Gone country

About a month ago we got the chance to head north of town to visit with some old friends at their family farm. Lynn Plantation is held in high regard in my life - I have so many fond memories of spending time there during my high school years and beyond with my amazing friend Lesley. It was not a difficult sell to get us out there to see their new baby girl, Matilda.

We had quite the "city girls go to the country" experience on our drive -- Lucy steadily pointed out tractors and barns and horses while Hannah kept us entertained with her "moo" and "cock-a-doo!" animal noises. And luckily for them, the actual experience did not disappoint! The immediately ran over to meet the animals and ran around the pond, then began to explore the array of tractors Mr. Lynn has accumulated over the years. Daddy took them for a spin on the John Deere Gator and they had a blast! Mommy may have succumbed to a slight major case of baby fever, and the girls fell pretty hard too. Lucy's been walking around with "baby Tilda" on her shoulder, changing her diaper and feeding her for a while now.

We so treasured the time with our friends and are grateful to have gotten the chance to spend a leisurely morning on the farm with them.  Here are some pictures from our trip ~ isn't the antique photo filter fun?

Make your own digital slideshow

Wordless Wednesday: Stealing Mommy's iPhone to watch "The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore" in bed on a Saturday morning edition

My funny valentines



Our first attempt at pigtails



Big sister has been displaying a really big heart lately



My sweetheart

I love them all so much it makes my heart want to explode. They love me well in return and for that I am blessed beyond measure.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!

Flashback Friday: Christmas 2011

We started off celebrating the Christmas season by attending a birthday party for Jesus at First United Methodist Church. They had a puppet show for the kids featuring tunes such as "Born in Bethlehem" (set to the Bruce Springsteen hit), games, crafts, and of course, birthday cake.

Lucy's class performed as angels in their school Christmas play. A bunch of 3 and 4-yr-olds in angel costumes singing "Away in a Manger" = heaven.

We also adopted an Elf on the Shelf this year - his name is George, after everyone's favorite curious little monkey, and he can be found in the silliest places after his nightly visit to see Santa at the North Pole!

Christmas morning was especially nice this year because we got to wake up in our own home and didn't have to pack up our entire house to travel somewhere! We had several of the girls' grandparents and their great grandfather over for breakfast and to open presents ~ it was a really special time for us all. The joy on the girls' faces when they saw their new swing set was worth all of Andrew's our hard work!  :) Thank you to all of the grandparents for making this a holiday for the girls to remember.

Picture slideshow made with Smilebox

P.S. I've been having a lot of problems with slow picture uploads to Blogger lately, so I'll be putting posts with a lot of pictures in Slide show format for a while.

Flying monkeys

Since we spent New Year's Eve cooped up with the sick (Lucy was running a fever and throwing up for half of the day), we decided to get outside for a while on New Year's Day. We went to "Betty Borginya" park to try out a few of Lucy's new Christmas presents ~ a frisbee (thanks, Aunt Katie!) and a monkey-shaped kite. We got there right before sunset and caught a perfect breeze. Andrew got it up in the air, but Lucy quickly took over the strings and couldn't have been more thrilled! Sister was content just to be along for the ride.

Blurry, but beautiful

Ho, ho, ho!

This was Hannah's first time meeting Santa ~ no tears! She had a major freak out when Rudolph came around to say hello while waiting we were in line, so I did not have very high hopes for a good St. Nick encounter. Lucy told Santa that she wanted a baby doll "named Hannah" for Christmas and that was it. She's been very cryptic about her requests this year, saying only that she wants some toys. Hannah's new party trick is to respond, "Ho, ho!" in a deep voice when asked "What does Santa Claus say?". It's quite entertaining!

I've had a blast this Christmas season watching these two become excited about lights and Christmas carols and trees and baby Jesus. Hannah likes to walk around holding "Jeeshus" from the nativity scene and Lucy is finally starting to get that Christmas is a celebration of Jesus' birth. Christmas has also been a truly lovely time of year for me, but it is ever so much magical when seen through the eyes of a child.



I guess that's why they call it the blues

We hit up the Highland Jazz and Blues Festival a couple of weekends ago, and it was suprisingly fabulous! The weather was warm, the food was good (we tried Geauxcicles for the first time - yum!), and the musicians were super talented. Plus it's set in Columbia Park, so there is a ton of playground equipment to keep the kiddos entertained. It was a very bohemian, spread your blanket on the lawn, bring your dog and your baby, and dance like a hippie kind of event... and I loved it.

We got there just in time to hear the Preservation Hall Jazz Band out of NOLA entertain the crowd - for free! They were really great and the girls loved dancing to those famous Crescent City jams. It's a super fun event for the city of Shreveport and we're already looking to going back again next year.