Girls Weekend and Christmas Leftovers

A few weekends ago, some of our ACU gals had our annual MLK girls weekend. Lots of us are/were teachers, so we always do it the same weekend since school is usually off Monday. And it is always on the calendar so we don't have to try to decide on a weekend. There were only 8 (at the most) there, so we missed the other 7, but we had a GREAT time!

We went to Paris to my parents' house and did a whole lot of nothing!! Mom bought us PJ pants and that was pretty much our wardrobe the whole weekend....it was hard not to wear them to church!

Here you see: Tamara, Kami, me, Mindi, Beth, Kayci (and a very tiny baby in her tummy), and Kate (and her little baby girl in her tummy)
As each person arrived, they got to pick their pants!

Here we are before church. Kami is holding Kamryn, Tamara's littlest one. She was the ROCK STAR of the weekend. She went with us to the movies and never made a peep through the whole thing!!

We got out all of my old photo albums from college and had so much fun looking through them. Here I'm telling Kanyon all about my college days.

Mom cooked for us and it was SOOO great. I think this is the only picture we got of all 8 (Mary is in this one) and little Kamryn.

We laughed SOO much looking through all of the pictures...trying to remember names and laughing at stupid stuff we did!

It was a GREAT GREAT GREAT weekend with some GREAT girls!!

Christmas Leftovers...no, not food....pictures.

Mom and Rachel sent me their pictures so there were a few I thought I'd better post.

klp is quite the kisser. All you have to say is "Give me a kiss" and you get it!

These next few pics were taken in Gilmer while we were with the Spencer side.

Here are Mom and Dad's 5 grandbabies. Funny that this is the best we could get over the entire Christmas break. I had to tell the girls to look up so I could sprinkle fairy dust on them. The other 3 were just a roll of the dice.

Here are Nolan, Landry, and Kanyon. The big girls would have NOTHING to do with this pose!

These 3 just ate each other.

I really love this picture of my daddy and klp

This is not Gilmer. This is Christmas Eve getting ready for Santa....we all figured we should help Santa with his cookies.

Back to Gilmer...My parents and Clint with klp and "Cinderella and Tinkerbell"

The Hemphills got a Wii so we had fun playing tennis!

Kan and his Great Grandma Nanny Lou

Now to Paris after Christmas....why are babies so cute straight out of the tub!??!!

Dad and Clay went duck hunting one morning, and they got to show klp and Avery the ducks.

They were both very interested!

Ok, well there you have it, a pretty random blog with lots of pictures! Have a great weekend!

Quote from Avery

I made Avery and Roselyn an ABC book this year for Christmas with pictures of people and things around them. Maurine was reading it to Avery the other day and Avery pointed to a picture of Kanyon and said:

A: He's a decoration!
M: What?
A: Yeah, he's a decoration because I can't touch him.


It makes me laugh and makes me sad at the same time. Can you tell Avery and Roselyn have had it drilled into their head NOT TO TOUCH Kanyon! I am SOO ready for this intense germ caution season to be behind us so the cousins can enjoy each other!! Obviously, Avery knows what a decoration is too, that's pretty impressive in itself!

Here's a cute pic of these 2 cousins last August when they could actually get near each other (but were still told not to touch!)

Kanyon's First Haircut

You know things can't just be as simple as "Kanyon's First Haircut"!! That would mean I would have to post less than 50 pictures and that just isn't my style. AND you also know I can't resist taking a stroll down memory lane...So here we are...The story of Kanyon's hair.....


I COULD NOT believe I had a bald baby. I expected dark hair, like Jayde had. Not bald! What little fuzz he did have was blond. I was blown away.
There's wasn't much to report on the hair front during his 100 days in the hospital. The real story started about 2-3 weeks after we came home. We headed to Dallas to get his permanent shunt put in. Here he is right after surgery......the birth of the spike!

