Christmas Eve

The whole family--minus Caroline and Rob

Four Generations of Women

Great Grandma, Grandma, and the kids
(not sure about Reid's face........)

My mom and grandma

Everett and his Nai Nai

Favorite

My mom spent almost the whole month of December with us--inbetween trips to the Mayo Clinic and Disney! The kids LOVEd having Nai Nai here that whole time and this is a picture of what they did a lot--"Nai Nai--can you read this to me?"

One of my favorite pictures!

Disney Fun

Ok--I am SO far behind, but I want to do a quick overview of the last couple of months for our blog--so I can remember what happened during this crazy but AWESOME time in our family!

All of us with Mickey

The boys playing at the T-Rex Cafe--digging for bones....

......Reid in the car 10 minutes later after the stomach bug made his first apperance (note the new, bought-at-T-Rex Cafe shirt......yep, he puked all over his other one!)

Meeting the Incredibles!

and Prince Caspian--a new favorite in our family.

We LOVE the Narnia series! E got the price Caspian movie for Christmas and KK and Papa gave us a read aloud copy of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe for Christmas. We read that two chapters a night, out loud as family. Now we are reading Prince Caspian--the boys love it and I am loving the great family time!

5 Months!

This sweet girl got to meet Minnie Mouse on her 5 month birthday!

We are in Disney and having a great time......just wish the stomach bug hadn't come along to see Mickey :(

(she was obsessed with Minnie's HUGE hands!)

What she is loving these days:

- grabbing and then eating her toes

-watching EVERY bite you take while you are eating

-rolling over

-laughing at her personal comedy duo that is ALWAYS willing to perform

-snuggling with her bunny

-"talking" to everyone

-smiling with a huge open mouth smile that we all love!!

We love you baby girl and are so thankful for you!!

Trimming the tree

We put up and decorated our tree right after Thanksgiving, because we are going to be out of town so much we wanted to be able to enjoy it at least a little bit!

My computer is down so I can't edit any of these pics, which is killing me, but here are a couple of shots from the boys decorating the tree. They had a wonderful time! Everett is wearing his jacket, not because it was cold, but because he was keeping some special things in his pocket and he didn't want to lose them. i think it was a rock and three pennies.

The boys showing off their wonderful decorating skills!

Mommy and her boys

Mommy and her baby girl

Rylie and Nai Nai.

Rylie loved the watching the lights and her crazy brothers!

Family Pictures

While we were in Augusta, Matt's parents had someone come and take family pictures. The kids were all cooperative and we managed to get some good ones!

Our family of 5

KK and Rylie

All the boys!

The Whole Family

Thanksgiving 2009

For Thanksgiving this year we headed to Augusta to Matt's parents house. His brother and sister and their families were there also. We had such a great time. The boys loved playing with their cousins-Jackson-5 and Jonathan-3, and we all loved having Scotty (andi's husband) with us for the first time as an "official" family member--he is SO fun!

We ate a lot, played a lot, and had a lot of fun conversations.

Matt with Rylie on her first Thanksgiving. She is wearing her turkey dress that I made her!

Grandma Nellie (matt's grandma) and Rylie.

It is so precious that our kids have 2 great grandmothers that they get to know and spend time with! What a blessing!

Rylie with KK and Papa

Jackson and Everett playing dominos

All the boys with their swords. They played outside SO much while we were there. KK and Papa have a wonderful yard for the boys to have adventures in!

Fun Football Game

We try to take the boys to a football every year for their birthdays. They LOVE going to Athens to watch the Dawgs play, and we love going back to one of our favorite places on earth! We usually go to the Homecoming game--there are lots of fun festivities and it is guaranteed to be an afternoon game. But this year Matt's brother turns the big 4 0 in decmeber and his wife threw a surprise party (so fun and he was SO surprised.....it was 2 months early after all!) the weekend of homecoming, so we went to the Kentucky game. The week before the game i checked the schedule for game time and it said 7:45 p.m.---seriously? That is 30 minutes oast our boys bedtime.......

BUT they did GREAT!

We drove from Atlanta up to Athens--walked around campus a bit, and then ate dinner in downtown Athens. Oh my--I do love downtown Athens. We headed to the game and watched the Dawgs warm up, and the boys made it to the middle of the third quarter! Reid turned me at one point and said "I am ready to go home now. I need to sleep." We knew then that it was time to go!

