Happy Valentine's Day

The girls started their Valentine's celebration on Friday afternoon with parties at school. I had to work, but Hoy, Nonnie, and Poppy were able to be there and took lots of pictures. Both of the class parties were at 2:00, so they had to divide and conquer.

They started with Lucy's class, and here is her huge plate of food. Of course, she ate the cupcake first!!

Then they moved down to Logan's party, and Lucy joined them in Logan's class. Once we go to a party or class activity with the girls, they expect to leave with us. Here is Logan with her 2 best friends, Meredith or "Mer-Mer" and Kyndal.

Here is Lucy holding tight to her bag of Valentines and candy so that Logan's friends don't take it from her!!

All of the kids have their specific seat, and they were finding their places to eat their snacks.

Once they finished at the party, Hoy and the girls came to my office to pick me up to go home. We have been riding in to Little Rock together all week because of the snow and ice. Although the roads were in pretty good shape by Thursday, the hill going into the girls' school was still really bad. While I was finishing up with a few things, Logan and Lucy played in the office behind my desk and they were really having a good time.

Instead of going home and fixing something for dinner, we decided to run over to Shorty Smalls, which is one of our favorites. We took the DVD player inside to keep the girls entertained, and that worked really well. I was so glad there were not many people there yet, because I felt like a horrible parent taking a movie to dinner. At home, we always eat at the dinner table together and visit, but we have the luxury of toys and TV while dinner is cooking!

Our favorite party of Shorty Smalls--the HUGE cheese sticks. The girls loved them too.

The kids' meals come with a fudgesickle, but the girls always share a meal so they only got one
and that was plenty. I held onto the ice cream, and just went back and forth and they ate it up!!

Lucy's turn with the ice cream!! She was so funny, because every time she would take a bite she would do a full-body shiver!

This morning we got up and went to church, and I dressed the girls in their red dresses. They were so sweet this morning, and so adorable. Here are some pictures on the way to Yukon to head to church.

We came home from church and ate lunch. We had some left over cheesecake from last night, and Lucy was loving the whip cream. She wanted it sprayed straight into her mouth....I have no idea where we ever saw that done in the first place, it certainly was NOT her mommy!!

While we girls were napping, out of nowhere it started snowing, and it was actually coming down really hard. It was beautiful because it was sticking to the ground but not the roads. After the last week that we had, it was nice to see snow that we knew was not going to cause us any traveling difficulties!!

This is looking out towards our neighbors' houses. Very pretty!!

Tonight, Nonnie and Poppy came over for dinner and to bring Valentine's surprises. The girls were very excited to get candy and new stuffed animals.

They couldn't get into the bags quick enough!

While we were watching the Olympics, they were busy playing and eating suckers. We'll be doing a lot of brushing the teeth this week!

We hope everyone had a great a Valentines Day and remembered to share love with their families!!

We love friends!!

We started today off with Hoy taking Logan to dance class and me taking Lucy to a birthday party for one of her friends from school. She was confused when we told her that she had a party for one of her friends from school, but we did not go to the school for the party. All of her little friends were very cute when they saw each other outside of the school environment....they were very excited!!



The party was at an indoor play area called The Wonder Place, and here is Lucy climbing to the top of the slide to come down from the tree house.

Here is Lucy with one of her best friends at school, Cooper. They were playing around this huge contraption of tubes that blows air and moves balls and fabric pieces all through the tubes and out different holes.

Lucy liked pushing the balls into the tubes, but she was not so happy about the air blowing in her face!!

Lucy is playing "house" with another one of her friends from school, Auystin.

The craft for the day was making an igloo. All Lucy really cared about was smearing the glue all over the bowl.

My sweet baby girl!! I think she really enjoyed this one-on-one time with Mommy, which she does not get very often...I know I sure did!!

Of course she loved the sand. They changed the sand from white to blue since the last time were here, so we had fun getting this off of her hands and clothes.

The party got started with another craft of making a face on a little tin cup.

Here's Lucy with her finished product...of course after a lot of help from Mom, this one wasn't so easy because the little pieces did not want to stick to the cup!!

Once the birthday boy opened his gifts, Lucy snuck this one away and started playing with it herself!!

Tonight, we went to Sherwood to have dinner with my best friend Brenna and her family. Brenna and I met our sophomore year of college, and we've been best friends since. I made a homemade cheese cake for dessert, and this was my first attempt at cheese cake without help from my mom, I had to take a picture!

This picture says a lot....Logan and Cade playing rough, Hoy and Ryan are watching the Olympics, and me and Brenna are cooking dinner. That's about how things go when we're together, and we're all pretty happy that way! Jude and Lucy are somewhere in the background, but they didn't make this picture.

Lucy carrying in firewood to help keep us warm.

Here is everyone playing in Cade's room. Brenna's boys have so many toys, and the girls are just in awe because everything is new to them!

We stayed until 9:45 tonight, and the girls were exhausted. They were trying so hard to stay awake on the way home, and they were so sweet holding hands!! Thanks everyone for such a fun day!

The Olympics Start!!

The opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics start tonight. That means Hoy and I will not be getting much sleep over the next 2 weeks!! Although we seem to enjoy the summer Olympics more than the winter Olympics, we still just love watching the athletes compete.





Some of the stories that are featured about what sacrifices the athletes and their families have made and some of the obstacles that have been overcome are just amazing. I love watching the athletes show so much pride for their countries and tonight carrying their flags with so much hope.



