7 years and counting...

This past Monday, December 28th, Brad and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary! It was awesome!!! It just so happened that Monday was the first day of NCA National Cheerleading Competition in Dallas. I have been wanting to go since last year and Brad was adamant on not spending his anniversary at a cheerleading competition. Little did I know he had been in contact with Mrs. Hilborn (cheer coach) and had it planned all along. We left Sunday and came back Tuesday. We stayed in the same hotel as the cheerleaders so I got to watch them practice. Monday we went to The Galleria and then went on to the competition so I could watch some of the other squads. It was awesome. By the way, have you heard??? Benton High School Cheerleaders are NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!!!!! WAY TO GO GIRLS!

Monday night we ate at Wolfgang Puck's new (rotating) restaurant. It is the ball at the top of Reunion Tower that overlooks the city of Dallas. We also got to drive by the new Dallas Stadium. We were going to go on a tour but it was closed this week. We also drove by the Grassy Nolle and Book Depository and saw the X on the road where JFK was assassinated. I am so intrigued by that so we drove by several times. It was such a fun an relaxing few days. Except for the 3 minutes Benton was performing!

I do not have any pictures because when it's just Brad and I we never take pics. I have some on my phone which I will attempt to post later.

The last 7 years have been awesome and I love Brad more than ever! Not too many guys would spend their Anniversary at a cheerleading competition when there is so many sports venues so close!! I am not real mushy mushy or romantic, so I'm not going to waste my sweet comments on the blog! Just want to wish Brad a Happy 7 years and looking forward to the next 7!!!

Christmas Day

Christmas Day was a full and fun day!

We woke up Christmas morning at our house! It was so fun to hear Laci come down the stairs and her run in the our room telling us how cool the living room looked. We all finally woke up and went to see the spread that Santa left.

Here is our living room:

Megan on her new drumset!

Then, for lunch everyone came over for chili! Papaw Bo and Mimi and Angie stayed around for us to open presents and boy did the girls rack up!!!

Here is Laci opening her new motorized scooter:

Megan and her new baby care station:
Christmas night we headed over to my mom and dad's house to do Christmas over there. We ate, once again, and waited patiently to open presents. Ben had to work and did not get off until 7, so we waited until he got home to tear into the gifts!

Here is Sarah patiently waiting on Ben:
Here is Laci not so patiently waiting in front of her stash:
Mom goes crazy at Christmas. We always have fun seeing the piles of presents for each person! Here are a couple of the piles:
This picture cracks me up. While waiting on Ben, Elf was on tv. I hate that movie. But, apparently Megan loves it. Here she is laughing at the movie:

After Ben arrived we tore into the presents and here are a couple highlights! Mom got the girls matching shirts to wear to watch Wes play ball. Laci is showing the front and Megan is showing the back with Wes's number.
Mom also got the girls matching gymnastics suit and shorts. Of course they had to model them!

Despite all of the heartache and sadness 2009 brought, we are all blessed beyond what we deserve! Just having our family and being able to get together is a true blessing.

This Christmas brought many new emotions for me and I will share those later.

For now, I wish everyone a wonderful Wednesday!

Caple Christmas

For Christmas with my mom's side of the family we do basically the same thing as we do with the Grant side. We meet, eat and play Dirty Santa! This year it was at my house. So, I got to be in charge of the meal. I like to do something different and everyone always helps out. What always happens is that we pick at the food and when it's time for dinner everyone is full. So, this year my idea (actually Brad's) was to do a dinner of appetizer's. We had tons of different appetizer's and it made for great and filling meal!

Here is the start of Dirty Santa! (notice papaw's hat...that's Laci's purse on his head). Mamaw opened a Michael Jackson t-shirt! Don't worry, it had a Sonic giftcard with it. Believe it or not, this got stolen. But Mamaw's face was priceless!

We enjoyed seeing everyone and despite the flood, it was a great night!

I love Christmas

I love Christmas! And, I love to decorate for Christmas!!!! It is one of my favorite things to do! I especially love doing trees! I do my mom's and my sister's and it is so much fun! But, here is a little walk through my Christmas decor!

Here is the most important thing and what you see when you first walk in my front door. It is my manger scene. Brad and I got it for a wedding gift and I love it!

