Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

My tardiness in posting is becoming quite the routine but rather than dwell on that, let me show you how much fun we had over the past few weeks! Instead of rambling on and on I'll let the pictures do most of the talking but I do want to say thank you so much to everyone who sent us these precious Christmas cards. I loved having them displayed this year instead of junking up a part of the counter! Thanks for the idea Amy!

Carter and Cooper sprinkled reindeer dust in our yard Christmas Eve after church to make sure Santa could find our house (and boy did he ever find it)! I didn't make it home from work in time for church but we won't dwell on that!

Not the best but I still wanted one of me and my fellas minus one on Christmas Eve.
Momentary calm as he and Carter were in rare form Christmas Eve!
This is definitely a new favorite but I wish it was clearer!


Christmas books with Nunu and Pop, what could be better?
My friend Sarah has already commented on this picture as she loved how my dad used the art easel as a beverage holder:)
Attempting unsuccessfully to get a good family pic!
Silly brothers have so much fun together!

Christmas morning finally came! I came out of our bedroom around 7:40 to go get Carter but I was a tad late...he was walking up the steps with a deer in headlights look and immediately told me that Santa had come and brought all sorts of stuff! Wonder how long he was down there because he was pretty detailed in his description of what he saw downstairs!
Cooper had this look for most of the day! Mouth wide open in awe of all his stuff. He loves his new trains and was totally occupied for the entire day by them!

Sweet Carter reading with his new Tag.
Christmas Day with Daddy.
There's the open mouth look again...this was the only present he actually even tried to open!
We love Aunt Ashley!
Nana helping the boys with the trains.

Cooper, open your eyes buddy!
Pictures with our new point and shoot to test it out.
I wish I could edit out Jamey's foot! Carter loves Coop's toolbelt and accessories. He wears the vest daily as his police vest.

Yay! We made it to the mountains to celebrate a late Christmas and spend New Year's with Brian and Sarah!
Pop and Cooper with his Tag.
What a cute, little family!
Coop's first trip sledding was lots of fun! He had a blast and was all about it, which is very unlike him! Maybe a new favorite pic too...
Or this one.
My wonderful husband in his sledding finest.
The three bigger boys took the toboggan for a long ride and had two Jack Russell's close behind as you can see!
I love that despite flying down a hill on a sled, Carter is still looking at the camera and smiling! He's so my child sometimes!

Staying warm with yaya as Cooper calls her:)
My three boys.
I can't say enough how much I love this one.


New Year's Eve
This is where Cooper would hide when he and Carter played hide and seek. His back wouldn't even touch the bottom rung!

Happy New Year! Sweet Sarah got the boys some New Year's gear that Carter is still wearing!
Sweet boys saying goodnight.

Willie and maybe the first time he's let me hold him for longer than 5 seconds. We won't worry with the fact that he was shaking and that it was 2am- it's a start!

Is Someone Ready For a Big Boy Bed?

I was upstairs cleaning the other day while Carter was at a friend's house playing and just happened to see Cooper walking from his room to Carter's holding every stuffed animal from his crib he could hold, as well as his blanket and paci! He looked like Linus from Charlie Brown with his little blanket dragging behind him. When I walked into Carter's room to see what he was up to, I found him curled up on what will one day be his big boy bed pretending to be asleep. I'm thinking our days of good sleep are numbered as he starts to show more and more interest in Carter's room!

He's telling me to "shh" because he's trying to sleep!

We had our neighbors over lastnight and the kids all loved sweet Heather reading to them. Keelin is sad that she didn't get to turn the page I think in this pic.

These next few are from Carter's school program on his last day - can you tell he's a little proud to have such an audience?!

Mary and Joseph

Carter's preschool had a music program today and then a birthday party for baby Jesus that parents were invited to attend! While Carter was eating his yummy birthday cake, he told me, "Mary and Joses (that's what Joseph is in Carter's world) sure did make baby Jesus a good birthday cake!" Trying not to laugh was about the hardest thing I've ever done but it was too cute not to share!

Also, if you have young kids that still believe in Santa this might be the coolest website ever. I've only made Carter a video so far but I'm headed to make Cooper's right now! Here is Carter's to check out but make one for your little ones too! Thanks to my friend Amy for sharing.

I'm not sure why this isn't showing up as a link but copy and paste it in your browser to see Carter's video from Santa.

www.portablenorthpole.tv/watch/033b53551bd52d745758d8e3698fde5d

Christmas Time Is Here!

We spent my last full weekend off until mid-January by filling it with more things to do than I ever thought possible in such a short amount of time! We started out by going to Pullen Park on Friday night to see Santa and ride the train. It was only 30 degrees here so we bundled up as much as possible but still managed to come home with frostbitten hands (at least that's what I call them)! Cooper refused to wear his gloves and would pull them off if we forced them on so by the time we were on our last ride, the carousel, he was crying his little eyes out and pointing to his hands saying Boo Boo's. They were swollen and blanching but seemed much better after we soaked them in warm water at home. He would have nothing to do with Santa but enjoyed everything else as much as you can in the freezing cold!

Saturday Carter and I went to the Christmas Pageant rehearsal at our church and then we went to the Carolina basketball game that night. The boys fortunately do really well - I think popcorn, singing the alma mater, hearing "Jump Around", and going down to the practice court for more snacks are the highlight of their night but they watch some of the game too on occasion!

Sunday meant church in the morning and then the Christmas Pageant and church Christmas Party in the afternoon! We were busy but had the cutest shepherd around yesterday! I had the lucky job of being a shepherd wrangler, which just meant trying to keep 30 plus little boys calm and happy before their big entrance. Having been around so many little boys I must say that I take for granted how well behaved ours actually are...some of those boys were just flat out bad!

Now here a million out of order pictures! They had professional photographers at the park but the slips of paper they gave us to retrieve our pictures were all not us except this one so I'll add the right ones once they sort it out.
These were last weekend decorating our tree - Carter felt so important to be decorating and I can now say the front, lower portion of our tree has an ornament on every square inch of it thanks to him!


Cooper came down after his nap and wasn't sure what to make of the tree as you can see.







Can you tell Cooper was a little cold?





Warming up by the fire once we were back home - we never turn the gas logs on so this was a real treat for Carter!


Wouldn't you know Carter would be right in the middle of the angels instead of hanging out with the boys!

Carter is the shepherd on the right if you can't tell.

Not sure where he is in this one...
It looks like the people are on fire for some reason but I wanted to show you how pretty our church is!