Thanksgiving 2010

This was our first Thanksgiving in Florida, and I was so glad to have my mom here to cook (just to see her too, of course)!! I did help out and cook the turkey and Lolli's fabulous monkey bread. Both turned out well, if I do say so myself.

Neither were as tasty as mom's sweet potatoes though.

My first attempt at bread baking.

We got the Christmas tree up too. I

love having the house decorated this time of year.

The kids wanted a tree in their living room since I put the big one in the family room. (Houses here are very different. Most have a formal living room and a family room. I'd prefer one bigger room, but you take what you get. We really weren't into the whole "formal" thing, so the kids have their own living room to play in.) They chose a white tree with blue, green, and red ornaments. I think it turned out very cute!

On another note -

What Cameron and Carson do when they're bored...

water bottle bowling @ the Arnold house - crazy boys!

Notice Carson's attire. He was not made to live in FL. It was 80 degrees outside and this is how he was dressed. He always wants jeans, a long sleeved shirt, and a jacket on.

Whatever floats his boat.

We are so thankful for many blessings in our lives.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!!

Halloween 2010

Carson's preschool had a Halloween parade the Friday before Halloween. Luckily, his school is very close to mine and I was able to sneak out for a little bit to see him. He was one of about 5 wearing a Spiderman costume in his class. I definitely see where his fascination comes from now.

This was the best picture I could get of his whole class.

One of his teachers was a scare crow and the other two were crows.

Carson argued the they were not crows...they were birdies, black birdies.

We had a Spider theme at our house this year. Sydney is getting to that age where she isn't extremely interested in the costume...just the CANDY! When we went to pick out costumes, she let Carson choose for her. He saw Spider-Girl and said, "You can be a spider princess, Sissy!"

So, spider people it was...

There were tons of people in our neighborhood that decorated their yards for Halloween.
The kids had a blast and racked up in the candy department!!

After we made the rounds, we went back and sat out front to pass out candy.

I think they had just as much fun looking at the other

kids' costumes and handing out candy as they did trick-or-treating.

Pumpkin Carving

Sydney wanted to be in charge of the pumpkin carving this year, and Carson wanted to help, of course. He started out wanting to wear his gloves, but Syd convinced him to take them off. Carson hates having stuff on his hands...Cheetos, anything sticky, etc... He always asks to wash them immediately.

Apparently he felt the same about pumpkin "guts".

I'm pretty sure his face says it all.

We weren't quite ready to let her take over the

actual carving but did let her carve the nose.

Here is the finished product. It's kind of hard to see but the

picture with the lights out turned out blurry.

Easter 2010

The Easter bunny brought goodies to Syd and Carson, and eggs of course. We had fun dying eggs, but much more fun hunting them. We didn't get to do our hunting until after church this year. It was our turn in the nursery, so we went to the early service and took care of some precious boys and girls during the regular service. We always have lunch at the Latch's house on Easter...it was delicious. The potato casserole and peanut better bars were my personal favs!

We're so grateful for the ultimate price that Jesus paid for each of us.

Happy Easter!

Christmas in March

Carson, Maddon, Sydney, and Maddox (We missed you, Mattison)

Santa came to Lolli and Pop's house a little late this year!! We spent this weekend in Nashville having Christmas with Cameron's family. Lolli was in the hospital over Thanksgiving, the beginning of December, and again over Christmas. We decided to wait until she was feeling better to have Christmas...plus she's a gift fanatic and needed time to get just what she wanted for everyone. (Thanks, Trista for helping her out!) Oddly enough, it even ended up being a white Christmas.

This is Maddon's smile. He apparently does this every time someone says cheese.
It was hilarious!

Carson got his own set of bull riding gear. I sure hope his fascination with this wears off as he gets older. This mommy is definitely not letting him ride a bull! He also got a "real" cowboy hat, but it wouldn't fit his big noggin and is going to be exchanged.

Sydney got a pink BB gun, lots of fun stuff for her DSi, and her own lime green and giraffe luggage. She'll definitely be traveling in style.

Lolli also got our family a Wii (since we are probably the only family in America that didn't have one). Cameron and Sydney haven't stopped playing since we got home.

**Thanks for a fabulous Christmas, Lolli and Pop.
It was great getting to hang out with you guys.**

Christmas 2009

Beware - Way too many pictures below!!

We had a fabulous Christmas and feel so blessed. I'm so thankful to have such a wonderful family to spend time with over the holidays.

Sydney and I started our Christmas Eve by making some cookies for Santa, and us of course. It's so fun now that she can pretty much do it all by herself...I just supervise. We baked our favorite, M & M oatmeal cookies.

Carson didn't have a hand in the cookie making but was definitely available to lick a beater.

The finished product...

We had a great Christmas Eve service at church. While we were getting ready to go, I asked Carson who's birthday we were going to celebrate tomorrow and he replied, "Jesus' birthday. I wike Jesus. He's my boy!" How cute is that?!

I love these two precious babies.

After church we drove around to look at some Christmas lights, then headed back to the house to get in our pjs. We all had hot chocolate and watched Santa Clause 2. Carson wouldn't keep his finger out of the whipped cream on top of his daddy's cup.

Daddy read us The Christmas Story and Sis read us The Night Before Christmas.

