The week of ice

Last weekend, Lance and I snuck off to New Orleans with some friends to attend a private showing of a Better than Ezra concert. I was such a fun trip and the concert was a blast. We were able to stay at Lance's sister's house the first night and spend some time with them and our sweet nephew, Hudson. It was being able to relax and watch the LSU game with no distractions! ;) The next day we met up with everyone else to watch the Saints game and then attend the concert at Harrah's casino. The concert probably had less than 1,000 people there so it was unique setting where everyone had great 'seats' (standing room only) and they played for a long time and seemed to have more fun than anyone else!

The next day we tried to get on the road as soon as possible because we heard the weather was getting icy back in Ruston. Well, we didn't try to hard since we made a stop at Cafe du monde before leaving!! ;)

sure enough, our power went out at our house while the sitter was there with the kids. She did a great job entertaining them until we got there and then the power came back on. Landon was excited about the possibility of snow so he was eager to get outside and play in it. Monday morning we all got out in it and had a ball knocking all the icicles off of everything. I was a little disappointed there wasn't any snow, but the kids didn't seem to mind. Here are a few pics of the kids playing in the ice:

Landon standing on his toy story "ball"

The rest of the week has been extremely cold and the ice remained on our trees all the way through Thursday. I can't stand cold weather, so I kept the kids home from school one day and we had a ball just goofing off at the house. By far, the activity of the week was a hit this time around. Landon has loved the new phone app called Angry Birds so instead of him wearing my phone out, I put together our own version of Angry Birds.

I got some little people farm animals as our 'targets' to knock out and we just built obstacles all around them. Then i let Landon decorate his marshmellows with 'angry' faces (which he loved) and he was so proud of his. Then he was step back and throw the marshmellows at the animals to knock them off. It was great! I may have had more fun than him! ;)

His "angry birds"

He kept gettting closer and closer trying to knock them down.

Hope everyone is staying warm and have a great week!!

Bring it on 2011!

After Christmas, we just enjoyed the holiday season as long as we could. Even though Lance and I both battled a cold for most of the holidays, we still loved every minute of it. The kids and I were lazy and enjoyed playing with all of our new toys. Landon has gotten into doing puzzles and I am amazed at how good he has gotten with them.

For New Year's Eve, we were invited to go to dinner with the Parkers, Clarks and Hunts at Squire Creek. I went solo since lance still wasn't feeling very good. He had missed work most of the week as well. It was nice to have a good meal with great company at our country club. I was glad that it wasn't an overpriced meal that normally comes with New Year's Eve. Thanks again for the invite, Shelley!

Christmas 2010

Christmas this year was absolutely perfect! It was low-key, no drama, little travel, great food and lots of fun! Landon really got into it and Kennedy just fed off of his energy which made this Christmas very exciting.

Christmas Eve was spent mostly at Lance's parents house with a yummy lunch and then the annual game of bingo later that afternoon with his cousins that came over from Shreveport. We were home by 6:00 in time to relax, put out the reindeer food, cookies for Santa, and an early bedtime.

Christmas morning began around 8:00 when the kids woke up. Lance's parents, sister and brother in law came over to watch the kids check out all of their Santa surprises. Santa tried to hide Woody in Landon's stocking, but it took no time for Landon to spot his hat poking out of it! Kennedy ran right to the huge bear that was left for her. The next few hours were spent opening gifts and playing with all of our new toys until we got ready to load up to head to Caddo Lake to see my family.

Putting reindeer food out

Kennedy (who insisted on wearing yellow bows are bath) putting the cookies out for Santa. Landon insisted that Santa needed to eat healthy to make him strong so he added the carrots.

Every other year my parents host the Cochran fear factor at their house with my brothers and cousins on my dad's side of the family. It is always interesting to see what the grown ups have in store for us. This year we had to be inside since it was just too cold and wet to get outside for the games. Each 'young' adult is paired up with their spouse to compete in 3 rounds for bragging rights and a trophy. This year was:

Round 1- My parents got the Connect video game that reads your body movements instead of using controllers. Each couple had to play a water rapids game and the highest score gets 1st place. Lance and I fell in the middle of the pack on this one. We couldn't see to jump at the same time at all! My cousin Destin and her hubby killed everyone in this one!

Round 2- Candy cane fishing. We had a fishing cane pole with a candy cane tied to the end of the pole. We had to 'hook' another candy cane out of 3 different coffee mugs and place them into a bowl. The fastest time win. Lance won vs the guys and i won vs the girls.

