Christmas in September

Nana decided it was already time for us to pick out our Christmas present this year. Merry Christmas to us, she gave us our coffee table and end tables. Thank you Nana. They look great. Now how to rearrange the living room, I may need some help with that.

Jacie and Clint's Wedding Shower

The engaged couple! December 12th is just around the corner.

C.J., Clint, and Jacie

Me, Erica, Jacie, and Grace.

Clint and his mom.

Jacie, her mom, and grandmother.

Clean Pups

 When I got home from Houston Sydnee and Scout desperatley needed baths. Memaw and Papa Dave had to feed them outside. They were too muddy to come in the house.

Sydnee loves taking baths, Scout on the other hand...baths are not his favorite past time. After her bath Sydnee loves to waller all over the floor. She is so funny!

Scout is not a "wallerer" he is a cuddler.

They were glad to get to sleep inside again:)

In Houston with the Corsos

Last friday I took a half day off of work and Stephen and I headed over for a weekend in Houston with the Corsos. That evening we went to the Pavilion in the Woodlands for the Brad Paisley, Dierks Bentley, and Jimmy Wayne concert. Before the concert we picked up my wedding bouquet that I had made into a floral portrait, http://www.thefloralportrait.com/. It is beautiful and I love it. Once we found a parking spot for the concert we made our way in and up to the lawn, where we set up our "spot". Stef brought along a tarp for us to sit on since it had been raining earlier that day. We found the perfect spot where we could see the whole stage. The concert was awesome from start to finish. This was my and Stephen's first time to see Brad Paisley and it was great! Dierks Bentley is always fun to watch too;) Saturday we slept till 10 am. I haven't done that in forever. We got up and Stef had a breakfast ready for us to heat in the oven, yummy, stuffed French toast casserole. Then Stephen and I got ready for the day and were heading out to do some outlet shopping. I pointed out that his front passenger side tire was a little low on air, so off to get air we went. Stephen then saw that there was a piece of metal in the tire and it would need to be patched, so off to Wal-Mart we went (across the parking lot). There they told us that it could not be patched because the piece of metal was in one side of the tire and out another, so off to the nearest Pep Boys we went. After following the GPS the wrong way for about 40 minutes we finally managed to make it to the shop. We had gone back to get my car in the mean time, so we were able to drop the truck off and get back to our fun visit. Needless to say we aborted our mission of outlet shopping. The new focus was the LSU football game that started in about 2 hours. Where to watch the game and where to eat dinner? Buffalo Wild Wings! We picked up Stephen's truck on the way and we made it to our table facing the gigantic game screen just at kickoff. That was a close call. We ordered a round of drinks and even encouraged Matt to venture out and try the spicy hot wings. After the game we walked over to Pubfiction. There we met up with a group of Matt's buddies that he works with and their wives/girlfriends. We had so much fun meeting new people, drinking fun "pretty drinks", and dancing the night away. We can't wait for another fun visit to Houston with Stef and Matt.

Labor Day = Zoo Day

We made a trip to the zoo for labor day with Brandon and his three girls (left to right: Rylee, Emma, and Kendal). They were so much fun!

The "King of the Jungle" was very vocal. He roared at us! That is Stephen's hand antagonizing him.

Can you spot the Alligator?

We found out that Rylee isn't afraid of anything, including lions, snakes, and bears and Kendal is a star in front of the camera.

By the end of our train ride the girls were pooped out.

Our House is now a Blessed Home

Father Adam Travis blessed our house this past Saturday. We had some friends and family over for the event. I made pickled shrimp, stuffed mushrooms (which are always a group favorite), and a cajun crawfish dip. Aunt Gayle brought her famous onion dip and mom made brownies and cookies for us all. Stefanie and Matt made the trip over from Houston to be with us.  Stephen and I were so glad to have everyone there and hope to continue to always have family and friends in our home. We hope Father Travis is feeling better, he was a bit under the weather.
The woman talked in the dining room while the men watched football in the living room.

