Christmas Town at Busch Gardens

We took Anna Kate to Christmas Town at Busch Gardens the Sunday before Christmas. We had so much fun!! 

 We did the sky ride first because we missed it last year!

Riding on daddy's side

She loves Frosty!

We saw Sesame Street Live

Rode these horses at least 4 times!

Not so sure about this penguin

Riding on the train

Picture with the gingerbread man (check out her eyes!)

Reindeer Run with daddy :)

The little balloons

and the horses again....

posing with a real horse (she loves real animals not character ones!!)

The whole park was covered in Christmas lights!!

having a s'more before we left!!

Quick picture with Molly

Santa and his Reindeer

AK and I were out shopping last Saturday when I passed shoe crate and saw that Santa would be there. I asked her if she wanted to see him and she said yes! She was so funny when we went in. She didn't mind waving from afar but when it was time to get on his lap she was a little unsure. She did get up on his lap but would not look him (or anyone for that matter) in the eye. This made it very difficult to get a good picture!!!

She quietly told Santa what she wanted, grabbed some candy and hopped off of his lap quickly. No tears......just very unsure! It was like she was frozen (hilarious!)

When we got home from church on Sunday we saw these beauties in our backyard. Anna Kate was calling them reindeer and telling them to go help Santa!

All ready for her Christmas party at school on Tuesday!

We also had a party at school and I think Wal-mart did a great job on our "cupcake" cake

Thank you Aunt Carol....

For my.....

Yummy......Christmas......

CUPCAKE!!!!!!

And for all the other special things you do for us!!!

Fun Family Weekend

I cannot tell you how blessed we have been since Bryant has switched to the "40 hour side" at work. He is home most nights by 5:30 and then every weekend! I just don't know what to do with myself!! I know it may not be permanent but I will take what I can get! AK has definitely loved having daddy home more and has become quite the Daddy's Girl :)

We got our Christmas tree and other decorations out on Saturday morning. Anna Kate had a blast helping us decorate and only broke 1 ornament. We got out her "little people" nativity and went over the Christmas story. I'm not really sure how much she got from our little talk because later in the day when I asked her where Jesus lives (thinking she would say "my heart") she answered : "the horse stable!" hahaha!

Please excuse her outfit! We are into dressing ourselves :)

She sang her version of "Deck the Halls" while she put her ornaments on the tree

Our tree :) Anna Kate looked up at us after we were finished and said "today is a special day!" (Melts my heart!!!)

On Saturday night we went to our neighborhood's "lighting of the trees" I love this picture :)

We went to dinner on Saturday night and came back home to try and get a good Christmas card picture of Anna Kate. We were pretty successful. I told Bryant, next year is going to be more difficult with a 3 year old and a crawler :)

 This is somewhat of what our Christmas card will look like

Doing a little more decorating

Merry Christmas!!

On Sunday Anna Kate's buddy Charlotte invited us over to decorate cookies and a gingerbread house. We had so much fun and it was good to see some of her friends we don't get to see very often. She and I both enjoyed eating the toppings!!!

AK, Charlotte and Jameson being silly!!

Thanksgiving 2012

We have so much to be thankful for!! We celebrated Thanksgiving with both of our families at our house this year. We had lots of delicious food and great dessert!!  Anna Kate fell asleep right before everyone arrived so she slept through lunch but woke up just in time to get some play time in with her cousins :)

Melisa, Abby, Grandma, AK

Sweet cousins

Jackson and Sophie wanted to get in the picture!!

Hard to believe next year her baby brother will be in these pictures :)

Early this week Anna Kate had her "We are thankful" party at school. Her teacher only asks that parents who host the party attend and I totally understand that being a teacher myself!! She must have really enjoyed herself because she told me all about it! They also made a craft during her party that she had on from the time I picked her up until about bed time I think!!

Mrs. Beddard has a secret......

This is the morning message I had for my kids last Friday morning. They had to fill in the missing letters/words...

Some guesses: a puppy, a present, a new house.......and finally the correct answer: A NEW BABY??

That's right! Baby number 2 is on they way....due April 12th! We found out Monday our new little one is a BOY!

Here is our new little one at 18 weeks :)

Just Because......

She is so darn cute!!!!

Anna Kate and I were playing in the backyard the other day and I snapped this sweet pic

Ready for her 1st picture day at school :)

Flying at gymnastics!!

Halloween 2012 and some other "stuff"

We have been so busy recently I haven't had a chance to update in a while! This post is very random but lots of sweet memories:)

We started our Halloween off early with the annual Meeks' Halloween Party. Of course, everyone had a great time!!

A zebra with the zookeeper :)

All of the girls

We continued Halloween by going to the fall carnival at Jackson's school. AK had a ball!! 

She went bowling....

She fished for a pumpkin.....

she even climbed this huge slide and went down by herself!

Anna Kate had her first trick-or-treat experience on Halloween night in our neighborhood. Some friends from school and others came to join us. It took Anna Kate about 1 house to figure out the whole trick-or-treat thing!

Kade the pirate and AK the zebra

Our first stop was Mrs. Mary Anne and Mr. Bryan

A friend from school joined us and brought her dog Sophie who wanted to ride in the wagon with AK. She also was dressed as a zebra!!

AK and her new pal Sophie

Anna Kate, Tucker, and Kade stopped to pose in front of this house

We finished our night at Mrs. Nancy's house. This picture is blurry but she was so excited she was jumping up and down!

 By the time we got home there were only a few trick-or-treaters left to pass out candy to

The rest of this post is just some sweet things that I want to remember about our sweet girl :)

 We have been going to Panera a lot after church recently and Anna Kate loves their cinnamon roll!!

She loves to help me wash the dishes! Any time I turn on the water at the sink she pushed her chair over to help!

Me and the hubs :)