Christmas 2010

Another Christmas has come and went, and for some reason it seems like it takes forever to get ready for it and then you blink and its over. This year was no exception I always feel rushed and a little scrooge like in the prepping for it. But it is Priceless to see the Joy on your kid's faces when the walk in and say "SANTA CAME, he came to my house", so the hustle and bustle of the season is ALL worth it. As always we go to Granny's on Christmas Eve and visit with everyone and eat dinner and then the kids open gifts with Granny. It's nice to visit with everyone because it seems its really only twice a year that you see each other and that's Thanksgiving and Christmas.It is hard to fit in so many houses to visit, but I try to take advantage of fitting in to seeing everyone in My side and Brandon's side of the Family because one day memories and pictures will be all you have to remember. After Granny's we always open all of our gifts at home to each other other so that on Christmas morning all we have to do is Play with SANTA gifts and it really works out a lot better because mostly that's all they are going to want to play with anyways because who cares about clothes and all the necessity stuff when you have Toy guns and DS games. Every year we let the Mattison and Maddox go the store with us alone and pick out a gift for each of there brothers, sister , mom, and Dad and its always funny to see what they think that the other person will like. Maddox was so excited this year at what he got for me and Brandon because he had picked them out, Brandon of course knew that Maddox had gotten him some gloves and a toboggan and so Brandon would occasionally say "I sure wish I had a Toboggan, my ears are cold". And Maddox would light up all over and run to me and say hes getting that, I got him that :), It was priceless. So another year has come and gone and my what a year it has been. Its been full of UPS, Downs and just down right scary things so my wish for 2011 is that fewer major problems occur. I hope everyone had a great Christmas and a Happy New Years. Lolli is going to have to start getting in the pictures instead of hiding because this is the only one i have of her in it. Maddox was a spongebob nutt this year so most of the stuff he got was spongebob. I know of a couple people who will be glad when this faze ends. "Me and Lolli" He wakes up at 6am asking lolli to turn it on and will start whispering in her ear spongebob spongebob :)

Maddon had a Major thing for gloves and hats so when he got some for Christmas he was thrilled and would not take them off

Mack went nuts over paperOf Course we had a blast with Carson, They boys have never gotten to really play with him. This year when they came in for Christmas they stayed the night one night with him at Lolli's & Pops and they loved it. All I heard was I want to go see Carson are when is Carson coming back? and Me and Carson did this, So thank you Molly and Cameron for letting them play. They wont be little long and won't care to play with each other. Oh and of course Thank you to Lolli & Pop who watched all of them :) and poor pop having to sleep with all 3 boys!!! We sure will miss you carson I hope we get to see you agian before a year passes.

Christmas at Lolli's & Pop's was Sunday after Church and it was fun as always. Lolli gets the kids the best gifts and my kids are always ready to go to her house forget ours. I didn't get a chance to take many pics as it was so crazy this year.

Brandon's Job promotion

As everyone knows Brandon got a promotion in November to Manager of the Funeral Homes. I have never seen someone so happy, He has been waiting for this for a long time now and was convinced that he would never get to be Manager of the funeral homes here and would almost defiantly have to find a job somewhere else. He has been looking for jobs as Manager for sometime now and was getting very discouraged. I figured we would be moving because he just was not happy with the current situation. In the 2nd week of November the owners came over and looked the funeral homes over and asked him if he would be interested in the position, and of course he said yes calmly like it was no big deal at all. The minute they left he was on the phone calling me telling me they made me manager of the funeral homes and if the phone had a video camera I'm almost positive he was jumping up and down. Anyways the reason for this post is that I had to blog about him being Front page news in Nashville for his new job tittle. He was kinda embarrassed at first because they were going to put a picture in there of him to go along with the article, so I got out my camera and started the task. It is so hard to get a man to smile in a picture but I finally got him by being funny and just snapping. LOL I couldn't find the article from the Nashville paper that had his picture in it so I'm including the picture and the article from the Murfreesboro paper

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Mattison's 7th Birthday!

Mattison is growing up so fast and it seems like just yesterday she was turning 1. I usually have a party planned and do whatever she wants to do, but this year I just was not with it and didn't plan a big party. I thought since Megamind in 3D was coming out we would get a few girls together and take them to watch that movie and then to get there nails done and to jumpin Apes. Mattisons birthday usually throws a kink in almost every ones plans for that weekend because her birthday is always on opening morning of deer season in Texas and the youth hunt for Arkansas. Ellen got to come stay the night with us Friday night because her sister and dad were going hunting so we just had birthday cake with her and Lolli and Pop. Then Saturday morning we got up and left around noon to head to Texarkana with 5 little girls they are such a mess, I'm very thankful that Andrea went with me or I don't think I would have made it with all of them. They all had a blast though during the previews at the Movies there was one for Justin Beiber in 3D that's coming out in February and he reaches his hand out and all the girls were trying to grab his hands it was so funny. Then we went to the nail salon and got all of there nails done and then went to Jumpin Apes to jump on the blow up houses to get all that extra energy out before heading home. So it turned out to be a good day and Mattison had another great birthday. Happy 7th Birthday Mattison we love you.The girls in there 3D glasses after the movieThese two Mattison and Brittan will get in lots of trouble together one day soon

