White Christmas

I may have dreamed of a white Christmas but I sure didn't dream of a Christmas without power. It really wasn't too bad but we were without power for almost 6 hours Christmas night. It started freezing rain about lunch and the power went off at 4:30. Then it started snowing. We have a generator and Heath had everything ready to hook it up to the pool house and we discovered we had the wrong type of plug on it. :( So, we closed off all the doors to the bedrooms and lit the fireplace and the candles. We played games to pass the time and about 10:30 the electricity came back on.

This is the view from our back door when the lights came back on and it snowed the rest of the night.

From the front door.

The boys passed the time playing on their new tablets they got for Christmas.

And Zeke slept.

This is what we woke up to this morning.

Snowball fight with the neighbors!

Merry Christmas

Well. Santa has come and gone and we have lots of new toys at our house! Austin and Kamden woke up Christmas morning with one last surprise from our elf, Norman. He toliet papered the door opening of their room and the stairs!

Since he went back to the North Pole with Santa, he left them a note. Incase, you're wondering, elves write backward. :)

I don't have any pictures of Santa's gifts because I was videoing. Kamden got a motor scooter. Hopefully, he won't use it to plow down any mailboxes. :) Austin got a metal detector. Thankfully, he didn't get a shovel to go with it or our yard would probably look like an armadillo had got ahold of it.

Waiting by their stacks of presents (or so they thought). This year I didn't put name tags on the gifts but I wrapped each child's gifts in a certain paper. Since none of them had names, they thought I hadn't bought their gifts yet. Christmas morning they seperated them into stacks and then they had to look in the bottom of their stocking to see which pattern of paper was their's.

Heath's boss, Mr. Warren, sent them a Polar Express Train set. He is an avid train lover so he sends them a train set every year.

Opening some presents.

All the presents have been opened...What a mess!

Well, all the presents but one...Mine! I really didn't expect to get anything since we just bought my car in November but Heath surprised me. I had to go on a scavenger hunt for it.

Here are some of my clues:

I finally found it and boy, was I SURPRISED!!! I had NO idea I was getting it. I'd say he did a pretty good job picking it out-I LOVE it!

Norman!

I just thought I'd post some pictures of Norman's latest tricks.

He decided to have a little fun with the dry erase marker and the boy's pictures.

I guess he needed a little sugar.

Pallet party with his friends in his new LSU sleeping bag.

Introducing the WWE Champion; Norman!!!

From one sport to the other; now he's tackling Drew Brees.

Rocking baby Jesus. Norman knows that Jesus is the reason for the season!

Painting

Last night, I had a girl's night out with some of the other H&P wives from Searcy. We went to Little Rock, had dinner and painted. It was a lot of fun even though I'm not a artsy person. You have to realize, I can't even draw a straight line so I about had a stroke when I walked in and saw this sitting on our easels:

I thought our pattern would already drawn out; but our instructor walked us through the drawing (and painting) step by step. And this is my finished product:

I was pleased with it considering this was my first attempt at painting.

Christmas Parade

Saturday night we went to Searcy's Christmas Parade. I have to say it wasn't all that great but it was a beautiful night to be outside. Heath got some pretty good pictures of the Courthouse Square with his phone so I thought I'd share them.

Climbing the lamp post waiting on the parade.

Christmas House

Saturday, we helped at our church's Christmas House. It is an outreach ministry to those in our community that are struggling financially. We offered medical and dental screenings, flu shots, haircuts, coats, underwear, socks, diapers and 40 pound food boxes. We served about 300 families. Heath worked outside loading food boxes into cars. Austin was a children's guide. His job was to take the kids around to the different stations such as the photo room, the craft and movie area or the game area. Kamden and I were adult guides. We took the adults to the stations that they needed to go to. News channel 11 from Little Rock did a story on Christmas House while we were there Saturday. I'm not sure it will work but here's the link to watch the video:


http://www.todaysthv.com/news/story.aspx?storyid=236954

You'll have to copy & paste it. Sorry!

This is our 3rd year to work in this type of ministry and we really enjoy it. Each time, we leave very humbled and thankful for our blessings the Lord has given us.

Guess Who's At Our House?

NORMAN!

