Spectacular Spectacles

I had been having some issues with my contacts for a while. There were some little bumps that had developed on the underside of my eyelids and they seemed to get sort of inflamed after wearing my contacts for a while.  So I went to the eye doctor here and he suggested a few options for treatment - including scraping them off.  And I decided to just go for it and let him scrape away.  Which is HUGE as I am a total eye-phobe.  Sadly the scraping did not work and I just couldn't stand listening to the sound - totally got all sweaty!  So the Dr suggested that he cut them off!  Yuck.  I agreed but asked if I could please play some music so I did not have to listen to it.  The Dr and nurse thought that was hilarious. Even more so when I did not need it while they did shots in my eyelids!  So I busted out my phone and played some good ole Eric Church to distract.  As a result though, I had to wear my glasses for several weeks.  Which is not a big deal except they are super glued together and at a perpetual angle on my face.  So new glasses for me!

Me and Audrey with my old glasses.  Note how I am cleverly turning my head to distract from the fact that they look ridiculously crooked.

 The girls went with me to select some new glasses.  They were totally in love with wearing glasses - which I hope holds true as I am certain that they will be sporting them in just a few years.

 Me in my new glasses - though this was with the temporary lenses.  With eyes like mine, you totally need the ultra thins with glare protection!

My Star Students

I am so proud of my girls.  They have been super stars at school. Neither of them has ever had their clip  moved - which is a huge accomplishment in my opinion.  And Audrey was selected as star student for her class for the month of January.  Thank Heavens as each month she kept asking why she had not been chosen for star student since she followed all the rules and was nice to everybody.  Hard to give a good reason to that - especially since I clearly thought that she should be a star student! Here is a picture of her at her star student lunch where I got to go eat with her.

Brooke was nominated by her teacher to be student of the year for the school.  They do an interview, which I think is mainly how they decide who the winner will be.  They had a little ceremony and an ice cream social with the principal and she got to wear free dress that day.  She was very excited about it.  As it turns out, she did not get selected to be student of the year (I was both relieved that she did not get more recognition that Audrey and disappointed cause I always want my kids to be the best!) Fortunately Brooke was not that upset....primarily because we think that she did not actually know that she was competing for anything.  We sort of told her that she was doing the different stuff -  like the interview - because she was the first star student for her class. 

 Showing off the little lanyard that said that she could wear free dress that day.  I totally love this picture!

Enjoying her ice cream sundae.

Here comes Noah!

I am pretty sure that we are going to float away at any moment.  It was rained and rained and rained. I felt so bad for those teachers as they had kids back after over two weeks of vacation and then no recess for ages.

 At least the girls are looking super adorable in all of their new bad weather gear from Christmas!

Our sad backyard under water.

End of Christmas Break

 We finally got our fire working!  As it turns out the electric starter did not work so you have to use an external lighter.  The girls have been wanting us to light a fire for months (though it really has not been cold enough to really need one)....it was quite an exciting night. And then the next night we made s'mores in our fireplace.  Big time fun!

More excitement for us as we had a visit from my friend Crystal and her daughter Evie. The three girls got along famously and it was cute to see the girls get to be the "big girls" for a change.

 For the last day of our vacation we played with and had lunch (of course at McDonalds!) with our new old friends, Madison and Katelyn Davis.  Their mom and dad were friends of ours from back in Houston.  They just recently moved into our neighborhood and it is exciting to have more friends in the area.

Super Cute Pony

About a month ago, the girls went to the birthday party of one of the girls in Audrey's class. It was a cowgirl themed party and as a surprise the mom rented a horse to come to the party.  And this horse was a MINIATURE horse.  May have been the cutest thing that has ever lived.  All of the kids got to pet the horse and ride on it for a little while.  And to end the party there were s'mores! (Which I am pretty sure I was more excited about than the girls....they refuse to eat the marshmallow if there is ANY sort of brown on it at all.)

After Christmas Vacation...for K and D

After Christmas D and I left the girls with Granddaddy and Jane while we headed out to the Beau Rivage in Biloxi.  We had a great time - just relaxing and enjoying life in a kid-free way.  We went to see 3 matinee movies. So fun!! And we had facials and massages.  Lovely.  And we ate GREAT food.  And of course I played quite a bit of (low dollar) video poker. The only downside was that by the end of our trip we reeked of cigarette smoke. So gross.

 The hotel was decorated so pretty!  I loved the giant ornaments...and I kept thinking how much the girls would get a kick out of it if they were there. (the only downside of going on a kid-free vacation)

 Eating out. This was my favorite meal - though to be clear I did not eat oysters!  We were really surprised at just how good the food was down there.

