Christmas Eve 2010

I was worried that Christmas was going to seem strange this year since it was our first year to have Christmas in this house. But I was totally wrong. We had a wonderful Christmas and it really felt like home here in Texas! It was a little challenging to decorate the house....just figuring out where to place/hang stuff at. Also Little Miss Lucy made it to where we could only decorate the top half of the tree! Hopefully next year she will do better : )

On Christmas Eve my mom and brother drove in from Arkansas. We went to an early Christmas Eve Church service and then out to dinner at Red Lobster. We came back home and opened gifts from family. The kids were excited about their new toys but even more excited that SANTA was coming soon!!




At first Lucy thought that she should eat the gifts....


But then she figured out that she should open them. She had a great time opening gifts. Once one gift was open she was ready to move on to the next one.





she was so excited about her new bike that MawMaw got her.


she has been riding it all around the house


The kids went to bed and actually fell asleep right away. We had fun bringing out all of the gifts and getting everything ready for in the morning. I think we were just as excited as they were for them to wake-up and see what all Santa had brought this year!

Gifts from Family

We have received a couple of big boxes in the mail lately. The kids love when this happens! Of course they did not understand why we needed to wait to open them...so I let them open one a few days ago. My Aunt Sharon and Uncle Steve always buy the best gifts for the kids. They had fun opening them and they have also had fun playing with their new toys this week. Thanks Sharon and Steve for being so thoughtful!!

Christmas Parties at School

Cooper and Emily both had Christmas parties at school last week. Emily's school had a whole Christmas Recital with lots of singing! It was so cute! Richard could not be there so I was in charge of taking pictures and video taping. I hardly got any pictures but I did capture a lot of cute moments on video. Emily had a speaking part and at the end she and 3 other kids from her class stood in front of the microphones and sang Joy To The World. It was SO cute!!

Here she is before we went to school...(I probably should have washed all her tattoos off...oops)


She looked so cute! She really wanted to wear her antlers : )


There were several times during the show that she actually had her dress above her head....priceless!!!


This is one of her FAVORITE friends in class. He is a very sweet boy.


Lucy was less than thrilled to be there.



Cooper's class also had a big Christmas Party. It was so fun to see everyone celebrating Christmas! It wasn't until later in the day that I realized how special it is that we go to PUBLIC school and they made such a big deal about CHRISTmas!! I love our school here in Texas!


One of his new favorite friends.


Cooper and some girls in his class.


Cooper and his new friend Hope. We love Hope and her family. They moved here from Arkansas right around the same time we did. They lived in NLR and were even patients at Dr. Heard's office! I had never met them (in AR) but we have quickly become good friends here in Texas.


This is Ms. Shelly. She is the NICEST person ever!!! She works at Cooper's school. One day she saw Cooper having a bad morning where he really did not want to walk to his class by himself. Ms. Shelly offered to walk him down to his class and has been doing so every day since! She makes our life so much easier and we are so thankful to have her! (she even came to see him during his Christmas party!!)


I hardly ever get a picture with Cooper, so I was thrilled when one of the other mom's offered to take our picture.

T.R.O.U.B.L.E.

I know that I have mentioned several times that our little Miss Lucy likes to be mischievous. It seems like here lately she has been finding lots of things to get her into trouble. Not BIG trouble, just the kind of trouble that keeps you entertained : )

She has recently discovered the light switch by the stairs. She thinks she is really big stuff to turn the lights on and off.


She also has figured out that it is really fun to throw stuff down from the balcony to the first floor. She threw several things down the other day while I was on the phone (and yes that it a toilet brush...I'm not even sure where she found that)



Another favorite thing is to put toys in the toilet. I do not have a picture of this but almost everyday I will find some of her toys in the toilet!!! I have never had a child put anything in the toilet! She definitely keeps us on our toes around here.


She helps make up for some of her trouble by helping me clean the floors. She loves to use the shark vacuum.


And seriously...who could ever be upset with this sweet face!!!!!

Thanksgiving Season 2010

How is it that I am always behind on blogging?? I am going to play catch-up right now and hopefully will be back on track. I am done with all my Christmas shopping and I plan to have everything wrapped be the end of this week! (at least I am not behind on all of that stuff!!)

A few weeks ago I made a new recipe for Martha Stewart Pumpkin Chocolate Chip bars. They are kind of different but I thought they turned out pretty good. The kids did not like them, but they had fun helping me make them.



Cooper's football team had an end of the season party at Amazing Jakes. It was a lot of fun. They had a rock climbing wall, go-karts, rides, mini golf, and lots of games. Cooper had a great time celebrating with all his buddies from his team. The best part of the day was when all the players got a trophy!! Cooper has been wanting a trophy for a long time, so this just made his day!

playing putt-putt

climbing the big wall

Lucy was pretty good. As long as she had her bag of Cheerios she was happy.


We did a lot of traveling the week of Thanksgiving. First we went to Little Rock. Richard worked while the kids and I visited with friends. On Wednesday we went to Searcy to spend the day with Meme. We had not seen Meme since July, so it was really nice to visit with her.

The kids love to take a ride on her walker...especially Lucy : )

Love this face


Meme and her Great-granddaughters

the whole Cleveland gang



Next stop was Fort Smith. My mom made a wonderful Thanksgiving meal....Cooper even ate a turkey leg!!


I think the kids stayed in their PJ's all day (these are my favorites of Lucy's)


Poor Emily, she fell off of her bike right after we got to MawMaw's house. She landed right on her face! She had a lot of scrapes on her mouth and chin : (


Anyone who knows Lucy knows that she is usually up to trouble. This is not really that big of deal (especially for her) but I thought it was funny when I was going through pictures and realized that I have 3 pictures of her standing on top of 3 different things that she really should not have been standing on. This is SO Lucy : )




Mom and I went to Toys R Us at 10:00 to do some late night shopping. I really was not expecting there to be a ton of people there--boy was I wrong!! We did not get in the door until 10:30, I grabbed the 2 items that we went for, and then we waited to check-out for another hour!! It was absolutely crazy how many people were there shopping. When we finally left at 11:30, there was still a long line of people waiting to get in!


On Friday, we were back on the road headed to Little Rock. This time we stayed with The Simmons!! Amie and I had a great time shopping while the guys watched all 5 kids! The next day Richard and Alan went to the Razorback game and cheered the Hogs to victory against LSU! Go Hogs!!

All 5 kids eating a snack. Hard to believe a few years ago we did not have any kids...things sure have changed!!


Sutton and Presley


Again...Lucy up to trouble. This time she was sitting in the dog bed.



We finally headed back to Texas Saturday night after the game. We had such a great time visiting friends and family, but it was nice to be back home. Unfortunately, Cooper was not feeling well Tuesday night and he woke-up with fever on Wednesday. Since my kids very rarely get sick, we went to the doctor and he had STREP throat!! I felt bad for him, but I think he really enjoyed staying home from school for 2 days. Thankfully he is all better now and hopefully that will be the end of sickness in the Cleveland house.