We had more friends came by later too!  Dylan, Andrew, and Ricky stopped by on their way back to olla.

Cotton Pickin' Time

They cut the cotton behind our house this morning. We ran out to get some pictures before it was all gone.

Sydnee helped Stephen with some yard work in the mean time.

Sydnee is Stephen's little girl:)

sydnee plays "big dog"

We got a new bed for Sydnee and Scout for the bedroom. They did have two small pillows and they each got one, which was working out alright but they were out growing the pillows quickly. In the living room, we have one big pillow and they share during the day and that seemed to work out just fine. So we thought that might be a good idea for them at night. No way! Tiny Sydnee is a bed hog and leaves Scout only a corner to sleep. That's on a good night when Sydnee doesn't intimidate Scout so much where he crawls under the bed shaking or sits by the bed whining. Sydnee can be a mother hen at times but a true turd at other times.

We love them both:)

Good memories made in the midst of sad times...

Ashley, Alcee, Desmond, Tanner, Skye, and Amalie have come to stay at our house while Ashley's family is mourning the loss of her step dad, Trip. Ashley, Tanner, Skye, and Amalie came down last night and boy did we have fun! The kids were fascinated by the cotton field, of course we had to go run it it, pick some, and get some for Tanner to take to school. Tanner found sticks on the outside of our fence, threw them over onto our side, then proceeded to break them, put them in the wheel barrel, and bring them to the fire pit. He got everything ready for him and Stephen to build a fire, and what a fire it was! Of course Skye and Amalie were pushed around in the wheel barrel as well. Amalie loved it! After helping Tanner play in the dirt, the girls shared popsicles and ice cream with Sydnee and Scout. At one point Ashley and I looked over and Skye was licking ice cream off of the top of the table and Scout was liking from the bottom. Sydnee followed Amalie and licked whatever she dropped or left on her dress. You can only imagine how sticky they were. We pulled out Syd and Scouts pool and gave the kids the water hose. Mission accomplished, rinsed off sticky fingers and toes and they had a blast. After bath time, Stephen pulled out Mr. and Mrs. Potatoe Head! We love the Trahan's and they are welcome back anytime. Hopefully next time we won't misplace my hair brush in Stephen's chest of drawers. I have no idea how it ended up in there. I am learning that with kids you never know what to expect.

Pool Day

Sydnee Ann and Scout love their wading pool and that is exactly what Syd likes to do, wade in it. Scout, on the other hand, has another agenda...water hose, water hose, eat the water hose, water hose, water hose, dig in the water and get the water hose, water hose, water hose. I have to say we think that he is a bit obsessed with water and the water hose. This is coming from a dog that, nearly three years ago, I had to carry him in the lake while Syd swam around.

Stephen and I sat outside and were entertained by the crazy antics of our dogs. Scout was insane about the water hose and Sydnee was just looking at him like, "You crazy boy, you are kicked out all of my water! What in the world are you doing? Can I just sit in the water and you leave me alone!"

Sydnee finally resorted to flailing around in the grass.

Since Dixie's mom and dad were out of town she spent the night with the Workman crew. Dixie missed out on our pool frenzy, by the time she arrived Syd and Scout had already had their baths. Dixie must have been on a mission to get Scout back from him digging holes in her yard by trying to dig to China under our new fence. She didn't get very far since the ground is hard as cement, but never the less, we had a hole that needed to be filled. Dixie is so laid back compared to her offspring. She was always the last to make it to the door every time we called them to come in our out. In the short time we kept her, I thought we lost her. I looked all over the house for her, with Syd and Scout at my heels. We looked under the beds in the extra bedrooms, in the bathrooms and closets, checked outside and scanned the neighborhood. After about ten minutes of searching we found her sound asleep under our bed. She was ignoring our calls completely. She finally came out with mention of a treat. I think she enjoyed spending time with us though, except she didn't like our "no dogs on the furniture rule", which she broke quite often.