...And A Happy New Year

New Year's was a lot of fun. Most of my family was out of town so last minute I decided to have a New Year's Eve party. A handful of friends came over as well as Ryan, Rachel, and the boys. We had a bunch of yummy finger foods. Allan's friend Ed made homemade wings!! YUMMY!
We played some rockband, Poker, and Clue. It was nice to be surrounded by loved ones and friends on the New Year.

The boy's kicking out some Rockband! Allan, Ed, Joe, and Ryan

Texas Hold'em. I think Rhett won this round!
Me and Rachel ringing in the New Year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Christmas Continues...

Nate spent this Christmas with his dad. It was my first Christmas without Nate and the days leading up to that day were hard. I was really down on Christmas Eve. Allan and I were supposed to go to Tyler to spend the day with his family. I found out the day before that those plans were changed due to his niece and nephew not being there. We really wanted to see them and so we changed our plans to have Christmas with them that Saturday. It worked out better that way anyways cause Allan had to work a half day that day and we wouldn't have gotten out to Tyler till late in the afternoon. Knowing Allan had to work I spent the first half of the day being a lazy bump. I don't think I got dressed until....??? I did decide that I wanted to make the most of the evening and so I took out some pork chops and planned a nice dinner. Around 6pm that night I realized that I hadn't bought anything for Christmas morning breakfast. So Allan took me to the store and I bought a feast. When we got back to the apartment I started on dinner. Allan found "It's A Wonderful Life" on TV. I had never seen the whole thing before so we decided to watch that. We ate dinner, watched the movie and played Monopoly. Allan is so good about getting my mind off my worries. I would have never imagined that I would have enjoyed my Christmas eve so much without Nate.

Christmas day turned out to be a great day. Allan and I spoiled each other with presents. We then went to my parents for dinner. Before dinner, my parents taught Allan and I how to play cribbage. It was girls against guys and the girls kicked butt. We decided to not do the traditional Christmas dinner since we had just had it. Instead, we had a seafood dinner with tons of yummy crab legs. There was so much food that it could have fed the entire block. Ryan, Rachel, and the boys came for dinner too. After dinner we all played a game of Clue. I hadn't played it in ages. The highlight of my evening was when I got a phone call from Jon asking if I wanted Nate that night. I was so excited to get my baby back a day early.

I told Nate when we got home that he would have to go to bed right away cause I had made a special phone call to Santa to come bring him his presents late. The next morning he was so excited and we had a little family Christmas with Nate being the center of attention.

Nate getting his first look at his presents from Santa.

For 6 months Nate has been asking for a "Rocket Fishing Rod". Looks like Santa delivered!!

It's your friendly neighborhood SpiderNate. (He didn't take this costume off for two days.)

Merry Christmas Everyone!

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

We held Christmas early with the family due to some going out of town and other happenings on the actual day. The enitre family met over at my mom and dad's to spend time together. Needless to say we had an amazing time and I can't speak for everyone else but I felt so blessed to be able to spend a day with my family and enjoy each others company. This is what it looks like when you have 2 grandparents, 6 parents, and 6 grandkids!!
Santa (aka Allan) came to visit the kids.
Raiden wasn't sure what to think about it.

The rest of them loved the visit. Rhett looks like he is trying to escape!

Auntie let Makayla dig into her presents first.

Nate loves his Planet Heros he got from Auntie and Uncle Steven.

Little Miss Emma was more interested in decorating herself then opening presents.

I have been told...

that I am WAYYY overdue on a blog post. I can totally agree with that. I have so much to catch up on that in order to keep my sanity I pledge to add a few post each day until I am fully caught up. I will have to begin with christmas because it seems that is where I left off.

Nate Meets Santa for the First Time

So I don't know if it makes me a bad parent or a smart one, but I have never been able to bring myself to take my son to the mall to sit on Santa's knee. First of all, the lines are ridiculously long. Second, the picture they take usually doesn't turn out all that good. Finally, they charge an insane amount of money for the picture. I did however attempt to take Nate this year to the mall because I thought he would finally be old enough to not cry or get too scared and I could actually get a decent picture. When we got to the mall the line to see Santa was so long that we would have had to wait over 2 hours for a 30 second visit. I nixed the idea really quick and Nate didn't seem to mind. A couple of days later, Allan decided to have Santa visit his work. He made a phone call the the North Pole and Santa was happy to make a visit. He sent out a flyer so that the kids of the community could come to the office, have some breakfast, and get their picture taken with Santa. It just so happens that I got to keep Nate an extra day from his Christmas break with his Dad. So Nate got to have a visit with Santa and got his first official Santa picture. He was a little shy at first, but finally warmed up enough to tell Santa what he really wanted for Christmas, a "Rocket Fishing Rod". Nate has been asking for one for at least 6 months now and I sure hope that Santa pulls through. ;) The best part was that I was the one taking all the pictures of the kids, so I was able to take as many pictures of Nate and Santa as I wanted to make sure I got the perfect one!

A Proud Sister Moment

On December 16th my brother Ryan and his business partner Mark hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony to celebrate the opening of their new tint and sign business. The business has been open a few months already and he felt it was time to join the area chamber of commerce. It is so neat to see how my once annoying little brother has now grown up to be a responsible man and father. Meeting the Mayor of Watauga.
Receiving their "first dollar"

The cutting ceremony. (It was really cold that day.)

This ceremony took place on the heels of an exciting week for All Signs and Tint. They had just finished working on tinting a house in Keller that was built for a family by the "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" crew. Ryan, Mark, and team generously donated many hours tinting around 49 windows. The day after the reveal, Ryan got to return to the home to meet the family and it was there that he offered them a free tint on one of their vehicles. And once again, another proud moment happened this past Friday when one of my students brought me "The Keller Citizen" (a local Keller paper). An article in the paper featured the "Makeover" and Ryan was quoted in the article explaining how the tint on the home will benefit the family. I could not be more proud of him and wish him all the blessings on this new adventure of his.

The Girls Make a Visit

A couple of weeks ago my 3 beautiful nieces paid me a visit to my classroom. I had told Hannah on the phone that my Christmas tree at school needed some help with decorations so they came to school to make some. Nate ended up in my room as well due to "not feeling well" and all three worked hard to decorate my tree. Makayla was an angel as usual and loved exploring around the room.