUT I did win the prize for "Do not get pulled over on the way home, the cops would never believe alcohol wasn't involved" YAY!!!