White Christmas

A white christmas in Texas? Well, it happened! We could'nt believe how much it snowed Christmas eve and the fury with which it did. The snow was swirling around and the wind so crazy that it was actually hard to be outside. Then, we woke up on Christmas morning to a sunny white christmas! It was awesome! I don't know who enjoyed it more because Jackson, Joey and I played like crazy. We sledded down a small hill in our yard, had a snowball fight and a 6'5 Joey made the largest snow angel I had ever seen!

The amount of snow was incredible!

Check out the size of that elf! And when did they start wearing camo??


This was christmas day. Beautiful!

Sledding on a box down the hill.




This was what Jackson liked to do most. Just lay flat on his back in the snow. It was hilarious, because when he wanted up he couldn't because he had so many clothes on. It was just like that kid in a Christmas Story. Too funny!

Stay tuned for more merriment. I will be posting about christmas soon!

He's HOW OLD???!!!

What a birthday party! Here is a picture of both of my boys on their actual birthday, at good old Chucky Cheese. Thats where they wanted to go. Ok, so maybe just the two year old wanted to go and the big kid just went and made the best of it. I sure love these boys and think it is pretty special that they share the same birthday. My hubby turned 30 this year and in honor of that I took him away for some rest and relaxation. We went for a great weekend to South Lake. Not too far away I know, but far enough. My parents were gracious enough to watch Jackson while we went. Can I just say that I LOVE shopping there. It really has amazing shops and restaraunts, not too mention a movie theater and hotel right in the same complex. We ate at a great restaraunt there called Trulucks. Joey even received a complemetary piece of carrot cake the size of his head for his birthday. It was fantastic! He found a few fun things to buy and also got a hair cut and massage. We watched a movie, Did You Hear About The Morgans?, and finished the night with coffee from Starbucks. We had a great time! This is a special happy birthday shout out to the greatest, sweetest, most thoughtful and awesome 30 year old that I know!

Crazy Cool

This is Charles Collins

This is some of his gold records. Impressive huh?!

Whats crazy is this is only a portion of this drummer's accomplishments. He actually has 12 platinum and 15 gold records to his credit. Whats even CRAZIER are the artists he has played with:
Elton John
Aretha Franklin
The Jacksons!!!!
The Temptations
Lou Rawls
and so on and so on.......
He even has some drum heads on his walls signed by all 5 Jacksons, Elton John, and Lou Rawls. So Cool!
Jess and I went to high school with his son and had the honor of taking some professional pictures of him to use for his marketing material for an upcoming promotional event. We had a blast hanging out at his awesome studio and we even got a private concert. Well, ok it was a very mini drum session, but it was AWESOME!

And, finally if you need a really last minute cool christmas gift this is a coffee table book that just came out featuring drummers from all over the world. Charles was featured as one of the 500 drummers.

Thanks Charles for sharing so much of your history and talent with us we had a blast!

12 Days of Christmas (Update) #2

So, as promised, I will continue to reveal the 12 gifts my sweet and thoughtful husband got for me. I have opened 8 gifts already, so I thought it was time for the second update. Now, I must throw in here that he is a GREAT listener, because everything I have received I have told him, usually in passing, that I liked.

5. Sleep shirt from Victoria Secret- these are the best! And my sweet husband remembered this from like 4 months ago when I drug him through the store while we were shopping one day.
6. Lip Gloss- another in passing thing that I mentioned that I wanted.
7. Another sleep shirt from Victoria Secret- Can't have too many!
8. Twilight the movie- and of course this makes sense, since I heart TWILIGHT! Yes, I'm 15 years old and I don't care! But you wanna know something, I'm not Team Jacob, or even Team Edward like all of America...I am
TEAM JOEY!!!!!!
Whose with me?....I thought I would make shirts, maybe have a life-size poster made like they did with Robert Pattinson, so he can "watch you" at night. Side Note: Thats just creepy! I get the whole Twilight craze, cause well, I've jumped on that wagon, but I stop at a large wall decal of a vampire to stare at me at night. Weird!
So, maybe the poster is out, but what about shirts of Joey's mug on it, here, in case you can't visualize it I thought I would help you out. What do you think?






I thought the mustache mullet combo from two halloweens ago could work. What do you think?


I thought we could also do a holiday one as well.

Robert Pattinson watch out!!!!! There is a new guy in town and his name is S..E...X...Y!! Holla!!!

