Christmas Eve

Each Christmas Eve we spend the day celebrating with Sam's family. We started at his mom's house this year with breakfast and presents from here. Here are the kids on their first round of gifts.



Poor Sydnee was so exhausted she fell asleep on the floor watching a movie - always with monkey!


Sam, his dad, and Jaxson shooting a 22. For Christmas Jaxson got a NERF style ball gun from Poppa he had a lot of fun shooting.


Sydnee loved this deer. It's one Sam's dad shot on a hunt. She loves animals, and this poor deer was no exception.

These are two of Sydnee's three great grandparents. Sam's grandpa, Harold Springer, and his grandma, Billie Barnett.

Oh Christmas Tree

We got Christmas going as soon as we could this year, putting up the tree as soon as Thanksgiving dinner was finished. The kids were excited, and truthfully... so were we! We bought a new 9 foot tree this year that we love. It looked great, and we had fun decorating it with mom and dad after Thanksgiving.

Party Time!

Shaye had been asking for a Christmas party for a few days since Sam and I had so many to go to this year. We tried to get one together for her and Jaxson on Saturday. I think it turned out great, and they had fun. We made donut snowmen, played named that Christmas song, decorated cookies, and even did a Secret Santa exchange.


The YMCA staff party was at our house this year. It was fun to host everyone... we had about 20. We always do a a dinner, and this year we had an ornament exchange. I have really enjoyed being the aerobic director and an instructor at the Y the last 4 years. I am going to continue to teach some, but really plan on cutting down in the new year with baby #4 on the way. I appreciate all the great friends I have made and worked with there!

Winter Concert

Jaxson's Christmas concert was this week. He is always such a loud and happy singer! He knows all the words and loves to do it. He wasn't much for the actions of these songs though. He had such a serious face the whole time singing as loud as he could. At one point he got off tempo and we could hear him all the way in the audience speeding the other kids up. LOL! He did great... he even had a small speaking part to introduce Jingle Bells.

Thanksgiving 2009

This was our first year to host Thanksgiving. Mom and dad came to it wasn't too big of a crowd for us to try things out on! We had a great dinner, and a good visit for a few days. We did some shopping, saw some local sights, and some went to a basketball game in Tulsa. We were happy to have family here for the holiday!

Girls Dallas Weekend '09

This was our second annual girls weekend in Dallas. The last two years we have gone down the weekend before Thanksgiving to see the Twilight movies and enjoy a weekend out! There were 15 in our group this year and we had a blast! We decided to join the madness and go to the midnight premiere of New Moon. So, of course we had to have t-shirts! New Moon was much better than Twilight, and we were grateful for the improvements. The rest of the weekend consisted of too much eating and plenty of shopping!

Route 66 Half Marathon

Here's the kids waiting at the 9.5 mile mark to see their dads run by!

Sam sure looks happy for running 9 and a half miles! He was tired, but doing great!

He reached his goal - finishing in under 2 hours. His time was 1:59:09. Way to go Sam!

Sam and his running partner, Brian. They have been training together 3 days a week most weeks.

Shaye's Soccer - Fall 2009

Sam was able to coach Shaye's team again this year. They had a great season. They only lost twice. There were only 5 girls on the team, and since 4 play at a time, they didn't get much rest during games. By the end of the season they were excellent runners! Sam made sure they ran a lot in practice to be ready, and even though they didn't get subs, our girls were running as hard as the other team till the end. Shaye improved even more this year and was a lot of fun to watch. She did excellent! We're so proud of all her hard work!

Celebrating Halloween!

We had another great Halloween week this year. Between the Pumpkin Patch, school parties, the church carnival, and trick or treating, there's always lots to do! I love Halloween because it feels like the true beginning of the holidays.


The cutest little monkey! I thought I would have a hard time getting Sydnee to put on her costume, but she had fun wearing it and would laugh when she saw it.

Jaxson's costume was G.I. Joe but he preferred to just call himself a ninja. It came with a neat headpiece, but he can't stand anything around his neck or face so I never could get him to wear it. This is at the trunk or treat at the church. They had hot dog roasting, bounce houses, lots of games, and of course... candy!

Shaye and her friend Avery at the church.

Sydnee refused to put down her candy bags. She would scream if you tried to help her carry them. I had to wait till she was distracted to finally put it all away!

Getting ready to go trick or treating with some friends.

Shaye was a dragon warrior, or a chinese ninja as she called it. We died her hair black just on Saturday and boy was it a mess. The dye got everywhere, but she had fun doing something new.


This is why I just had to get Sydnee a monkey costume. This Curious George is her favorite thing in the world. Its the toy she can't sleep without. So here's my favorite monkey with her favorite monkey!

When we got back from trick or treating around the neighborhood, she kids ate hot dogs, decorated some cupcakes, and roasted marshmellows on the fire. I think everyone had a great time!

The Pumpkin Patch

This week Jaxson's class went to the Pumpkin Patch. Its such a cute place, I'm glad we have one in our town. They have a playground, haystack maze, ponies, and of course the pumpkins. They were only able to choose from the small ones, so he was disappointed about that, but we had a lot of fun. I was glad I was able to go with him. And Nicole was here visiting so she stayed with Sydnee, making it a great activity for me and Jaxson!