Family Freeze

We have had a house full this week! Due to the Ice storm up north and the power outages my Grandparents and aunts and uncles have been in town all week and have no plans to return home anytime soon! They all live in Pocahontas in the same big neighborhood and have no power and damage to their houses and cars. They are glad to be warm and safe and have worried about their friends but have eventually talked to most of them. My uncle went back to get the dog and take gas to his neighbors for their generator because they were unable to even get gas with all of the power outages. He also checked on all of the houses and there were trees through several roofs as well as my aunts car windshield and some house windows busted out by a tree. They are reporting that it could be several weeks until the power is returned due to the high number of outages in the state and probably because they are in a small town. Please pray for the safety of all of the families without power and Tadd wants prayers for the utility companies to move quickly-ha!

The girls are loving all of the extra attention! I have wanted more family to be closer during the last year without my parents and this was an unexpected way for it to happen! I just keep thinking about how much Mom would have loved all of this, she loved to be with family and loved to play games. We are getting a lot of play time on the Wii. They all love bowling and can't believe how good Ella is without even trying. I had to take a few pictures, when else are you going to get pictures of your 89 year old grandmother bowling with your 3 year old-good memories!

Pizza Place

a.k.a. Larry's Pizza in Bryant, but Ella calls it the "Pizza Place." We are regular attenders here at the Pizza Buffet where they bring the pizzas around to your table. They have every type of pizza imaginable here. We went earlier today for lunch with some friends to let the kids play in the toy room. As a family, we were in the habit of going every Friday night until recently. Ella even started walking around the house a few months ago with a plate from her kitchen set saying "chicken honey mustard, chicken honey mustard," (this is one of their pizzas) and needless to say we had been there so much that she was beginning to think she worked there too-ha!

Here is a shot of Ella on the way there, she thinks one of her dolls or Barbies from Christmas has to travel everywhere with her lately! (and no, Tadd, I wasn't driving while taking the picture, we were at a stoplight!)


Ella riding one of the rides in their toy room!


The 3 amigos, Ella, Brooks, and Presley having fun on the games!


Sophie making a break for it, trying to go for the toys!


Sophie in action trying to play the games like her sister!


Presley and Sophie look like they are up to no good!

Shannon's Shower

We had a Baby Shower for Shannon at my house this Sunday. It was fun and lots of us were there from High School. We even took a picture together at the end. It reminded us of all the old pictures we took together in school. The two tall bookends on the end, Shannon and Courtney are both due soon with little girls. Shannon and I were old neighbors back in Dogwood since 2nd grade and have too many funny stories to tell! We'll just save them for later! We can't wait to meet Baby Nyla soon.

Dress-up Divas

To say that Ella likes to dress up would be a major understatement! She dresses up on a daily basis. For Christmas her Aunt Sarah and Gram got her an entire box full of dress up clothes complete with all of the accessories and even make-up. Her face full of excitement when she opened the box was priceless. A funny story from this year is when Ella was throwing a fit to wear a "Princess dress-that goes down to the floor" to Preschool one day. After a lot of convincing I talked her into a dress with leggings, she was still not convinced, so I called Tadd to have him tell her that, she was still a "Pretty Princess" even if she didn't wear a long dress to the floor to Preschool. He told me later that night that there were about 4 other guys standing at his desk laughing as he was having to explain this to Ella on the phone. Oh, what parents do for their kids! Anyway, here are only some of the cute pictures of Ella dressing up. I'll try to update more soon!


Ella even tries to dress up Sophie, she looks scared with those big blue eyes!



Even Tadd occassionally joins in on the dress-up fun!

Christmas Cards

We took lots and lots of pictures this year to try to put on our Christmas card. Here are some of the runner-ups that didn't make the card. I've been in the bed for 3 days with strep and this is the first hour I've been out of bed so I decided to go through some of the pictures we took over Christmas. More pics to follow later, I think I'm headed back to bed soon-no fun!