My "little DIVA"

So I didn't really realize until the past couple of weeks how much Wilkins likes to dress up!  She has always liked to wear baseball caps but I just thought that was it...

I was wrong...BIG TIME!!

She likes to put on all kinds of beads...necklaces, bracelets, rings, etc.  She walks better in heels than I could ever!!  And of course you can't forget the crown, the purse, the keys, and the sunglasses!!  My mom literally let her wear those long beads to church!!  OMG  I think that I am gonna have my hands full!! 

She is such a mess...

Being Santa Claus is hard work...

This is what Wilkins got from Santa...

Let me tell you I have never seen so many types of screws in my life.  There were literally so many different kinds that it was labeled from A-P!!  It was crazy!  I was up until almost 2am putting this crazy thing together.  Of course it didn't help that I got the bottom 4 pieces together only to realize that I had put two of the pieces on backward.

But it was definitely worth all the hard work...

Wilkins absolutely loved it and seeing her expression when she saw it was absolutely the best!!

I don't know that she was fully awake while she was opening the rest of her gifts.  That chef hat and apron definitely had to be her favorite gift though because she wore it practically all day!!

I think that Addy loved Wilkins' kitchen almost as much.  She kept saying over and over that pink was her favorite!!

Mom's Christmas Tree...

Probably one of my favorite pictures is the one of Wilkins and Bryson...the way she is looking at him is so funny!!

The kids were making funny faces in the picture and Wilkins is the funniest one because all you can see is her eyes!!  We laughed so hard at her and then at Logan.  His expression is so funny!  Wilkins didn't know what to do with all these presents so she just started to climb...

Mom bought Bryson a cell phone for Christmas which he absolutely loved!  And in fact soon began to annoy us with throughout the rest of the day!  Bradley was putting Wilkins in all her dress up stuff and when he went to put on the clip on earrings they were a little bit tighter than he thought.  Needless to say Wilkins turned into the little DIVA that she is!!  LeAnne got Lucas some crazy BUZZ Lightyear glasses that ended up being to small for his head.  Good thing too because he looked like a dork!

Addy was dancing like a flapper and Wilkins

was dressed up like a princess.  Logan has on Lucas' Buzz goggles and looks like a bug!  GOOFBALL! 

Mom got Wilkins a pink Cozy Coupe which she absolutely loved!!

Mom got this crazy monster sleeping bag for Logan but Wilkins and Addy took it over for the remainder of the day.  Logan avoided it because he knew that he would fall asleep!!

As you can tell by looking at mom and Haley we had a very nice, relaxing Christmas Day.  We started the day with a big breakfast and then we opened presents!!  Everyone (I mean everyone) took a nap at some point in the afternoon and then we had a big dinner!!

It was a great day and we all enjoyed being together!!  We had a lot of laughs and of course there were a few arguments which is normal when there are 6 kids!! 

Wilkins had a long day and as you can tell was definitely ready for bed...

So far behind...the story of my life this month!!

Where to start...

The Cardin Christmas...  Here a a couple of pictures:

There were only a few of us there but the ones that were had a blast. 

The Christmas Play was next...

The Christmas Play turned out to be so good...for the first time in years there weren't alot of individual performances.  Every child in the play actually sung...the angels sang together, the wisemen, Mary and Joseph sang together, Lucas and Addy sang Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, and then the little ones sang Happy Birthday Baby Jesus.  It was so cute.  Of course you will notice in one of the pictures that Lucas and Addy are sitting with their backs to one another...they were fighting over who was going to hold the star!!  So for the 2nd year in a row they had a little argument but it was so funny!

Now for the grand finale of this post...

Lucas' Birthday!!

Bro Pat, Sis Tammy, Josh and Ashley, Tyler and Cassi, Sandra, Terina, and Lexie all came over to the house while I was at work for Lucas' 4th bday!!  Little did they know how entertained they were going to be!!  This is the picture I received on my phone while I was at work:

Oh yeah...that's my baby sitting in the toilet!!  Now don't think she got in there all by herself...she does have a cousin, Logan, who is about 4 mths older and was also in the bathroom.  These two are very quiet and very sneaky to where you don't even know they are gone.  Here is the funny part of the story, she wasn't even wet when they got her out.  You want to know why:

That is her blanket in there with toys wrapped up in it and there is also a whole roll of toilet paper under her blanket!!  Needless to say everyone took pictures of her with their phones and there is no telling who all has seen this!!  Whatever did we do without camera phones before now?! 

