Christmas in January

January 2014

Our Christmas celebrations finally came to a close in January with a trip to Fort Worth to celebrate with Nana, Papa and the McCarthy clan.  Nana still had her house beautifully decorated for the season:

 

To allow as much play time as possible, Jack got to open his present first so that he and Lincoln could play with their super-cool new remote controlled cars from Nana and Papa!

Everyone headed outside to watch, including Nana and Charlie - just wait until next year, little man, you'll be running around with everyone else!

Brandi got a great picture of me and little Miss Livi.  This day was my first attempt to put her hair back in a bow.  I've learned quite a bit since then, and I don't think it stayed in very long, but it looks pretty cute in this picture, I think!

Of course, since we were outside, we had to take a few rides in the Jeep.  Being the lucky little lady that she is, Livi got to be chauffered around by the boys.  It won't be very long at all until she will want to be driving herself, but for now, shotgun was acceptable.  Here she is loving her ride with big brother:

And with cousin Lincoln!

Riding off into the sunset...

After the outdoor fun, we headed inside to open the rest of the presents and have dinner.  As always, Kathryn was super-creative and wrote a poem about the presents they gave to everyone.  They gave Tommy and I money for a nice night out, picked out a really cool restaurant, and offered a night of babysitting. Thanks, Nana and Papa!

And with that fun day, Christmas 2014 finally draws to a close.  I can't help but pause to think how fortunate we are to get to celebrate one holiday with so much of our family!  On to 2014...

Welcome 2014!

New Year 2014

On New Years Eve, I always find myself looking two ways at the same time - thinking back to what the past year has brought and looking forward to what lays ahead in the coming year.

Our family continues to grow older.  This year we celebrated a 36th, 35th, 4th and a big first birthday!  I took a leap of faith and left Deloitte after almost 12 years - I love my new job and the extra time I now have to spend with my family.  I'm not sure how I was able to find a job so well suited to me on my first interview, but I'll definitely take it!

Tommy found a new hobby that he absolutely loves, autocross.  I tried it out once with him, but it was a little too nerve-wracking for me.  I'm so glad he has found an activity that he loves.  Now that I have some extra time too, I'm trying to find a little something that I want to do, just for me.  Wish me luck!

Jack continued to love swim lessons and soccer, and even started playing indoor soccer.  He started to learn how to write his name and other words and is great at coloring.  Ninja Turtles replaced Super Heroes as the absolute coolest!

When you are just one year old, a year is a big portion of your life.  In 2013, Livi learned how to walk and talk (a lot!).  She wants to do everything her brother does, but definitely has her own very independent personality.  She loves Bubble Guppies, Disney Princesses and Elmo (as do most 18-month-olds).

We took a trip to Las Vegas with friends, and visited family in Louisiana, Tennessee and North Carolina.  We welcomed cousin Charlie to the family and had lots of fun times with the McCarthy cousins and Nana and Papa in Fort Worth.

We didn't have any big celebrations on New Years Eve, but we enjoyed our quiet night at home.  As I'm looking at the kids plates in these pictures, I'm a little embarrassed - I guess they had bean burritos for dinner.  We did buy some sparkling apple cider for them to celebrate with us. I'm not sure either of the kids had tried a carbonated beverage before.  As you can see, Jack was a fan:

Livi on the other hand, was not as impressed. The picture isn't great, but you can see the look of shock on her face when she took her first drink.  She switched back to her milk immediately!

 

Cheers! 

 

When the kids went to bed, we made our New Year's Eve dinner.  We usually like to try something different that we don't normally eat.  This year, Tommy made these yummy lobster rolls.  They may not look that fancy, but they were delicious!

 

And I made homemade oatmeal crème pies.  They were time consuming, but really delicious - and tasted just as good out of the refrigerator a few days later.  Which is good, because the recipe made A LOT!

No, this isn't sparkling cider, we actually broke out the real champagne for us - and even managed to make until midnight to ring in 2014 - yay for us old people! :) 

Happy 2014!  As I write this blog, we're over half way into the year already, and I can tell you its been great so far.  Stay tuned!

Merry Christmas from Jackson, Tennessee!

December 2013

From Louisiana, we headed to Jackson, Tennessee to spend Christmas with Grandma Rose and my Uncle Roy, Aunt Beth and their family.  We arrived the day before Christmas Eve and had a wonderful dinner at Uncle Roy and Aunt Beth's house.  This was the first time for us to visit Jackson since Grandma moved out of her house to Jackson Oaks and it was a little strange to arrive in Jackson and not pull in to 49 Bayberry Drive (for the first time in my life), but Uncle Roy and Aunt Beth are fabulous hosts and made us feel right at home.