Carson is obsessed with Santa's reindeer so we put some food in the yard to feed them. Every time I talked to him about getting to see Santa (he came to Carson's school) I would ask if he was going to sit on Santa's lap. Instead of answering my question he would ask, "Can I sit on his reindeer?" He also pretended to be "Baby Rudolph" for the past month.

After feeding the reindeer and watching the news to see where Santa was, the kids headed to bed. Sydney woke us all up around 7 to get our Christmas day started.

Santa brought Carson a remote control train and a black cowboy hat this year. He LOVES them both. Unlike the train and hat, his Mimi brought him a present that he is terrified of...see picture below.

This is his reaction after opening his coon skin cap. I know I'm terrible for finding his complete and utter fright quite hilarious, but we seriously could win America's Funniest Home Videos with this one. Mimi was video taping it and is afraid it didn't turn out because she was laughing so hard. Every night since he got the hat we've had a meltdown at bedtime. We have to put the hat in a box in Daddy's closet and let Carson shut the door so that he knows the "raccoon" can't get him.

Santa brought Syd a DSi for Christmas. She has pretty much been playing since she opened it, well except for while Bubby or Cameron were playing. They are just as bad as she is!

Carson has quite the git-up here. His pjs, Cars house shoes, cowboy coat (he calls his vest this because the bull riders he watches wear a vest when they ride), and cowboy hat. I have no idea where he get his desire to be a cowboy, but I think he'd make a pretty cute one.

Ryan, Ashley, and Davis came over to play and open presents with Mimi and Bubby.

Mimi cooked a yummy lunch for us, and then we spent the rest of the afternoon visiting Cameron's family at the hospital. We are so glad Lolli seems to be getting better and hope she goes home some. We're going to wait and have Christmas with his family when she gets out of the hospital so there are many more pictures to come.

We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and wish you a Happy New Year!

Happy birthday, Jesus!

Huckabee's Christmas Party

Cameron and I went to David and Lauren's Christmas Party last weekend. I love my kids dearly but it was great to hang out with adults for a little while. We had a great time!

*Thanks for having us over, David and Lauren!

*Thanks for coming up to keep the kids, Mimi!

Also, please continue to pray for Cameron's mom. She is in the hospital again here in LR. It stinks to be in the hospital anytime, but especially at Christmas. We love you, Lolli!!

Early Christmas

We spent last Saturday in De Queen having Christmas a little early with the Atkins family. It was great to see everyone and the kids had a blast. Thanks for rearranging Christmas a little so that all of us could be there!! We love you guys!

HaLLoWeeN 2009

Halloween was a blast this year! Sydney and Carson were boxers. Carson loves to box with his daddy. He calls it playing "beat 'em up." Sydney was having a hard time deciding what to be when she happened to see a girl boxer outfit that matched Carson's costume. I thought it was pretty cute that she wanted to dress up to match her brother. However, she did want a little something extra...a black eye. I told her it wasn't good to be a boxer with a black eye, but she told me I should see the other guy. ;)

I have no pictures of Carson wearing his boxing gloves and if you saw the meltdown we had before leaving home you'd know why. Luckily, he perked up and had lots of fun. We went to Trunk or Treat at our church and Carson was not a fan of the kids honking the firetruck horn.

A couple of games and a sucker later, he was over it.

After Trunk or Treat we went to the Parrish's house for a Halloween party.
Can you guess who greeted us at the door?

Why, it's Kate Gosselin of course. I'm sure it was a very popular costume this year, and Anna Carol looked too funny. Cameron can't stand that show (or Kate) and had a hard time looking at AC all night. *AC, I'm hoping you put a picture of Jarrod (AKA Jon) on your blog. I didn't end up with one.

The kids spent most of their time running in circles, stealing cookies off the food table, and wrecking Mason's room. Handy Manny (Mason) loved playing with Syd.

Here is our attempt at a group picture. This was as good as it got, but trust me, they all looked adorable!!

Huck did his best to get baby Benjamin in the picture but was a little late. I did snap one of Carson being sweet to him though.

Sydney had to try on the Kate wig before we left. Oh my!

Greers Ferry Lake

We spent some time at the lake with my sister-in-law's family last weekend. Sydney had a great time swimming and playing in the loft at the lake house. The boys loved "driving" the boat and did a little swimming, too. The big boys (Ryan, Cam, and Drew) fried fish and we had a fantastic dinner. Thanks for inviting us Latches, and thanks for the pictures Aunt B. Hope everyone had a great long weekend.

Sydney and her boys on the barge

Havin' a little Sprite

Look out, Davo's drivin'!!

Miss Sydney

What is that face?!

Pops on the River '09

We had a great, lazy 4th of July this year. Cameron went golfing with some friends during the day while the kids and I played at home. Sydney and I got caught up on some Cake Boss and Little Couple episodes we'd missed. Yes, we love TLC reality shows. After dinner we went to Cold Stone for some ice cream then down to the river to watch the fireworks.

I hate to say it but they really weren't great this year. There were some really pretty ones but it didn't seem to last very long at all. We had lots of fun anyway!

I thought this was precious!! Carson was a little startled when the fireworks began and when Sydney put her arm around him to comfort him, he did the same. He later moved to my lap and kept saying, "Watch 'em, watch 'em Mommy!"

Looking forward to a lazy Sunday afternoon as well. Hope you all had a great 4th of July weekend.