Happy Holidays

Sammy's First Christmas Eve

Every year on Christmas Eve we head down to my aunt and uncles house for dinner and a ping pong tournament. Before the night was over, we gave Sammy his first present...new Christmas pajamas! This little dear is the cutest of them all.

This year, we've had several new additions to the family. This is Blake and Sammy. Guess who's older. If you said, 'Blake' you're right. He's 7 weeks older than Sammy. Blake isn't 'small' for his age either. He's above average for his age on all the charts. Obviously, Sammy isn't about to be out done. He never misses a meal. In fact, he sometimes forgets he's just eaten.

And behold...there was a marvelous ping pong tournament throughout the land. Dave and I went head to head for the 3rd time in 5 years. I lost...Again. My cousin, Andrew, Won...Again. We thought for sure his 4-year-reign as Ping Pong king was going to come to an end this year...but alas. It was not to be. Perhaps we'll get you next year, Andrew!

Christmas Morning

Having a child has made Christmas so much MORE fun. Even though he doesn't understand any of the hoop-la, I'm sure he understands better than any of us, the REASON behind the celebration.

Here is Sammy on Christmas morning before opening any of his presents. He was so excited. He just wanted to chew on everything.

Looks like we've got another golfer on our hands. Thanks Daddy!

How did Santa know I wanted this! It's the best toy ever!

Christmas Brunch

After giving our presents and opening the ones from Santa, we headed down to the Ponds for the annual Christmas brunch. The best part about Christmas is seeing all the people we love. Other things we loved about this Christmas include:

Guitar Hero, (if my dad is involved, its GOT to be good fun)

Pete's pirate ship, (spread all over the piano room with the coolest authentic looking pieces)

Piano Trios (how do you get 6 hands on one keyboard and not begin a cat fight?)

Grandparents (I now understand the 'Grand' because they ARE!)

The Seattle DaBells! (Thanks for coming...we haven't had everyone together like this since the 90's!)

Michelle: Okay Sammy smile!

Sammy: Um, mommy...I just woke up and I'm EXTRA hungry. I'm confused because you aren't feeding me yet.

Michelle's After Christmas Soup Kitchen

It's was nearly impossible to get the Droge family together for Christmas this year. So, we invited everyone up for the first annual After Christmas Soup Kitchen. By the time I thought about taking pictures of it, the food was gone. It sure was yummy.

Merry Christmas!

Samuel meets Santa!

It was a meeting to remember. Sammy was darling.

and Santa...well, lets just say he would have fit in better at Halloween. Kinda creepy.

Our ward has a Christmas brunch each year before Christmas and Santa comes to visit. The parents are thrilled because it means a "free" photo op.

I guess this year Santa, had better things to do, because he was obviously not happy to be there. He didn't smile for a single photo.

No wonder there are so many pictures of kids crying when they have to sit on Santa's lap. I'd cry too if I met this guy.

Another Gingerbread Tradition

It just isn't Christmas time without a visit to Provo for the annual "Gingerbread Night." Thanks Josh and Rosie Skinner for hosting...your home is beautiful! And of course, who can forget Travis' wit, humor and architectural genious. We are grateful for this time of year because it means lots of time with great friends like YOU! And...endless piles of sugar.
Sammy spent half of his time gnawing on the end of this candycane. Then spit it all back up soon after. I'm not sure if he's scared of the camera or just afraid of getting caught with sugar in his mouth! Ignore the hand holding the candy to his mouth...he forced me to do it.

Cookie Exchange 12-15-07

Since we've already posted a bit about this on the "Bountiful Friends" blog, I won't elaborate except to say...SO MUCH FUN! Thanks everyone for coming and we'll do it again next year for anyone that's around.

I got a couple darling pictures of Samuel and Carter. The next generation of Best Friends.

Done, just in time!

After more than a year and hours and hours and hours of intense work, I finally completed Sammy's stocking (10 days before Christmas actually, I'm just sort of behind on my posts...sigh). I completed the stitching on Dave's and mine just in time for last Christmas, and then started on the third stocking, thinking I'd need it eventually.

Well, that eventually is NOW and we couldn't be more thrilled. Samuel's stocking makes our
J O Y complete (okay, that was bad...sorry). Dave was excited for our stocking hangers to say "YO" this year. Sorry Dave.

Jon Schmidt & Gingerbread Trains 12-8-07

Can you believe it's time to start the Chirstmas traditions already? Well so far, one of the longest traditions is to make gingerbread houses at Dan & Jean DaBell's house (Michelle's uncle and aunt). This year there was a little bit of a change: we decorated trains.



Before that started though, we went to the Jon Schmidt Christmas concert. He is so fun! I guess we got really lucky this year because we were online the night they went on sale and so we got seats that were on the second row! We were about 10 feet away from him, so we could see all his funny faces and quirks, we had a great time. Then afterwards, we were second in line to get him to autograph the CDs and sheet music we had purchased. It worked out awesome!



After Jon Schmidt, we rushed to my parents home to pick up Sammy and then went out to Dan and Jean's to create our train.

