Tuesday, December 30, 2008

All I want for Christmas is a Garbage Man!



If you know my Casey then you know that he is OBSESSED with trash trucks and garbage men. He saw a huge trash truck from Tonka at Sams Club back in Novemeber and ever since then that is all he talks about. The number one thing on his Christmas list was the garbage truck. He would tell me that if he could only have one thing it would be the garbage truck. Well good ole Santa came through! He was so excited to see it there under the fireplace. You see Grandmas house has two fireplaces and Santa left his gifts by the fireplace in the kitchen. The other gifts were in the living room by the other fireplace. When I asked Casey if he was happy, the only thing he said was "Where is the airplane I asked for?" Man I thought Santa had done good...Thank goodness Mommy and Daddy had the airplane covered. LOL!

Monday, December 29, 2008

New Christmas PJ's



Well we have survived yet another Christmas. This year we traveled to my mother's house in Mississippi. It is harder to be away at Christmas, especially when it comes to packing up the car and trying to fit everything in. The kids had a great Christmas. Every year my mother makes them pajamas to wear on Christmas Eve. This years batch were my favorite yet.
After attending Christmas Eve mass (where we were literally sitting on top of one another in the pew)LOL! We came home and had a great dinner with one of my parents friends. The kiddos didnt get to bed until after 10pm Christmas eve. Needless to say, Santa didnt get to bed before midnight. I have more stories to tell and photos so I will leave you with this story today and more for tomorrow.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Oh it never stops in this household


that is the bickering and fighting between Emily and Casey. Casey even got a note from Santa (via Timmy the elf on the shelf)telling him that he was being a bad boy. It seems like Casey and his sister are just in that "week before Christmas lets bug the crap out of Mommy and Daddy" mood. I never had a sibling when I was growing up so this is all new to me. Chris tells me that it is normal but I cant see how the tormenting and fighting is normal between these two. Hopefully once Christmas is over and the holidays have come and gone, then things will get better. Until then, my hair is getting grey just listening to these two. LOL!

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

This time of year I miss this alot...



SNOW! Even though I am hesitant about moving to Utah, I am very excited about seeing snow again. I never thought when I was walking across the mall at UMO, freezing my butt off, trying to get to an 8am class that I would say that I miss Snow and the cold weather. LOL! I just hope that we havent been in the south for so long that our blood has thinned. I can only imagine what Casey will think of the white stuff.
Emily and I were talking on the way to school and she said that she has come up with some important rules for Snow and that she will teach them to Casey. The number one rules was NEVER EAT YELLOW SNOW! LOL!! She is such a funny kid and comes up with some great things on her own.
I will leave you with these amazing photos that my Aunt Paula's friend, Pat took last New Years in Maine. I have these framed and hung in our home so we have a little piece of home with us.

Monday, December 15, 2008

His Favorite new thing


A few Christmas things have started to arrive at our house already. The kids opened some boxes from my dad. I was thinking they were going to be wrapped so I let them open the boxes. The gifts werent wrapped so they got there gifts right then and there. As you can see they both got "headlights" from LLBean. Casey Loves this thing. He marched around the living room telling me that this is just what I wanted for Christmas and that it was PERFECT! The light is harmless and doesnt make any noise but the one draw back is that it is BRIGHT!! It has LED lights in it and when Casey shines it at you, Watch out! You could go blind looking at that darn thing. Last night, (by chance) we realized that it can blink too. He looks like a little coal miner with this contraption on his head. So thanks Grampy Bryce for not sending a loud toy but we all may go blind before New Years. LOL!!

Thursday, December 11, 2008

We have a visitor



IT seems that we have a visitor from the northpole in our house. He arrived in the mail the day before Thanksgiving and has been here since. He is an elf on the shelf. If you havent heard of this before, it is quite a cute idea. It is a little elf and a book. It seems that the elf was sent here from Santa to watch Casey. Everynight he flies back to the North Pole to tell Santa how good or how bad Casey was that day. The next morning he returns in a different place in the house. He has rules too. He cant be touched and he doesnt talk. You can talk to him and tell him things to tell Santa. When he first arrived we had to name him so Casey chose the name Timmy. For some of you that already know, Timmy is the name of his buddy who happens to be one of my friend's husband. They have quite a bond and he loves him to pieces.
Well back to the elf Timmy. He has shown up in some unusual places. The kids love trying to find him every morning before Emily leaves for school. Of course, Emily knows that it is me that is moving him and always tries to get out of me where he is but I dont budge. One morning he was hanging upside down from the ceiling fan in the living room. Another morning he was on a shelf in Casey's room. Yesterday he was in the bathroom. Which Casey didnt like because he didnt want Timmy watching him when he did his business. LOL! This morning he is in our Christmas tree.
This is such a cute little tradition to start with your kids if you havent already. I thank my aunt Popo who sent this to Casey and Emily.

