Letter to Santa...

Winter Dreams Tour of Homes 2010

I have a tradition of going on the Junior League Winter Dreams Tour of Homes with my wonderful mother-in-law, Ann. We always have breakfast at Uncle Gaylord's then go on the tour all day. The past few years, we have had some of our friends join us as well! It is becoming such a fun activity to get in the Christmas spirit! This year we decided to do "ugly" Christmas sweaters! We saw a couple groups of people doing it last year and thought that might be fun to try! This year Susan, Dara, Ann and Nancy joined me!
Thanks ladies for such a fun day! Can't wait to do it again next year!

ARVEST1 Christmas party 2010!

Saturday night, I hosted the ARVEST1 Christmas party! It was so much fun! Yummy food, white elephant gift exchange and we all got a workout playing Dance Central!

Kathy and Charles

Rachel and Jamie

Candace and Trent

Jim enjoying the great food!

Trent and Ty thinking something is funny...

Let the gift exchange begin! Charles opens the first gift...adult size footed pajamas!

Trent tried them on but they were too small but he did not mind showing off the "easy access" bottom flap! haha!

One of the best gifts...Rachel brought a framed picture of Jamie dressed as a girl when he was in the 7th grade....

and Jamie's old basketball picture. Or is that Michael Jordan??? I can't seem to tell the difference. ;)

Guess who ended up with the footed jammies???

The best part...the doggie feet!

We played with the new Kinect games for XBox360...Adventures and Dance Central. It was so fun and we laughed until we cried!!! Can't wait to do it again next year!!!

Deck the Halls!

As soon as I felt better after being sick, I was busy, busy, BUSY this weekend decorating for Christmas! Check it out!!

Christian was so excited to help this year!

Our mantle

The side table in my dining room

I continued the greenery up my light fixture in the dining room. A new touch of Christmas decor this year.

My dining room table Nativity as my centerpiece

A nativity I place on top of my fridge. ;) It lights up at night!

I made this wreath for the wall in the boys bathroom. Just a prelit wreath and a wooden sign from Hobby Lobby. Less than $10!

Christian's Razorback tree! (He wanted to display his Charlie Brown Christmas CD as decor under the tree).

Andrew's tree in his room

and his little nativity he can play with too!

My beautiful Willow Tree nativity set

Another new touch of decor this year! I made this wreath snowman out of three different size wreaths and put a scarf around his neck! A super cute touch on the door to the garage!
(I saw it on the Junior League Tour of Homes last year)

Our Christmas tree! I added some gold mesh around the tree (hard to see in pic) and glittery flair at the top coming out of the plaid bow. It is a smaller tree than we have had in the past, but it gives us more room for Andrew to run around in the downstairs living room.

Hope all of you are enjoying decorating for Christmas! Don't forget the egg nog! ;)

Thankful!

I can't begin to tell you about how hard the past few weeks have been here at the Hopkins Household. Christian got a stomach bug, then bronchitis. Andrew got the stomach bug...and next...bronchitis. Jim and I felt worn out and fought off sore throats for a several days. But this weekend, I went to the doctor feeling AWFUL with high fever and sore throat. Diagnosis: strep throat. After a different meds and another trip to the dr. that included a painful shot in the arse, I am FINALLY on the mend! :)

However, my illness along with the fact that it began freezing rain in Bella Vista this morning, kept us from being with family in Van Buren for Thanksgiving today. We were sad and heartbroken to not be with all of them, but thankful to be safe at home. And lucky enough that I already had a turkey and all the fixings from Harps. ;)

AND....as I work on this blog post, I just discovered that my memory card had a "fatal" error and I just lost ALL pictures from our little Thanksgiving at home today. (HOLDING BACK TEARS!) No pics of my turkey, the icy trees, snow covered deck and driveway (yes, we had a white Thanksgiving) and REALLY sad no pics of Jim and the boys on the couch watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. (This memory card also had all my Mom's Ministry retreat pics from Branson and my trip to Tulsa with Hope to see Wicked). Yep, gone.

Well, all I can say is I am thankful to have been able to be with the ones I love the most---my husband and my sweet boys! We made memories with watching the parade and had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. Even if I don't have pictures. It's about the memories.

But I do have one picture I took with my phone...

Happy Thanksgiving!!! From our "turkey" to yours!!!

Sickness...

I know it has been over a week since my last update! When we returned from Texas, Christian had the stomach bug then bronchitis. Now, this week, Andrew is battling the same thing. Needless to say, my hands have been busy taking care of my boys! I hope to get some updates to the blog in a few days!

Robert's Baptism

This past weekend, we drove to Plano, TX for Robert's baptism!
Kimberly and Wrenn hosted a reception Saturday night at their home, then the service was Sunday morning.

Wrenn with his parents


My boys looking cute before church

Wrenn, Kimberly and Robert


A picture of all the family that came to town for Robert's baptism!