What did you get from the Christmas Elf?

The elf was really generous this year at our house. Bennett got a rubber bendable snowman and a slinky. Neil got his favorite gum and a leather luggage tag stamped with his initials. I received gum and 2 tickets to see Martina McBride! Woohoo! Way to go Christmas Elf!

I thought the elf was really generous until we got to my dads house. The elf that stopped there gave each of us an apple, orange, $10, and 2 pieces of chocolate! Pretty nice elf.

We had a wonderful "Shoe Night!" I love this Dumas (my dads moms family) family tradition.

Tacky Christmas Party

Beau and Leigh Raines hosted a really fun tacky Christmas party for their friends on Christmas Eve Eve. We had a good time getting to see our friends. We were not able to find any tacky sweaters so we just whipped up our own from a bunch of clearance stuff at Michaels!

Here we are about to leave for the party. Bennett had just had his 12 month shots and was very sleepy. That's why he looked so happy.

Here are Margaret and Chris.

Here are SILs Nikki and Lindsay. Nikki ALWAYS wins for any type of costume party. She even had on Christmas stirrup pants. She is so creative! Lindsay was pretty tacky too. They won 1st and 2nd place for most tacky.

Here are all the born and rained Winnfield people. I think Winnfield people know each other from birth and then they move to other areas in groups so that they stay together! ha! Just kidding. Here are Jared, Cole, Lindsay, and James.

James and Nikki Hanna and Leigh (the hostess with the mostess).

Beau and Leigh told everyone to bring a gift from your house. We brought a dancing Santa Homer Simpson and a Santa blowing bubbles out of his rear-end. I have never ever as long as I have been going to gift exchanges had my gift stolen. I just haven't had the talent to buy things that people steal and fight over. Well, I guess there is a first time for everything! Our gift was stolen the max amount. Everyone wanted the dirty santas!!!

We ended up with this gorgeous painting that Leigh made.

Amy got a bicycle helmet. I don't even know if she has a bike. I'm sure will use it for something.

It was a wonderfully Christmastastic time!

Bennett's 12 Month Stats

Well Bennett checked out just great at his 12 month appointment. I know, I know his birthday was 2 weeks ago but I didn't want him to get shots on his birthday and I needed to wait until I was off work.

Height: 28 inches (25th percentile)

Weight: 22.11 lbs. (50th percentile)

Head: 47 cm. (75th percentile)

He was so happy at the appointment. Just playing and looking at himself in the mirror. He didn't know what was to come. Poor baby.

We weighed him on the baby scale. I think this will probably be the last time he gets up there. He is big enough to crawl right out!

Dr. Cockrell is so sweet. She is so good with babies. You can see that Bennett really likes her too.


This is our sweet boy after his shots. 2 in each leg. Boo. He was bright red and screaming and it was almost too much for me. We gave him a baby cheeto and he perked right up!

Pictures with Santa!

We had the privilege of taking Bennett to see Santa yesterday. Since I am off work for 2 weeks...we got to take him in the middle of the day. Nana came over for lunch and to see him with Santa. We waited for Daddy to get finished with his work Christmas party to come with us too. We went to Bass Pro Shop because it is free and they give you a picture! Since there were no other children in line, I got to take as many pictures as I wanted. We took Bennett out of the cart and he walked right over to Santa.

Here is Bennett just staring at Santa. "Who is this big guy with a beard?"

Sweetest picture! I got this my saying "Merry Christmas" in a silly voice!

We saw Aunt Catherine, Green, and William there too. They were taking William to see Santa. I decided to go ahead a snap a couple of him. William is so sweet.

New Orleans Weekend

We went to New Orleans this weekend for the Saints/Cowgirls game. We had a great time with our friends even though we really missed our sweetest boy. We rode down to New Orleans with the Buteaus and the Raines. We watched the 5th season of Entourage the whole way there. I have never seen it and it turned out to be a pretty funny show. A little vulgar, but funny.

Here we are in the French Quarter walking to Brennan's for brunch. We thought that this would be a blog-worthy moment.

Here are the 4 girls. Janine (Nana), Erinn, me, and Leigh.

Here I am helping to make the bananas foster. Yummy!

After brunch, we went to walk around the French Quarter. I love looking in all the little shops and seeing all of the art that people make. Here are Neil and Beau next to a street performer.

I was lucky enough to get a free facial at the Monteleon Spa. Last year, Janine booked our 2 facials and Janine went to get hers. Long story short, they decided to bump our appointments for a bigger party and left us facial-less. They did redeem themselves and gave us free ones this year. We got to the hotel and there was a lot of commotion. The Unknown Who Dat was signing autographs in the hotel bar! Neil had to get his autograph and our picture made. The guy was so nice and said that he was "blown away" by all of this attention!

Here is the Louisiana Superdome!

Here we are getting ready for the BIG game.

Inside the dome, getting ready for kick-off. Our seats were up REALLY high but you can't even tell in this picture!

Neil's co-worker, Shawn (a cowgirls fan) had seats right next to us. It was hilarious when they walked up! Everyone around us boo'ed them and got really loud. He was a good sport.

Here we are at the end of the game. We look happy even though the Saints lost. We are still 13-1 instead of 14-eaux! Eaux well, maybe next year!

I think Neil had a good time. Doesn't he look like a cute little kid in a candy store?

Here are the players after the game.

An the sad, sad score. Beaux thinks that this will be good for us. He thinks it make them step back and win the rest of the games!

Walking Boy

Well, Bennett decided to get up and walk exactly 1 week after his 1st birthday! He had been taking a few steps here and there but this is when he decided to really go! I just wanted to document this momentous occasion!

Christmas Gifts

Teaching comes with some really nice perks! I never thought that high school teachers received Christmas gifts from their students but I was wrong. Yesterday, a sweet student from the Philippines gave me a little bag with some Victoria Secret body mist in it and said "Merry Christmas Ma'am." He is so sweet.

Today, another thoughtful student who is always sweet gave me a cute tall bag. I opened it and it was this wonderful finger pointer! She even decorated it in CSHS colors and tied a rabbit's foot to the bottom. All day I used it to point to things and even brought it up to my mouth while saying "Shhhhh!" Some of the kids were not loving the pointer, but I had a great time with it.