Ending The Year At The Gulf

A few days after Christmas we headed to Gulf Shores to (almost) ring in the New Year with the fam. 

Seriously, this is where Matt made us stop for lunch. Gag city. Fulton has never been to a Waffle House (and I wanted to keep it that way), so Matt was excited to initiate him into the greasy world of WH. I had to admit that I hadn't been to one of these since college. For some reason the hubs loves this place. My food really was nasty... but it's probably because I chose a grilled chicken sandwich. Matt said, are you really ordering that? I think our waiter said--I didn't know we served those.

The fam arrived later that night, long after our heads hit the pillows, so we were excited to see them the next morning.

 We got ready and headed to lunch... what we do best at the beach when you can't lay in the sun....eat.

We went to one of our favorites. Tacky Jack's. Love this place. Thankfully they have fun stuff for the kids while you are waiting on your food. Hooray for entertaining places.

 We hit up the gift shop too. Mr. Hollywood and Jr. Hollywood.

That night our sweet fam let the hubs and I go on a date. Woohoo for date night. Date night with Matt Howard is like a breath of fresh air.

Woke up the next morning and enjoyed our crayons from the day before. We have just recently introduced Fulton to these little colorful sticks of wax. He seems to understand what you do with them, but still likes to try to eat them.

We headed to lunch at one of the fam's favorites... Desoto's. By this point the snowbirds had arrived and they were starting to take over the place. Our fam may have been the youngest ones in the place.

We didn't get to go out on the beach... boo... they had tractors and pipes out and were moving sand. We looked on from afar.

 We were thankful for beautiful weather while we were there.

 However, it was a little chilly.

The Howard family decided to head home a day early because Fulton is also known as the "I am on vacation and don't like to sleep." So, needless to say we were a little tired. Not sure why this little guy refuses to sleep in places other than his own bed, but sure makes us not want to go far from home. Sigh.

Of course as we were leaving we told them not to do anything fun without us. Sister said they were probably going to play putt-putt, go to Waterville, ride the bumper boats... you know, all the fun stuff you do when it's 40 degrees outside. So, it's New Year's Eve and 2012 is coming to a close. Maybe I will be able to stay up until at least 9pm tonight. Probably not, but Happy New Years!

To Grandma's House We Go

Christmas afternoon we headed to my Grandma's house to have some Christmas festivities with her. 

Sister made taco soup (not that we were even remotely hungry from our ridiculous breakfast), but we can't skip a meal.

 Grandma was excited to have some visitors.

 Fulton didn't help her open her gifts much. I think he was still recovering from the morning.

Mom and Dad had brought some old stuff over to Grandma's house to store and we were digging through it and sister found this old wig of moms. Yes, my mother had a wig and we all tried it on. Who do you think looks best in it? Mom had to give us the background story on this and said she really did ask for this for Christmas one year from my dad. She said it was really "in style" and that everyone was doing it. I will take her word for it. We are always finding good treasures in their old stuff. I love it. It was a full day, but so much joy!

Merry Christmas

We had a very blessed Christmas day, celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior. For Christmas Eve we went to see Matt's family and I only took 2 pictures. Fulton was in full blown wild mode and we were chasing him the whole time, trying to prevent him from breaking Nanny's antique treasures. 

Christmas morning we woke up and starting making a birthday cake for Jesus. I want this to be a tradition that we do and try to keep the focus on the birth of Jesus. My little helper enjoyed watching the cake mix, but he kept trying to add his own ingredients, like the measuring cups. We played for a while, put the cake in the oven and put this little guy down for a nap.

He woke up and thought it would be a perfect fit to come out in his birthday suit, since we had been talking about birthdays. I love these rolls. Why can't mine be that cute?

 The cake is ready and iced. Strawberry of course.

Aunt Keri and Uncle Pete arrived and we started getting everything ready for our spread of breakfast foods.

Pops and KK came too. We were thankful to have Christmas at our house this year. Made things a lot easier and we enjoyed having everyone over.

