Christmas at Nana's

We celebrated a fabulous Christmas with Nana and Papaw on Christmas Eve. Jason, Allison, Caleb and Nathan were there to join us, too. The kids had such a gerat time, even though Nana and I ended up buying them the same thing! That was too funny! The good thing was that the kids then had enough Battle Strikers for everyone to play. I think that gift was the hit of the party!

Nathan gave Reese some great instructions on how to play. It's so sweet how patient both boys are with her!



As you can tell from the following video, Katie fixed (or should I say, didn't fix) her own hair for Christmas at Nana's. The kids all have their bare white legs showing because they managed to get in the pond and get all wet. All Nana had for them to wear was shorts and old clothes, so they looked like little orphans!



We had an incredible dinner and a whole day to just hang out and be a family. I love times like these!

A Christmas Visitor

On Monday, December 21, we went and picked up David's brother, Michael, from the airport. He came in for the week to spend Christmas with us. We were so excited! After we picked him up we headed home for one night and then took off for an adventure at Mt. Magazine, the highest point in Arkansas. My buddy, Rhonda, and her fella, Terry, were meeting us there for dinner and just to hang out for the night. They were bringing along Rhonda's daughter, Ashley, to meet Michael, too, so we were really looking forward to the night. Raleigh Jo, my lovely cousin, joined us for the night so that she could keep the kids while we visited.

We got to Mt. Magazine right before dark and got checked in. Rhonda and her bunch arrived shortly after us and we headed to dinner. I was amazed, but I got the BEST steak at the Skycrest Restaurant, which is a part of the Mt. Magazine Lodge where we were staying. We had an enjoyable dinner and then headed up to a little lounge area that was near our rooms. We sat around and snacked on Rhonda's cinnamon pecans and talked our heads off. The night would have been perfect if not for Michael getting sick. Some incredibly bad stomach bug hit him around 10pm and we didn't see him again. Poor fella, he was so sick!

After talking for hours we headed to bed well after midnight. We all had other Christmas things to do the next day, so we were up and out of the lodge by 11am. I loved being able to visit with Rhonda, Terry and Ashley, and with the exception of Michael's stomach bug (which I caught as soon as we got home) it was a great night! Here are a few pictures of the area. It was beautiful!

The Stocking Party!

I have been meaning to post some Christmas stories and pictures for a long time, but with all of the stuff going on I just haven't found time! Here goes!

We started off our Christmas with our annual Stocking Stuffer party. It was loads of fun, but two VERY important people were missing! Alyssa and Chris got to come home for Thanksgiving, but weren't able to make it for Christmas. They were sorely missed! We made some videos for Alyssa which, of course, just made her cry! We wanted her to know how much we missed her, though.









Even though Chris and Alyssa couldn't join us for Christmas, they were in our hearts. The Stocking Stuffer party was a success. We had a houseful of people and lots of good food. We all got some great stuff in our stockings and had a lot of fun.