Christmas Pictures

This was the picture that we used for our Christmas card. It's quite a job to get a good picture of ALL three kids!! It wasn't perfect but it worked! Especially since it was 9 pm on a Sunday night and the kids were pretty tired. We'd been to church twice and out to eat twice. It's amazing that their clothes were presentable.
I took the next pictures a few weeks ago. I was trying the dress on her and then couldn't resist putting her in front of the tree and taking a few pictures. She's Santa's little helper :)
I wish this picture hadn't turned out blurry. I just love it!

She loved this ball. She rolled it and chased it. If it didn't shed glitter I'd make it a toy. She got really mad when I wouldn't let her LICK the glitter off of it.

"Oooh, I think I hear Daddy and the boys. Gotta go!"

Cookies With Granny

Every year we go make cookies with my Grandma. She is one of the most patient people I know! I know I've posted about this before (probably last year at Christmas!) but she let's them do everything by theirself. They get to mix, measure, pour, cut out, decorate...I'm exhausted just watching them!! I hope that I'm half as patient as her when I'm a grandma! My mom and Jared's mom are also VERY patient so I've got some good examples to follow!

Harrison is teaching Lyddie how to stir. I guess putting on Granny's glasses turned him into the teacher :).

"I LOVE making cookies at Granny's!!!"

She ate bananas and Christmas sprinkles!

Branson

We took the kids to Branson a couple of weeks ago and stayed at our favorite hotel, Chateau on the Lake. We love to go stay at Christmas. Lyddie loves to pretend. She

would act like she was getting lotion and then rub her hands all over her body. She was very serious the whole time like she was really working!! We played games in the hallway while we we waited for Lydia to fall asleep. If anyone needs a stocking stuffer idea the game Blink is SO much fun. It's really fast (less than 2 minutes) and addictive. We went to Silver Dollar City. It was cold but not miserable.

She was so tired after spending the day there. We really had to work at waking her up for dinner. She was like a rag doll!

Thanksgiving

This is the only picture that I got from Jared's Mom and Dad's house!! Zane and my nephew Phillip were eating the turkey right off of the bones. Ok Shell, jump right in there with them :)! These are from my Mom and Dad's house. On the left is my sister-in-law Lynn and my nephew Colin, my aunt Debbie, Granny, and my Mom.
Jared, Zane, and I

Jared and my Mom.

Zane, my nephew Wyatt, and Harrison. They'd been jumping on the trampoline and their hair was wild!!

Go Hogs!!!

We headed to Little Rock after having lunch at my parent's house on Thursday (there will be pics later!) to watch the Hogs play LSU. Lydia stayed with Jared's Mom and Dad. It was nice to get away for a couple of nights with the boys! What a great game!!! Unfortunately, we weren't prepared for the weather. We had thin jackets and no rain gear (I'm usually a weather channel nut so it's a little surprising) so the boys got cold and wet pretty quickly. I took them to the car at halftime and Jared (thankfully) stayed and watched it with a couple of friends. My friend Misty and her little boy Kaleb were with us so we went shopping for a little bit until the game was over. You can imagine how excited the kids were about that!! Oh, and Harrison lost his shoe five minutes into the game so I had to carry him down the bleachers, to the car, into the store...at least my legs got a little workout :). His shoe went under the bleachers and we never found it! These are all taken with my phone so the quality is not great.

This is Zane's shirt.

Harrison watching the LSU players get out of the buses. He didn't yell at them. He just stood there with his thumb down :).


Harrison's shoeless foot.

We had dinner at Purple Cow. H was pretty proud of his picture. He saw that they had them hung on the wall and initially thought he would give it to them to hang up. He changed his mind and folded it up and put it in his pocket. He almost seemed like he was hiding it. I think he thought they might take it from him if they saw it :).

It's Beginning (kind of) To Look A Lot Like Christmas!

On Monday night, we brought all of our Christmas decorations downstairs and attempted to start decorating. This is one of my favorite Christmas traditions of ours. We turn Christmas music on throughout the entire downstairs, put on Christmas hats, and decorate. It really feels like Christmas after that! We didn't get as much done this year so it's still a mess (but it's getting better!) Here's Harrison rockin' out with part of our "peanut" Christmas tree.He brought all of his Webkinz down and set them up around the living room so that they could watch us decorate. I love this view!

Waiting to light the tree. I wasn't sure what Lydia would think.
She liked it!!

She would NOT leave a Christmas hat on. Harrison was really into it this year (he always is). He was working away and realized that we didn't have our hats on yet and started passing them out!!

He decorated everything he could find in the living room.

He set the outside trees up and decorated those and my greenery (and the hearth, chair, and couch). I may have to leave some of his masterpieces up!!

Getting the train ready. This is one of Zane's favorite parts! We've had this train since he was 2 or 3 and living in Little Rock.

Lyddie was "helping" and Zane was cracking up. He's such a great brother (cheesy but true :) ).

You can't end the night without a big ball fight. This has become a favorite bedtime ritual. It really calms them down and sets the mood for sleep :). All three of my boys love it. It gets pretty intense!

On Tuesday, Lyddie helped me get a little more unpacked. She found these plastic mugs and played for a long time. It was funny to watch her concentrate so hard on stacking.

Where's Waldo... I mean Lyddie??? She loved playing in the boxes and checking out all of the new "toys". She played so hard that she fell asleep eating lunch.Literally eating lunch. She was sucking on this cracker as she was falling asleep.

Guessing Game

I went to tell the boys that it was time to go to bed and I found them playing together in Zane's room (without fighting- it was great!) Zane had this putty slime stuff rolled into about 12 balls and they were laid out on his floor. He asked if him and Harrison could finish their game.

Me: What game are you playing?

Zane: It's a guessing game.

Me: What kind of guessing game?

Zane: Harrison has to try to guess which ball my silver tooth is in.

I guess the tooth fairy had dropped it or SOMETHING!! I can't figure out how it got under his bed but that's where he found it!! Gross, I know.

Here are some pictures from the last couple of days. I think that we may've found our lead singer for Rock Band. Harrison helped me make Peanut Butter Pie !

She's learned to check herself out in the mirror. Then she puts all of her things in her "purse" and walks all over the living room.

On Saturday we had waffles and sausage for breakfast. Lyddie actually ate out of the bowl! She normally won't touch it unless it's on her tray.

Harrison was letting his animals eat.

The boys had hot chocolate with their breakfast. They liked to suck the marshmallows up thru the straw.