I Have a Hunch That It's Gonna Be a Nice, Nice Christmas!

 Every year Santa rides through town on a fire truck! 

We always know when he's getting near because of the LOUD sirens. 

We run out with a bag full of canned and dry goods to donate to the food bank and the kids get lots of candy thrown at them Mardi Gras style. Only in Louisiana, right?!I LOVE this picture because Afton is scared and running to me!! Ayden is in the red sweater, and Ian is in the green jacket. Our neighbor friends came out for the fun too.

 Ayden and Ian both performed at their school Christmas program.

This is Ayden's class. They sang "Nice, Nice Christmas". Ayden sang his heart out.

It was a catchy tune and has been stuck in my head ever since.

 Ian's teacher goes above and beyond with making those bell shirts and teaching the kids to play the bells and sign language.

They signed and sang "Silent Night" and played the bells for "Rudolph". 

Apparently Ian was pretty good, because he got to play two bells (proud mother gloating).

 Ian and Afton both showed a big interest in decorating the tree this year.

Dad and Ayden, not so much.

Tomorrow is the boys' last day of school and we are ready for the big day.

I love the Christmas season, especially when I am finished stressing over the extra to dos that come with it. 

I like to have a clear mind so I can make an effort to soak in the peace and joy this time of year brings, celebrating the birth of our Savoir, Jesus Christ. 

On a non-spiritual note:

Josh and I both got our Christmas presents already and have been putting them to good use...

Mine 

(It's a GPS running watch that keeps track of my speed, heart rate, calories burned, and lots of other things that I still can't figure out how to work because it's so advanced.) I've been working on my speed, and will be increasing my endurance for a 10K in February. Wish me luck! I cut off 1 minute in my last 5K, but I would still like to get a bit faster. What can I say, I have a competitive spirit.

His

He is on this thing all day and night. He's becoming a master at Angry Birds!

Turkey, Turkey, Let's Eat Some Turkey!

The cousins on Josh's side of the family all enjoying turkey dinner at their own pint sized table that may or may not have been borrowed from the church nursery.

This adorable moment was not staged. 

Here's the whole crew that we celebrated with. 

Turkey lunch at school. Ian is such a ham! (No pun intended.)

 HAPPY THANKSGIVING, EVERYONE!!!

Free Chick-Fil-A for a year!

Last week Josh came home from work around lunchtime telling me about the Grand Opening of a new Chick-Fil-A here in town. He said that people were camping out all day and night and the first 100 people would win a year of free chicken. I told him that I'd do it, we laughed, then we seriously considered it. Two hours later I had my camping gear packed, a friend to come with me (hooray for Sarah!), and my husband to handle the kiddos while I earned us some free food. 

We hung out in the parking lot from 1:30pm to 6am the following morning. We were fed free meals and ice cream...there were games with door prizes...a dj had us dancing for a while...they played Toy Story 3 on a projector screen. It was pretty fun. My friend Sarah and I approached two different camera peeps and asked them if they wanted to interview us. We made the cut on the NBC33 news-Click HERE for a good laugh. When we finally attempted to sleep it was only about 3 hours before we were awakened to line up in the freezing cold for our long awaited coupons. I loved it, and would do it again in a heartbeat. Some people we met were at their 7th and even 14th grand opening. There was a group of about 18 Mormons with their babies that all came from Hattiesburg. That's bonkers. I even met someone from Lake Charles. These people love some free chicken, and I don't blame them. 

 In the beginning stages with some door prizes.

 5:30am after a rough night.

  They made us wear these tacky hats and gigantic t-shirts before we walked through the restaurant while the employees banged on medal pans and yelled just as loudly. Then the Manager handed us our coupons packaged in nugget boxes and shook our hands like we were college graduates or something.

Good times!

This Is Halloween. HALLOWEEN!

We went to LSU for two different trick or treat activities.

This was the BOOzar. LSU student athletes handed out candy, signed autographs, and showed the kids how to play various sports. Here's Ayden golfing-he was really good at it and made me realize that the poor kid has never been putt-putt golfing. I see a visit to Celebration Station in our near future. 