On Christmas Eve, after eating breakfast at the hotel, we headed back to Uncle Roy's house.  Jack was excited to see that Betsy managed to find him all the way in Tennessee, and had settled in next to her elf friends on top of the cookbook shelf:.

Later in the day, we headed over to Jackson Oaks to check out Grandma's new place.  She has a really cute little apartment with a living room, bedroom and kitchen.

If she wants to leave her room, they serve 3 meals a day in the cafeteria and have all kids of activities to participate in.  While we were there, there was a group singing Christmas Carols in one of the common rooms.  We wandered the halls and saw Granddaddy's picture on the wall of veterans.  Jack and Olivia particularly loved the talking Santa: 

We headed back to the Heatherly casa for Christmas Eve dinner (and at least 5 different kids of cheese dips or spreads) and Jack received a very special phone call.  Santa called to tell Jack he knew where he was and to be sure he knew what Jack wanted for Christmas.  The answer was the same - a ship, Dojo Raphael and a Ninja Turtle car.  It was so cute!

We gave the kids baths and changed them into their matching reindeer Christmas PJs and tried to take some adorable photos in front of the Christmas tree.  Between my and my Mom's phone and Dad's camera, we probably have at least 50 shots of them standing in front of the tree.  Most are blurry of at least one kid, but these are the best of the lot:

Sweet siblings!

...with mom, too!

And this is what an 18-month-old looks like when she's had enough of the photo session!

Since Santa told us he would be leaving our presents at the Heatherly's house, we left his cookies and milk (and strawberries for Rudolph):

We headed back to the hotel to get some sleep while Santa made his rounds, but no Christmas Eve would be complete without "The Night Before Christmas," and no one tells it better than Grandma:

While Grandma read one more book to Jack (a book about Santa and the Super Hero Squad if I'm not mistaken), Olivia and Grandpa studied "The Night Before Christmas" a little more:

After a good night's sleep everyone woke up, excited to see that Santa had filled our stockings at the hotel as we slept!  Both kids tore into their stockings immediately:

After all of the stocking fun, we got dressed and headed back to the Heatherly's house, where Santa told Jack all of his presents would be delivered.  Fortunately, he did not disappoint!

The cookies, milk and strawberries were gone, and Santa had left Jack and Livi a nice note, "Dear Jack and Olivia - Thank you for the cookies and mile, they were yummy!  Rudolph loved the strawberries!  Merry Christmas!  Love, Santa"

Everyone watched the kids open their presents from Santa:

As requested, Santa brought Jack a Ninja Turtle with a motorcycle and Dojo Raphael:

And a Jake and the Neverland Pirates ship:

Miss Livi got a bubble guppy school and school bus:

And an Ariel doll with matching outfit:

 I think Santa did good!

 

After that, there were other presents to be opened.  Emma and David gave an especially cool present to Aunt Beth and Uncle Roy.  These plaques say, "Only the best dads are promoted to Grandpa" and "Only the best moms are promoted to Grandma!"

Emma and David are expecting their first baby in August.  Congrats guys!!!

Each of the grand kids also received a special present from Grandma Rose.  When she cleaned out her house to get ready to move to Jackson Oaks, she picked out a box of items especially for each one of us. We all opened them on Christmas morning.  Of course, I cried:

Such a thoughtful, special present.  We love you, Grandma Rose!

 

As if that hadn't been enough excitement for one day, Grandma and Grandpa bought Jack a pair of Ninja Turtle roller skates, so he had to try them out:

 

We spent most of the rest of the day just hanging out and playing with our new presents:

Jack loved his Robot Turtle game from Aunt Katy and Uncle Ian:

 

We took some cousin (and sibling) photos(we missed you, Katy!):

And even got a decent family photo:

 

Of course, the kids loved spending time with Great Uncle Roy:

Even under the mistletoe!

We had a wonderful Christmas dinner, and dad made his traditional English Pudding.  This picture must have been right before/after he poured the brandy on it and lit it on fire!

It was wonderful to have some time to visit with my cousins.  They are such amazing, kind, caring, super fun people. Olivia and Jack had so much fun playing with them, too.  I'll close with a series of pictures that may be my favorites of our time there - some goofy I-Phone selfies of Sarah, Emma and Olivia.  Just by looking at their faces in these photos, you can tell how much fun they had together.  I love how Olivia copied all their different facial expressions!

Love you guys all so much!!