Sweet Caroline

On Monday, December 21; we headed to the lights at the zoo for a bit!  It's a nice, relaxed hour of walking around looking at Christmas lights and visiting with Santa.   Colls was obsessed with this little house that was lit up. Our Santa pic.  :) On Wednesday night, my bestie/ neighbor hosted a fun little Christmas party for adults and kids, and we had a SPECIAL visitor!  It's so funny, Collins went and HID in the kitchen and was scared of Santa for the first 10 minutes, but then magically...she got over it and SAT in his LAP and talked to him!  HUGE steps!  I think having him in an environment she felt so comfortable in helped. SO proud! These four girls were all born within a couple months of each other...future besties like their mamas! ALL the kids! Even the adults had fun with Santa! A fun couple of Christmas outings with my people!

The weekend before Christmas (which concluded the busiest week EVER)... We traveled to NC to visit Mikey's moms family AND to Greenville to visit my dads side of the family. Collins was so excited because she got to see all of her cousins in one weekend! She had a ball!  Mimi and three of her six grands:-) The Routh family (Mikey's moms) grandkids.  We decided to drive home late Saturday night from NC so we could sleep in Sunday before heading to Greenville. The kids slept the whole way home so it worked out well. It was a gorgeous, cool day on Sunday for our Richardson family Christmas. My aunt and uncle just moved and their new neighborhood has a great park/playground for the kids. We spent a lot of time there.  I was a little obsessed with the boys' outfits;-) My sweet girl. The Richardson five. ALL the kids! Although it was crazy busy, it was a great weekend spent with family. I love that my kids get to grow

For   unto you is born this day in   the city of David   a Savior, who is   Christ   the Lord. Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

*I wrote this on Monday December 21...  just now posting. We, along with the rest of America have been CRAZY busy the past week. Like, whew! So crazy that I typed up a word document for the weeks activities for Mikey and me... Detailed instructions on what we are doing when, what to pack and what the kids are wearing! It's the only way I can keep organized! I obviously labeled it "psycho Christmas."  We had our work Christmas parties last week back to back, Mikey Wednedsy night and me Thurssay. Thanful for grandparents who can help out! In between the craziness, our boys have kept us on our toes.... See what I mean?! Yikes.  Friday morning was Collins' preschool Christmas program, which was adorable.  We were shocked and impressed she sang in front of tons of parents in the sanctuary! The shyness is slowly wearing off.  Cookies and milk after the performance! All the girls:-) Thankfully, I ended up taking the day off Friday. I

The holidays are upon us! We kicked off our weekend with a family dinner date before Colls and I headed to see big cousin Belle dance in the Two Claras. It was so cute and Collins loved watching all the dancers! Saturday was spent running errands, playing, cleaning, taking Collins to a birthday party and then relaxing:-)  we had a few friends over once the kids went to bed and played games, fun times! We went to church and lunch Sunday and then came home for long naps before hitting up the lights on the river. I got most of our presents wrapped and enjoyed a little couch time while the kids slept.  It's impossible to get a decent pic of the kids these days unless Mikey and I are in it to hold/restrain the boys!! Long gone are the days of immobile babies who sat happily for pics!  We always play on the playground after church for a few minutes. All mama wanted was a cute pic of my babies dressed up in their Christmas outfits....  Maybe next year?! We enjoyed seeing

Sunday, November 29 we set out for an all day adventure.  We were set to take on the Polar Express!  We decided to make a day of it and we stopped for a few hours in Asheville for a little birthday lunch:-). My dad and my brother celebrate birthdays just a few days apart so we used this time to celebrate them! We went with old faithful, Tupelo Honey and it didn't disappoint!  We chose the Polar Express train located in Bryson City, NC, the great smoky mountain train. I waited really late to get tickets and trying to get 11 at once was tough. But, we lucked out!  This was our first ever polar express experience and it didn't disappoint. It was super cute and the kids loved it!  It was about an hour and twenty minutes on the train. There was singing and dancing, hot chocolate and cookies... Then you rode thru the "North Pole" and then SANTA loads the train and gives every child a silver bell. It was such a fun day, not something that I think is necessary every ye

Excuse my "screen shots" but that's how I roll... Easiest way for me to do it.  I'll start with the boys. Of course they have no real "wish list" but I do think they'll be excited about these goodies!    They have one of these at their caretakers house and love it! So now, two for our house! *some of these are Santa and some are grandparent gifts.  I tried sticking with "big" toys and not so many little things.  I think they will love these fisher price toys!  The next are their big item from Santa...  Where in the hell am I going to put two of these in our house?! No clue! But one of our friends had one of these and Collins was obsessed, I just know the boys will be too! And yes, I'm buying two. Stocking stuffers for the boys: They LOVE singing in C's microphone so o think these will be a big hit! Lots of fun things to do on these microphones.  They are also obsessed with these little flashlights at my parents house so hopefully these