The other LSU event was trick or treating down Sorority Rowe. I didn't get any pictures because it was hard to keep the family together through the crowd. The boys got to dunk a guy in a dunking booth. They loved that. They also painted some miniature pumpkins. 

Both events were WAY TOO CROWDED, but fun.

Apparently, I got some autographs of a few pretty talented and well known football players.

We spent an evening carving pumpkins. 

I forgot to get pictures of them before they all collapsed from rot, thanks to Louisiana weather. 

However, Ian got a hold of the camera and Afton's little Hello Kitty pumpkin snuck into the background of his airplane picture. A blessing in disguise! 

Halloween night! I was a super excited about Halloween this year and decided to throw a little party.

We invited the Mangums (of course) and a handful of  friends who either lived nearby or in apartment complexes and needed a neighborhood for trick or treating. I made gumbo, chili, cornbread, cupcakes, salad, and Robin made the creepy crawly punch in the picture. We pigged out, then went around the neighborhood with three wagons and two strollers. We were quite a sight! The kids were all so tired toward the end. At one point Ian said he didn't want any candy and just sat in the wagon. 

We have three paper bags FULL of candy. It's quite ridiculous.

Affie and Annie

Our annual picture with Frankenstein! 

We loved celebrating Halloween, and now we have a lot of Thanksgiving celebrations on the horizon.

In case you didn't notice, Ian was Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, AND Buzz Lightyear (with fangs) this year. What a nut!

Jump Start To Halloween...

We are celebrating Halloween in phases. We have completed phase 1 and 2. Both were exhausting, fantabulous, and over indulgent in the candy department. We still have 3 more phases to collect even more candy. I think I'm going to have to sneak some in the garbage when the kids aren't looking...SHH!

Boo At the Zoo, 2011

You can't go to the BR zoo without riding the train!! 

No really, you'll never hear the end of it from your devastated children.

This daddy loves his little daughter...

...and here I am with my boys.

Ian requested to have his picture taken here. 

Don't you dare try calling him Optimus Prime, either. The name's Ian.

Tonight was "Trunk or Treat" at our church.

The kids (and parents) really look forward to this every year.

Almost more than the real deal on Halloween night.

Here's Afton in her own Minnie outfit. 

I didn't finish her pettiskirt in time for Boo at the Zoo, 

but she was able to fluff up her dress this time!!

Our van. Ian looks more scary than the skeleton.

He said he wanted to make sure that he looked sad, not happy.

I think he pulled it off.

We had a cake walk with a twist-you could win donuts! 

Ian and Ayden each won three-Ian devoured his almost immediately. Just in case you noticed that Ayden isn't in any of the pictures from this evening, that's because he was buzzing around making two-maybe three-laps around the parking lots for candy. He has a FULL bag to prove it.

More Halloween adventures coming soon...

October

October's wonderful weather is finally here. The air is crisp and the skies are clear. 

I feel like I'm breaking some kind of law if I'm not outside enjoying Louisiana's nicest month of the year (weather wise-spring is still my favorite season). I have a few of the outdoor moments on camera:

 The Hutchs met up with the Mangums at one of our favorite parks while the dads were on their annual man trip to Houston to watch the Dynamos-Houston's soccer team-play . 

Here we are attempting to get all of the kids to spin on this cool contraption. 

I have no idea what these are called.  

I found 7 different princess/Tinkerbell costumes for only $6 each at a store we like to visit occasionally in Zachary. It's called "Dirt Cheap". They take reject merchandise from stores that go out of business, or that were dropped in transit, or some other sort of calamity that would cause them to be unfit for sale. Well, these dresses were from Target with the tags and I got every single one they had in Afton's size that were in good condition. SCORE!! If you know me at all, you know that I will search high and low for a good deal. 

Anyway, about the cute girl pictured above. She dresses up every day in a different gown and asks to watch either "Tangled" or "Cinderella" while she's dressed up. I think she watched Tangled about 6 times this week. She calls herself "Baby Rapunzel". This girl is a fashion enthusiast. When I fix her hair she asks me if it's princess hair. I truly didn't encourage the whole princess thing in the beginning. It's in her genetic makeup to love purses, twirling, accessories, and all things related to Dora, Minnie Mouse and Disney Princesses.

