Snow Days!

Oh yes! My second installment is here tonight. If I don't get this in tonight, I may never get it in. I should have explained the 2 posts in one day in this post because it is the one you will be reading first. But I told you (in the earlier one of course) I am working on low brain steam here. I didn't think that far in advance.

Oh yes! I did FINALLY get family pictures on here too. Yea! Aren't you proud? I am sure you thought they would never get here, but they HAVE arrived. Halelujah!

And oh yes! I have started completely off track. You know that is so unusual for me. So back to it...or I should say...Let's get to it!

We had our first big snow in Tennessee on Thursday. Marla, too bad you don't live up here. You could have had some snow on your anniversary instead of 2 boys and a husband sick. We were all so excited. We ventured out around 3:30-4:00 in the pouring rain to run some errands. Yes, we are crazy! I'm sure you already knew that though. After about 20 minutes, the rain started to turn into sleet. It was only about 34 degrees at the time, so we weren't expecting the snow. To our surprise, the temperature dropped more than 2 degrees in about an hours time. I guess it was around 6:00-6:30 or so, Greg went into the grocery store. It was only snowing a little, but by the time he came out everything was covered in a blanket of snow. John Reagan and I were about to bust out of the vehicle and start playing right there in the Publix parking lot. We refrained ourselves though. Since we aren't morning people in this house, we went ahead and got the camera out Thursday night.

John Reagan was having so much fun just standing in the snow. He didn't even have to play in it to get excited. Nana, where are those gloves you said you bought? We needed them this night.

Man, I could not believe how fast it accumulated.

The snowflakes were so big!

We live on a circle street, and this is the center of our circle. It sure made a pretty picture covered in white.



This picture isn't quite as good. I know I am stating the obvious, but I put it on here to show more snowflakes. Can you tell how excited we were?

Max had a blast running around in it. We did have to coax him out there at first. Max can be a baby sometimes about the cold weather. He prefers the garage in the winter. Duchess usually ventures out in the snow and plays around in it, but she decided that it was too cold. She likes to go out in the day time, so she missed out on her blog time.

Some family snow pictures for good measure. Since I have been so behind recently, I thought I might get to put some snowy pictures on our Christmas cards this year, but I liked the ones I had already planned for better.

John Reagan cracks me up!

John Reagan is so excited in the mornings when Evie wakes up. He loves to get in her face and talk to her saying, "Good mornin' sister." It is so cute! He has been on this kick here lately where he has been wanting to hold Evie again. She is as big as his lap now, so we usually just sit her right beside him. That seems to make him happy enough.

John Reagan has already had a sucker! Can you tell by the blue tongue?

I figured I would put the full body shot on here to give you an idea of the ever shrinking lap space. I sure hope John Reagan is always this loving with Evie. He is already a good big brother, but if he keeps this up, he is going to be an excellent big brother, especially for mommy and daddy when the boys start coming around.

Since you have waited so long for the family pictures, I decided to put a couple of extra on here. We have lots of really good ones, but some are not in the right format. Seeing as how I am running on low steam and it is late, I didn't want to tackle that situation. So you only get these 2 extras.

This will probably be my last blog for 2008! We will be leaving Saturday for Christmas in Louisiana, and blogging down there with that internet connection...NO WAY! Unless something EXTREMELY (and I mean extremely) exciting happens between now and Saturday, I will not be posting. But hey, with the way things have been going here lately, I wouldn't put it past us just yet. So, here is my final 2008 greeting to you (unless I see you in person before the new year)...hope your holidays are merry and bright. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I should have put this in the previous blog since you will most likely be reading it last, but hey! What can I say?

Our Trip to Louisiana

In an attempt to not overload your senses, I decided to spread out all that I wanted to add on here into 2 blogs instead of my usual extremely LONG post. This is also for my sanity because I was afraid I would overload my already frail (because of exhaustion) brain and send it into oblivion. It really isn't that bad, but it is. We have not gotten back on our schedule since returning home. We are all very tired. I never realize that we do have a decent schedule until we are away from home and out of it.