Round 3- This round is always an eating competition. This one was pretty brutal and hilarious at the same time! Each couple had to feed the other partner food without using their hands. Basically picking up the food with their mouth and putting it in their partner's mouth. Disgusting, right?? Well, just wait till you hear what we had to eat.... one jalapeno pepper, one sardine, and one twinkie. Blah! The fastest time wins first place. We came in second place behind my older brother. Destin stole the show when she couldn't keep her sardine down! Poor thing, but she was a great sport! I think if they were able to finish this event, they would have won.

Lance and I came in a very close second place behind my older brother and his wife. This makes it two years in a row that they won. Maybe next year....

All the kid cousins on my dad's side of the family

Fear Factor contestants

Kennedy and cousin Jake taking a break from playing to watch some Backyardigans

A crafty Christmas

I just love Christmas time!!! These past few days we kicked off Christmas week with some craft time. Tuesday, I hosted my annual Christmas craft playdate with two of dearest friends, Suzanne Tyler and Mandy Cauley, who are amazing school teachers in Lincoln Parish. I always try to steal some of their Christmas break time with a playdate with our kids since we don't have playdates during the school year. And another sweet friend of mine, Shanna, joined us last minute and Landon was glad to see his preschool buddy, Jonathan. These craft dates can get crazy so I try to keep the numbers down to keep the stress to a minimum.

This year, we did the Apple Snowman once again because it seems to be a big hit. Such an easy craft and good for young kids. All you need is: an apple, one large marshmellow, lots of little marshmellows (especially when they are eaten before they are placed on the apple), whole cloves, and toothpicks. I always have to remind the kids that the toothpicks are sharp which is a good learning tool. This year, Harper added a little flare on her snowman by making a crown for hers. And, of course, jake tyler had to put a hat on his. ;)

Suzanne was gracious enough to bring a craft for the kids to do as well. It was a lifesaver ornament that the kids made a circle with and then we placed in the oven to make the ring of lifesavers stick together. We had a hard time getting them to stick together so the kids just enjoyed eating them up instead! I think it was Landon's first experience with lifesavers and I think it is safe to say that he loved them! Now, we did have a scare with Mandy's youngest, Baylor Kate, when she started to choke on hers. She is not even two yet so I don't recommend this craft for the young ones! Fortunately she was ok, but it gave all the moms a big scare.

Landon with his snowman and a lifesaver in his mouth!

Sweet Harper cheesin it up for me

jake concentrating HARD!

Jonathan, Landry Grace, Harper, Baylor Kate, Kennedy, Jake, and Landon

Thank you ladies for taking time out of your short Christmas break to come over. I just enjoy seeing the both of you and hugging on your sweet kiddos!

Two years ago, Mandy Cauley, gave me the craft idea for our craft playdate to have our kids paint the Christmas wrapping paper to be use to wrap gifts. We tried painting our, then, 2 year old's feet with paint and let them walk all over the brown craft paper that we would use to wrap presents. As you can imagine, it didn't go over too well (what were we thinking??). Our kids might could do it now they are 4, but if you are anything like me, I tend to waste wrapping paper when wrapping gifts. So, then we came up with the idea to just wrap the presents and THEN have them put handprints on them. Sooo, this is the second year to do this and even though it was messy and a little crazy at times, we had a blast! Landon got good at doing his own hands and I was soooo glad that I drew a picture of a christmas on the brown craft paper that I taped to the table. This was so Kenedy could paint the tree while she waited her turn to do more prints. Now, she did end up with a lot of green on her belly and ALL IN HER HAIR!! I wish now I had a picture of that. But I had paint all over me and we needed to get cleaned up quickly. And now I wish I had taken picture of the finish products!! You can see some of them in the background. We did mostly handprints, but we also had some stamps and some sponge letters that spelled "HO" for HO HO HO.

Both kids went straight to the bath afterwards while i cleaned up before my inlaws came over for dinner and gifts. Thank goodness I had the taco soup in the crock pot and didn't have to worry about cooking! We cut it pretty close!

Sweet Memaw

Early, early this morning we received a phone call. The call was to tell us the news about Lance's grandmother who had had a heart attack and wasn't expected to live. Lance showered up and headed to the Ruston hospital where she was in ICU. This was his dad's mother who was 99 and lived in a nursing home in Arcadia, just down the interstate. But, I have never seen a more active 99 year old and who made the most precious porcelain dolls!

Lance's parents were actually in New Orleans visiting with Lance's sister, Leslea. But they quickly came back home to be with her. She passed this afternoon. It was a blessing that she didn't suffer long and Dr. Hall was able to see her. She lived a full life, and according to her, she lived two lifetimes!

Please keep Lance's dad in your prayers. He knew her days were numbered, but it still never prepares you to lose your mother.

