2009 & 2011

What a difference two years makes!

Our Christmas

After we got home from Batesville we had to get busy so we could get ready for our family's Christmas! She spread out some more reindeer food of course...

 We didn't get Essie to bed until midnight since she was still so riled up! Then Travis and I stayed up til 4 am getting her big Santa gift put together...a huge dollhouse. She asked for a princess castle but for cheaper we were able to get a wooden, much nicer, much bigger one.  When Essie got up she ran straight to the tree and grabbed a gift and tore into it!



She was so excited and got a ton of Princess stuff. 

We saved the big gift til the end and read her the note Santa left her that told her that her big surprise was in her room and BOBIS was waiting for her there. She had to kiss BOBIS goodbye so he could fly back to the North Pole! Essie loved her new doll house and played with it off and on all day!

Let's catch up...

We've had the BUSIEST last few weeks EVER. We wrapped up Thanksgiving in just enough time to set up a little small tree at our apartment. Essie enjoyed decorating the tree so much and we met our newest friend our Elf on the Shelf whom Essie named BOBIS.

We started the packing process and spent weekends in Jonesboro packing up our house. On December 14th we got approval to occupy our new house early so we loaded up a small UHAUL trailer and trucks and emptied out our apartment for the most part.  We were so glad to spend our first night in our new house and to get out of that cramped apartment!

Friday Dec. 16th we headed to Branson to spend Christmas with Travis' family. We all got hotel rooms next door to each other. The kids (and adults) decorated a foam Christmas tree and snowmen for decorations. We saw an AMAZING animal show and Uncle Tim got called up on stage to race a pig in a maze! We also let the kiddos open presents and spent the evening (along with every other crazy person in the world) at Silver Dollar City.

As soon as we got home on Sunday we had to clean out the apartment and move completely out of it...We got finished late Sunday night.  Travis injured his back sometime over the weekend and was pretty much down for the rest of  the week. We  spent Monday at the doctor, picking up the biggest UHAUL they make, and loading it up. Thankfully we were able to hire some help to get us loaded up since Trav was unable to walk. 

Tuesday Travis' dad came up with an additional trailer since we filled the big truck and we finished loading up and headed home to our new house. We finished unloading the UHAUL with lots of help and crashed into a heap. Travis worked Wednesday and Thursday while I tried to get unpacked. Thursday night YaYa came down to help us paint Essie's new room..we are painting the top half "Belle's dress" yellow and going to put beadboard on the bottom. 

Friday we closed on both homes! We officially sold our house and bought our new one! We also headed to Batesville to spend Christmas with my family. Saturday we made Reindeer food for Essie to spread in the yard. She had been complaining of her shoulder hurting off and on all day and it seemed to get a lot worse at dinner so we made our annual Christmas trip to the ER...they took xrays and said she was fine. So we came home, got into jammies, and went to bed to get ready to Santa!

Christmas morning we celebrated Christmas with my family...Essie was so into it this year and got so many great things!

Thanksgiving and Wooo Pig Soooooie

We went to Pine Bluff to spend Thanksgiving with Travis' family...

Essie helped aunt YaYa and Benny make no bake cookies...she just couldn't resist licking the peanut butter container...

Today we are getting ready to call those HOGS...wooooo pig sooooooie!!!

The BEST Christmas gift EVER!

Apartment living has been rough on us the past four months...and each day we've paitently (okay....not so patiently) waited for our house to sell.  We've had TONS of lookers. Rumors of offers yet nothing. So we made a drastic decision to fire our realtor. A week later we were showing it and they made an offer, we countered and they accepted! We officially have a contract on our house! Thank you Jesus! AND to top that off we've looked at dozens and dozens of houses and found our new house...and we have a contract on that as well! So we are in the process of paperwork, appraisals, inspections, etc. Our closing date right now is set for December 23rd. We are hoping and praying we can close early however! Please continue to pray that everything goes smoothly!

Otherwise...here is what we've been up to lately...

Essie had her hair cut finally!!!  She was soooo good the whole time and she looks so much older!

We also had Cooper's first birthday party this past weekend! It was "Mickey Mouse Clubhouse" themed...he is such an adorable little guy!