So we decided to have a brunch instead of the traditional lunch foods. We had pancakes, sausage, hashbrowns, breakfast casserole, sausage balls, scrambled eggs, grits, and fruit. Oh my stars. We were stuffed.

Then it was time to open gifts. Thankfully Fulton hasn't messed with the tree or presents at all this year, but boy was he ready when it was time to start opening.

 KK and Pops got Fulton this cool car ramp. He loves it. He is all into cars and trains right now. He also got a really cute outfit for next Fall.

 Aunt Keri and Uncle Pete got him some cool puzzles. He was excited! These will be fun to play with.

Lots of present opening. We tried to keep it simple for each other and for Fulton, but some family members, or all family members, went to the extreme with Fulton, showering him with all kinds of fun stuff.

Fulton absolutely loved opening gifts and helping others open gifts. I don't know that everyone really got to open their own gifts because F kept ripping the paper off for them. Sweet helper.

 Out little family.

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Matt and I were doing 4 things for each other and the one "want" that he had on his list was for his degrees to be framed. Well, here they are. All framed and ready to be hung in his office.

Aunt Keri and Uncle Pete were probably ready to go home by the end of the gift wrapping because Fulton was all up in their business while they were trying to open gifts. They also got Fulton a cool wooden train that he has enjoyed putting together and taking apart and some really cute clothes.

 Obviously we were boring Pops because he fell asleep towards the end. I guess we wore him out.

And we ended with this cool table and chairs from KK and Pops. This will be fun to use when I homeschool Fulton... ha. Blessed day!

Birthday Celebration For Dad

December 23rd was Dad's birthday. We did a two part celebration for his 61st. 

You may remember last year we went all out and threw him a big surprise shindig. Not so wild and crazy this year, but we did celebrate. Saturday night we did his cake or shall I say cupcake. Especially for him from GiGi's and gluten free. He was loving it.

Sunday morning we continued the partay and let him open his gifts. He got some good AL gear for the next football season and for that little game coming up in a few weeks.

 And some new swim trunks for the summer. Can never have too many of these.

 Fulton's favorite part was the balloons. He enjoyed helping Pops celebrate.

Happy Birthday Dad!! We love you and were thankful to spend the day helping you celebrate!

Christmas At The Lake

We spent the past weekend at the lake celebrating an early Christmas with our out of town fam, otherwise known as the Bouchillons. 

 Fulton and Caleb quickly warmed up to each other and Caleb showed Fulton all his cool toys. They are about 11 months apart.

 Fulton was just excited to be out of school as his mommy and daddy were.

Friday night we had our big Christmas dinner, crowns and all. Fulton even wore his for about 3 seconds before he ripped it off.

 Saturday morning we were up bright and early ready to play with friends.

 This little charmer kept us entertained...you know since we don't have cable at the lake.

He was having a ball looking out at the water and then Pops came and played with him and he loved it. By the way... we finally have a walker. He decided last week that he would be cool like his friends and finally start walking. Woohoo!

 A quick family photo before heading out for the day.

 We came back and did a little golf cart ride around the farm. Someone was determined to drive.

Saturday night we gathered back together for dinner and some gifts. We attempted a photo with the 3 great grandchildren, all boys, and this is the best we could do. You know what they were staring at... frito scoops. That is how we were enticing them to sit there. Well, not Samuel...poor little one didn't have a choice.

Sister decided we would do another round of gift giving with a little dirty santa/white elephant round. You were supposed to find something around your house that you didn't want and wrap it up. There were some interesting gifts. As you can see the boys enjoyed the stockings or whatever those were. It was pretty funny to see what people opened and much to your surprise, there wasn't much stealing going on.

Then it was time for real gifts. Fulton was so excited with his gift. He got a cool lawn mower. He has worked hard mowing the carpet and hard woods ever since.

And last, the girl's ornament swap. It was such a blessed weekend with family that we don't get to see often enough.