We wish you a Merry Christmas!!!

Here are LOTS of pictures from the past couple of weeks!!  This was the best Christmas yet with both kids being the PERFECT age!

We spent the Saturday before Christmas making cookies for Santa!  I'm fairly sure I vacuumed 4 times that day, but it sure was fun!!

Alec was really good at cutting them out, Kaleigh just made a mess with this part!

On to the fun part!  Painting and SPRINKLES!

Kaleigh may have taste tested some of the icing!

Alec with Harley and Jackie

We love our sweet Harley!

Finished Products!

Very proud of their cookies!

Goodbye letter and Elf Cookies from Jedo on Christmas Eve!

We had the dog cage out while we were babysitting Jackie and the kids spent more time in it than the dog!

Christmas Eve pancake breakfast with our spend the night company!!!

Kaleigh is such a little monkey!  She pushed the bar stool over to the cabinets, climed up and dug out some gummy bears!!  This girl is into everything!!

"Helping" mom cook cupcakes!

Paps got the flu on Christmas Eve, so we had to cancel our tradition of going to Ellisville for Christmas Eve and we had a spur of the minute Birthday Party for Jesus with our neighbors and Mimi and Papa!

His Favorite gift was a super cool race track!!

Helping Papa unwrap!

Dad ALWAYS gets up first Christmas morning and can't wait to go wake up the kids!!  This tells you how much Dustin LOVES Christmas morning, he's normally the LAST one to wake up at our house!

So happy he got skates from Santa!

She loves her Kitchen from Santa!

Alec was really into taking pictures over Christmas!

Sis loves her princess couch from Mimi and Papa!

We did lots of DANCING on Christmas morning!

Bubbles were a great gift too!

Dancing with Daddy!

Christmas afternoon we went over to Cousin Will's house for dinner and gifts with my family!

Alec LOVED the new camera tripod that Aunt Sonya gave me for Christmas and wanted to take a picture with "Bot" his Beta fish!  Needless to say, I'm pretty sure that Bot had a hard time up at the Northpole and he was found belly up two days after Christmas!!  Thank goodness, PetSmart swaps out Christmas fish!  We now have a new Beta named Milley, along with an acquarium, 4 neon fish named Bot, 1 Dalamation Molly fish named Molly and a Playa fish! 

I always love a PJ picture on Christmas morning!!

11th Anniversary Trip!

This year to celebrate our anniversary, Dustin and I spent a long weekend in DC!  It was an honor to see so much of our country's history all in one city, even though we don't agree (not sure that's a strong enough word for our dislike) with the current administration....  ;)

The White House was HUGE!  It actually has 5 stories, even though it doesn't look like that, the bottom stories are underground! 

Every state has 2 statues in the Capitol Building.  On our tour of the Capitol, we found Mississippi's statue of Jefferson Davis!

The Capitol Building

Dustin feeding one of MANY squirrel friends he met in DC!

Union Station

A bell in front of Union Station.  Yes, Dustin even rang the bell!  I'm sure that was not allowed!

The Washington Monument from across the Tidal Basin

You can see the bottom 1/3 is a different color.  Funds ran out during the construction process and it wasn't finished for many years, 100 years, I think.

The Jefferson Memorial

Arlington National Cemetary

While visiting Arlington, we had the honor of witnessing a military buriel with a 21 gun salute, a military fly over and a bag pipe player.  The casket was drapped in a flag and pulled by four white horses on an antique wooden wagon.  There are 27 funerals per day at Arlington, 5 days a week, although, not all with ceremonies like this special hero was given.  This pulled many heartstrings for both of us!

View of the Washington Monument from Robert E. Lee's home at the top of Arlington.  During the war, the Lee's were forced from their home and they returned to find the grounds around their home had been turned into a burial ground for the troops so they never lived their again.

Another one of Dustin's friends outside the American Indian Museum!  Dustin remembered to stick a bag of nuts in his pocket before we left the hotel.

The Koren War Memorial

This wall is beside the Koren Memorial and has depictions of soldiers in the war.

View of the Washington Monument from the Lincoln Memorial.

The Vietmam Wall

Another emotional monument for this military family!  I'm fairly sure this is the first vacation we have both shead tears several times on.

And Dustin's last friend, this one drew blood, and our squirrel feedings came to an end!

The Mississippi Monument in the WWII Memorial

Entering the White House for their "Holiday Tour"

Christmas Trees and the antique Nativity Scene in the East Room of the White House  (The Obama's actually tried to have the nativity scene removed in 2009 for a White House Luncheon, but it has been a tradition since 1967 and thankfully tradition won that argument!!)

It looks like people are just rambling around, but this was actually VERY strict security this close to the White House.  This was when we exited our tour and we were being herded out to gates at the front.  We had been trough a background check, 2 id checks, a bomb sniffing dog and a metal detector before we were even allowed this close!  Not to mention the armed Secret Service in every nook and cranny of the White House.  Hummm, Mr. President, if you are pushing so hard for gun control, why do you need this much armed security???  It might be a better idea to have this type of security in our schools!



Christmas PJs are FUN!!

They love each other sooo much!!!  Alec got this airplane from Adam and Mandi as a Christmas present over the weekend and he didn't put it down!!  He says, "I've always wanted an airplane like this!"

Kaleigh watching the wresting match!

Kaleigh cheering on the "War for Santa!"

Kaleigh played a little copy cat with cousin Will!

Hopping like FROGS!

Will didn't like tug o war nearly as much as Alec did!

Believe it or not, there is over 2 years difference between Alec and Will and only 9 months between Kaleigh and Will but it looks like it should be the other way around!

Sweet time with Dad!

Grandmother hosted a REALLY fun birthday party for Dustin and Aunt Sissie!

Cutest Christmas picture ever!!

Advent Season!

This is by far my FAVORITE time of the year!! We are really getting into the Advent Season, even though it's 75 degrees outside.

Santa sent a sweet elf, that we named Jedo to our house last week!!  He's enjoyed a marshmellow bubble bath and drank nearly a whole bottle of syrup so far!!  Kaleigh and Alec love to see who can find him first every morning!  Sis giggles and points at him when she finds him!

Alec and Kaleigh made and painted salt dough Christmas ornaments to give our family this year!

Kaleigh thought it was more fun to paint her hands!

Saturday morning, Dustin had drill and I took the kids to the Hattieburg Christmas parade.  The kids were beyond thrilled when they saw Santa in the parade!!  He even threw Kaleigh a stuffed animal!  (And I made this Christmas dress too!)

After the parade, we had family day at drill so we headed over to Dad's office!  We picked Dad up and went to the his unit's Christmas Party at the Hattiesburg Cultural Center.

Kaleigh got in Mr. Billy's lap so she could have a better view of SANTA!  She likes Santa ONLY from a distance!!

Dad and Mr. Clyde checking out all of the goodies that Santa brought for Alec!

Kaleigh, Mrs. Leigh and Peyton looking at her toys from Santa!

Dad even got to participate in the program!  He presented all kids of soldiers with special awards!  We were pretty impressed with Dad's presentation!

After all of our fun on Saturday, I woke up with a HORRIBLE crick in my neck from carrying Kaleigh all day.  We'd already planned to go get our tree that we had picked out after church and Alec had a friends birthday party Sunday afternoon.  I'm pretty impressed that Dad took Kaleigh and the tree home while Alec and I went to the party.  He even got it in the stand and the floor vaccummed with his little helper!  Then he took Kaleigh to Laurel with him for a few hours too!  Go DAD!!

So sweet, my little helpers decorating the tree!