Our night away

I look forward to this night every year. It is such a fun tradition now. We get so excited to get dressed up and eat fancy food and stay in a hotel by ourselves! Every year we say we are going to sleep in and neither one of us every can.

We have internal clocks that just wont' let us sleep in.

Getting ready for out night out!

This is at the house where the party is, isn't that tree fabulous?

I love this great room!

This picture I messed up somehow which is sad, because we are by the tree and the back of the house and you can see all the beautiful windows! I love it!

St. Nick

We celebrate St. Nicks day every year just like I did as a kid. It is a very European/Catholic thing to do, we are neither, but we still like doing it. We fill their stockings that were hung on the door with candies and little treats. This year they got a present too that I have been wanting for almost 10 years and finally broke down and got it. I love it! They did too!

Look how tired and and happy they are in this pic. It makes me laugh!

Here it is in all it's glory!

To Branson we will go...

Although Branson may be a little cheesy to some, I get it, it is still such a fun place to go with our family. It really helps we have some family there now too. We had never been during the holidays so we decided in November to head down there. IT was really fun. We saw a live Christmas production that was very good. We saw Dixie, the Christmas show, and ate some good food and enjoyed our hotel. The hotel is the kids favorite part. In fact, every single day, every SINGLE day, multiple times a day they play "hotel". They play hotel all day every day to be exact. They just love the real thing so much, why not bring it home I suppose! A big shout out of thanks to Gloria for hooking us up while in Branson with a great hotel, yummy food and discount tickets! We had a blast!

Can I just say,

that I am so very Thankful for my friends. We were missing a few this weekend, but we were able to have everyone together that was in town together at Brooks house. It is always so fun. When we get together although it has been years since we were in high school, it is like we are taken right back to that time. We have all been friends for a really long time and it is the type of friendship that will only last forever and ever.

Me (looking very tired and too pregnant to only be 19 weeks at the time),

Carrie, Brook, Sandy and Melissa

Giving Thanks...

This year for Thanksgiving it was pretty low key. Well as low key as having 19 people here can be. This was the first year we did not go to my parents house for Thanksgiving. Although we really missed being with my side of the family, a lot, it was really nice just staying home and letting the kids be here and spend time with their cousins.

The day before I made all the pies. I made a yummy peanut butter oreo crust pie, pioneer woman apple pie, pioneer woman pecan pie, pumpkin and a chocolate silk. We had no shortage of pies that is for sure. The spread was so good too. I felt like I was on my feet for two days straight so that was not part of the low key either, but it sure was fun. We got up early and watched the parade and played games and just had a good time the whole day. We all ended up at the movie theater to see Tangled that evening and that movie was SO SO cute. We all loved it.

I love the holidays so much. I just love the extra time we get to have with family.

That is the best part!

The kids gazing at the pies and getting gold fish instead!

Trying to get a family photo. My timer was not working very well.

This picture did not turn out quite like we wanted. We had planned on setting up the timer and after the first picture me saying "ok, on three say Happy Thanksgiving!" Then the second one we said, "Ok on three say Paxton is going to be a big brother!" It would have worked, but everyone was so loud I am not sure anyone really heard!

Oh well, everyone got the memo eventually.

Watching the parade!

The girls love love LOVE Cami!

Random...

I always have random folders in my photos on my computer that do not really

go with anything else, but that are still so cute...so here they are!

Paxton and Maddox's last day in nursery together at church. I have had at least two and for a whole year I had three kids in nursery and it is so weird now to only have one! I thought Paxton would be sad, but he was just fine. When I would came in to drop something off he was saying the prayer and opened his one eye and shooed my off! He said, "I am a big boy by myself!" Like leave me along mom! Pretty adorable.

I love this boy!

Getting ready for his first day of preschool.

Cortland sitting with his pink night night because the two blues ones and green were in the laundry! He doesn't seem to care a bit!

Jadeyn has her go to pose when the camera comes out! It is so cute and I cannot even count how many pictures I have like this!

Getting a little creative.

This girl is honestly creating something all day long. Coloring and or doing some sort of art or craft. She will sit there and write letters for hours and hours.

Ready for school with a waffle in her hand!

A Sunday Morning

Every single Sunday I wish I would take pictures of the kids because they look so cute. Well this Sunday I got out the camera. I was wishing I could have snapped one of all of them together, but I did not want to press my luck. Andy has early morning meetings before church so he is not lucky enough to be here in the morning getting every one ready. So the fact that I was able to get pictures taken before we left was nothing short of a miracle. I will have to try that again sometime!

