Cookie Party!

Last week I decided that Suzy needed to have some friends over one afternoon. She doesn't like to play by herself and I run out of ideas that make her happy. One thing that I know she loves is anything related to baking, which led to my idea of a cookie decorating party! I told her my idea and she was pumped. I got in touch with Christa, Rebecca, and Mrs. Sharon and arranged for their sweet kiddos to come over Tuesday. Mimi and I teamed up and gathered all the needed supplies: sprinkles, icing, cookies, and candies. Tuesday rolled around and we were all set to see Adi, Evie, and Emma Cate. 

Everything was set up and ready to go! 

This is sweet Emma Cate. She is a doll. 

These are some of Adi's perfect cookies. Christa joined us for a little while, so she helped Adi while she was with us. Adi got a little more wild after Mama had to go back to work. 

She looks so much like her mama that it is scary! Christa and I grew up together. Our dads worked together. I still remember going to stay at her house when I was younger. Her mom would always do our fingernails. I thought getting my nails done was amazing. Not much has changed :) Glad our babies are growing up together! 

Our sweet summertime friend, Evie. She helped break my Sue out of her shell this summer. We love Evie Allison. 

Notice the pile of orange and pink sprinkles.... That is what Adi's cookies looked like when her mama left. Yes, there are cookies under those piles of sprinkles! 

Some of their creations. You can tell which ones Laurie did!!!
Suzy did all the ones that have icing running off the sides. She was a large fan of the bagged icing. 

Proof that those are truly Adi's cookies.....

Laurie was helping Evie make a cookie for her mama, Rebecca. 

Cookie decorating takes lots of tongue sticking out concentration! 

Emma Cate took a break to raid Suzy's playroom!

She had her Tervis in case she got thirsty while searching for the perfect toy!

They eventually asked for spoons... The needed to try the icing, of course! 

Emma Cate and Adi

The cookies on the red and green plates in the back are Adi's.... Notice pattern here? 

What was left over! 

sprinkles covered every square inch of my house!!

These sweet girls had a ball! 

I am so glad that we decided to go through with this little play date. The girls finished up their cookies and had pizza for lunch. They followed up lunch with lots of playing and giggling. They were so much fun!!! I think we need to make it a yearly tradition! I am thankful that Laurie was there to help me, too. Whew, I don't know if I could have done it alone! 

Christmas Activities

Christmas is one of my favorite times of the year. I love that our little community does such fun things to get everyone involved. Being from such a small town is truly a blessing. Everything that is done is centered around the REAL reason for the Season. It is so much fun to see Suzy soaking it all up.
This year the Senatobia Christmas Parade was centered around our law enforcement men and women. It was so much fun. Suzy and Bryar soaked up every ounce of it and collected quite a collection of candy!

Santa always ends the parade! He is always a big hit. 

The first Christmas gift of the year came from Kalon's mama and daddy, CinCin and Daddy Jon (my pet names for them). Suzy was pumped to get some new books and I was thrilled with the books that CinCin selected. She sent her "Don't Swallow Baby Jesus", which is written by Whitney White. I went to MSU with her. She is such an amazing girl. So proud to add that book to our collection. Sally also got her very first monogrammed item. CinCin makes checking the mail so exciting. I am so proud that KK shares her parents with us. We love them to death.

Suzy had her Christmas party at FBC, as well. I was definitely the "Mother of the Year" and missed the celebration. My sweet friend, Jessica McAlexander, sent me some pictures of Suzy with Santa and friends.

Suzy and her sweet little friend, Piper Massey.

I have been looking for stuff that Suzy and I can do to pass the time this week. We made a trip to Walgreens and bought an amazing little gingerbread house kit. I begged her to wait on her Daddy to get home before we tried to build it. She didn't want to wait, of course. She talked me into opening the box just to look at all the candy it came with. About 14 seconds after opening the box and examining the candies she talked me into building the house.... Huge mistake. I am a teacher... NOT a gingerbread builder.

It is not looking too shabby here, right? I have followed the directions perfectly....

And Suzy is pretty darn good at placement...

