Look At These CURLS!!!

Can you see the ringlets?! She's got a bit of an '80s do in the front in this pic :). If anyone has helpful hints on curly hair I could use them :). Here's a new picture of my sweet nephew, Isaac.

And his handsome big brother!!

Isaac Matthew Norris

My sister-in-law and little brother had their baby today!!! Everything went great and he's a beautiful and healthy little boy!! He weighed 6 lb 8 oz. He was a couple of weeks early. I LOVE this one :).Lynn, Colin, and Isaac. Three generations. My dad, Matt, and Isaac

Hanging With Taylor Swift and Other Fun Things...

Ok, so we didn't exactly hang out with Taylor Swift but we did get to meet her at a pizza restaurant in Nashville! I went on a girl trip/conference a few weeks ago. As we were pulling in to our hotel (The Hutton) the driver pointed to some condos across the road and said that Taylor Swift lived there. When we went to dinner that night Loddie jokingly asked the waitress if Taylor ever came in. She pointed to a table across the room and said, "Yeah, she's sitting over there." Some other people asked her for a picture as she was leaving so we decided to join in!!

This is her and my friend Emily. For some reason this picture is really small! It's me, her, and my friend Kim.I'm going back to New Years with these!! Harrison and Lydia played on the laptop as we hid from the tornado! I remember hearing a storm outside and turned the TV on to check on it so that I could go back to sleep and not worry. There were tornado warnings and they were talking about Goshen. I woke Jared up and as I turned my cell phone on it started going off with texts that were checking on us. We decided to get the kids up and put them in the pantry. Zane was at a friend's house :(. We actually had some friends in Siloam that lost their house. Very scary stuff!!

After the storm passed we let the kids get in bed with us. Surprisingly, we all fell back asleep! That night, we went to dinner. They boys dressed up in their beautiful Christmas sweaters. The BEST (best) part, is that Aaron (second from the left) got there 15 minutes before anyone else. They said that everyone kept glancing at him as they sat down :)!!

Lydia's FIRST ponytail!!! It won't work when it's dry but we are getting there!!

Harrison and Lucy hanging out in her cage. Snow days make you a little crazy :).

Harrison enjoyed holding Mackenzie (Holt) and giving her a bottle. ALMOST made me think that it would be fun to have another one. Almost...

Lydia really enjoyed having the animals inside during all of the snow. I'm not sure that Coconut was as amused! She was a good sport though. She is the most patient cat I have ever seen!

Lucy was eating the cat's food while getting a personal concert from Lydia. Priceless!

Yes, Lydia wore her "warm" pajamas (as she calls them) for about two weeks straight!! She loves them more than anything so why not?!

Final Sledding Post...Hopefully!!

I love snow and cold weather as much if not more than the next person, but I REALLY hope that these are the last snowy pictures that I take this winter. We went sledding a couple of more times. Jared called one of our neighbors and asked if we could sled on his hill. I didn't know that we would be dodging cows :)! They ran away from us at first. Then crossed our path a couple of times and decided to leave us alone. Interesting creatures!

Lyddie's little face got really cold so she used Jared's cover. She will sit and eat snow and push you down the hill all day long, but doesn't love to sled. Maybe next year!Lydia and Miss Hayden. These girls just love each other :)!! These pics are from the "big snow" that we just had. The Holt's and Loddie came over and went sledding with us. I didn't think that it would be very fun since the snow was so deep. Jared made us a track and it was AWESOME! The adults way outlasted all of the kids. We went in only once the sun went down and we couldn't feel our feet :). GOOD TIMES!!ZANE!! I feel like I don't have very many pictures of him on here!! The other two are just easier to corner :).

Once the track was established, some of the kids would sit and throw snowballs (really hard) at the people sledding. It was so powdery that I couldn't make a snowball. I don't know how they did it but it felt like rocks :).

Hayden was getting tired! Jared carried her AND the two sleds back up the hill :).

First Day of Sledding!

I'm going to try and get caught up on our sledding pictures. I took a lot more pics with the first first snow because you just never know if you will get another one worth sledding on. Little did we know at the time, we would have SEVERAL more :)!!!

Lydia and Hayden getting ready to go out. The Holts lived in Vermont last year while Jason did a Pain fellowship. They gave us Hayden's clothes that she'd outgrown. Lydia had some pretty great stuff!!! Lydia didn't love sledding as much as eating snow and spraying colored water. She stayed out the whole two hours! I love how Harrison isn't wearing a coat or snow pants. Just a snowy scarf!!I can't wait to take this boy to the slopes.

The Holt Family minus Mackenzie . She was inside sleeping (Zane was listening for her!!).

I LOVE Kim. She was about three weeks past her C-Section but couldn't resist!! I actually caught her mid fall :).

The hill in our backyard is pretty decent.

Is it a sled...or a gun?!

The only problem with our hill is that it turns and goes down a more...uncleared path.

Occasionally you run into a little tree :). You are going slow enough that it doesn't hurt (as long as you don't get poked in the eye with a twig).

Lucy LOVES the snow. She ran until she was exhausted!

It's All Fun and Games Until You Get STUCK!!

I may have topped my "All Time Dumb Things That I've Done As A Mom" list. I'm usually pretty paranoid about driving on snow and ice (and like to be prepared if we do go out). Last week Jared got some chains for the jeep and it was a MONSTER! We went to dinner in Fayetteville and then went and stayed the night in Rogers just to stay out of the house :)! His parents kept the kids so we were all happy. Today, he was going to go drive down the road and see what the roads were like. Initially, we were going to just stay in the neighborhood. I had on a tshirt and fleece and Lydia was in her warm pjs and snow boots (NO COAT, go ahead and call child services). Neither of us had gloves. Harrison had his coat and gloves thankfully! Oh yeah, we also forgot our CELL PHONES. The jeep did great so we toodled down Wyman. We went on to Hwy. 45 for a minute and then turned around to head home. When we got to the neighborhood we decided to go past it a little ways before going back home. The jeep never struggled at all. Sooooo, Jared started being a little silly with it and the kids were laughing and having fun. Then, we slid into a ditch. No worries, he JUST got a winch last weekend. That didn't work either. I took the kids and we walked home while he contemplated what to do. I threw a jacket over Lydia to protect her face and carried her and H man walked and cried. He kept blaming himself saying that he shouldn't have told Dad to do it :(. I couldn't feel my hands by the halfway point. Our neighborhood is just past the Fayetteville line so thankfully the road had been plowed earlier. There was snow on it but at least it wasn't 17" deep until just before our neighborhood. The road to our house was the hardest part. We were walking in a tire track to stay out of the deep snow and it was SOOO COLD. I got home and called a neighbor. Jared had just gotten home to get some tools when another neighbor saw him and took him back. They finally dug all of the snow out and pulled it with one of the trucks. Needless to say, we stayed in for the rest of the day. Maybe we'll get out and play tomorrow!!
The kids laughing right before we got stuck!This is what our backyard looked like when we went out this morning. More snow fell after this picture!

When Harrison tried to stand back up she jumped up and kncoked him over. She loved having a buddy out there!

L&L=BFF

I know that I've talked about how tight Lyddie and Lucy are. They are just a match made to be together! If we let Lucy in and she's really excited, she'll jump up on us so that we'll pet her or get feisty and a little ornery. With Lydia, she's always calm and sweet. I never imagined loving this silly dog like I do!! She makes a great pillow.To think that Lydia used to climb on the barstool because she was terrified of Lucy!!BFF!

On this day, Lucy was STARVING! Lydia let her inside to play and to feed her. She fed her with a spoon and Lucy was SO patient. I love the look on her face. Waiting...