Our first Christmas at home

Before Madelyn was born, we decided to give each of the new grandparents one Christmas with their first grandchild and then we would start celebrating Christmas at our house. It is time that we start our own traditions and don't put so much pressure on ourselves to go somewhere. Traveling is such a pain with little children! So, Madelyn's first Christmas was spent with the Cobb grandparents and her second Christmas was spent with the Rhodes grandparents and they were both great! However, this year was our first year that we spent at home. It was a good first year, but we have some room for improvement! Ben came down with the flu on Christmas Eve and after getting up and opening presents with the rest of us, he spent most of Christmas day in bed - poor Ben! So we postponed Christmas dinner for the day after Christmas so that Ben could enjoy it with us. While Ben was in bed, Madelyn, Greyson and I had blast playing with toys and cooing. It was too bad that Ben had to miss out on it. Greyson didn't get much because he has pretty much everything he needs for the next year plus some. He did get a few new toys, a couple of outfits, a embroidered blanket with his birth stats, a quilt and an Easter outfit. The Easter outfit is so cute! It has a little buttonup shirt with a sweater vest and tie. He will be the handsome-est baby in the nursery! Madelyn really made out this year though! She got a Magna-doodle (Ben's favorite gift of hers!), a baby stroller and a new baby, some block toys, playdough, puppets, a little rocking chair (it was Ben's when he was little), a huge rolling backpack FULL of dress-up outfits (see pics), a quilt, and a sled. I know there was more but I just can't remember it all right now. She also got money from Ga-Ga to buy a tricycle in the spring. So many presents! Now, we have so many thank-yous to send! They will get out this year, I promise. They may not be very timely, but they will be sent!

Even though dinner was a day late, it ended up being awesome! I think that we made the best turkey that I've ever had! Moist and juicy! We didn't want to overdo dinner; we kept it pretty easy - turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, and sliced pineapple. It was wonderful! We made a 12 lb. turkey; there was so much left that I took half our leftovers to a neighbor after we were done!

We also went sledding with Madelyn the day after Christmas. We have a really nice sledding hill about a half mile from our house, so we bundled ourselves and the kids up and walked down there. Madelyn had a blast! We thought that she wasn't going to want to go down by herself at first so I was all ready to take the first trip with her and she refused to get on the sled! She was saying, "Madelyn's sled!! Get off, Mommy!" So I sent her down herself and she laughed out loud all the way down! It was so fun! She took about six trips down before she lost her grip on the sled once and it scared her, so she took a break and then asked to go down again. She took another few trips and didn't want to stop to head home. Just another thing to prove how much of a daredevil we have on our hands!

I got a wonderful Christmas gift this year - a lot of time with Ben! He is off from school and because he was sick, he decided to lay low this week, so he stayed home from work almost all week! It was so nice to have time to spend with him talking and laughing. It seems that lately we spend so much of our attention on the kids or just trying to be quiet after they go to bed. But this week I was able to have a little fun with just my husband and it was wonderful!

The Rhodes Thanksgiving - continued

Here are some more pictures from our Thanksgiving trip. ENJOY!


It was really fun to see Stacy. She is one of Ben's great friends from college. They met at the Baptist Student Union there. Here she is with Ben holding Greyson. She and I both owned up to being in crabby moods as soon as we arrived at Ray's PeGe to visit over ice cream. Hers was due to having to be on-call for the holiday weekend and mine was due to the last 3 (almost sleepless) nights. But ice cream must make everything better because as we ate it, we actually laughed some and had a good visit. Ben's eyes are a little wierd in this picture because the dork blinked as I was taking the picture. Oh well....

This is one of my favorite pictures of the trip. The women in the picture is Ben's sister, Christina. She and Madelyn get along great. Christina loves to play with her. Madelyn is trying to tickle her with a long piece of grass in this picture (and I guess she is succeeding). The background is Ben's Grandfather Thurlkill's land (on his mother's side). They call this "the back 40" because it is a 40-acre piece of land that is connect to the rest of Grandfather Thurlkill's land by a skinny dirty road. Ben seems to loves this land! So the family decided to walk it while we were there. Behind Christina and Madelyn you can see the pond that we stopped at.
Here is a picture of Ben and I (and a bundled up Greyson). This is also out on "the back 40". Nothing more...
A picture of four generations on the Thurlkill side - Grandfather Thurlkill, Momma Susan, Ben, and our kids. The picture was taken in Grandfather Thurlkill's gas station/store. We got there in time to have breakfast and he fed us some the best brekfast biscuits I have ever had!
And to round out our trip, we stayed at Christina and Brandon's house in Dallas before flying out of Dallas the next day. Also meet their dog Cooper. Madelyn and Cooper were good long-distance friends. Madelyn loved Cooper as long as he couldn't get to her, which made Cooper sad because he wanted to play with her! It was great spending time with Christina and Brandon and seeing their house for the first time. They house is beautiful! Also, staying at their house was a great relief after 4 relatively sleepless nights. We had a sleeping setup at their house that separated us into two bedrooms that worked really well, therefore we got a pretty good night's sleep - finally!

Well, that's all for now, folks!

The Rhodes Thanksgiving

This Rhodes Family really had a wonderful Thanksgiving! It was an adventure though! Several months ago, Ben and I decided that we would take our family down to Louisiana to the extended Rhodes Family Thanksgiving. This is where Ben's Grandparents Rhodes and their children's families get together every year to celebrate Thanksgiving. We aren't able to make it every year, but we try to make it every other year. This year was the year we were supposed to go and we figured that traveling with a 2-yr-old and a newborn would be do-able, so we bought tickets way back in the summer time. Well, we weren't too far off. The kids really did great during the trip and it was REALLY great to let the extended family see them (and meet Greyson for the first time). There were some sleepless nights due to some less than ideal sleeping arrangements, but all in all it was a good trip. Of course, there was Sonic which always makes a trip to the south worth it! Here are some pictures of our trip:

Here's a pic of Madelyn by the fountain in the middle of the quad at Louisiana Tech (Ben's and my alma mater). We visited Ruston and Tech when we arrived to the area. It was a perfect day! Warm and beautiful!

Here is the "cool kids" table at the Rhodes Thanksgiving. They have already accepted Madelyn to sit with them (haha). Here is Grandmother Rhodes holding Greyson. I know that he looks slightly concerned but Grandmother really was very good with him. He loosened up and did a lot of cooing and smiling for her too.(I have more pictures but can't seem to get them to show up on this post coreectly so I will put up another post with them.)

Now, since we were celebrating Thanksgiving, I guess I will tell you what I'm thankful for. There is SO MUCH to be thankful for right now! Too many to name everything but I want to name a few specifically -

• My family! With our new addition this year, Ben and I have a ton to be thankful for.... starting with a healthy baby boy who is a dream second child and a little girl who keeps us on our toes!
• Extended family. We have had an awesome time over the last six weeks seeing and spending time with our extended families. It has just been awesome to show off our children!
• Friends. Ben and I have been so blessed with wonderful friends. They really are our family when "real" family can't be there.