Catch up!

Here I am, sitting with Mia getting blood, catching up on here again!
We had a wonderful Christmas! It came and went so fast!

 

 

This was on Reece's birthday! :)

 

 I try reallllly hard to eat lunch with one of my kids once a week! This was Brooks' turn!

 

Reece and Brooks celebrated the 100th day of school by dressing like 100 year olds! I think they NAILED IT!

 

Helping Mom with the chickens!

 

 This was last weekend when we came to get labs for blood day!

 

That brings us to today, blood day AND the Chinese New Year!

Christmas!

Whew! The last few weeks have been a whirlwind! Christmas is always super busy for us, as you can imagine. We had a wonderful time spending it with family!

I was just going through all the pictures and got completely overwhelmed. I'm just going to post a few, there are just too many to post! And there aren't any from Christmas morning because I have teenage boys who like to sleep with their shirts off so there's that. haha!

 Everyone else was eating so I just held this little angel! She's so sweet!

 I wish I could explain how much Brooks loves her! He tells me all the time how much he loves baby Nora!

 My big boys asked me to get them ugly Christmas sweaters this year and it made me SO HAPPY! hahaha!

 This is my new favorite picture of Mia! It was a pretend coffee maker. She LOVES to pretend she's drinking coffee and this was one of her favorite gifts! haha!

 Josh's parents with their grands! And here you can see Peyton's sweater! It lights up! haha!

 A Christmas Eve nap! She was really asleep, he was not! :)

 I love us! :)

Happy Birthday Josh and Visiting Santa!

On Saturday my Lover Love turned 36! We needed to drive up to Birmingham to have Mia's labs drawn so we stopped by to see our new baby niece on the way! Josh was sickly earlier in the week so he had not met her yet! She was actually due on his birthday but came a few days early! He was excited to finally get to hold her and of course the rest of us loved on her too! Then we headed to the Cheesecake Factory and stuffed our faces with all the food! haha! We ended the day at
Children's Hospital for labs which is no fun but had to be done!

This was also Brooks' first time to see and hold baby Nora. He said, "Mommy, I think I'm about to cry because I love her!" Melt me!

 Mia loved holding her! She fell at school and busted her lip and hurt her chin, poor thing. So clumsy.

Last week we had our annual visit with Santa! Last year when we visited we only had 7 days until we left for China! We were doing a daily countdown on social media and asked Santa to participate! He was more than happy to and was so excited for us! He held up seven fingers and took a picture with the kids! He made us promise to bring her to see him! 

I fully expected to have a crying Mia in this year's picture. She doesn't really like being around people dressed up and doesn't really like strangers. It's really hit or miss depending on her mood! HA! #truth We walked up with our entourage of people-11 of us(there was no line, which is why we visit Santa so early in the season!). Santa looked directly at Mia through the sea of all of us and said, "Well, there you are!" It was like they were long lost soulmates. Instant love between those two! 

And then the stars aligned and the Heavens opened up because....wait for it...

ALL SEVEN KIDS SMILED FOR THE PICTURE!

Say what? The photographer was like, "UM HOW do y'all get them to all smile?" It was just luck lady, promise!

LOVE IT!

Writing letters to Santa...

And finishing off with a train ride!

Meet Rosie, Cheer Competition and Halloween!

These were going to be three separate posts! HA!

Well, Meet Rosie!



She's Reece's new pup! She was a super early birthday gift. Reece has been asking for a puppy for a very, very long time and I kept saying no. I didn't want anymore inside dogs, even after the ones we have are gone. Or so I thought. Then it hit me that Reece is SUCH a good kid and helps SO SO much with the littles. Most of the time we don't even ask her to help, she just does. Josh and I will both tell you, we would be lost without Reece and her help! :) So, new puppy for her! haha!

The other dogs are not so excited about the new addition. Chippie is our 16 year old Chihuahua and she doesn't mind the puppy. In fact, I think she likes her because she wags her tail when she's around. Daisy on the other hand, she's just butt hurt. She'll pear around the couch and just look at me all hurt. Yikes. She'll get over it, right???

Last weekend was one we have been working hard for! Reece's cheer competition! These girls have worked SO hard on their routine. They pulled it off and came in 2nd place! So very proud of all of them! And, glad to have some free time now!

And to end the most random post of all, Halloween! We went to my sister's house to trick or treat with cousins! We had a hayride around the neighborhood and then went to Big Mama's! :)

Oh! And somewhere in the mix of all that we carved pumpkins! This was Mia's first time and she's DEF my child because she wasn't about to touch that mess!!

 

 

Thankful

We leave for China in THREE days!!! This is exactly when we thought we would travel! Remember me saying Josh had a feeling we would be there for his birthday? Well, we will!

We spent our Thanksgiving with family, packing and an Iron Bowl beat down! Roll Tide! Let's not leave out FOOD! So good!

 

 Cutest photo bomber EVER!

 These three talked Papa into riding around on the golf cart! Although, it didn't take too much persuading! haha!

 

 My little brother got a leave from the Navy and was able to be home for Thanksgiving!! So glad we got to see him! I bet it's SO fun having two older sisters to grill you about EVERYTHING! We found out he had been on a couple of dates with a girl and it was ON! HAHAHA!

Please be in prayer for us as we make our way to China this week! And also, please pray for Mia! I plan to blog while in China as much as possible! :)