Memories

This weekend the girls were invited to go their friends farm outside of Nacogdoches, TX. They always look forward to going since they get their friends all to themselves and they get to enjoy going four wheelin' and seeing the farm animals. Jerrod and I enjoyed having a (as Jackson would say it) "3 boy and 1 girl weekend". Jackson is into this counting thing right now as he pays close attention to the number of girls and the number of boys in our family at various times- it especially happens when someone is gone or several are gone as it was this weekend. He enjoyed being the center of attention and since Teague typically is- it was no different for him. We had fun just hanging around the house and making memories together. Jackson loves to be tickled- he said to us this morning, "which one of you want to tickle me?" as if it wasn't his idea- so cute. Of course, we tickled him to pieces and he was begging us to stop. I don't think he knew what was coming his way- 4 hands tickling him all over!! He had to catch his breathe. WHEWW!

Jackson was constantly close by one of us since his best play buddy was gone-Emma. He constantly asked Jerrod to play this and to play that- Jerrod was a good sport about it and played most of the day inbetween football games and helping me. After playing all day, Jerrod said to me, "I really miss Emma about right now.".

We spent the rest of today decorating for Christmas. I know, it's early! But I want to be able to enjoy it since it takes so much work to get it up. I thought I would be able to add it to the fall decorations I already had up and then, just take that down on Friday, but I just couldn't do it. Once I got started, all the fall stuff came down and went into boxes until next year. Our house is officially decorated for Christmas. With the decorations, we decided to move the furniture around in the family room. We are really trying to put a tree in there- it hasn't worked out the last few years because we thought it was too crowded. I think this year we figured out how to make it work. It is amazing how different your house feels when you change the furniture around- it really makes a difference!! Are loving it!

I did some shopping last year at the "after Christmas" sales. I found a foto tree (that's how it's spelled) and I thought it would be a great center piece with all the kids Christmas pictures hanging on it. It required me to pull out old pictures of the kids today. Jerrod and I just couldn't believe how the kids have changed. It really brought up a lot of the memories that we have been able to make with our family. The girls have changed so much and it's great to see pictures of them when they were still so small. The boys have really changed too. Jackson is a "little man" now and is slowly (but surely) losing his baby tendencies. And Teague is so different from this time last year. I am including a picture of this tree and some of my favorite "older" photos of the little ones. I'll hope you will stop by and see us sometime this holiday season so that you can see the foto tree in person! You'll find all kinds of "old" photos and some new ones too!