Christmas Morning 2013

I vowed to get my holiday photos up before Valentine's Day. Nailed it-with two days to spare!!!

 The three Smarties on December 25th, 2013. I'm still wanting to write 2012, in which I am now two years behind. But then again, that's how I roll.....behind and out of the loop. In any case, we had a wonderful Christmas day!

The kids passed out goodies and I fixed breakfast and we stayed at home and watched A Christmas Story and all was well. Any day that I can eat a late breakfast, light a fire, watch a Christmas classic, and open gifts with my favorite four people in the world is pretty darn close to perfection.

Finley wanted the American Girl Doll with blond, curly hair.

Slade was in desperate need of a new bike. He loved it!

 Ahhh, the magic wand. A Christmas hit this year.

Merry Christmas! Side note: Kyle and myself were in attendance on this day, but there is no photographic evidence to prove it. For all you know, we were passed out on eggnog in the basement.

Cookies for Santa

 It's a good thing Kyle made a run to the grocery store on Christmas Eve because he remembered to grab a batch of cookies for Santa! I, on the other hand, did not remember. Good ol' Dad!!!

 Santa received a selection of United Bakery's best holiday cookies. I felt bad that we didn't "make" them, but guess what?!? Santa did not care! No cookie is better than another cookie in Santa's eyes.

One particular person thought he needed to sample all the cookies.

After they set them all up, they moved them to the fireplace.

 They left some cute notes, too!

And he had to sample the milk, as well. It was good.

Now they are ready! Lots of work to get Santa a decent snack.

Social Studies, Snow, Super Bowl Sunday..........

Today we woke up to a couple of inches of snow!

 It snowed quite a bit from 7am to 10am although you can't see the crazy flakes from the photo.

After church, we went to eat and came home and bundled up to play!  The boys and I threw snowballs and ran around in the snow.

 This was the most Gunnar has ever enjoyed the snow. I think it was because I bought him new Texas Tech mittens and his hands were warm. He stayed out for at least an hour.

Snow angels were made.

 And lots of footprints in the snow!

 Little bitty snow angels.......

 Finley had a friend over and they finally came outside after I continued to throw snowballs at her window!

 Slade rode around the neighborhood all afternoon.

 And nothing better than warming up with hot cocoa in your undies!

Saturday morning I took Slade to Tech to compete in 5th grade UIL Social Studies. That's him posing. Saturday afternoon, I received a text that he place FIRST!!!!! We were pumped!!!

This is our Super Bowl par-tay! As you can see we went all wild with cinnamon toast and pizza pockets! We are such an exciting bunch! 

Gunnar had a weenie and strawberries. Finley watched cartoons in Gunnar's room. We had a great weekend! Brrrr! Stay warm everyone!!!

Happy 11th Birthday, Slade Smart

My boy turned ELEVEN on January 17th! It was one of the craziest, most wonderful days of my life eleven years ago when this dude made me a mom. I can remember it like it was yesterday. It's hard to imagine how fast 11 years fly by.

So Friday morning, he woke up to birthday balloons, of course!!! He told me he laid there an hour after I put the balloons on him, waiting till 6:40am to wake up. He said it was miserable with balloons all over him. Um, maybe miserable was a little harsh, son. Haha!!! I sure hate that I made him "miserable" on his birthday. Oh, I guess that is paybacks for my one ugly stretch mark he left me.......I still love him.

He picked his usual birthday breakfast, Chick-Fil-A chicken biscuit, delivered by dad.

The night before I did a small amount to birthday decorating. Yay!

And hung streamers from his fan. I love streamers-they remind me of decorating the floats in Iraan during homecoming. I paid homage to the Braves with the red & black, I guess. I remember when streamers and Hawaiian punch in a big can at the Iraan Park was a pretty fabulous birthday!!!

After school, Slade opened presents and we had birthday cake!

Wax kept melting all over the cake icing.

He picked a chocolate cake from Nothing Bundt Cake. Yum!

 Lots of help with his gifts, as you see!

 A boy and his brand new Nike football-perfect day!

They were there for the cake.

That night, we went to dinner with Big Dad, Cita, Nana, and Brandi's family. We ate at Cagle's Steaks and celebrated Slade and Campbell's big day. And I must note that the only two people at the table that didn't order steaks were Slade and Campbell??? Weirdos.

Slade and Nana with his traditional homemade chocolate cake by Nana. Um, my kid is bigger than my grandma. Sighhhhhhhh. I love that the ones on the cake don't match. I'm fairly certain that Nana has never thrown away a candle. That rainbow one could very well be from my teenage years-who knows?!?

The birthday cousins with Nana!

Some of the gang......Big Dad, Fin, Gunnar, B, Campbell, Slade

We continued to party into the weekend. On Saturday night, Slade had a slumber party at our house with five of his friends. They came at 6:30 that night, had pizza, and then we went to this fun place called Adrenaline City. Basically an 11 year olds heaven-trampolines, dodge ball, laser tag, climbing, etc.

Slade's friend, Ben, gave him $20. It came in this gummie box with a tab to pull. Inside, twenty dollar bills were rolled up. It was so neat and crafty!!! Slade had to pull out the money so Gunnar could eat Slade's birthday candy.

                                 
Here are the boys waiting in line for dodge ball. I think they played dodge ball 15 times. I foolishly thought that this would wear out the boys. About three of them stayed up the entire night. Apparently, 4 hrs at a gym doesn't make a dent in the energy department.

And this is what happens when you are 3 and your 11 year old brother has a party on Saturday night. Gunnar was still going strong at 10:00pm!!! He jumped on the trampolines for an hour. Finley went with Campbell to her dress up party since it was at the same time. What a weekend!!!