Courtney turns 19

Where has the time gone?  My little girl turned 19 years old on Christmas day.  Which makes me...OLD!

No one can make me cry.  Make me laugh.  Make me smile.  Or drive me mad like she does.  But one thing is for sure, I love this little girl with all my heart!

 Back when I thought I had swag...

Red Velvet cake balls, with no almond bark, and refrigerated per the birthday girls request

Happy Birthday Courtney Elizabeth!!!  We love you so much!

Christmas - Part 3

Santa came to our house on Christmas night!! 

On Christmas day, we always go to my grandparents house for lunch.  The only time I have ever missed this celebration, is when I was in the hospital with a brand new baby girl.

I love my big family!

 Four generations

 My Mawmaw with three of her four children.  My aunt Linda lives in South Carolina and will be visiting this summer.

 Five of ten grandchildren

 Mawmaw with seven of her seventeen (I think) great grandchildren.  Her first great (Tyler and Britney's) great grandchild is due to arrive in May.  Maybe baby Avery will arrive on her 90th birthday! 

 My people

Merry Christmas!!

Christmas - Part 2

Christmas Eve night is when open all of our presents.  We have always done this since the kids were little.  And then Santa would always come and leave them some presents for Christmas morning and fill the stockings.  I love having all the kids home and together, but this was the first year that did not work out.  Cody had to work and was not able to come.  And I am sure as the kids get older and have their own families, it will be harder to find a time that works for everyone.  Even though we missed Cody, we still had a great time together.

We let our favorite curly headed friend and her sister open their presents first.

The kids are older now and really don't need or want much.  I think they are very fortunate and life is treating them pretty good if they have a hard time of thinking of just one thing that they want.   I found this idea on Pinterest of four presents to give, so that that is what I did for each of the kids from Rod and I:  something they want, something they need, something to wear and something to read.  I think they really enjoyed this theme. And they got a envelope with some green in it too.  That is really what makes them happy.

Something to wear...

Something to read...

Avery gave everyone some shower gel sets.  She must thing we all stink!  Or she has a cool person helping her shop...

Christmas - Part 1

We always go over my moms house on Christmas Eve to celebrate with the Thompson side of the family.  This year there was a new little baby to love on which made it extra fun.  Apparently I was too busy holding baby Ben to get very many pictures because I have very few.  But hey, duty calls.

My brother Rodney and his family.  

I am already anticipating next year when there will be another sweet little baby to love on - Josephina is due to arrive in March to Jon and Pashe!

Youth Christmas Party

The youth Christmas party turned out to mostly be the little kid youth Christmas party.  Most of the older kids were either out of town or had other plans and weren't able to make it.  It still turned out great!  It started by meeting at the church building to all ride together to the parade.  And since they would be driving right by the house, they stopped by to pick Avery and her chaperone up.  This was a big deal to Avery because she is all about riding the "bus."  She wasn't too happy that she had to take her car seat along, but she got over it once she saw the shiny white van pull up with all her friends inside.  Then they stopped by the Huckleberry to pick up more friends.

 It had been raining most of the day, but stopped by late afternoon.  I guess most people thought the parade had been cancelled because it was not very crowded at all. 

The parade didn't seem as long as normal, maybe because it had to be rescheduled from it's original date the first weekend of December, but it still had many pretty floats.

After the parade, we walked across the street to Jaxx to eat.

 Then we headed back to Blossom for cupcakes and cookies.

 The kids had fun with some photo props.

But I think the big kids had the most fun with them

 Rod really enjoyed it.

 Everyone brought a $5 gift to exchange.

Everyone left happy.  Who knew the little ones were such party animals!

Santa and Christmas Parties

We went to visit Santa at Crazy House Western Wear.  And this particular Santa just happened to be Avery and Tralee's Pepaw.  Not sure if Avery realized that Santa sounded familiar or not, but this was the first time she wasn't scared of him.

 We had a potluck at the office and played a game and did an ornament exchange.

  This was the best part of the office Christmas party was the attendance of baby Paisley.  And, I just happened to get to feed her.  She is precious and adorable!! Surely her mom and dad will need a date night soon, and I will get to baby sit!

The PTW gang

Avery had a little party at school with her friends.  They all wore their pj's and Santa came to visit them.

Avery with her sweet teacher, Ms. Twala, and her friends

Happy Anniversary!

Rod and I celebrated our twelfth wedding anniversary on the 14th of December.  What better way to celebrate than with some of our good friends from church.  Plans had already been made for the young adult class to go to Bois D'Arc for a Christmas get together.  That was our first time to ever eat there.  It was a bit pricey, but the atmosphere was awesome!  And of course the company was too.  I didn't get a picture of all of us at the restaurant, but we all had a great time!

Ice Ice Baby

We had a major ice storm hit us on Thursday night.  I was skeptical of the forcast, so boy was I in for a surprise when I woke up Friday morning - to no electricity! And we are all electric - for now anyway.  We will be checking into getting a propane insert for our fireplace in the very near future!

Our one little pear tree that we had in our yard...doesn't look good!

 We drove around the neighborhood and it looked like a war zone!

 The next four pictures are my brothers house.  We went over to help them, but they already had it pretty much cleaned up.  As I am typing this, they still don't have power :(

These two pictures are from the office where I work.  

We met up with some friends Friday afternoon for some pizza, one of the few places open, and then went to see a movie.

We saw Frozen.  Since we were pretty much frozen, it was a good choice to see.  It was a cute movie.  The snowman in the movie was pretty funny.

We were very lucky and our power came back on Friday night.  Not everyone in my neighborhood was that fortunate.  And I still have several friends and family who are still without power today!

So, if anyone reading this needs a warm place to sleep, a hot bath, or a big bowl of soup, please know you are welcome in our home!