Trip to the dentist....

Today Carson and Emilia had their six month check up at the dentist. They both walked right in and the hygienist informed me that they needed to obtain Emilia's first set of bite wings, so to the xray chair she went. She sat like a big girl, smiled at me and had her pictures taken. Then she was to the sink to brush and later to the chair to have her teeth cleaned and checked. At this time she required me to sit at the bottom of the chair and hold her hand and from that point on, everything was fine. No cavities. While this was taking place, Carson was being the big boy he is and getting his bite wing xrays as well as his first panoramic xray to make sure all his permanent teeth are where they should be. I could hear the dentist talking about something to the hygienist but couldn't quite understand him and thought, I'll check on that when Emilia is all done. He then called me over to look at the xrays. When Carson lost his left front tooth, he actually had to loose two to make room for one to come in. He lost his right front tooth the end of December and still doesn't have his permanent tooth in! I just assumed that he would again have to loose two teeth to get one!!! Seeing how the "little" tooth has just become loose, I figured it wouldn't be too much longer. Well, little did I know. The child has an EXTRA tooth!! And not only that, it is curved like a hockey stick and is wrapped under the real tooth that needs to come out. So, poor baby, has to have oral surgery. He's not too excited about it either. I called when we got home and set him up for a consultation and we'll go from there. Hopefully it won't be too painful and he won't remember a thing!! At least that's my prayer for the little fellow.

No Training Wheels!!!

Saturday I had to work for a little while and we had planned to take Carson to the 100th Birthday Celebration of Boy Scouts at the mall. I was at work a little longer than I had planned and called Vince to see if he just wanted to meet me there, he just kept making excuses about me coming on home and when I got here, this is what I saw in the street!!!! Vince had been outside working on pruning our crape myrtles and Carson had asked him to take his training wheels off. Vince said the next thing he knew our little man was riding up and down the street!!! Never did have a wreck!! Thank goodness. I was so excited that I came home and glad I didn't act ugly about the reason why - you just never know :):)

(just a side note for anyone that is concerned - we DO have a bike helmet and it is REQUIRED!!!! he just told me it made his head look big for the pictures, I know, not a good excuse, but just took a few without it)

Family Reunion

Playing in the bathtub
Carson & Jack

Our family on my mom's side

With my grandmother

My only living grandparent is my mom's mom who lives in Sevierville, TN. We try to go and visit at least every 5-6 months and sometimes we make it more often. This year, in January, my brother and his family, my parents and my family all went for a family get together with my grandmother, her living siblings and their kids, grandkids and great grandkids. It was nice to see my mom's first cousins and their children that I grew up playing with and now for OUR children to get a chance to play together as well.

This is the first time we have all been since my grandfather passed away about 10 years ago, so since our families have grown we decided to rent a cabin this time. We normally stay at my grandmothers house but didn't think she could handle 11 more people. The cabin is only about a mile from her house and so it was very convenient for everyone to hang out there. The kids LOVED it. It had lots of room with a game room and hot tub. They really enjoyed the hot tub until the thermostat got stuck on HOT and the water was BOILING!! Thankfully the maintenance crew was quick to respond and repair it but in the meantime the jacuzzi tub was a fun place to play!

Homeschool Valentine's Party

The Girls

The Boys

Our salt dough hearts

Emilia Painting her heart

Carson & Chip (a.k.a. Arnold)

Carson & Emilia

The week of Valentine's Day our homeschool group met at our church for a Valentine Party. I had volunteered to be in charge of this one and what a week. Vince ended up having outpatient surgery on Tuesday, I was already scheduled to work all night Tuesday night and could not get out of it, Vince had to be back at the doctor's office at 8:15 that Wednesday morning and the party started at 10:30!!!!! Thank goodness my gracious charge nurse let me leave around 4 am so I got about 3 hours of sleep, my mom had thankfully spent the night at our house b/c of the crazy, unexpected schedule, and offered or agreed to go with me to the party to help. After taking Vince to the doctor, I came home to finish getting ready and we were on to the church. I had gone earlier on Tuesday before Vince's surgery and decorated, thank goodness b/c I didn't know when I would have any other time. There wasn't much to it but we all had fun. We played Valentine Bingo - which gave the kids an opportunity to practice their numbers, find your matching heart mate, each heart was cut in half with a different pair of scrapbooking scissors and there was also a Bible verse on each one related to love. This gave you two ways to match your half up with someone else, knowing the Bible verse and looking for the same design. Then we all painted salt dough hearts with ribbon as hangers. I had also baked these on Monday since they had to bake for a whole 2 hours and then cool. I have to say they turned out really cute but they sure were a pain to make, the dough was a mess to get to roll out consistency!!! Not sure I'll do that again... and then we had our usual homeschool lunch of PIZZA. Thanks to my mom and Ms. Vanita Billingsley for going to pick this up for us. Ms. Vanita also made the cupcakes and my sweet friend Angie made goodie bags for all the kids.