 Self photo in front of the Hard Rock (duh!)  We enjoyed going into all of the different casinos - we pretended that we were in Vegas.

 Cheesy show girl photo.

 Getting ready to welcome the new year!  Shortly after this picture we were informed that you are not supposed to take pictures in the casino.  Oops.

And while we were away, the girls had a ton of fun with the J's.  Here are a couple of pics from their little vacation away from us.

 

Christmas

This year was Christmas in MS.  We had a great time visiting with family....and the girls were REALLY into their presents this year. Here are some pics of the visit. Sadly my camera went kaput on this trip so the pics are not overly fantastic.

 Stockings on Christmas morning

 I think it is empty Audrey!

 One of the surprise hits was a game from Santa - Sorry Sliders.  It is so much fun!

 Working hard to excavate the dinosaur bones from this "brick." This activity lasted much longer than I thought it would....until they realized that they could just smash the brick on the ground.

 Audrey rocking a pose down on the farm with the extended family.  You may notice that she is also rocking out some crazy shoes.  We inadvertently arrived at the farm with no shoes for the girls - just slippers.  And Dollar General had a limited selection.  Sadly the girls LOVE these ridiculous van boy shoes and want to wear them all the time. Even to church.  Sigh.

 Traditional picture of the youngest generation in front of the tree farm sign.

Spontaneous cute picture of some of the cousins at the farm.

 Jane's chocolate cake and icing is always one of the highlights of Christmas!

 Taking a walk to the lake with the fam.

 So excited to see John David.

Now who is supposed to be in charge??

A few last pre-Christmas activities

Headed to school for the last day before Christmas. The kids thought it was so funny that they all had hats with animals on it. They are at the bus stop with their friend Ryan.

 Mrs. Mastayer was reading Twas the Night Before Christmas to the class during their Christmas party.  Audrey is on the very end in the back - near the T.

 Brooke's class had little stations that they rotated through during their party.  Her favorite was the one where you made a cupcake into rudolph...and then ate it!

And our last exciting thing before Christmas was that Audrey lost her second tooth.  At school.  Eating an apple.  So her favorite song to sing this season was "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth!" And as an aside, finally her first big tooth is starting to pop through her gums.

Zachary Christmas Parade

Always behind.  Flashback to mid-December...

In Louisiana, they certainly love their parades!  And with the amount of beads, candy, and goodies thrown out, the girls certainly love the parades too.  This year there were over 80 entries in the local Zachary parade.  It was a blast.  And even more fun - the girls had their picture taken and were featured (and that is for sure an exaggeration) in the little local paper!

Riding on Kelsey's back to get to our viewing spot.  She is our neighbor and babysitter.  We love her!

Waving to get some candy - with their friend Ryan and Emma (in the hello kitty shirt).  The kids come prepared with bags for their loot!  Fortunately we had one in our car that we were able to use.

They throw out a lot of weird stuff.  David and I got some Louisiana spices.  Not pictured were the delicious Krispy Kreme donuts that we got too.

They were shooting paper towel rolls - I got two.

Audrey caught that weird yellow banana.

Finishing our countdown

Clearly the downside of starting a countdown is that it is super obvious when you don't finish it.  So in an attempt at completeness I will continue with our last 5 days.

Day 21: no idea.  My word document says that we were supposed to make cookies and take them to neighbors, but we moved that up to another day.  So really have no idea at all but I am going to go out on a limb and say that it was a complete success. 

Day 22: Buy your sister's Christmas present.  We did this last year for the first time and it was one of the girl's favorite things to do.  And this year was no different!  Darren took Audrey shopping while Brooke and I ran some errands.  Then we swapped.  They loved it - both going by themselves and picking out presents for each other.  Though it totally cracks me up cause both of them pick out presents that they really want rather than what they think the other would enjoy.  And they both were very clear with each other that the presents were going to be some that they share.  Ha!  Audrey got Brooke a my little pony stuffed animal and the game pop the pig.  Brooke got Audrey the Barbie dog water park and an angry birds game.  They both really liked them - in fact they were so excited that they each opened one on Christmas Eve as their very first present!

Day 23: Make paper snowflakes - did not do.  We drove into MS this day and instead we went to see some Christmas lights. Which were AWESOME!  These 4 houses next to each other went all out - creating a light show timed to music that you tuned into on the radio.  It was so fun!

Day 24 and 25: All activities were pushed to the side as they had super fun with Grandparents and cousins!