Arkansas State Parks...

.. aren't ya glad we got 'em?
We vacationed this weekend at Mt. Nebo (and yes, I call 1 night and 2 days a vacation:). We stayed in a super nice cabin with 2 bedrooms, well actually 3 if you count the closet Piper slept in;)... sorry Sissy. Honestly though the closet was so dark, she had no idea it was a closet:)
The drive up the mountain about did me in.. seriously!! I'm not sure what my issue is. I use to be a daredevil. I can't tell you how many cliffs I've jumped from, I've repelled mountains, gone sky-diving and went to Africa all by myself for goodness sake!! I think it was all the sand on the roads that made the drive up the mountain so scary! It was like I could just picture our car tipping over backwards while we were all suspended from the mountain.. long story short... we made it up the mountain fine, I just probably lost about 10 years of my life and caused Cameron to lose about five of his.
The weather was beautiful! When we arrived at the cabin, we took a walk on a trail. The boys were super excited about hiking on the mountain:). I brought a casserole that I popped in the oven so it was cooking while we were walking. We stayed up late watching movies and playing Monopoly (trying not to brag here BUT I have won the last 2 games of Monopoly over here).
We woke up this morning and had some yummy breakfast and hung out for a while on the mountain. We then drove to Lake Dardenelle and hung out. They have the coolest visitor's center. There are huge aquariums and exhibits that the boys really enjoyed. Tomorrow we plan to go hiking at Wooly Hollow. It's a cheap vacation (did I mention we filled up on gas for $1.25:) but we're having SO much fun:)!!

Fun at the PlAyGrOuNd...

On our trip, we were able to stop by a pretty cool playground. The boys had a blast. Sissy even got in on a little sliding action. Daddy made her raise her hands up, guaranteeing her it would be more fun with her hands up:)
I know most pics are of Parker but #1.. he's just so stinking cute and photogenic #2... Andrew doesn't enjoy getting pictures taken as much as little Parky- Park and the funky bunch.

Happy 8 months Sissy

Today is Piper Jane's 8 month birthday! She's doing a really good job at sitting up and that makes us all happy. Now when I'm holding her and I have to go to the bathroom, I can actually sit her down instead of finding some contraption to sit her in... life is much better now:)

She LOVES her mommy!!! If I'm anywhere around and not holding her or sitting by her, she's NOT happy... it's pretty tiring but extra sweet.

Her brothers love her dearly!! They're pretty good little babysitters when I have to leave the room for a second. Very protective.. I'm sure this is just a sign of things to come:)

We tried some new baby food this weekend that she was not fond of...

We love you Piper Jane and are really enjoying watching you grow!

Christmas Morning

Cameron and I stayed up until about 1:30 Christmas Eve. We had dinner with his family that night and didn't get home until late. After reading bedtime stories to the boys, we let them track Santa on the internet to see where he was. They had the best time with this!!! We also let the boys put the Santa key outside since we don't have a chimney. Santa left the boys a present and filled their stockings. He left Parker a new bike (thanks to Craigslist) and Andrew got a pair of skates (thanks to ebay:). They also received a glow station, some craft type things, the new Narnia and a Will the Mighty Warrior devo book. They had a great time!! Cam and I left their Santa presents unwrapped assuming they would come to our room before going into the living room... WRONG.. we were sure snoozing while they were checking out their Santa gifts:). I don't really have any pictures of Piper opening anything because she slept through the whole present opening. Piper got several things from her Grandma's and cousins but not really anything from us. Her brothers picked out a couple of things the other day with Grandmommy. We realized the boys might be sad if her stocking was empty so we put a half empty can of baby puffs in it. hehehe... Andrew opened it and was so excited Santa left something for Sissy. It was so cute!! Although I didn't take tons of pictures of Christmas because I was videoing most of the time. This picture of Sissy was taken with my iPhone at Grandmommy's house. She was wearing one of the bows from the present. She really likes her big bows:).
One of the things Santa left the boys was tic tacs. Uncle Bruce always has orange tic tacs, every Sunday. It was sooo funny. Parker had his tic tacs and bubble gum tucked between his pjs and belly and kept pulling them out saying, "you wanna tic tac?... I'm Uncle Bruce".

Park Weather

We've had a wonderful Christmas break so far. Cameron is off almost the entire 2 weeks that I'm off so that's been wonderful! The day after Christmas we decided to go to the park to let the boys ride their bikes. Parker got a new bike for Christmas:) He was super excited!! Parker is literally a breath of fresh air!! He is the MOST excitable person I've ever seen. His body gets physically overwhelmed with joy and he shakes all over! It's so funny. He was overjoyed with every toy. I still need to upload pics and video to post about our Christmas day, just haven't had time yet:).
Our mornings have been filled with sleeping in!!! Piper wakes up at 6:30ish and eats and then straight back to bed she goes until around 9:00. It's been fabulous. Parker is usually the only one up in the house. Andrew comes and snuggles mommy until I get up. Cam and I have gotten very spoiled on all this sleep:).
Here are some pics from the park taken with my iPhone, so they're a little fuzzy. As you can tell, Andrew never slowed down enough to get a good pic, he was just a blur the whole time we were there:).

This is what I've been waiting for...

she's sitting up SO well. Today she has probably sat on the ground, without falling, for a few hours. I've been waiting for her to sit so we could get some cute pictures of her:). The pictures turned out really good BUT she was a little cranky. It was right before bedtime. The last one is one of my favs because she's starting to get huffy puffy, as Parker would say:). She really is such a joy!!

They're so much fun...

We've had a wonderful morning! I told the boys we would have an award ceremony:) this morning and we also made some crafts out of some of Sissy's old Baby Puff treat containers. Both boys had the best time and Sissy had fun emptying one of the containers;). The boys LOVE craft time. Since our school is a green school, they're always making crafts out of "trash" so I'm trying to come up with new "trash" crafts we can make. We have a recycle box and I've been digging through it trying to come up with ideas. The boys are the KING recyclers. They love it. After we made our crafts they whispered to each other they wanted to clean the house for mommy:). They kept walking around picking up trash saying, "this goes in the trash can and THIS goes in the recycle box". They were also cracking me up when they were picking up the dirty clothes. I heard Andrew say, "no, Parker... you have to smell it to make sure it's dirty". He then took a big whiff of some of Sissy's pants and went "shooowey, yea, that's dirty".