Island's Heat Basketball and PJ day

CeCe has been waiting on pajama day since last pajama day!  The day finally arrived yesterday.  She carefully chose her pink star pjs and was excited to take her purple blanket and zebra pillow.  They watched the movie Planes and ate popcorn and she said it was as fun as she expected it to be!  

Cappy got here Tuesday and we've been busy every day since!  Wednesday CeCe had choir at church, Thursday CeCe had gymnastics and Friday night Bryce had basketball practice.  Today was his 3rd game but the first time I took my big camera with me.  He is loving playing basketball this year.  

CeCe and Cappy were posing for a picture this morning and Reagan wouldn't move out of the way!  

Bryce ended up being the team captain today which was perfect because it means he played the whole game.  It gave Cappy extra time to see him on the court!  He scored one basket today.  His team won 26-8!  

 He was awarded the sportsmanship medal today :)  

Anthony's birthday weekend and Jacksonville Zoo

Two weekends ago we drove to Jacksonville (2.5 hrs) to meet up with my bestest friend Melanie and her two kids at the zoo.  They were in Gainesville for her niece's first birthday and took a day out of their trip to meet up with us.  It was GREAT seeing them!  I miss her so much and just have so much fun when we are together!  The kids get along fantastically also (for only seeing each other once or twice a year there is no shyness at all!)

JAX has a great zoo and we were lucky with beautiful weather.  

The next weekend was Anthony's birthday!  We celebrated with a dinner at B&D burgers the night before.  

And then came home for presents and strawberry cupcakes that CeCe and I made that morning. 

The Thursday before his birthday we went to a hockey game at the civic center. It's a special collegiate tournament they bring in each year.  It was fun but cold!  

Sunday we watched the AFC championship game and cheered for the Broncos (Bryce's favorite team this year).  We are excited about watching the Super Bowl next week!  

 After the game we went down to our friends house and CeCe helped Sarah feed her rats.  Gross!!  We also roasted smores and watched some of the NFC game.  

Monday the kids were out of school and we met up with some of CeCe's friends from school.  We had beautiful weather and spent hours at the Tybee playground and then had a late lunch at Hucapoos.  Bryce and Nick were with us too, but for some reason I have no pictures of them! 

New Year's week

Anthony drove from Sandra's back to Savannah, but the kids and I headed back to my parents house for the rest of the week.  They didn't start back to school until the 7th so we had the whole week to relax in Olive Branch!  Monday morning my mom had a hair cut appointment and CeCe woke up begging to get her hair cut too.  She's been mentioning it here and there but that day she was insistent that is what she wanted to do!  She has a friend at church named Mary Margaret that has a chin length bob and that is how CeCe wanted her hair.  I did one last long braid that morning.  

 The cuts took place in my parent's kitchen.  The stylist is in between places right now so she just came to the house!   She cut 6 inches off of CeCe's hair and it is precious!!!  CeCe wanted to surprise Anthony and refused to let me take any pictures of her that day because she was scared I would email it to him!  

The next day my dad and I took Bryce to the Liberty Bowl parade downtown.  IT WAS FREEZING!!  It was actually snowing on our way there and for about the first 10 minutes we were out.  I made a deal with him to go to the parade instead of the game thinking it would be quicker and not as cold, but for the game it was sunny and 15 degrees warmer at kick off time! (still cold though!) Oh well, he loved the parade and we all had fun watching the game the next day in the warm house!  His favorite part of the parade was of course the Famous Maroon Band marching and playing the MSU fight song, Hail State!  

On Friday Cappy and I took CeCe to see Peter Pan at Playhouse on the Square.  To say she enjoyed it would be an understatement.  She LOVED it all and wasn't ready for it to be over.  I can't wait to take her to more plays!  

We discovered we have matching outfits so she requested we wear these to the play.  What a sweet little bird!  You can kind of see her hair here.  That pink necklace she's wearing was my grandmother's.  Gran loved pink and wore this necklace a lot.  Every time I looked at CeCe that day I thought of Gran.  Super special!  

