Who Do You Stand For?

I find this so incredibly awesome. What a testament!

Week in Review

To sum up our Thanksgiving week:

We hung out in Bossier, took long naps, helped pass out 465 Tyler cajun fried turkeys that Matt cooked, had Thanksgiving Day dinner at my parents with them, my grandmother, brother Darrell and sister in law Stephanie, went back to Bossier, shopped Thursday night with a bunch of CRAZY people, Matt got last minute invite to LSU game so he shopped late then got up super early to head to Baton Rouge, put up Christmas decorations, and now we are waiting for Daddy to come back home. What a fun week we've had! So thankful for blessings of family during this time and always.

Eating ice cream(per Gi Gi) at 10 am while " helping" Daddy with the turkeys.

Napping on Thanksgiving day

Playing with Bailey Jack at Sundown, our favorite eatery in Ruston. It's always fun to see people there, especially those who are in from out of town during holidays.

We ate at the Mohawk in Monroe last night, another favorite. We're always eating, aren't we:/!!!!

And good gracious I love seeing Christmas through the eyes of children! The kiddos were SO excited that Podie made it back from the North Pole this year. Silly elf was reading all of their books this morning:).

Hope your Thanksgiving was filled with reasons to be thankful. Thank you Lord for your bountiful blessings upon our family. Have a great weekend!!

Jake's Birthday Party

We had Jake's 5th birthday at Papa Simpson's Farm in Arcadia yesterday. We lucked out with warm weather and had a SUPER great time! We'd been to the farm several times but this was our first birthday party there. Can't say enough about how good it was! A special thank you to my mom who took pictures of the entire party. Thank you, Mom!

The invite

Even Daddy dressed up for our cowboy theme:)!

My sweet man riding the trailer down to the farm

The kids got to hold chicks, goats, feed calves, milk a cow, feed cows and sheep, ride ponies, feed pigs, chase goats, etc. You'd rather not see all those pictures so I narrowed them down to a few.

Feeding the calves

Picking pumpkins out of the pumpkin patch

Landry Grace always with an accessory in her hand.....

Riding the cow train!

Digging for prizes in the corn dig

And Pinterest has me getting creative!

Used slim jims for cow tails, chex mix for chicken feed, got haystacks recipe off internet, and then there were pigs in a blanket

Used oatmeal cream pies and starcrunches for cow patties

Party Table

Found these cute boot cups on Birthday Express for the party favors

Blowing out his candles

What a fun party! Wish I could be longer and tell you what Jake means to our family. He is such a blessing to us all. But in the meantime he is READY for me to take him to the movies! SO I'm off. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Landry Grace's turn

I had to follow up my last post with one about Baby Girl. Landry Grace loves being in the spotlight, just like any 3 year old would. On Thursday she was in her element as her Montessori class sang songs and feasted on Thanksgiving food. She did a great job and loved every minute of us being there!

Singing away.....

With Big D and Big Mama

Our beloved Ms. Cindy

And Ms. April, her teacher

Today we had the day off from school as the local high school football team is playing in Baton Rouge. Due to buses being used and lack of enough substitutes, we got out a day early for Thanksgiving break. Yay!!! When I told mom about having Friday off, she mentioned taking Landry Grace to the Glenwood Village Tearoom in Shreveport(Mom had gotten a coupon off of Groupon so check that out as well) for lunch and tea. Let me just say that Landry Grace LOVED this! Absolutely loved it!! I'd highly recommend this to anyone wanting to do something a little different with your daughter or mom. They strongly suggest having reservations.

With her own princess tea cup and pillow(our waitress was great and played this up a bit)

This is first time I can really tell LG looks a lot like me!

She had her own teapot with Sprite and carefully drank all of it! Love her concentration in this picture. This was such a fun outing.

And since Mandy was working in Shreveport today, she joined us as well.

We are having Jake's birthday party( a few weeks early) Sunday since it's outdoors and we are hoping for warmer weather than the 26 degree weather we had 2 years ago for his and LG's outdoor party! This morning it was 34 degrees...saying some prayers but know it'll be FINE! Have a wonderfully blessed weekend!

All About Jake!

