Ready or not, 2009 is here!

Hello everyone!

Hope its a great day for you! Well, 2009 kind of snuck (my spell check is telling me this isn't a real word, hmm... I think I'll keep it anyways-but interesting to know) up on me. I feel like I've transitioned into the new year mode, finally. Chris and I went through the motions of updating our budget and calendaring major events for the next year and that seemed to help it sink into my brain.

my sweet Clint Bradley, who is nearly 1!!!

I finally got my new camera, thanks Christopher! So I've been trying it out. I've missed taking pics of my adorable boys! I have no pics to share from Christmas, but I should be receiving some from Danielle sometime soon (Dee-this isn't a hint. I can wait until you've got time to do it). I'll put them up on the web album when I get them. (See link to the right).

my goofy boys

Christmas was fantastic. It was so much fun for us to watch Preston be so delighted with all of the Christmas celebrations and traditions this year. He actually learned the Christmas story this year too. In his class at church they use the felt board system to tell the stories, and he really gets into it. He's a little sponge! And its amazing what he can retain after hearing a new bible story just once. One thing CWOW did for the community this Christmas season was handing out fruit baskets and caroling in a neighborhood right around the corner from the Community Center. We brought the boys because we really wanted them to experience and watch our church sharing some love. Preston was so adorable! He only knew one Christmas song at the time, but he sang along with all his little heart at every house (just imagine loud song-like mumbles from a 2 year old...so precious). His favorite part was yelling YAY! and Merry Christmas! as we finished singing. I was so proud of him for participating.

This Christmas was Mom and Dad's turn so we went to Houston for a whole week. Lots of fun memories with lots of family. Clint's favorite thing about Christmas was bows and paper. I think he destroyed about 3 bows a day at Mom's house. My most exciting gift was a bike and bike trailer that Christopher got me. I've had a bike on my Christmas list for a few years, and no one took me seriously I guess. Well, I made a big deal about it this year and Chris got me one! I had to get the bike trailer so I could bring the boys with me. Its really fun. We've got a new afternoon activity, and it is definitely a workout hauling those two behind me!

"MY football!"

Preston kisses

I do have some funny stories from Christmas. I will leave out some names in these stories since it really doesn't matter who did it, its still funny. One night while the boys were doing the getting ready for bed routine someone was helping Preston brush his teeth. Only instead of using toothpaste, it was Boudreaux's butt paste! It took about 1 second before Preston let them know something wasn't right. Poor Preston! Then as we were cleaning up from that mess Preston puts his sippy cup in the toilet. He has an art of making another mess as you are distracted with cleaning up the first mess.

I thought it would be fun to ice some Christmas cookies with Preston so we decided to make purple icing. Have you heard that green and red do NOT make purple? Someone convinced me those were the right colors, but it didn't take long to figure out we were making black not purple. So we had some delicious black cookies, and P did a fantastic job icing them!

the beloved taggie blanket

P offroading with the indoor bike

We've had some frustrating times lately with the boys being sick, but today we are all well. Thank you, Lord. One day at a time!

Next week I'll say goodbye to a tooth I've had since I was about 5. Yes, many of you know the sad story of my permanent front tooth being knocked out (a complete accident) when I was 6. Docs have said ever since then that I could lose it at any point. It has gone above and beyond all doctors expectations, and after 21 faithful years it can take no more. After going through oral surgery last summer in hopes of saving it, we've recently learned that it was ineffective, so the best solution is to have it extracted and get an implant. Next Tuesday morning is the big day. They'll pull it, graft some ceramic material into my jaw bone in preps for the implant, and then put the crown part of my tooth back in to hold the place in my gums until everything is healed. So in about 6 months I'll get my titanium implant. I'll probably be showing it off too since it'll probably be our biggest purchase of the year. Apparently dental insurances see implants as cosmetic and feel no need to help their clients out with the bill. Lucky us!

Chris is in New Orleans all week for a workshop class. He'll be doing a lot of these this year so that he can graduate in December, hopefully! We miss him lots and can't wait till he comes home.

Captain destruction, also known as Mr. Destructive, has got all kinds of new tricks up his sleeve. Other than being destructive, oh, I guess you probably already gathered that from the previous sentence, he's been pretty good lately. In the beginning of December he finally potty trained. I'm so happy about that! Last Sunday at church he and his good buddy Joel went missing. After searching everywhere we finally found them locked in a closet. No one is sure exactly how it happened, but they were locked in and we were locked out. When I finally got to Preston, (I'd been searching outside) I asked him what happened. He told me, "Umm, I was just hiding. I just scared a lot of people." He had that right! He knew he was in big trouble. Our friend said he walked out of the closet with his head down, hands in his pockets, and went straight to his class.

Clint is walking again. When he was really sick last month he stopped walking. He's also saying some words now. He loves to point at everything, and like any good Cajun, he says, "Dis?" or "Dat?" to find out what everything is. He likes giving hugs, and sometimes he likes giving kisses. Probably his favorite thing is wrestling with his daddy and big P. He loves the dogs, and was being really sweet hugging on Sam last night. I stopped watching him for a second, and when I turned back he was trying to yank her tail off! Poor Sam. She was sitting patiently looking at me with eyes that were begging for help. We're still working on "soft soft" with him.

Until next time, good-bye.