Christmas in Georgia

Us at Ivey's wedding
Tyson's mom came, too.
Tyson and his best friend, Worth.

Excuse the purple teeth. :)

Tyson and the Bowers men.

"Uncle Zach," who lived with us when we first moved to Birmingham.

We referred to ourselves as "You, Me, and Dupree."

The beautiful bride.

Jake and Walker playing with cousin Jace.

The 3 Amigos.

Sweet Gracie.

"Cochran Christmas" wouldn't be Cochran Christmas without a wienie roast.

I love this man. :)

And I love this little man and his big brother, too, of course.

Granddaddy and MaMa.

Cousin Trey and his girlfriend, Holly.

The great grandkids (minus Jace and Gracie).

Jake (3), Walker (20 mo), Ryleigh Kate (5), Chase (9), Connor (10), Carson (5), Spenser (4)

The group huddles around Walker while he opens the first present.

Jake's turn to open a present!

Jake loved playing with his new Cranky the Crane at my parents' house.

What a trip we just made! Last Friday after I woke up from my night shift, we left Birmingham and headed towards Thomaston. Tyson and I had a wedding to go to in Tifton, so my parents kept the boys while we went to that. On Sunday, Tyson and I drove back from Tifton to Thomaston to celebrate Christmas with my parents and grandparents. We left on Monday and went back to Tifton to see Tyson's mom and my sister. And then on Tuesday, we drove to Cochran to celebrate Christmas with my grandparents again and with all of my cousins. After that, we went back to Thomaston and then left for Birmingham on Wednesday. Whew! But it was so much fun and so worth it!

I don't know how I managed to get away from Thomaston without a single picture of my parents, so I'm sorry, Mom and Dad! Thanks to everyone for their hospitality!

Jake's Christmas Program

My little shepherd


Jake was thrilled having his photo taken!

Jake is second from left on the top row.

Yawning...

Looking around aimlessly...

...and probably post a nose-picking.

And the hat came off.

PaPa even wore her "sheep vest" to help convince Jake to dress as a shepherd. :)

Walker kept saying "baaaa" when he I asked him what PaPa said.

Jake's Mother's Day Out program had its Christmas program today. I was so ready to see it all come to fruition since Jake has been running around our house for the past month singing these songs, doing hand motions, and just putting on a performance. Who knew, though, that when he got on stage he would just stand there, not singing, and either yawning, picking his nose, or looking around aimlessly. What a mess! Oh well, I guess it could have been worse; he did at least stand on stage with his costume on (which was very questionable at the rehearsal) and he didn't cry or throw a fit. I'd say that's a success! Ha!

Santa Strikes Again!

Apparently, Walker was so upset that he didn't realize he lost a shoe.
Jake is still trying to convince Santa that he belongs on the nice list.

I'm sorry for the lack of blogging/updating these past few weeks! I've been working a lot (well, a lot for me) to help Santa out with my boys' pricey wish lists. :) And if I'm not at work, Tyson and I have been super busy trying to get the house ready to put up for sale or rent. No news yet on the job front for Tyson, but he definitely has some solid leads.

The boys are both doing well and enjoying having Tyson around. Jake is so excited about Christmas and his birthday that he can hardly stand it. Walker loves talking about "Ro Ro" (aka Santa Claus or "Ho ho"), but CANNOT STAND going near the big guy...as you can tell by the pictures above. ;)

These pictures were taken at the boys' school earlier this week. I tried to prepare Jake ahead of time that he might need to console his brother; obviously, that didn't work. I love how Jake is looking at Walker in that first picture like "really, Walker?" Ha! Poor Walker, I hope the kid isn't going to be traumatized by all this. ;)

I hope everyone is doing well! Thanks for all the prayers, emails, texts, etc about our situation. I'll definitely keep everyone posted. Oh, and as far as going private, I'm going to have to delay that a little bit; my Granddad needs a little help with his email address. :)

Lighting of the Green

Here comes Santa!!

Jake and his buddy "big Ryan" spot Santa!

These are classic!! Too many good ones to choose just one!

Santa kept saying, "a little help here, Dad...a little help here, Dad!" Ha! We just sat back and laughed and continued to photograph it all!

"You better mind your Mama and leave your little brother alone!" Ha!

Tonight, our neighborhood held the annual "Lighting of the Green." We couldn't stay too long since it was kind of late for our little guys, but we stuck around long enough to see Santa for the first time this year! As you can tell from the pictures, Walker wasn't a big fan of the big guy. Jake wasn't too thrilled either but he gave me the obligatory smile anyways. :)

Jake told Santa that he wanted a "police car power wheels"; I'm not sure what Santa said back to Jake, but I did see Santa pointing his finger at him. I can only pray that Santa was lecturing Jake that he better make a move from the naughty list to the nice list really quickly if he wants a police car! Ha! Just kidding. He's on the nice list...this week! ;)

Despite the circumstances, I'm so thankful to have Tyson home right now to enjoy this time with our family. In the five years we've been here, Tyson has never been able to go this event before because of recruiting. Unemployment does have it's benefits! ;)

Going Private

Well, it's been a crazy day and a half. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, yesterday, UAB fired our head coach and the rest of the staff...Tyson included.

I really don't want to get into it too much on here, but just know that we are okay.

Before every game, I prayed for a win, and when we didn't win, I would still thank God for the loss because I knew it was all apart of His plan for us. Tyson and I both firmly believe He has something fantastic planned for us, and that when one door closes, another one opens. I'm just ready to see what's behind that other door. :)

With all that being said, we obviously will have a lot of change going on in our lives these next few months, and I would like to keep all that as semi-private as I can. Thus, I am going to make this blog private within the next week or so. I hate to do this, but I think this is the best thing for our family at this time. If you still want to follow this blog, just send me an email at bethksummers@hotmail.com with the email address with which you would use to log-in. Sorry for the inconvenience, everyone; I hope we won't lose any followers because of this.

Thanks again for understanding, and we would definitely appreciate any prayers y'all could send this way at this time.

Thanksgiving 2011

Thanksgiving lunch!!

Our new Thanksgiving tradition...a wienie roast!!

I'm pretty sure Walker consumed over half the bags of marshmellows.

Jake LOVED roasting the marshmellows, but he didn't like to eat them. Thus, Mama and Daddy had to consume a lot of marshmellows last night. :)

Jake feeding his little brother. :)

Check out Jake's new cowboy boots. I made the mistake of letting him try some on and he refused to take them off. I wasn't a big of the boots, but there was no convincing him otherwise!

Me and my big boy

The Grants

The Maddens (sans their oldest children)

Jake and "the other Katelyn"

Yet again, it was another Thanksgiving without our family. Such is the life of a college football coach and his family. :( We had an awesome Thanksgiving anyways here in Birmingham with our friends and one of Tyson's players, Calvin Jones (remember my new BFF?) The Maddens joined us for lunch and then again later that night along with our other neighbors for a little wienie roast (big city style) in our driveway. Ha! The backyard was a wet mess from recent storms, so we put the fire pit in the front yard and had a blast. We may have started a new Thanksgiving tradition! So so so much fun! I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving as well!