The boys had such a great time at the game and Rylie had a wonderful time hanging out with Nai Nai!

Go Dawgs!

Field level--the boys loved being so close to the players

At dinner

walking on the railroad tracks to Sanford Stadium

Pirates

The boys had so much fun painting and playing with these pirate masks this weekend. Not so much fun taking the picture........but I promise they love the masks!!

They are "kinda like twins with some stuff different--like the color of the nose and our scars" according to Reid.

4 months

I can not believe our baby girl if four months old already! They grow up so fast--especially the third one!!

Rylie is such a sweet blessing to our family! We are all loving having her around. She is now belly laughing a lot--especially at the boys, and they LOVE to entertain her!

She is still sleeping GREAT and eating wonderfully! She is pretty much always happy and smiling. She has starting rolling over and the boys love to lay down on the floor and "teach" her how to do it. She has found her feet and loves to play with them--and try to get them in her mouth.

We love you baby girl!

Her stats at her four month appointment--

weight-- 12 lbs. 4 oz. 20 %

height--27 in. 90%

we have a skinny string bean on our hands!

Reid's First Day of K-4

And this one started K-4 this September. He absolutely LOVES school, his teacher Mrs. Dampier, and is learning SO much!

Sweet smile! I love this boy and we are SO proud of who he is becoming!

First Day of First Grade

My oldest, sweet boy started First grade this year---what???? I can hardly believe it!

Here is the handsome boy

and his proud Mama

and his brother wishing him well.

About 5 minutes after this picture was taken Reid started asking when his brother was going to be home......it w.as a long day!!

Everett is doing SO well in First grade. We definitely made the right (hard) choice to move him up (he is a year ahead for his age)

Mary and Joseph

Everett has Hero Day at school at halloween time and they can be a hero from the Bible, or a community hero. This year he and Emerson decided to be Mary and Joseph. They were SO cute--although she had a bit of a hard time convincing him to hold the baby! Here are a couple of pictures of the happy couple.

I just love this one!

Funny story--another girl in his class was also Mary and the day before hero day Emerson told Everett that he was going to be "a very busy Joseph the next day"!

Go Braves!!

In August Everett went to his first Braves game. He had such a great time. He started it off right with tickets in a box--and a famous person in the box with us! Mark Lemke came into the box after he finsihed his pregame show. For those of you who don't know, Mark played second base for the Braves in the 90's and went to several World Series with them. He was such a nice guy and talked to Everett about his T-ball games and told him that he once played in Charleston in the minor leagues. Everett got his autograph on his ticket and has it in a special place in his room with the picture of him with Mark. What a special night for him!

Everett and Mark Lemke

Happy Halloween!!

Happy Halloween! We had a great Halloween this year! We went over to some friend's house for dinner-Garrett's house to be specific (Reid's best, inseperable, don't know what we are going to do when they have to move next fall, friend). We then dressed all the kids up and went trick-or-treating. Bonnie and her little girl Ashley joined us, and the 5 (plus Rylie) kids had a GREAT time! Everett was a stormtrooper, Reid was a pirate, and Rylie was a ladybug. It was really fun but it was a bit warm for my liking--isn't it supposed to be a least a little cool and crisp for halloween?? It was 80!

Everett and Reid--thanks Aunt Mari for the costumes!

E, Rylie, and Reid

Our little ladybug

Garrett, E, and Reid

The whole gang!

Ashley, Claire, Garrett, E, and Reid

Corn Maze

Last week we went to the West Corn Maze and had such a great time. There is a pumpkin patch, a LONG corn maze (it was 85 degrees!), and Everett got to paint a pumpkin. Sadly Reid was home with the swine flu, so he missed out, but he is feeling better now, so that is great!

Everett holding his baby sister at the Pumpkin patch. he is such a great big brother!
e on the giant pumpkin


rylie and the giant pumpkin

E, Rylie, and me on the hay ride

We had such a good time, but missed Reid and Daddy!

Rylie and her Greats....

Rylie with her Great grandmas. What a sweet blessing that she gets to know these precious women!

Grandma Nellie (Matt's grandma)

Mimi ( Kadie's garndma)