This afternoon, one of the luge athletes from Georgia was killed during an accident while practicing. We'll be praying for safety for the athletes through the remainder of the games, and also praying for peace and good sportsmanship throughout the world!!

A visit with old friends

Back when Hoy and I got married, we were a part of a newlywed Sunday school class at Geyer Springs First Baptist Church. Nate and Mauree were in our class and actually just lived around the corner from us. A few years ago they moved to the north part of the state, and have since had 2 additional boys.




Here is a picture of Mauree with her boys from her facebook page. Adorable family, and really sweet people.





This past weekend, I found out that one of Maruree's worst nightmares as a mother was coming true. When you live in Arkansas and are a parent, you are SO thankful to have such a wonderful facility so close to home BUT pray almost every day that you never need to utilize it!! Nate and Mauree's youngest son had been admitted to Arkansas Children's Hospital for extensive testing because of prolonged symptoms and recurrent fever. I shared this with our current Sunday school class this past Sunday, and they wanted to help!! Our class is such a special group of people, and many of them were not even here when Nate and Mauree were going to our church so they don't even know each other. But our class, wanting to represent the love of Christ, wanted to help meet their needs during this time of crisis. With the help of our Sunday school directors and many members of our class, tonight Hoy and I were able to carry 2 huge bags of sodas, juice, water, snacks, and a little bit of money for miscellaneous needs to hopefully help their stay in the hospital be a little easier and a little cheaper!

When we got to the hospital and found their room, we were greeted by this sweet baby, but he was not quite this happy....he immediately started crying when he saw us because he thought we were coming with more needles. :(

We are praying for this special family, and we are so thankful to our Sunday school class for their generous gifts and allowing us to visit Nate and Mauree on their behalf. For those of you who are actually reading this post, I am asking that you stop for just a second and thank God for this wonderful facility, for the awesome doctors and nurses that make it more than just a building, and for all of the patients and families that are scared to death because they are having to depend on this facility for help!! To God be the glory for all of His blessings and for all of His miracles!

Seriously Snow Day

Out of no where last night and this morning, snow and sleet started falling which closed schools all over Arkansas and made the drive to work a little more interesting. Hoy and I took the girls over to my mom and dad's house this morning, and headed to work.



Here are the nurses from the West Side at the clinic that showed up for work today. It kind of felt like old days, having fun at work.

We went back outside about 15 minutes after the picture above because it started snowing so much harder. The girls made snow balls, and we had a short little snow ball fight...fun, fun!

This is the scene from the window by my desk at work, and as the morning went on it got more and more beautiful.

Hoy came to pick me up in the early afternoon, and the snow was falling harder and harder. It was so pretty, and I wanted to just keep taking pictures. Here is Hoy's truck "Ole' Red" and it is very faithful at getting us around in inclement weather!

This is the side of the road on our way home on one of the back roads. We initially tried to get on the interstate to get home, but there was an accident that was going to keep us stationary for a while so we took an alternate route on the back roads.

These back roads were a little less traveled and a little more hazardous. We saw cars like this everywhere! But Hoy's truck held on to the road really well for us. He drove in 4-wheel drive, and he weighted the back of his truck down with shingles from work. We really didn't have any trouble.

This is what the yard looked like at our house when we got home. We had about 5-6 inches of snow--amazing!

While Hoy and I were at work, the girls were at Nonnie and Poppy's house having fun. I was not a very good mother this morning, and I sent the girls to Nonnie and Poppy's house without the proper attire to play outside in the snow. Logan did not have a coat, and they were both in their house shoes without any boots!! After watching the news this morning, I really thought it would be raining all day today instead of snowing....boy, was I wrong!

So, as you can see Logan is wearing Nonnie's jacket and they are both wearing some of Poppy's shoes!! Nonnie said the first thing Logan said when she stepped outside was "this stuff is crunchy!!"

While it continued to do this outside....

The girls were having a picnic with their play dishes inside.

The girls love to read books, and if they don't remember the story they will make it up themselves as they turn the pages. I loved this picture with Lucy crossing her legs in the air!!

On days like today, when the girls are cooped up in the house I am so glad they have each other. They love each other so much, and they have so much fun playing together!! They are making such good memories!

Once Hoy and I got home, we brought Logan's jacket and their rain boots over and we all went outside for a VERY short period of time. The snow had basically turned to rain, and it was SO cold. Once we told Logan that the snow was ice, she wanted to eat it because we never let her eat ice from the glasses at home.

Lucy followed Logan's lead as usual, and she started eating the ice too. We didn't let them have very much...you never know what's in that snow!

Lucy making funny faces as the snow and ran fell on her face.

Picking snow off the rocking chair...more ice to eat.

Hoy and the girls started making a small snowman on the deck. This snow was awesome at packing, so making snowballs and snowmen was great. But we got really wet because the snow was so sloppy. Me and Lucy were tossing snowballs at each other.

Logan puts her final touches on her snowman.

Lucy standing back letting Logan play and get wet.

Logan claimed the "big" snowman, and Lucy claimed the "small" snowman. We were all cold, wet, and ready to go inside.

Once inside and dry, we settled in to watch a movie. I didn't make it very long, which is typical, and Logan made herself comfortable between me and the couch. Logan and I were both very happy!! Notice Logan's name on the bottom of her house shoe...Logan and Lucy have the same house shoes, just one size apart, so they would get them mixed up. They haven't learned all of their letters or how to read, but they can recognize their names, so this works great!