Lindsey Plays With Makenzie

My best friend from college, Matt, came into town to visit his family for the holidays and Tuesday December 27th he and his family came over to our house to let our kids play together. Last year Makenzie was just 3 months old at Christmas, so this was the first year they could play together. I was wondering how it would go since Lindsey is 5 and Makenzie is 1. It went well, but it was funny to see them play together. Makenzie had a BLAST playing with all of Lindsey's toys. Her favorites were the Cabbage Patch doll and stroller and a shopping cart. She pushed both of them around the house as much as she could! They stayed as late as they could until both the kids were worn out!!

Christmas at Pat Pat and Pop Pop's

Monday Decmeber 26th we traveled to Laurie's parent's house to see them for the holidays. Lindsey always loves going there because she doesn't get to see them as much as she sees my parents because Laurie's parent's live farther away. Lindsey got some pretty porcelian dolls and some money!!! We used that to buy things to finish decorating her new room!! We spent the rest of the time there relaxing and playing with Lindsey's new toys. Her favorite thing to do at Pat Pat and Pop Pop's house is to walk their dog around the block and she was very excited to do that!

Christmas at Me Me and Grand Dad's

Christmas night we went to my parent's house to celebrate with them, my brother and Darla, and my Dad's parents. This was the place where Lindsey got most of her loot! Probably her favorite toys from this celebration were her styling Barbie head that Kevin and Darla got her and a sky dancer doll that Me Me and Grand Dad got her. She even got a Barbie guitar (you can see it in the picture with Uncle Kevin and Aunt Darla!)

Lindsey's 6th Christmas!!

Lindsey woke up just after 7am Christmas and was very excited to see all the presents that Santa had left for her! She got a ton of toys, but probably her favorite things were "Hide and Seek Haley" (a doll that you can go hide and then she gives you clues as to where to find her) and her Pixter (a hand-held learning and video game system).

Christmas Eve At Memomma's

Every year it's a tradition that we spend Christmas Eve at Lindsey's great-grandmother's house.... we call her Memomma. After we ate a TON of food we all opened presents. (well, actually Lindsey and Emily opened a lot of presents and we all watched!) Lindsey got a My Littly Pony that talks and some play horses from Memomma, a Barbie and a book from Emily and Melisa, and a pretend teacher outfit from Uncle Dale and Aunt Vickie. Her favorite was the My Little Pony that talked. She was so thrilled with it she slept with it that night!

Lindsey And Emily Bake Christmas Cookies

On Christmas Eve we invited Lindsey's cousin, Emily, over to play with her. She was bored because she had been home all week with adults and needed another child to play with!! While Emily was there we baked cookies for Santa to eat that night while he brought Lindsey all her presents. They even wore Christmas aprons! Emily and Lindsey had a blast baking and decorating the cookies.... then eating some!!

Lindsey Loves Christmas Lights!

Friday night, December 16th, we took Lindsey to Searcy and decided to stop in Berryhill park to see all the Christmas lights. They have replicas of some of the downtown buildings just made of lights. You can walk through them... so Lindsey went exploring in the lights! There were also huge trees made of lights. The picture to the right is Lindsey standing in front of one... she's the little thing in purple in front of the green tree.

Lindsey's School Christmas Party

On Friday December 16th Lindsey had her Christmas party at her school. All the kids got to eat a bunch of junk! Lindsey ate chips and a cupcake.... what a combo! Then after they ate their treats, they got to play games. One of the games they played was Christmas bingo. Lindsey got bored after a while and didn't want to play anymore. After the games Mrs. Bound and Miss Santrice gave the kids a book for Christmas. She loved that since she loves books so much!

LIndsey Celebrates Her Birthday With Her Friends

Lindsey had her 5th birthday party with her friends on Sunday December 11th. It was at "Pump it Up," a place where they have a bunch of blow up things for kids to bounce around in and slide down. The supervisors at the party even let us adults bounce around on them when the kids were not playing! Lindsey had fun... but mom and dad were exhausted after the whole thing. Lindsey bounced around for 1 1/2 hours... we only did it for a few minutes and that made us tired. We don't know where she gets her energy!!

