The newest addition!

The day after Christmas, we piled up (literally...all of the Christmas gifts, the kids, the dog...) the car and drove from Searcy, Arkansas to Westville, Florida. We left that morning early and got there right at dark...it was a LONG drive and a long day, but we all made it in one piece with hardly any tears. We played many games of cards, Super Mario Bros. on the DS download (love that, but hate getting beat by a 3 year old) and of course, all of us slept. Well all of us...except for Aaron. Aaron's older sister, Carrie and her hubby Dale, have a horse ranch in Westville....28 Miles from the Wal-Mart in Defuniak Springs, Florida. We aren't talking palm trees and beaches...we are talking woods and miles and miles of horses! Simply beautiful.

The kids were in pure kid heaven. They loved it and so did we! We had to buy the kids some tall rainboots because their property was so wet from all the rain that they had been getting. Best purchase of the whole trip! The kids played in the mud, stopped around in the fields and you can bet they were worn out every night right at dark!! We had a full day with Carrie and Dale and then the next day, Carrie went in to have their first baby!!! We were so excited!

Carrie and Dale getting ready to leave the farm to got to the hospital in Fort Walton Beach (quite a drive!) to have the baby!! She doesn't look hardly pregnant at all does she? Awesome!

Aaron's parent's with Carrie before getting into the car to go to the Hospital. We were all pretty excited!!

Aaron got to hook the car seat in....we do know how to do that at our house! It was so fun helping Carrie get ready to go to the hospital. I was so nervous for her and all the new and fun things that they are experiencing.

We spent the day at the farm playing around...She wasn't scheduled to have the baby until that evening so we had plenty of time. We took the kids to the beach, the movies and then dinner at our favorite place in Florida....SONNY'S !!

That evening when we got to the hospital...Little Savannah made her appearance for the rest of the family. She is just beautiful and I can say that because I am her AUNT!!

Savannah weighed in right at 8 pounds and looked so big already! The kids were so excited, but we couldn't see her or hold her that night so we just drove back to the farm to play with the kittens.

I still can't believe that we didn't make it home with one of these little precious kittens...we kept them with us in our little house on the farm for 4 days and then decided to let them go to some other people that wanted kittens.

The girls were not real happy with us for a few days, but really...we have enough stuff going on in our lives...I really didn't want to add a kitten to the list! Very cute though...

You asked for it, family....

I know...we've been back from Christmas break travels for a while, I have not an excuse left in the book, so I'll blog. We had a wonderful break. We stayed in Searcy with Nana and Papa until the 26th...hence all the Christmas pics. So, this post will be all about Christmas...
Parker is watching Sesame Street so we will see how much time I get to type and all more posts today. When the show is over, we are off the the mall. It's rainy out here in Houston and I need to return some jeans for the member of our family that is growing so fast that I can't keep her in clothes. Literally. Grace must get all her growing genes from Aaron's side of the family because poor Susie hasn't grown much at all this year...my side! And so it goes with our growing children. I'm waiting for the day (and it's coming soon) when people will start to ask if Susie and Parker are twins. He is about to catch her in height and they look sooo very much alike! Okay...off to the pictures!

See, I told you....little twins! Susie got the little bitty twins (blonde headed ones) for Christmas from Santa and they look so much like she and Parker when they will toddlers....so cute!

Nana and the kids are making their cookies for Santa. The Santa in Searcy, whom we love so very much...told them that he likes 2% milk. Now everytime we go to the store, Parker says, "Remember, he likes the blue milk, Mom!" You know, because 2% milk has the blue cap!

Papa reading "The Night Before Christmas" to the kids.

The tree at Nana's house right before the kids came downstairs....

Only a little late on this....

What is it, January 5th? I'm not too far behind Christmas to give an update, am I? We had a great vacation in Searcy. We ate out WAY too much, but that didn't hurt my feelings one little bit because I was on vacation, remember? I'm sure that Bobby's in Searcy was sad to see us go, but don't worry, we will be back for Easter.

The kids had a fun time baking cookies and decorating the Gingerbread house with Nana. She made her famous chocolate chip cookies a few times so everyone got plenty of cookie dough...love that homemade stuff!

Way too many gifts were received, but we are so thankful for all of them. We have even put some away in the closet for later because they didn't even notice some of them. Maybe by Valentine's day, we will get them out for a winter treat! Some of the present highlights: Grace got a new bike and a Nintendo DS, Susannah got a scooter and a beautiful princess dress (as she says) and Parker was so very happy with 2 foam swords, a blow up bopper and 2 light up guns from the dollar store! I think the total spent on Parker's Santa gifts was $9...isnt' that a hoot? He is still sleeping with his guns and swords...what a boy!