Anyway, for those of you who didn't know (I don't know who that would be) we were recently in LA for a week. My dad had bypass surgery on the 5th. He ended up having 5 bypasses...I don't have a clue what that is called. He is doing extremely well, and thank you for all your prayers.

We did have a fun trip despite the reason we were there. John Reagan and Evie got to spend a good bit of time with Breyden and Kenden (their cousins). We had all 4 of them lined up to get a picture together, but Greg wouldn't get up from where he was sitting to get a descent picture. Therefore, we have them spread out into 2 pictures instead of one.

This is Breyden and Evie before we got all of them down there.

John Reagan and Breyden

Our first attempt was all of them lined up, but we later put John Reagan on Breyden's lap. They both thought that was great! I think Breyden is being silly here, but you never know with him. He could have been giving Uncle Greg a hard time.

Kenden and Evie
Kenden is 11 months old, and he is one big boy. He has actually lost weight and only weighs 25 pounds now instead of the 30 he was weighing.

I thought they were too cute, so I put another one of them. Plus, you have to be super fast to get Evie while she is looking right at you. As you can see, we didn't succeed at that feat.

Isn't Kenden's adorable in his hat? This was once John Reagan's hat, and we always loved it...still do!

When we were at the hospital ALL day and night Friday, mom was brave and kept all three boys. We took Evie so she wouldn't be too overwhelmed, and Evie was a good distraction for everyone. Anyway, mom sure lucked up because all 3 boys fell asleep at the same time and slept for 1 1/2-2 hours. This was amazing considering Breyden and John Reagan don't really take naps anymore. God was smiling down on here that day.

Saturday, mom made a red velvet cake for a bake sale. John Reagan got the bowl.

As you can see, he got it all over his cheek. Surprisingly his shirt is not covered. I am sure this is thanks to Fifi for helping him.

So you can get the full effect of the bowl!



I have gotten good at capturing this image here lately. Evie was the one who was supposed to be taking the nap, not daddy.
The funny part about this picture is...the whole time Greg was sleeping, John Reagan was at his feet eating out of the cake bowl. Greg never even knew it. He had to look at the pictures on the camera after it was all said and done because he didn't believe me when I told him.

While we were so close to Natchitoches, we hopped on over (on the interstate) to check out the Christmas lights. Every year we say we are going to go while we are home for Christmas but never do. Because we were in Alexandria visiting Daddy, we were closer than usual. We decided to take John Reagan and Evie to check it out.
The night setting on our camera has a delay, so we were having trouble getting pictures that weren't blurry. That's why there are so few here.

For those of you who don't live in Louisiana, the setting for the lights is the bank of the Cane River. It is very pretty.


Here's you a blurry on for good measure.

Back at Fifi's house...you know, Fifi's house is a lot of fun for little boys. If you know John Reagan well, you know he likes to color...with markers, crayons, pens, whatever he can get his hands on. You also know that any surface is fair game to him. I can honestly say that I have scrubbed EVERY wall in this house. Fifi is obviously a little smarter than mommy. She keeps huge sheets of paper around (where she gets them from, I don't know).

John Reagan had lots of fun coloring. I wish I would have gotten a picture of Greg down there with him. We have 2 portrait souvenirs of Daddy's drawing time with John Reagan...one of Evie and one of John Reagan. They are adorable. I might have to put them on here for you to see because they make me laugh just thinking about them.

So this was our Louisiana trip in a nutshell (minus our time at the hospital). I took my camera for the sole purpose of getting pictures of Daddy and Evie because this was the first time he saw her. Needless to say, I didn't get any. Shame on me! But they will be coming! They will be coming soon because we are leaving Saturday to head back down there. Yippee! John Reagan isn't going to remember life before all this time with grandparents. We have seen all of them on and off at different times since the first of November. That's going to be something fun to look forward to in the new year...getting John Reagan back to normalcy. I am excited. Can't you tell?