Shadow and Rosco

We have two new additions to our family....we adopted wto kittens for Christmas and they finally came home today. Shadow and Rosco are cute brothers who are enjoying their new home. They are already enjoying lots of love, playtime, and cat naps. We already love and adore theses sweet kittens and look forward to making many memories with them!

Snow Mountain

This week while Renee and Angela were in town we took a trip to Stone Mountain and enjoyed a day in the snow at Snow Mountain. It was a fun day of sledding, tubing, building snowmen, eating smores, and playing in the snow. Thanks MomMom!

A Very Merry Christmas

What a wonderful holiday we have had so far! Our Christmas spent in North Carolina this year ended up being a great time filled with many fun memories. Santa even had our temporary address while we were away! It had been a while since my brother, mom and grandmother had spent Christmas together, and now that we have family's of our own it was special to have this family gathering. We enjoyed rest and relaxation, movie watching, eating, playing in the snow, reminiscing and some teasing and laughter. Wish we could have more times like these!

Our Christmas continued as soon as we got back in town. MomMom and Angela arrived in Georgia just as we did, and the surprises kept on coming. The kids were pleased with the gifts they had already received, but were even more excited by some of the gifts that were waiting for them from the rest of the family. Madison got the guitar she had been wanting, Hudson got his first bike and thinks he's Buzz Lightyear, our family got a wii, and we are all excited about the new additions to our family....we are adopting two kittens that will be coming home on Friday....we can't wait!

We have so much to be thankful for this holiday season...despite all the gifts. We are all healthy, extremely blessed, full of love and joy, surrounded by family near and far, and we have a savior who loves us! It can't get much better then this.

Take a minute to count your blessings and remember where they came from!

Merry Christmas!

An Unexpected Guest

We are up in North Carolina spending Christmas with some family. Because this is our first year that we are away from home, Madison wondered if Santa was going to know where we were. Last night before dinner we heard the doorbell ring so we sent Madison to answer the door. To our surprise Santa was at the door with his sack full of presents! I wish you could have seen Madison's face as she yelled out, "Santa....its Santa.....Santa's here!" It was priceless. All the kids (and grown-ups) enjoyed visiting and taking pictures with Santa. Hopefully, he'll come back tonight!
Merry Christmas Eve!

The Nutcracker

This weekend was Madison's first time performing in the Nutcracker with The Carrollton Academy of Dance. They spent many months preparing for their first full production of the show. Madison performed in the marzipan dance and was chosen from her class to be in a special scene of the presentation of the court. Party Parents were needed to perform in the first act, so I gladly volunteered. It has been a long time since I have been on stage, so it was a lot of fun to be a part of a production again. It was even more fun to share that experience with Madison and be behind the scene with her the entire time. Hudson and Brian got to enjoy the show. He was a little scared of the rat king and wasn't too sure why I was up on stage. I think he liked it though because as soon as he got home he put on his brittish soldier pj's on and pretended to be the nutcracker.

Madison really enjoyed the experience and did a great job. Her favorite part was being in the extra dance and spending time with the older company girls.

Way to go Madison!

Frosty Festival

This weekend Hudson performed in his first gymnastics exhibition. He demonstrated his skills on the floor, balance beam, trampoline and bars. He had a great time flipping and jumping around and even received his first gold medal!! Good thing he didn't notice that the medal had a girl gymnast on it.....they don't have many boy gymnasts here in Carrollton. Maybe one day!

Great Job Hudson!

Brian put together a little video of his show. Enjoy!

Holiday Parties

The kids are out of school for the Winter break. To celebrate the season both kids got to enjoy holiday parties at their schools. At Hudson's school they acted out a brief skit of the birth of Jesus. Hudson got to be Joseph. Once they all arrived in the classroom, they put the baby in a manger and all sang Happy Birthday to Baby Jesus. Too cute! Then they had their usual party food and enjoyed a book swap.

At Madison's party they participated in a variety of holiday crafts, had a gift exchange and enjoyed a Mexican themed meal.....yum!

