Things I love about Christmas break

1. Staying up late. I've stayed up past midnight almost every night.

2. Sleeping in. Since the day after Christmas, I've slept until at least 9 am everyday but 3. And I've not gotten out of bed until around 10 on most of those days! Don't judge! It's my guilty pleasure!

3. Extra time with my babies. They are 11,8 and 5. I am aware that they are no longer babies. They will always be MY babies.

4. Cooking a big (late) breakfast for the kids almost every day.

5. Daddy-O got to come home for a long lunch a couple of the days. LOVE that!!

6. Staying in our jammies all day with nowhere to go. We managed this a few days. Heaven for a busy family.

7. Listening to the sounds of extra guitar practicing.

8. Seeing my kids all reading new books and getting into the stories.

9. Cooking big meals for the family almost every night.

10. Laid back. I could have the tendency to turn into a home body if I could... All this chill time is fabulous!

Ahhh-- we need more of these breaks!

Christmas Post #2 in pictures

Christmas Eve morning, we headed to Jason's parents house for a gathering with all of the Walker/Wilkerson clan. Had great food and a great time. My camera battery died and I didn't get a single picture :(

For Christmas Eve night, we went to Russ and Aggie's house for the annual Henley Christmas. I'm kicking myself for not getting a picture of the table! Aggie prepares a 12 dish Polish feast for us each year. It was awesomely delish!!!

I did think to snap a few pics with my phone of the kids.

All 5 kiddos ready to open presents! My niece was wearing one of her cute wigs :)






Hello Kitty!





Ray Lewis jersey!






Hunting game!





Pippa got a present from her grandparents too!






A few pics from Christmas night.

Boys playing the new xbox kinect. Soccer, of course!





Our Christmas night feast.





Yes, that is Mac and cheese, pizza rolls, leftover pizza and chicken patties. On paper plates.

Be jealous, people!

We had eaten so much awesome food the previous 2 days that we just wanted to munch. And we were in super lazy mode, so fast and easy was perfect. :)

We enjoyed every minute of our Christmas weekend!!

Thank you to all of our family for spoiling us! We definitely felt the love all season long!

Christmas Post #1 in Pictures

Kennetts Christmas Eve Eve gathering at our house with Gramma, Grampa and Uncle Jeff. We were excited to see Uncle Jeff for a little bit. We had hoped to spend more time with him while he was home, but strep throat visted us the week leading up to Christmas, so he was wise to stay away from our nasty germs! We were so thankful that God answered our prayers and everyone was well for Christmas!

New ping pong paddles!

His first real gun. Should the look in those eyes scare me??

Bubba.....

An easel that is useful on both sides! Yay!

Reading the Christmas story early on Christmas morning to start our day. After we read and talked about the birth and life of Jesus for a while, Daddy prayed. This is my favorite Christmas tradition. Although the presents are fun, we never want to forget that the reason we celebrate Christmas is Jesus. He is worthy of honor and praise!

Soccer book!

Curious puppy under the tree :)

Snuggie! All my kids got them and they love them!

Dollhouse! More like doll mansion!

Michael Oher jersey and his new Wii hunting game from MeMe and PaPa. And Daddy wearing his new cold weather work gear. Gotta keep my sweetie warm in the nasty cold weather that is coming. I got him some battery heated socks too! :)

Goofy boy in his Wes Welker jersey

A girl and her dog

Sissy loves her Pippa. They have been spending lots if extra time together this Christmas break.

Saying goodnight...



Sleep tight girls!


So sweet!

I might have a future artist living in my house

B got sketch pads and sets of drawing pencils and charcoals from all of his grandparents for Christmas.
This was his second drawing in his book.






He says he doesn't think it's all that great. I'm thinking if the professional soccer plan doesn't work out for him, he could have a future as an artist!

For the record, he sure as heck didn't get this from me. I can't even draw a proper stick figure!

A few of my favorite ornaments

Here is a little tour of my favorite Christmas ornaments.

This picture isn't in focus, but this gold ornament was Our First Christmas ornament. 1996. The white star is one that was made by Jason's late Grandma. She passed away when I was pregnant for Rhett. I have over 50 of these that she made, some snowflakes, some stars, all different shapes and sizes.

 



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These two were made by the boys when they were each in 2nd grade. The pictures don't show the detail very well, but there are tons of sequins, each pushed into the ball by a straight pin. They are so shiny and beautiful!



A new addition to our collection.

