My niece...is CRAZY

And I LOVE that about her...we are not sure what happened here, but it looks suspiciously like a mass casualty.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve 2009

My parents were able to spend Christmas with us in Nashville this year. They braved our contemporary Christmas Eve service (usually they attend a very conservative Catholic Mass). The girls loved the service and danced the entire time. Then we came home and made homemade pizzas! 

Nana, Josie, Wendy, and Pap-Pap

Nana, Josie, Wendy, and Jason

Sophie and Josie

Katie, Zoe, Sophie, and Adam

Opryland at Christmas Time

My parents were here for a week and one of the adventures we took them on was a trip to Opryland. Opryland at Christmas time (at the risk of sounding VERY cheesy) is magical. I love to go and look at all the decorations. So we braved it with not one but TWO 2 year olds! They loved it. 

After walking around Opryland, going for a boat ride, eating lunch, and narrowly avoiding a Santa encounter Sophie was pretty much tapped out. She was LOSING her mind and insisted she was going to take off her shirt. I did not choose to fight this battle and let her walk around topless, outside, in December. We got a few strange looks, but for those who had experienced 2 year olds more recently, we got the knowing nod. NOT worth the battle. If you can't go topless when you are 2, when can you? Right?  

Josie, on the other hand, was quite concerned about Sophie's near nakedness and kept yelling at her to get dressed. She did...eventually.

Nothing Screams Christmas Like a Visit to..

The police academy??? Oh yeah...Jason took all of us (including the 2 year olds) on a tour of the Police Academy...including a visit to the K9 kennels. It was actually very interesting and everyone was so nice to us! We like to keep things interesting around here. Our family is a free standing career day (a teacher, a pilot, a nurse practitioner, and a police officer).

Captain and Josie

The shed where they practice clearing a house (or something official like that)

Captain and JoZ

Christmas 2009-Professional Style

Big kudos to daddy who braved a professional photo shoot with a 2 year old SOLO (I was at work).

Ms. Debbie's Snow Bunny

I could try to explain how wonderful Ms. Debbie is...but about the only thing I can say is that she is a SAINT. Ms. Debbie has a day-care in her home that Sophie has been going to a couple of days a week to give her more time with other children. Adam had been staying home with her whenever I worked, but we decided that she really needed some regular contact (other than church) with other children. My friend LeighAnn hooked us up with Ms. Debbie. Sophie loves her. She is truly amazing and I am so grateful for her. She managed to capture one of my favorite pictures of Sophie during their Christmas party AND made it into an ornament for the tree.

Josie's 2nd Birthday

You have GOT to be kidding me...Josie is TWO??? 

Okay, as usual, there is a back story. A friend of mine at work told me this story about her nephew and Adam and I now say this all the time. Alan was about 3 and was shopping with his mom at the Disney store. He picked up a stuffed animal and said he wanted it. His mom asked him how much it was and looked at the tag. There was not a price on it and she said "well, it must be free." Alan...dead serious...said "you have GOT to be kidding me, it's fwee?" I think Alan is now in college. But his hilarity lives on in the Huskins' household.

Anyway, we celebrated Josie's 2nd birthday during a trip to Knoxville. 

A ride in the golf cart...Josie drove...for real

Nana made the girls new hats

We are working on manners...not really

Pap-Pap, Nana, and the girls

Josie got a thing that has a camera and music and you can see yourself on TV...she calls it "Josie TV".  A HUGE hit.

Dr. Huskins and her X-Ray (aka: Josie)

Oh how I love Halloween. I love the smell of fall. I love hayrides, haunted houses, scary movies, campfires. I especially love the fact that I was smart enough to move out of the great white North to a more reasonable climate. I remember my junior year of college at Michigan State. I was living in Cedar Village (why my parents let me live there I will never know...it was CRAZY, but I did have great roommates that were trustworthy) and I was sitting in the living room...it was October 14th...and there was a BLIZZARD. I don't mean snow flurries. I mean...can't see across the street, piling up on the gound BLIZZARD. It was absurd. I moved just a few years later. 