Now the kids are at home until January 4th. We have all already enjoyed sleeping in and staying in our pj's a little bit longer each morning!

Our first snow!!

Since the day we moved up to Georgia, one of the things the kids were most excited about was the chance to see snow for the first time this year. It has been really cold for us native Floridians, and more mornings then not Hudson asks if it is snowing. Sunday after church, we walked out of the building and unexpectedly into snow. It was amazing! Our friends, The Sheets, were visiting us this weekend, so all the kids got to enjoy the excitement together. We all went home, bundled up and played outside in the little snow that we had, then warmed up by the fire. We were already having a great weekend, and this just topped it off!

I have a feeling there will be many more days like this to come! Looks like its time to invest in real winter clothes!

Happy 7th Birthday Madison

Madison turned 7 years old last week. She has had a fun-filled week of events that finished up with her birthday party last night. Her actual birthday was celebrated in Savannah, GA. Both Brian and I attended a conference last week and so we brought the kids along. We went out to dinner at Paula Deen's restaurant with a number of the faculty. After dinner, a special dessert was brought out with a candle on it for Madison and everyone sang Happy Birthday to her. Then we took a walk on the river and one of Brian's colleagues and our new friend, Brent, took Madison into an old fashioned candy store with homemade pralines and fudge and told her she could pick out any one thing she wanted for her birthday. She chose a stick of rock candy and loved it! The next morning was her actual birthday, so we all snuggled in bed and sang Happy Birthday to her...even Hudson sang. Then she opened a few small presents and cards that we brought along with us. She was thrilled to get her first pair of hoop earrings, and excited to get some money and gift certificates. She couldn't wait to go shopping, so I took her to the mall in Savannah and we shopped at Claire's. She picked out some make-up, a pair of fake glasses (don't know why she has been dying for a pair of these), and some jewelry. Then she wanted to save the rest of her money for another shopping trip. That night we headed back home where she had more presents waiting for her. She was happy to get an assortment of clothes and dolls. She still enjoys playing with her big American Girl type dolls and was excited to get a few new friends for Eva, her doll from last year. The next day I brought a treat to her class so she could celebrate her birthday at school. The celebration continued into the weekend with her Glamour Party. This year, Madison decided to have a girl's only party where she could do girly stuff with her friends. So that's what we did! We had 9 friends over to the house for an afternoon of pampering. We transformed the playroom into Madison's Salon with a hair and make-up station. The girls also played a game where they polished their nails and got to make beaded bracelets. I made each of the girls a pillow case dress to wear at the party and take home to enjoy as their party favor. Thankfully I had two friends come with their little girls to help me out. Once we got all the hair and make-up done, we took a few pictures of the girls all dressed up. They ate pizza, opened presents, ate cake and ice cream, and then finished the night by playing freeze dance, Simon says and the telephone game. It was an all out fun girly party. All the girls seemed to have a great time...especially Madison.

Its amazing to watch her grow each year. She is still the same special girl she has always been, but is becoming much more mature. She still has the same interests and likes as last year. Her favorite color is still blue, favorite food is tacos, she loves music and wants to learn to play the guitar and the drums. She is still dancing and doing gymnastics. She is excited to participate in her first Nutcracker performance next month. She continues to excel in school and enjoys going each day. She also enjoys the weekends though because she gets to "sleep in". (Sleeping in to her right now is 8am....I know that will change!) The only new interest she really has is in playing basketball. We have signed her up for a spring team, so we'll see!
We couldn't be more proud of our precious big girl!
Happy Birthday Madison!

Halloween

Our Halloween festivities started on our weekend visit back to Tallahassee. Angela and Aunt Julie joined us for a visit to our favorite Pumpkin Patch. It is the same one that we have been going to since before Madison was even born. The kids jumped in the bounce house, got their face painted and picked out a little pumpkin. Hudson decided on becoming batman and Madison was a princess.