Here we are in front of all the different trains. Sammy loved all the bright colors and was ready to go to town, but he was rudely restricted!

What's wrong with this picture?

(Disclaimer: I've recently really gotten "into" blogging. (Thanks Bountiful girls for being so inspiring!) So much so, that anytime something happens, I think, "That would make a great post!" Unfortunately, I'm not nearly as good at writing as I wish I were...which has thus made me continue only to think about posting and not really doing it. Not to mention, the mountain of dishes that are sitting in my sink for yet another day, the piles of laundry that continue to pile, the stack of papers to correct that literally has been neglected for a month, the Christmas cards to write and send, the shopping that still needs to be done within the next 4 days and the presents to be wrapped, just to name a few! So here is my first "post" that I've been wanting to write about. I know, it's lame...but it just seemed so funny at the time. Enjoy.)

Life is funny.

Epecially when you spend 8 hours each day with 27 second graders. I find myself chuckling, countless times each day. From the corney jokes like:

Student: Hey Mrs. Droge, What's red and green and flies?

Mrs. Droge: That IS a good question. I'm not sure.

Student: Rudolph the Red-Nosed pickle.

Mrs. Droge: Hahaha. (of course, why didn't I think of that???)

To daily things the students say like:

One day last April, a shy, smart, seven-year-old, skater boy proclaimed to the entire class after receiving one of his papers back that, "My bunnies are pimps!" (especially when the bunnies are darling and have bow-ties with contractions on them)

And finally, to silly things the "smartest teacher in the world" does. See picture above.

I didn't even realize my mistake until my entire class pointed it out. And to make it worse it took the "smartest teacher in the world" several minutes to figure out what they were all pointing at.

I quickly corrected my mistake.

The BEST Gift

Samuel is the best gift we could have ever received. He has brought so much joy, happiness and love into our home. Every day he helps us to remember the "reason for the season." We wish you all a very happy holiday season!

Happy Anniversary -- big 5 -- 11-23-07

It's been a happy 5 years. Of course it hasn't all been roses, we've had our rollercoasters like everyone does. I'm grateful for Michelle and her amazing spirit and fun nature. She is a delight to be around, and is so incredibly smart and talented. I love her.

Most of our anniversary was spent with family, but that is just fine -- we had a great time. We also splurged and got a new camera which has been a lot of fun. It's a Canon Powershot SD 950.

A couple days after our anniversary we slipped away to one of our favorite dinner spots for a nice evening out -- we went to Olive Garden of course!

Flowers I bought for Michelle. I took them to her classroom so that she could be embarrassed in front of everyone. Deep down all girls want flowers delivered to them in front of their peers. And this way she could enjoy the flowers the week leading up to our anniversary.
He loves me!


Michelle was so fun this year. She did a 12 days of anniversary:

Day 1 -- a new shirt

Day 2 -- 2 DVDs

Okay honestly after day 2 I was a little nervous about how much this was going to cost -- 30 dollars a day might not be in the budget! But things slimmed down...

Day 3 -- 3 golf balls

Day 4 -- A twix bar 4 pack

Day 5 -- 5 years of memories --

a little wedding video type movie documenting our 5 years together
Day 6 -- 6 krispy kreme doughnuts of course

day 7 -- 7 minutes of backscratches

day 8 -- 8 new garments

day 9 -- 9 holes of golf!

day 10 -- 10-pack of snickers

day 11 -- 11 chocolate cinnamon bears

day 12 -- A list of the twelve things I love about you

What a great wifey!

Annette's big 50! 11-27

Annette (Michelle's mom) finally turned 50. So sorry. But it's okay because she is a wonderful grandma, and wonderful grandma's can turn 50 with no problems! It was a pretty exciting day, and Ralph wanted to have some people around to enjoy it with them.Ralph got a cake made that said "You can't run from your Age Annette" with a bunch of graveyard themes and a skeleton running. "He did a good job," says Annette.
For our present, we let her hang out with Samuel all day!
Well Ralph wanted to "go for a ride to see some lights"

The salesman said that Ralph had been giddy about this present for weeks!

So Annette got her brand new red toyota camry.

Hooray!

The first ride.

We love you Annette, congratulations!

Adam's Mission Call 11-24-07

I can't believe that Adam is old enough to serve a mission. Well believe it or not, he got his call. The crazy thing is that he got the call on Wednesday the 21st, but didn't open it until Saturday after the BYU game! We tried to coerce him to open it around Thanksgiving, but he was too strong willed. In fact he didn't even bring it home for the weekend, because he was worried that we might try to make him open it.

Here we go! Friends and family gathered in the clubhouse at his apartment complex after the game to listen to him open it.
We even got Shawn's family on the phone to listen.

You are hereby called to the Texas Lubbick -- English (well sort of) speaking

He'll report to the MTC end of February.

Congratulations Adam!

Here are some looker-onners (Annie, friend, friend, Nicole)
We're excited!
Even sammy came along
here is the friend couch
what a cute family
What a cute family!
Nicole and Sammy decided to sing a number for us
We finished the night by playing Power Grid with Greg and Wendy.