Excitement is in the air....

So what am I excited about?? Many things actually!! Tonight I am going with a group of 7 girls, to see New Moon! I am in love with the Twilight books!! And I have been dying for this new film to come out! We bought our tickets like a week ago and have even talked our good (pregnant) friend Kristi Smith into driving us so we can enjoy...what else, BLOODY MARY'S!! We are all very excited and have two Non-Twilighter's going as well-and I am sure they will be hooked as soon as they see the movie!

Our dear friends Patrick Smith and Kristi Pantin Smith got married this summer in California and had a huge reception in Vicksburg in September. Jay and i had a great time. This is a picture from the beginning of the night! I will not show you what I looked like at the end of the night because it was SO humid, i might as well have not even done anything to my hair. Plus,(and I'm not even kidding)I fell off the porch steps flat on my knees. And this was at the beginning of the party so everyone was sober-including me-so it won't be forgotten. I had bloody knees and an even more bruised ego!!!!But it was so fun!!


Luci is big into dress up these days-and sometimes, she gets a little confused as to how it all works. But hey, she's got FLARE! Or maybe it's attitude-probably both! This is what she came out of her room wearing one day-I am serious, she said " i did it all by myself"...to which I replied, "Yes you did."


This is Cooper on Halloween this year. He was "Bakugan Dan". If you have boys between 4-7, you know what a Bakugan is. If you don't know, let me tell you about this waste of $8.64. These are plastic balls, that you drop on the ground and they break open into this....thing, I dont know what the hell it is. But Cooper has about 20 of them already. He's obsessed. Its RE-DONK-U-LOUS! And appearantly there is a "person" that goes along with these stupid balls. And he must be stuck an 80's time warp because Cooper's outfit was so taken me back! Fingerless gloves and all!!


Sweet John William this summer at a birthday party. He mostly spent the day at this birthday party taking care of his little sister!! It was July...at like NOON...and a freaking petting zoo....oh and did I mention in the DELTA!! So it was HOT, HUMID, SMELLY and SWARMING MOSQUITOS. So, why do you ask was he taking care of his little sister? Because Momma was in the house enjoying the sweet air!

I know, I know....its been way too long!

I know it has been well over a year since I have updated our blog! We have had an extremely crazy year but i am going to definatley try to do better! So much has happened over the last year and there are so many picctures I need to post. Please check back over the next few days and I will post many pictures of the kids and what all we have been doing.



First of all, there is a big change in our lives as of recently...I am a working woman now!! At the beginning of this September, I went back to work after almost 5 years!! And you know what....I LOVE IT!! I forgot how much I enjoyed working! I am working for a great attorney in Vicksburg who keeps me extremely busy!! There are days when I pick up Luci that she says "Momma, I want to go home with you.." and it makes me sad to drop her off at daycare, but she quickly forgets me as soon as she makes it through the door! (And if you ask her why I go to work, she will say "to buy me clothes" ....and I am not even kidding!



For Halloween, Luci was Tinkerbell and when I say we are getting our moneys worth out of that costume, you have no idea!! She wears it 24/7-she would wear it to school if I let her.(Of course, by the time we got ready to check out, with the costume, pink leotard, pink stockings, slippers, AND tinkerbells wand-it was like $50 bucks!! Jay was not real happy! Actually, I think his words where "really, i mean you're kidding right?" to the checker at wal mart-he quickly could tell by her blank expression, That she was not!)

And for those of you out there wondering.....no, Luci still does NOT have any blue jeans yet.





John William is almost as tall as me and in the 3rd grade this year! He is the sweetest child!! He is learning this year that school is actually hard-and that you actually have to study!! Surpise, surprise!! But he still made A-B honor roll and is doing great!! One big thing for him this year, was that he got to go out for 3rd and 4th grade football. In the picture below, his hair is hanging out of his helmet like Rikki Williams-but he has had a haircut since then!! He did so well and even got his hands on the ball a few times! He (of course) is still playing soccer and doing so well at that-obviously he has his dad's genes for those of you who know how big of an "athlete" i was!



Third grade also meant another new development-GIRLS!! And i don't mean in a "yuck-GIRLS-go away" kind of sense, I mean, GGGGIIIIRRLLLLZZZZ!!!!! Yep....I am not too happy about that! He said his second grade teacher told them them last year that you aren't allowed to have girlfriends or boyfriends in 2nd grade, so he was gonna "get him one" this year. I will keep everyone posted on how that goes!

Cooper is a Kindergarten-er now! And he is amazing!! Reading everything in sight-including John William's chapter books!! He is having the best time in his class!! He turned 6 in August and believe it or not, he finally gave up his pacifier! (I really thought that pacifier might end up hurting his dating life!!) We do still have Blu Baby, but he is not as appealing without his "pappy". Cooper is his usual funny self! On the third day of school, as I was driving him, he looked at me and said "Momma, kindergarten is such a waiste of time." I almost wrecked the car laughing....to which he cut his eyes at me and said "I'm serious!".

This is both of them on the first day of school. They made these cute planters for their teachers-hey....who am i kidding, these are my kids, they got to SUCK UP as much as possible!! I'm just thankful for half of Jay's DNA!!

We stay so busy but I promise to update regularly and post tons of pictures from the last year!!

Spirit Day!

