Life with my sister

For the last 7 or 8 years we have been filling out NCAA basketball brackets at our house. We started this now tradition when the twins were 2 or 3. We would say the name of the teams playing, and they would say the team they thought sounded the best. It was the most fun. Samuel loves this time of year. He was born thinking about all things sports so he has always filled out his own bracket, and knows what he's doing! After everyone fills out their brackets we hang them on the wall with tape. March isn't our best decorating month! We check our brackets faithfully on the weekends and crossoff our teams that have lost but we thought would win. For the last couple of years we have entered our brackets online at cbssports.com and they keep track of our rankings. I don't know why we do that, it seems Samuel or Stephen win, David and I lose and Daniel and Anna come in in the middle. Last night we were giving Anna the teams to pick from and she would pick based on whether she had b...

S Family Christmas comes every year and every year it is great fun. We head to Daddy's house in Mississippi for a fun-filled day of family, gifts and food. And almost every year Daddy is supporting and sporting a new team's pullover....just kidding. He went from Arkansas to Ole Miss and now back to Memphis. I love it. He looks good in Tiger blue. S Family matriarchs , Babs and Bob. Meemaw and Peepaw did well. From Babs and Bob you have the beautiful brunette S girls. We are quite the trio. Jules and I love our cousin Hollye to pieces. She is like a sister to us. Coming from a small family, we bonded well growing up even though we lived a state away from one another. From the 3 of us you have this handsome group! Thanks to Jules for doing most of the work :) The S family produces such pretty girls. Meemaw would love pampering these two just like she did us. Claire and Anna are " our pretty girls". Meemaw used to say "my pretty girl" all the time. I love...

We spent our third Christmas at home this year. As I have posted before, we decided we would always try to have Henry in his home for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. I was always at home growing up and Randall wasn't. He said it was not enjoyable and wanted to ensure that Henry have the experience I had and the one he always wanted. I think Randall loves it more than anyone. He is finally getting to have the Christmases he always wanted. It makes my heart happy. We do love the calmness of it and the fun of getting to make our own traditions. One of those traditions is having my mother-in-love in my kitchen with me on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Randall's parents come to stay with us on Christmas Eve and wake up with us on Christmas Morning. I love having Molly help me prepare our dishes and she always praises what I serve. I love some praise and some help in the kitchen...who doesn't?! I am working on finding the recipes we like a lot and want to serve each year. ...

Santa came and came big. Before he came we had to soak up the real meaning of Christmas. We went to church on Christmas Eve and Nana and Papa came in time to go with us. We got to sing and light glow sticks...Henry loved it! He got to go in the service with us and he did great. Christmas at our new church was such a treat this year. I reflected on things I had never really thought of. I love taking away new little nuggets of truth. I always enjoy a Christmas Eve service. It puts the rest of the night and the next day into perspective. Keeping with our Christmas tradition, we wore matching pajamas for the third year in a row. We wore Sesame Street themed pajamas this year. It was fun times. We love doing Christmas at home now that we have Henry. It is so peaceful and fun. We stayed in our pajamas all of Christmas Day. Nothing like a day in the pajamas. Those are rare for us these days. It was bliss. Christmas with a 2 year old is fun and exhausting. Capturing him on camera is difficul...

Christmas with Mama and Julie is always a huge highlight at Christmas. We do it a little early now that we have Henry and choose to be home on Christmas. Mama and Julie's family still do their exchange to each other on Christmas Day, but the ones to us and from us are ripped opened and enjoyed while we are in town. As you can see in the background of this photo...Randall is almost elbow deep in his Jelly Belly's. He was making all sorts of "recipes" with them and refused to share the good ones with us. My pretty girl with her new red sweater dress. She loved it and wore it to church on Christmas Day with her knee boots. Mama said that Anna is me made over but looks just like her mother. Nothing brings me more pleasure than to know my sister is raising me! Hee Hee . She is a leader and not a follower. She is a wealth of knowledge and shares every bit of it with you! She also has great common sense and sense of style for a 7 year old. She is a lot like me and that is n...

Christmas means getting in the truck and traveling to see family who live afar. Sharing the season with them is what makes this special season so special. Here is a snapshot of what our travels looked like Christmas weekend. Mama's couch is always a soft place with her girls and their babies on top of it. She loves having us all there with her. It is one of my favorite times. We have been blessed to do it a few times this year. Having the kids all together at Mama's makes memories that will last them a lifetime. Julie's kids are at the age where each time together is marked in their memory bank. I cherish these sweet times so much. I love any excuse to spend time with my sister. Being at Mama's makes that time extra special. We love to laugh at the same things and we have the same outlook on life for the most part. I love sharing history with her. We know each other better than anyone. Doing life with her is the best. We sometimes look nothing alike but I think in this ...

We went to Zoo Lights in Memphis the other night after work. We decided at lunch that day that it was a good night to take Henry, so off we went. We love Memphis. It is where we fell in love. We tried to tell Henry about it as we drove over the "new" bridge on the way to the zoo. It was dark so the bridge and all of downtown was aglow. Henry looked out of his window, smiled, waved and said "Hi Mepis" and quickly turned back to his "Beggie Bales" video. Randall and I went to Zoo Lights in our previous life....before H and before we moved to Arkansas. We always build it up to be bigger than it is and every year we go to it we find ourselves saying "is this it?!". That is how traditions are though I think. Last year Henry was not having any of it. In fact, we took a photo at this same spot last year and it was the beginning of a major melt down. We were so proud of him this time. He did not cry all night. He is such a big boy! He wanted to run and ...