all the great moms have Santa's private number!

....and just so you know, i happen to be a great mom! hehe! every year on Christmas eve, just before bed, we call Santa's private cell phone number! he's always glad to stop and talk with blake & brady...and make sure he has loaded everything on his sleigh that they asked him for at the mall! sometimes we forget to ask him for something so that's our last chance to let Santa know. he is usually able to grab that toy on the way out of his workshop! this year was no exception! we dialed him up and he was just about to leave the North Pole. We even got to talk with one his elves! it was the very one that built the 2 scooters that Santa was about to deliver! wow! needless to say, it was an exciting phone call! thanks Santa!!! (you know who you are!)

cookies for Santa!

this Christmas has been CRAZY! i haven't posted here in a couple of weeks because my internet has been down (by the way, i absolutely despise comcast) and have hosted 2 dinner parties and the Swanner family gift-opening tornado! whew! i'm sitting down for a few minutes before i go to my parents house for the Roark version of the gift-opening tornado! this year, the Christmas season has been a little out-of-the-ordinary. my papaw is in the hospital with respiratory issues so we opened gifts with him at Glenwood the other day. and just today, my dad got admitted to the hospital trying to pass a stinkin kidney stone! he's going to miss the festivities tonight, at his house might i add, but he's been so doped full of pain meds for the last day and a half that he probably wouldn't be an active participant if he was there! hopefully things will settle down in a day or two so we can relax in the new year!

just wanted to share a few pics of me and the boys baking cookies for Santa! we made chocolate chip cookies ( courtesy of Nestle Toll House....not homemade!) i think we may have eaten more cookie dough than the actual baked cookies! our blood sugar was probably through the roof! we had a great time, though....and i'm pretty sure Santa enjoyed his midnight snack!! more Christmas posts later!

weekend in New Orleans

last friday morning, we headed to New Orleans to see West Monroe play football in the state championship. the boys were so pumped about going out of town so they could stay in a hotel! speaking of our hotel, we stayed at the Ambassador Hotel (which is a refurbished coffee warehouse with the original brick walls inside and exposed beams....really unique). there were 2 windows that looked like outside windows, but faced into the hallway because our room was so big. the second night, 3 drunk idiots staggered down the hall and crashed into one of our windows! there was glass on the sofa inside, all over kenneth's clothes, and the floor. we had to call security and the police....gee fun! yeah, right.

on the drive down there, blake and brady got to play in the snow! their first "on-the-ground" snow ever! it had snowed the day before in south louisiana and, even though the temperature was climbing to the upper 40s, there was still plenty of snow on the roadside to play in!

saturday night was when the rebels played at the superdome. they played a hard game and we are so proud of them, although they brought home the runner-up trophy. before the game we all spent the day in the french quarter and the riverwalk. talk about West Monroe people everywhere! this picture is of the boys in front of the cathedral in Jackson Square.

by the time we got home sunday evening, we were pooped! hopefully the rebels will give us all another opportunity to go back to The Big Easy again next year!!

oops! i almost forgot! cafe du monde for beignets was a must after the game! nothing like giving your kids a powdered sugar rush at 11pm right before bed! oh well, it was vacation.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from our family!

remember that the greatest gift of all was given to us during this season....Jesus Christ. amid all the scramble and craziness of shopping malls, wrapping piles of gifts, and cooking for an army of family, keep Him in full focus!

my prayer is that you and your family have a happy and blessed Christmas and a calm, healthy, and quiet 2009!

we love Santa!

what a difference a year makes!

we took the kids to see Santa at the mall last week .... fully expecting to have to come up with another creative way to get brady close enough to Santa to actually be in the photo! boy, were we surprised. last year, blake sat on his lap while brady stood 2 feet away to his left side, just barely in the picture! this picture was from last year.........

pretty funny, huh?! well, for weeks we've been talking about how fun it would be to sit on Santa's lap, and how Santa brings lots more toys than if you just stand beside him, and all of those manipulative things! we also told him how proud Santa was of him learning to "go" in the potty. (for those of you who fought that battle with us, you know the struggle of which i speak!!) it obviously worked. blake just bounded right up to him like he usually does because "he's the biggest kid ever" and brady followed right behind him! we were speechless!

they told Santa just what they wanted and cheesed for the camera like pros! blake said he forgot to ask him for boxing gloves so we'll have to remember to ask for that when we call him on Christmas eve. yes, we call the real Santa right before bed on Christmas eve just before he gets into his sleigh to make deliveries!! i have a "special Santa phone number" that only moms have! (and Santa Claus, you know who you are so get ready!!)

we had a great time at the mall and brady was so very proud of himself. and we certainly were too!

11 years!

i've just gotta say...i'm married to a really good man! God has allowed me to spend 11 years married to kenneth and they've been happy, funny, hectic, crazy, blessed years for sure!

for those of you who don't know, i'll tell you how we met. way back in 1995, my friend kristi literally MADE me go to an NLU football game with her. yes, back then it was Northeast! we sat in the BSU section. we were either winning really well...or losing really bad....because people started leaving the game early. the stands where we were got kinda sparse, and suddenly we were left with a handful of loud-mouth nuts a few rows up from us! kenneth was, obviously, one of those nuts! we all introduced ourselves and cheered the rest of the game together.

kenneth was, without a doubt, hopelessly smitten with me from the very moment he laid eyes on me .... or so i tell it! (wink!) he and his friends were about to leave to go to his house to watch a movie and they invited kristi and me to come. well, we were idiots who apparently had a death-wish and we said yes! i mean, come on. he could have been a serial killer luring us into his torture chamber, but we decided if we were gonna die.....we would die together! turns out, they were all very sweet Christian people and we had a great time.

i gave my phone numbers to kenneth that night but really didn't expect to hear from him. yeah, right. this is what happened the very next day! i worked in the customer service phone center at Entergy, where lots and lots of calls come in every day. i later found out that he took out my number and decided that if he called the center and i happened to answer the phone, he would ask me out for a real date. you know, what are the chances that i would actually get his call with all of those operators there?? so he took a deep breath and pushed 9 to speak with a representative----"Thank you for calling Entergy! This is Tess. May I help you?" hehehehehe! how funny is that??!! (cue the light shining down on us from heaven!) so, we went out that very night! and the rest, as they say, is history!

we met in 1995, got married in 1997, had blake in 2002, and brady came in 2005. we've had such a blessed marriage and i thank God for kenneth and my sweet boys everyday. hopefully the best is yet to come!

today is our anniversary but unfortunately, it was just kinda blah! i was up and at work at 7am and kenneth left right after lunch to go out of town. this morning at work, one of the babies in my care started getting really bad so i had to ride with him in the back of the ambulance to another hospital on transport. that's really NOT a good thing for a nurse that gets CARSICK! ha! i was feeling sort of icky when i got back to my unit but there in the nurses station sat the prettiest bouquet of roses! (cue the light from heaven again!) they were sent from my precious husband at just the right time! the rest of the day was uneventful so i was able to stare at and smell my flowers all day. i suppose it was a good day after all!

kenneth, if you're reading this, please know that i love you til my heart gets sore! you do so much for me and the boys.....and i can't tell you enough thank you for being the best daddy and husband ever. you're the BEST!