holiday happenings

this year for thanksgiving we traveled to tuscaloosa and spent 4 glorious days with my parents. i say glorious because keith and i turn into fat slobs from eating and watching tv and ignoring our children :) it's my parents fault, they keep saying, "we'll get that!" "i'll take care of him." "you rest!"

it's funny how when you're a teenager your parents are after you to not sleep late and do chores and be responsible and when you get older and come to visit they're all please sleep late and don't help and don't worry about your children. 

we usually go to my gran's house for t'giving but she's injured her back, so we stayed at my mom's. gran sent mom a ton of food, so we had gran's cooking at my mom's house. 

this is my favorite thing on the planet. (it's fried okra for you yankees.)

the Lord was praised.

how many kids can say they swam on thanksgiving?

c and keith had a big time in the woods this year. they spent every morning and most evenings out there. if you travel far enough back from my parents yard you hit lake harris. i won't show you all of their pictures, but i'll say keith polk was happy happy happy.

they day after thanksgiving we went to my gran and papa's house to visit. 

so thankful for these three. although we aren't blood kin we are kin of the heart and i think that's more important. 

my cousin jodi brought her two little boys who are about the same age as my two. they had big fun.

another reason my boys love my parent's house- the empty lot next door!!

i managed to capture this cute shot for our christmas card photo. usually when i plan to take pictures it turns to crap, but this year they did well. i think they're growing up and that means they respond to bribes a little better than they used too :)

when we got home we went to get a christmas tree. usually we go to the tree farm but neither of us (keith and i) were feeling it so we just trucked it over to da home depot. c's in a phase when we take his picture. can you guess what that phase is??

we usually buy a 6-7 foot tree but they didn't have any of those so we bought a 7-8 foot tree. it's kind of griswold-y size wise but it's the prettiest tree we've ever had.

we watched "charlie brown christmas" and put up the ornaments. the boys loved it!

i said i wasn't going to do big decorations but then i got started on the mantel and i just couldn't stop. my inspiration was a picture from southern living. i'm in lurve with it but keith says it's much. who cares what he says anyway? he's not going to decorate it :)

our elf henry is back. his name used to be "hangry" but a grown up caleb has insisted that his name be "henry". this little guy is BY FAR caleb's favorite thing this holiday. he rushes every morning to find him and giggles with delight at his antics. collin on the other hand is MAD at him every morning and fusses about whatever he does- especially if he's touching any of his toys. the other morning he was riding a jeep through our snow village and collin yelled, "you leave my jeep ALONE!!! you not touch my jeep!!" he snatched the jeep and threw the elf across the room. we think it's funny to watch so we anticipate it every morning :)

i have been sewing like a MAD woman. to the point i'm totally sick to death of it. i've felt a lot of guilt about the amount i've had to do- but oh well, it is what it is. we cut off orders after thanksgiving at dec.1 and i still had 16 pairs to do, plus a few baby gowns and other items.  whew.

the other nights i made the boys "grinch" pancakes before we watched the grinch movie. they're not pinterest worthy, but we thought they were fun. it's the little things :)

alrighty then, i think that catches us up!

favorites from polk ranch

my christmas-times with family are good. grandparents being extravagant; uncles and aunts lovin' on little ones; cousins running around loud and excited to be together. makes me all warm and fuzzy just looking at these pictures.

polk thanksgiving turkeys

because i'm an awesome aunt, i always try to bring little snacks for the girls to make. pilgrim hats and a thanksgiving turkey (thanks pinterest!)




thankful for these kiddos!

Christmas Eve With the Polks

it's NEVER a dull moment with this family. Mrs. Linda (my mother-in-law, aka Neenaw) bought the girls these funky silver hats and we all had to have a turn with them.

paw paw bought caleb the camo shirt and gave me a name tag that he wore on his army uniform (waaay back in the day) to sew on it. C was pumped to get to wear his shirt, and of course collin had to match :)



(top left) claire got a digital camera and she cried like she'd just won the miss america pageant. it.was.priceless! keith says her daddy acted the same way one year when he got a rifle, and i can almost look into the future and see caleb or collin sobbing their eyes out over a gun or bow :)

the kids got a TON of stuff- i literally had to start rethinking their closests, and they hadn't even gotten their santa loot or opened presents with my family yet!

the picture in the middle is of sweet shelbie sporting her new pump. we found out last year around this time that shelbie had juvenile diabetes. while it rocked all of our worlds- she's remained pretty positive and has been very brave. keith and i are SO proud of her!

i got shelbie and claire those green boxes they're holding. i wanted to get them something like a caboodle. y'all remember those? 'cause they do NOT make them anymore. or at least i couldn't find any. i bought the boxes, personalized them, and filled them up with bonnie bell lip smackers, bon bon nail polish, earrings, fun little soaps, silly bandz- you know, girlie stuff. the bonnie bell stuff just made my heart happy- actually the whole gift was my favorite to give, just because it was something i would have loved to have gotten at their age. i think they loved them too, and i was nervous about them because i have no clue what to get girls- to be such a girlie girl myself, i am a BOY mama!

the picture of collin singing with uncle chunk is so precious- or the memory is precious. chunk was singing "silent night" and collin was singing right along with him- to his own tune of course. it was really sweet!

and paw paw wasn't really mad in his hat pic, i just told him to look serious :)

after this we headed home, put out some cookies and milk for santa, reindeer food in the yard, and an apple for rudolf (just because mommy was out of carrots, but he ate it and liked it just fine!), and then- hit the bed!

buncha WEINERS!

this past weekend we celebrated with the polk's by having a good ole wienie roast. i took a few pictures of my sweet man collin outside in mrs. linda's (my MIL) fall decor. she always has it done so pretty! he was having himself a big time too.
caleb, hayes, shelbie and claire were riding four-wheelers, tearing up paw paw's shop, playing in the dirt and otherwise just having some country kid good time. i didn't get any pictures because i was too busy watching their littlest cousin. besides these pictures he destroyed my in-law's living room, ate at least 3 oatmeal/raisin cookies and a handful of chips and french onion dip (I couldn't get people to quit feeding him!! he begs like a dog!). i'm just glad i didn't have to pay for all that good food in the next day's diapers. ha!

the only picture of a NASTY dirty cman. can you see the black soot on his face? he and john hayes must have rolled in it all afternoon.

** updated to add: you know what i just noticed? look at how caleb and keith are standing. perzacktly the same. how funny is that? he soo wants to be like his daddy!**

funky picture of collin, he was excited to be part of the festivities. he actually did really well in his little pack n play.

daddy roastin' his love (that would be me) a good ole hot dog.
not many cute pictures, it's hard when your child is running around a fire pit ;)

hayes is 4!

claire and my dumplin'

those boys are tuff!

silly girls!