McComb Family

How could I have forgotten Kiah and her adorable Christmas outfit??!! Her favorite spot was under the tree! I guess that was her first experience at our house last year (after 3 days of course in our bathroom!), she must think that's where she belongs!!!

Posted in: on Friday, December 26, 2008 at at 2:31 PM 1 comments  

We had a wonderful Christmas this year!! I had to keep Adam occupied for an hour or so until a decent time when the rest of us could get up to go down and check under the tree......

The kids were shocked by the aquarium Santa left for us. It was a little hard to see the fish as the tank was kind of fogged up -- must've still been cold from coming from the North Pole -- but it's beautiful.

Then the kids busted into the stockings.

Books arrived all the way from Australia -- thanks Ken and Helen!! They look great, and we can't wait to start reading them!

This was obviously the year for Adam to get remote-controlled vehicles. This is the first one he got, and he loves his "monster truck".

As you can tell from the picture, Briana was very excited to get a digital camera. Don't all bloggers need a camera to add pictures to their posts (just a heads up to expect some from her in the very near future)? She's definitely our little "techie".

Then the last presents were opened and you can see Briana's excitement mounting as she realizes they are helmets. The first thing she said to Adam was, "Now we have to look outside!" Obviously she's very aware that there is no need for helmets by themselves.

The plan was to have it by the front stairs, but it never made it out of the truck. Here they are "unwrapping" their new quad.

You could say she was a little excited!! Here's Brie all decked out and trying the quad for the first time.

Bret will be testing out his pilot skills with his new remote-controlled airplane.

And me? I got a new i-Phone which was a complete surprise. It's been fun to play around with some of the cool features it has, but I'm sure I have tons still to learn.

Once our festivities died down, we headed to Dennis' for Christmas with the McCombs. Here are the kiddos in front of the tree.

Then they made a gingerbread house. Briana had fun with the icing and Adam placed his little boy sliding down the side of the roof (would you expect anything else!?).

And finally......all of the family.

Posted in: on at at 8:48 AM 1 comments  

Sunday we got together with the Jones side of the family here at our house. It was very difficult to find a day when everyone could make it, but we finally did it!! All the family was able to be here, and it was fun to see everyone. Here are the kiddos opening presents!

The evening always seems to end with some type of game. For years it was Monopoly, but this year Bret brought out Risk. And, yes Mike, actually this picture will be on the blog! : )

One last one of the cousins putting Briana's new knitting machine to work. Gotta love Adam's pose!

Posted in: on Wednesday, December 24, 2008 at at 5:35 PM 0 comments  

Friday was our last day of school before Christmas vacation!!! It was almost a snow day, which would have been very disappointing for the kids, but the buses made it out of Georgetown and were able to deliver the little darlings to school. The morning started off with our traditional Singing in the Round, which is always a hit. Each grade level (K - 3rd) sings two different songs and then we all sing one song together. Here is Briana's class during one of the songs (yay - aren't they having such a good time!?).
Later that evening her teacher hosted a caroling trip through "The Trails" (our local gated community). All the kids (with Bret and another dad as the "tailgate") loaded up in a trailer with hay bales and went to various (pre-arranged) homes to carol. It was cold and a little wet, but great fun. We ended up at the teachers house for cookies and hot chocolate. What a neat experience for them. (I sure as heck wouldn't do it with my students - he he!!)
Here they are at one of the homes caroling.
You'd think this would be a fun, family-oriented event, but it almost got ruined by some real-life scrooges. Security came up behind us with lights flashing letting us know they had received several calls from residents saying a large caravan of cars was driving around.

So??? Are you kidding me? The front of the caravan was a truck pulling a trailer decked out with Christmas lights and kids singing Christmas carols. Get a clue and some holiday spirit people!!!!

Posted in: on Monday, December 22, 2008 at at 7:36 PM 0 comments  

Adam had his last Christmas party at Cool Care tonight. It seems like he was just one of the littlest ones and now he's one of the big boys. Crazy how it flies by like that. More importantly though, it let me know how much trouble I'm going to be in with him. Everyone let me know how much they love Adam, how he's so popular with all the kids there, and so on and so on. Great - so I've got the social butterfly of the group. Then a mom introduces herself to me and tells me how she loves my son. I've never even seen her before -- how could she possibly know Adam? Well, her daughter came home and told her Adam was her "boyfriend", but not to tell her dad because she promises to wait until she older. Are you kidding me?? This is starting already!?! What's it going to be like when he's a teenager? I'm pretty sure we'll have to lock him in his room and never let him out. So, if you have any desire to see Adam....better do it in the next couple of years!!

