Merry Christmas

Our Christmas was so much fun! It started out on Christmas eve when Santa came to do one last check to see if the kids were being good and to bring them a little goody bag.

My dad is the best and I love that he will do this for my kids. This year he came to my friends house and had 9 little kids to check on. Most of them were pretty good. He had one cryer, but for the most part they were all very excited to see him. I love to watch kids when Santa is around. There was so much excitement on their little faces! It was a perfect start to our Christmas!

Christmas morning came and Tanner was in my bed, waking me up to get things started.
He was so excited that Santa brought him EXACTLY what he wanted!

Ry got some dress up clothes and was in heaven! Don't be fooled by that sweet angelic face. It's a total cover up!

Tanner got this fun little vest that has all sorts of tools for finding bugs. It was pretty awesome!

They had plenty of presents to open and were full of energy all day long. We had so much fun! It was the best weekend with our little family all together. Oh, and I cooked the best turkey ever for dinner! We hope that everyone had a fabulous Christmas! Happy New Year!

We recently had our family pictures taken. As always with little ones, it was hard to get the perfect shot with everyone looking at the camera and smiling. Tanner did really well. Rylee on the other hand was not happy to be there at all.

Tanner is so easy to photograph. Of course he gets that from me!

Our challenge was getting Rylee to smile. There was this awesome little house that the kids were playing in, so we just tried to keep up with them all to see what we could get. If you take enough pictures, your going to get at least one good one. We finally got a little smile out of her.

Tanner found a lot of things to occupy himself.

Playing in the leaves!

I love this little family so much. I love all of the candid shots that we got of the kids. They have the biggest personalities and it's just the best when we can get a little piece of them on camera. I thought they turned out pretty cute! I might be a little bias, though.

Lately.......

We have been doing all kinds of stuff lately. We went to Delta for Thanksgiving and had a lot of fun. Tanner even participated in the talent show by singing. I love the holidays! For me it's all about getting together with everyone and enjoying the food and the company. Jim, on the other hand, ate his Thanksgiving meal and went back to my sister's house to watch football for the rest of the day. He's not much of a socializer. We had a good time without him!

Rylee really enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner. Every time I looked at her she had food in her mouth. She didn't even wait for a plate, she just dug right in! And she isn't satisfied until there is no more room in her mouth. We are working on that!

We were waiting for the prayer and Ry was too cute to pass up.

On Saturday after Thanksgiving Tanner and I went shopping to get a present for Rylee and pick out his tree ornament. Ever since we cut his hair, he has wanted it to look like a rhino (mo hawk for the late person!) like his cousin, Joshy. So, if he refers to it that way, you will know what he is talking about. I think it looks pretty dang good!

On Sunday we were blessed to have a little snow at our house. When Tanner woke up a realized that it had snowed, he came and got me and said "Mom! Come and see what freakin' happened last night!". He could not wait until church was over so he could play in it. He even threw a snowball at me when we were walking to the car right after church! I love this picture of him! The look on his face is priceless. Pure joy! Wouldn't that be nice?!

On another note, we have acquired ourselves another dog. Now I know what you all are thinking "Do you really need five dogs?". The answer is NO! We don't need five dogs! We have a couple that we would like to see go. But for now, we will have five dogs. Zoe is my little buddy. She is the sweetest thing! Just the kind of dog I wanted. It's funny to watch Barik when she jumps up on my lap. It's almost like he is trying to figure out how he can get up there. So, we have a really full house. But we are enjoying it!

Birthday Girl

Our sweet little Rylee turned 2 on Saturday, so we had a little party to celebrate!
I can't believe that it she is already two years old! She is a very big girl and is constantly reminding us of it.

It would have been really nice if she would have smiled for me. She says smile, she just doesn't do it.

I was putting her little tutu on her and she said in a very excited little voice, "PINCESS!".

Opening her gifts. She had about five little kids helping her. I don't know why I thought it was necessary for me to help. Silly me!

It was really hard for her to not play with every gift she opened. She just didn't quite understand and was a little mad at me until I put another gift in front of her.

Blowing out the candles! She wanted to blow them out so bad, I had to cover her mouth until it was time.

Rylee is my little monkey, so I wanted to do something fun for her cake. I saw one similar to this one on the Internet and loved it. I thought it turned out really cute. I can't take all of the credit, but I am pretty proud of what I did do!
We are so blessed to have Rylee as our baby girl. She brings such a sweet spirit into our home. It's so fun for me to watch her and Tanner interact, especially when they are getting along!
Happy Birthday Rylee Girl!

No more Curls!

Tanner got another haircut, not that the hair cut in and of itself is all that interesting, but it is the shortest that we have ever gone and I was a little apprehensive about it.

Before

He just can't help but make a face.

After

We have always left it long enough for at least a little curl, but this time he wanted it short. I was a little sad when the whole thing was over, wondering where my little boy went. Tanner loves it. He said that it was just like his dad. He keeps checking himself out in the mirror, admiring how good he looks. And he does look good!

Halloween!

We had a fun Halloween day. We started off at the pumpkin patch. They have all kinds of fun stuff for the kids and they had so much fun.

This is the best picture I could get with the two of them together. There were way too many other things for Rylee to look at.

When we got to the pumpkin patch, the kids just took off. We just let them run all over the place. I think they looked at every pumpkin out there, which its a lot!

Again, the best picture I could get of the two of them. I just need to clarify that Tanner is now dressing himself. I had to bargain with him to not where the camo shorts he had on to begin with.

I love this picture! They had so much fun!

Rylee loved the hay ride to the pumpkin patch. She really wanted to sit by herself and got mad at Jimmy when he tried to hold on to her so she wouldn't fall off. How rude!

Riding on the hay ride!

My little Pippy Long Stocking. She looked so cute! I couldn't get a good picture of her because she is just about incapable of holding still. She looked so cute though. It was perfect for her.

Of course we had a second year of being a super hero. Every time he put his mask on he said in a very super hero voice "I am Iron Man!".

Making faces.

Trick-or-treat!

Tanner Singing

Tanner loves to make up songs. This is my favorite so far. Enjoy!

Gone Fishing!

Tanner has found his favorite thing to do, besides being a super hero that is. He LOVES fishing! It has become a weekly activity for Tanner and Jimmy. I love that they get to have their "guy time". Tanner knows that Saturday is fishing day, and he looks forward to it every week.

This is one of the first fish that Tan caught at Grandpa's Lake. It's nothing to brag about, but he was pretty excited about it. You can tell by the look on his face! I love it!

This picture is courtesy of Tanner. He is actually quite good with the camera, and he gets a lot of practice! But this is one of his better ones. Pretty good timing!

This is at Pine Valley. Tanner does everything Jimmy does, and he watches him so close. That's a scary thought!

Here is my little princess who hates getting dirty and anything gross. Ya, right!

She isn't afraid of anything, and I'm pretty sure she is the happiest when she is covered in dirt! She thought the worms were pretty neat. I didn't let her eat them though. I know, I'm pretty mean.

Every time Jimmy moved to a new fishing spot, Tanner was close behind. They are the perfect little pair!

This is just a picture of the lake. It was so pretty and the weather was so nice. We didn't catch anything, even though we could see the fish jumping all around us. I'm pretty sure they were laughing at us! It was a nice family activity regardless of the lack of fish. Perfect for a Sunday afternoon!