Good Friends, Good Times

Jett, Sara Kennedy, Kate, Stone, Cooper and Maddox

I truly believe God puts some friends in your life for a season. And after that season, for one reason or another you just lose touch. Some friends He gives you for a lifetime. That's what He did with the girls I taught school with at Madison Station in 2000-2001. Tammy, Sharea, Emily, and I taught 3rd grade that year. We instantly became so close and laughed more times in that year than I can count. Going to work shouldn't have been that much fun! I am so thankful that they remain some of my closest friends. Emily has moved to GA but she and Stephen are moving back this summer. I can't wait! I'm sure we have many more fun times to come.

We Wish You a Merry Christmas!

We had a busy (but fun) Christmas. We loved visiting with our families and it was especially fun spending time with Amy and Michael. It was so exciting to see Christmas through the eyes of Sara Kennedy and Cooper as they tore through paper and bows and were thrilled with each new thing they opened. I hope everyone had a Merry CHRISTmas and wish you a very Happy New Year! Below are some of my favorite pictures from Christmas 2007! Be sure to check out Cooper's Halloween shorts he's wearing in the Santa pictures. Will got him out of bed Christmas morning and his jammie pants were wet. So Will put on the first thing he could find (Halloween shorts~ at least he had on his Christmas jammie top :)

Santa 2007

Christmas with Nana 2007

Lampkin Christmas 2007

Christmas with Zan

We had a great Christmas Eve. We had a low key day and it was wonderful. The morning started off with Zan and Jean Elaine coming by so the kids could exchange presents. Cooper got a floor puzzle, SK got a Barbie horse, and Zan got CARS from the Cars movie. They were so sweet opening their gifts. Check out SK's clothes (can you guess she picked out her own clothes). Will calls it her Punky Brewster style. She loves layering!

Christmas with Granny Lampkin

Opening presents with Memaw and Pepaw
Amy and Will with Granny Lampkin
Keegan and William
Amy, Cooper, Pepaw, and Sara Kennedy

We began our Christmas festivities Sunday night at Granny Lampkin's house. Will's sister, Amy and husband, Michael came in from Kansas City. We had a great time visiting with them, Granny, Memaw and Pepaw, and cousin Michelle and her boys, William and Keegan. The kids had a blast opening presents and playing.

Playgroup Christmas

Our playgroup had our Christmas get together this morning complete with gifts and HOMEMADE gingerbread houses (baked by Jennifer). They were precious! We had such a fun morning. Merry Christmas to our sweet playgroup friends!

Baby Carson and Jon David

Tuesday night I kept Rebecca (my cousin) and Trey's boys, Jon David and 2 week old Carson for a couple of hours. Carson is the best baby and he is absolutely gorgeous. I snapped this picture of him on SK's pink bed (sorry Carson). The kids exchanged Christmas ornaments- here they are showing them off. Even Baby Carson is holding his.

K4 ChristmasFun

Making Gingerbread houses at SK's school. She had so much fun! Landre, SK, and Hannah at the Christmas party~ big, fun time!
Coop even got in on the Gingerbread house action!
SK's sweet class showing off their new books from the book swap. (Hunter, SK, Chance, Cody, Ethan, Landre, Hannah, and Eli)
Their sweet teacher, Mrs. Brown. We are so lucky to have her. SK adores her!

Dear Santa,

Sara Kennedy has been excited about writing a letter to Santa. Tuesday night we sat down and tried to let him know exactly what she wants. She's still at that sweet age where she only asks for a few things. Diligently working~ Cooper wanted to write a letter too.
Look at that sweet face. We know he wants a candy cane (that's what he says he wants for Christmas. He also says Santa brings candy canes).
This is our sweet girl's list. It says, a doll, bike with "stringers"~ she said Cooper tore her's off, 10 baby bottles, iPod (not a real one). She did such a good job writing. She's such a big girl! I'm sure Santa will be good to her.

Christmas Bunko

Kristie, Lee, Shelley (one of our sweet subs), Jennifer, and Michelle
Tammy, Tonya, Stephanie, Jean Elaine
Stacey, Kelley, Me (and my new gloves), Sylvia (one of our other sweet subs), and Sharea

Our Bunko group started playing about 6 years ago. Originally, it was mostly all teachers and Jean Elaine (bless her heart). We've diversified our group and now we consist of 6 stay @ home moms (retired teachers), a pharmacist, 2 accountants, a physical therapist, a teacher, a phone saleswoman (there is a fanicer name for it-but I can never remember it) and a partridge in a pear tree. We have so much fun every month. I love these girls- they make me laugh!!

Barbies, Angel tree, manicures, babysitting, and deer~

This morning as I'm doing laundry and straightening the house- SK and Coop are hiding behind the drapes in our bedroom. Please note the barbie stash. They have so much fun together~ (most of the time). I dread the day when they start bickering all of the time and she kicks him out of her room. Angel Tree- we always get an angel from our angel tree at church. Will and I have been getting one since we first got married. One of my fondest childhood memories is when my mom and I would get an angel from the Salvation Army while we were at the mall. It was so fun buying stuff for someone my age and picking out what I thought they would like. Yesterday, SK didn't have school- so we took Coop to Mother's Morning Out and had a girls' morning. She told me she wanted Coop to go to school b/c she doesn't get to, "Hang Out" with me by herself much! No joke- she said hang out. Below is SK with our Angel, Markeyia's stuff. We got her a Cabbage Patch kid, barbie, 2 board games, purse, pj's, a sweatsuit, and some gloves. SK was so sweet- she only complained once b/c she wasn't getting anything. She said, "I want to be an angel." She's my angel. Our next stop of the morning was a manicure. Something I would NEVER attempt to do with Cooper- even if it was free and they paid me. I had a manicure and SK got her toes and fingernails painted. She picked the color- pink, big surprise! When she was done, she walked to my table and lo and behold...
The woman had painted flowers on her ring fingers and big toes. SK thought it was the greatest thing ever! I just smiled and said, "Wow! Nail Art!" Our culminating activity for the afternoon was babysitting Mary Claire. My friend Ginny's little girl. Ginny is my best friend from college and I'm so happy they live close to us now. Mary Claire looks just like her daddy. I call her Jimmy in pink. She's precious and SK and Coop adore her.
Even though we've been in our house for almost 7 months- I still get so excited when we see deer. Which is very often. This morning, we were having breakfast and I saw 4 deer in the backyard. Then...
four more. I've never seen 8 at once. It was great!

