Home for Christmas!

We started a new tradition this year...just the four of us woke up Christmas morning at our house, and we spent the day putting together and playing with all of our new toys. After having cinnamon rolls and pigs in a blanket (thank you Nanny), we opened up everything Santa brought us, and then everything under the tree. We were all very good boys and girls this year. Every piece of clothing Anniston got she wanted to put on immediately. So she had 5 layers on before we put a stop to the "trying on" thing she was doing. Treyson lasted through a few presents, but was ready to lay down for a nap, so he missed out on some of the opening (like he could really open anyway!).

Here's Anniston opening up some clothes:

Here's Anniston's "layering". Underneath her new raincoat is a Herringbone patterned dress, a new princess jammie dress, and then her Christmas jammies that she slept in!

One of Anniston's favorite gifts was her Fisher Price Dance Cam....so cute! She didn't stop giggling and shaking her stuff for a good hour. And Jerry and I were tagging in and out to dance with her because she was wearing us out! Basically this little unit plugs into the TV and provides music and fun little animals and you dance and are able to watch yourself on TV. One of the pictures shows Anniston and I on TV. If your child likes to dance (ours is somewhat obsessive), they'll love this toy!

As dinner time neared, we baked a ham and had cheesy potatoes, green beans, and rolls. We then decided to head out to look at Christmas lights. We all still had our jammies on and literally had not gotten ready. Like not at all... Seriously, I don't think any of us had even brushed our teeth that day (I know....terrible, shame on me!). Literally, we woke up and then played up until dinner! So off we went in our jammies, santa hats, and scummy teeth to look at lights. We were serenaded by a little bit of Christmas songs by Delilah and alot of whining by Treyson (until he finally gave up and fell asleep!). Anniston "oohed and aaahed" every house that had lights. Then we made it to the very "special lights" (as Anniston called it)....the square in Fayetteville. It was a nice 65 degrees outside, so we unloaded the troops--that's right, with our jammies, santa hats, and scummy teeth--and walked around the square. We also took a carriage ride around the square.

The day ended with us allowing Anniston to have a slumber party with us that night. We NEVER let Anniston in our bed. Just something Jerry and I always said we would stay away from, and we stuck to our guns on it. Anniston sleeps so well by herself in her bed, and doesn't get up until we go in there (even though it's a toddler bed that she could easily get out of). So, Anniston about the only one that slept well that night! (She's a cuddler--sideways, rightways, wrongways, allways!!) But she was so excited when she realized she had slept with us all night. It was special for her....and it won't happen often based on how Jerry and I didn't get very sound sleep. That might be a good once per year tradition!

The next day we headed down to Fort Smith for the weekend. Uncle Scott and Aunt Courtney were still in town, and this was our last chance to hang out with them before they move to Houston. It was alot of fun, and they both got lots of Anniston and Treyson time.

We are so blessed to have eachother, our two beautiful and healthy children, and such wonderful family and friends. We hope everybody had as "Merry" of a Christmas as we did!

Christmas at MaMa and PaPa's

We took off down the hill on Tuesday the 23rd to celebrate Christmas with MaMa and PaPa at their house. We woke up on Wednesday morning (Christmas Eve), and had Christmas around 9:30 A.M. There were so many presents for everybody. Sweet Baby Treyson slept through the whole thing, so Mommy and Anniston opened his presents. He got so many great developmental toys, including a Leap Frog music table. He will be so excited! Anniston got a dance mat, several toys, and MOST IMPORTANTLY a dress-up trunk. She LOVES to dress up. She goes by the "more the merrier" slogan when it comes to fashion. She's such a mess! She had alot of fun playing "roll the soccer ball" with Michael. And Michael even took Anniston on a ride in his Ford F-150 Power Wheels (anniston tried to drive it....YIKES! she's a horrible driver!!).
Even MeMaMa got to play dress-up with Anniston!

