Welcome Brooklynn Caylee!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Ours was great with an unexpected new blessing!! Nathan flew into Tulsa Monday night and we spent Tuesday visiting with my family and running around Tulsa finishing up things. We had lunch with my mom and Josiah, went to visit my dad and then had dinner with my sister and my mom! It was a great day! Wednesday morning we got dressed, packed up and drove the 6 hour drive to Garden City for Christmas with the Gooden family! The drive went very well (much faster than last year with snow and ice) and we arrived in plenty of time to change for church and meet up with the family. Nathan played Oh Holy Night for both church services and he did an amazing job!! We had a great Christmas Eve getting caught up and enjoying a great Mexican dinner at the house. However, we were missing a few people.....

Justin and Mandi (Nathan's twin brother and his wife) were supposed to drive up to Kansas on Tuesday the 23rd. We knew Mandi was close to delivery of their second little girl, but she had just been to the doctor the Thursday before and had been given the clearance to make the trip to Kansas. Monday morning Mandi was having contractions. She went in to the hospital and quickly realized she and Justin would not be going to Kansas this year!! Mandi delivered a beautiful, healthy baby girl later that afternoon and we were thrilled to welcome our brand new niece on December 22, 2008. Brooklynn is only the second girl out of the 9, YES 9, grandchildren in the family! Just another excuse for me to buy really, really cute girl clothes. Haha. Through all the joy and happiness, we were very sad to not have Justin, Mandi and the girls in Kansas for Christmas. We missed them so much and definitely were upset we weren't there to see our niece! Praise God for a healthy baby and a healthy Mommy. What a great Christmas present!

Ok, back to the original story!! We had a great Christmas day at the farm. Nathan's Dad made fantastic French toast for breakfast and Susie prepared an incredible lunch! Oh, and Janeen, the potatoes were AMAZING :) We finished the eating marathon with great pizza and a lot of dessert. Everything was so good!! Thanks Dad and Susie for a great Christmas feast! We played cards and sat by the fire watching the 7 boys (let me add, they are all under the age of 9) open presents and play all day! It was such a relaxing day with family. Nathan and I really enjoyed our time there. We miss time with our family. Living in North Carolina makes it a little more difficult to see everyone as much as we would like. We really value seeing our families and were so grateful to have Christmas day with the Gooden's!

Friday afternoon we packed up, said goodbye to the family and got in the car for the drive back to Tulsa. My sister - in - law Tiffany, her husband Justin and their three boys were also making the drive back to Edmond. So we all went on our way through beautiful rural Kansas with only a few stops.... right, Tiff? Ok, so Tiffany has a one stop rule for her kids. Maybe Nathan should discuss that with his wife because I made him stop 3 times. Lol. With Nathan's incredible speeding skills, we really made some good time back home. Haha. We were grateful for a safe trip!

With Brooklynn's early arrival, Nathan decided to head straight down to Dallas and help his brother with some things around the house. So after driving 6 hours to Tulsa, Nathan drove another 4 hours to get to Justin and Mandi's. He spent Saturday there and I spent the weekend in Tulsa with my family! Nathan flew back home on Sunday and Bella and I will return to Raleigh on Wednesday. It's hard to believe Christmas is over! After Nathan suffered through 6 hours of non - stop Christmas music each way, I am sure he is thrilled my obsessive Christmas music marathons are almost over :) ALMOST. Just because the radio stations aren't playing 24 hour Christmas carols doesn't mean the CD player isn't still loaded up. HA.

Well, there are no better pictures than those of a beautiful new baby girl :) So here are some pictures of our new niece Brooklynn. Congrats Justin, Mandi and Paris!!!! We are so excited for you and cannot wait to watch Brooklynn grow! We love you!!


Sweet Baby Girl in her Daddy's Arms

So Precious!!!

Big Sister Paris helping with pacifiers

To Tulsa We Go!

Well, Bella and I are in Tulsa tonight. I got up at 4:20 a.m. Raleigh time to finish getting packed and ready to go. We woke up to A LOT of fog this morning so I was a little worried about making it here. I got Bella all ready to go, filled her up with Children's Benadryl (don't' worry, the vet told me to the first time I flew with her. It worked well, so we have done it ever since) and we headed to the airport. Kindly, Nathan got up and took us through the crazy fog even though he must have been exhausted from taking the red eye home from Seattle. Our flight to Dallas was on time and we both slept the entire flight! Ok, I know it sounds as though I am speaking of an actual human child here, but for now she and Bogey are our children. We got upgraded thanks to my Platinum American Airlines status. So far Bella has only flown in first class. Spoiled much? She won't get to enjoy as much flying time once the human babies come along! Although we were in first, I am still amazed at how much it costs to fly with a carry - on pet. For $100 EACH WAY, you would think she would at least get a seat, perhaps a beverage? snack? But no, she sits on the floor all zipped up in her bag watching me enjoy my beverage and snack. We made it to Dallas and surprisingly arrived to......MORE FOG! Wow, it was all the way across the country. Thankfully, the flight to Tulsa was on time and we landed in Tulsa early. Bella did great and was ready to play as soon as we arrived to her "Grammy's" house. I then went to my dentist, made a quick visit to my friends Joel and Kelly and then came home. It was a long day, but we were grateful to have on time flights and a safe trip here. It's always good to come home! Nathan will be here on Monday and later in the week we will head to Kansas.

