Oooah, Oooah, Shoot that Arrow!

Back in the beginning of January, Jeff & Malissa came up for a day to hang with us. Jackson was very excited and had called Jeffery the day before to find out exactly what time he would be arriving. He was also excited to tell Jeff that his Daddy had gotten him a bow & arrow. And yep, you guessed it, he wanted Uncle Jeff to bring his bow with him so they could all shoot together. Once they arrived, the nagging began! :) He was ready to go! Here are some photos once they finally got to it!


Randy's proud face once he hit the bulls-eye. His bow needs to be re-adjusted so it is way off when he shoots. BUT, he was a perfect shot with Jeff's!
Ready, Set, GO!

The holidays! A recap!

Well, Christmas 2011 has past & the New Year has come! Happy 2012! I hope this year has a lot of fun things in store for us all!

I know I am behind on the good ole blog, but it always gets a little crazy during the holidays & then afterwards I am just plum wiped out! So, I am just now getting around to it!

You already know that we do a lot of traveling but I really didn't take an overabundance of photos this year (decent ones, anyway!). I am still learning on the DSLR & haven't had a lot of time to work with it, so what little bit I had learned, I had to re-learn. Ugh! But I refuse to be an "auto" shooter. I WILL master this camera! So, I have been a little overwhelmed in that department (& to add confusion to the mix, I also got Photoshop Elements Software for Christmas & WHOA, that will be a huge learning curve.) My biggest deficit is in the area of shooting indoors without the use of my flash. I borrowed a fixed 50mm lens from my brother in law which is helping some but it was an adjustment since the aperture goes all the way down to 1.8! Sweet!

So now that I have given all my caveats, here is a Christmas holiday recap in photos! First Christmas outing was to Disney on Ice: Dare to Dream. Nanny came up for the day in early December to take the grandkids (& their mama's!) to this show. It was fantastic! I think Rebecca & I loved it even more than the kids!
A scene from Tiana's Place in the Princess & the Frog...
The gorgeous horse & carriage from Cinderella... this was beautiful!
The lanterns lifting in the Tangled scene! Seriously, I teared up! It was great!

Second stop for the holidays was to Mikes Farm for the holiday hayride/lights show (& did I mention YUMMY dinner?) I only had my cell with me, so i didn't get but a few pictures, but my favorite one was this one with me & my Grandaddy! Is he handsome or what?Third stop? Over to Jen & Brian's for Christmas with my mama, aunt, & cousins! We draw names here & it's always a hoot trying to figure out who had who.... Rebecca got some fabulous running gear (something to keep her ears warm!)
Sitting in Daddy's lap! This kid never tires of a lap!
Jackson opening his gift.... he got a beyblade stadium he had been wanting forever & was thrilled!
And Sara Beth took to "little" Ed this year! I think she is missing her Daddy!

Fourth Stop... Christmas with Grandaddy & Grandma Tee... We at least spend the night for this trip, so we get a little more bang for our gas buck! ;) We exchanged gifts with our cousins here as well as with the Grandparents. Jackson was THRILLED (& very surprised) with his new Wii Game (Lego Harry Potter!)
This kid couldn't be ANY cuter if you ask me!
The boys cousin, Jonathon... lookin' all cool in his flat bill hat. Tell me again why this is a trend??
Zack came along for the trip too & wasn't so sure he appreciated being out in the cold! He whimpered every time I would go out on the porch & desperately wanted some attention. But, he survived!
Kayla brought along her violin & yes, Randy picked it up & was able to bust out a song in a just a few short minutes! Some people just have more talent than I can even imagine!
And speaking of Kayla, Oh, my... She is officially 15 since Nov 2, & that means that she gets to drive. SCARY! I snapped a couple shots of her pulling up driving my brother's truck!
I really don't like that she is already 15. Just sayin'.
The hit of the visit at Grandaddy's though ended up being the walkie talkies that they got each set of kids. Seriously, these things were no joke. They had a 2 mile radius in the country! (5 mile in the city!) And come to find out, the kids were able to all get on the same channel & use them all together. How cool!?
The next day we came home & had our own little Christmas at home. We have never had a chance to do this but because some of Randy's extended family wasn't coming in for Christmas this year, we combined both of Randy's family get togethers into one & so we had a free evening on Christmas Eve! The kids were shocked, but excited when we said we were going to open presents after dinner!


