New Years 2012 at the Beach!

Well....I am FINALLY posting our NY for 2012. I can't even begin to describe how I feel getting this behind, but TERRIBLE pretty much sums it up!!!!!!! So anyhoo, here was our last week of Christmas break and New Year's.

My parents recently bought a new beach house after selling our last one a couple of years ago. I think that saying we were all excited to be back a the beach is a HUGE understatement!! The new house is front row on the beach in our same neighborhood and we are just THRILLED to be back at the beach!!

This was my first morning sunrise....gorgeous!!!!!

We had a couple of nights with my parents in the new place before they headed to Palm Springs for a wedding. Then we had some friends and family come down to stay with us to celebrate the New Year.

I caught this sweet moment between two of my sweet boys on the deck.

Jack and I enjoying a day on the beach. It was cold and windy, but beautiful!!
B-doodle the master shell hunter!!
Our friends the Medders arrived on Friday, and we were so glad to have them! All the littles before dinner at the Stingeree!!

Yummy seafood and Stingaritas!!

The boys with their shell finds!!

Sand Angels?!?

The fog on New Year's eve day was SO terrible! It didn't seem to bother these boys, they had a ball driving the cart, playing in the sand and even getting in the frigid water!!

Buddies!! Poor Jack was conked out napping, he missed some fun.

Kiddie firework time, my boys love those little poppers that make a huge mess!! UGH!! They had fun doing all the "kiddie fireworks".

I love this idea, I saw it on Pintrest and luckily I was at the beach and able to do it!! Farewell 2011, Hello 2012!

Next up was the real show! It was time to PARTY!!

Our beach bonfire! The boys just love doing these!!

Aaron and Ryan, relaxing by the fire.

They New Year's Queens!!

Happy New Year's from the Hopson family!!!

We had such a great time at the beach house!! It was a great week and I SO did NOT want to come home and go back to reality!! Summer where are you?!?

Christmas Day 2011

Merry Christmas from the Hopsons!! We were very happy to wake up at home on Christmas day to see that Santa was very good to two little boys at our house. My sleepy heads ready to go look at their presents!

The note that Santa left the boys.....

Barrett checking out the goods.....

I think Jack was still half asleep......

The best Christmas gifts ever!!!!

My boys, the loves of my life.......
Chef Cowboy/Chef Jack!

Guns were a big thing this year, well really every year in our house.

I even got in on the gun action, Ryan got my pink gun! Thanks Babe!! (thanks Jamie for the idea)

I admit, I was a little nervous about it just being "our" little family on Christmas Day. This was the first time we haven't been ALL together with my fam. Ryan and I just really wanted our boys to wake up at OUR house on Christmas morning and since all the other family was in Lufkin this year, that's just how it had to be. It wasn't as bad as I thought, it's just really hard for me to change, I like the tradition of things. I just had to look at it like we are making new traditions. We had our yummy Christmas breakfast and just enjoyed the day together!

We had loads of fun watching to boys with their toys, and we may or may not have stayed in our pj's ALL day!!

Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas Eve 2011

Christmas Eve we spent in Lufkin at my parents house and my Aunt Kathy & Uncle Jim's house. It was truly the "Griswold's" in Lufkin, because Ryan and I took the motorhome for us to stay in. Since Christie and her fam have been living with my parents while they build their house it was to crowded for us to stay there to. I was laughing so hard at this BIG HONKIN' motorhome parked in the country club parking lot, HA!!!! I BEGGED Ryan to let me take his picture out front like Cousin Eddy. It worked out well though, my parents house is just right down the street and let's face it we are the traveling family!

We all met at my parents house to open gifts with the kiddos. We usually do this Christmas morning, but since we were going back to Lindale Christmas eve night we had to do it then. Here is our little family.....

Big B and SuSu with their grandbabies, so cute! THE best grandparents and parents EVA!!

The Big Kids....

The kids were super excited for present time, although you couldn't tell it from this face. That's my Jack!

For dinner we headed down the street to Kathy and Jim's house. The kids were so excited to see this HUGE dancing Santa. They danced around with him ALL night!! We had a great dinner and a great time visiting with the family. After dinner the kids had some more gifst to open. The highlight of the evening had to be Julie's cat that was hiding under the tree attacking everyone who walked by or tried to pick up a gift for under the tree!! It was Hi-larious I tell ya!!