Here are the scars from that surgery. I remember thinking, "I guess he'll have a bald spot here." hmmmm....little did I know, it would be more like fertilizer

Skip to November of '07...his head was almost totally bald but we started to notice dark hair sprouting from his scar.

We took this picture on the plane to MT because we just thought his hair was SOOO funny sticking up like that....

Peach fuzz started to sprout on his head, but the spike stayed out ahead of the pack and began to lay down

Or NOT lay down...it did some crazy stuff!!

These are real too, we did not fix his hair to do this...it has a mind of its own

ahhhh this is a sweet picture...I love memory lane

We did curl it once..with our fingers...not a curling iron.

His hair standing strong as he prepped for his eye surgery March '08

Lovin' life with awesome hair May '08

A particularly good or is it bad hair day in Montana

Remember when I showed our style options...the curl

The innocent comb over

We enjoyed the days of laughing at his hair and people mistaking it for a mohawk...then the rest of his hair started growing, the alfalfa entered the picture (probably for years to come) and the spike became less of a spike and more of a rat tail that got in his eyes and flew all over his face. klp was lookin' like a ragamuffin and FINALLY I agreed with KLP that we "need to do something about that hair".

So, what started as a tiny bald tennis ball of a head became this:

I mean really....nappy.

It was finally time to let go of the emotional bond and get my kid looking more presentable.....even if we are still on house arrest.

While I was in Paris, we went to the same barber shop my brothers went to for their first haircut and STILL go to to this day. I don't think ANYONE has ever cut their hair other than this guy...even when they were away for school, he would meet them before church on Sunday's to cut their hair when they were home for the weekend. Nolan needs a haircut in a major way, but he's a little young for the whole experience. Rach may have to trim him up until he's ready for the clippers!

Meet Butch the Barber. Kanyon must have thought he was a Dr. because he pretty much lost it from the get go.

He actually got kinda still when he started with the clippers. The vibration made him freeze...for a second or two.

"Save me SOMEBODY!!!!!!"

Butch even brushed him off with the powdered brush just like the grown ups.

Butch still has a gum jar by the cash register, so Kanyon was rewarded.

Here are the "after shots" They aren't that good. This one looks like he has a chili bowl. He doesn't, its just that his hair is darker where it is longer. In real life, it looks like a nice fade.

The spike still tries to control his hair and part it, but I still think its a better look.

No fuzz behind his ears from his smaller scar. Alfalfa? Still there.

There you have it. And all I really had to do was show you a couple of pictures. This was more fun though....for me at least!

I should be packing

I should be packing for my upcoming weekend/week, but I'm not. I was doing good, then I stalled out when picking out church clothes....so here I am. I had a few pics that I wanted to post before I forgot about them. Oh..about that last post. Thanks for the nice comments.....I didn't post it to get those, but thanks for writing them, they do encourage me. I also NEED to say that I don't always do all of the things I'm supposed to with all of that stuff...some days are good, some are bad..some weeks are good, some are bad. Those are my GOALS that I posted. Ok. Now I feel better.

Clint and Rachel got Kanyon this University of Montana hoodie. It is so cute....Sydni, don't hate us for this...we love all MT schools. We've got lots of love for MSU too!
Kanyon was helping Kory watch some stilly video on YouTube

The weekend after New Years we actually got to hang out with some of our friends. The Colliers and The Porters both have young kids so we've pretty much not been able to hang out with them in 2 years. BUT this particular weekend, they left their kids with grandparents and we all went to Chris's family's lakehouse....It was a fun chance for us to get to have some fun with some of our GREATEST friends!

Kory went to get klp ready for bed the other night and he came out like this. Halloween. Really?

"Raise your hand if you celebrate Halloween in January!"

This weekend is our anual MLK girls weekend with my gals from college. We are all headed to Paris to wear pj pants and talk SOOO much and maybe catch a cheap movie in town and then come right back and hang out and talk and laugh and laugh and laugh. CAN'T WAIT!