Monday, December 8, 2008

I Have been a busy little bee....


I have been crafting lately. I think it take my mind off of all that I have to do with the move and the holidays. Today I finished my cookie sheet calendar. I have been wanting to do one of these for a couple of years now and had never gotten around to making one. I found a really cute one on pink paislee's blog and pretty much followed the directions but I chose to do mine in Making Memories Fa La La line. I wont say that it was a quick project because I have been working on it a little bit here and a little bit there. I finally pushed myself to finish it today. I am happy with how it turned out and now I can mark that off of my things to do list. I guess I better scrap some of my photos for the mini sketch course I am taking right now.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Boy has he grown


My brother was just two weeks old when Chris and I were married so there is quite an age difference between us two. As he has grown I have enjoyed our time together more and more. Just this Thanksgiving, Chris and I got to double date with him and his girlfriend. It was quite amazing to me to see what a nice young man he has turned into. He is such a great uncle to my kids. Emily loves to go into his room and rock out to the music on Uncle Ryan's computer. Casey just loves hanging out with him. I think Ryan is concerned that Casey wont learn sports because Chris is more of a fix it guy, car lover than a jock type. I will have to instill a love of sports.
So back to the photo. This was taken last night at his friends house. The girl in the photo is his good friend Kate who took him under her wing when they moved up to Mississippi. His girlfriend met him later at the dance. Doesnt he look so CUTE!!

Saturday, December 6, 2008

These are ones that didnt make the cut...





It is that time a year...Christmas card photo time. My friend Kim and I decided to go to Moss Point MS for a little photo shoot. This is the same place that I went with Casey during Halloween. They had the park decorated so nice with loads of pumpkins. Well we werent disappointed with the Christmas decorations either. They were preparing for their boat parade and the park was filled with gingerbread men, candy canes and gifts. We arrived just before sunset so we had to speed along to take photos. It was very cold out there and I had two kids that would not cooperate. Do you think that you can get two kids to look good in one photo? No! I tried so hard but that little Casey will not look at the camera and when he does his eyes are squinting so tight that they look closed. After arriving back home, I downloaded my photos and realized that there wasnt one good one among them. I was so upset. I ended up putting the kiddos in their pajamas and taking a photo under our Christmas tree. It wasnt perfect and it took me a good 30 minutes for Casey to look at the camera and not act goofy. The photo isnt my favorite but it will have to do for this year. I wont post that one since alot of you should receive it in the mail soon but here are some of my other photos from Moss Point. Promise me that you wont laugh : )

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

A Trip to the Firestation





When we went to my mother's house for Thanksgiving, Casey got to go to the Fire Station. His Papa had promised him that he would take him down to the local station so he could meet some real firemen and see a real firetruck. Casey was so excited. He wore his hat from his Halloween costume along with his boots. Grandma had made some candy to give the firemen for Thanksgiving. It was an all men event so I couldnt go along and take pictures (that would just embarass them). So Papa, Uncle Ryan, Uncle Adam, Daddy and Casey went off in Papa's truck for their adventure. Daddy came back with some good pictures but not too many (if I had been there we would have gotten at least 10 LOL!) I guess they showed up when the men were eating their Thanksgiving meal. There were firemen, policemen and paramedics. Chris told me that Casey's eyes got as big as saucers when they took him to the truck. He was very scared and shaking but overcame it with coaxing from Daddy and the firemen. What a treat it was to be able to sit in a firetruck and meet all the firefighters!

Monday, December 1, 2008

Fully Bellies!!





We got back from visiting my parents on Saturday night. It was a quick little trip, going up on Thursday morning and returning Saturday evening. When we got to their house, we were greated by all kinds of good things to eat and lots of work to do in the kitchen. Emily loves to help in the kitchen lately. She chopped squash, basted the turkey with grandma's help. Casey even helped too by setting the table. We had a wonderful, relaxing day. The next day we headed to Oxford to do some Christmas shopping. It wasnt the best of times with Casey complaining about wanting to go home and Emily begging to find a Starbucks (she has a new thing for their peppermint hot chocolate). I was very tired once we returned home but I got to go on a date with Hubby. It was our 16th anniversary and we went out to eat and to see a movie. It was nice to have some grown up time for once. LOL! Then it was out shopping again Saturday morning before our trip home. My mother wanted help with decorating her tree so we went to get some ornaments and decorations. Overall, we had a good weekend away. I am going to miss being able to just get in the car and visit my mom in less than 5 hours : (