stickles family [five]: Instagram Dump

To be honest, I haven’t done a great job lately of taking pics with my camera. Maybe it’s b/c we’ve been super boring and haven’t done much??! ha! :) I’m going to try to do better! We have some very exciting and fun stuff coming up, so I will definitely be bringing my camera along!

Here’s a bunch of phone/instagram pics for you!

THIS.THIS.. is why we are NOT having any more children! Also more than likely why I have grey hairs!! YIKES! I swear that I can’t turn my head for more than 5 seconds!!

Just before school got out, we were busy whipping up yummy treats for the kiddos teachers. Of course Mario Batali Jr (aka Gray Stickles) was a huge help!! So, was that caffeine!

We decided to make Gingerbread Cupcakes with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting, topped with Gingerbread cookies! They turned out great!! I’m not a gingerbread fan, so I didn’t partake in taste testing the cupcakes and cookies. However, that cinnamon icing was superb! (or so I’ve been told!) ;) We topped them off with adding a cookie cutter to the packaging! SO cute!! I didn’t get a pic, but all the teachers also got the prettiest beaded cross ornaments for their Christmas trees! Once again, my favorite little gift boutique in Germantown came through for me!

This year, my Mom and I got my grandmother an extra gift for Christmas! She’s been dying to go to Jersey Boys ever since it came to Memphis the first go around. We knew that we had to take her this time! So, we made an evening of it! We went to dinner downtown before the show and had a wonderful time!! The show was just as good as everyone said it was and she had so much fun! The music was amazing and it was a packed house! SOOO happy that we went!

LOVE MY BOYS!!!

Gray’s favorite thing to do is to cuddle up with Daddy! Seriously, he is 200% a Daddy’s Boy! Ethan and Chris have also been enjoying some Tigers’ games this season!! This pic is from the Louisville game!

I just had to laugh when this got sent home from school! SO Gray! He NEVER smiles for pics! EVER! Just the addition to our tree that we were hoping for! ;)

More Daddy snuggles!

Our sweet cousins in NYC sent us a Christmas package! Thanks Kyndi, Michael, Jack, and Lucy!

Reading The Christmas Story on Christmas Eve!

Christmas Day! LOVE my Hunter boots!

The technology usage in this house is seriously out of control!

We had a quick snow in Memphis!

We LOVE Apples to Apples!!! Family Game Night is always fun!

Smug face! This is the face I get when I tell him No! You see who’s the boss!

OMG! MY FAVE!!!!! They have THE BEST crinkle fries!!

TROUBLE!!!

I just love finding self pics of LK on our photo stream! Girls cracks me up! And, let’s not even get into how much I love our sweet Alyssa!!! BEST.NANNY.EVER!!! I am SO incredibly sad that she’s leaving us soon for college. I mean, who needs college??! Just watch my kids! ;) (totally kidding!!) ha!

Just before New Years, Chris and I headed down to the Casinos with our sweet friends, Rachel and Matt. Huey Lewis and The News were playing! Chris and Matt are huge fans! It’s sort of become a tradition that we go together when he’s in town. The last time he was here, I was pregnant with Gray. This time, Rachel is pregnant with Baby Evie!! We had a wonderful time!

Nothing better on a rainy day, then an iced mocha and some SVU!

Mischievous much??! Love him!

SQUIRT!!!!

Ethan got a telescope for Christmas! He’s is LOVING looking at the stars! Maybe we have a future astronomer?! ;)

Taco Soup Night…. THREE bowls!!!! Yes, THREE!

So, we ended up all coming down with the flu! It was a nightmare!!! It all started with getting an email on a Wednesday that Ethan two of Ethan’s classmates had been diagnosed. They had also been at school on Monday and Tuesday, so the entire class had been exposed!!! Not the news that I was wanting to get! The incubation period is 4 days and just when I thought that we were out of the woods, Ethan came down with it! On Friday afternoon/night, he started showing symptoms and running high fever. We went to the doctor Saturday morning and he tested positive. Chris was out of town, so my mom came to get Gray and LK to HOPEFULLY keep them from getting exposed. Well, no such luck! Gray started showing symptoms by Sunday.

Chris also came down with the flu while he was out of town! I felt really bad for him until I realized that he had a nice, quiet hotel room ALL TO HIMSELF! He recovered JUST fine! ha!

The next man down, was LK. Poor thing! It seemed like every 4 days another child bit the dust! I swear that I spent half a month’s expense money on copays and Tamiflu! It was awful! I ended up getting sick but not as bad as the kids. I think I was really just more tired and worn down from being up for days on end with the kids. With Chris being out of town for all of this, I literally had about 12hrs sleep in 5 days. I was a walking zombie!! We all managed to get better though! It’s safe to say that WE HATE THE FLU!!!!

Food and Huck, his best friends!

As soon as Daddy came home, there were LOTS of snuggles!!

One of LK’s birthday cakes that her Aunt Joell made her! She loved it!!! We celebrate a birthday month for LK, not just a day!

So…. Gray likes pudding… A LOT! And, I had to clean the kitchen… A LOT!

Bless those Baby Blues!!

I convinced Chris to do Jillian Michael’s yoga DVD with me. This is about as far as he got, then said “She counts WAY too many Mississippi’s!!!!” haha! Gotta love him for trying!

Daddy had flowers delivered to LK’s school for her b-day! She was so excited!!!

This boy wears me OUT! Obviously moving the cereal to a high cabinet was no use! (he’s obsessed with cereal and will just get the bad and carry it around! tubby!)

He’s also discovered the movie Cars… LOVES it!!! We watch it at least once a day! It’s the only time I can get him to sit still… so we watch it quite often! ha!