Merry Christmas!

"from our family...to yours"

Christmas Jammies

There IS a daddy under there somewhere!

The babies definitely are communicating these days.

For instance, Laila whined, and repeatedly shoved Graysons hat onto her head looking at us the whole time, until we put it on for her.

This isn't unusual, just a REALLY funny combo with the nightgown.

Funnyness

This is Grayson's perch.

He sits/stands in this window much of the time. Look at his face he's like, "Yeah. I'm the king of the window."

Here he is watching Maddie get on the school bus in the morning. And below: Both of them watching her get home.Maddie came home from school with a friend. Hey, at least he's educational.

7 Years and counting

Happy anniversary to us! I just wanted to 'dedicate' a post to my wonderful hub (I refuse to say hubby...as it is a horrible word that sounds too much like 'cubby', yet 'husband' is too serious for me).

I am honestly thankful to the Lord on a daily basis for Greg. He is such a good man, and spiritual leader to our family. He always puts me first above himself, and I try to do the same for him, however putting Christ first above all is key. I know that the Lord has blessed our marriage, family, and lives, and we are grateful.

Have I mentioned what a good daddy he is? Just talk to any of our children and they can tell you...or they will someday!

Seven years seems like so long when you say it, but looking back its really not long at all. Greg has gotten over his fear of me putting on eye makeup in the car. When we were first married he was SERIOUSLY afraid I was going to poke my eyeball out....which was SO funny to me cause every woman in the world does this, but he firmly insisted that I not do it. As he very rarely tells me ANYthing firmly, I agreed. Apparently in the last seven years he has become indifferent to my eyeball, since he doesn't have a problem with it anymore. Oh well.

Haha, from Beej

Reindeer...?

Went to get something out of the car the other day and discovered visitors in the back yard.

School Christmas Program

The girls in their purdy dwesses with Mr. Delvillano. Maddie has told me she wants to marry him...(even tho he is already married...)

Maddie's Program was really good...save a few MAJOR sound issues that got us out of DHS about an hour later than last year. Her music teacher is great, VERY enthusiastic...the kids love him.

Ok, so after a few years on blogger, I'm finally changing my blog title. Referring BACK to my first post ever when Josh and Gretchen gave me tons of creative ideas, I'm finally settling on 'The Coop Loop'. It's kind of fitting for the types of posts that I do.

So anyway, thanks Josh...it was between that and "Blogging will never catch on". Hehe.

She's a hat Girl

I'm big too

I was putting Maddie's curlers in last night, and Laila was fascinated with them. Eventually I gave her one, and she toddled around the house with her precious curler, repeatedly putting it on top of her head. We got the message and put one in for her.

Then, of course, Grayson wanted one.

All Aboard!

So we went on the annual Polar Express trip to Danville's festival of trees. It starts at the Mall where they do the pajama contest. They had a winner for girls, boys, and families. Then we loaded onto our buses...school buses (they actually didn't smell horrible) and made a pit stop at McDonalds where they had our hot chocolate ready for us in spill-proof cups. The paper had boasted of "hot chocolate and chocolate candy with nougat centers white as snow" aka: bite size Charleston Chews! : ) AND we sang Christmas carols all the way there.

When we got to the 'North Pole' there were dozens of elves ringing bells and greeting us. Covington had a group there (Kennedy Fye was with them!) and they sang the songs off of the movie. It was really well done!

Then the Mayor read them the Polar Express and Santa made an appearance.

Death of the Pumpkins

Greg enjoys destroying things, so every year after Halloween he takes the much-labored-over jack-o-lanterns and throws them as hard as he can, far as he can, high as he can.

This picture was taken just before the annual smashing of the pumpkins-(see pumpkins to the right)

This picture was just after Greg hit Maddie in the face with a piece of pumpkin(ok, it was an accident). Very Hard. If you click on the picture you may be able to see the welt on her face...
she really didn't care...she enjoys destroying things too.

Hats

Happy Election Day, Everyone!

This is it! God is sovereign. He has the right, power, and wisdom to do whatever he will do/allow.

I must say I am ready for it to be over! The back and forth on BOTH sides. I want to watch the Today show again without wanting to send them emails about their UNfair and NOT balanced coverage.

Anyway...happy voting!

Shrek, Dronkey, and Gangster-mania!

Maddie was SO excited about her gangster costume...I don't think there was anyone we ran into that didn't already know what she was going to be!

Laila's head piece was a little big and kept falling over her face...she didn't care...she just kept going. Grayson's big head filled his out fine. : )


Kyle and Grayson

I love Kaylee's rubix cube! Homemade costumes are hands down the best!
Annual pumpkin carving...

This one just shows the back of Dronkey...her tail was cute wagging behind her.

This is 'pumpkin man'. We got him at Cracker Barrel a few years ago...he has a motion sensor on him and when you go by he says, "would you like a treat from my bowl?", "I hope I didn't scare ya, I'm better at handing out candy than scaring crows!", etc. Anyway...we put him on the front porch in our absence and all the candy is gone when we get home.

This is Laila and him on the kitchen counter.

Getting in trouble...Together

So last night I was giving Maddie a bath and the twins discovered some cheetoes that were left by the lazy boy. They were ENJOYing them!

Grayson was stuffing them in by the handful...
I took my sis-in-law Kimmie's idea. She has a designated cabinet in her kitchen for her kids. Just for them...they can get in it, put their stuff in it...its all theirs.

I do keep a big box of garbage bags in ours...they love to pull EVERY bag out...here's some other things they get into together....
Maddie's crayons and markers...she uses them EVERY day, so there are lots of opportunities there....
I love this picture...if you look close you can see they are both SCREAMing their heads off! They both crawled under diaper changing table and got very stuck....

Grayson got so desperate for markers he CLIMBED on the table...

And of course...the NON baby cabinets...until two days ago when Greg finally got the cabinet locks on this was a DAILY occurrence. They haven't quite learned yet...they are still going around to every kitchen cabinet trying to open it...and (yeah!) getting shut down!