Christmas 2009!!

Christmas has come and gone and I can hardly believe it. Brody was so fun to watch. I was always so overwhelmed with Christmas at my parents' home growing up and now I know why they went so far out of their way to make it special. Watching your child enjoy themself is so great. But more than that it was so wonderful to share the season with our family and see Brody start to "get it". He was so excited to celebrate baby Jesus' brithday. We pray that each year he get's it more and more! :)

So, here Brody opens up his stocking. He was sooo careful to unwrap each gift. My sisters and I got the kids together for a Christmas picture for Grandma.... it was insane. They were so squirmy and fussy that not a single picture had them all smiling, but there was one picture that turned at as good as can be for 4 grand-babies all under 3!! Fortunately, my mom's response to the gift made it all worth it! Carrie and I called each other up to get our sons to match... ;)

ummm... you can read whatever you like into this picture. I'm not exactly sure what to say...

This is Brody's gift from Grand-Mama and Grand-Daddy Joe-Joe. He LOVES it. Good thing too, because John and Joe-Joe spent an entire afternoon one day putting it together! :) Thanks so much guys! I feel like this is more a gift to me since it will keep him occupied so well! haha!

Here we tried to have another photo session. This is just one of many many pictures we took that I thought was pretty funny. There really wasn't a "good" one, but there were a lot of really funny ones. This one is good because all four of them are in it!! Seriously... these kids are squirmy and FAST! The best one was Trooper! :) (he had no choice).

Well-Merry Christmas everyone! Happy New Year!

Christmas Tea Party

All of the John Peters' daughters and their female family members went to a Christmas tea at a sweet little Tea House in Ridgeview, SC. It had this really fun gift store on the bottom floor and then once you were called to be seated we were told to pick out hats to wear for the event. Mine was eventually abandoned due to the heaviness, but it was fun for pictures!
The tea house served all kinds of delicious goodies and of course lots of tea (hot and cold). We had a really nice time of fellowship. After we ate, we gathered around to let Kortni open some presents as a semi-wedding shower.

God has really blessed us with a great family. Thanks to everyone who came and for the great idea, Mom Tyler! :) Merry Christmas!

Happy Anniversary!!

So, John and I just celebrated our 4th anniversary last Thursday. This was the first one we were able to celebrate clear and free from final exams and down in Columbia, SC. :) I have an amazing husband and God has blessed us so much above and beyond our expectations. My dad (who will celebrate his 35th anniversary with my mom in June) says the first four years are just a warm-up... If that's true than I cannot wait to get started! :)

So, I know this is a little slack, but John and I forgot until this year to eat teh top tier of our wedding cake. It was in the deep freezer at Grand-Mayme and Grand-Daddy Earle's house and we just kept frogetting to take it with us to Virginia. What is really the difference between eating a cake one year later and 4 years later?? It was not very good. We ended up eating some cookies instead.

So, my mom and dad were fabulous and came to our house to watch Brody for us while we went out. Mom decided to make some of her famous delicous peanut-butter and kisses cookies. Tell me.... can you pick out which one's Brody helped her do??

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving with my family this year was in Charlotte at my sister's home. She was a fabulous hostess. We had such a great time. The most exciting event was probably the frying of the turkey. The oil got wayyyy too hot and caused the air to combust into a ball of fire, so after cooling down the oil for a long time... here's the beautiful bird. Looks are definitely deceiving in this picture cause that bird was goooood. Maggie was a princess when we arrived and I think she stayed in that ballerina outfit the whole time. She had some sweet dance moves too.

cute cute Henry just woke up in this picture... can you tell? :)

Tyler and his dad spent time making the game "corn hole". It is a good thing that they did because we spent a whole lot of time playing. It was a lot of fun.

Good ole Poppa.

Snuggle time with Grandma! What would a family event be without that???

The spread... so glorious!

This is not from Thanksgiving, but I just had to share. This is the "cake" from John's "swearing in party". John's parents kindly hosted a BBQ party after he was sworn in. When they asked for the cake to have Congratulations John, Esquire...I guess they didn't believe that John was really done with school and the bar because this is what they wrote...

Also... I had to share this amazing photo of Trooper. What can I say about this? It's amazing. This is my thug nephew.