The party was fine -- ate, sang, read "T'was the Night Before Christmas", and then visited with Santa -- the usual. Here are a couple of pictures.

He's a "stocking hung with care". And he made sure that thing never left his forehead!!

Posted in: on Tuesday, December 16, 2008 at at 7:09 PM 0 comments  

No school today for us - yay!! We went into Placerville to do some shopping. I figured I should probably get started on that, and then we went up to my parents house for a little fun in the snow. Which meant I got to try out the 4-wheel drive on the Jeep for the first time. It looks pretty good in the snow, doesn't it?! When we left my parents' house we decided to eat dinner in Pollock Pines and then just head down 50, but a major pile up shut Sly Park down for a while. (The news tonight is saying it was a 17 car accident!!!) We were the first ones in line, so we got to sit there for quite some time. But....thank goodness I wasn't driving the BMW, because I never would have made it!!!! The Jeep worked like a champ.
The kids had a great time - throwing snowballs (until Brie got hit in the face and had a major meltdown - then it wasn't fun anymore), sledding, and making snow angels!! The only thing they didn't do was build a snowman. Oh well - maybe next time!

And the perfect way to warm up after playing in the snow is to hop into the hot tub!! They got nice and toasty and then walked barefoot back into the house! : ) My little polar bears!

Here's one final picture of my parents house with their decorations that the kids helped them set up last weekend. The poor snowman's head got buried under the snow and we thought he might not make it, but we were able to resuscitate him and bring him back to life. It's hard to see all the things in the picture, but it looks good!!
As much as I'd like to not go to school tomorrow again, I'd like even less to have to go an extra day in June to make it up, so here's hoping we have school tomorrow. (Did I just say that?)

Posted in: on Monday, December 15, 2008 at at 8:59 PM 2 comments  

Hi everyone,


Do you remember me? Well on Friday I went to my grandma's house! I stayed the night. Then the next day I helped decorate her whole house!!! It looks so cool! Then we drove down to the Bay Area. It took us about three hours. When we got there we went to my aunt's house! We saw a cousin. Then we went to a cookie party. The cookies were SOOO good. Finally we drove home to see our parents that we missed! : )



Briana

Posted in: on Sunday, December 14, 2008 at at 8:38 PM 1 comments  

Christmas is coming!!! It's finally starting to hit me that it will be here before I turn around. We got our tree and had two little helpers decorating it. I'm not sure how Adam was able to see what he was doing with his hat on, but I guess he made do! When I went to download my pictures off my camera, I came across a little surprise. It seems a certain little somebody has been taking pictures with my camera without me knowing. Here's a self-portrait of the culprit. (For some reason I can't rotate it - but you get the idea!!) He took one of his toys.... .....the TV...... ....the light fixture on the ceiling.... ....and about 10 other random things. Maybe he's planning to be a photographer when he grows up!!! Here's one more shot that I actually took from our back deck. I think it must have been scoping out a little Yorkie snack.

Posted in: on at at 4:45 PM 0 comments  

Here are pictures of the pond Bret worked on a few months ago (yeah, the one that ended up with me owning a Jeep!!). Here is a before shot of the pond. And the final product - a much bigger pond and a beautiful waterfall. It sounds great and will look even better when all of the water plants start growing next spring. It turned out really nice! Of course, now Bret wants to upgrade ours to a bigger waterfall! : )

Posted in: on Thursday, December 11, 2008 at at 5:13 PM 2 comments  

Hey,

Today we bought a few Christmas presents at Northside School! We bought some for everybody in my family. I hope the people that get a present love it!!!If you don't we can return it.Or we will just keep it if the Craft Fair is not open anymore. Ha ha ha!This is my first time blogging. So if I don't do a very good job that is why. Well back to our old topic. We are planning to wrap them soon. We might decorate the house with some decorations(if we have time). My mom would go get the stuff from the attic, my brother would give the stuff to me, and I would go find a spot for it and put it there! Well maybe they can put a few things around the house,too.If you come to our house soon you might get to see the stuff we put out!!!But if you come in like January they will be put away in the attic again. On Christmas everybody who is here will probably like the present they get!




Briana

Posted in: on Wednesday, December 03, 2008 at at 5:51 PM 4 comments