Will's birthday celebration!

Last month, our family celebrated Will's birthday at Mary Maestris. Our family has fond memories of having Sunday evening dinners with Grandmother and Grandad before he passed away shortly after Andrew was born. The restaurant closed down a few years ago but reopened in Springdale.

The food was just as great as we remembered it! We really missed not having Kimberly and the rest of the Wootens with us to celebrate her birthday as well.

Jim and his brother Will along with his friend Austin came up to Bella Vista to go golfing on Will's birthday. They had a great time! We invited Will, Alicia, Austin and Lindsey to stay for dinner. 

We all enjoyed Whole Hog Cafe and we even surprised Will with a birthday cake...

 Alicia carried the cake downstairs and we sang...

Happy Birthday Uncle Will! The boys loved it and I think Will did too! ;)

A great day for fishing...

Since joining cub scouts, Christian and I have had a few opportunities to go fishing.

I used to spend the summer months with my Grandma and Grandma going on trip to Lake Eufaula in their camper. They taught me to fish, clean them and even cook them in Grandma's homemade batter.

Going on these little fishing outings with Christian bring back those precious memories. 

A few weeks ago, a local church sponsored a free fishing day for kids at one of the Bella Vista lakes.

They had some local fisherman show their recent catches and give the kids lessons on boat safety. 

Then they demonstrated how to clean a fish...

 Christian's face in these pictures cracks me up. Cleaning a fish can be gross but he was really interested in seeing it!

Christian and his best friend Andrew spent the rest of the morning fishing, singing songs and relaxing together. The boys did not catch anything but they had a great time. Christian is SUCH a patient kiddo that he could sit for a long time and just fish. So this hobby is right up his alley. ;)

So blessed by these sweet moments with Christian!

Meeting the Morgans!

 A couple weeks ago, our family made a 24 hour trip down to Plano, Texas! Our cousins, The Morgans were visiting Dallas and we had yet to meet all of their kiddos. We were so excited to get to meet Sledge and Katherine's children along with visiting all the other family! It was a special weekend!

 We celebrated Pops's birthday at Kimberly's house that weekend too!

 Christian LOVES holding babies! But I think the idea of holding two at once made him a little nervous. ;) 

 Christian just wanted to hold Maggie and Alice the whole time! He even gave them their bottles!

This is the picture that captured it all! All the cousins together for the first time!

Our 12th Anniversary!

Jim and I celebrated our 12th wedding anniversary last month! September 23rd still tops the charts as one of the best days of my life! I am so blessed to be married to my best friend who has become the best dad to our sweet boys! 

We celebrated with a quiet and relaxing dinner at Basil's Cafe. Just the two of us. It was a nice treat.

We always get each other anniversary cards and a music CD for our anniversary dinner date gifts. 

This year, I got Jim the new Dave Matthews Band CD and Jim bought me the new Alanis Morissette CD. Yep, we still buy CDs and then download them to our iTunes. We are still "old fashioned" that way. ;) This year I was able to get all of our wedding pictures from our wedding photographer. I had to have the negatives changed over to digital format, but it was so worth it. It is nice to have all of our wedding pictures on a CD and be able to view, share and store them forever! 

To the best dozen years of my life! I love you Jim!

WPS!

 Or so I thought. ;) Our football season was not off to a very good start this year. 

We have not played well and our coach is not the best in the SEC, that's for sure.

But no matter what, our family will always be Hog fans!

We enjoyed the first game this season and took the boys to tailgate and go to the game.

 We arrived in "The Pit" just in time to see the coach and players walk into the stadium!

We took the boys to the Alumni House for the first time. The game was HOT but the boys had fun!

Jim and I also went to the Alabama game on our own while the boys played with Bopie. ;)

 Our cousin Rodney was cooking up great food for his tailgate at The Gardens. 

He even had a signature drink...A Bloody Mary with BBQ rub and a sausage and pork rind garnish. 

Nice.

It was a little rainy that day so I wore rain boots and had to put on our ponchos as we walked up to the stadium but we still enjoyed tailgating with our family!

The new TV at the stadium. Apparently the old one wasn't big enough??!! ;)

 Even though its been a rough season, we still LOVE OUR HOGS!