Hello everyone, I feel like it has been forever since I’ve posted, which I am so sorry about. We did a little traveling this Christmas season and It just put us in a bit of a whirlwind. I hope everyone’s holidays were amazing. We as a family were swamped and busy, and well it’s shameful lol, but we didn’t send our Christmas cards out until after Christmas. They still wish people well after Christmas too right? So no biggie? Well I just felt horrible, because I am the one that is always telling my clients to order their cards early so they can be sent out before the season. Well epic fail on my part this year, but it’s a new year and I’ll do better next year. I also meant to post our Christmas card on here too, so Happy New Year and belated Merry Christmas lol. As you can tell I have a toddler so family portraits are always entertaining especially to the lovely people in Starbucks that laughed at me as we tried to do this. By the way we give him a tall Starbucks cup not filled with anything and he pretends to drink it for like an hour so we are obviously grooming him to be addicted to Starbucks.
So the cards got here the day we left for Alabama to see some great friends of ours and Keaton’s God parents. That’s my excuse for them being late lol. We decided to split the trip up into two days down and two days back. I always feel like trips to see them are so short and there is never enough time. The trip down was crazy, we got into a dvd/ipad debate on should we get our one year old (now that he watches tv and love Mickey Mouse Clubhouse) a DVD player for the back of the car or get ourselves an iPad. After checking prices, reviews and stores like two days before we left I was so irritated and didn’t care what we bought. We ended up buying nothing, thinking we could just get something on the road if need me and it turned out that our kid is amazing in the car. However on the way back we bought him this little jem for him for the trip back.
Our schedule went like this and I highly suggest it; wake up at 6 go to Starbucks eat and caffeinate, drive tell lunch time, then eat and play outside or at a play area, park or rest stop. Drive tell around five and stop to eat and sleep. That worked very well the only issue we had was that I was so tired in the AM that I left my “fluffy” pillow at the hotel never to be seen again. My husband and I lovingly argue over this pillow all the time so it was something I had to replace when we got home ( thank you Ikea)! Anyway we also figured out after the second day that Keaton was cutting some teeth from the day we left to today he has gotten 8 teeth, so we were in teething hell and he did not sleep well the whole time.
We finally made it and got to see our friends and Keaton’s God parents Matt & Jenn. So here is the skinny on Matt & Jenn (our life is so random lol) we meet them on our honeymoon cruse, they were our table mates. 
They where on their one year anniversary and we all just clicked and had the best time! This is a very random collection, this is a snap shot of how that vacation went and set the tone for our crazy life. The JetBlue baggage policy warned us about the on coming zombie apocalypse, yet failed to warn us about the hurricane we would be narrowly missing ( we are the valor, purple dot in that pic). But we meet Matt & Jenn and it WAS our honeymoon so the trip was very eventful lol. We have an inside joke with them too, here’s the story. Matt informed us that on the on a previous cruse they had what was called a bathrobe night. Everyone threw a bathrobe over their clothes and went and partied around the ship on the last night, so we did too! Although our ship didn’t have a bathrobe night we didn’t care and got more then a few strange looks from people. My favorite picture is the one one the top right. We were supposed to meet up in out bathrobes to watch a game show in the middle of the day in the concert area. So we’re in our bathrobes and we walk in wondering if it was just a set up lol. Then we hear Matt from the top balcony yelling oh hey guys I’ll be right down. He’s in his bathrobe with a huge, huge piece of cheesecake and a coffee. He looked like he lived on the ship permanently or something it was so funny. The boys even got called up to participate in the game show in their bathrobes. So after that they became our partners in crime and we see them once or twice a year and we have a crazy time. This year was the second year we have come down around Christmas and love it because, we are totally one of the family now. We even went down one year over New Years to see the great Moon Pie drop lol, I love Alabama. This year the trip was a must do, they have been though so much and we just had to see them. On top of all the craziness in their year their beloved dog Toby passed away. It was very hard, because he was just the type of dog that knew when you needed some love and would cuddle with you. We all miss him. Their other dog Gizmo was sad and need a friend so they just recently got Maverick, so we need to go meet the new family member. Here are the crazy hooligans.
Don’t you just love them, they are adorable! Here they are altogether!I love this one of Keaton and his Godmother, love.This is Jenn & I, it was such a whirlwind, I really wish we had been able to spend more time there.And this is what the boys do when we all hang out, play video games. I do have to hand it to them this one game was really funny and fun to watch.This is what all the kids do… play!!!Keaton was pushing this stroller around while all the other kids played ball. I had to throw this one in, because I just love his hair here lol and he looks so grown up. The girls were a little upset to not get the ball at one point, and I loved their little girl tantrum, childhood is so fun 🙂In true girl fashion, five seconds later they where both having a blast!Everyone was running around and having such a great time I was glad to get this one while he took a three second breather lol.The toddlers where busy too! Check out this little one, so adorable.I also love this one of him and the ones of mom and dad. Their all so photogenic, here’s their little man.Then mommyAnd daddy!But I think this little guy is going to be a heart breaker when he grows up. His little onesie says “gift to all the ladies”, too funny!
All of them eventually came in and took their turns hanging out with Santa! Can you believe that Santa came special to see these adorable cutie pies? He was a great Santa, so warm and kind; makes you feel like the spirit of Christmas really is alive! He’s so amazing that when he isn’t at our friends house he also works as the Santa at the Birmingham Zoo. I’m sure everyone is very blessed to have him there, he does a great job!It was such a nice day that not even Santa could keep the kids in the house. They got their presents and a huge candy cane and went back to playing outside. Check out the bottom left picture of the kiddos telling Santa a secret, it was too funny.
It was a great time! The next day we went and visited the girls at the office. I am so proud of Jenn, when we first meet them she had passed the bar and was starting the law firm. During the past couple years she has built her Law firm and it is one of the best in Alabama that does family law. I’m so amazed with all that she has accomplished. It brings me a lot of joy to see someone build up such an amazing business that helps so many. Working in her field can be very difficult, family law is wow a crazy thing people are basically in crisis and trying to sort out their lives and families. I have to say her clients truly do not no how hard and how much heart she really does put into her work. If your from Alabama check out my very dedicated friend Jennifer Rose at The Rose Law firm. She has been so busy that she recently hired these two amazing woman to work for her. Which is such a blessing, because as I said before, this woman is so dedicated that if she didn’t have the amazing people working for her that she does she would just work herself to death. Here are the casual shots I did, we also did the whole in front of the bookcase thing, but I just loved the light in Jenn’s office.Ha and I also managed to get this one of the boss man/behind the scenes guru himself, Matt!We had a great time, but were so glad to get Keaton home, and back on his schedule. Here is a little snapshot of how Christmas was for him.Duane bought him a little chair and set it up on an alphabet play mat that spelled out his name, too cute. He set out all his toys and presents around it and we spent most of the day in PJ’s reading books to him, what could make for a better Christmas!
Oh that’s right we had family over and of course my favorite Neuhaus chocolates from a little store here in Culpeper, Thanks Frenchman’s Corner! Keaton had a blast and so did I.
I hope everyone had a great holiday and that it wasn’t as busy and crazy as ours. I also hope that by now you all have recovered 🙂
