Link, Johnson, & Strader Christmas

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is getting together with the Link and Johnson families to celebrate. Between all of our kids it can get pretty wild, but we always have so much fun! This year we decided that we would all go in together and buy for a child that is on an angle tree. It was so awesome sitting the kids down and talking to them about what we were doing. The compassion they have for others is amazing! We also decided to make ornaments with the kids hand-prints for keepsakes and they turned out so cute! I am so thankful for these two families and love that they are such a big part of our lives!!!
Miss Avery's ornament

Miss Lakelyn's ornament

Oakley's ornament

I love these girls...and the goofy guy in the background!

All of our kiddo's and one more on the way! I can't wait to welcome the newest addition to the Johnson family to the world!!

I had to put this picture on here! Oaks wore that hat around all night long and would not take it off. He LOVED it!

Lakelyn at Five Months

Just a quick update on Lakelyn at five months old! (Yes, I realize that she turned 6 months old last week...that update is coming soon!)

~She got her first tooth right after she turned four months and then the second bottom tooth right at five months. She was not a happy camper when those suckers were coming through.
~She started to sit for a few moments at a time at five months.
~She is so chunky and weighed around 18 pounds!
~She looked at Jason, smiled real big and said "da"...but I am pretty sure it was just a burp or something...we all know she is going to say mama first right? ;)
~Jason smiled for days after that...he really knows how to rub that kind of thing in. HAHA!
~She LOVES her bath FINALLY!!!
~Her jumparoo is her favorite toy
~She has been sleeping pretty much through the night, which is very nice...now if we could just get Oakley to do that!
~She is laughing out loud more and more, but she is pretty serious most of the time. It is honestly like an act of congress to get her to laugh.
~She LOVES to be around her big sister and big brother...it must be too quite for her when they are not around! :)

Christmas at Granny & Papa's

We has a wonderful time celebrating Christmas at my Granny and Papa's this year! As always it is great to visit with family that we don't get to see very often. Avery had a great time playing with the "big girls" and passing out the presents. Oakley's favorite moment was shooting Papa Crawford's BB gun...not only is he obsessed with knives, but we can now add guns to the list. Two words - ALL BOY! Lakelyn enjoyed all the attention and never had to be put down for a second! We are so blessed!

Germany

This fall/winter we got the pleasure of getting to know an awesome young lady from Germany. My Mom and Dad welcomed Theresa, a foreign exchange student, into their home. We had so much fun getting to know her and the kiddo's fell completely in love with her! We joked and said once she graduated high school she would come back and be our au pair...now wouldn't that just be perfect! :) I think we all had a hard time saying goodbye and look forward to the day that we meet again! I told Jason that I think it is our turn to visit next!

Family Game Night

Avery loves to play games so we designated Fridays as family game night. Avery looks forward to it every week and it has really helped her to understand that you loose some and you win some, but the most important thing is that you have fun. One evening Gran, Papa, Aunt Kat, Uncle Goose and Theresa (Gran and Papa's foreign exchange student) came over and we decided to play a game of Taboo. Avery really wanted to play too, and with a little help from Aunt Kat on the words she couldn't read, she did an awesome job! Avery decided that we should play boys against girls and although we gave them a good run the boys ended up winning! We all had a blast...even Oakley who still has very little patience when it comes to playing games! (He usually only makes it about 5 minutes into family game night before he calls it quits!)

Lakelyn even enjoyed game night while sitting in Gran's lap!

Like I said before...Oaks gets a little board after awhile, especially when we are not playing a kid game! This is a time out to beat up on Daddy for a few minutes! :)

Avery getting a little help from Aunt Kat and Oaks using the buzzer!

The final score.

Sophie the Giraffe

Aunt Kat got Lakelyn Sophie the Giraffe as a baby present and it is by far her favorite toy! Now that she can really grip things she loves to hear Sophie squeak, and she loves to chew on her even more!! Since Lakelyn has been teething Sophie has provided her much relief. Thanks Aunt Kat for such an awesome little toy!

The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

I absolutely LOVE getting the house ready for Christmas and this year was even more exciting with all the snow. I love a big snow anytime during the winter, but it is even better when you have snow at Christmas time!

Our house all decked out for the holidays!

Just a couple of the Christmas Tree's around our house. The top one is our downstairs Christmas Tree and the pink one is the one in Avery's room. We always get a real one for our upstairs living room, but I didn't get a good picture of it this year. We were getting ready for Church one Sunday morning when Jason and I hear a huge crash. We run into the living room and Avery and Oakley are standing there yelling "we didn't do it, we didn't do it!" The tree had fallen over while they were sitting at the kitchen table eating breakfast. Needless to say it broke several ornaments and made a huge mess! The ribbon that was wrapped around it was scattered everywhere and I honestly didn't take the time to fix it all back. We just sat it back up and put the ornaments that didn't break back on. :)

Avery and Oaks on Avery's bed watching Christmas movies. They LOVE this little portable dvd player! It cracks me up that they would rather watch a movie on it rather than the big screen.

Not Christmas related, but Lakelyn came home from daycare with her first ponytail!

Avery's First Christmas Play

Avery was in her first Christmas play this year at school and she did such a good job. The Kindergartners sing several songs while the older kids actually do all the acting. However, I was impressed that Avery got up there and sang in front of a huge gym FULL of people. Last year she was suppose to be in the Christmas play at church and she took one look at all the people in the sanctuary and said no way. We could not get her up there to sing for the life of us! She can still be pretty shy in front of a big group of people, but she is definitely coming out of her shell more and more. I know those of you who know her well or see her at home are thinking, "Avery, shy?" But she was (and still can be at times) VERY shy if she was ever out of her comfort zone. However, I think school and sports has really helped to change that.
On a side note, the picture is blurred to protect the innocent. ;) I hate to put some random kids pictures on my blog out on the internet with out their parents permission.

Catching up

Okay, so tonight is going to be my attempt to catch up on my blog. The holidays are always so busy and I feel like things are just now getting back to normal. Here are just a few of my favorite pictures that I took back in early December.

We had Christmas at Jason's Grandma and Grandpa's on Thanksgiving this year. Lakelyn was sound asleep in Papaw's arms and missed out on getting to open her first Christmas presents...however I think she was perfectly content sleeping through it!

Oaks singing "Farmers Daughter" for us! This is his favorite song next to "Wagon Wheel."

Avery holding her little sis. Avery is so good at holding and playing with Lakelyn and she never gets tired of it. She is truly an amazing big sister. She can also get the biggest smiles out of Lakelyn!

I FINALLY got a good picture of Lakelyn smiling!!

Oaks in the "BIG" bathtub with lots of bubbles!