Grace and her cousin Jesse loved playing on the DS Christmas day!

Susannah and Jesse got dress up clothes...he was Spider Man and was going to rescue the beautiful Cinderella! We love being with our family in Searcy!

Parker and Daddy were having another sword fight! Parker loves his swords. "Andguard!" he keeps saying before he hits you with one of them!

All of the boys in the family got matching golf shorts and shirts from my mom. Don't they look excited? he he he! Wonder when they are all going to play together and wear them?

Parker is also very in turn with technology now that he has been to my parent's house. Everyone living in their house has an I-phone. Yes, even my mom. Parker discovered the i-phone over christmas and now wants his very own "i-pfone!" He was pretty funny with their phones and was always asking to play with theirs...what a kid!

We got back in time for New Years Eve with our Small group from church. Love our group! The kids all wore their jammies and played. Around 11 we decided it was time for them to try and sleep so we put in a movie and the adults played a game...the kids never slept...surprise, I know. So, we still played our game...the guys won, but we had a great time. We rang in the New Year with Sparkling grape juice and sparklers in the back yard at the Mallory's, always the wonderful hosts!

The moms at the mom table chatting...the dads were in the living room playing a Seinfield game on the TV.

All of the kids that were there for the New Year. They had a great time together!

Lately we've just been hanging out enjoying the 85 degree weather that we had this weekend...the kids and I read books on the trampoline for about 2 hours! Loved it. Of course, in pure Texas weather, it neither says hot nor cold very long...this morning, 31 degrees and we have freezing rain. Aaron took Grace to school and got to work before the roads got too bad with the rain and traffic....back to reality! Grace is getting ready for her "Battle of the Books" competition which is on the 21st....She is reading the intermediate books, this year as well. She had already read the primary books and was getting a little bored so we figured it could only help the intermediate team if she had read their books as well. So, now she just has practices and they are ready for the competition!

I'm off to get some stuff done...you know...Laundry, dishes, make beds...etc! Happy 2009!

A Christmas WHAT??

Aaron and the kids were getting all of the Christmas decorations down from the attic on Thanksgiving after all of the festivities and the company had all left. I was at the movies with some friends seeing, "Australia." Very good movie by the way. Loved it. Back to the story....

Aaron was getting the decorations down so that we could all do the tree together the next day, after Thanksgiving. Out of the blue, Parker picks up a wreath, sticks his head though it and says, "Look Daddy, it's a Christmas hole!" He's kinda right...it's a big Christmas Hole!! :) Now we have Christmas Holes hanging on our house. Oh, to see Christmas though the eyes of a 2 year old, it is the best!

Christmas 2007 Pictures

Making the gingerbread house with Nana...it was shortly eaten. Parker loved picking off the little sweet tarts from the sides.

Susannah and Grace were so excited to see their dolls. Grace said, "It was just what I wanted!!"
Mom and Dad's tree before the kids came in to see all of the cool stuff!
Every year, the kids (even when we were little) would sit on the top landing on the top of the stairs while the parents go down and make sure that everything was okay. Really, we are just getting the video camera and still cameras ready to take pictures! This year, I was the person that sat at the top with the kids...all in our matching jammies.


My brother, Jeremy, is holding Parker and his son Jonas. They are the sweet babies of the family and are so cute!

The big Christmas Day

We love Christmas at Nana and Papa's house...they go all out and it's fun for everyone. Christmas Eve the kids make cookies for Santa with Nana, watch a Christmas movie and then Papa read them, "The Night Before Christmas." They were so excited to get to sleep that I hardly had to tell them to go to bed and they were up the stairs. After the kids were fast asleep, the work began....We stuffed all the stockings and got all the Santa gifts out and ready for the morning. Then we ate the Santa cookies and drank the milk while we were waiting on Jess and Cliff to drive down from their Christmas with Cliff's family in Kennett, MO. They pulled in around midnight and we helped Jess wrap all of her loot for the kids and just all sat around and played until 2:30...it was great. Oh and we had to hide our newest Christmas tradition, "Elf on a Shelf" because in the story, he flies back to Santa on Christmas Eve!!

The kids got up nice and early (of course) on Christmas morning and all of us adults were still wanting to sleep....at least the kids slept until 9 and that is pretty late for my kids! They ran down and were so excited to see that Santa brought the girls new dolls and Parker a music set with a drum and lots of other loud instruments. Grace had wanted an American Girl Doll
for Christmas but we were not ready to drop over $100 for a doll that she may or may not play with after all of the other gifts have been opened. So, we went shopping at Toys R'us a few weeks before Christmas and she found found this Madame Alexander 18" doll with red hair....and it was on sale for $24.99.....and she fell in love with this new one and totally forgot about the expensive American Girl doll. Not that we wouldn't have bought her the American Girl doll, but you know little kids and if they are like my kids, they really want something and then when they do get it somehow it gets played with for about 2 days and then it gets thrown in the doll ben. Now Grace and Sus have 2 beautiful dolls that they love and they got a few more gifts, too!!

