Christmastime

This year was, by far, the best Christmas ever. Bonnie was way into this year, which was great! She loved pointing out every Christmas light display, yard blow-up, Christmas tree, Santa figurine, ornament, elf, etc. etc, etc. Another thing about a two-year-old is that they cannot keep secrets at all. She told Brandon that we bought him a golf club the minute he came home from work one day. She also told Pappaw about his mug on Skype. Good memories! Here's a smattering of Christmas pictures. I apologize for them being in random order. Enjoy!

Painting Pappaw's mug at Third Coast Clay

Bonnie and Daddy each gave each other a golf club for Christmas!

Uncle Ryan reading the Grinch on Christmas Eve

Cousins opening a present after brunch on Christmas Eve

Brunch with cousins 

Aidan and Bonnie are putting out cookies for Santa. Aidan even made reindeer snacks at school!

Bonnie having Christmas tree cake and boiled custard

Daddy carving the roast beast

Katie and me at the Christmas party-Ryan must be having an awesome time in the background!

Kissing cousins by the tree. Love.

Another memorable dirty Santa exchange this year. Justin wins the prize for best gift this year!

Grace wins the prize for best outfit-honorable mention to Drew for the Patriotic Santa cardigan.

Addy and Bonnie sporting their party favor wares at Sallie's birthday lunch

Katie G's annual girl party.

Bonnie was reading her Bible to her naked barbies one morning.

When the besties got together to exchange gifts, guess what? Santa came! Bonnie was really proud of her gift from Will.

He read a story to Ansley and Bonnie.

Group shot! Baby Hayes was the rockstar of the Christmas season. The big kids LOVE him. The night after this party, we were talking to a friend of mine from school. I told Bonnie to tell her which special person came to see her the night before (thinking she'd say Santa), and she said, "Baby Hayes!"

"I'm two!"

Bonnie and Alex were sheep in the Christmas Pageant at church. 

Bonnie and her precious teacher, Miss Grace, at her Christmas party at school.

Polar Express Pajama Day at school-love my fourth grade team!

Bonnie and her buddy Sarah after their performance at school

We went to the English Tea sponsored by the ladies of the church. Bonnie thought it was awesome-she had her own tea pot of milk:)

Bonnie and Granny at the Tea

Aidan and Bonnie at the Christmas parade 

A Barefoot Family Thanksgiving

If you are reading this, you've probably heard about my family's Thanksgiving or experienced it for yourself. It is not like most Thanksgivings because a. it is held in a barn, b. our main course is whole hog, not turkey, and c. our after-dinner activities consist of shooting skeet and playing kickball. Oh, and you can always count on at least 75 people being there. It's the fun-loving, have-a-good-time, enjoy-being-together, laid back kind of holiday. It is always so much fun!

 Everybody gathering around, waiting on dinner to be ready!

 Uncle Randy working on that hog

 Uncle James built this amazing fort next door to Pap's. It was awesome!

 Uncle Hue took everybody on a really fun hayride.

 Another Uncle James invention-a kid favorite!

 Bonnie's first at-bat in the kickball game

 Daddy and Bonnie getting ready to run!

 Bonnie and Lucy look like linebackers due to their jackets being worn under their jerseys.

They were so cute!

 The Meadow Lights Carousel-woo hoo!

The girls loooove the Meadow Lights train!

Pullen Park

 I know that I am waaay behind on blogging. It seems like every post begins that way lately. Such is life with a busy two year old! I figured that I needed to start with Thanksgiving where I left off. When we landed in Raleigh for Thanksgiving, mom and dad picked us up and took us to the coolest park ever. The citizens of Raleigh are so fortunate to have this park. It has real rides for a dollar a piece, not to mention a great playground. It was a great way to begin our holiday weekend. More pictures of Thanksgiving to come!

Fantastic Fall

I had the opportunity to join Bubs on his work trip to Washington for Fall Break. Wow! What a beautiful state! I am so thankful that it worked out so that I could join him. We had a lot of fun getting to see that part of the country.

Beautiful Couer D'Alene

Downtown Spokane
Columbia Valley Wine Country
Beautiful Snoqualmie Falls...There is a hotel directly next to this bluff. I would really like to spend the night there. Can you imagine how well one would sleep when this is your background noise?
Pike's Place Market in Seattle. We did bring home our very own salmon on the plane, and we've been enjoying eating it since we've been home!

Daddy and Bonnie carved a pumpkin to get ready for Halloween.

We went to Morristown for Lucy's birthday party! Bonnie is aiming for the pinata in this picture.

We had a great time celebrating Lucy Pop's 4th Birthday.

I think we accumulated about 12 different pumpkins before Halloween. Bonnie loves pumpkins!

We visited Gouls at Grassmere, and Bonnie rode the flamingo while dressed as Snow White.

On Halloween night, Bonnie told her Snow White doll, "I look just like you!"

Sam and Bonnie had a ball on Halloween! They will definitely be looking forward to it next year. She's already been asking when Halloween will be again.

Busy, busy

Bonnie loves to ride the flamingo on the zoo carousel.

Bonnie and Dad on a walk at Radnor a couple of weeks ago.

We went in on this bounce house with the Rudolphs and the Simmons. Awesome parenting decision on our part. These kids had so much fun on Saturday during the UT game. I think we got our money's worth just on Saturday!

This is the best group shot I could get. They were too busy having fun!

Bonnie got to ride a pony at the Greek Festival this weekend. She looks so stoic.

She loved, loved, loved riding the horse. She hasn't quit talking about it!

She also loved this slide at the Greek Festival. It was great because she got to land in a big ball pit at the bottom. You can see the excitement on her face!

Really cute face right before hitting the ball pit!

She followed the animals around in the petting zoo sprinkling about 3 pellets of food for them on the ground.

Bonnie and Sam were so excited to get push-up pops at Chuy's!

Hello out there!

Long time, no see! I know it has definitely been too long since I've blogged. I've started back to school, and I've been a little overwhelmed. It's amazing how easy it is to adjust to not working after ten months, but how hard it is to readjust to working after just two months off. It's kind of strange how that happens!