On a lighter note, Landon sang at our church tonight for the 3-4 yr old choir. They were too cute! The crazy thing was, Landon had his thumb in his mouth the entire time, yet still singing. He has never sucked his thumb a day in his life so i asked him what was that all about when it was over. He said, "I wanted to be baby Landon just like baby Jesus." Geez, of all times to pretend to be a baby! Although, lately, he has been pretending he is baby Clark Kent from a book we got from the library. Who knows! ;)

Landon and his buddy, Canon, before getting on stage

And this is a picture of a family that I have enjoyed getting to know. Jonathon is in Landon's class so they are big buds. And I have gotten to know his mom, Shanna, from MDO and church. Her husband is our new Music director for the Gathering and he is so talented. They are such sweet people and I am glad they have moved to Ruston! She needed help with a family picture for a christmas card and I was glad to help.

This week has been busy with bunko, date night with lance and the weekend will be just as filled. Tomorrow night we have a couple's game night we are going to, which I can't wait!! Then Friday we have the annual McClusky cookie exchange party put on by one of my friends, Sharla. And this girl can throw a party!! Friday night is our Sunday school party. I love the Holiday season!!!!

Fun filled weekend

I am a few days late on this post, but it's better than what I have been doing! On Friday, we visited Lance's work for their Open House and to see Santa. I was worried on how Kennedy would do with seeing him up close and personal. But she did great! Jumped on his lap with no hesitation and kept giving him hugs. I think it helped when Landon kept talking about how nice he was and that he isn't scary.

What??? a family shot with both kids looking?? yay!

Kennedy giving Santa another hug

Kennedy playing ring around the rosie with Preston and Emory

Later that evening we attended the christmas parade and it was great!! I was so glad that it wasn't too cold like it had been the past two years. The kids had a ball and it was fun enjoying it with other close friends of ours and their kids. I have to say that we have some kids that are candy snobs!! If you could have seen the candy that was left on the ground and seen the kids just pass over the candy they don't like. In fact, I witnessed Landon taking candy from a guy handing it to him through his car window, Landon looked at it and dropped it on the ground right in front of the guy. I was quite embarrassed, but laughed so hard at the same time!! Thankfully so did the guy!

The boys checking out the cool motorcycles

The next morning, we attended the annual breakfast with Santa at Squire Creek. We are so lucky to have this at our country club to help build our family traditions. This year was sooo much easier than last year. It helped that we beat the crowd waiting to take pictures and the kids actually sat still at the table and behaved!! I see the light at the end of the table!!!!

Oh how i wish I had gotten more pics of K in this adorable dress!! We borrowed it from my dear friend, Suzanne, and it was precious!

Looks like such a big boy in this picture (sniff)

After breakfast, we went home to change clothes to go to a birthday party at Papa Simpson's farm. It was for Cullen clark and Alex hunt's 3rd birthday party. My kids loved it!! I was glad that Kennedy got to go finally. It was a little windy/chilly, but we didn't get rained on thank goodness. We are so lucky to have such great friends to celebrate these special memories!

K's first pony ride

Polar Express Weekend

This past Saturday, my parents and I took the kids to Dallas to spend some time with some relatives and my cousin's birthday party. It was a long weekend, packed full with fun, but well worth it. The kids did pretty good considering all the time we spent in the car going from place to place.

We got to see both Aunt Lisa and Aunt Jennifer's new houses. We also got to see my niece, Kenzie, perform in her gymnastics meet. Then we celebrated Emma's 8th birthday at Aunt Jen's house. We all didn't get into bed until midnight and my kids were exhausted!

I had no idea what a wonderful guitar player Rob (my cousin's, Mary, husband) is and Kennedy loved dancing to the music and really enjoyed playing his guitar!

Kennedy and Caitlin. K had been in the car all day and she couldn't have been more excited to see her!

On Sunday we woke up and laid around Aunt Jen's house until we headed out. We then drove to Palestine to the Polar Express train depot, where Lance met us there to have a family train ride on the Polar Express. It was cute and it was worth seeing the kids expressions when they saw the north pole, the train conductor, and then Santa Claus. I really thought Kennedy was going to flip out when she saw him, but she did good and even got the bell out of his hand. All the adults really enjoyed Kennedy's love of dancing. She danced the entire train ride!

I know several friends that have taken their kids to the is ride soI knew it was going to be a long day. I would probably suggest you go at least once. Don't expect it to be spectacular, but I can tell you that young kids will enjoy it. Older kids might think it's cheesy (and adults too), but if you ask me, just get into the spirit and have fun with it, it will be really fun for all ages!

Kennedy dancing with the girls

Kennedy hearing the bells

Looking for the north pole

My favorite picture....Landon hearing the bell saying I believe!!

After the train ride, we drove through Santa Land in Lindale, TX. This is the drive through lights that is located right off the interstate. Really cute and worth making a stop if you are ever driving through!