FOOTBALL

I have said that for 33 years I have made it a point to not be into football. I don't care about it in the least. It probably has something to do with the fact the football was always on in my house growing up. ALWAYS, or we were at a game, or practicing for a game or cheerleading for a game. Lots of football and I did not get it at all nor did I want to, to be honest.

With all that said, this year after a few of being begged to be able to play, we caved. I knew it would be good for Bennett to play, so we did it. We signed him up to play, against my true wishes. In fact we thought about it a little too late and missed the cut off date. Here in O town, football is a BIG deal. They turn away over 100 kids every year. We were put on a waiting list. I knew it did not look good so I painfully told Bennett he probably would not be able to play this year. The sign up guy emailed me and said I know you are on the waiting list, but to be honest, we never pull anyone off there. Maybe the top two kids, but no one ever quits, so the chances are slim, very slim, to none. I was so heartbroken for B. Here his parents, well mom, finally gives in and she didn't sign up in time.

We basically threw the towel in. Then one night at 10:43 I got an email from the same guy and said, this particular coach is tough and he has had 3 kids drop out. You were number 15 on his list and I have contacted everyone and no one has gotten back to me. If I hear back from you by midnight he is on the team. I was so thankful I was actually on the computer that late! We made it. I woke up B to share the good news and he was so so excited. So this started our journey on Pee Wee.

I actually have a lot of pictures, but they are on my other computer so I will have to upload those some day. Here are just a few to show how cute these little guys are. Bennett played center and loved it. He is truly skilled in football. Andy never played and I never liked it and we always joke about how he will probably play college ball and we will all wonder where it came from! I love my little guy. He has a talent and I hope to support him doing this thing he loves. I have to tell ya, I have never in my life been so into sports before this past fall. I can even tell you what a quarterback is and what 1st and 10 means. I never ever knew and I cannot tell you how many times I have cheered that exact phrase!


One cute little thing about Bennett is the first couple of games when he would tackle someone or just if someone went down he would help them up, pat their backs and apologize. He had a hard time with that. Finally after the coach told him several times that they know that happens, that is part of the game, he did not feel quite as guilty, but still helped everyone up. How super cute is that?!?

Did I really not blog about Halloween? Really?

I thought for sure I blogged about Halloween? How did this happen? Anyway, we had a great Halloween in our usual themed way. I will be so sad when the day comes I do not get to encourage them into what they should be. Although, we do already know what they want to be next year. Should be fun!

This year we went with a Tinker Bell theme. Cortland loves the Return to Neverland Movie and Pirate anything so him being Captain Hook was a given. Well that was until the costume came and then he was kind of scared to actually be him. He would say things like, "what if I turn mean?" or "what if I become bad?". Super sweet. He did like having a sword though. Even if it was thrown away, or should I say "lost" before Halloween actually hit! It was actually not cold either so Jadeyn's costume did not have to be covered up by a coat of any sort. Although by the end of the night, she was a bit cold, poor girl. Maddox was the most perfect little "peta pan" I have ever seen. I wish I would have kept the pirate costume for Paxton that I bought and took back. I just thought we might as well use one we have. He was a cute little monkey and since that is his alter ego, we went with it. Bennett from the moment we started talking Halloween he wanted to be a football player, even though he actually is a football player. We did have to bang him up a bit though to make it interesting. Boys...

We had a great night and luckily it was not just a night of festivities. It was a few weeks of Halloween fun. Such a fun time of year for all of us!

(I for some reason can not view the pictures I am uploading to my blog posts. I would normally write under then what they are and something about the photo, but no such luck!)

Girls Day Out

I love my girl time with my one and only girl! IT is always a blast. It is so cute too because even if we go no where and we are just doing something together in the house, she will say, is this girls day? I love it. I always say, if I only get to have one girl, I am so lucky she is the one!

One Saturday we went out to a mall that is farther than I wish. Just her and I. We walked around, had lunch, she rode the carousel and we just loved being together. She even got some free clothes out of the deal! Everything she would do she would say, I have got to tell the boys about this. So cute.

It was just a couple of weeks after Christmas so she had to bring her favorite gift. Her stroller is a prized possession around here. She looks so adorable pushing that around.