After dinner we had some other visitors, our cousins Jake & Cate came down to play!! What a great looking group of kiddos!!

When the weather started getting bad, Ryan and I decided that we should head home. We still had a LONG night ahead, HA!! It was a great Christmas Eve with family and friends!!

Christmas at Nana & PawPaw's

On December 23rd we had Christmas at Nana and PawPaw's house. Ryan and I picked up one of our favorite Mexican food stops "Del Rio". We had enough for an army, but it was a good thing we had a FULL house!! The crowd included Nana, PawPaw and Kolby, My little family, Dori, Eric, and their SIX boys, and Grandma Joan & Aunt Caryn.

I was terrible with the camera for some reason that night, but here are a few snapshots of the madness!!

All of the CRAZY boys opening their gifts!!

Nana and PawPaw got all the big boys airsoft guns complete with face masks! They were all SO excited! Jack got some spurs and "cowboy gwobes" aka, gloves. HA!! He also got a face mask and toy gun. The boys immediately ran outside to shot their guns!

After some play time we decided to load up and look at Christmas lights. We ended up going to a local church that had a light show to music. It was pretty neat!! It was so great to get together with the family and celebrate the season.

Baking Day

During the first week of Christmas break we decided it was time to make our gingerbread house. It was also the day that I made The Pioneer Woman's Cinnamon Rolls for neighborhood Christmas treats. It was a big messy baking day in our house!

Yep.....that would be the terrible knot finally getting worse better. Jack had more fun eating the candy. We were lucky we had something to decorate with!

Hard at work!
Handsome little chefs.....

The finished product! Not bad boys!!

For the past few years I have made the neighbors The Pioneer Woman's fabulous Cinnamon Rolls. They are SO, SO yummy!! They are quite messy to undertake, but the end result is well worth it!

Ready for delivery! It was a great day with my little men.

Christmas Party, Knothead & Deer

December 16th was the last day of school before Christmas Break and it was an eventful day! I had Anna{our sitter/B.F.F} come over to keep Jack while I went to the school for the party.

My sweet boy and I....he looks positively thrilled, huh??

The boys of the class, and Barrett running to try and get it in, procrastinator!!

Barrett making his "Christmas tree" I thought these would be a fun project. They were fun but SO very messy!!

Busy making trees!!

Barrett and his awesome teacher Mrs. Cantrell!!

Anna text me during the party, but I didn't get it until I left. The message scared the daylights out of me!! She said that Jack had fallen off of the island and hit his head on the tile. He had a huge knot, but seemed to be ok. Barrett and I were leaving the school when I got the text, so I sped rushed home!! His head FREAKED me out!!! It was HUGE!! He was asleep and I woke him up to look and check him out. His eyes were fine and since he didn't get sick or pass out, I didn't take him to the Doctor.

His head seemed to be going down a little. I was busy getting Barrett packed to go hunting with Ryan and I heard him start screaming and crying. I walked in to see his knot turning reddish-blue and swelling up quickly. Apparently the boys were "playing" and he fell or something. I didn't know if he hit his head again but it was really scaring me so I rushed to the Dr. office. They got us right in, looked him over and said he would be fine. Just a crazy worried Mom. SO glad he was Ok, better safe than sorry!! Here are some pics of the "knothead" and this believe it or not, were after it was better!!

Poor baby!!!

Since Barrett and Ryan were hunting, Jack and I decided to meet my parents at Rough Creek for the weekend. We had a very relaxing time. We watched some football by the fire and just enjoyed little Jack.
Jack and I did a little nature walk exploring, we found lots of animal tracks. How cute are these raccoon hand prints.

Ryan and Barrett were not having the best weather in North Texas which in turn makes for a bad hunt. They didn't see much the first day or two, and then what they did see was way to far for Barrett to shoot. Finally on Sunday, I got a call that Barrett shot his first deer!!!!! I was so excited for him, but a little sad that I wasn't there with him.

Such a big boy!! He shot this doe at 100 yards, made a great shot!! Way to go B!!!!!
On Monday morning I got another call, it was the sweetest little voice that said, "Mom, I did it again!" I couldn't believe it, another deer and it was a buck! He said "Mom, I killed a 7 point and I'm 7 years old!" How cute!!! He killed this one at about 110 yards and made another perfect shot! I couldn't be more happy for him!!!


So proud of my B-man!!! We were also SO happy that it was Christmas holidays!!!