Christmas Party

First of all I must send a quite heartfelt THANK YOU SO MUCH out to Darrell and Stephanie for sooooo many many things that would take like 8 blogs (maybe more) to list, but for now I will just stick with the christmas party. It was such a fun time and we were so happy to be apart. First of all, we got to get all dressed up, which in my world is like every other YEAR. That was so fun. Second, we got to hang out with ADULTS, again for me this is rare. And lastly we met at a fantastic restaraunt with AMAZING food. We hung out at The Silver Fox and had a 4 hour dinner! It doesn't get much better than that. We ate ALOT and laughed ALOT too. What a fun group of people Joey gets to work with! No wonder he loves his job. Anyway, thanks again Stephanie and Darrell for everything, we are so thankful to have you in our lives.


Check out my $4.00 cowboy boots! My mom found them at one of her re-sale shops! I know....my own bargain hunter.

12 Days of Christmas (Update)

In case you all were wondering what I have received for the 12 days of christmas so far this is what it is:

1. A Devotional book that we have been going through together each morning. (the gift that keeps on giving)
2. A gift certificate for a manicure from my favorite place in the Highland Village Shopping Center
3. Two scarfs from Old Navy. I 'heart' scarfs and wear them ALL the time!
4. Starbucks giftcard. Because I am addicted to vanilla non fat lattes.

Thats what I have gotten so far. Isn't he the best?! I love you JOEY!!!!

2

Well, my sweet little baby boy just turned two, so I guess that means he is a little boy now. All I know is that he is growing up sooooooo fast! We had a blast with him this past sunday, celebrating this precious baby's b-day. The theme was jungle animals because well, he likes anything from the jungle. Here are my attempts at jungle animal cupcakes.
My zebra attempt

The lion

The monkey (my favorite)

Eating the monkey cupcake


can't beat the chocolate face!


Darrell checkin' out the food


Rudy and Trent watchin' the Cowboy game

My little birthday boy in his jersey with the game on

Jackson playing with his buddy Grant

And the picture summing up the TWO's for us. AHHHHHHH!!!!!!


What a great day! We had a great time celebrating Jackson's birthday. He is a fire ball for sure, but truely an amazingly sweet and loving little boy. Thanks Jackson for being who you are!!!!

The 12 Days of Christmas

On the first day of christmas my true love gave to me.....
So, this post could have been titled 'sweet amazing husband', but I went with the classic christmas song instead. This post is really about my sweet amazing husband though. He really is super wonderful, even though he is such a LIAR! Ok, let me explain. First of all, we had started out talking about saving our money and getting Jackson gifts, but only getting each other one gift for christmas because neither of us really needed anything. So what do I do, being the sweet wife who LISTENS..I got Joey one gift wrapped it and placed it nicely under the tree. So, I checked and yes I had only one gift under the tree from my precious husband as well, so he had listened.....or so I thought! Dun...dun...duh! I was just minding my business cleaning my room when I ran across a huge stack of presents!!!! Curious I look to see who they are for...............they are for ME!!! I had stumbled upon a pile of loot ALL FOR ME! What happened to one gift hubby? huh? I knew they were from Joey because of the wrapping job.
Side Note:
Why can't boys wrap gifts? I once got a gift from a friend (who is a boy) who wrapped a gift for me with an Albertson's paper grocery bag and duck tape! Anywho, I am getting side tracked.
So, my sweet husband, although he didn't follow our christmas rules, totally made up for it by explaining the pile of gifts. He said there was only one present under the tree because that was the only one that I was going to open up on christmas morning, but that starting today, I was going to get a present a day (12 in all) until Christmas! I know!!!!!! How sweet is that!!! So, I gave up feeling guilty about his little lonely gift under the tree and decided to just go with it....
BRING ON THE PRESENTS BABY!
Side Note:
Another great plus about this little surprise Joey is doing for me is that everyday since he told me about his little plan, he has belted out 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' song without fail. I woke up to it this morning.
And on a totally unrelated note, here are a few pics of Jackson in the sled in front of my parents house with Rudolph. He loves to play with 'Woodoff'




Merry Christmas everybody!!!!!

Its A Girl!

So, as most of you already know my sister and Johnny are having a precious baby girl!!! Yea!! We can not wait for her to come. This blog is long overdo, but abiding by the blogging etiquete I couldn't post it on my blog until Jess and Johnny announced it on their website first. So, really what I am saying is if there is anyone to blame here for how late this blog is, it is Johnny. Oh, I forgive you man its not like your busy or anything! he he..... We are so thrilled for you both and know that yall are going to make AMAZING parents!

