Christmas Fun

From Christmas 2008

We just got back from Peoria on Saturday. It was a great time and lots of fun was had by all! We are now looking forward to Jeremy's whole family being in town tomorrow through the rest of the week for Christmas Part III.

Here's what we did last week: ate lots of yummy food, played tons of cards, Settlers of Catan, and Celebrity, found out all of our Wii ages, listened to screaming children (fun screaming), ate, opened lots of presents, chased after kids, watched movies, watched kids attack Uncle Jeremy, ate, played more Settlers of Catan, shopped just a little, listened to fighting children (near the end of the week), played more Wii, gave messy kids baths, and cleaned up many messes. Did I mention that we ate? Click on the picture to see some more from our fun times.

By the way, Ansley's third round of antibiotics did the trick...so we thought. She was great the entire time we were gone. She slept at night, and was all-around happy. She even began really taking off walking. However, she finished the antibiotic yesterday, and last night and today we have been miserable. We have to take her in again tomorrow. This probably means shots, and the word "tubes" has been mentioned a few times as well. We'll see what happens and keep you posted.

Christmas Comes Early This Year

From Christmas 2008

Our family is traveling to Peoria for Christmas this year. We decided instead of taking so many gifts back and forth that Santa would just have to come to our house early this year. Today was the magic day. We basically pretended it was Christmas day and got up early and opened all our presents. Of course, Ansley still is miserable with a double ear infection (we're on our 3rd antibiotic), Kennedy is on an antibiotic for her cough/runny nose/etc., and I (Laura) spent the morning at a Walgreens clinic to get an antibiotic for a bladder infection. Jeremy has somehow managed to stay healthy though (knock on wood!). Overall we had lots of fun and Kennedy has spent the whole day entertained with new Polly Pockets and High School Musical dolls (the ones she didn't already have!). I bought Jeremy and Kennedy a High School Musical Sing-A-Long game for the Wiii, and that has been quite entertaining as well! Click on the picture above and it will take you to more pictures of our early Christmas. Hope everyone has a great holiday! Merry Christmas!

Not Much Going On

This week has been pretty uneventful. Kennedy's been recovering from Pink Eye and somehow Ansley still hasn't gotten it. She has another runny nose though and didn't sleep well again last night. She is getting her entire top row of teeth right now which hasn't helped either. Kennedy is going to a tea party tomorrow that our junior high girls at church are putting on, and she is excited for that. I'm sure we'll have some pictures to share later. Kennedy did write a letter to Santa this week asking him to come early this year. We'll be in Peoria for Christmas and since my sister and her family are flying there, they don't have room to bring "Santa" gifts too...so we decided Santa would come to our houses early this year...not like 3 year olds really know the difference between the actual 25th or not. So Santa wrote back and said he would come next Friday. I'm sure by this time next Friday we will have successfully destroyed the pretty wrappings under the tree! I guess we did have one event occur this week. Ansley has taken her first steps! She'll take 4-5 steps at a time and then decide crawling is easier. I'm sure soon she'll be taking off and not stopping! Here are some pictures of the girls and I playing on the computer.

KK and Pink Eye

Well, Ansley's ear infection is coming to an end, and now we have a new unwelcomed visitor in our house. Kennedy has pink eye. We are fully expecting it to jump into Ansley's eyes any day now. Fun times. On a brighter note, Ansley has a new word. She calls Kennedy "KK". It's so cute. I'm not really sure how we started referring to Kennedy as "KK" but Ansley picked up on it. The other night (while Jeremy was still gone) both girls slept with me (it was a rough night...and to top it off we woke up to the pilot light on the heater out...the house was 56 degrees) and when we woke up Ansley sat up, looked over at Kennedy, and said "Hi KK!". Those were her first words of the day. Here's a picture of puffy-eyed "KK" and Ansley. Notice Kennedy sipping on some hot tea in her favorite mug with a straw :)

Classic Picture with Santa

Even though we still have snotty noses and what sounds like smoker's cough here at our house, Kennedy was so looking forward to Breakfast with Santa at "her school", or rather what will be her school in two years. Jeremy is gone this weekend, so I decided it would be nice to get out of the house for a hour or two to go see Santa. I realize this is not a super high quality picture, but you can get the idea of how pictures with Santa went. At least Mrs. Claus is happy.

Hide and Seek

The girls found a hiding spot while I was busy in the kitchen. I could hear them giggling from behind the chair. I had to snap some pictures!

Christmas Card

The other night we took some pictures of the girls for our Christmas card. Here's a few of the pics we got. Thanks to Nana for the black dresses the girls are wearing. The red dress Kennedy is wearing in some of the pictures was mine, and the red dress Ansley is wearing (along with the nice bow) is from Denise, my second mother. Thanks ladies for helping us look festive! Kennedy was trying to steal the show and wanted the camera on her most of the time, hence the reason there are much fewer pictures of Ansley by herself.

Pitiful Picture

As promised...Ansley with a double ear infection. Poor baby!

Christmas Cookies

Well we were right about Ansley having an ear infection. In fact, it was a very bad double ear infection. After 2 pretty much sleepless nights between her, Jeremy and me, we were able to get her into the doctor Monday morning. After a couple of doses of Amoxicillin she is doing much better! The poor baby was not herself yesterday...it was pitiful. Jeremy took a picture of her I'll have to post when I can.