Here is where it sits at the bottom of my stairs.

Table that sits in my living room! The presents light up, but I keep them off during the day! I also need a picture in the frame, but haven't gotten to that point!

Our front living room, better known as the Razorback room is decorated in mostly red/green, sports and Razorbacks decor. In the corner I have this little set-up. It is 3 of my Whimsy Tins filled with Christmas stuffed animals we have collected over the years!

Here is the mantle in that room. I have a Razorback wreath having in front of Brad's jersey. This is also where we hang our stockings because we do not have a mantle in the main living room. The little tree has baseball and Hog ornaments!

This is a new addition this year! I got this zebra table for my birthday! (after I saw it at Christa's house) and had to have a hot pink tree on it. So, this is what I came up with. I am looking forward to adding to it each year with silver and black! I will be sad when Christmas is over because I don't have anything to put on the wall behind it or to sit on the table!

This is the girl's Christmas Tree that sits on the balcony area. If you look up when you walk in the front door this is where this tree sits.

This is the sitting area in my kitchen. I used Red/lime green for the Christmas decor in my kitchen.

One of my favorite additions this year is my card holder. Each year I end up with a pile of cute cards sitting in a basket. So, this year I found the Christmas Card holder shaped like a Christmas tree (at Kirkland's) and I love it. I just keep adding cards and it still looks like a Christmas tree!

I swear my whole main tree is ribbon. Here is one of the 2 new ribbons I got this year!

My main tree that sits in my dining room window! It is red/gold and I have been working on it for like 4 years now adding a little each year!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas Eve!!!!!!

Don't forget the REASON WE CELEBRATE!!!

Christmas in full swing...

We have been to 2 of our family Christmas gatherings and have had a lot of fun. These pictures are backwards, but that is irrelevant.

This past weekend we headed to Springdale to have Christmas with Brad's mom and step-dad and step-sisters and their families. Here is Granddad and Meme with all 8 of their granddaughters.

Laci and Meme, Brad's mom.

Megan with her daddy (above) and Laci patiently waiting to open one of her presents (below)

The Saturday before we went to Springdale, we went to Papaw and Mamaw Grant's farm to spend Christmas with Papaw and Mamaw, my Aunt Connie, Uncle Mark and cousins Grant, and his son, Brayden, Katie, and her boyfriend, Jace and Adam!!

Here is Megan sitting in Papaw Grant's lap patiently awaiting present time.

This is our Papaw Grant and Adam, the youngest of the grandkids!

We had a great time!! I have so many pictures but most of them are of us playing dirty Santa and would take too long to explain!!!

This year has made me realize how blessed we are to have so many places to be for Christmas!! Thank you God for family!

Salt Bowl Shootout

Friday night we went to the Salt Bowl Shootout. (Benton vs. Bryant) It was played at UALR and was a lot of fun! We go to most of high school's home games. First is was to watch Luke play basketball and the cheerleaders. Now, we know a lot more of the players and enjoy going to cheer them on!

Here is "little" Luke. I used to babysit Luke when he was shorter than me!!

The girls alway love to go to the games. But, at UALR the rules were a little stricter. no dancing in the aisles, no getting on the court, etc. so Laci said she wanted to go back to the real gym where the Panthers play!!! And, when Bryant's band starting playing, she said she wanted "real" music...that she could dance to!!!

Laci in Action

Here are some action shots from Laci's gymnastics meet. It was long with a lot of down time so I had some time to play with my camera. Some shots are blurry but you get the idea!

Dismount from the beam!

Laci's attention span started dwindling about half-way through. Here she is waiting her turn on the floor!

Olympic Training

Okay, so maybe not the Olympics, but I was so proud. Laci had her first ever gymnastics meet. She competed in Vault, Floor, Beam and Bars. She did outstanding in every event! She forgot a little of the floor routine, so that was her lowest score. But, she got out there in front of everyone and did not even act nervous. We could not have been more proud of her and her teammates!!!!

I love this picture. When they were warming up I saw her nerves coming out. She was just watching everyone and being very still which is unlike her!

Stretching!

There are one million pictures, but I will spare you the action shots!!