The Bat Dance

Maddox had a Halloween play at school this year and I really didn't think he would do it. They started practicing a while ago and I figured when he saw how many people were watching he would say I don't think so. Hes not much for attention, but he did a great job and did all of his bat dance. He did not however like the bat ears but only because they were on a headband and he said that was for girls. My poor guy needs to grow a foot or two hes so much littler than all the other kids.

A Feild of Pumpkins

Halloween is right around the corner and we always try to wait till the week before to go and get pumpkins, that way they do not start to rot and stink before Halloween. It was a last minute decision to go this day. They weather said it was going to rain and storm on Saturday so when the kids got out of school Thursday we left and drove over to texarkana to the Pumpkin Field at Williams Memorial Church. It really never crossed my mind to look at my kids before we went I was just concerned with getting everyone in the car with out a fight or someone breaking down in a crying fit. Well it was a success getting everyone together but until I got home and looked at the pictures I didn't know how bad they looked. Maddox if you look close only has one sock on, I don't know were he lost the other sock during the day. Mattison as always has her shoes untied and hair all sloppy bc she hates to fix her hair, Mack is not very happy that his sister is holding him in the 1st place and Maddon is just in another world. This is my typical family pic its practical impossible to get everyone looking and happy at the same time. We had a fun time picking out pumpkins though Maddon ran to all of them screaming pumpkins pumpkins, and they were all just too perfect he couldn't make up his mind. At the end of our trip we had 4 pumpkins and it was a nice family outing and since we were in Texarkana we got to go and eat at roadhouse yummy! See here they are Maddox is mad Mattison thinks its funny and Maddon wants another pumpkin.Well now there both getting in trouble by dad to act right so we can get this over withNow we just gave up and took one with the one that didn't care about taking his picture

Long Lost Blogger

So I was looking at my blog and just realized that it has been almost a year since i last posted. There is absolutely no way that I could go back and update a years worth of stuff. I will update a few of the most important things that happened. We had so much happen this last year good and bad and then God gave us a couple of Miracles as well. Lolli got sick with Ovarian Cancer went through Chemo and quite a few other set backs within that time and is now Cancer FREE!!! She is a true example that there is a God. We got pregnant again about the time Lolli found out she was sick. That brings both joy and sadness at the time because we were scared with all that was going on with Lolli. We didn't know what what was going to happen with Lolli, How Chemo was going to affect her , when were they going to do surgery and was the surgery going to be a success. Then on May 12, Mack Chambers Arnold came into this world at 10 weeks early. It was scary he was really small and the NICU nurses and Dr's tell you to prepare for the worst because you just never know what a preemie is going to require. He weighed 4lbs 2oz, he was tiny to say the least but that was a really good size they say for how early he was. But agian God was on our side, he only had to be on oxygen for just a few hours and then he was breathing all on his own. It's hard during that time because I also have 3 other kids at home that are wondering where mommy is and this baby she had. Mattison was playing softball and Maddox T-ball, I was driving back and forth ever day to go to there games all the while feeling guilty for leaving my baby at the Hospital alone. A little over a month he was in the NICU and then finally got to bring him home. His brothers and sisters were glad to finally see him, for that month that he was in there they never got to see him, kid's were not allowed up in the NICU. So we had few struggles this past year but all things are possible with God on your side.

Maddon had an obsession with Lolli's head and her not having any hair, if she took off her hat Maddon would tell her Put hat back on Lolli. After she put it on him one time it was then a game and he loved it. He then would try and put it on his self and try to brush her hair The kids loved playing around with Lolli and taking pictures wit her hat on. This was the worst part of it all is walking in to see your baby for the first time and seeing all these wires and machines everything was beeping and alarms going off. Its a very overwhelming time. There is no way that I would have made it through all this with out all the awesome nurses and Dr that was in the NICU, they were amazing and they become like family seeing them everyday like that and taking care of your little baby. I miss them all now and still go up and see them and talk to them often as I can.

Kindergarten Thanksgiving Feast

Now i know Thanksgiving was along time ago, but I never have time to get the blog and since the kids were in bed early tonight i thought i might blog a bit. So back to the Thanksgiving Feast, the kindergarten at Nashville Primary did a play for all the parents. They all had a theme that was a dish for thanksgiving and Mattisons class was cranberries. They were so cute and I was laughing the entire time at all the kids, I wish I had video taped it because words cant explain how cute it was. Maddon loved it too, he likes watching the older kids.

Mattison and her best friend Caitlin getting ready for the show