WHO DAT! WHO DAT!! WHO DAT!!!

Wow, what a nail biter!!! The Saints are going to the Super Bowl!!! They won in OT with a field goal...31-28!!!! :)

This interception was the turning point that sent the game into over time!

The kicker, Hartley, said that he couldn't sleep last night and called his dad at 2:15am and told his dad that he felt like he was going to win the game with a 42 yd field goal!! He was just 2 yards off...he kicked a beautiful 40 yd field goal!!!

It is incredible the excitement of the people here in New Orleans!!! Someone around here was doing fireworks to celebrate!!! The French Quarter is packed with people...Bourbon Street is jammed packed with people celebrating the win!!!

IT IS PARTY TIME!!!

WHO DAT! WHO DAT!! WHO DAT SAYS THEY'RE GONNA BEAT DEM SAINTS!!!

Make it Hot! Make it HOT!! MAKE IT HOT!!!

January 2010 sure has been exciting so far!!! What a first week we had! :)

Thomas is a SUNBEAM now!!! :) He wasn't quite sure that he wanted to go to Primary. But by the end of the day, he decided it was FUN! It is a little weird to think that we won't have anyone in Nursery anymore.

Edd and I got talking the other day about how this will be the decade we move having little kids to having BIG KIDS!!!

In ten years from now, Bethany will be 24, Andrew will be 21...a returning missionary, Aimee will be 19 and a freshman in college, Mattie will be 17 and a HS sophomore and Thomas will be 13!

CRAZY!!!

We have a lot of change to look forward to! Good thing life just comes one day at a time! :)

The kids started back to school on Monday. Bethany lucked out and got out really early because she had some very special out of town visitors! :)

Brooke, Raegan, Cheney & Amy Knight were visiting! They went to church with us, which was a lot of fun. Amy and I ended up in YW with the girls because I'm the new 1st councilor! Raegan & Cheney were brave enough to get up and go to Seminary with Bethany Monday morning.

Amy had an audit job in New Orleans. While she was gone, I took the girls to lunch at "BEARS" po-boy shop. Then we went to see "Princess and the Frog!"

Thomas wasn't very happy about having to spend his whole day with a bunch of girls. He cheered up some when we got him some French fries and a root beer.

After the movie, we went back home to get warm and just hang out! Amy didn't get back to the house till after 5. So they all hurried and packed up their stuff and headed back to Houston. It was quick trip, but still fun to have the girls around for a couple of days! :)

Tuesday morning we had quite the surprise...ICE!!!

We knew that it was supposed to get really cold, but it was still exciting to see ice in the fountain!!! While Andrew was waiting for his bus, he broke a hole in the ice...it was about 1/2 an inch thick! Pretty impressive! And fun to look at!

After a whole day, there was still quite a significant amount of ice in the fountain. Which froze again. By Thursday, the water in the fountain was frozen solid and we were about to get blasted with the DEEP FREEZE!!!

Of course we aren't quite prepared for this kind of cold weather! Andrew had to bundle up with 2 sweatshirts! The girls wore their big sweatshirts and Thomas actually kept his clothes on most of the time! But there's an occasional perk...NO SCHOOL ON FRIDAY!!!

I had to wrap all of our pipes outside and we've been dripping the faucets each night to avoid frozen/broken pipes. Luckily, our pipes didn't burst, but our crown moulding is cracking...we heard form lack of humidity and really dry air from running the furnace all the time to stay warm. Hmmm...I guess that's better than a flooded house.

Thomas kept himself occupied with a treasure we found during our weekly Wal-Mart trip...T-REX MOUNTAIN!!

Andrew used to have this, but over the years it has gotten wet and T-Rex won't growl anymore. Thomas has been so sad because he's wanted to play with it...so when we found it, we just HAD to buy it!!! :) Best spent money of the week...it has kept both boys entertained while we've been cooped up inside!

The kids have ventured out some. Their favorite activity is to go out back and test the ice in the ditch to see if they can stand on it without it breaking. Then they will harvest HUGE slabs of the ice!

When I was a kid, I remember having my big brother, Frank, break off BIG icicles from the house and sometimes we'd sword fight with them! So much fun! :)

Friday morning, Connor & Aubrey Whipple wanted Andrew & Bethany to come to the park with them.

Of course everyone wanted to go and it was bitter cold and windy outside. So we bundled up and headed to the park.

Before we could get to the corner, Thomas wanted something for his head...his face was cold! He wanted me to carry him because he was sooo cold.

We should've turned back right then. By the time we got to the park, Thomas was yelling, "Make it hot! Make it HOT!! MAKE IT HOT!!!" Poor little guy was freezing!!! So we stayed at the park for about 10 minutes, then I made everyone go back home. Thomas finally got warm again! :)

This weekend was stake conference. Edd and I went out to the Stake Center together. While he was in his meetings, I tried to organize my Young Women stuff. We went and got dinner during the hour break, then back for the adult session of conference. As soon as it was over, we ran to the truck and headed home...it was way too cold to just walk.

One of the talks during conference talked about dedicating your home. After conference on Sunday, Edd dedicated our home. About half way through the prayer, Thomas asked out loud, "Is this a LONG ONE???" He was done!!! He proceeded to make the fake noises that little boys like to make and would comment on them! Needless to say, there were a lot of giggles and Edd's prayer ended a little quicker than he probably wanted it to! :)

Things are slowly starting to warm up again. Yesterday we got back into the 50's. Last night was the last night, I hope, that we have to drip our pipes. The sun is out today and Thomas thinks it's warm! I tried to tell him the sun was out, but it was still cold. He didn't care and went out to check on the ice that we still have in the ditch out back.