Ok that gets us caught up to December 20th...Christmas and New Year's will be coming soon with some more of Logan and Wilkins' adventures!!!

Black Friday!!

This has got to be the craziest night ever!!!  Who gets up at 4am on Thanksgiving Day, works until 5pm, and then gets a head start on shopping at 10pm with no sleep in between!!  ABSOLUTELY NUTS!!  But at the same time it has got to be one of the best nights ever.  Have you ever been around some Cardins or Middlebrooks girls when they have had no sleep?!  To start with the goal was to leave by 10pm to head to Opry Mills but as usual my mom (she is over 50 you know) can't find her glasses or her phone which is a pretty common thing these days!!  Hilarious...I am not sure how she ever survived without a cell phone before.  This is almost a part of her as the hair on her head.  Eventually we do get to leave, only to stop at McDonald's to grab a quick bite for the road to give us some shopping energy!!  You would have thought a bus of 200 people showed up because that is how long it took for us to get our food!  Needless to say our itenary was really being messed with by this point...
We finally get to Opry Mills, find a really good parking spot.  We all jump out ready to go stand in line to get in or at least I thought we all jumped out...  Anyone who has children knows how important the child safety lock is right?!  LeAnne is sitting in back on the side that Wilkins is always on and doesn't quite make it out of the vehicle.  Me, mom, and Haley jump out and start walking briskly toward the door then we hear someone banging on the window.  Oh yeah it was LeAnne...there were people sitting in the car next to ours so I am pretty sure they were very entertained by us.  She was stuck in the car which caused me, mom, and Haley to double over laughing instead of running to her rescue.  We are literally standing in the parking lot laughing, trying not to wet ourselves!!  You had to be there it was hilarious!! 
We got some really good deals at the Disney Store and Coco Bonbons (the cutest but very expensive children's clothes).  We left there at about 2:30am to drive back to Murfreesboro, dropped off what we had already bought at the house and took off again.  We went to Toys-R-Us and quickly left because it was absolutely insane in there.  We then stopped at a gas station to get some more food to snack on of course!  (2nd time we have eaten...no wonder the pounds just keep hanging on)  For some reason we decide to stand at Belk's for almost 45 minutes in the freezing cold, with all 4 of us huddled together under one measley little blanket, to get a gift card!!  We just knew that surely one of us would get more than a $5 gift card...NOT!!!  And for some reason, mom used all 4 of our gift cards but we all ended up buying stuff in there...she still knows how to control us even after all these years!!  lol
By this time, LeAnne is done...she literally sleeps the rest of the time while we go to Target (except we woke her up to drop us off at the door and then let her go park somewhere), SAMS, and Kohl's.  We stood in line at Kohl's for almost 2 hours which again I say INSANE!  But at SAMS we got to eat for the 3rd time!  They had sausage and cheese biscuits with a bottle of OJ!!  Good energy food for us while we waited in line at Kohl's.  And of course we round off our morning by stopping @ McDonald's at 9am...YES I SAID 9AM!!  We eat for a 4th time which I don't know if the lack of sleep made us hungry or if it was just all in our heads!! 
After being up for almost 30 hours straight, getting some good deals, and eating my way to every store I finally got about 5 hours of sleep.  It was hard to even get that much because let's not forget I have a 1 year old!! 
Here is the ending to the shopping extravangza or should I say just the beginning...we woke up STARVING!!  So of course we went to CHEDDARS to eat for a 5th time...I can't figure out why I am not dropping wait!!!   HA HA! 
All in all my first Black Friday was quite the experience with loads of fun with just us girls, not a whole lot of sleep but definitely a trip we will talk about for years to come!!  Wish I had pictures to post with this but unfortunately I couldn't get pictures while my arms were full!!

Thanksgiving...exhausting but loads of fun!

Well, we were together all day long in one house and everyone survived!!  It seems like our family just keeps getting bigger and bigger!  There are 13 just in my immediate family and then Patty, Billmon, Cody, Katie, Chris, and Kylie thrown in makes for a pretty fun filled day!!  With all of our winning personalities and sick sense of humor it couldn't get any better!!

This year Haley went all Paula Deen on us...she had the table set with mom's good dishes (she never uses them).  We had all the food on the table and we were going to try to be like on tv where everyone passes the dish around the table but that didn't work for us!!  We ended up passes the plates around!!  LOL

We have to have 3 tables because there are so many of us...the adults at one, the 4 little ones at one, and then the 3 older kids at another one.

