Deck the Halls.....Fa la la la la la la la la

Wow! December has rolled around again! This time of year is always so hard to get into the Christmas spirit. I turned my radio to a Christmas station this morning so hopefully that will help. Yesterday we put up our Christmas lights on our house and I put up the tree. I swear Leven is the biggest Scrooge when it comes to decorating for Christmas!!!! Of course, Trever and I try to stay positive the whole time, b/c Leven is so negative! The lights and house look really good. I'm pretty proud of ourselves.

The only thing that bugs me at Christmas time are the bell ringers at EVERY store you walk into! I know that's bad of me, but I hardly have enough money for my own family let alone trying to give to others! Ugh! But I know they are out there for a good reason.

We had a really good Thanksgiving this year. Our family gets bigger every single year. We drove to Mexia on Wednesday and visited with friends and then had Turkey with Leven's dads family the next day. After stuffing our face we headed back to Longview to spend the rest of the afternoon with the loud Anthony family! And yes, we stuffed our faces some more. Ugh! Food was everywhere. Like I said our family gets bigger every year. We have 2 new babies this year for Christmas---Ally and Gage.

I'm so happy for my cousin Peyton (that's Gage's mommie). She hasn't seen her husband, Ted, in over 6 months. He is in the military and was serving his time in Japan and even missed the birth of baby Gage. She finally gets to kiss his face this Wednesday. It brings tears to my eyes as I type!! Yea for the Sparks family!

Leven and I leave early on Wednesday to head to Oregon! We are super excited and can't wait to get there. Cold cold cold! Here we come. We are staying with his friend Chris Miller and his family. We plan on touring, skiing, eating, visiting and just relaxing. My sweet sister and parents are watching over our kiddos while we are gone! THANK YOU DANIN AND CLARK AND VICKI! WE LOVE YOU!

Lots of catching up to do

Wow. This past week has really just flown by. I have so much to talk about. Starting with New Moon! Last Thursday, Danin and I decided to meet Natalie at the moves at midnight to watch the crazy crazy New Moon! We really got there about 10:30 to get some good seats. By 11:30, I was starting to fall asleep. Hurry up 12! The movie was really good and I enjoyed every bit of it, but I WILL NOT attend another midnight movie ever again. I'm too old for all that I guess. There were tons of screaming girls, and women, and everyone was walking around in their PJ's. I didn't get to sleep until 3 that night and work came reallllllyyy early.

Friday I helped host a wedding "couples" shower for a good friend of mine from Tatum. We thought we pulled off a pretty good shower. It was a mexican themed party with lots of food and drinks!

Saturday morning Danin and I headed to Houston to visit our family down there. We had so much fun! I didn't have Taydem tugging at my legs and I didn't even have my hubby messing with me! It was so lovely! Thanks to my Mom and Leven for watching Tay!! We stayed with Chelsea, Gus and Lyla. Carl was out of town on a hunting trip. We went out Saturday night and once we got home Chelsea and I danced in her living room like two 12 year old girls until 3:30 in the morning!! Sunday Chelsea hosted a Southern Living party at her house and I was the consultant!! Thanks again Chelsea. The party went so well.

Loads of fun and plenty of rest, but it was so nice to come home and see my tooter poot and my sweet hubby!

happy birthday peeps

November birthdays consist of Trever's, Danin's, my Meme's and my Papaw's! So Happy Birthday to ya'll! We went to Shreveport this past Saturday to celebrate Danin's birthday. Danin's boyfriend invited us all to hang out. We had a blast, as usual! Started off at Superior's and ended the night at the El Dorado! I think everyone came home a winner for once! So it was a good night overall. On Sunday we all went to Dad's farm to take some Christmas pictures of the kids and had a weenie roast afterwards! We need to start doing that more often. Good times.

Volleyball and football are now over but basketball has begun. Trever's first game is on Friday. He said his team is going to be a joke this year, we'll see!

Thursday-AT MIDNIGHT-we are going to see the New Moon movie! I am so excited about. I'm sure we will be in there with a bunch of young, crazy, hormon racing girls, but who cares! I'm sure I will be acting a fool right along with them! The books were awesome and I'm sure the movies will try and make it just as good!

This weekend Danin and I are heading to Houston to visit my family down there. We get to see them maybe twice a year, if we are lucky three times! Chelsea is hosting a Southern Living party at her house on Sunday and guess who's her consultant!! You guessed it---ME! Danin and I can't wait!