And, that is about as far as she and I got with it. After trying to fix the roof a zillion times I was ready to give up. Scott walked in and saved the day...... or so we thought.....

He disassembled the whole darn thing. He said that we didn't do it right...

Well, he couldn't figure it out either. So, in the trash it went... Of course it was our fault that it was such a disaster. 

We decided that we would go buy a new one and start over. Instead of going to the local Walgreens we decided to spice it up a little bit. We got dressed and headed to Hernando. They have Fins and Grill (AKA- The Bean Store) and Walgreens, so it was a much better option than the fast food in Senatobia. While we were getting dressed, Scott spotted a doe in field behind our house. We watched her for a little bit, but Sue had to get a closer look before heading North. 

My sweet little bulldog loving, deer watching, bow wearing Sue Baby! 

It has been unseasonably warm and rainy this week, so we have had to find some stuff to do besides destroy my kitchen daily.... Suzy loves fingernail polish and Play Doh, so those two activities have passed a great deal of our time. 

See those blasted Picking Pull Ups....?! Geez, I am so ready for Red to take those back to The North Pole! 

Pedi for Mama...

Excuse my disgustingly long fingernails.... They are fun for her to paint, but they are so nasty. Cutting them should be the first thing on  agenda when finishing this blog. 

I am telling y'all...... I should be a Play Doh master by now! This little guy even has pine straw hair and arms! We were sitting outside under the carport in pajamas and flip flops. It was seriously like 75 degrees. 

Red's Back!

Everyone has been posting their Elf on the Shelf adventures and such on Facebook lately, so I decided that it was probably time for Red to come back to our house. I asked Suzy when she wanted Red to come back and Suzy replied with, “I don’t want Red to come. She’s scary.” I tried a few different tactics to get her to change her mind, but eventually gave up. A few days later she had a change of heart. It was official… Red was coming back!


Red's debut was very simply planned and easily executed. She arrived from the North Pole and left little cotton ball footprints from Suzy's room to the kitchen. There she left a note out of Q-Tips for Suzy. She also rolled the chandelier with toilet paper. Easy as pie.... Around 2:00 am Suzy woke up to go to the bathroom. The cotton balls were in her room, remember? She yelled, "DADDDDY! DAD! DAD! Somebody made a big mess in here". We told her not to worry about it and go back to sleep. She just couldn't stand it. She came back in our room and said, "SOMEONE IS GOING TO BE IN REALLLLLLY BIG TROUBLE". I got up to see what all the fuss was about and started videoing our adventure down the hallway. She commentated the journey with statements like, "Look! It's everywhere!". When we got to the kitchen she still didn't notice that Red was on the table. We turned the light on and she finally spotted her. She was so excited to have Red back, but she was also so tired from waking up at two in the morning. She grabbed Red from the table and took her back to her room (we don't follow the rule that discourages kiddos from touching their elves). I got her and Red snuggly tucked in and headed back to bed myself. I was in bed maybe two minutes before she started screaming again, "Mama! Mama! (I drag myself from bed and head that way) Mama! I don't want to sleep with Red." I take Red from her and suggest that we put Red on the nightstand next to Rudolph. She looks at me and says, "No! She may mess my room up even more. Put her in the kitchen!". 

Lola is irritated that I haven't gotten in bed yet. She stays up until I go to bed and follows me around until I do. 

From then on, Red has been making her rounds from our house to the North Pole on a nightly basis. She has even visited Memaw's house.

She reminded me to clean my filthy ceiling fan......

Red loves to make messes! 

This was one of Suzy's favorite surprises! "I didn't know Red could build stuff, Mama!"

She took a ride on Chloe................

She reminded Suzy to do some very important things....

She traveled to Memaws......

She did a little cardio work when no one was looking.....

She TRIED to make Papaw some Kool-Aid....

She played friendly games of fetch....

Suzy has decided that Red can take her Picking Pull-Ups back to The North Pole with her. Considering she does not need the blasted Pull-Ups for anything other than her terrible "picking" habit, I think that Red taking them back with her is a grand idea. We shall see how that goes.