The Nutcracker

~Mommy, SK and Nana on our way to see the Nutcracker~ SK loves taking dance and ballet. Her ballet co. puts on a production of the Nutcracker every year. Last year mom and I started a tradition of taking her to see it. She LOVES it. She especially loved seeing her teacher from last year perform. She was in awe of the "big" girls dancing on their toes. I told her if she keeps practicing she can do that one day. She informed me that she wants to dance as one of the mice in the Nutcracker. Dream big!

City of Lights

Mom and I took the kids to the square the Friday after Thanksgiving. They had so much fun even though it was FREEZING COLD! We rode the carousel twice, rode the horse and carriage, the train, and the fire truck. We even went into Christmas Confections for a delicious petit for. It was a super fun night! Not sure what Sara Kennedy was looking at :)
again- not sure what SK was looking at :)
the firetruck- Cooper LOVES firetrucks
SK "cheesing" it up

We've Been Elfed!

Merry Christmas!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1161044894

The Elf on The Shelf~ No thanks!

We had a very interesting evening at the Lampkin house. When Sara Kennedy came home from dance Mon. afternoon I informed her that we had a special delivery from the North Pole. She was so excited, but reluctantly agreed to wait to open it until Will came home. Before dinner we all sat on the couch and opened the package. It was the book, The Elf on the Shelf. Will read the book (it's a great book!) For those of you who aren't familiar with it, it's a very popular Christmas, children's book. The book comes with an elf and tells you that you're supposed to put the elf on a shelf (or anywhere) and at night he flies to the North Pole to tell Santa if you behaved that day. Before morning he flies back to your house and moves to another spot. Each day until Christmas Eve, he moves around your house, so he can watch you to see if you're naughty or nice. On Christmas Eve, he flies back to the North Pole until the following year. Very exciting, right? Not here. When we put the elf on the mantle, SK was a little reluctant to go into the den. She hung very close to us all night. She asked all sorts of questions like how does he fly?, will he come in my room?. etc. All in all- we thought she would like him. Well, at 12:45 a.m. she came TEARING into our room in a panic. Crying telling us she didn't won't the elf here. "How can we get him to leave?" I told her we could say a prayer to God and ask him to tell Santa we didn't want the elf at our house. She was still very frantic and upest. She has never slept with us, except one time when she had the stomach virus. I tried to put her back in her bed- that was not happening. She said, "Mommy, can I please sleep with you- just this one time?" Of course, I let her. This morning when she woke up we had to check all over the house to make sure he wasn't hiding (SK's idea). So, today Santa wrote her a letter and left it at the door telling her if she doesn't want the elf here- he can stay at the North Pole to help make toys. Poor child- I think she's been traumatized. I have a feeling if she never sees another elf- it will be too soon! Christmas through the eyes of a child! Maybe he does look a little creepy! P.S. I'm sure all children won't hate the elf. It really is a great book- we might try to invite him back in a year or two.

Thankful!

A game of football with Dr. Trey after lunch- look at Cooper playing with the big kids. Some of my very favorite women in the world~ my little cousin Dedra who's about to graduate from nursing school at UMC, my awesome mom, my sweet Aunt Shirley, and one of the people I have the most fun with, my cousin Rebecca My Uncle Gary who was one of my Dad's very best friends- they called each other "brother-in-law"
Sara Kennedy and her sweet daddy
Uncle Robert and Michelle, "Mimi"

I love Thanksgiving! It's one of my favorite holidays. I love the simplicity of it and getting together with family. We always have lunch with my side of the family and for the past 3 years it's been at Rebecca's house. This year, since Rebecca should be having a baby any day- she asked if we could have it at our house. I was very excited to have our first Thanksgiving in our new house. We had a house full of people and it was great! Each year at Rebecca's we all write on a tablecloth what we're thankful for. This year she brought the tablecloth to our house and we wrote on it here. As soon as we spread it on the table~ the first handwriting I saw was my Dad's beautiful handwriting. It was dated 11-24-05, his last Thanksgiving with us and he wrote he was thankful for "Life." The holidays are still very hard without him here and I'm sure they'll never feel "just right." But we managed and have an awesome family to help us through. I'm so thankful for the blessings God has bestowed on my "Life." Here are a few:

1~ My Savior, Jesus Christ

2~ My husband for his sweet and gentle nature and his humility

3~ Our adorable children (I laugh at myself when I think we had a life before them)

4~ Our families

5~ My wonderful friends

6~ Our home and having food to eat

7~ Last but certainly NOT least, we're all healthy!

A Morning at The Zoo

Zan, Cooper, and Stone looking at the giraffes
These girls had the right idea~ Sara Kennedy & Jett
Zan, Cooper, Payton, Swayze, Sara Kennedy, and Mason
Cooper and Jennifer- Cooper managed to have somebody hold him the entire day!
Sweet Baby Keaton

Our playgroup went to the zoo on Monday and our sweet friends, Jean Elaine and Zan got to join us. We had the best time and the weather was perfect! We stayed until lunch and had a picnic. I'm THANKFUL for my sweet friends and their precious children.