When I first moved to Tennessee many people made fun of my accent and my choice of words. Apparently "you guys" is not appropriate because it excludes the person saying it...instead I had to learn "y'all" which I still haven't quite mastered. When I was getting my hair cut one time the stylist (who also cut my sister's hair) said, "you don't favor your sister at all do you?" I had NO idea what she was talking about. I said "No, I really love my sister." She laughed at me. I was definitely not from around here.

The biggest difference was the coats. In Michigan I had a coat for just about every month of the year. The worst one was a long down coat for the middle of Michigan winters. This coat was VERY warm. So warm that I would start sweating before I made it outside if I put it on too early. My first and second winters in Tennessee I didn't touch it. Before my third winter in Tennessee I gave it away to one of the men who was helping me move. I don't miss that coat. I was commenting on this pleasant change of climate at work one day and said "down here, I only need my October coat." One of the nurses looked at me like I was crazy and asked me "what the heck is an 'October coat'". I tried to explain that it was a little warmer than a September coat, but not as warm as a November coat. I'm not sure that helped.

When Adam visited my parents' house in Midland for the first time he was walking through the garage and saw a huge contraption he'd never seen before. He looked at my dad and asked what it was. My dad said "it's a snowblower". Adam said "it has chains on the wheels?". My dad said "yep". Adam said "I would NOT live somewhere that the SNOWBLOWER has chains on the wheels." He made a good point. My parents moved to Tennessee shortly after that. 

Okay, you have endured all that for some adorable pictures of Sophie and Josie. The past 2 years we have tried to do paired costumes for the girls. This year they went as Dr. Huskins and her X-Ray. Sophie's scrubs are actually embroidered. So cute! And it was so warm we didn't even have to try to shove a winter coat underneath their costumes. I can remember many Halloweens where my costume was pointless because it was so cold we had to cover it up to bundle up!

Gentry's Farm 2009

We took the girls to Gentry's Farm for a little celebration of what I believe is the most wonderful time of the year, OCTOBER! Sophie was participating in her language study so she had to wear a recording device the whole time we were there. I'm sure people either thought I had really bad taste in clothes, or she had some medical device she was forced to carry. I had to really watch what I said because everything was being recorded. We went on a hayride, went through a hay maze, etc. The girls had a ball! We even saw Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman while we were there. At first I thought it was Billy Ray Cyrus and I couldn't figure out who the woman was that he was with. I did finally figure it out on my own...but not until I said smiled and said hi, having NO idea who they were. Nicole Kidman is a LOT shorter than I thought she was.

Sophie's 2 year pictures...

We finally got Sophie’s 2 year old pictures taken. She was not in a very good mood AT ALL, but in spite of all that Christy did a wonderful job and got some excellent pictures that really capture our sweet Sophie!

ROAD TRIP!!!

We took a family roadtrip to Wisconsin to attend my cousin’s wedding and introduce Sophie to my mom’s side of the family! We decided to drive since Sophie was officially over 2 and we would have had to buy her a ticket for the plane. The mistake we made was choosing a route through Chicago. Now, in our defense, we decided to take the route with more major cities so if we had car trouble or anything we would have more options. This seemed like a good decision…until we hit construction outside Gary, IN which delayed us just enough to hit Chicago at RUSH HOUR. Thankfully I was driving, or my sweet southern husband might STILL be stuck somewhere outside Chicago waiting for someone to let him in. However, by the time we got out of Chicago my nerves were SHOT. We continued to hit traffic jams even 30 miles outside Chicago. WHAT??? Are you kidding me? When we left Indianapolis, our navigation said we had 4.5 hours left…7.5 hours later we finally arrived. But despite the 14 hour drive we had a blast! Sophie was an absolute ANGEL in the car. I was the problem. Adam has an application on his phone that keeps up with traffic. It was totally green until about 1 minute before we hit Chicago. Then it was totally RED. I must have asked him 5,000 times how much red was left. It was awful! On the way home we spent the night in Chicago and got to eat at Gino’s East!!! It was worth it, and it was so great to be with my family! But the best part was watching the girls play together…they are so close!