Aunt Jess gets the prize for giving the coolest gifts this year...the kids all got these cool new Crocs and Grace also got some UGG slippers that one of the shoe buyers at work gave to Jess. She also found 2 collie Webkinz for the girls that I have looked everywhere for Christmas gifts and could not find in our part of Texas! So the girls came out like bandits in the webkinz game...I don't know how they came up with names for them all, but they did!

Hope that ya'll had a great Christmas with all of your families. I know that we are having a blast around here playing all of the kids boardgames and of course, Aaron's Christmas gift, Guitar Hero 3!! We are now all rock stars!! I'll post some pictures later, for now, I'm off to play some Operation with my girls and sweet hubby and to enjoy some Barbs's bar-b-que!!!

We should be asleep

We are here in Searcy. Having fun with family, eating WAY too much and laughing at funny christmas movies. Right now, I'm sitting in Mom and Dad's living room, with Mom and Dad....we should be all upstairs asleep. Yah right, Christmas Vacation is on TV and we are up watching it, of course. Mom and Dad love this movie, okay, okay, so do I. Oh, and if you were wondering where Aaron is, he is in the den playing his x-box that came in right before we left town on Friday afternoon. His x-box died, or should I say, got the red ring of death on Dec. 5 and we mailed it off very shortly after....it turns out that they just sent him a new one. So, he is enjoying his x-box time with his online buddies now while we are laughing out loud at this silly Christmas movie.
Oh, tonight after church Aaron and I went to see "I Am Legend" at the local (gross) movie theater here in Searcy. Oh my word!! I have wanted to see this movie for quite a while, but it WAS NOT what I expected it to be and that is all I'm going to say. It was still a very good movie, it just wasn't what I expected, AT ALL! So, now you need to go and see it and let me know what you think! Hopefully we can go and see the new National Treasure movie on Wednesday night after the kids are in bed while we are still here with our free (and super fun) babysitters!! Maybe next time we can drive to Little Rock so we don't have to see the movie in the stinky, very cold and squeaky seat Searcy movie theater!

Christmas cards and cake

I'm putting off going into the kitchen this morning. I got Grace off to school, Sus is on the couch watching Sesame Street and Parker is still sleeping. I could not find one thing that I wanted for Grace's teacher. Last year, we got her teacher a Jim Shore Santa.

We were moving and I just loved Mrs. Miller, too so we got her something special. Well, the same goes for this years' teacher, Mrs. O'Neal. She is so supportive of Grace and helps her learn on her level. She even brought in some of her daughters old Junie B. Jones books to school because she knew that Grace liked to read them! So, I have been searching for yet another Jim Shore Santa like the one that I fell in one with last year...it says Naughty on one side and when you turn the Santa around it says Nice. Well, because it was last years Santa, no one carries it in their stores....of course, I found one online last night, but that is okay. I'm just going to get her a Sonic giftcard, she loves happy hour, just like we all do around here and I'm going to bake her a sour cream cake. Grace gets out half day so I best get to baking!!

As a former teacher, I used to get some real doozeys as gifts and I also got some gifts that I still have to this day and think fondly of those sweet little ones. Do you have any great (or not so great) gift memories? You know you do!!! Comment on your favorite gift from years past!

Something funny...

We have gotten a few of these from different friends this year and I finally got a few minutes to do our own...Click on the link and enjoy, then go and do one for your family and post it on your blog!!


http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1391857552

This elfin' greeting brought to you by OfficeMaxR and the Green Family!!

My favorite picture from this year!

We took the kids to The North Pole Express in Grapevine on Friday night. It was so much fun. If you live in the DFW area, I sooo suggest that you take your kids to this at least once. If they have ever read The Polar Express or have seen the movie, they will LOVE every minute! The kids wore their P.J's and we all rode the Polar Express train with some of our friends from church. They loved it and so did we....we sang songs and danced for the whole train ride. When the train pulled back into the station, we went inside and waited to see the Big man himself. Last year, Parker was great for the Christmas picture. He just sat there and smiled. This year he did the death grip on me and did not want me to peel him off to hand him to Santa. Oh the things we do for tradition. Aaron and I were laughing so hard, I almost needed to find a bathroom! I'll post more pictures and stories from the weekend later...just enjoy this picture for now!! Happy Monday!