Christmas, Christmas, and more Christmas

Take a deep breath, cause I've got a whole load of pictures on here. We started off our Christmas week making Christmas cookies with William and Charlie. William is familiar with this rodeo, and loves doing it. It was Charlie's first time. He had fun. For about 2 minutes. Take a bite of cookie, sprinkle on some stuff, spill half of it on the floor, lick fingers. Take a bite of a different cookie, dump out some more sprinkles, spill more, lick more. Repeat.

In the end, these were the "edible" cookies we ended up with. I actually didn't end up having to throw away very many, I was quite impressed.

And of course, William had to eat any leftover icing. Can't waste food, he gets that from me.

Thursday night we did Christmas presents with my family at Janie's house. It is always mass chaos with all the nieces and nephews, but everyone has a ball.

Ardie and Shep, big buddies...

Mary Ellis and William perusing the presents, trying to figure out which ones are theirs.

Sweet Katherine. She and Charlie are a pair, I tell you. Two little Houdinis who are sneaky, rough, and a bowl full of laughs.

Annie Bo and Tollie Boo.

Two peas in a pod :)

This is Jingle, our "Elf on the Shelf." This was the first year he came to our house and OOOOOHHH was he ever a hit! There was a knock on our door the weekend after Thanksgiving, and there was a book on our doorstep about the elf on the shelf. When we came inside to read the book, we discovered Jingle sitting in our den! William had more conversations with this little elf than I could count. I listened in on a few, and they were pretty darn funny. Charlie got a kick out of him, too, and loved finding Jingle's new hiding spot every day. The two days prior to Christmas, Jingle moved around a lot. We think he was making extra trips to the North Pole to give Santa the boys' "good behavior" reports and to build some last minute toys. This was the last hiding spot on Christmas Eve. We'll miss this little guy until next year.

Christmas Eve night MiMi and Grandad came over to eat dinner and open presents. I didn't manage to take many pictures, I was too busy helping the boys open their gifts. The boys got lots of great stuff as always, and we were so glad MiMi and Grandad were able to come over that night. Such a treat to see all the grandparents over the weekend!

And then we had to put out our reindeer food before turning in for the night....

Snuggling in Bubba's bed to all read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas.

It's Christmas morning at last!!!!!!!!!!!! Mom was spending the night at Janie's house, but she wanted to come see the boys open their gifts. I told her to come at 6:30 because we are usually all up then...7:00 at the latest. Don't you know William slept until almost 7:30?? Oh well, we got in a little visit before the chaos began. :)

We had the yummiest lunch ever at Anne's house, and of course, I didn't take a single picture. I ate my weight in food, and I don't regret a single bite. :) What a happy day it was. We are all pooped and so blessed. Hope you all had a merry one, too!

Thanksgiving Weekend

So, we loaded everyone up and made a day trip to Texarkana to eat Thanksgiving lunch. I have to admit that I was a little nervous about it, but my kids ROCKED! They could not have been better. Daddy and I might have been a little insane by the time we got there from listening to the Transformer theme song the whole way, but I'd take that over screaming kids any day of the week! We had a nice lunch at Chris and Lindsey's new house, the kids had fun playing, and then after nap time and some leftovers, we headed to Mt. Ida. (Some of these pics were taken with my phone, so the quality isn't great)...

Shep at 4 months...

Ready for a four wheeler ride!

Reading time with Daddy. I have to say, Charlie is a DADDY'S BOY. I definitely take the back seat when Dad is home. Charlie is attached to him and will completely dis me if I try to get into the mix.

Lovin' the creek

As noted in previous post, William got a BB gun for his birthday. He got lots of practice time while little brothers were napping. He even got to go "deer hunting" one afternoon. I think they lasted about 5 minutes in the stand, but William took it so seriously. He was super bummed that he didn't get a deer, squirrel, or wolf for us to eat for dinner. :) Not sure where the wolf thing came from, but there's always next time....

Love this picture, it is so sweet.

Getting a good picture of all 3 is dang near impossible. William is getting better since he's so grown up ;) but Charlie is a Mexican jumping bean. Trying to keep him still and to keep Shep from falling out of William's arm is no small task! And yes, Charlie ate dirt.

Camping dogs and marshmallows by the campfire. The boys were in heaven.

Shep, aka, sweet baby Shep, Rockstar baby, little angel baby......hanging out and happy as always!

William is 5!!!!

Wow, so my first born is FIVE!!!! I can still remember the day he was born. I was wearing a peachy colored jumpsuit thing, and it was the day before Thanksgiving. We were taking the dogs to Blue Hole to let them run around. I was already in labor, but had dismissed the signs as the end of pregnancy misery. Daddy was smart enough to bring me home and get me in the bathtub to "soothe my pains." Anne called in the midst of it all and told William to get me to the hospital ASAP. I was dilated to an 8 when I got there, and William was born via c-section at 8:44 pm. I will never forget that day as long as I live. One of the four happiest I've had, next to my wedding day and the birth of William's little brothers. Happy birthday to our precious first born, we couldn't be more proud of you!

William's current obsession remains Transformers, so of course we had to make Transformer cookies to take to share with his friends at school....

Twinkies...

We let him open one present the night before his birthday, a Transformer, of course. :)

Where are all my presents, Mom????

My first BB gun

Man, I've got the birthday pose and smile down....

William naturally had to have a transformer cake. They apparently have a huge copyright on all their products, so the cake place isn't allowed to decorate their cakes with Transformers. Daddy William thankfully talked me out of tackling that project myself (best decision I've made in a long time), so I had the cake place decorate in Optimus Prime colors and I put a toy on top to complete it.

Shep, as always, was a rockstar. Quiet little bystander all day, and then he got to have play time with the birthday boy at the end of the day.

Too precious for words. (Charlie was already asleep).

Random picture of the boys helping Daddy bag leaves in the back yard. It lasted all of about 2 minutes, but I thought it was so cute.

Gobble Gobble everybody!!