Prayers

I completely believe in the power of prayer and I need some prayers right now for some very special people.


1. Please say a little prayer for my sister-in-law who is 25 weeks pregnant with my little nephew. She recently had some contractions but luckily they were able to stop them. More tests are being done to see what is going on.

2. Please say a prayer for my best friends little girl, Regan. She is 6 months old and they found a 11 cm tumor in her little belly a few weeks ago and she had surgery on Tuesday to remove it. She was moved out of ICU today which is great news. Tomorrow results from the biopsy should be back and we are praying for a benign tumor. She is such a strong little girl and I can't imagine what her parents are going through right now.

3. For all those who prayed for Kylie last week, it was very much appreciated! She had her second set of ear tubes put in and she did great. I am so glad it is over because I know it will help her feel so much better.



Thanks in advance for your prayers!!

Elfie

I couldn't wait to start the tradition of Elf on the Shelf with the kids this year. Not only would it help them understand how Santa works, I would be able to use it when trying to get the kids to do things they don't want to do :)  I seem to be a little more creative as the month has gone on so I am sure next year will be awesome!
I will have a follow-up post after Christmas to give more highlights of where Elfie has shown up this year, but here are just a few places we found him:

Mommy & Kylie

Kylie and I had a date night and went to see the Nutcracker. I was skeptical because she is only two, but I had high hopes because she loves to watch people dance and I knew there would be plenty of princesses to watch.

We went to dinner at the Bristol first and then made our way to watch the ballet. Nana, Katie, Austin and Maggie were with us as well as my mom's best friend Tina and her daughter and two granddaughters. We all had a great time and Kylie did great. I can't wait to make this a yearly tradition with Kylie. Next year we will make a bigger deal about it and go out a buy an entire new princess dress for it for her to wear. I can't wait!

An Amazing Gift

I knew this time of year was going to be tough for our family because we are going through all of our firsts without Paula. We do have one amazing gift from God that we get to celebrate right now and that is the pregnancy of Emma and Nathan. I know I am so excited about bringing another little Thacker boy into this family because Blake needs someone to wrestle with! Kylie is pretty excited as well and I captured her on video talking about Aunt Emma being pregnant with a baby. We made this video to send to Emma and Nathan:

Santa!

I was so excited to take the kids to see Santa this year. Aaron and I have really been talking him up to the kids - especially now that Elf on the Shelf has debuted in our house (which is another post). My mom's hospital has a yearly Christmas celebration so that was our first Christmas experience of the year. 

Here are a few pictures of the visit with a short video at the end. Blake was hilarious because he went up to Santa and then saw a fake present and grabbed it and thought it was his!

The Most Wonderful (and busiest) Time of Year!

December is so busy for us! With holiday parties, school ending, Christmases, dinners with Friends, Christmas shopping...I can go on and on....we are so busy but I love it! Especially since I am now officiallly completed with school for the semester. I huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders because it is one less thing I have to worry about and now I can focus on the kids and having a wonderful Christmas. 27 credits down and 9 more to go - only 3 more classes and I will have my MBA!
Here is how our December has gone so far:

The first weekend in December was packed full. Friday night we had Aaron's office party at French Lick Resort & Spa and we had a great time. It was so nice to get away for a night and see the beautiful decorations at the resort. They also have the Polar Express train ride where you can actually go on a train ride and visit Santa! Tickets sell out almost a year in advance so I will be getting our tickets for next year very soon!

Here is the beautiful tree outside of the hotel:

Saturday was my brother Brad's birthday and we went out to eat with the family. My sister and my cousin Lauren and I also did the shopping for my grandparents for our family's Christmas which is this coming weekend. We shopped for 18 stockings and 10 kids presents. It was a lot of fun but a lot of work. We did it pretty quickly and got finished in just over 2 hours. That Sunday was spent writing a paper and doing a presentation for one of my classes. Not fun but the end of the semester was near.