Christmas 2008

We are still recovering from all the Christmas fun at our house (and still trying to get organized)! Needless to say, Cade was really into Christmas this year. I woke him up on Christmas morning to tell him that Santa had been here. I don't think he believed me at first, and he said to Heath, "Daddy, go look!" But once he got upstairs, he just bounced from one toy to the next and back! He actually calls all of his new toys "Santa's toys," and is still asking about Santa Claus. It is hard to explain to a 21-month old that Santa only comes once a year...

As you will see from the pictures, we made several stops over the course of three days. He loves to go visit, though, especially when it involves opening presents:). Cade was apparently very, VERY good this year, as our bonus room now looks like a mini Toys-R-Us, between Santa coming and all of the gifts he got fom our family! One extra special gift this year was a new activity table built especially by Heath. It is beautiful! Cade loves to sit there and color, and play with stickers and Play-Doh.

On Sunday, Heath took off to Arkansas for a few days of hunting, so my dad is staying with us while he is out of school (I am a scaredy cat:) until New Year's. Cade has looooved having his Pa here to play with. We will miss him when he leaves!

Yesterday, Cade, Dad and I made a quick day trip to Memphis to see my old college roommate, Melissa at her parents' house. She and her husband were stationed in Hawaii for almost four years with the Army and recently relocated to Houston, TX. She has a precious three year old, Hannah Grace, and a little boy, Jackson, who is two weeks younger than Cade. We really enjoyed our visit, and hope it is not another three years before we see them again!

Thanks to everyone who made our holiday so special. I know that next year will be double the fun (or maybe just double the craziness!) when we add another sweet baby to the mix. I made a slide show of our pictures. Enjoy!

Hook Em' Horns!

Last Thursday, a package arrived on our front porch from FedEx. Our sweet friends, Scott (Heath's good friend from Lipscomb) and his wife, Kristy, sent Cade a suprise Christmas present. Cade loves to open presents, and first opened a neat children's CD that has his name programmed into all of the songs (which he thinks is hilarious!). Even more funny to us was this shirt. Scott and Kristy live in Houston and are big University of Texas fans. I guess they felt sorry for poor Cade that he would not have a UT team to cheer for this bowl season. So they sent him this new "UT" shirt! Thanks guys! Cade will be wearing this on January 5 when the Longhorns take on Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl:

This is his attempt to do the "Hook Em' Horns" hand gesture:)

An early White Christmas!

On Thursday night, we had an unseasonably early snow. In fact, the snow came in so quickly here, that I did not realize it was even snowing until Mom called and said that she heard it was snowing in Middle Tennessee. I assured her that I had just been outside a little over an hour ago and it was just raining. To my suprise, we looked out the window and the ground was already covered! Cade was so excited and kept saying "Snow everywhere!" It was a really wet snow, and the flakes were huge. By Fridayt morning at our house, we had about two inches total, but the Thornes (who live about 15 minutes away) had four inches on their farm. Weird weather... Cade really loved playing in the snow. Here are some pictures from Friday morning. Unfortunately, most of it was gone by the afternoon.:(

In his Rudolph hat and snowsuit


The only thing we could find to make a sled:)

Thursday night as the snow was falling...so pretty!

**We took all of these pictures with our "Christmas present," a new Nikon. If you know Heath very well, then you know he gets too excited about certain presents to wait:), especially when you have something as exciting as a first winter snow to take pictures of!**

Santa...again!

I could not help myself! I know we had already seen Santa, but every year, our country club does a fun event called "Milk and Cookies with Santa." It is always alot of fun, and the Santa they had this year looked like he flew down straight from the North Pole! Cade was really into Santa this time (I think the lamb was a bit of a distraction last week), and did not want to get off his lap. And he of course enjoyed the milk and cookies:) Here is the product of our visit:

And here is Cade's letter to Santa that he made at school today. Ms. Angela cut out lots of pictures from toy catalogs and let the kids pick some of the things they wanted to put on their list. Anyone who knows Cade can appreciate the fact that he had trucks and farm things on there, as he loves both! I am a bit confused about the stuffed animals (he rarely touches the few he has), but he pointed at it on the fridge and said "monkey" and "panda," so I guess that is what he liked about the bottom picture!

Baby #2 Update

Yesterday, we went to the doctor for our monthly appointment and got to hear Baby Thorne's heartbeat for the first time. The nurse found it almost immediately, and it was thumping away at 147 bpm. We had seen the heartbeat during our 7 week ultrasound, but this is the first time we actually got to hear it on the doppler. I can still remember the first time I heard little Cade's heartbeat, and it is defintely just as sweet the second time around! Our doctor said that all is good so far, and everything is right on track for a June 9 (or hopefully a little sooner:) due date. We have another appointment on December 31, then the big ultrasound will be scheduled for sometime in mid January. Thanks to everyone for all of the well wishes and prayers!

Happy Birthday Heath!

Happy Birthday honey! We hope you enjoy your 29th birthday (for the fourth consecutive year:)! We love you!!!

Old School 2005

Vegas 2008

Wendy's wedding

Halloween 2008

***On a side note, Heath and I got engaged exactly four years ago today on his birthday. We were in Atlanta for the SEC Championship game (UT vs. LSU). Such a fun weekend!***