Well.....I am sad to report that Champ lost his battle with cancer 4 days after Christmas. It was one of the saddest things I have had to witness. Chris heard him fall down in the middle of the night and knew it was not good. I found Chris laying on the kitchen floor at 4am next to him. So, we put Champ in bed with us and he slept his last night in bed with us and had steak the next morning. We will miss Champ and I can tell Winton misses him too!

Merry Christmas!

Boy was it a busy day for us? Actually it just ended today, when we did Christmas at my mom's house tonight. The boys are going to think they will get to open presents at every house they go to. It's very confusing. It has been lots of fun, but very exhausting.

Buie trying on his muck boots

Buie riding his Harley

Mason was sooooo excited to finally get his dragon that he said santa forgot to bring him! Just think how I felt!

Grandpa, Mason , Buie and Celie on Christmas morning

Buie did not want to take off the santa hat!

He loves his trucks!!

Ice Skating in Olympic park!

Not one of our more brilliant ideas, I must admit. My back is still sore from trying to stay up on skates myself and then trying to do it with Mason in between my legs. I thought it was horrible, until I saw Chris......Buie couldn't even keep on the blades of his skates. He kept slipping out in front of Chris. Great company, but not fun!

Granny and the wild bunch

Buie's first time on ice skates

Olivia and Andrew

Whew.....glad those ice skates are off our feet!!

The girls couldn't get enough

Mason and Buie were done after 2 times around the ice. (I was too!)

Granny going down the slide

Uncle Andrew had to drag Frances off the ice

Mason and Olivia are best buds

Our little Christmas tree with only kids ornaments this year!!

Mason and Julie making Christmas cookies

The latest appliques...

Butterfly with a frayed edge

Apple tree with pink apples

Both of these were made to match a customers own clothes that she brought to me.

Well.....a bit of bad news to relay......Champ's tumor was diagnosed as malignant. He has cancer of the red blood cells, which is a very fast spreading cancer. He is doing great right now, but on average they give him anywhere from 1-3 months to live. Let's hope he can stay strong and pain free as long as possible.

Well......Champ returned home today exhausted. I must say I know how he feels going through some major surgery. (his is a little different) He ended up getting the blood transfusion last night after Chris had to transfer him from the vet to the emergency vet at about 9 o'clock. He then had to pick up Champ this morning and take him back to the vet for the to monitor him all day and I picked him up tlate this afternoon. They all loved him at the vet (of course! I am sure they are feeling a litle bad for him right now) and said he had a great day. At least he was eating again and wagging his tail, which he was not doing either one for about the last week. He is getting pampered at home, can't you tell, he's on my chair.......that would never happen normally. The results from the biopsy will take about a week so say a little prayer for Champ and we will let you know.

Buie and Mason playing with shaving cream and razors (kids of course)

This is how Celie gets her baths. She loves them this way.

Please keep Champ in your prayers.......he had to have emergency surgery today. He had been acting a little weird lately, but nothing we could really put a finger on other than he was not himself. So Chris took him to the vet this morning and after each test they ran, they said they needed to to another one and then an x-ray and then an ultrasound and then to surgery to take out his spleen. I'm not real sure exactly what it was other than there was a bunch of blood in there and a big tumor. He lost so much blood that he may have to have a transfusion tonight, we are not sure yet. They will do a biopsy to check the tumor and we will let you know what we find out. Chris is a little shaken to say the least........if any of you know Chris, you know how he is with animals and this is his best friend.

Busy weekend again........Friday we took the boys to go see Santa. I was nervous as to how they would behave. Last year, they both cried.......not this year. They did great.......Mason was a little more cautious, but Buie was not afraid. Buie asked for a helicopter and the preceded to tell Santa what Mason wanted, a blue pillow, a dinosaur castle and some dinosaurs. Buie asked Santa for a shirt and some toys for Celie. When we left, Mason said, "but Santa didn't give me my dinosaur castle and blue pillow" with a bit of disappointment. So cute and innocent.

Then Saturday we all went to Frances an Olivia's birthday party. Cute puppet show! Then Chris and I left all the kids with Pam and went to the SEC championship game and loved every minute of Florida losing. I didn't really care that Alabama won, just as long as Florida lost. It was great other than the fact that wore orange (not on purpose) and everyone thought I was a Florida fan, which was not a fun/good feeling.

On Sunday, we finally got our Christmas tree! I felt like we were one of the last ones to get ours. Picking it out in a parking lot on a busy street took a bit the fun out of it as well as Buie jumping from so much excitement that he fell and busted his lip. The fun ended quickly, but we got a pretty tree from Big John's.

Mason & Buie were so excited to pick out our tree.

Telling Santa what they would like for Christmas

Santa even gave them an early gift.

Some holiday fun.......a new tradition we are starting, "The Elf on the Shelf". It is so cute......the concept is for this elf to be at our house and watch us all day long and when we are sleeping he flies back to report to Santa on our behavior. He comes back before we wake up and "land" (i.e., mommy and daddy put somewhere) new each morning. You should see the excitement when they are searching fir the elf each morning. Oh......and you get o name your elf and our is none other than "Shag"! It's a great new tradition and we use it all the time to fix behavior problems. (not sure what we are going to do when Christmas is over)

Chris reading to the boys

on the hunt for Shag.....

......there he is!

Snowman applique for cute Nora

Owl for Nora that I was playing around with.

Here are some of the latest appliques I did in a hurry tonight. Don't look too closely....

Happy Thanksgiving!

We went down to Cottonham. That is Chris's Grandma's farm down in Register Georgia. The boys love to go down there and run around, ride the 4-wheeler, see the cows, etc. There were lots of us down there, I should have counted, but it was somewhere around 30. We had beautiful weather, thank God, and Parker planned lots of activities to keep the little ones entertained. (or maybe to keep himself entertained, he can't sit still) It was nice to slow down a bit, there wasn't much to do down there. Mason did go on his first hunting excursion with Chris. I am sure Chris wasn't thrilled when Mason said he wanted to go, because that probably meant they would not see anything and who knows how Mason would behave. Mason told him not to shoot anything..........umm, isn't that the point of hunting? He will learn one day. He did keep calling it camping! The food was delicious and the company was fun, but I will say I am glad to be home. We were only there for 2 days, but you would never have known it by looking at our car. It looked like we were going to be gone for 2 weeks. The pictures below will tell their own story of our little trip.

Aaahhhhhh. how refreashing it is out in the country!

Mason is soooo excited to be down at the farm (aka, uncle tray's house)

Crawford and Chris, holding Celie