Today, Kennedy and I cooked our first Christmas cookies of the season. Notice I didn't say bake. I don't think opening a rectangular box, removing circular shaped dough with reindeer imprinted on them, and sticking them on a pan in the oven qualifies as baking, but they taste good none the less. As I was eating one, okay maybe it was more than one, but who's counting...Ansley was looking longingly at my mouth and opening hers with every bite I took. Feeling sorry for the past few days she had, I decided to give her a piece, which ended up being about half a cookie. Here's how she felt about it.

She actually was waving and saying hi to herself...I took the picture on my computer and she could see herself.

Playing around

Thanksgiving/Picker Family Reunion

We spent Thanksgiving just outside of Searcy, Arkansas at Camp Tahkohdah for a Picker Family Reunion. We have one every other year at Thanksgiving and they are so much fun! We just hang out, relax, play games, and eat, eat, eat! We had a few rough nights of sleep, as Ansley is fighting a bad cold, and Kennedy had her first night terror the first night we were there. That was scary! She was determined there was something green and yucky in our room from there on out, and would not sleep in our room, so her and Jeremy ended up on couches in the main room of the retreat center the rest of the weekend. We got home Saturday night, and once again had a rough night of sleep. We are thinking Ansley may have an ear infection and are planning on taking her to the doctor tomorrow. However, Sunday we did wake up (after just a few short hours of sleep, thanks to Ansley) to our first snow of the season. It wasn't much, but we were excited! Here our some pics from our weekend.

Jeremy's entire family

I'm looking a little tired here...it was after a rough night.

Playing a little Guitar Hero

Kennedy never falls asleep on the couch...but she was dealing with a little constipation issue and not feeling so hot

Ready for a hike in the woods

What we woke up to on Sunday

Ansley's New Look

Ansley has a new face that she likes to show us quite often. I'm not really sure why she does it, but it's pretty cute. She also huffs and puffs out her nose while she does it. Silly girl.

I succumbed!

So I said I would never get a fake Christmas tree. I tried to hold my ground, but Lowe's got the best of me. The whole fun in a real tree was going to the tree farm (preferably Red Barn in Morton) and cutting one down. However, Jeremy and I stopped doing that a few years ago when Christmas trees were costing us $70. Then we moved to Lowe's pre-cut trees for $19.99. However, last year we got the driest tree ever, and there were pine needles everywhere. I even stepped on one last year and it went in my foot like a splinter. I remember saying "Maybe next year we can get a fake tree." I didn't really mean it though. Red Barn tree or Lowe's tree, you still can't beat the smell of a real one! Jeremy has been pushing for a fake one for quite some time though, I think mainly because he hates the work of putting it up. Conveniently he "misplaced" our tree stand in the move, so we were going to have to buy a tree and a new tree stand. We went to Lowe's last night to check out the selection, and then we saw it...a pre-lit tree for under $100. Jeremy spent a few minutes talking me into it, and then I agreed, only because it's not one of those plastic looking fake trees...although they did fool us, and there are some of those plastic looking leaves in certain parts of the tree...and because we have a nine month old child that I really didn't want to have to worry about ingesting pine needles daily. I agreed, but only if we could start getting real trees again when the kids are older. What a compromise huh? So here it is...The Picker Family Christmas Tree.

Houston Trip

I know I already posted today. But it's Friday night, the girls are in bed, Jeremy has company, and there's nothing good on tv. Be prepared. This is not the last post today. There are more to come. I am playing catch-up. We went to Houston last week so Jeremy could help with some Hurricane Ike clean-up and I could visit with some family and friends. It was a great trip overall, and I got to see all my siblings on this trip! I realize that pretty much makes me the best sister in the world, and now I fully expect both sisters and brother to come visit us soon! :)

We first drove to Rogers, Arkansas and stayed with Betsy for the evening. It only takes about five hours to get there. The next morning we got up, went to see her class at school, and then got on the road around 10am. Finally around 9pm, we arrived in Houston. It was a long drive, but the girls were champs. My brother and sister-in-law live in Houston, and my older sister lives in San Antonio, so she and her two kids came over for the weekend. The four cousins had lots of fun together, and I'm pretty sure we helped Jeremy and Kendal decide they didn't want to have kids for a long time!

Later in the week we got to spend some time with our great friends, the Venables, that lived in Peoria for a short time. They now live in Houston and have a little girl Mabry that is almost two, and is a doll. We went out for some Mexican food one evening and then Addie, I, and the girls spent a day at the mall together.

To top off the week, we even got to make a trip to IKEA and the Cheesecake Factory, which are both little slices of heaven for me...I just wish I had more money to spend there (at IKEA that is)! On the way home we stopped back at Betsy's again and helped her get some Christmas decorations set up. Then we made the last leg of the trip home. Here are some pictures of the cousins together, and one of Betsy and the girls.

Yearbook Yourself

Kennedy and I had some great bonding time during Ansley's nap this morning "yearbooking ourselves". If you haven't tried it, it's a lot of fun. We laughed and laughed. Check it out at yearbookyourself.com. Here are some of our favorites.

Kinda looks like my mom's senior picture

Pretty sure my Aunt Rose sported this look circa 1980

I definitely tried to achieve this look in the 90's



Bowtie baby!


Is that Jeremy or Bo Duke?

Ah, yes, the mullet!


Who ate Jeremy?