This post is all about my (almost) 5 year old; can't believe I just typed that!!! Didn't we bring him home from the hospital last year just before Christmas? He'd spent 8 days in the NICU(those were the longest days of my life) and now we are getting ready to celebrate 5 years.....OK, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Matt and I spent last weekend in Oxford watching the Tech football team beat Ole Miss. True, they may be having a down year, but a win is a WIN! Especially against an SEC opponent. We had a great time as my brother flew in from Denver and his girlfriend, Mandy, was with us all weekend as well.

Jake stayed with my parents on Friday(LG was with GiGi) and they took him to another swim meet. I wish I could say that the picture below was of him discussing strategy with Big D, but he would not swim that day. Needless to say, he is a little young for the competition level at this point. We aren't going to try any more swim meets for a while. He enjoys practice and we'll keep that up in the meantime! I love that my parents and GiGi are so involved(and able to be) with my children. It's not that way for many as distance separates a lot of families from grandparents. We count our blessings daily with the help we receive from them. We couldn't do much without you!

Last night Jake had a belt test in karate. He is truly enjoying this sport and does pretty well for his age.
With his certificate and white belt with black stripe. He is so observant....in the car on the way home he could tell me the next three colors of belts and the order they were earned.
And today was Jake's Thanksgiving lunch at school. Originally, Jake had requested his Big Mama and Big D to come. My dad had to back out for a game of golf and I stepped in. Jake was a little disappointed! What can I say?
We have been more than pleased with Jake's pre-K center. He has thrived and made some great friends in the meantime. His teachers have commented on the fact that Jake is a leader in the class and on the playground. We are so proud of him and thank God for loaning him to us:)! So many reasons to be thankful during this season.
Landry Grace's feast is tomorrow. It could be interesting! Loving this age and all the laughter that comes with it. May your Thanksgiving feasts be filled with blessings and chuckles!

11.11.11

Today we honor those who have unselfishly given up their time to serve our country. My grandfather, dad, and 2 uncles are also included in this group. Thank you for protecting our freedom. The time, dedication, and sacrifice you make for our country is truly appreciated. God bless our troops!

And how often is it that you celebrate a birthday on 11.11.11? Plus add those numbers together to get my age....pretty cool! My mom posted this picture from my 4th birthday. She had my preschool class over to decorate a birthday cake. Funny we are doing the same kind of party for Landry Grace's 4th in a few weeks. Gotta also love that she sucks the same 2 fingers as I did.
And Happy Birthday to my college roommate and sorority sister, Dani. Have a great weekend!!

Just Busy

Can't we all relate to the fact that life is JUST BUSY right now? And with the holidays just around the corner, there is no slowing down in sight. I had a friend ask me what we were getting the kids for Christmas. Really, we have hardly thought about Christmas and are just taking it one day at a time. So instead of worrying about the future, I'll share with you some of what we've been up to! These photos are once again out of order, but you can enjoy them just the same.

We took the kids to the state fair again this year and they had lots of fun. The weather was perfect and Daddy won them some stuffed animals, which I am totally ready to get rid of. Please let me know if I have any takers...please:). The 4-H section at the fair had some great agriculture lessons so that was fun to partake in. Plus we were able to meet Elsie, the Borden cow. It was a fun trip!

At the fair and ready to ride some rides!

Happiness is!!

One of our babysitters, Miss Maya, came to deliver a "happy" for LG and J on Friday. She also happens to be one of my running partners. She is a senior at RHS and runs cross country/track. Maya is such a great role model for teenagers today. So sweet of her to come by and the kiddos love her!

I thought it'd be a great idea to have a girls' day yesterday to get some errands ran for Jake's upcoming birthday party. Well, this was about the only time she was happy during the trip. LG is not a fan of shopping!

At some friend's house last night, I caught Jake camped out by their dog. Matt knows it's only a matter of time before we get Jake his own, but certainly not this year.

Out of order.....again at the fair.

Digging up vegetables that grow in the ground at the 4-H exhibit. 1 out of 2 looking at the camera ain't bad! :)

And this is a pretty typical look at our life in pictures. One will always be upset about something! Jake was telling me that he was trying his best to smile and LG thought she would add her touch of personality to the picture.

That's all folks!