Donuts with Dad

Today Sam’s school had Donuts with Dad. Sam is always so excited for days like this. He, once again, matched Daddy in clothes that he was wearing. It is so cute!

This year Sam was much more willing to talk to Lance while he was there and even showed him around his classroom. They made their daddies ties and answered questions about their dads. Sam said Lance is 1000 feet tall and weighs four pounds.

Of course, this little guy needed to get in the pictures too. I know he will be so excited to do this next year!

Family Pictures

Watch out! Two posts in two days. I actually had this post started yesterday and didn’t get a chance to finish it.

I have pictures that I never posted on this blog but wanted them on here for memory sake. These are the pictures I took back in November when shooting for a Christmas card.

These three I loved of each of the kids.

These were close seconds…

And these are a few outtakes…

These are the pictures we ended up using for our Christmas cards. A friend of ours was doing a mini session for a good price to start up her photography business. It was a super cold day but we powered through to get these pictures in this gorgeous location.

This one didn’t make the Christmas card but thought it was cute too.

Grandma Betsy

This has been a busy week! On Tuesday evening Reese’s teacher sent an email out saying that Thursday was the 100th day of school and that the kids could dress up as if they were 100 years old. Because of our busy week I totally ignored and forgot about that email and then got a second email Wednesday night around 5:00 reminding us. Luckily Claire has been staying with us this week and jumped right in to help Reese out.

They found an outfit and came up with a plan. That night after the kids were in bed Claire and I ran to Wal-Mart for some fake glasses and gray hair spray. We couldn’t find gray spray but did find some silver glitter.

Thursday morning Claire was up early to help Reese get ready. It is amazing the things Reese will do for Claire and not me. She got dressed and then it was time to work on her hair. We put it in a low bun, threw some baby powder in, sprayed a little silver glitter spray in it, and she was officially a grandma.

Reese didn’t want to wear a jacket so I gave her a sweater that I have had for at least 15 years. Lance calls it my “Grandma sweater” so it was perfect to keep her warm on the way to school. Reese talked Claire in to taking her out to the bus stop. Claire said that the bus driver laughed and laughed and was calling Reese Betsy.

Reese still looked just as cute when she got off the bus and said she had a fun day. Reese and her teacher, who had a sweater with 15 cats around her neck, got to be on the morning announcements and she was so excited about that. I love that Reese is so confident and willing to go out on a limb even when she is not sure anyone else is going to do the same. She asked me one time (after she was totally dressed and hair done) if every one else was going to be dressed up. I told her I had no idea and she said “oh well”.

Fun Weekend!

We have had a fun and busy weekend so far. Friday was a most exciting day for Sam. He has been working so hard to earn a bunk bed. He had actually earned it before Christmas but we decided to wait just a bit more before ordering the bed. And I am so glad we did. I would have ordered a different bunk bed before Christmas and I am so glad I saw the one we ended up with because I love it so much. Sam was almost as excited as Christmas morning on the morning his bed was to be delivered. I am glad we were in their morning delivery because I don’t know that he could have waited much longer. The truck pulled up right around 9:00 and the boys sat in Sam’s room the whole time watching the guys put it together. Thankfully they were both well behaved and the men were so sweet to let them be nearby. We spent a lot of time in Sam’s room that day. He would ask if I wanted to go sit on his bed. During Hayes’s nap we both layed on the bottom bunk. He watched a show on the ipad and I played on my phone. He could not wait for Reese to get home so she could see it. When Reese finally got home she was so sweet and so excited for Sam. They planned a sleepover together for the evening. Shortly after that Reese went over to Hallie’s to play for a little while.

Once the bed was complete Sam could not wait to climb up the ladder.

Hayes was not far behind him.

Friday night Hallie’s family came over and brought Reese home with them. The dads stayed behind with the kids while the mom’s went to a Jamberry party. Hallie spent the night with us that night and they all had a slumber party in Sam’s room. The girls slept together on the bottom bunk while Sam slept on the top bunk. In the middle of the night Reese ended up going back in to her room to sleep in her bed.

The next morning the kids played for a while.

Reese had a basketball game in the afternoon and Hallie decided to stay with us and go to Reese’s game. Last week Reese’s game was a little rough. Because there are not that many girls in this league through Upwards Reese’s age group ranges from second to sixth grade. Last week every single girl was a head taller than Reese (and her teammates) and had obviously played before. This week there were only two girls on the team that were more than a head taller than her but they were not that good. The only reason they were scoring so much is because no one on Reese’s team was tall enough to block them. This picture below is of Reese getting a basket. What is funny about this picture is that you can’t even see Reese and you can tell the girl in white is so much taller than all of the girls on Reese’s team (in blue). You can barely see Reese’s head in the middle of that group and she doesn’t even come up to this girls shoulder.

Here is a video of her scoring…watch quickly…it is only three seconds long. Reese ended up scoring eight points during the game. They lost by only six points this week.

Here is what was happening on the sidelines. Hallie had Sam in her lap. They really play so well together too. I am pretty sure Sam has a little crush on her. Over the summer Reese was at a camp, I had a doctors appointment and Sam was supposed to be at tennis lessons. I asked Hallie’s mom to take Sam to the lesson so he went over to their house to play before hand.  After the lesson, Sam stayed with Hallie to go to the pool and then he wanted to stay and hang out at her house to play some more. They ended up spending almost the whole day together with out Reese being there. It was too funny but they just love each other as much as the girls love each other.

