2016 So Far

ROAR!!!! This is how they want to take pictures now....

That's kinda how January came in...with a roar. Quiet Christmas = Crazy January! You know, we were all excited for the cold of Tennessee after living in the "Tejas" heat for eight years. Well, we got it and then some. A couple of weeks into January, we had the threat of snow. It wasn't supposed to be too bad for our area. Of course, any snow seems like dangerous conditions to me. In south Alabama, if it got below freezing, schools and businesses shut down and every store sold out of bread and milk. Why milk, I'm not really sure. If the power goes out, where are you gonna put it? Outside, I guess. Anyway, that's neither here nor there. Wednesday, we stayed out of work and school because the icy roads. Which was fine by me. I've never had an experience with it, but I'm sure that black ice is not something I would handle very well. Thursday was great! It was supposed to snow Friday, but not until noon or so. School was open until noon so we took the boys and went to work...for about 5 minutes, because....snow!

The back yard early Friday.

I was crazy excited because I have seen snow, but none that completely covered the ground! As the day went on, more and more snow fell. So, naturally, we got ourselves ready a la Randy from "A Christmas Story."

Get it?

We went out and played for a little while, attempted snowmen and made some snow angels. We also found out that we were not fully prepared for this kind of cold. We did have a lot of fun, though.  The boys loved it. I think they would've stayed out there all day. You know who else loved it? Sam!!! He was made for the snow.

Jeff was throwing a snow ball at him. However, eating the snow was what he wanted more than anything.  Kids.

Harrison had a little accident on the slide. Turns out, you can't climb up a slide in the snow.

Mid afternoon Friday. All in all, I'd say our house probably got 3-4 inches. 

His smile...

Of course...

THEN, at some point, this little girl:

turned into this young lady:

Yep, Jesie turned 19!

For her birthday, Jesie, Katie, Taryn, Ella, Mom and Paul all came up here! It was so much fun. There may have been a few cheerleading stunts involved, but who knows about that. We had a cake for Jesie and Jeff since their birthdays are just a few days apart. There was also a huge meal and a Butterfinger cake. Taryn and Harrison stayed with Mom and Paul at the campground that Friday night, so...

There's these two kids...

Aren't they precious?

The next week, we celebrated Jeff's birthday; the big, ahem, 3-2.  Of course, he doesn't look a day over 18. The man is not a big fan of birthday cake, so we grilled out at the Lukers' and got him a cheesecake! It was pretty tasty and he had a lot of help with his candles.

H got water or something on him, so he had to borrow one of Michael's old jerseys .  I think he does this on purpose now.  He has collected quite a few.

Candles!!!! (and Huddy's hair)

To be continued....

Our First Tennessee Christmas

Christmas this year was, wait for it, super quiet and low-key! It was great.

Gammy decided a few weeks before that she would come in for a couple of days and spend Christmas with us.  We were all excited to have her at the house.  We did Christmas with the Lukers a couple of days before she got there, and the boys had gone to Gigi and Pappy's house the weekend before to see their big gift.  It was a swing set. :)

Christmas Eve, we woke up and Huddy had a little goop in his eye, which is his sure sign for an ear infection.  And this time, he actually said that his ear hurt. Thank goodness his pediatrician's office was open that day.  We got him right in, and of course, both ears were infected.  She put him on some stronger antibiotics, and we were good to go. P.S. I have never seen a kid so excited about medicine. He is a pro. No fights with that guy.

Just because his ear hurts, doesn't mean that he's gonna stop being silly. 

While we were gone to the doctor, Jeff, Gammy and Harrison decided to have some play time outside.

And this happened. Good thing he had his helmet on.  #safetyfirst

That night, we went to our Christmas Eve service at church.  Harrison decided to sit in big church with us...let's just say that he will be in kid's church for a little longer.  He didn't do too badly though.  He just likes to ask questions...a lot of questions.

Luker Christmas 2016

Gammy and the boys

Mother and Son

#MIL

LOVE this young man...

Christmas morning, we had Gammy call us from upstairs when the boys were up so we could be out there before they saw everything.  Also, we have kind of a cat walk upstairs, and they would be able to see everything if Gammy didn't take care of them.  We had set the coffee table beside the stairs, ya know, so Santa could do his thing. When Huddy came down stairs, his first words were, "OOOOOO, a table!!"  Silly kid.  Harrison went right to his toys.  I don't think excited covers what he was feeling.  Huddy took a little longer to warm up.  But when he did, he loved it.  We all got very spoiled this year. The boys shouldn't need ANY toys for a while! But, we will see just how well that goes.

