Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Family Pictures Sneak Peak

We had our family pictures taken a few weeks ago by our favorite photographer and friend Karin of Karin Davis Photography.  Let's just say thank god she has a two year old or I think by now she would have given up taking Ella's pictures!  Ella was not in the mood to stay still and pose for any of the pictures but rathered run around and make poor Karin chase her!

Here are just a few of our pictures from that day.  I don't want to post to many before my Christmas cards get out or it will ruin all of the fun!

 The dress Ella Kate wore for her pictures we ordered from Castles and Crowns one time when they were on Zulily.  When I got it in the mail I never thought it would fit her!  I can't believe how big she has gotten.

 Can't you tell Ella is so impressed to be held on to while we try to take a cute picture!  She is definitely at the stage where she doesn't want to be held back!

We tried really hard to get one of those cute pictures just showing our legs and having our dear child pose and smile real big.  See how great that worked out for us!  Again, don't hold this kid back or you get some very angry faces!

Thanks again Karin for putting up with us and our lovely 15 month old!  Thank god for your patience!

Rowan's First Birthday

While we were in Louisiana we also had a small birthday party for Keith's godson Rowan.  Due to an illness in Courtney's family it was decided rather than have the big party that had been planned for the little guy, we would just have a small get together during Thanksgiving.  Everyone was in one place and it worked out great!

The birthday boy's sweet treats!  Those cake pops were AWESOME!  Oh how we love us some cake pops!

Courtney had asked the bakery for a smash cake and she got a whole 8 inch round cake!  Needless to say the little guy was slightly overwhelmed by this monster!

Singing happy birthday to the little guy!  He had about the same reaction Ella did when we sang to her - basically looked at us like we were nuts!

The little guy sure did enjoy his cupcake though!  He has definitely inherited the love of cake from his mom and me!

I know someone else that enjoyed some cupcake too!

This poor kid has such a sweet tooth!  Luckily her daddy was nice enough to share with her!

Happy Birthday Rowan!  Hope you enjoyed your birthday and we are so glad we got to spend a little time with you while we were in Louisiana!  I still can't believe these babies are already 1!

LSU Vs Arkansas

While we were in Louisiana Nona agreed to give up her ticket to the LSU v Arkansas game and allow us to go while she watched Ella.  We were so glad to finally get to attend our first LSU game in 2 years!  

Two of my wonderful friends came and met us at the tailgate and we were able to snap a quick picture of the three of us before we headed into the game.  I have been friends with Laine and Talia since highschool.  Talia unfortunately moved away to Alabama for college, but Laine and I both attended LSU and were in the same sorority.  We have all moved away from eachother now (Talia is in New Orleans in her 2nd year of OB-Gyn Residency and Laine is in Houston) but we do our best to see eachother when it allows.

My camera has a great panoramic feature on it and I tried my best to get a picture of the stadium.  There is nothing like being in Death Valley for a game!  The atmosphere is just amazing!

The winner of the LSU v Arkansas game get "The Boot" trophy and Arkansas has won it 4 of the last 5 years so we were really hoping to get it back and keep our undefeated record!

The final score was 41-17 (though at the beginning of the game LSU looked rough!).  LSU was able to keep their undefeated record and head to the SEC championship in Atlanta (which they have now won and are headed to the BCS championship in New Orleans-just waiting to see who we play!)

It was great to be in Tiger Stadium for the last game of the season and especially with two of our best friends along with Keith's dad, his brother, and his brother's girlfriend.  We had such a blast with everyone!

Two of our favorite people after we had won the SEC West!  Everyone was so pumped up and the atmosphere was just amazing on campus after the game.

Of course Keith and I couldn't take a decent picture for such a memorable moment!  Oh well we tried and we definitely enjoyed ourselves!

GEAUX TIGERS!

A visit from Santa Claus

Every year at Christmas Keith's grandfather, Papa Ron, dresses up as Santa for the kids at Aunt Lisa's school.  Since there are now 3 great grandkids and 3 grandkids that don't live in LA we decided to have him visit the kids so that we could get some pictures of them and Santa.  I was grateful that now I don't have to take my poor child to the mall to watch her get upset sitting on Santa's lap!  It was much more relaxing to have her screaming in a house of relatives!

True to her genes, Ella Kate was not impressed by Santa at all!  My mom says I have a very similar picture at the same age.

We thought we would try again and let Ella sit with her cousins and maybe she would be happier, but all that changed was now there were 2 crying babies!

Rowan really wasn't sure what to think of Santa when it was just him and Easton.  You can see in his face that he didn't know if he should smile, cry, or just sit there.  Even Easton was a little unsure!

We were able to get pictures of all the kids that were there with Santa and even a group picture of all of the grandkids and great grandkids together!  I am so glad we did this and I am sure Gigi and Papa are going to enjoy these pictures for a long time!

Thanksgiving 2011

For Thanksgiving this year we loaded up the car and headed to Louisiana for a nice relaxing 5 days.  Well at least we thought it was going to be relaxing!  Our first night at Nona and Papa's ended up in a 3 hour trip to the ER (don't worry Ella ended up being fine) but other than that the remainder of the week stayed very uneventful!  We had a great trip that included lots of family and friends, an LSU game, a birthday party, a visit from Santa and even an impromptu family football pick up game!

We were finally successful and getting a decent family picture of the three of us!  Ella was even looking.  This was after not alot of sleep thanks to that ER visit but for once we are all happy and smiling!

My little monkey of course spent lots of her time in the wagon on Thanksgiving day (it is her favorite place to be).  Luckily there were lots of people there to pull her around and she even had her favorite little buddy to ride along with her.

I swear this baby is always full of smiles!  I don't think in 1 year that I have ever seen this kid cry!  He definitely enjoyed his wagon rides too.

Nona really enjoyed having her girl around for a few days and spent lots of time chasing her up and down the stairs.  They were both all smiles after some delicious food which included lots of fried turkey, all the Thanksgiving casserole staples, and Keith's favorite Oyster dressing!
Somehow after lunch while the younger boys were throwing around the football, an impromptu pick up game of boys versus girls got started.  This might have been the funniest thing I have ever watched!

Bre got very into it!  Hey Bre, don't let DZ see this or they will have you playing on all of the Intramural teams!
My dear husband even showed the younger kids how it was done!

Luckily we only ended up with one casualty when Papa Ron laid out for a catch and broke his cell phone case.  No real injuries though!

I have lots of other posts from all of our activities during our week in LA and I will slowly get those up!