Afton has been having a lot of fun times with these two girls lately. 

It's so fun to watch them enjoy each other's company.

Ayden and Ian had their Primary program at church today.

They both sang so well. Ayden did great with his speaking parts, but Ian was too shy to go up to the podium. They are polar opposites in the performing department. 

Josh and I have both been sick with Strep Throat over the past few days, so I took the boys while Josh stayed home with Affy and we left right after the program. Ayden chose to stay at church for the Primary celebration so I didn't get a picture of him in his Sunday best, but isn't Ian just so handsome?!

I took on a big project sewing a Minnie Mouse dress with a pettiskirt underneath for extra fluff.
It was my first paid gig and it pays well.
Here I am covered in the 90 yards of ruffles I had to sew. It was exhausting, but well worth it in the end. Go HERE to see how to make one if you want to give it a try. Be ye warned: it's a lot of work.

Here's the finished product on my little model, Afton (I haven't hemmed it yet, so ignore that part)!

I had to get the back view with the ruflfled socks.

 Ian wanted to take a picture too. Yes, his shirt is backwards.
 I will be making all of this again for Afton-but in red-which is why the Minnie shoes don't match this one.
I am very proud of this dress and pettiskirt and these girls are going to be adorable!!

Oh, and here's a pic of the pettiskirt. FYI:  I made the ears, bow and ruffle socks, too.

The Zombie Bash! It Was the Monster Mash...

 My First 5K! 

The Zombie Bash also included a group of over 100 of us dancing to "Thriller".

Here I am with my nasty wounds (liquid latex and blood gel are fun to work with!) 

Better view of the cheek gash and run-friendly costume.

My fellow zombie friend, Leah. 

We worked hard on preparing for the dance and she helped me do research on how to make rotting flesh!

She did her entire FACE! The blood started oozing down her face during the run. It was pretty awesome.

Josh caught me during the run. The kids were hanging out at Aunt Robin and Uncle Brent's 

so Josh could support me without kids in tow. 

We were also nervous about them getting scared of all of the people in costume.

We had a great time! Whenever the video goes up on You Tube, I'll put up a link!

That...Was...AWESOME!!

The mud run was on Saturday. I had so much fun. 

It was a family friendly event, so we all enjoyed ourselves and the weather was great!

Here's the "Run Amucks" before we got all muddy. 

We were the coolest group in attendance (according to me, at least).

The kids had all sorts of things to climb on; not excluding off road vehicles.

 Annnnnnd...We're off! Can you find me? 

Robin and I ran the majority of the race together.

Our faces are so red here. This was 2 miles in.

 

We're at the bottom resting and catching our breath while we wait our turn to climb.

Josh pushed the girls around like this to come cheer us on and take pictures.

The FINISH LINE! It took me 32 minutes and 58 seconds. 

I was the 20th female out of the 156 in our wave. 

I finished in the top 25% overall (male and female). Not too shabby! 

Especially since I was getting over a stomach virus.

BLAH!

I look really funny here b/c I'm trying to slow down after running super fast downhill.

Check out Farmer Brown. 

He was a very squeaky runner with his soaking wet bibs and we kept the same pace the last mile of the run.

Thanks for the comic relief!

WE DID IT!

Me and Amanda. She's who invited me to race. 

We kept the same pace for the first mile, 

then I had to walk and catch my breath and she became my motivation.

Melanie smoked us all! She was the first of our group to finish and 8th place in our wave.

We were workout buddies earlier this year, so it was fun to race with her, even though I could barely see her WAY in front of me. Next time it won't be that way, because I'll train more and won't have a stomach virus to slow me down (knock on wood). Is that guy in the background checking us out? I just noticed him.

Then it was the boys' turn to run in the Mini Muck.

Josh and Brent ran with them.

Adorable Annie pointing at a helicopter.

They got a lot more muddy than we did.

Go Ayden, GO! 

Post race mud monsters. Ian didn't race, but he found some mud and a medal anyway. I had to VACUUM out the washing machine after I washed all of our clothes and shoes TWICE with four rinse cycles.

We all had a great time in the mud, so it was worth it.