8 months

Carson is 8 months!

Here are two pictures of Jenna at 8 months. The second one she was in the hospital for a virus. I am so happy I am not going through that anymore!

Christmas!!

Our Christmas started Sunday the 20th in Fort Payne at Matt's grandparent's house. We did all the basic family holiday stuff; eating lots, opening presents and playing Dirty Santa. I sat in the wrong spot apparently because from every angle there was a window which made a glare on the pictures. So this is Jenna with her new piano from Granny and Jenna playing with her cousin Tytan. And that's all I got! From there, we traveled down to Daphne for Taylor Christmas. We ate at Felix's Fish Camp and then played Dirty Santa and let the great-grandkids open presents. They all racked up on the toys! They loved it. This was our first year without Paw Paw and we missed him so much. Maw Maw had something up her sleeve! Mrs. Claus(maw maw's neighbor) paid us a visit. We played a game and she handed out presents. Funny.

And then came Christmas Eve. We had dinner at home with my family. Poor Jenna had a fever and was sleeping and I think Carson was sleeping too. I can't remember. Since our oven is STILL broken we cooked two different kinds of soup for Christmas dinner. We ate and then it was time for presents!! I gave my mom the job of getting my kids clothes for Christmas which was wonderful for me! They got TONS of new clothes. Then it was time to make cookies(no bake of course, ugh!) for Santa and put carrots out for the reindeer.

Here are my angels sleeping on Christmas Eve.

Santa came to our house!!!

Merry Christmas!

At noon on Christmas Day we had brunch with the Anderson's and my grandparents. It was so good!! The kids had a great time with each other too!

This isn't a great picture but we haven't compared Baby Ben and Carson in a while. Carson is so much bigger and taller. Isn't that funny how different they are but they are slow close in age!?!

Then it was time to go to Matt's mom's house. We had a huge, wonderful Christmas dinner. Jenna loves birthday parties. I mean LOVES them. So we had a party for Jesus and she got to blow out the candle. Then present time!!! Jenna got a rocking horse and she LOVES it!

Matt sent us some pictures from his Christmas in Iraq.

We had a very, Merry Christmas!

Christmas Fun

We went to Anna's house while the cleaning lady was at ours this week. Anna made Rice Krispy Treats and we used Christmas cookie cutters, icing and m&ms to decorate.

Brant, Riley, and Jenna only cared about eating the icing. Anna and I took care of the Rice Krispies! It's almost Christmas!!!

Museum again!

Anna and I took the kids to the museum again. It was interesting to see what they wanted to play with this time and what all they remembered. They both loved the water part! Jenna got two shirts soaking wet. I think Anna left with a bath too!

Ever since Jenna was a baby she has been scared of the hand dryers in public restrooms. I think most kids are. They have them in the water section there. I was trying to dry her first wet shirt and she came over to check it out. Here's what she did...

She liked the music and books and driving the little red car and she liked the sand again.

But her favorite part, this is going to surprise you...was the doctor's office with the baby dolls in it. Can you believe it? Ha!

And here is little Carson being a great sport!

The exhibit upstairs right now is Helping Hands. They have a section where you write cards to soldiers. I talked to one of the workers and gave them Matt's unit's address so they are sending them to the 252nd MP Company. I am so excited!!!

We had a great day!

Family Dinner

We had our family dinner this past week. We try to do one every year around this time. We all go out to eat and hang out since we never seem to be able to get everyone's schedules together. This year we were missing Matt and my mother in law, Pam, had the kids. So it was just the original 5 of us. We went to eat at Abuelo's(mom's favorite) and then did a little shopping and went to Marble Slab for ice cream. Fun night!

My Daddy, My hero

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Christmas Decorations

Since everything is our lives and our attic is crazy right now, we decided not to pull out all the Christmas decorations this year. Sad, I know. My mom settled for 3 little trees with white lights in the front window just so we wouldn't look like Scrooge and so we would have a place to put our presents.

I definitely haven't been in the Christmas spirit. I have almost all my shopping done simply because I want it all over with. The faster Christmas is over, the sooner it is until Matt comes home. Don't get me wrong, I am excited about my kids opening their presents and spending time with family but I am just ready for this year to move on.

Today I decided I should do something about my Bah-Humbug-ness(yes, I just made that up). I searched through the attic while the kids were taking a nap and found my Christmas tree and my box of ornaments. I put my tree up hoping to make me feel Christmas-y. We'll see how it works.

I found a place right across from Victoria's Secret in Hamilton Place that sells the cutest ornaments! And they customize them for free!! I can't tell you all I got because lots of people on my list are getting them but I did buy one for myself. This is to remind me of this Christmas in years to come and to be so very thankful that this part of my life has come and gone and also to be thankful that my husband will be home for the holidays, Lord willing, with our little family every year.

We miss you this Christmas and we are already looking forward to next Christmas when you are here celebrating with us. We love you, Matt!

Way to Go Jen!!

Jenna has been practicing for her performance in "big church" for weeks now. She can sing Away In A Manger(the whole song!!), a little bit of Joy to the World and most of a song called Little Me. She loves to sing and has done a great job learning her songs...

Having said that....

This Sunday was her performance. She went on stage in the first service without a tear. But only sang ONE line. "Little Me." In the second service she cried at first but stayed up there the whole time...without singing one word. She did clap after every song though. But for her first time she did a wonderful job!

Way to go Jen!

(My camera was on a weird setting and we didn't realize it...)

Another month!

Another month has come and gone...7 months!

Thanksgiving

I don't have many pictures from Thanksgiving. Things were crazy!

My sister, the kids and I left Wednesday just after lunch to Daphne for Thanksgiving. The trip usually takes around 6 hours but because of all the holiday traffic it took over 8 hours. We were more than ready to get there.

On Thursday morning we woke up and had a Thanksgiving breakfast. Not everyone could make it that morning so the ones who could had a wonderful start to Thanksgiving day. That evening we went to have Thanksgiving supper at a friend of the family's house. She helped us when PawPaw was in the hospital and her dad was in at the same time and passed away the day after our PawPaw did. They are absolutely the nicest people I have ever met. They opened up their home to us and we had such an amazing time.

The best part of the trip was Black Friday! The Outlet mall in Foley opened at midnight. So Melanie, Lindsey and I went down there to shop for what we thought would be a couple of hours. We left the house at 11pm and got home at...8am!!!!! We were crazy by the time we got home. Laughing like silly girls at everything. We were able to lay down for 1 hour before everyone woke up. I think that made me feel worse. But we don't regret it at all. We got some great deals and had a really good time!

That night we had Taylor Thanksgiving. My dad cooked the turkey and Aunt Jerri and MawMaw made everything else. It was WONDERFUL! It was so good to be with everyone. Jenna and Bella became best buds over the weekend.

Melanie bought Jenna and Bella matching Christmas dresses. We had a little photo shoot. Aren't they gorgeous?

And I bought my kids their Christmas outfits and we had another photo shoot. It is so hard to get them to both smile at the same time! But we got some good ones.

I have to say that the holidays are going to be very hard for me this year. Thanksgiving was a hard day for Matt and I but I think Christmas will be even worse. We are trying to keep our heads up and think about this time next year. We will all be back together again! We miss you Matt!