Last night Sam begged Lance to have a sleep over with him in his bunk beds. Lance obliged and spent the whole night in there. I am not sure how well he fit or slept but he made it all night. I thought for sure he would be back in our bed once Sam went to sleep.

This morning we went to church and now Lance and Reese are off working on her science fair project (so glad it is them and not me…I am so not good at that). There is no school or work tomorrow so hopefully we will have one more fun day together!!

2014 Recap

We are back in the groove of life again after a busy holiday season. I am finally getting around to recapping 2014. Better late than never.

2014 was a great year for us. We were settling in to our new home nicely and life just flowed. It wasn’t always easy but that is what makes it interesting.

JANUARY

The biggest thing to happen in January was Snowmageddon. It was a crazy few days but we survived. The kids are even hoping it happens again!

FEBRUARY

It snowed again! Who would have thought it could have snowed this much two months in a row in Georgia?!?

And quite possibly the most exciting thing to happen all month was Aunt Becky getting engaged!

MARCH

Reese’s school had their Fun Run. She loved it. Make her compete with other people and she is in heaven!

APRIL

Lance built his first wood working project…a dining table for our patio. That definitely gave him an itch to make more and more great pieces for us! He has really enjoyed this hobby.

MAY

We wrapped up a great first school year in our new house with our new neighbors.

JUNE

Reese learned to ride a bike without training wheels.

Lance and I took a trip to Seattle.

JULY

Reese turned 7 and we headed to the beach the same day.

Aunt Becky got MARRIED!!

AUGUST

School was back in session.

SEPTEMBER

We had an awesome time at Disney World.

And were reunited with some of our favorite people after almost two years!

OCTOBER

A fun night with our neighbors with a Chili Cook-off and Trick-or-treating.

NOVEMBER

Hayes turned 2!

Sam turned 5!

And I captured some cute pictures of the kids.

DECEMBER

Christmas!

Christmas Week

Lance took the week of Christmas off of work. He was so excited to get to take Sam to the Marvel Live show at Phillips Arena. They went to the Monday morning show while Reese, Hayes and I ran some last minute Christmas errands.

Lance said that they both really enjoyed the show and I know Sam ate up that special time with Daddy!

We were supposed to have Christmas with Lance’s family on Tuesday but his nephew ended up with the flu so we had to postpone. We did meet his parents for lunch though at our favorite burger place. Other than that Lance has some work stuff to take care of and I made cookies and zucchini bread for our neighbors.

Wednesday was a packed busy day…on purpose. We went to our friends house for lunch that we had cancelled on the Friday before. The kids always play so well together and we rarely see them when we are there. They had these cute little hats waiting on us when we arrived.

After lunch we headed straight to see Big Hero 6. We got there a couple of minutes late but it was perfect that we missed all of the previews. The movie ended just in time for us to head to the 5:00 Christmas eve service at church. I love going to the later service so that when we come out it is dark and we are ready to settle in for the night. We grabbed a pizza on our way home and headed straight in to our basement to watch “The Polar Express”. After the movie was over we ran upstairs to set out our cookies and milk for Santa, touch our elf (since Santa picks him up on Christmas there is no need for him to still have his magic), contact the North Pole on our communicator one more time, and settle in to bed. Hayes cracked us up when he snatched up one of Santa’s cookies to eat for himself.

It took Sam a while to go to sleep. For days he had been climbing in our bed in the morning and asking how many more days til Santa came. He couldn’t contain his excitement that evening. Around 11:30 Reese woke up and asked if Santa had come yet. Since I was still up I told her I hadn’t seen him yet. At 3:30, Sam climbed in to our bed and said he looked and Santa hadn’t come yet. Turns out Santa had come but pushed the sofa back so that he could hide the kids presents under the catwalk so they couldn’t look over and see. We let Sam sleep the rest of the night in our bed and then Reese came in around 6:30. She wasn’t sure if Santa had come yet or not but neither one of them went back to sleep. We kept them in our room until 7:00 when we woke Hayes up and headed down stairs.

Santa saw Hayes play with this doggy at Target one day and decided to get it for him. It was his absolute favorite present and he played with it all morning.

Sam’s favorite present was his Power Ranger Super Megazord he had been asking for.

Reese was happy to get more bands for her Rainbow Loom.

Part of the aftermath…

After presents were opened and hugs of thanks were given, we told the kids we had one more present for them. They put shoes and jackets on and weren’t quite sure why. We didn’t tell them anything, we just walked outside and they saw their new trampoline. This was the reason we had to stay gone all day on Christmas eve. The man who finished my parents basement and his wife set up the trampoline for us during the afternoon so that it was there on Christmas morning for our kids. We were so grateful for them doing that for us!

They were very excited to get it!! They have played on it every day that hasn’t rained.

Around noon we headed out to my parents house to celebrate Christmas with them, my grandma, and Aunt Becky and Uncle Tommy. Not one.single.picture was taken. We had a fun day there though and came home with more fabulous gifts.

Friday morning I ran to Target to get diapers because we only had one left and I came home with tons of discounted Christmas décor. As the day went on I began to feel bad and a whole week after everyone else (and a little cocky that I had beat it) I ended up with the stomach bug. Our house looks like a tornado went through it because I was down for days and nothing had been cleaned up from Christmas! Ugh! I am back in the land of the living now and hoping to have the house organized by the new year!