We are so blessed to have such a loving family, and grandparents that love (spoil) us rotten! This was a very special Christmas as well in that Uncle Scott and Aunt Courtney just bought a home in Houston, TX and will be moving very soon. Scott got a very nice promotion which moved him there. Courtney's job (with the same company) allows her to stay doing the same thing...just based out of Houston. I think she spends most of her time in foreign land anyway!! So Scott and Courtney get to close mid-January on a very nice home in Houston. We are so excited for them. Also, they have a nice neighborhood water park; so watch out....the 4 of us will be invading Houston this summer!

Here's a picture of Aunt Melissa (she'll probably be super-excited that I'm posting this). I put this up here mainly because I wanted to show off our "nephew to be" Connor that's in her belly! She's due in April....doesn't she look amazing? You'd never know she was so far along! We can't wait for Connor to come out and play!!

Thank you MaMa and PaPa for a wonderful Christmas. We love you!

Christmas at Nanny and PawPaw's

I'm a little bit late getting to these posts from Christmas, so bear with me. Two weekends ago, we celebrated Christmas at Nanny and PawPaw's with Mark, Tracey, and KiKi. Anniston was so excited to see her cousin and open Christmas presents.

Friday evening, we found Elfie at Nanny's house, and told Elfie that Nanny wanted to have Santa come early to her house, so could he please tell Santa for us. Well guess what? He did! We woke up Saturday morning to these GREAT TALKING AND SINGING vanities and thrones! (Thanks Nanny and PawPaw!)

Treyson's big gift was a Fisher Price Lights and Sounds Stage. It's so cute, and we know he'll enjoy it more as he learns to sit up by himself.

There was so much more that the kids got, including clothes, books, princess high heels, and other toys. Our kids are so lucky to have such loving grandparents!

Saturday afternoon, we went to cousin Lexi's basketball game. She is quite the little athlete. Definitely a competitor, and really good at basketball.

Saturday evening we went to Laura and Randy's (Jerry's aunt and uncle) for Christmas for the entire side of Nanny's family. We went to the Hode??(not sure if that's the way to spell it) house in Van Buren whose house lights are unbelievable and they're coordinated with Christmas songs on a radio station. Basically, the house dances to music--it's crazy! We got back to Laura's and Santa came to visit. He brought gifts to all of the good boys and girls....can you believe that Santa called out Uncle Matt's name? Just kidding Matt, you know we love you! Both of the girls talked to Santa and of course smiled cutely for their presents.

After Santa left, we opened presents, and then the adults had a fun game of Dirty Santa. On Sunday morning, we woke up and went to Mass in our fancy Christmas outfits. After Mass was over we went back to nanny and PawPaw's for lunch and naps, then headed home. It was a very busy weekend, and also so much fun.

Santa was at the Promenade!!

So Sunday afternoon, we told Anniston that Santa Clause was visiting the mall from the North Pole. She was so excited to tell Santa that she had been a good girl. And she also was ready to tell Santa that Treyson had been a good boy since he can't talk.

We got all dolled up and only had 1 person in front of us. Anniston spotted Santa and was beside herself. It was the moment she had been waiting for for so long! She marched right up there like a big girl, hopped on his lap, told him how good she was, and smiled for a picture! Treyson wasn't smiling, but it least there wasn't crying!!

We made our usual pit stop at the Cookie company (yes, usual....you know how our Dadoo is with his cookies!!), got Treyson some way too expensive shoes that he'll outgrow in a month, then headed home.

As Anniston was about to go to bed, she realized that she forgot to tell Santa what she wanted. She only told him she'd been a good girl. So....Elfie to the rescue! We had her sit next to Elfie and tell him everything she wanted so that Elfie could tell Santa last night when he flew back to the North Pole....whew! Thank goodness for Elfie!

Uncle Don and Aunt Tina Wedding!

We went to Don and Tina's wedding in Eureka Springs on Saturday. It was at the Thorncrown Chapel, and was so beautiful! I've never been there, and I thought it was so perfect. It was gorgeous at night with the low lights, and then all of the poinsettias that were up for Christmas. Jerry also commented that the ferns were so beautiful and GREEN (mine are in our whirlpool tub trying to be saved because they were left outside too long....trust me, I'm trying to chunk them but my squeaky tight husband (God love him!) wants to try and revive them!).

