4 Years

Happy Anniversary to us!

and a very happy birthday to Nate too!

Merry Christmas!!

We had a great Christmas this year! We began our day by opening presents at our house with my parents and grandma. What you can't see under our tree is a trip to Disney!

That bottom string of lights on the tree went out a week before Christmas and magically started working again yesterday... go figure. Lizzie surprised us by starting to walk behind her push car a few days before Christmas. We kept quiet about it and she put on quite the travelling show for her grandparents as a Christmas surprise!

Lizzie's favorite stocking stuffer~

Micah got some great gear to get him ready for Disney World!

He also got an awesome foam rocket launcher from his Memaw and Pa..... here are some fun action shots~

Elizabeth got her first baby doll from GG and was instantly in love~

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas! We did a very limited Christmas card distribution this year (budget cuts :), so if we couldn't hand it to you in person and you aren't an immediate family member then you probably never saw this~

Merry Christmas Y'all!!

Micah's Christmas Party

Have you ever seen a group of 2 yr olds sing Feliz Navidad? Yeah, me neither, but they did do a great job with the maracas....to be fair, I do believe Avelynn was singing. :)

I can't believe we are doing school parties already... Micah has gotten so old!

Making Cookies

I'm embarrassed by how long it took me to bake with Micah, but I FINALLY got to in last week. He loved it and it stressed me out... go figure. He helped with stirring~


Quality control~

Cookie cutter placement~

Being adorable~

and of course he had to add a little something special to make sure the cookies were exceptional~

Do you think I should have shown that picture to Nate BEFORE he ate several cookies? To those concerned, I grabbed him 2 seconds after this picture was taken and washed his hands. No cookies were violated in the 2 seconds it took me to whisk him to the sink :)

Thought Process

You know how they say that opposites attract? Well, I wish that were true about one particular aspect of mine and Nate's marriage... We could really benefit from one of us being a neat freak :P Housekeeping is not a natural skill for either of us and it can end up getting messy around here from time to time.

I was thinking about it today and decided that, even though I'm not pro polygamy, it might be nice to add a second wife who likes to clean... Or loves to clean :) But then I thought about the less desirable aspects of two wives (besides just morality) and decided that's not what I would want. I guess what I want is a live in housekeeper.... But I don't want to have to pay them. Hmmm, so that's describing a slave then..... Yeah, that was the end if THAT thought process :P

Church is not about having everything your way, and even knowing this, Christmas time is difficult for me. If I had it my way, the only songs we would sing in December would be carols and the vast majority would be with piano or acoustic guitar ONLY. No crazy music, no adding your own flair to the songs... Just as they are. Ahhhh, bliss :)

10 Months

Baby girl is 10 months old today! We are really starting to see a lot of Lizzie's personality coming out. For example, every time we tell her "no, no!" or use a stern tone or an evil eye, she laughs... hysterically. This worries me slightly for how she is going to be as a two year old, but mostly it's just really cute right now. Elizabeth has become super chatty and has a sing song quality to the sounds that she makes... so fun! She is waving, clapping and even saying bye-bye occasionally. We can't wait to celebrate her first Christmas in two weeks!

Moments with Micah

*We had just gotten to the grocery store this week when the lights went out....

Micah- "Night night! Night night fruit!" (we were in the produce section)

*Every night, our family does the Jesse tree together. We sit down to read the story for that night's character and we let Micah hold the ornament for that day....

Micah- "Broken! It's broken! Daddy, broken!" Yeah, he thinks any ornament not on the tree is "broken" :)

*Micah now puts himself in timeout...

Me- "Micah?"
Micah- "My, timeout.... my timeout... mine." Very calmly too and pretty much never when he actually deserves it.

It'll be better when it's over....

Sooooooo, the Ags got the bid to the Cotton Bowl... Gig 'em Ags!!! I would be pumped, BUT they are playing LSU.... Crud nuggets. For those of you unaware, my Dad is an LSU grad and as such the whole family has always supported the Bayou Bengals as well as the whole fam supporting the Ags. Anyhoo, this could be a very interesting game for our family :P

The best part? The lovely people behind moving the Cotton Bowl out of the Cotton Bowl and into JerryWorld (don't even get me started on that) decided to move the bowl from it's traditional spot as a daytime game on New Years to a night game on Jan 7th... Crud nuggets AGAIN!!!! Guess who is running a half marathon on the 8th that requires you to get up at 3 am in order to make it to the 5:30 start on time? That's right, my WHOLE family :P Oh yeah, and that's 3am eastern time.... The game starts at 8pm the night before. So anyway, I have several bones to pick with the head honchos at the Bowl de Cotton, but the bottom line is that I am going to be one TIRED runner at the end of 13.1 miles:P

Mater is from Galena, Kansas....