They have also chosen the name and if you haven't heard, her name is gonna be Gracie Rae How precious, right?!
I just love this picture (not mine), and can just imagine little Gracie Rae in this same tutu. I have actually made a few tutus for her already, so I am ready! Come on Gracie!!!

25 Days of Chocolate

So this post really could have gone in the last one, but I forgot about it, so why not spotlight it in its very own little post. Well, my mother got Jackson an advent calendar, the kind that you open the little window and pop out some fun christmas shaped piece of cheap chocolate. Anywho, Jackson is crazy over these 'chocates' (as he calls them). This is where it gets funny. He knows he only gets one a day until Jesus' birthday and so he will literally wake up in the morning now and say 'chocate' first thing! When I do give it to him, instead of doing what I would think he would do and that is inhale it in one bite, he doesn't. Its like he doesn't want to eat it cause than it will be over. In fact as I sit at our kitchen table to type this, he is carrying his chocolate piece around saying things like, 'come on chocate lets play' and putting it in the back of his truck to take it for a ride. He is dancing with it to The Wiggles and gives it 'big huggies'!!!! Oh my, this has to be my favorite thing about December so far. It is hilarious! He has been carrying it around with him for the last 40 minutes! No telling how much longer he will save it. I just asked him if he was going to eat it and he licked it and said 'yum, good chocate!' At that rate it will be Easter before he's finished! Oh....so much fun!

December Love

So, in these short 5 days of December I have found many things that we have done that I have loved. Here are things in these first 5 days of Christmas that we have already done that I have really cherished!

1. Decorating the christmas tree with a little christmas music, mainly Louis Armstrong

in honor of decorating christmas trees I thought I would post a picture of this amazingly awesome tree near flower mound. It is about 15 minutes from my parent's house down a long winding road with few lights. All of a sudden out of literally no wear there is this tree that lights of the sky!!! I wish you could see the magnitude of this tree, but it is HUGE! And the entire thing is covered in lights!! It really is amazing!!!

This second picture kind of gives you a better idea of how big the tree is with the house in the background. It is AMAZING!


2. Waking up to a winter wonderland, with a cup of coffee in my hand
Most of you probably experienced the snow also, but I had to blog about it! How cool was that!!! Jackson was clueless about it not to mention he was sick so we experienced snow from a distance. I hope we get some more.
Ok...so our house didn't look quite like this, but cool pic huh?

aahhhhhh...doesn't this make you just want to curl up by the fire with a blanket and a good book?


3.Reading Jackson, The Night Before Christmas book
He still doesn't really get the whole Santa thing, but he does understand that there are presents under the tree and he wants to open them. He just throws them and hopes they pop open. We've been working on this.


4. Making a fire in the fireplace
We've had a few in the fireplace already and they just make everyone happier. Give me that cup of coffee and book and now we are really happy!


5. Decorating ornaments with Jackson
We have been crafting together lately and coloring ornaments and playing with glitter has been very interesting to say the least. We have had a great time though.

6. Shopping...shopping...shopping!!! I love all kinds, the actual getting all bundled up and braving the crazies who want to fight you for a closer parking spot and also the kind where you stay in your pjs surfing the net finding great deals that just magically appear on your doorstep in a few days. Its all just so exciting!!!




And lastly I leave you with a great christmas photo that just makes me happy.

So, thank you to all the fellow photographers out there whose photos I stole to make this blog happen. And all of you do the things that make you happy this holiday season! Merry Christmas!!!

Thankful.

Wow, I am so thankful for so many things! We were so excited to spend thanksgiving with all of our family. We had an early thanksgiving with mom and dad and Jess and Johnny the weekend before thanksgiving that had lots of turkey, dressing, and a fun golf game. We had a great time just hanging out and remembering the many blessings in our lives. We also were able to go up to Longview on thanksgiving to spend a few days with more family.
It was a bittersweet day, having to deal with a death in the family of a dear uncle of my mother in law. But, one of the blessings that came from the visitation and funeral was the large number of people that came to show their love for him and his family. He was a loved man who touched many lives and for that I am thankful. Joey spoke very highly of him saying that he was such a rock within the family.
We celebrated the thanksgiving day with turkey, ham, and a billion yummy casseroles that we got to eat on for the next few days. I love good food!!! Oh, and I didn't mention the desserts! Between the two thanksgivings we had
apple pie
pecan pie
pound cake
more apple pie
banana cream pie
gingerbread cookies
more pecan pie

It was a wonderful holiday! Thanks to all our family who just made our holiday so special!!! We are so blessed.

What are you thankful for?