Hadlock Christmas Party in OKC

On the Saturday after New Year's Day, we headed over to OKC for the Hadlock Christmas party.  We usually don't make it every year because it doesn't always fall during the time we are visiting in OK, but luckily this year we did!  It was really great to see everyone and also great that the boys had a chance to meet everyone on Nana's side of the family.  There was also some really yummy food and some good OSU football going on.  We also got the chance to get a good Thompson family picture that we weren't able to get while everyone was visiting in Muskogee....

I was so nervous about E holding little Natalie, thinking he might get tired of holding her and just let go of her, but he did great!  I think he had seen Drew holding her a couple of times before so I guess he thought he needed his big cousin time with Natalie too!

Luckily, Cooper didn't want to copy his big brother this time....he was content just getting in the picture!

Since we were in OKC, we decided to spend the night with John & Leigh so we could get in a little more visiting time. Evan was thrilled to be able to go over and play at "Drew's house", since we missed visiting them at their house last year. It was so cold that they didn't much time outside, but after seeing Drew and Max's wooden playgym, they just had to try it out for a bit.  I missed getting any photos, but I heard there was alot of snow in the shoes and Cooper not wanting to wear his hat, so it ended rather quickly!  Maybe next time...as Evan always says!  The boys had a great time playing together...Drew and Evan running around...Cooper trying like crazy to keep up with the big boys....and Max trying his hardest to keep up with Cooper in his walker!  The older boys even got to stay up really late and then Drew was nice enough to give up his big bed (and sleep in his mommy and daddy's room) so Evan could sleep in it!  Thanks Drew...and John & Leigh!

We had a great time visiting - Jeff, Jenn and Natalie even stopped by so we got a little more Natalie time....and Jeff & Jenn time too!  Being on the newborn schedule, they could only stay for a while since she had to get home to eat and then off to bed for the night!  The rest of us finished the evening watching Tech win their bowl game...or I guess maybe I was the only one who actually stayed up until midnight to watch the finish! Awesome game, by the way...GET YOUR GUNS UP!   The next morning after breakfast, we headed back to Muskogee to spend some more quality time with Nana & Pop.  But we first stopped off at Best Buy to get my birthday present, a new Nikon DSLR...happy birthday to me!!  We actually bought it in OKC, but they didn't have it in stock, so we had to stop by a Best Buy in Tulsa to pick it up.  I'm so excited, I can hardly wait to start using it!

Pizza for dinner...yum!!

Cooper trying out Max's exersaucer

Uncle A and baby Natalie

Uncle John and "Scoop"...as Aunt Leigh likes to call him!

Me and my darling nephews Max (14 months) and Drew (5)

Wish my boys could pose for pictures with me like this...everyone looking at the camera WITH smiles!!

Brooke visits us in Oklahoma

So my dear, sweet cousin (who is much like a sister to me) from Dallas came to visit us while we were staying with Nana and Pop in Muskogee.  Because she is now living in Dallas and working full-time (go Brooke!), it made it much easier for her to make th 3 1/2 hour drive to Oklahoma instead of trying to figure out a time to make the 9+ hour drive to Laredo (which in all reality probably would not have happened)!  So we were very thankful that Nana & Pop were sweet enough to share their time with us, with her!  She was only in for the day, New Year's Day, and then headed out again the next morning.  She was actually headed back to Dallas to pick up her boyfriend and then they headed onto San Antonio to catch Texas Tech in their bowl game, which she didn't even have tickets for (but luckily managed to get some when they got there!).  All this after going out for New Year's eve the night before....oh what it is to be young...I can hardly remember when I had that much energy to do ALL that in just one weekend!

Anyhow, we had a great visit and loved seeing her.  When she arrived, the boys were napping and she could hardly wait for them to wake up so she could play with them.  Well, an hour after we had her outside playing (it was one of the 1st days in about 5 where the sun actually came out and warmed it up enough to get some outside time), I think she could hardly wait for them to go back to bed.  I think they gave her a pretty good workout!  Amazily, they both warmed up to her really quickly so they BOTH had her running around with them.  Later in the evening, Evan had her running around the house playing one of his latest favorites - duck, duck, goose!  And for bathtime, he even asked if she would bath him.  I think it went something like "Brooke, will YOU give me a bath tonight?  Nana has a really nice bathtub....c'mon let me show you!"