Working Mom

Being a working Mom is not easy. This brings up the topic: Trying to get Taydem potty trained! I think right now she's the only one in her daycare class that is still in diapers. It is so hard to work with her b/c I don't see her until 5 every day. On the weekends (when I should be doing this) I ALWAYS, and let me say that again, I ALWAYS have something going on! I feel that I'm the busiest person alive at times. I didn't want to force potty training on her until she at least sort of kind of understood what was going on. So the past few weeks she's been watching me use the potty and always gets the toilet paper ready for me and says, "teetee" or "poopoo!" So I know she's gettin' it! Last week her teacher told me that everytime one of the kids gets on the potty, Taydem wants to do the same. But she just sits there and sits there. I guess she thinks it's cool or something. So my mother bought Taydem some "big girl" panties and told me just to start working with her whenever I can. Saturday morning we had a couple of hours to kill before we had a wedding shower to go to. First attempt....teetee all over herself! Ugh! But she did say "potty" before. I just didn't get her there in time. So last night we get home and I put some more "big girl" panties on her. I told myself to put her on her potty every 30 minutes and constantly ask if she needs to go potty! Finally I put her on there and she looked at me really strange. Then she stood up and looked in the potty and said "teetee mommie"! I was soooooooo proud of her. This is a big deal to us Mom's! Now, if only I can keep her doing this. At least now she knows what teetee means and what it is!

So now this brings up the topic: Why I wish I was a stay-at-home mom
- I would give Taydem more attention then at the daycare
- Have the house clean every single day
-Have supper cooked every single day
- We could work on potty training
-I could work with her on her colors and speaking better
-We could play outside
-We could read lots of books
-Go to parks
-Have play dates with other stay-at-home moms
-Take NAPS!
-Shop (not that I need to)

I could probably go on and on! But this is how my life will be probably forever, a working mom! Unless we win the lottery or something.

Smile~God love you~

Trever's Birthday

Yesterday Trever turned the big 15! It's so hard to believe this for some reason. I first met him when he was 10 and a lot has happened in 5 years. He's growing up so much, physically and mentally of course! He is smart, athletic, friendly, sensitive, and is still a daddy's boy! It's funny b/c I've always teased Leven about Trever following him and being in his shadow all the time and now Taydem does the same thing to me! Trever chose to eat at Jucy's after church! Yum...Danin and Molly joined us. I made Apple Dumplings for him (one of his favs!) and we attempted to put his basketball goal together. My parents had the pole made and we were to buy the backboard, rim, net, etc. So Dad and Leven put the pole in the ground on Saturday and we had to wait until the cement dried before we could do the rest. So yesterday we got out all the parts, instructions, and tools to put this thing together. We were on a roll and then we ran into a bump! Leven's patience is soooooooooooooooooooooooooo bad when it comes to putting stuff together. I would almost rather do it by myself instead of putting up with him. So of course, he got mad and walked back in the house and left me and Trever laughing at him. Trever and I figured it out, of course, and Leven cooled off and came back outside to help. Still, we were laughing. So the next step was to put the goal on the pole! OMG! This was another headache. Turns out the pole is smaller at the top and the backboard wouldn't stay tight. We tried everything to make it work. We finally gave up after 5 hours of messing with it! Ugh! Stuff like this is so frustrating!

Tomorrow we are headed to watch the Mexia Ladycats play the Spring Hill Panthers! Go Ladycats....We're gonna Kill Kill Kill, Kill the Hill! That was one of our many chants we use to yell when we played Spring Hill back in the day! They were Tatum's rivals for years! Good luck ladies!

Next on our plate

Leven's girls lost last night in their area playoff game! Another great season for him. Mexia is still in the playoffs and they will play Spring Hill next week! We will for sure go watch that game. We are still rootin for Mexia, even though Spring Hill is a Longview school. So volleyball is officially over....well sort of! I've decided to coach again! Yeah! Leven asked me if I wanted to coach their club team this year and I thought about it and thought about it and decided what the heck! I will be coaching the 15 and unders (which were all the freshmen this year) and it's going to be all Pine Tree kids! Plus it will be a little extra spending me for me and Taydem!!! Yeah for shopping....have a good weekend!

Cuteness

Here are some more of Taydem's pictures she had taken! Leven plays tonight in Mabank for his 2nd playoff game! Wish us luck!

Playoffs

Leven's volleyball team had their first playoff game last night against Henderson! And we kicked their hineys! They will probably play again on Thursday! Leven is still getting all that worked out as we speak! Until then...........Have a nice Tuesday!