Treyson thought about fussing but ended up doing great through the ceremony. Anniston did great and sat in Aunt Robin's lap the entire time. She was so excited about the wedding. She got to wear a new "fancy wedding dress" and hairbow (with the shiny brown shoes that were mentioned in a previous post). This is not at all related to the wedding, but it's an appropriate time to throw this in....Anniston has this new thing going where she will walk into a room of people and throw her hands up in the air (you know, like a gymnast after she's done something spectacular?!!!) and just wait for somebody to say something (usually something to the effect of how cute she looks). I'm not sure if we're over-inflating her head at home (we are slightly partial to her cuteness!!), but she did this at her babysitter's Christmas party, and then again at a birthday party she was at on Saturday afternoon. Anyway, she had that same "look at me" attitude on Saturday night, so she ate up all of the "oohs and aaahs".

So the wedding ceremony was short but very sweet. Then we headed back for the reception....where our daughter turned into the energizer dancing bunny!

She started off dancing with Sheradon for awhile.

Then she came back for a punch re-load and drug Aunt Robin out on the dance floor with her. By the way, I didn't get a picture of Don and Tina (I know, horrible). But you can see a little bit of her on the right side of this picture....she looked beautiful, and her dress was amazing!

This is a picture of her running circles (sorry for the fuzziness)

Here is when she is observing all of the dance floor doing the "Cha Cha Slide"....she didn't know what to think about that!

Here she is helping Mommy do the "Electric Slide" (yes, I first learned this from our Sunday nights out at Red Roper teen night in junior high!!)

Then Anniston and Mommy were dancing to Britney Spears' "Womanizer" (thank goodness Anniston doesn't pay attention to the words of these songs yet--YIKES!!)

Then a congo line was started

Nanny and PawPaw were on the floor dancing with Anniston for a long time....can you guess which song was playing??

I think Dadoo was trying to give PawPaw a break, but I don't think that worked!

I definitely don't want to leave Treyson out. He was having a great time being passed around from relative to relative....he's so laid back! Then he just laid his head down and was out for basically the rest of the night (minus getting loaded into the carseat to drive home). He got his fair share of "oohs and aahs"

Don and Tina...we had a great time. Your wedding was beautiful, the reception was great! You're a great couple, and we wish you all the best!

Christmas Program

Anniston's school had their Christmas program on Friday evening at the church. We had been talking to her all week about how exciting it would be and how she would be singing for alot of people. We just didn't want her to freak out when she saw all of the chairs filled and lots of clapping going on. We knew that she knew all of her songs because she's been singing us to them for the past couple of weeks; we just hoped she wouldn't get stage fright....

....well, she hammed it up! She bounced and kicked up her leg while singing loudly the entire time (she can multi-task like her mother!). Of course we had the entire first row with our family and friends, so she spotted us quickly and was giving us quite a show! She was moving so much that she almost ran over the sweet little boy next to her a few times. And I'm pretty sure we should've done some bloomers under her dress because with all of the moving around, her dress did get a little too high at times (we try for her to be a lady..haha!).

Afterwards, she had snacks and played with her grandparents. Santa Clause also made an appearance. She sat on Santa's lap, but the face looked incredibly familiar, and she figured out that it was a teacher at her school....so we discussed that Ms. Patricia was just dressing up for fun as Santa. We asked her where the REAL Santa Clause was at and she said the North Pole. So I think we're still good on that! WHEW!!!

Anniston, Mommy and Dadoo are so proud of you! You're such a great singer and performer! We love you!

Congratulations!!

Jerry and I have been following a blog of a couple that we went to school with. They were a year ahead of us in school; like Jerry and I, they were junior high school sweethearts. They are such a nice couple, and we've been following them on "their journey" to having their sweet twins. They were born last night, and are a really good size and healthy.

Congratualtions Michael and Mary Kate (and Cooper and Hadley!) Your family is absolutely beautiful!

You can check them out at "Our Journey" on my blog list, or click this link:
http://michaelandmarykate.blogspot.com