Guess who?!

Guess who is 8 months old today?!

You got it, Miss Lila Grace!

Lila is having a great 8 month birthday today. She's been so happy all day long.

Love those two bottom teeth!

Happy 8 months! We love you, sweet girl.

Happy Birthday, Daddo!

Last night we celebrated Jared's birthday at home. While this would seem like laid-back, chill affair, that would be wrong. You see, there are three small, quite loud kids that were all in attendance. Noise and all, though, we wouldn't have it any other way!

Miss Lila greeted her daddy with a smooch right when he got home.

All through dinner Jackson kept asking if it was time to get out the cake! He helped me make it the day before and was sooooo excited about it. Although, I must mention, he really pushed for the strawberry cake that my Aunt Glenda makes so well. It is so very good and Jackson remembered it from when she made it for my dad's birthday back in June. Yes, it's that good! Jared really wanted a chocolate cake, though, so chocolate is what we made.

Let's just say the cake was made with a lot of love...and my next job in life will not be as a cake decorator. It's so much harder than it looks!

Happy Birthday, babe! We love you:)

Let there be light!

After getting two quotes from different christmas light installer-men I chose the one that was much cheaper. He was originally scheduled to come put them up the day after Thanksgiving. The only caveat to this plan was that I didn't make it to Hobby Lobby to buy the rest of the lights we would need, so I pushed that date back a bit to the following Monday. On Monday I waited and waited...well past the 9:30 am promised time. Around 11:30 or 12 he finally showed up. I put all of the lights and exstention cords out on the front porch and was so excited that our house was going to really be all aglow in only a few short hours. About 10 minutes went by and the doorbell rang. Seems that his partner called in sick and this guy was the one with the really big ladder. Day One of Christmas Light Installation: Fail.

The next day both guys showed up (eventually) and I once again put all of that stuff out on the front porch. Got real excited again (I mean, really, what could go wrong?). Twenty minutes later, ding dong. I answer the door and the guy says, "I've got some bad news." I think, "Oh my, this is not going well." He then proceeds to tell me that their "really big" ladder isn't quite big enough. Looks like they are going to need a 35 foot ladder to reach the tallest peak and theirs is only 31 foot. Super. They apologized for telling me that they could do the job in the first place and drove off. Day Two of Christmas Light Installation: Fail.

Guess they should probably amend the flyer that they put in people's doors. It read "No job too small or too big." Maybe not...unless you need the 35 foot ladder. Arghhh!!

So, this past weekend my elves went to work. They worked all day and got these pretty lights all set up in our yard.

It was pretty chilly, so Elf Jack ran inside to get his new Frog Hat and gloves. I am proud to say we now have at least some christmas lights at our house! Thanks, guys!

Murphy Christmas Festival

I must admit, one of the main reason's I wanted to attend the Murphy Christmas in the Park is because there were going to be reindeer. Everyone loves reindeer, right?

Thursday night we went to the festival and enjoyed the cool, brisk night. We drank hot chocolate, ate hot dogs and chips and then popcorn for dessert.

We took silly pictures like this one...

and did fun activities in Santa's workshop...

like write a letter to Santa Claus.

It said, "Dear Santa, I would like a trampoline for Christmas. I've been a pretty good boy. Love, Jackson" Ha! At least the kid is honest:)

Memaw and Jackson painted an ornament...

and then it was time to watch the fireworks!

Fireworks make any festival very cool. Merry Christmas from our silly family to yours!

Romeo

I have mentioned Jackson's girlfriends before, but this post is about one in particular. Miss Mia. Mia is the little girl that dressed up as Cinderella and held hands with Jackson the Fireman at their school Fall Fest. A few weeks ago Jackson told me he wanted to write Mia a note. He dictated, I wrote. It said, "Dear Mia, You are my girlfriend. I love you. Love, Jackson." We put it in his bag so that he would remember to give it to her at school. Right after that he got really sick and I completely forgot about it. Fast forward to this past Wednesday. When I dropped him off that morning his teacher had two white envelopes for me. The first one was addressed to Jackson and inside were these two notes.

This is a love note from Mia.

Guess she was so smitten by his love note, that she decided to draw him a picture as well. This cracks me up--check out the size of his forehead!

The real humor was in this envelope, though.

I opened it up to find this 5 page application! It's from Mia's daddy and had me laughing out loud. It has lots of questions, like "Do you own or have access to a van?" "Do you have a tattoo?" It also has a sectioned entitled Daddy's Rules for Dating.

Rule One: If you pull into my driveway and honk, you'd better be delivering a package, because you're sure not picking anything up.

The whole thing is hysterical. I am keeping it for sure, and probably making a copy to give out to whatever boys try to date Lila one day!

I am thankful...

for so many reasons this year. Here's a glimpse...

For a Boom Pa who cooked a delicious turkey!

For cousins that love each other dearly...

For my sweet husband who I love more and more each day...

For Gigi who fed baby sister so that I could finish cooking...

For Memaw who held baby sister so that I could get the food on the table...

For the three little ones being so good all through lunch...(they are raising their hands in response to my question of "who likes turkey?!" So cute!)

For being able to spend Thanksgiving with lots of family...

For my little guy finally feeling better! This truly was the best Thanksgiving blessing this year. He felt so good, he went to the garage and came back with this paint roller!

We are all so thankful for a Memaw and Poppy who adore these three munchkins...

and for Uncle Andrew who is always up for entertaining the oldest rascal.

We are thankful for Gigi and Boom, too. This has been a hard week and I have needed a lot of support. I could not have asked for two better parents. I love you both so very much.

And finally, we are thankful for this sweet little girl and her good health. She's standing on her own now...won't be long before she's off and running! Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and was able to share it with those that you love.

Finally!

It took 7 1/2 months to the day, but our little girl has finally slept through the night! She went to bed at 8:45 last night and didn't wake up until 6:00 this morning. Hallelujah! Although it's probably more a result of her ears feeling much better, she picked a great time accomplish this task. You see, her big brother has been sick as a dog all weekend. The poor little guy has run fever almost nonstop for the past two days. We have been to two different urgent care clinics this weekend because his fever was so high. Neither of those doctors have been able to figure out what's wrong--both the strep and flu tests came back negative. Hopefully his pediatrician will have some answers for us this morning.