Norman, our elf, came back to our house last night! The boys are so excited!! Both of them asked last week when Norman was coming back. So, stay tuned to see what kind of tricks he's got up his sleeve this year.

Geaux Tigers!!

Thanksgiving weekend was kind of quiet around our house this year. We didn't have company and we didn't go anywhere. Thursday morning, Heath and Austin went deer hunting while Kamden and I put up Christmas decorations and watched the Macy's Thanksgiving parade. Thursday night, we surprised the boys with tickets to the LSU-AR football game. So, Friday we spent the day in Fayetteville at the ballgame. Despite the freezing weather, we had a lot of fun and, of course, to make it even better, LSU won!! Now the boys can't wait to go to a game in Death Valley!

Here are some of our pictures from the game. We were at the top in the visitor's section so they aren't that great.

Fun Weekend

The boys and I went to Tulsa to visit Heath over the weekend. While we were there we got to catch up with some of our friends we miss so much. Saturday, Austin went to his first OSU football game with his friend, Luke.

Heath and Kamden spent the day together. They went to Bass Pro Shop and watched Wreck-It Ralph at the theater.

And, I got to spend the day with my friend, Jocelyn shopping. Saturday night we all met at Los Cabos for dinner and spent some time visitng at the Chamberlain's house afterwards.

Me & my friends. We couldn't get all the kiddos still long enought to get a group picture of them :)

Merry Christmas To Me!

I got an early Christmas on Saturday...a new car!! It's a 2013 Toyota Sequoia Platinum edition. It is pearl white with tan leather interior. After driving my Expedition for almost 9 years we decided it was time to upgrade.

I love my new car!

Kamden's School Picture

Kamden's pictures came in last week. So here is his official 1st grade school picture:

Don't you just love that fake smile :)

Austin's school hasn't had theirs taken yet so I'll post his when I get them.

Baseball

Saturday was Austin's last baseball game for the fall season. They played a double header and won both games resulting in their team being UNDEFEATED for the season!! Austin played really well. He hit a homerun and a triple, he pitched good and he made a great diving catch outside of third base line. He got another game ball which makes his third for this season.

The homerun hit!

HOMERUN!!

Kamden spends his time at the ball park by playing in the dirt.

Now that baseball has come to an end, in a few weeks Kamden will be starting basketball.

The Accident

Friday started out as a great day. The boys were out of school, Heath came home early from spending the week in Tulsa and we were all just hanging out. Heath decided to wash my car and I got the golf cart out for Austin to drive around the neighborhood. We were each doing our own thing and then it happened...Kamden had his first motor vehicle accident! He wrecked the golf cart! Austin was watching him out his window of his room and he came to me and said "Momma, Kamden just wrecked the golf cart and knocked down Mr. Brad's mailbox!" By the time I got downstairs, Kamden was in the house almost in tears and scared to death. Thankfully, it didn't hurt him. The golf cart is ok but the mailbox... not so much.

Heath talked to the neighbor and told him we'd pay for it to be fixed. He wasn't upset about it. Last week, his daughter did the same thing to the brick columns at the entrance of our subdivision with her car.

Why was a 6 year old driving the golf cart alone, you ask? Because his father gave him permission! Heath's response was "it was just up our dead end street and I thought you had let him drive it before." Umm, NO! I barely let Austin drive without me and he's 10.

So, chalk that up as a lesson learned. As my Paw Paw Teet always said 'those bought lessons are the best ones".

According to Kamden, "their mailbox should have been in their yard!" LOL

Kamden's Field Trip

Thursday, Kamden had a field trip to the Arkansas Frontier in Quitman, AR. It was a pumpkin patch/pioneer village. They had a good time and it was beautiful weather. While they were there, they got to dig for dinosaur eggs, go on a hayride, learn about the indians, see a one-room schoolhouse, pick a pumpkin and many more things. It was a full day of FUN!

Kamden and the donkey.

They also got to pan for gold nuggets.

Kamden found a quartz crystal in his 'pan'!

Learning about the one-room schoolhouse.

Learning how to milk a cow.

Grinding corn.

Did any of you have these when you were little? These were some of the toys the children had back in the 'old days'.

The boys in the teepee.