After we sit and eat for a good solid hour...minus the tv which is really hard for Bradley and Michael (they love them some football) we eat some more of course!! It is Thanksgiving after all!! What a feast!!  Haley bought a new game this year Pictionary Man or something like that.  We played that which ended up being harder than we thought it would be.  LeAnne, the smartest of all of us (NOT), thought she did real well drawing out "Gusty" which come to find out was "Gutsy"! 

Thank goodness she says because she wouldn't be able to draw that!! What a dork!! We played the guys against the girls and of course ladies we know who is smarter...the LADIES!! We wore them out...it just goes to show that guys are not the brightest crayons in the box... The scary part was LeAnne and Katie were the only two that could guess each other's drawings!!  It was almost like they were sharing a brain which in their case is probably not far off!!! LOL

Enough Pictionary...it was definitely time to eat again and try our hand at some back alley!! Not exactly sure who won at back alley because I took that opportunity to take me a nap!! All that eating can wear a person out!!

 

I do know that the kids really enjoyed playing outside today...I think that they ended up digging some big hole out behind dad's building!!  Hopefully it won't fall over!!  Ha!  Wouldn't that be hilarious?! 

Look at Will and Logan looking all sweet...they are definitely plotting something!!!  These two are very sweet looking but very sneaky too!!! Funny thing is they were covered in tree sap and Will kept wanting LeAnne to cut his hair because he had gotten it in it!! Their hands and arms were covered!! And if you have ever had tree sap on you...well, you know how difficult it is to get off!!

 After everyone left, I put Wilkins in the tub while I helped clean up and little did we know that sneaky little Logan helped himself to a bath too!!! Oh yeah...fully clothed!!! He didn't think anything about it either!! That was the best ending to a great day!!! What can you do but laugh!!

Now to do Thanksgiving at Cracker Barrel for the next 5 days straight...I am glad today was as relaxing as it was.  A lot of good times with great laughs and fun games to start off a very busy, hectic week for me.  Five days of straight turkey, dressing, and all the fixings with very long hours to feed all these crazy people who don't know good home cooking!!  Hope you all have a great Thanksgiving Day with your families...and enjoy all the great deals on Black Friday as I will too for the first time in 8 years!!  Finishing an exhausting week with an all night shopping extravaganza...what could be better?!!!

SICK BABY & TIME CHANGE...UGGGGH!

So let me tell you about my last week...

Not only have I been moving which we all know sucks no matter how organized you are, but I also had to be at work at 5am everyday!! YUK!! On top of that Wilkins started running a fever of 103 on Friday so no Halloween party for her...oh yes I was actually prepared and bought her costume about a month ago so big waste of money!! I was up with her all night because she was absolutely miserable so I went to work with absolutely no sleep!! Unfortunately when I am at work I feel like I have 150 kids...my employees have the ability to drive me absolutely bannanas!!! The world solely revolves around them so they think!

Wilkins' 2nd Halloween was spent at home in my arms running a fever again!! Bless her heart while all her cousins were out getting lots of candy she was home taking lots of medicine!! And then of course the time change...you would think that I would be happy about getting an extra hour but it didn't really work out that way!! Have you ever heard of anyone being LATE when you get to fall back an hour...NO!! Well, I was!! I was gonna be on the safe side and set my clock (cell phone) back an hour before I went to bed but low and behold it went back another hour!! I fell back 2 hours!! I was suppose to be at work at 5 am and when I actually realized it was 5:15 instead of 4:15 I almost crapped my pants!! So needless to say I was about 30 minutes late for work and looked a HOT MESS!! But who cares...

After all that I come home to a sick baby who literally screams like she is in serious pain for 2 hours!! I couldn't do anything for her...nothing would relax her. So Haley and LeAnne came over after church to see if they could help but she was just so miserable. They called Bro Pat and a bunch of people from Smyrna to meet back over at the church at 930pm to pray for her. And thank goodness they did! She was asleep when they got back home and slept the entire night!! What a relief it was to get a full night's sleep?!

Unfortunately, her fever came back that afternoon so I went ahead and took her to the doctor only to be told she had "rotavirus" which has now turned into "roseola"!! My poor child has a rash on her and is absolutely itching to death and there is nothing that can be done except for to ride it out!!

I know this sounds a little whiny but this is nothing compared to what the Kellys are going through! So I will continue to keep Miss Kensley in my prayers and be thankful that I only have to deal with a little rash...