It was about 55 degrees when I took the picture. And yes, it felt pretty warm outside! Funny how your perspective changes! :) The fountain is starting to thaw. There was a little bit of water on top of the ice when I took this at lunchtime. I just checked the temp and we're up to 59 now.

I am so thankful for "WARM" and sunny January days!!! Can't wait for Spring though!

Oh, I just learned what the four seasons are here in New Orleans...King Cake Season, Crawfish Season, Hurricane Season, and Football Season!

Christmas Break

You know you've had a great break when you loose track of which day it is!!!

The other day I was thinking it was Saturday, but it was actually Friday!!! The next day, Edd asked me, "Is today Saturday?" I had to stop and think for a minute before I answered!

We had a wonderful Christmas Break! I'm sad that it is over, but a little anxious to get back to the norm. Here are some of the fun things we did:

We went into New Orleans and went to the WWII Museum!
Aimee wasn't too thrilled about driving across Lake Pontchartrain. She told us that she didn't like listening to the "kathunk kathunk kathunk" the whole way.

Once we got to the museum most of us had a good time!

The displays were very well done. I think our favorite part was the D-Day area. This picture is of Andrew and Mattie looking at some of the boats and planes that attacked that morning.

The big transport boats were designed and built here in New Orleans!

Christmas Eve!

Edd cooked up a yummy turkey for us...he'd planned on grilling the turkey, but it rained most of the day. So the turkey ended up in the oven, but came out super yummy!!! :)

After our Christmas Eve dinner, we acted out the Christmas Story. Mattie was Mary, Aimee was the Angel, Thomas was a shepherd, Andrew was Joseph and the donkey, and Bethany was the narrator.

It seems like each year there is something that stands out from our quick re-enactment. This year it was Thomas and his little lamb! Thomas kept throwing his little lamb up and tossing it all around. He was pretty entertained by the little lamb and didn't care about participating in the Christmas Story.

I kept trying to take a picture of Thomas he kept moving faster than my camera could handle....

Finally...I got a good picture!! :)

After the Christmas Story, the kids opened their traditional pj presents...don't they look cute!?!

Christmas Day! :)

The kids were up and checking out their Santa goodies right at 6:30!!! I was hoping that they would sleep in like we'd been doing all week, but I think they were a little too anxious!

This was the year that Thomas loved helping everyone unwrap their presents!!!

About a week earlier, while Bethany and I were outside trying to re-hang the Christmas lights , Thomas took all the presents from under the tree up to his room and unwrapped everysingle one!!!

Luckily there were only a few presents under the tree...the cousin gifts and a few from Grandma Cutler!



TRAINS!

Christmas is when we let Andrew get out his train sets. He likes to take the Christmas candy and put onto the train to deliver to the spectators.

Well, Thomas caught the train bug BIG TIME!!! He ended up playing with ALL of his trains.

One day, after church, I found Thomas loading up his Fisher Price train with candy. He would deliver it to me, since I was in the kitchen getting lunch ready! :) What a sweetie!!

The rest of the week was a train bonanza for Thomas!!! He pulled out his motorized set of Thomas the Tank Engine trains. We set up the waterfall track for him to play with for a few days. Thomas was in train heaven! :)

On New Years Eve, Thomas put a super long track together...it wrapped all the way around the couch! This picture is only one side of the train! Thomas also connected all of his trains and cars together and pulled them all around the family room.

Andrew laid down next to the long train to measure it. It was the length of Andrew, plus about 2 more feet!!! Now that is a LONG train!!!

Thomas also ended up getting out the little set of Thomas trains and played with that for a few days too!

We are still currently playing with trains! Thomas realized that he LOVED MURDOCH, but his Murdoch wasn't with his little trains. We've been looking everywhere...but where could he be??? Thomas hadn't played with Murdoch and the little trains since last Christmas...so there's no telling where he could be...especially since we moved!!! HMMM...where could he be???

Yesterday, while we were at Target, Thomas spied a Murdoch train!!! We ended up leaving with it. As we were walking out, Thomas said something to the effect that he was glad that all his talking worked!!! He had to do much convincing that he NEEDED this Murdoch!!! Of course the ONLY Murdoch was the wooden one! (We don't own the wooden Thomas set and Thomas is super stubborn!!!) Luckily, we still have the old wooden train set that was Andrews when he was little! Thomas has been in heaven since! :)

PLAYING AT THE PARK!

We spent a lot of our free time playing at the park, enjoying the nice weather! A couple of times we went to the "alligator park" (the park where the alligator festival was at) and we also went to the neighborhood park a few times too! Even Missy enjoyed getting out with Bethany a few times! :)

Edd had fun using his free time to take pictures! Aimee had fun jumping out of the swing so Edd could capture her flying through the air!

NEW YEARS EVE!

New Years Eve was spent playing on the wii. I even got a chance to try it out! I did the sword fighting and the 100 pin bowling. I ended up with the TOP SCORE in 100 pin bowling! :)

We went outside for a little while and watched the neighborhood fireworks from our driveway! They put on a great fireworks show! The fireworks started around 6:30 and went in spurts until about 12:30! We had to get all snuggled up in blankets and the kids used their new sleeping bags too!

After watching the fireworks, we went in to get warm and watched a movie! The movie ended up putting the kids to sleep before the New Year was official. Bethany had been at a party, but got home a little before midnight. She and I stepped out to watch the FIREWORK FINALE...pretty impressive for neighborhood fireworks!!! :)

NEW YEARS DAY!

Our new year started with race to clean the house! The Knights were coming to stay at our house for the weekend! :)

Aimee got her room clean and wanted a friend to come over. Catherine was the lucky one! She and Aimee are in the same class at school and have violin class together too! Aimee and Catherine are like two peas in a pod! They are so cute together! We went to the neighborhood park to play for awhile and had hot chocolate when we got back to the house! :)