The next event was Hudson's Costume Parade and Halloween Party at his school. He strutted around in his batman costume and enjoyed sharing some yummy treats with his class. Really cute!!

The next fun event was "The Not So Scary Fairy tales". This was a haunted house type play, put on by the arts department of UWG, based on scary characters of common fairy tales. We traveled through the various tales with some new friends and their kids. Their children are more on the shy and reserved side, so our kids seemed extremely outgoing. Both Hudson and Madison really got into the stories and interacted with the actors. Madison could have been one of the actors...she played along perfectly! There were a few scares along the way as well. The scariest and funniest part was at the end of the show. The last room was the Three Little Pigs. The pigs all get away and we are left in the room with the Big Bad Wolf. So to finish the show the wolf says to all the kids, "The three little pigs may have gotten away, but if you don't run away too I am going to EAT YOU ALL UP!"....and he lunges at them. Hudson lost it, let out the most terrifying scream and jumped into my arms. He really thought he was going to get eaten! It was the first time we have truly seen him afraid like that. It was well worth the money!

Most of the counties in our area decided to celebrate Halloween on Saturday instead of Sunday. We prefer it on Halloween, but we didn't have a choice. So we spent Saturday carving our pumpkins. Madison chose Jack the pumpkin head from the movie The Nightmare before Christmas and Hudson chose Batman.....Shocker! The kids scooped out the guts at first and then Hudson decided he didn't like it, so he left it for Madison and Daddy to finish. They did a great job!

That night we decided to leave our neighborhood and go trick-or-treating with some friends in their neighborhood. The only little girl Madison knows in our neighborhood was out of town, so she decided it would be more fun to spend Halloween with friends...and it was! Brent, Joy, Jordan, Jackson and Mia have become good friends of ours. We ate together, went trick-or-treating and then had a bonfire and roasted marshmallows. The kids had a blast and of course got too much candy!

Below is a slide show of more Halloween pictures. Enjoy!

Madison's New Trick

I haven't mentioned this yet, but our nice neighbor has not only given us her kids' old basketball hoop, but she also gave us their old trampoline. We noticed it one day way back toward the end of her backyard. We asked her if she had any plans for it, and she kindly said she would love to for us to take it off her hands. All we had to do was clean off years of pine straw, break it apart and put it back together in our yard. Now the kids have yet another fun thing to do out back! Daddy gets to have fun "coaching" Madison, and she enjoys trying and learning new things. Yesterday she learned how to do a back handspring on the trampoline. She wanted you all to see. Enjoy!

Carrollton Festivals

So far this Fall we have been to two of Carrollton's local festivals. The first one, "Touch-A-Truck", was right up Hudson's alley. The city filled a large parking lot with various kinds of large trucks and automobiles. The kids were allowed to sit on/in and explore the vehicles. They also had the local electric company take the kids sky high in the bucket they use to work on power lines. The kids loved this!! Now every time Hudson sees one he says, "I go up in that truck too!"

Last weekend we went to the Mecca Festival, which was an art show of local artists. The main reason we went was that one of Madison's pieces of artwork was chosen to represent her school in the festival's children's art gallery. She really enjoyed seeing her work displayed. So did we!Way to go Madison!

It Finally Happened!

Madison has been waiting for over a year for this milestone day in her life! Ever since she saw a friend lose a tooth for the first time, she has been fascinated by it and anxiously waiting for the day that she would lose her first tooth! Just the other day, her class made a graph about how many teeth have been lost in her class. Only one other girl and herself had not lost any teeth yet. She is excited that she is not the last one! Each night we have been wiggling this one tooth, and last night it was ready to fall out. When she realized what had happened she immediately started yelling, "I lost my first tooth, I lost my first tooth" and started jumping up and down. She made a few phone calls to brag about the news and then wondered if the tooth fairy would come visit her. She did not want to put the tooth under her pillow though. She made it clear that this tooth was special because it was her first and she did not want the tooth fairy to take it away. Well, the tooth fairy honored her wishes and also left her $5! It was a good morning! She is really starting to grow up now!