Lindsey Turns 5!

Lindsey turned 5 on Thursday December 8th. It's hard to believe it's been 5 years since she came into the world. For her birthday dinner, she chose to go to Chuck E. Cheese. She had a blast playing all the games. She ended up playing air hockey with a little boy and she beat him 7-0!! She was really good. He got upset because she beat him. There were some adults watching and they were laughing.... They couldn't believe how good she was. I told them it was a fluke! At the end of the evening, one of the guys who was watching her play air hockey gave her all his tickets he had won at the games. He said "This if for beating that boy!"

Lindsey Has A Busy Weekend!

The weekend of December 3rd and 4th was very busy. Saturday we went to the Little Rock Christmas Parade. (However it didn't feel like a Christmas parade... it was 80 degrees!) We met Chuck, Annette, and Robert Gatlin at the parade. When we got there, two of Lindsey's classmates from Rockefeller Elementary were there, Jacob and Olivia. Lindsey had fun playing with them before and during the parade. After the parade, the state capitol had a lighting ceremony for the season. They also had a fireworks display after the lighting ceremony. The fireworks didn't last very long. Lindsey said, "Is that all?"!

On Sunday we went to see "Beauty and the Beast" at the Arkansas Rep. She LOVED it. She said her favorite parts where when they sang "Be our Guest" and when the beast changed into the prince. She had a lot of questions with how they did that! One funny thing she said was she could tell Gaston did not have muscles as big as they wanted you to think he had. She said she knew he was wearing padding!! It always amazes me what she will notice that I don't think she will notice.

Lindsey, Mom, And Dad Decorate For Christmas

We spent Thanksgiving afternoon decorating our house for Christmas. We bought a new tree this year because the one we had was pretty sad!! Our new one is BIG. It didn't look that big in the store. Lindsey had a blast decorating it! This was the first year she really could actually help us. However, halfway through the decorating we noticed most of the ornaments were on the bottom branches because she is so short!! So, I had to move them up the tree when she was not looking.

Lindsey Gets Early Birthday Gift

Laurie and I decided to get Lindsey a "big girl" bed for her birthday. We bought her a loft bed where one end is a computer desk and the other end has book shelves and some drawers. We decided to get it to save space in her room since her room is not that big. We had to give it to her early because it was a clearance item, and we were worried they would sell out before her birthday on Decmeber 8th. So, we ended up giving it to her on Sunday, November 20th. She LOVES it and has done nothing but play IN her bed.

Thanksgiving At Lindsey's School

Lindsey's school, Rockefeller Elementary, celebrated Thanksgiving Friday November 18th with turkey and dressing at lunch. They invited parents to come, so I left work and had an early Thanksgiving lunch with her. The students made Indian headdresses to wear at the lunch. Of course, she wouldn't eat the turkey and dressing. After we ate lunch, we all went back to the classroom and the students went around the classroom to say what they were thankful for. When they got to Lindsey, she decided she was going to be shy (we all know she's not) and would not say anything!!! Then the class sang a thanksgiving song for us that they had been working on this past week.

Lindsey And Daddy Go To The Sugar Plum Ball

Lindsey loves to dance! So, on Thursday November 17th Lindsey and I went to the Sugar Plum Ball put on by CARTI during the Festival of Trees. The Sugar Plum Ball is a daddy/daughter dance that raises money for CARTI (Central Arkansas Radiation Therapy Institute. They give radiation treatments to cancer patients) It's very cute... when we walked in, they announced our names over a loud speaker. (you know... for a grand entrance) Then they put a crown on Lindsey's head, and we got to walk down a red carpet to the dance floor. Lindsey and I danced a lot! Her favorite thing was when I would throw her in the air! She had the most fun dancing with Cameron Francis, the daughter of our morning meteorologist, Mike Francis.