Not So Silent Night

Wow. Embarrassing how far behind I am on the blog. Oops. 

Christmastime. Here we go. 

Annual nativity play.  

As always Audrey was an angel. 

This year Arden participated and was a king. 

And Hudson was a wise man and much less of a wild child than in previous years. 

Barker and Audrey ice skating. 

Barker coached in West Monroe so we tagged along to visit the children's museum. The bigs met Santa. 

The littles rode a train and made cookies. 

Arden enjoyed driving the ambulance. 

I saw my little brother at Christmas and was able to give his kids the memory dolls I had made for our children out of the dresses our mother wore to our weddings. I think they turned out beautifully. 

Candlelight Christmas Eve service is my favorite of the year. But I'm usually in the hospital, since I have the habit of delivering babies this time of the year. But this year I could go with my family! However Arden had other plans. 

She wanted no part of it so we had to play outside and in the stairway. I was like "Arden are you really gonna act like this in Jesus's house on his birthday of all days?" Sheesh

As you can see she was over it before we even left the house. 

Leaving reindeer food on the lawn. 

Our night before Christmas bedtime stories. This year was heavily Louisiana themed. 

One thing I seriously regret, I have many, but one was not having my grandmother teach barker to make a proper English Christmas dinner before she passed last year. He was nice enough to attempt it on his own for me. 

His beef Wellington was divine. Just spot on. Melted in your mouth. I was highly impressed. And his Yorkshire pudding was perfection. I'm a lucky girl. 

Audrey got a moustache in her cracker. Hudson scored a compass. 

Santa's loot

Lots of peppa stuff for Arden. Building toys for Hudson. Craft stuff and clothes for Audrey. They are really good about all playing with each other's toys and sharing. 

New pacis!

George and dinosaur!

Scalped

Starting in October Huddie started to tell me he wanted his hair cut. Then he'd tell me he wanted it long like mine. By December he'd decided quit flip flopping on going shorter. He wanted to be able to see his ears. So we took him to see Mr. Jeremy, who does all of our hair. 

He loves it! I love it. A few of his teachers were sad but it does suit him. 

Arden is 2

This wonderful ball of energy and grins is two!

What a perfect addition to our family she is! 

Hudson is 4

My beautiful, sweet main man is four! He's bright, loving and so much like his daddy. I'm so grateful he's mine. 

Thankful at Thanksgiving

The first graders at Audrey's school put on a Thanksgiving program. It was adorable. 

This year for Thanksgiving Barker took a week off work so we could go to the ranch again. It was beautiful and warm! 

Barker got our red meat for the year 

And taught the kids to shoot.

We visited the park, like always. 

We saw plenty of deer and turkey with it being so warm. 

Cuddling with my elves

Audrey always makes a gingerbread house over the break. This year she saw a Frozen themed castle weeks before and made a mental note. So her dad found it for her once we arrived. 

And Hudson ate it. 

We had the best trip w/ our excellent little travelers and of course made time to visit one of our favorite pit stops, Buc-ee's, a few times along the way. 

God Bless Texas!

This is Halloween

This year we headed back to the Kyle's for their annual Halloween hayride. We Barkers had a Cowboys and Indians theme. 

Our big kid Rykley even joined in!

Roasting marshmallows with my cowboy

Pixie stix races were a bad idea

I also got to tag along on Audrey's corn maze field trip!

Me and my buckaroo 

She rode horses 

And was brave enough to go into the creepy corn maze. 

We had the best time and I hope we can all go next year. 

Boudin

I caved and let the kids adopt a kitten. Barker picked out this little shelter ragamuffin that looks just like my cat Biggles that passed away last year. 

Boudin is so very patient with the kids and has been the perfect addition to our family. 

Meat Pie

I normally don't get to watch Barker at his triathlons because I'd have to get to the location at 6am w/ 3 kids in tow but for the Meat Pie Tri I was able to ditch the kids and tag along! We booked a wonderful bed and breakfast in beautiful Natchitoches, LA and made a long weekend/birthday celebration out of it. 

We indulged in great food, visited a museum, went shopping and ran into some friends from high school. Barker enjoyed that tri and will likely do it again. It was a nice little get away.