Ready, Set...... GO!


Christmas morning & Santa has been here! The big guy in red left Jackson a Lego kit to build a HUGE Hogwarts Castle (from Harry Potter). He left Eli the Leap Pad that he was certain that Santa wouldn't be able to find. But Santa pulled through, no doubt without the help of some elves!
Zack didn't get left out, either. He got a new frog to toss around & some new tennis balls.
Eli wasted no time getting to work on the Leap Pad !
And Daddy even got in on some LeapPad learning fun!
Christmas night, we headed over to Randy's Grandma Evan's house for Christmas with his whole family. As is tradition... the guys jammed out.
This guy looks good with a guitar... if you ask me, anyway! ;)
After a yummy dinner by this fantastic cook....

We got to open even MORE presents! Aunt Debbie is so sweet because even though she wasn't going to be there this year, she sent money for us to pick out a gift for each of the boys. So Debbie (I know you are reading this!), Jackson got a great watch that he has worn EVERYDAY since!
And Eli got 2 books! He loves books (especially the Llama Llama series) and the other title, I thought we could all benefit from! (Don't Squeal Unless it's a Big Deal). THANK YOU!
Trying to get a few decent pictures.... here's one of Jeremy & Marie...
And one of Mema & a lap full of trouble!
Whew! If you made it to the end of that marathon post, then kudos to you! We had a Very Merry & busy Christmas & hope you all had a safe holiday with family & friends.

Eli's Entertainment

My child is very imaginative. We listen to him talk to himself all day long some days, totally engrossed in his own play schemes. Sometimes he does things that seem odd, and then upon further inspection is pretty inventive.... Enter: Today's video!

I had come upstairs to get started folding some laundry and Eli hates, i mean HATES, to be on one level of the house all by himself. So, naturally, he picked up his cars & headed upstairs with me. This is where he ended up....

Our Elf, Pip William

Tis the season for our elf to return & keep watch over two little boys behavior! The last 2 years, we had a larger (much chubbier) elf come stay with us through the holidays but this year he sent his new, younger friend to stay with us because he was retiring to the North Pole. Apparently, our new elf, who we named Pip William, has more magic & can fly faster to the N.Pole to give Santa updates each night. Isn't he a cutie!?Our old elf also left a book for the boys to read all about Pip and how special he is & how he works so closely with Santa. Apparently he really likes the games he gets to play with little kids during the holidays!
His name was not easy to agree on. Eli was adamant from moment one that his name should be Willie. (Because the head elf in the movie, Fred Claus is named Willie). Jackson liked Fred, Freddie, Albus, and Weasley (The last 2 were straight from Harry Potter). I thought he needed an original name that was just his. So I tossed out Pip since he is quite a little pip squeak. Jackson loved it, Eli stuck with Willie. Hmmm, how were we going to agree?? I asked Eli if he liked Pip William since Willie is short for William and we could call him Pip for short. He agreed! Can you believe it!? Randy liked Weasley too since our elf has almost red-like hair & Ron Weasley from HP has red hair too. I would've agreed to Weasley, because it was kinda cute too. But I do like Pip a lot! I think it fits his little personality! He is quite cute too and silly. He has done some silly things around the house!

The boys get up & hit the floor running to search for him. They have found him hugging our little angels...
He also has been found peeking out of the top of the kitchen cabinets and hanging on our mirror leaving dry erase messages, too. And then on Sunday, they found him in the fridge! He was hanging on the milk jug that he had turned green with our food coloring!! It was a super busy day Sunday so I didn't get a chance to get a picture of him. I am disappointed that I forgot! Jackson thought this milk thing was hilarious but it rocked Eli's world. He didn't think that was a funny game at ALL. In fact, he refused to drink the milk for 2 days. I finally turned it to chocolate milk & he didn't hesitate for one second! I am not sure Pip realized how persnickety our Eli is! I hope he learned his lesson! (Or maybe he is the perfect match for Eli! Show him a thing or two!)
The boys decided that they were going to build Pip a house out of Lego's but they barely got started before it was bedtime. I think Pip is sending them a message that he likes the idea of a Lego house, because he built them a Christmas tree the next morning! Here he is showing off his Christmas tree! We will keep you posted on all of Pip's shenanigans! I have a feeling he has some fun games up his sleeve this month! Stay tuned....