Jason gave this ornament to me the same Christmas he gave me my promise ring.



We were given this one as a wedding gift and we put it on our first Christmas tree after we were married. 1999.



This is also a new addition to our collection this year.



I love having my tree up. We are planning to leave it up until next weekend :)



Jingle Bell Rock

Merry Christmas from our little dancin' queen :)

Masks

B made these Picasso inspired African masks for the 5th grade product market. I thought they turned out great!

This is the finished product after they were painted.









We used cardboard shirt boxes for the masks, as well as the nose and also a piece on the back to help them hold their rounded shape. He drew on the facial expressions, then used colored tissue paper to build up the facial features.

This is what they looked like after that step.









There is about 15 man hours involved in the making of them. He is going to sell them for $8 each and is hoping to make a big profit off of them!

I wish he would've had time to make one for me! I love them!!

Overnight Trip to Branson

A couple weekends ago, we headed out of town right after the kids got out of school on Friday and headed to spend the night in Branson.

First stop: We went straight to Silver Dollar City to see the lights!

We always get season passes to SDC, but the last time we made the trip to see the lights was when Gracie was 1. We were WAY overdue for a trip to see all the Christmas beauty!

Here's me and the kiddos. It was pretty cold (below 30 degrees), but we bundled up really well and we were all quite comfortable the whole night.

Waiting to see the Frosty show :)

Gracie rode the carousel.

On Saturday, we had a few hours to hang out in Branson before we had to head back towards home because we needed to be at church before 5pm.

We had a yummy room service breakfast and lounged around the room for a couple hours before checking out and heading to the Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum.

Here's Rhett on a homemade flying contraption.

Braden, the undersea diver.

World's Tallest Man

World's Heaviest Man

Largest ball of twine

We really enjoyed Ripley's and stayed for about 2 hours. We had a couple hours left before we needed to head back home, so we opted to check out the Titanic museum as well.

We weren't allowed to take any pictures in the museum, but it was great! We all really enjoyed it! We spent 2 hours there and it was an environment where the kids needed to be very well behaved and quiet. I was so proud of them! After spending 4 straight hours walking around museums, they were absolutely wonderful. The Titanic museum was very educational and informative and it was a place that Jason and I could've probably spent all day in really looking at and reading every detail, but we needed to head out, so we enjoyed it as much as we could in the time that we had.

We were only away for about 25 hours, but it felt like we were gone much longer than that. We all needed a little getaway and came back refreshed and ready to get back into our normal routine.

Decorating for Christmas

We put up our Christmas decor the weekend after Thanksgiving. I LOVE to have the decor up and have the twinkly lights on all the time. Rhett took all of these pictures of us having fun and putting up our decorations.

Pippa's first Christmas :) She sure is a good girl, letting the kids tote her around all the time!

Work in progress!

I didn't take any photos of the "after", but you can look at last year's post because the main things look the same this year!

Did I mention how much I love Christmas?!

Little Rock Field Trip

At the end of November, I was able to be a chaperone on Braden's class field trip to Little Rock.

We went to the State Capitol and the Clinton Library.

I was so excited to go because I'd never been to either place!

Here's B in front of the Capitol... squinting in the bright sun!

 The Capitol is absolutely beautiful. Loved the rotunda.

 They were beginning to decorate for Christmas, which made it even better!

 Supreme Court

 Me and B on the front steps

 The Clinton Presidential Library

 B in front of President Clinton's Car

 My personal favorite was the exact replica of the Oval office. I wish I could've gone in and just sat and enjoyed it for a long while. It was gorgeous and I loved hearing about some of the more interesting items in the room.

This was B's favorite exhibit. It was a lego exhibit. The artist makes amazing art out of thousands and thousands of legos. It was incredible! This is just one of the many pieces.

The Clinton Library was wonderful. I enjoyed it so much. I could easily spend an entire day there looking over every single thing. I can't wait to go back again someday!

We had a great day! I carpooled down with 5 other moms, of which each of their sons are B's BFFs, so it was especially fun! I had a group of 4 boys to walk around with all day and we had fun. Braden loves to have me around and took care of me all day; making sure I was right there with him and keeping up with them. He even invited me to eat lunch with him and his buddies and gave me his spot on the picnic blanket and sat in the grass instead. What a wonderful young man, if I may say so myself :)

I can't believe this is his last year in Elementary School! I'm glad we are doing lots of fun stuff and enjoying it to the fullest!