Our camera will be working very soon! For now, here are some pictures of Bella traveling last year on her first plane trip to Oklahoma for Christmas.

Is it Monday already?

Well, we had a great weekend full of Christmas decorating and parties! Nathan flew in on the red eye Thursday night so he was pretty tired once Friday night arrived. We had a great date night and a much needed night of sleep. When we were in Seattle over Thanksgiving, we found this fantastic garland for our staircase. So, Saturday was full of trips to Target, cleaning and Nathan hanging the ridiculously heavy, but beautiful garland on the staircase. It looks so pretty! We did so much this year for Christmas and we usually find that we aren't here to really enjoy it. I told Nathan we should keep our decorations up until February..... Oh wait.....We did that last year. I guess that's the only way to really enjoy decor when you travel so much!! We then spent Saturday night at our friend's Scott and Jennifer's fantastic Christmas party. It was so good to see them and of course their party was unbelievable. The food was great and Jen knows how much I enjoy the chocolate covered pretzel sticks with M&M's that she makes. My husband thought I was crazy because as we were driving to their house I said "I really hope she made those pretzels" He couldn't believe I could remember them from last year's Christmas party. Listen, I am all about food. I never forget about good desserts! Of course my best girlfriends and I planted ourselves at a table with a full assortment of desserts and talked for about an hour. Our husbands didn't understand why we weren't up talking to everyone. Girls, you know how it is! You get time to have girl talk and you just don't want to leave. It was so much fun to see great friends. Thanks Scott and Jen for a wonderful night!


Sunday we had a great time preparing for our former church small group to come over and enjoy dinner at our house. It was so wonderful to see everyone that we had not seen in a few months. Our sweet friend Anna came over and helped us for the entire evening. We could not have done it without her! We love you Anna and cannot thank you enough. Four of our small group members are pregnant! So it was great fun to all be together and talk. They all look precious and they are so excited. Our friends Kate and Josh brought their sweet baby boy Jaxon and we all enjoyed passing him around and getting some baby love. He is the most content baby! We are so grateful to have so many wonderful friends. My sweet husband cooked a dinner with multiple course for 14 people. Honey, you did an amazing job! I really am blessed to have a man who can cook, play the piano and clean :) Linda made a dessert that was incredible! We had our own five star restaurant here in the Gooden house. It was so nice. I have to apologize because we just ran out of time to get a new camera this weekend. So, although I would have had a lot of pictures from this weekend, you will just have to keep waiting :) Bella is getting her mani/pedi right now preparing for her trip to Oklahoma later this week. A girl has to look good when traveling, right? Nathan flew to Seattle this afternoon and will be back on Wednesday morning. The doggies and I will miss him but we are grateful it is a short trip this week! Hope everyone had a great weekend. 10 days until Christmas and I have not done any shopping. Oh, the joys of crowded malls and spending an hour trying to find a parking spot...

OOPS

Ok, so it's December 11th. Let's just say I fell off the blog wagon. Or better yet, we just really haven't had anything exciting happen that anyone else would want to read. You still may not be excited to read this either, but that's ok. I was reading an inspirational blog about a woman who decided to keep a blog and it ended up being a journal of the rest of her life. I decided I had been seriously slacking in the blog department, I mean come on, my one and only entry is from May. So I am going to make an effort to keep everyone updated on our life in Raleigh! Unfortunately our camera is broken at the moment, but once that is taken care of I will add some pics of our house all decorated for Christmas! We got a new tree this year and it is so beautiful :)

I am sitting in the dining room, finishing up my last paper for the semester and listening to Bella growl at me to throw a toy every few seconds. Nathan is in Seattle this week but he comes home late tonight! Yay! So it's just been me and the dogs. We have had a lot of play time and a lot of laying around with all the rain this week. They are always excited when their Daddy comes home so I am sure they will perk up tomorrow!

It has been a rough week in some ways. I learned of the passing of a great friend and my fantastic hairstylist, Troy. Troy and I first met in 2005 when I was preparing for my 5th trip to Miss Oklahoma. From the first day I met him, he made me laugh and we became great friends. When I won Miss America, Troy was at my hotel door at 2:30 a.m. to fix my hair for the live feed to Good Morning America. Let's just say Troy loves his sleep, so this was a big sacrafice for him :) We laughed and celebrated what we couldn't believe had happened to "us" as Troy liked to say. We had far too many memories to talk about here, but I thought I would share that one because it was such a momentus time in my life and he was there to share it with me. I was devistated when I realized I wasn't going to be able to get back to Oklahoma for the memorial services. Troy, I love you and miss you!! You were a joy to so many lives during your time here. You will be deeply missed.

So, I can't believe I am almost done with school. It seems like I have been in school forever (minus the 3 years away from school haha). I am finishing my last paper for this semester and then I will have 3 more classes in the Spring. Next week Bella and I will make the trip to Oklahoma. She loves to get on the airplane and go see Grammy, so it should be a good trip. We will be there for a few days and then Nathan will fly in to Tulsa. We will then drive to Kansas to see the Gooden family. Then it's back to Tulsa and flying back to Raleigh!! I am sure the time will fly by, but it will be so nice to be home for Christmas. I pray each of you are having safe and happy holidays. We have so much to be grateful for this year. Praise God for another year of good health, safety and too many blessings to count.

Here is a little cuddle time with Bogey and Bella to brighten your day.