A Texas Christmas

We left Sunday to go to my parents' house in Tyler for Christmas. During the day on Christmas Eve, Blake and Claire helped Nana get the sugar cookie dough ready for later that night when cousins were all there.

Claire, Blake, Clay (3), Anna Kate, Sydnie (4 1/2) All ready to open presents.

Anna Kate really wanted a denim jacket. Nana found one with a little extra bling and of couse it was pink.

Be careful what you do in the Farley house these days, we have a resident spy, Blake got lots of Spy Gear this year.

A new purse

At the top of Anna Kate's Christmas list was a flannel nightgown, so Claire benefitted from this too. We can't get Anna Kate out of her gown. She lives in it everyday.

Lip gloss, fingernail polish, and new purses. What more could 2 girls want??

Now time to finish those sugar cookies for Santa.

Waiting for them to cool is so hard.

All ready for Santa.

The next morning....did Santa come??

Ho!Ho!Ho!

Blake got lots of KNex and Claire asked for lots of arts and crafts supplies. Santa delivered.

So there it is. Our Christmas. Hope you had a good one too and I promise to blog more than once every 3 months in the future. I added other posts today below about birthdays and more. Enjoy.

All I Want for Christmas....

Anna Kate pulled her two topped teeth herself. She pulled one two weeks before Christmas and the second on the last day of school before break. She was so excited!! She immediatley began singing "All I want for Christmas". She is definetly the entertainer of the family. Here are a few more pictures we took one morning before church:Imagine.. you just came in from the mailbox, you've opened an envelope and awww, it's the Farley family's Christmas card, here it is. MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!The TwinsSistersBlakeClaire

Anna Kate turns 6 + Farley Family Christmas!!

This year we had a very hard time finding a time to celebrate Anna Kate's birthday. We had already decided not to have a big party, we were just trying to get 2 friends together but could never get their schedules to come together. So... we decided to just have her birthday cake at the Farley Family Christmas. It was crazy and chaotic but she had a what she considered a birthday and got more presents than anyone else since she got Christmas plus birthday. I'm not sure I'll ever do that way again, but it worked this year.This is on AK's actual birthday. Our birthday tradition: the only time you get donuts with sprinkles is on your birthday and only the birthday child gets the sprinkled donut. We put candles in it and sing happy birthday first thing in the morning. Notice she dressed herself for school all in PINK (necklace, headband, shirt and even pink candles). Can you guess what her favorite color is???

Grammy made this cake for her birthday. She loved it!!Jackson is having fun eating dinner with his cousins.

Uncle Scott and Aunt Ashley won the prize for one of the coolest presents, a Cardinals jersey.

Sierra and Anna Kate with their new baby dolls.

Claire has never wanted a baby doll but this year that is all she talked about it. And not just any baby doll, she wanted one that did not make any noise or anything else and we had to have twins, of course. Grammy came through on that one.

Babies, babies everyone... This is our real life baby doll, Mia

Thanksgiving 2007 with Family and Friends

We hosted Thanksgiving for Mark's family at our house this year. We 21 people over including our friends Chris and Cathy Elrod and their two boys. We had all the traditional Thanksgiving food and the excitement for the day was when the heating element in my oven decided to burn into two pieces and began sparking and catching things on fire while I was taking the ham out of the oven. Very interesting. After turning the breaker off, we ran the rolls down to Grammy's house to finish cooking and all had a great time. (Luckily everything else was done). The kids had a great time playing outside and most stayed around until afte the Cowboy game was over and everyone had grazed one last time among the leftovers.

Anna Kate, Blake and Jackson

Jackson and Grant

Baby Mia all ready for bed after a long day of playing.

Blake and Claire's Birthday!!

Sorry it has been so long since I've checked in. From the middle of October until now life has been crazy. During the fall, Mark was traveling a lot and school was very hectic for me. Hopefully now we will get back into a normal routine and next semester will go much smoother. I will add several new posts today to catch you up to the happenings in the Farley children's lives.

A couple of weeks before Blake and Claire's birthday Nana and Grandaddy came and took everyone to Build-A-Bear for their birthday. Since Anna Kate's birthday is between Thanksgiving and Christmas she got her birthday early. So all three chose an animal .

Blake chose a cheetah, dressed him in a Cardinals uniform and named him Clark.

Claire chose a rabbit and named her Hopper.

Anna Kate chose a bear all dressed in pink and named Meredith.
Grandaddy, Nana, Claire, Anna Kate and Blake before church.

Blake fell asleep on the porch swing while Grandaddy and Dad put the basketball goal together.

Claire has been begging for a basketball goal and to play basketball this winter. So for their birthday they got a basketball goal and Claire will be playing Upward basketball beginning in January. When I took her to be evaluated for the team, she made 7 shots from the center of the lane in 30 seconds and 8 shots from both wing positions in 30 seconds...all net!! It was amazing. She's never played before but loves it. Maybe she can pay for her college with her new found talent.

Sticking with the sports theme, my friend Cathy and I made a baseball and basketball cake for the twins. During October leading up to their birthday, Mark and I had several conversations about how faithful God has been in bringing Blake and Clarie to where they are today. Who would have thought 8 years ago as we were looking at two 2 pound babies that they would be in the top of their class academically and rather tall for their age. God is so good!! We are amazed daily at these two miracle babies.

Here are a few random pictures from the past month. We've been busy with school and just life in general.

All dressed up and ready to go to church

FRIDAY...SCHOOL T-SHIRT DAY!!!

Our first hayride of the season. This one was with Grammy and Pa's church this past Saturday night. It was hot and the mosquitoes were everywhere but the kids still had alot of fun. They started at Judsonia Church of Christ and went to a member's farm. The hayride last about 30 minutes and followed by a hot dog roast and entertainment. Of course the kids rode on the trailer pulled by Pa's tractor. (There were 6 trailers each pulled by a tractor...it was crazy)

This next week we have a hayride at our church (FYI for those interested we've moved to Highway). Thankfully it's supposed to cool off and hopefully be more like hayride weather. Pictures will follow as soon as that one is over. Now on the the really big news in the Farley household..........

Two weeks ago we found out that Anna Kate can not see. I was working with her on her homework and I thought she was having trouble seeing. I went to talk to her teacher the next day and they had just had there vision screening at school. So off to the school nurse and lo and behold she failed it BIG TIME!! So I made an appointment with the optometerist and two appointments later we now know she is far sighted with an astigmatism and a lazy eye (not cosmetically but the rods in her right eye have not developed and are not being used) Hopefully after wearing the glasses that eye will start working and strengthen. They called this afternoon and her glasses came in.... HERE SHE IS.....

How cute is she??? So intellectual. We'll see what the reactions are tomorrow at school. She's a little nervous, but of course we think she's adorable.