An end to 2017

2017, what a year! I remember when Lyle started med school, I can't up all the years of training he had in front of us and thought 2017 was so far away. Now it has come and gone. I always try to wrap up the year listing the most exciting/important things that happened that year to each of us so here it goes:
AB: The biggest thing for her without a doubt was that she started school full time. She has been home with me for the past 3 years. Definitely bittersweet. I miss getting to snuggle with her and watch cartoons but so happy she is thriving in school. I think it was time for her to go. Time for her to start making friends and learning new things. She is doing so so great! She will say every now and then that she missed SF but I know she loves it here too. She also transitioned to a big girl room with a big girl bed too! She has no problem sleeping in her room, doesn't even want a night light. Although she still makes her way down to my bed 5 out of the 7 nights she is very content in her big room. I love this little girl so much!

Luke: 2017 was a great year for Luke! He received first Holy Communion this year! Such a wonderful day! Really hard to beat that! Luke also got really bit by the football bug. He played his first real flag football league and LOVED every minute of it! He is dying to play tackle football but that makes me a bit nervous! I don't think I have a choice but to let him though:) Luke made lots of good friends in SF that I know he misses but is making new ones here as well. School is going great as well. That kid is super duper smart!

Ella: She had a great 2017 as well. She ran her first 10K in 2017 and found her love for running. She ran on the cross country team at CTK and LOVED it! I'm so happy so found something that makes her happy and keeps her healthy at the same time! She is also continuing her love of baking and is actually doing really well. She has so much more patience for it than I do! Ella hated leaving SF but I think she is warming up to Little Rock again. School is great for her and she has become quite the book worm which I love!

Mom: Definitely the biggest change for me is moving back to Little Rock and starting my new job as an Assistant Professor in the Surgery Department at UAMS. I am running the Division of Surgical Research and at the moment it is going so so well. I didn't think I would love it as much as I do. I am doing things that I thought I could never do. Plus Lyle and I finally get to run our own lab together and do our own research. I can't believe we are actually doing it. We are having such a fun time with it too!

Lyle: HE FINISHED TRAINING!!! Still can't believe it sometimes! He is finally an attending and UAMS and actually has moved into the Director of the Transplant Program here. It happened fairly quickly when the last director decided he wanted to move to Chicago. It is great because he gets to set things up the way he wants to some extent but hard because it means a lot more admin stuff that he really hates dealing with. But things are going well for him right now. Staying busy but finally having more time with us which we all enjoy!

So, to wrap up 2017 was an exciting year. Moving back home from SF was bittersweet for all of us but we are so happy to be settled and a little closer to family. As always, we are so appreciative of the great year our Lord gave to us and try to not take it for granted. We know how lucky we are and always feel little Eve watching over us. But we are excited to see where 2018 takes us!

New Year's Eve

A celebration to remember! Our friends Jim and Katie Battreal invited us over to celebrate New Year's with them. It was a great time! The kids had fun making ice cream sundaes!

We had to work hard to get a pic of them all together! Crazy kids! Why didn't we get any of the adults! We had just as much fun as they did! We actually celebrated until around 1AM. Jim and Ella got into a serious chess match so we had to let them finish! It was a great night and a great way to say Goodbye to 2017 and Hello to 2018!

Enjoying the rest of Christmas Break

The kids still have a week off of school and now we are clearly thinking about New Years and the string of January Birthdays coming up! One celebration after the next!
Here are the kids goofy around during their time off.
The kids got these face masks in there stockings and had fun using them...AB's was a unicorn mask and Luke's was a Tiger. Kind of creepy looking but boy did their skin look renewed afterwards;)

Ella decorated for New Year's this year and got out some of the photo props we used last year. Couldn't resist snapping some of her and AB: Silly girls!

Uncle Mark

During all the happiness of this season, our Uncle Mark could not find happiness. Mark committed suicide today and our hearts were broken. Especially my Mom and her siblings. It was a long day of asking why and feeling guilty. We pray he has found some peace now. He was a wonderful uncle with always a smile and a laugh to share. He will be missed. I wish my children could have gotten to know you better.

Christmas Day!!

What a glorious morning!! The kids quickly ran downstairs to see this:

That is way too many presents if you ask me!!
That beautiful picture turned into this in about 5 minutes:

Although you don't see Daddy in any of these pics I promise he is there!
Lyle bought everybody scratch off tickets this year and stuck them in our stockings. It was fun watching everyone scratch them off. Here is Mims and Pa doing their tickets...Pa won $50! Ella won $10 and I won $20. Not too bad!

It was a fun day of playing games, playing with all the new Christmas gifts and eating great food!

One of my favorite parts of the day was playing Shanghai with the whole family...even Pa got in on the fun! It was a late night but what a great day it was! Once again we are beyond blessed by our Heavenly Father. Thank you.

December 24th!