Christmas at Aunt Sandra's house

Sunday morning we woke up and headed to my Aunt Sandra's house in Wetumpka (close to the lake) for yet another fun Christmas celebration!  When we got there she had set up a coloring table for the kids and encouraged them to enter her coloring contest.  They went to work fast.  

 Aunt Sandra with her great nieces and nephews!

 As always Sandra prepared a DELICIOUS breakfast for us.  CeCe and Jasper couldn't wait to dig in!  (poor Sandra, Monday night in this frigid weather one of her pipes burst in her attic and destroyed this beautiful kitchen she just had renovated.  I feel so bad for her!)

My handsome boy!

 After breakfast it was time for the kids to get spoiled!  Winnie loved tearing off the bows of the gifts and CeCe made sure she let Winnie take off all her bows! 

 A secret surprise gift for Bryce.....

 A Justin Upton autographed baseball bat Sandra won in an auction!  WHOA!!!  

 The kids couldn't wait to get outside to play with their new toys.  

 A group hug for Aunt Sandra!  Thank you Aunt Sandra!!!  

 Herrington crew!  

Borden Family Christmas

After eating lunch and visiting with family in West Point we drove on to the lake that night.  We met at my Uncle Lee and Aunt Amanda's house the next morning for the Borden Family Christmas brunch.  CeCe and Winnie had on matching reindeer dresses and CeCe loved matching her little Winifred!   

The kids had a blast playing together even though it was rainy and nasty outside.  My Aunt and Uncle's place is the perfect place to be stuck inside.  2 screened in porches (one with a fireplace) and a big full playroom!  We had a delicious meal and then an usual, sang Christmas carol's.  CeCe loved singing and I even heard Mr. Bryce on some of the songs!  

 I love this picture.  CeCe is sitting next to my cousin's daughter, Borden.  Borden is playing with CeCe's hair just like Jennifer used to play with mine!  

 10 of the (almost) 17 Great Grandkids!  2 had just left, 2 were in CA, 2 in TX and one is due in June.  

Lee and Amanda showed off their awesome 3D TV! 

Not sure where Jude was in this picture, but super cute of these 4!

Christmas in Olive Branch

We left West Point Monday afternoon and drove the two hours to my parent's house.  My sister and her crew were already there and the kids wasted no time tearing up the playroom and having a blast together!  

 They all had fun trying on our old dance costumes!!!  

 The next day was Christmas Eve.  Such a good looking group of kids before church!

 My parents and their fabulous 5!

We always read The Night Before Christmas and the Christmas story from the bible every Christmas Eve.  Someone gave this book to me for my 2nd Christmas so it's been read for 31 Christmases in a row!  Super special about this night...?  Bryce read the book to us.  What an awesome experience!  

 That night my parents were brave and took the 4 older kids to the shed to sleep!  It was cold but we had plenty of blankets for pallets (and an air mattress and futon).  The kids love getting to do this on Christmas Eve!  

 Settling in to watch a movie before bed.  

 The next morning we woke up and waited and waited and waited.  It seemed like it took forever for them to come up to the house from the shed!  When they finally did (it was only 7:20 or so!) we couldn't wait to watch them find out what Santa left for them!  CeCe got her American Girl doll that she named Laura and Bryce got a Wes Welker Bronco's jersey, NFL book and MS State alumni football cards.  

For Jude and Jasper, this was the year of the costume!  Those boys love to dress up in anything and everything.  Santa brought them a few and we gave them more! 

 All 5 kids in their matching PJs I made them.  

After a delicious breakfast of waffles and grilled sausage, it was time to open presents.  We had plenty of helpers this year! 

Bryce is very into college fight songs right now.  He got two fight songs CD's this year (the same CD actually so he now has one in the playroom and one in the car!) and we played it after presents and Cappy demonstrated the proper marching band march!  

Everyone stayed healthy this year and everyone was happy (most of the time!).  It was a GREAT Christmas!