Daddy's Girls

We all love this time of year. For the last 4 days we enjoyed lots of laughter (and good food) surrounded by our family. It started in Baton Rouge on Thursday when we went down to spend a couple of nights with my side of the family. We went out to eat a couple of times plus had 2 big family gatherings for Christmas.  The first picture of all of Pops and Honey's kids and          grandkids together. Jen kept trying to think of something to take the kids to do Friday until Lillian finally said they didn't want to go anywhere, they just wanted to play. I love how much they enjoy spending time together.  Then Sunday we went to church before going to Vivian to celebrate with the rest of the family. It was a nice day full of good food and watching family movies. Of course the highlight for the kids was all the presents but these kids play great together too. It's amazing they have so many cousins they are close to. Then Monday morning we woke up to discover that Santa Claus had c

It has been 3 full days of Christmas around here. It started Thursday with our Apollo PTL Christmas party at Nicky's. It was fun to hang out with these ladies in a social situation!  What's not pictured is the karaoke that took place after our margaritas but we'll never share those! :)  Friday was busy busy with Christmas at schools. I checked Lillian out so that she could come watch her sister as a shepherd in her school play. From there, we had lunch at Nicky's. And then it was straight to Apollo for Lilli's school party.  The kids had so much fun but this Mama was tired! Between hosting that, cleaning up and getting ready for Monday's party with her teacher, we were there for hours. We spent the night at Yaya's house in Vivian last night but we were all too exhausted to do much more than sit around and watch Christmas movies. Which was nice in itself. Her house is beautiful all the time but especially at Christmas and I loved sitting there looking at the

We made a REALLY quick trip to Baton Rouge to see Jennifer in her debut performance with Theatre Baton Rouge in their production of A Christmas Carol. We left the house at 6:45 on Saturday and by 6:45 Sunday we were pulling out of Pops' driveway to make it home to an open house. It was a tiring trip but I'm so glad we went. I wish we could've gone Thursday to see all the snow that Baton Rouge got overnight. I woke up to pictures from my dad and Janet of a beautiful scene. By the time we got there 24 hours later the snowman didn't look as cute. But the girls were still excited to see some snow and throw a few snowballs. There was even a surprise visit from Santa on the firetruck throwing candy through their neighborhood. I love living in a smaller town and don't miss Baton Rouge one bit (except the family that lives there) but sometimes some of the fun things that happen in the bigger cities are really exciting to the kids. We did some playing at Jen's, went to N

What an amazing experience we had Sunday night at First Methodist's Christmas program "The Gift." It was completely written by a church member and way more than I expected. I thought we were going to see a children's performance of the nativity. But the children's choir only sang one song. This was a gorgeous production that went through the entire story of Jesus' life. I thought the petting zoo would be the highlight for the kids (they had live animals in the show) but they sat and intently watched the whole thing. When we got home Lillian was able to tell Matt the whole story. It was really beautiful and I'm so glad we went. What a perfect way to start this Christmas season.

It's officially Christmastime! Coco the elf make her appearance today and stuck with her tradition of filling the advent calendar. We had some excited little girls when they found her. She's passed being able to surprise them though. Lillian woke up this morning and said it's December 1st, where is Coco? I guess she has become predictable. :) That didn't stop how much they love it!  We needed some cheer because they have not been back to school since Thanksgiving break because of the flu. We're on the mend though and we will be back to normal routine come Monday. For two weeks, then it's Christmas break and they're out for three!

One year ago to the minute I was sitting in a waiting room at Houston Methodist Hospital with Yaya, Capn, my dad and Shanon; anxiously awaiting news about how Matt's heart surgery had gone. In about an hour I will find out that everything went well but then the long journey of recovery starts. We had already been away from our girls for three nights, with eight more to follow. It was one of the most trying times of my life and I wasn't even the one going through it. Fast forward one year and today he is healthy and recovered. While  he will always have different restrictions than a person without a heart condition, if you didn't know about it, you would never know. I thank God that he hurt his knee and the doctor caught this. And that surgery was successful. I'm thankful for our family that took care of our girls.All of the nurses assumed I would be going home when they heard we had young kids, but I had never even considered it. I'm thankful for our family and frie

The McCormick kids (and their parents) had a great couple of days in Arkansas for Thanksgiving. From playing in their new cave, to the big kids riding the new kid sized four wheelers from their Capn, it was non-stop fun. Of course the highlight of the week was the Thanksgiving meal.  How nice to have the family gathered around the table and being able to talk about what we are thankful for. We sure do have a lot! And no trip to the camp would be complete without hunting! The guys duck hunted every morning and Matt took Lilli deer hunting Thanksgiving afternoon. I love this tradition and I love our family! 

Most people love this time of year. Getting ready for a big Thanksgiving meal spent with family and friends, followed by Christmas decorating and all the joy that comes with the holidays. While the men in my family may love that stuff (even if they don't admit it;) this is truly the best time of year for them because Duck season is open! These are some happy boys in the duck blind this morning. And we are all getting packed and dressed to head up there to spend the next few days with them. And for most people the decorating comes after Thanksgiving, but not for me! I spent half the day Friday decorating my house. But who gets the praise? Daddy! When the star goes on top of the tree. But I don't mind, I love that they are daddy's girls. :)

We had a great weekend in Dallas at the Gaylord Hotel's Ice! All the McCormick ladies and all of the kids got to go and it was definitely magical. There were a ton of people and some of the lines were long, but other than that, it was perfect. The ICE was the main exhibit. It features two million pounds of hand-carved ice sculptures and 2 story ice slides. It's theme this year was "The Night Before Christmas" which is very fitting considering Yaya has read that every Christmas Eve since her boys were little.  It was FREEZING, 9 degrees to be exact.  So you couldn't stay in too long but it was very cool to see.  The line was so long that the kids were almost ready to give up at one point and just skip it but Yaya worked her magic and got us straight in. Then, Hailey and I took the kids to Cookies with Mrs. Claus.  There was singing, dancing, she read Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and everyone had milk and cookies. The atrium of the