Catching UP!

So I have totally neglected the blog for several months. Well tonight JD is having a "guy's weekend" with all of his uncles, cousins, dad, brother, etc. so I decided to stay up & catch up on all those things I've been putting off.

Well here goes.

December 2009:
We had my friend, Katie Maddox, take family pictures for our Christmas card pictures & I was so pleased with how they turned out. She is so creative & always does an amazing job.






December was a very busy & enjoyable month. The month consisted of a visit to the Christmas tree farm, Birthday parties, JD's family Christmas in Marlin, a very busy month at work with several big closings, both kids with pneumonia, Will being officially diagnosed with Asthma, Will getting a 2nd set of ear tubes, serving as bridesmaid/groomsmen in our dear friends' wedding, Anna Kate not being able to serve as a flower girl in the wedding because she had pneumonia & 102 fever :(, lots of family time with dinners at my parents, JD's parents, Christmas brunch at our house, Christmas afternoon at my Grandma's. Whew..that's just a glimpse at what our December held. Then to top it off JD & I made a spur of the moment trip to Breckenridge to Ring in the New Year! Here are a few pictures from those festivities.

Breakfast with Santa

For the second year, we had Breakfast with Santa as part of the Mistletoe & Moss Market. Anna Kate LOVED getting to meet him. She asked him for a piano, a pink fourwheeler, a dollhouse & a trampoline. She will be getting 3 of the 4 of those for Christmas. The Trampoline will have to wait until her birthday when we have a place to put it!

We tried our hardest to get a cute picture of the kids with our cousins, Jackson & Caroline, but they kids were NOT cooperating. This was the best we could get!

What's America?

I sadly don't have any pictures from our Thanksgiving festivities, except for this one that was taken in my kitchen not even on Thanksgiving! We had four delicious events- Thanksgiving Eve at my parents, Thanksgiving lunch at the Perry's, Thanksgiving dessert at Nanaw's & Thanksgiving supper at Michael & Kari's. Our favorite dishes were Denise's Rosemary Turkey, Mom's Crabmeat casserole, & my Pumpkin Cheesecake.

Anna Kate learned about the first Thanksgiving at school and informed me of it on the way home from school one day. Out of the blue she said Mommy, I learned about the Mayflower today. It was a big ship with Pilgrims & they came to America. But Mommy, what's America? I was so taken aback that I didn't even know what to say. I tried explaining that we live in America. Her response was well where's the Mayflower? I have new respect for teachers as they try to explain concepts such as the states & America to a 3 year old. Anna Kate has such an imagination & absorbs things like a sponge that every day she is coming up with funnies & asking LOTS of difficult questions!

"Fall"ing Behind!

OK, so I haven't been good about keeping all of you updated on the Hankins Happenings for the end of Fall, but I do have a good excuse. We have been out of town EVERY weekend in November. Three weekends to Houston for a cousin's wedding, Nutcracker Market shopping & a visit to see Kate & Neil who were visiting to Chicago, then off to Dallas the last weekend in November for Jenni Lee's Bachelorette Party. As I'm clearing up my Memory card for the Hankins family Christmas in Marlin this weekend, I decided to give you a glimpse of the Halloween fun that we had.

Our church had its annual Halloween festival. I had the cutest little bumble bee & dragon ever! & there was even a surprise appearance by Mr. Gecko himself!

The Gecko Returns to Win Best Adult Costume! The Toddler Area- Adli, Will, Jett & Avery.

Cuties! Anna Kate's Buddies- Ava, Sarah, Allie & Anna Kate

Liz is So creative!

Anna Kate's PK3 class also had a little Halloween party. I was in charge of drinks, so I brought a "Witches Brew" complete with dry ice in a caldron. Well this was definitely an experiment and while visually it was a hit with the kids, I didn't realize the dry ice would disintegrate & contaminate the entire punch. Thankfully I had brought along a pack of Capri Suns so the kids didn't go thirty!

Finally, on Halloween evening we had a fun party at our house. Our neighborhood goes CRAZY for Halloween. We had an estimated 1000 children come through our neighborhood trick or treating. I am still finding tootsie roll wrappers from that evening. Our friends, Paul & Denise Perry got the award for most creative costumes. Paul was the Balloon Boy & Denise was Octo-Mom! I remember going to Halloween parties atheir old house (which coincidentally on my street) & how creative they always were!

All the Grandparents

As promised, here is the picture of the whole family at Grandparents Day.

Chaos Halloween Party

Saturday night our Mardi Gras Krewe had our annual Halloween Party. We invited our friends Dustin & Lauren to join us. We had fun seeing how ridiculous of a costume we could come up with. Yesterday, JD put his costume back on & scared the daylights out of Anna Kate! It took her several seconds to figure out it was JD & not a giant lizard monster!

The next Mia Hamm

Well JD's dream since before Anna Katharine was born finally came true on Saturday, she is officially a soccer player!! The YMCA in Lake Charles has a 3-4 year old league & of course JD signed up to be the coach! They stress teaching the kids the game in a non-competitive environment. Our team was severely outnumbered (5 against 10) because they let all the kids play that show up. However, despite the odds, we won 5-2 (but who's counting!) Our team is made up of Anna Kate & her two good friends Kohl & Karsyn, as well as a little boy who was in her MDO class last year & a new friend, Mason. JD is still working on Anna Kate getting a little more aggressive towards the ball. At one point during the game, she ran off the field to tell me she was hot & just ready to go eat cookies!! Maybe she is my child after all :)