Each child also brought their on Valentine's to share with their friends.
A tiring (for me!) but a fun, fun day!

Christmas.....

Mari-Todd, Emilia, Pressly, Carson, & Jack

My "gifts" from Vince


A special gift from my dad, I didn't even know he knew what this stuff was!!!

A pretty princess with a bow...

Sweet hugs....

My Daddy

THE pyramid!!

Just a sweet boy, with a new BB gun..

A pretty girl too

We had a lot of fun on Christmas at our house. On Christmas Eve we have started a tradition of having a family over for supper that is from out of town and rarely gets to spend the actual holiday with any of their immediate family. This year, Vince grilled the most awesome steaks and we had the best time. They bring their kids in their pj's and I already have mine in theirs and we just enjoy the "night before Christmas" Then I love to plan/prepare our Christmas morning breakfast, which is always a little more than we normally have. This year, Carson and Emilia begged my parents to spend the night and we graciously welcomed them. They seem to help get the kids in the bed and keep them there so Santa can come early! Of course, we were awoken around 6:45 but who can deny an excited child from getting up early to see what Santa brought???? So here we went. So much fun. We looked at all that Santa had left, then we ate breakfast casserole, sausage balls, monkey bread and fruit pizza. Then we all got dressed and enjoyed opening gifts from each other. Then it was NAP time, what I had been looking for. After a good nap, we made homemade Chicken Noodle soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for supper and then were off to the movies. Another tradition we started about three years ago. This year to see the CHIPMUNKS!!! So cute. By the time this was over, it was time for bed and much needed rest. I have to say, we had a GREAT CHRISTmas and are so thankful for Jesus' birthday and the opportunity to celebrate it!

Christmas in Nashville

Carson & Emilia at the entrance of ICE

Waiting on our carriage ride!!!

Our family in the carriage

The weekend before Christmas we took a Christmas trip to Nashville, TN. Oh, what fun we had. We had taken a Christmas trip last year to ride the Polar Express in Birmingham, AL and this year the kids asked where we would go for Christmas. One of my friends had been to see ICE last year and highly recommended it so that's where we decided to go. We left on Friday afternoon and got to our motel room later that night. We were up and ready on a COLD, RAINY Saturday morning and at the ICE exhibit by 9:30. Got our parkas and went in to the 6 degree building to see the ~ 22 million (?) pounds of ICE that were carved to resemble a Charlie Brown Christmas, by approx 100 Chinese in a two month period. It was very COLD but unbelievable! We then went to Winter Wonderland at Opryland Hotel where Carson and Emilia rode the Christmas train, made gingerbread men and looked at all the lights. We went to see the Rockettes that afternoon at the Ryman and then we went to the Aquarium restaurant in the Oprymills mall for supper. What a day..... we were slightly tired and ready for bed, but had a wonderful time and lots of happy memories!

Christmas at our House....

Trumpet has come back!!!

Emilia's Manger

Carson's

Our Tree

Our Christmas decorations are out/up and our tree is just right and we are excited about CHRISTmas!! We got our tree the week of Thanksgiving but left it outside in a bucket until the following Saturday so that it would have water instead of just being at the store. The following Saturday Vince had to work but the weather was beautiful so the kids and I got our decorations out and started decorating the tree. We are going to be gone a couple of weekends in December and I wanted us to have plenty of time to enjoy it.

I have to mention that Carson was most excited about his manger. He had asked me for weeks before Thanksgiving to please get it down from the attic. My mom buys them a few pieces of nativity each year to go with their manger and then they play with them together, visiting each other's stable, telling the story of Jesus, etc.

And of course, our elf on the shelf, Trumpet, made his arrival back to our house from the North Pole, this past weekend. They love telling on each other to Trumpet, since he will let Santa know how they are acting, and also trying to find where he has "landed" the night before. It's sometimes hard to explain that it was too cold for Trumpet to fly, or he was sleeping so well, he decided not to get up right then.......:)

Merry Christmas from the Langford's!!!!