"I'll be riding my own tricycle in no time, Mom"

This was after our race back into the house.  We asked who was the winner and Evan said he was! We then asked who was the loser and this was Cooper's response!

Silly faces!

Crazy faces!!

Some smiles...

And an almost perfect family picture...if E wouldn't have had such a silly expression (probably in the middle of talking!)

Goodbye hugs and kisses!!

Thanks little Brooke for making the trip out to see us, it meant so very much to us!  We love you and can't wait to see you again!  Keep up the good work - we are very proud of you!! But stay away from the tatoo parlors......please!!! :-)

Snowy Oklahoma

Well we finally got it....a white Christmas...and the boys got their first real look at some snow!  We arrived in Tulsa on the day after Christmas and 2 days after the snow storm had hit! Luckily, the worst of it had passed so it didn't cause any plane delays and we had a fairly smooth drive onto Muskogee - Nana proved she had driven a time or two in snow before! It left about 7 inches in Muskogee, so plenty for us to play in and have a great time building snow men!  When we arrived in Muskogee, we were so happy to see that Andrew's little brother, his wife, and our very precious new niece had driven up a day earlier to spend some extra time with us.  Unfortunately my sweet little Cooper was a bit jealous so I didn't get to hold little Natalie as much as I would have liked.  She is such a darling baby..... and such a quiet baby, if we didn't know it, you would have never known a month old baby was even in the house at times!!  Why was it that my boys always had to make sure everyone in the house AND the neighbors knew they were there?!?!?

The next day, Andrew's older brother, his wife and our 2 adorable nephews arrived....and then the party began!  8 adults and 5 kids under the age of 6....that makes for a very chaotic...and loud household!  I think Nana & Pop loved every minute of it though! Having everyone in the house at once was pretty exciting though (coming from the only child!) and the boys had the best time with their uncles, aunts and cousins!!  So once the whole gang was there, guess what we did.....yep, got bundled up and headed out into the snow so Drew could show the boys what playing in the snow was all about...of course, only after Uncle John showed them what poker was all about...

I should have gotten another pic of the brothers and Pop playing later that evening, it would have made for a great comparison picture!

And the first feel of what snow is like!  They couldn't even wait to get bundled up before trying it out!

More stuck to his glove than what he actually threw, but he loved making the "uhhh" sound as he tried throwing with all his might!

And there you have it....all the Thompson boys - with Pop and Max in the background staying inside and keeping warm!  Oh poor little Natalie, she is so outnumbered!

Later that evening, we had our Thompson Christmas day.  And this is what it looks like when we decide to only make it Christmas gifts for the kiddos!! It's a good thing John & Leigh and Andrew & I aren't adding anymore to the number of grandchildren or else Nana & Pop would have to start expanding their home to fit us all in at once!  They boys got so many wonderful gifts...I know it was a total pain looking for things that we could actually bring back with us due to luggage constraints...so thanks everyone - we loved EVERYTHING!!

Coop trying out Max's new Christmas gift!

Drew and Evan playing with some of their fun Christmas presents!

Uh-oh....who knew plastic tools could actually cause real damage!  Sorry Nana that we chipped away at some of your paint with the toy saw!

Somehow I think this threesome is going to spell T-R-O-U-B-L-E in a few years!

Our new niece Natalie....who looks exactly like her Daddy!

Sweet Max, who is only 6 months younger than Cooper

Daddy went out and built a snowman on the deck while the boys were still napping! Coop was the first one awake and so excited to see Daddy's masterpiece!

And of course boys will be boys....enough said!

Another day of fun in the sun and snow! 

Mommy, what is this carrot doing on our snowmen!?!  Once again....boys will be boys!

And this one ends just like it looks like it would....with an unhappy Cooper after E gets snow in his jacket and down his back!

Can't get enough of throwing snow! Trying to get Daddy and Uncle John and Uncle Woody back! Prior to this picture was a fun game for the guys where they would line up Evan and Drew, count to 3 and have them run and try to pelt them with a snowball!  Drew and E thought it was the best thing ever and had the most fun doing it!  Surprisingly, it only ended badly once when Drew got one in the face by his Daddy!

Coop's new Christmas present...again they learned how to share it!!

All the Thompson grandkids - Natalie, Drew, Max, Cooper and Evan!

We had the best time with everyone and are so happy we were able to spend a few days together during our visit!  The boys had the absolute best time with their cousins and we can't wait to move back to the states so we can get them together more often.  Little Natalie was a complete angel and we can't wait to see how big she will be the next time we see her in person!