I know it's blurry, but you can still see how excited he was!

He was a little out of it.

Huddy loves to clean...like, really clean. Santa brought him a cleaning kit, which was a BIG hit!

Just some football pads from the Linams.

I feel ya, Huddy.  Christmas morning is exhausting.

Gettin' swole.

Playing his Leap Pad game from Gigi and Pappy.

This was the morning after Christmas, and there's still toys everywhere!

We had a wonderful Christmas! We enjoyed Gammy (NaeNae) being with us. The boys are still obsessed with everything they got for Christmas...even the noisy ones.

Playing Catch Up

Well, I got into a blog drought...again. So for the weeks leading up to Christmas, we are just gonna wing it with pictures.

The boys had Winter Pictures at school.  How happy does he look in front of the camera?

I just want to pinch his cheeks! 

In November, Harrison finished up his first season of soccer.   He has decide to play again this spring, so he must have liked it.  

2 of my handsome guys!

He got his trophy, and he loved it.  He will show it off to anybody!

For Thanksgiving, Telena, Gammy, Reese, Grayson and Lucas all came in from Texas and stayed the whole week.  The kids had so much fun and were very sad to see them go!

Luker Thanksgiving 2015

Huddy was obsessed with Lucas. And the way he says "Lucas" is too cute!

Thanksgiving at the boys' school.  Check out Huddy's expression.  If you've known us for a while, you know that this is how pictures usually are.  H is acting silly, and Huddy looks a little puzzled/frightened.

Grayson, Gammy, Huddy, Harrison, Lucas and Reese.

Happy Cousins!

He's so silly.

My love!

I couldn't include the Christmas post in here because I would have overloaded it with photos.  :)

We hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Halloween and Other Stuff :)

It's been a minute since I posted, and everyday I tell myself that I need to post some Halloween photos. I also have about 500 more photos that I wanted to post to show what all has been going on lately in the life of the Lukers.
While we were in soccer, we found out that one of Harrison's teammates live in our neighborhood. We have went over there to hang out a couple of times, and they invited us over for their Halloween get together.  The weather had us terrified because it was 100% rain on Halloween. We made games and brought treats to entertain all of the kids over there.  We got over there, and Harrison and Hudson were two of the youngest ones there.  The hosts have a 3-year-old as well as a 18-month-old.  They played so hard with the older kids. Then, after we ate, the rain had stopped!! Thank goodness! We got the kids all ready and headed out to the neighborhood.  Mike, (he and his wife, Courtney were the hosts) hitched up the wagon to the lawn mower...yes, you read that right. The four youngest kids rode in the wagon and on the lawn mower.  It was just really hard to keep up with all of the older kids. But they still managed to get a lot of candy...imagine! However, we did head in early.  It was cold and raining again, so we made our way back to the house. On a side note: while we were over there, someone came in to the kitchen, and she looked very familiar.  It was Huddy's new teacher at school, Ms. Dani.  She always talks about how much she loves Huddy, so part of the night, he was hooked to her. Turns out, she lives in our neighborhood. Babysitter, what?

My little Elmo and Hulk. Harrison wanted to get Hulk because it was Huddy's favorite superhero. Isn't that just sweet?

Seriously, it's so hard to get them to look at the same time...still.

In the wagon. 

Lukers on Halloween.  

It's not the best looking thing, but this was way out of my comfort zone.  I'm not creative by any means, but I did manage to put one of these together for each of the boys' classrooms. :)

Huddy eating his Harvest Lunch at school. More about his nose in a minute.

That weekend of Halloween, we had Michael at our house.  Terry and Amy went to NYC for Amy's birthday that is in November. So, we got ready for church Sunday and saw a photo op.

Excuse the house.  It looks better now.  We are slowly but surely getting things in their place. 

My new favorite pic. How handsome are these fellas?

Michael and Huddy. Huddy was our ham that day.

Daddy and Huddy. 

Also, we had a little injury to the baby. I got an email saying that Huddy had fallen and busted his nose.  Poor guy.  

Yes, it looks kinda like a mustache. The teachers said that he took it like a champ, though.  Poor guy. It looks a lot better now, but he still has a spot that is red.