The most wonderful time of the year...

The entire Sikes-Edwards family had a fabulous Christmas this year! It's amazing how one season spent in not-so-ideal circumstances can change one's entire perspective on the hustle and bustle of Christmas. I was fortunate enough to get to spend lots of time before and after Christmas with my parents and sisters, and it was a common occurrence for one of us to be reminding another where we were this time last year to put the holiday stress in perspective!

Our Christmas week began with my birthday celebration in Memphis. The adult boys joined us for dinner, but Edie, Nanie, Sis-sis, and I took the kids on a trolley ride through downtown to The Peabody to see the decorations and ducks.













In between this trip to Memphis and Christmas was lots of playing (mostly in pajamas), lots of cookie-making, and several Christmas visits with friends!

On Christmas Eve, we celebrated at Nan's house with Nan and Uncle Rob. We went to our Candlelight service at church (which was dramatic with a communion juice spill and wax burn by Reese Ann- Praise the Lord for the nursery on Sunday mornings!), opened presents, ate lots of food, and just enjoyed being together!


the kids in front of Nan's tree


RA loving her new cat that she named "Meow"

After lots of Christmas fun, we headed back home to read the Christmas story from the book of Luke and put out cookies and milk for Santa.




Santa came to visit the Sikes house bringing each child three gifts like the wisemen brought Jesus three gifts.


heading down the stairs to check out what Santa brought!

The whole family came over for breakfast and to see what Santa brought the little ones! We are so blessed to have everyone in the same town especially at the holidays!


Uncle Rob being his usual super-uncle self!




Santa left Daddy lots of work to do with Cooper's Star Wars Legos, but thankfully he had his new workbench to make it easier!


I was determined to get this picture, but it literally took almost our entire family to get them to both look somewhat pleasant!


RA checking out her new bike!


and totally enjoying some Christmas morning Oreos!


Edwards family picture before heading over to Edie and G-Chip's house for the rest of Christmas day


no 4-wheelers for Christmas this year, but the boys did have fun playing on Uncle Eric's while the girls cooked and RA napped


both of the kids loving Cooper's cardboard pirate ship


the duck hunting game was the hit of the day!


baby alive provided lots of entertainment, too!

We are so thankful for family and good health this Christmas! After a quick trip this week back to Methodist hospital with Ashlie (for very routine tests), we were reminded even more of how blessed we truly are in so many ways. Happy New Year!

Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!
-2 Corinthians 9:15

Ducks!

I will post Christmas pictures and an update soon, but here is a look at the post-Christmas fun had by the Sikes boys plus Uncle Eric!


Uncle Eric has a place he hunts in Arkansas, and he was gracious enough to take Dan and Cooper with him and let us all bunk at the Carruth house in Harbor town in Memphis. Cooper had his first hunting BB gun experience, and they all had a blast even though there were not many ducks to be found!


Dan said this is what Cooper looked like the entire afternoon! Happy boy!

Holiday Season so far...

The holiday season is in full-gear here! We had a wonderful Thanksgiving- despite the stomach bug that hit on that Friday! This year especially, we are so thankful to have normal holidays and that sister Ashlie is healthy after an entire holiday season spent in the hospital last year.

We began the celebrations at the USJ holiday mart where the kids got to meet some characters and have an ornament signed by them.




Reese Ann with Minnie Mouse- one of her favorites!


Thanksgiving smiles


and with Granny!


making turkey cookies with Edie


RA having fun in Uncle Eric's boots!


Cooper had a "Friendship Feast" at school- his class of little indians!


he had a few honorary guests, too!



Now onto Christmas- we decorated the weekend after Thanksgiving. I usually do not begin so early, but I wanted to have plenty of time to get inspired to decorate our new house and still enjoy the decorations for a month or so. It worked out perfectly because we were sickly and had to be at home anyway!


helping to hang some ornaments


Jack, our elf, returned for the Christmas season with breakfast, a note, and an ornament for the kids!






Loving chilling out in Christmas jammies!

The Christmas festivities began with a trip to Nashville to see Sis-sis for her birthday. We were able to go see Santa- I'll post that picture later. Reese Ann and Cooper both had their school Christmas celebrations on Thursday. RA's program at First Pres was precious! She is the youngest in the school this year, so I was not sure how she would do in front of all of the people singing, but she was a natural! She had fun with her friends, sang along to the songs, loved seeing us all in the crowd, and overall had a great time!






all four of us after the program


with RA's cheering section!



and finally, on this never-ending catch-up post, Cooper had fun decorating a tree & having a book exchange at his school party.





Will post more from the week of Christmas activities very soon!

Halloween & Happy 5th!

Ok, I'm a little bit behind, and I'm going to combine the Halloween update with the report on Cooper's birthday because they were so intertwined over several days! It all started with Coop's birthday party at Edie & G-Chip's house the Saturday before Halloween. He had a costume party complete with a hayride and some other fall/halloween themed activities. For five-year-old boys, it was a fun party complete with lots of running around in the woods with light-sabers! Here are some pictures to illustrate:











You can see that Star Wars was a common theme for our costume party, and this picture captures it all- Dan as Darth Vader, Cooper as Anakin Skywalker, and Uncle Rob as Obi Wan Kenobi!



Halloween was a few days later, and we ate dinner and trick-or-treated with our friends the Davenports at their house. Our new neighborhood is not the most developed neighborhood yet, so we loved being with some friends in a hot-spot for trick-or-treating!


The little girls trick-or-treated at every third or fourth house and spent the rest of the time riding in the wagon enjoying the sights!




the big kids had a blast going from house to house!

We had a visit with Nan and with Edie & G-Chip on the trick-or-treating route! Edie was really funny and kind of scary as a witch!



and Nan's house was full of treats and we actually got a family picture!



The next day was Cooper's birthday, and the celebration began with donuts at his school with friends!


Miss Cindy reading the birthday story


Cooper soaking up the birthday love!


Reese Ann taking it all in!


Cooper showing his age!


and finally, our celebration with grandparents the night of Cooper's birthday with his favorite present! Lots and lots of Legos this birthday (especially his favorite-Star Wars)!


and blowing out his candle on his birthday ice cream sundae!

Cooper totally fits the definition of a five-year-old boy. He is into guns and shooting anything that will remotely stand still (including his poor little sister who lately has been shooting him back)! He is the outspoken kid who his teachers absolutely love (but probably get a little bit sick of, too). Cooper's current obsession is Star Wars, and he loves any friend who will play it with him- usually Sam at school and Ryan at church.

Cooper is still a bit of a charmer with the ladies- including his mama. He weighs in at 41 lbs and is 43 inches tall. He is also an open book- I call the time after he gets into the car from school "the confessional." He tells on himself and his every move. We can only hope he will be this honest as he grows up!

We are so thankful for Cooper and his fun, feisty little personality! He is such a loving brother to Reese Ann and a wonderful son. We are so excited to see what this next year has in store for him! We can't believe he is five!