Christmas Eve

Since Patrick and I have been married, we rotate Thanksgiving and Christmas between our two families. This year was Thanksgiving with my family and Christmas with his. On Christmas Eve we went to church at St. Vincent De Paul with Jim, Rhonda, Kyle and Cece. It was so neat. That church is beautiful and to see it lit in candlelight with the sweet voices of the children's choir singing puts goose bumps on me just thinking about it! Such good memories!

After church they always go to Fred's Hickory Inn for a yummy steak dinner! They seriously have the best steaks in town and it is such a warm and cozy atmosphere. It's in a really old house with lots of wood burning fireplaces. I love a wood burning fireplace!

Cole, Nana, and Pawpaw.....

Juice break.....

Feeding daddy.....

Eating peppermint (Patrick would chomp up a candy cane and spit it out for him! Somewhat like a momma bird does for her babies! Ha, ha!!!).....

Getting some lovin from Pawpaw after dinner (oh yea, and don't forget Frog!).....

Of course, a quick basketball game before bed;).....

What he does best....taking the "balls" off of the Christmas tree!......

SANTA CAME!!!!!!!!!!!!! Santa brings Cole 3 gifts, because that is how many gifts Jesus got from the wise men (my friend Lisa does this with her girls, and I think it's another way to remember the real reason for the season).

This year Santa brought Cole a Pottery Barn chair, a soccer set, and a Radio Flyer tricycle......

Chase

One of our very favorite things to do.....CHASE!

Cy's Birthday Party

Last weekend we went to Cy's 2nd birthday party. It was so much fun! A Choo-choo theme, complete with a train and everything! Cole LOVES choo-choos, so this was a dream come true for him!

Cole, Liza and PATRICK ready for departure;).....


All Aboard.....

Bundled up.....

Sweet girl:)...

Chugga-chugga-CHOO-CHOOOO.......

I tried to get video to capture the moment, but it didn't turn out very good. Cole, Liza, and Patrick are in the yellow cart.....

Basketball

This boy LOVES sports! Anything that involves a B-A-L-L! He has gotten REALLY good at shooting his basketball. The other night, he was making baskets one after another, so I tried to get it on video, but he got SO made at me everytime he noticed I was recording him!

I just missed the actual basket in this one, but he had just made it. It gives you an idea of how far he can shoot it from! And then of course he charges me to make me stop recording;).....

This one isn't from very far away, but you can tell how excited he gets! We make a HUGE deal out of every single basket:)! Then, once again, he charges the camera:(.....

Successful Surgery

Cole had his tubes and adenoidectomy on Tuesday. He was such a trooper! I think the actual surgery was harder on his mommy and daddy than it was on him:(! The recovery process, however, is a different story! Life was good until yesterday. He stayed with Jim and Rhonda during the day while Patrick and I worked, and they told me he had run a low grade fever all day long, and just wasn't being himself. Well, he just kept going downhill. He started crying at about 7:30pm and didn't stop until 4:30am!!! It was pitiful:(!!! I knew he was in so much pain and there was nothing I could do! That's not a good feeling! I called the doctor first thing this morning and he said to bring him in. He took a look at him and everything checked out good. He just said that the pain from the adenoid removal can be VERY painful, and I need to stay on top of his pain medicine. I had given him Tylenol every 4 hours through the night, but evidently that wasn't enough:(! We had tried to avoided the Tylenol with codeine, because when I gave it to him Tuesday evening he was running around like a crackhead. I'm not even kidding! It was crazy!!! Patrick and I decided at 4:30am this morning that we would rather have a crackhead than a baby in pain;)!!!

His ankle bracelet.....


I was fighting back the tears once he got his little gown on:(.....

He couldn't have anything to eat or drink that morning. He saw me stick a banana in my purse on the way out the door and was determined to get in there and devour it....

Calling Pawpaw (Jim's new name. It sounds more like "Baw-baw" right now, and I'm not real sure on the spelling?).....

A nervous momma! It looks like Cole is saying a quick prayer:).....

I had to ride in the hospital bed with him from the pre-op room to the OR.

Giving Frog a good bite;)....

After surgery:(.....

LOTS of Apple Juice.....

and POPSICLES:).....

I'm hoping tonight is a better night for the little guy! We have Cy's birthday party tomorrow morning and a Christmas party at the Fergus' tomorrow night! Busy, busy weekend!

Dinner Date

Karaoke King

Cole's daddy performing at him mommy's work Christmas party! So proud;).....

Random Pictures

Still sneaking into the closet to get a quick fix of his bouncy seat every now and then;)...

Loving his new table and chairs that Bud and Peg got him for Christmas.....

Just swinging.....

Bird watching in the morning at the lake.....

Chilling on the floor, watching basketball.....

Happy Thanksgiving/Merry Christmas

Every year we rotate Holidays between mine and Patrick's families. This year we spent Thanksgiving with my family. We all met in Hot Springs at my parents lake house. Melissa and Mamaw came for the day and the McNeil clan was all down at their lake house 2 doors down. Lots of family time:)!

Cole, Mamaw and me....

All bundled up.....

Cole and Daddy.....

Family pic by the bonfire.....

Brady and Patrick giving "taters"...

Happy boy.....

Quick break for a hog call;)!!!

Since we spent Thanksgiving with my family this year, we will spend Christmas with Patrick's family, so we celebrated with my family on Thanksgiving night.

I must explain the pictures below.....For Christmas, my parents are taking us all to Destin in June, so we were all on a $25 limit for gifts. This was my dad's dream come true, because he is OBSESSED with shopping at garage sales! Do you know how much crap you can buy at a garage sale for $25???? I think we got more gifts this year than we ever have before!!!!! Some of them were gag gifts, but most of them we will actually use!!! I have to say, I am very impressed with Bud's selections;)! Ha, ha!!!

To top it all off, they were all wrapped similar to the gift below. Lots of random boxes, red duct tape, and pillow cases tied off with duct tape!!!!!

These were the first thing we opened. Arkansas Pride-Clinton/Gore Inauguration '93 stocking caps! For those of you that know Patrick, you know that he is very much a republican (however, he does now claim to be a fan of Bill), so we got a big kick out of these!!!

Here we are with all of our loot:

Beach chairs

Cocktail shaker

Vase

Ice Cream Maker

Security Cable (Patrick plans to hang a corn feeder with it)

Camo for a blind

Stocking Caps

Some sort of Buddha type figurine (that my dad personally carved on)

Not pictured: A really neat outdoor serving cart type thingy

A-MAZING:).......

Bud and Cole swinging.....

Cole and his buddy, Hunt.....

Tubes

We've broken down and decided to do it! Cole will be getting tubes and having his adenoids removed next Tuesday. He hasn't really had too many ear infections, but the fluid in his right ear never seems to go away. The infection clears up, but the fluid is still there!

Here are some pictures of him while we were waiting to see the doctor. He is showing me where it hurts:(.....