We celebrated Spirit day at Cooper and Luci's school on Friday. This is mostly to celebrate the fact that after two weeks, most of the children are not wailing all morning until their parents come to pick them up! Just kidding-the kids love it! They get all into it. I have never been a part of Spirit day before, but since I am now on staff I got to be present for this fun event! All the kids had pompoms and ran around cheering for their school! It was so cute! They all wore their Play School t-shirts and got all pumped up before we sent them home! Danielle is still such a cheerleader! I was mostly the photographer since I was never a cheerleader! Not quite coordinated enough for that-I can walk across a stage in 4 inch heals though!!

Look how excited Luci was! The picture is all blurry because the camera cord swung in front at the moment I took the picture! But it still turned out so cute! She had already pulled her bow out by this time of the morning!

Cooper had a big time too!

Cooper and Luci-she is trying to get away from him!

Cooper and some friends in action!

More Birthday parties

Our dear friend Leigh and Ben's daughter Emma turned one recently. We had the best time visiting with everyone at the birthday party. Emma is the cutest thing ever! Somehow, she got blue eyes and dark hair-and both her parents have brown eyes!! How come I didn't get a blueyed baby-we had at least one dog in the hunt!!! Leigh and Ben have built a beautiful house and it was the first time we got to see it!

Emma enjoying her cake!! I am sure her mother didn't eat any of it though!

My plan was to get a picture of all three of us with the girls and then one of all three of the little girls, but as you can see it did not work out as planned. There were too many people there to see Emma to steal her away for a picture! One day we will get them together!

Luci and Anna Patton

Daddy and the Party girl!

First Day of School

The kids have all started back to school and it has been hectic. John William is in the second grade!!! I can not believe it! He is already doing so well in school and learning to complain about the work seems to come with second grade! Cooper began his last year of Preschool. He actaully could have started kindergarten this fall, however when he was two and started preschool, we decided then that since he had a late bithday, we would hold him back. This have proven to be a good choice. His little class has been together since they were two and they have grown so much over the last few years. They will all go different ways next year and that makes me incredibly sad! Luci began her three morning a week class too. She is in a class of 9 children between the ages of 18 months and 2 years! That number is overwhelming to me and I don't know how the teacher keeps her sanity, but they are such a good little group together! Not too many tears! And for some reason, I decided to add to the chaos of our morning routine by taking a job at Cooper and Luci's preschool. Don't worry- I am not a teacher! I am the assistant director under a good friend of mine. Mostly I help out with the bookwork end of it all and try to stay out of the classrooms! ; ) It is nice to be at the school when Luci and Cooper are there, but it stresses me out when Cooper gets introuble-which seems to be alot this year already!

John William on his first day of class!

Luci playing with her classmates!

Cooper and Luci at school!

More trip pictures!

Jay and Eric got to sit with the kids during lunch one day! Can't you tell how excited they were!

Cooper and the big hamburger-look at him posing!

They have added a zipline to all the activities at the village and of course John William wanted to do it! It made me quite nervous but we let him do it!

Look how much fun he was having-I was stressing out!

The Beach

Luci and Daddy playing in the sand!

The whole family!!

Jay and I got to go out for dinner one night. We went down to Seaside to eat and had a wonderful dinner! This was the view from the top of the restaruant where the bar was. It was beautiful!

I actaully got Jay away from Richard for one night! We were having the best time until he mentioned that I has to drive the 20 minutes back home-after our few glasses of wine! What a buzz kill! Jay's hair is wildd!

More of Jay and Richards trip!

All the little monkeys together!

How cute are they! Cooper got his face painted this time!

These two had so much fun together. Martha told her mom ( who is married to Richard) that she thought John William liked her! I am not ready for that!

Lulu on the beach!

Last trip of the summer-with Richard!

The last week in July Jay and I took the kids back to Sadestin to meet up with Eric & Erica Ross and their three kids. We try to make this trip every year with them becasue they live in Atlanta and we don't get to see them very much! Every year I grow fonder and fonder of Eric and this year was no different. At one point during the week, erica and i opted tokeep all six kids a the house and let Jay and Eric have a guys night out. Why...you may ask? Not becasue we are good sweet wives, but becasue the men were driving us crazy!! Not the kids-Jay and Eric (or Richard as I will now refer to him)

The kids at the pool hamming it up!

Luci loves the pool! She can almost swim better than Cooper!

All the kids curled up watching a movie-the only time our boys and girls can be in bed together-we definately don't want them to reproduce-half Jay and half Richard is a scary thought

Richard and Jay. They only take this trip so they can hang out together!

The Magic Bus!!

Our friend Kristi recently celebrated her birthday in style and we were invited along! Her "friend-boy" Patrick got one of his tour buses and we all loaded up on it and went to Jackson to dinner! The bus was AWESOME!!! If you ever have a chance to go somewhere on one like this-I highly recommed it! The bus had a lounge inthe front with a wet bar, flat screen tv, cd player-everything. In the middle ont he bus were 12 plush bunk beds! And in theback of the bus was the "SIN DEN"! Just another fun lounge! We had the best time!

The girls all glammed up for the beginning of the night-make sure to check out the end of the night!!

Everyone at Nick's in Jackson. We shut the place down! It was wonderful!

Birthday girl and Big daddy Jack!

On the magic bus!!

End of the night...

How much fun are they having...I don't know what they are laughing about but it must have been funny!

This is William asleep in the bunk bed and Patrick crawled in to join him! I stuck the camera in just in time for William toopen his eyes and realize a strange man was crawling in his bed!

Cheesing it up-I think this wasn't long before we reached the Beechwood! (That's equivilant to the Oasis's for you Delta people)

We had too much fun!