Sunny Texas & Family Visits

So rather than go into the details of what the next 8 days consisted of (fun, fun and more fun with BeBe and Boss), I'll just let the many pictures I've included tell the story!  I will say that we were so happy that we got to see at least some of our family while we were in Texas.  My cousin Amy, her daughter Victoria and my cousin Andrea and my grandmother, Honey (along with her little yorkie, Jake) made the trip to Laredo and we had the best visit.  We spent a couple of days just hanging out, doing some thrifty downtown Laredo market shopping, some mall shopping and just visiting!  Evan and Cooper loved Jake and loved taking him for walks through the house with his leash....they even did a great job of taking turns.  Evan instantly became best friends with Victoria and wanted to hang out with her the entire time, while Cooper seemed to favor Andrea.  He was pretty shy around all of them at first, but very quickly warmed up to everyone, but especially Andrea.   So thanks guys for making the trip, we had a great, great visit and the boys loved getting to know some more of their family members!!  Can't wait to see you all again soon!   

Honey and Cooper

BeBe (her bloodshot eye...nothing serious, but it sure did look like it hurt!) and Cooper

Amy and Cooper

Andrea and Cooper

I, of course, had no luck in getting to E to take any pictures with everyone! 

Still trying to get Evan in a picture with the rest of us....

Of course, he had no problem stopping to pause for a picture while Victoria was holding him!

One of Cooper's favorite Christmas presents...a little Hoover vacuum that lit up and made sounds!  He pulled this thing around EVERYWHERE!!

It was so nice on a couple of days that the boys were actually able to wear shorts out!

Coop loved sitting and listening to BeBe's Christmas bells that were motion sensored.

They ABSOLUTELY LOVED the new playhouse.  I don't think Daddy or Boss liked the idea of the boys playing house, but I have no problem with my boys liking the idea of grocery shopping or cooking...who doesn't love a man that likes to shop and cook.  I'm sure their wives will one day thank me!!

Climbing in and out of the windows was also fun to do!

So the story here.....Coop got sick while we were in Laredo -just cold type symptoms, but ended up developing a pretty bad diaper rash, so since it was rather warm out, I just let him run around without a diaper for awhile to help it heal a bit quicker.  I think he really thought it was pretty fun to go bare-bottomed...

it also made it very easy to watch himself pee whenever he needed to go....

And of course, if one does something, the other has to do exactly the same!!  Evan actually got his jeans wet while watering the plants, but I think it might have been on purpose just so he could take his pants off too!

Now time to jam out....it so much more fun when you don't have any pants on!!

Making some snickerdoodles with Boss for Santa!  They tried the cookie cutters, but the figures kept getting distorted, so they just gave up and made plain ol' cookies....which by the way, tasted pretty delicious!!

The  perfectly round ones towards the top left were my creation (of course), E's were those that look more like sausages (long and skinny), Coop contributed a couple of the tiny ones at the bottome and Boss' were the big flat ones at the bottom!

Looking like an eskimo with BeBe...with a cup of akorns!  While returning from their daily trips to the park in their wagon, Boss would stop at the church and let the boys collect akorns so they could throw them out during the rest of the trip back to the house!  How much fun can that be you ask?!?!  Well, apparently tons of fun because the one time I took them to the park, we just HAD to stop..."just like Boss does cause it's fun, fun, fun!!"

The roller slide was one of Cooper's favorites

Took the cars to the park so they had a huge area to just go wherever they wanted and we didn't have to worry about any traffic!  The most fun was trying to run Boss over.  Evan can really navigate on his own now so he would chase us down...Cooper on the other hand, had no problem pushing the foot peddle and changing directions from forward to backward, but steering was still a problem.  He would just sit back and go wherever the car would take him.  Soo..we would put the wheel in a positon that would turn him in a circle....and he would just go and go and go...in a circle the entire time.  He could have cared less as long as he was always moving!!

It had been awhile since we got a picture of the 2 of us, so we took advantage of having mom around to get one of us together!

Boss says....why am I the only one sliding down this thing?!?

Saying bye-bye!  It was another sad good-bye, but we are still hoping that it won't be too long before we see everyone again!  Thanks BeBe and Boss for EVERYTHING!!  We had the best Christmas and so much fun playing and getting away with whatever we wanted!  Love you lots, Evan and Cooper!