...Nate's home town. No lie. He was discovered when the originators of "Cars" were driving Route 66 to get inspiration for the movie. The owners have the documentation to prove it too :) Also, the guys who found him borrowed several buildings from Galena to make up part of Radiator Springs... cool, right?!

Thanksgiving

We spent the first half of the Thanksgiving break visiting Nate's family in Kansas. The kids arrived with a sinus infection each and an ear infection for Lizzie, so you can imagine how they behaved like perfect angels ;-) BUT, due to the lovely power of antibiotics, they both got much happier about two days into our trip and their relatives were able to see them acting a little closer to normal.

We all got together to take a big family picture for Gigi, and Aunt Ray took some great pictures for us! We had to give Micah 6 Twizzlers before he'd cooperate for the large family shots...

We had an early Thanksgiving on Sunday and Micah and Nate enjoyed some time playing in the leaves~

Micah would never turn down dessert and he had a great time chowing down on pumpkin pie~

Back at Nate's parent's house, Lizzie found a best friend..... in the mirror~

Rockin' out~

I have NO idea what made her make this face~

Pretty standard boy stuff :)

Blogging Hiccups

Have you noticed the lack of blogs? So, Nate and I are down to one general use computer and Nate has been starting a blog and a business. Long story short, I rarely get to use the computer in the evenings and it is near impossible to use it during the day (Liz is in her swing and Micah is in a time out right now.... yay for no extra hands trying to type!). I'm hoping to get some time tonight to load up pictures from Thanksgiving, but don't hold your breath :P

Getting Carded

...and no, I'm not talking about the fact that the majority of people who don't know me still think I might be in high school :P What I AM talking about is Christmas cards.... oh yes, it's that time of the year again. In fact, you likely have about 3 days until you get your first card in the mail. You know the feeling, right? You open up the envelope, see your friend's adorable kids smiling back at you and you break out into a cold sweat. Here is your first card of the season and you haven't even ordered yours yet! Never fear, my friends! Shutterfly is my go-to site for all things photo and a fantastic place to find Christmas cards. (And birth announcements too, for that matter)

One of my favorite things that Shutterfly did this year is that you can now change the text on the card. As in "Happy Holidays" on your favorite design can now become "Merry Christmas"... Hallelujah!!

I'm particularly fond of this one~

and this one~


and about 22 others. I have NO idea how I am going to narrow it down, but I better choose one soon... I'm falling behind! I may have to go with this one~

It works since EVERY Christmas decoration I have bought this year is awash in glitter. Seriously... glitter. What happened to me? I had a girl and all of the sudden everything in the store with pink or glitter attracts me like a moth to flame... heaven help me, I'm a girly girl now.

Anyhoo.... I'm looking forward to getting my lovely cardstock cards ordered soon, although picking a final design might prove lengthy. Now for those of you not finished with Christmas shopping (I'm a freak, I know), Shutterfly also has some great options that I have used over and over and over again.... foolproof, I promise :) From photo calendars to photo books to these.

Besides, anyone that shows bloggers some love deserves some love back :) http://bit.ly/sfly2010 Anyways, go forth and check out their cards.... the designs this year are super cute and right now they are on sale so they are even more affordable than before! Happy browsing!

Loud and Clear

Some people have the mistaken perception that just because babies can't speak coherently that they are unable to communicate... So wrong. Many babies use sounds, gestures and facial expressions to convey their thoughts and opinions. Lizzie has.... Ummmm, different tactics.

For example- I opened an invitation recently for a friend's son's 1st birthday party and Lizzie told me she wanted to attend... By eating the invite. Strange perhaps, but I understood her loud and clear. (Luckily she did not consume the section of the invite containing the date and time of the party. For those concerned about my parenting skills, I was sitting there the whole time and it just took me several seconds to wrestle it out of her mouth :P )

When it came time to get a present for our little buddy, I jumped on the Amazon ap (cause that's how I roll) on my phone and began to peruse my options. I was looking at a potential present when Lizzie smacked my screen and ordered it. Ahhhh yes, one touch ordering... Gotta love it. So anyway, apparently I am raising a girl who knows what she wants and isn't afraid to eat it ;-)