One of the most exciting days of the year!! We passed the time baking, playing games and getting ready for Mims and Pa to show up after Christmas Eve mass.
Here is a pic AB took of our delicious Hershey Kiss Peanut Butter cookies that are a must this time of year! You can also see that we had all our favorite games out ready to play!

After church, the kids wanted to immediately go to sleep! They greeted Mims and Pa, had dinner, exchanged the gifts they bought for each other, Luke got AB a stuffed unicorn and Ella a desk organizer he especially picked out for her because it was teal (her favorite color for the time being:), Ella got AB some pieces for her doll house and Luke some football gloves he has been dying for!
They decided to sleep in the playroom all together Christmas Eve night. I think you can tell by this picture they were excited!! I love these little kids and how excited they get!

Oh Santa! What will you bring them this year??!!

December 23rd....almost here!!

What a great Christmas season it has been! We have really enjoyed being together in this new house during this new phase of our lives. We all could not wait for Christmas to get here! On the 23rd, we took the kids out to eat pizza and laughed about how excited they all were for Santa to come....especially AB.

Daddy and I were pretty excited too!

That night we enjoyed a movie by the fire snuggled up with the sweetest kids ever!

Early Christmas present---a new Basketball goal

Lyle has desperately wanted to put up a basketball goal for the kids ever since he saw our big driveway. So, as a early gift to them we got them one and asked Papa and Uncle Craig to come over and help us put it in. Little did we know what huge undertaking this would be!! It took us about two weeks to find enough time to finish it. But it was really really worth it! It is perfect! So much fun! I am so glad that we have that memory of putting up our kids' first goal for them. It makes me feel really settled which we haven't been in a long long time.
Here are some pics of the process:

Every night for two weeks and some lunch breaks Lyle and I would work on this thing. We finally finished about 10pm one night and the kids couldn't wait to make the first basket!

Early Christmas at Grandma and Papa's

Since Craig and his family were going to be out of town for Christmas and we were going to be in Little Rock, we decided to celebrate Christmas a week early at my parents' so that we could all be together. It was great! We haven't spend Christmas with them in two years!
Here are some pics of the fun day! Unfortunately I did not as many as I thought!! Have to do a better job next year. The kids made gingerbread houses, made ornaments and played a really fun game with saran wrap Aunt Julie put together. We had lots of food, opened presents, sand Christmas songs to Great Grandma and Grandpa and really enjoyed being together!

Annabeth's Christmas party at school!

It is fun getting to share all these special moments with AB like her first school Christmas party. She is such a sweet little girl at school and I love seeing how proud she is to show me around. At this party we sat down with all the toddlers and sang Christmas songs together before going to her classroom and eating a little lunch. It was the last day before Christmas Break so excitement was in the air!! Love this little CUTIE!

Ella's choir performance

Ella started choir this year and has really enjoyed it. They performed Christmas songs at the UAMS cancer center so Lyle and I got to hear here there and we went to her Christmas concert at the school. It is nice seeing her do something she really enjoys!

Ugly Christmas Sweaters

Lyle and I got invited to an Ugly Christmas Sweaters party this year so I ran to Target and bought us the only ones I could find. I don't think they are just terribly bad but definitely not something we would normally wear. Anyway, we had a fun night. It's nice to get to do things like this with him again.

St. Nick is coming to town!

St. Nicholas Day is always exciting around here but even more so this year because we were in our new house and AB was soooooo excited about it this year! The kids got home from school and immediately started writing their Christmas lists. I wasn't there when they wrote them so I asked AB what she put on her list but she said, "I don't want to tell you. It's a secret only for St. Nick". Ha!
So we put the lists outside in our shoes as always and called to St. Nick that we were ready!

Then we snuggled up by the fire and watched a Christmas show as we patiently waited!!

Soon we heard that familiar "Bang" on the door which scared all of us and made AB bury her head in the couch. St. Nick brought us lots of yummy treats and took our letters to the North Pole!

Alvie and Gail's 50th wedding anniversary!

Alvie and Gail celebrated 50 years of marriage this December 1st. We had a big celebration for them in Arlington. It was so nice getting to see all of our extended family that we haven't seen in several years since moving to SF. The cousins really loved getting to hang out. As a gift, we had a photographer take pictures of the family before the party. They turned out really well.

It was a great night! Here are just a few pics Ella snapped with my camera.

The happy couple 50 years ago...

That weekend also happened to be the Big 12 championship game TCU vs. Oklahoma. Lyle and the kids, along with Landry's family and Alvie got to go to the big game. Although it was a disappointing loss for TCU the kids still had fun seeing the game.

While they were at the game, Annabeth and Brody got to have some fun of their own at a little Christmas carnival in Mims' neighborhood. It was so cute. We rode a train, saw Santa, rode some ponies, and played in snow...really really wet snow! It was such a great weekend! Such a nice way to celebrate such a huge accomplishment! 50 years! Congrats Mims and Pa!