Christmas in Arkansas

We spent the past week in Arkansas with Brooks' family.  We had a great time celebrating Christmas and were able to have plenty of quality time with loved ones.  Gavin had a great time enduring the cold weather (it snowed Christmas Eve) and got to play with Maggie, our dog, who lives with Brooks mom now.

Enjoy the pics!  Happy New Year!

For your entertainment!!

WE ARE IN THE CAR DRIVING HOME FROM ARKANSAS RIGHT NOW AND HAVE STARTED ENTERTAINING GAVIN TO HELP THE TIME PASS BY. HERE ARE TWO CLIPS FROM EARLIER.

**Scroll down to the bottom of the blog to pause the music playing so you can hear him laughing and playing.  Beware.... it's loud!

Santa Came Early...Again

We spent last week in Lake Charles having Christmas with my family.  It was a blast.  Gavin loved getting to play with his cousins; we found out my brother Bryan and Anna are going to be having a little girl, Brooks went hunting with my dad and brothers, and I got to catch up with my BFF, Megan.  My friend Adrienne was in town from France and we got to catch up, too.  We surprised my mom with pictures from a photo shoot all of us kids did for her so she finally got a picture of her grand-babies.  We left Lake Charles feeling very loved and blessed!

Enjoy the pictures from the Williams Family Christmas.  Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year (if I don't get to post before then).  Brooks, Gavin, and I are off to Arkansas this afternoon for the week!

Santa Came Early...

Brooks, Gavin, and I celebrated Christmas a little early this year and had our family Christmas last week. Since we travel for Christmas and aren't at our house Christmas morning, we would rather not haul our gifts for one another around in the car, just to bring them back with us. Last Sunday night, we let Gavin open his presents from Mommy and Daddy and he LOVED it. He really got into ripping off the wrapping paper and throwing tissue paper around. He played with his toys the entire time Brooks and I opened our gifts to each other. He especially loved the BIG piece of luggage Brooks got me for traveling overseas. He was able to lift it, roll it, and even use it as a step stool (I told you he climbs on everything).

Gavin LOVES getting into the kitchen cabinets and thoroughly enjoys playing with any utensil, pot, pan, bowl, pitcher, etc that is in the kitchen. Brooks and I found a small play set of pots and pans at Target and just had to get them for Gavin. (They even have a set with a mixer and blender that I can't stop thinking about.  It's just too cute to pass up and may be something we give him

Christmas morning to open from us.  Anyways, Gavin was super excited to get the pots and pans and he has been "using" them everyday. His set came with a miniature colander and whisk; so he went into the kitchen and found our colander and whisk and compared them to one another. It was really neat to see that he made the connection between the items. He pretends to make us food and we "pretend" to eat it. Who knows... maybe we have a future chef on our hands.

Brooks and I enjoyed our Christmas gifts from each other, too. Brooks picked out a purse for me that I LOVE.... and the luggage that will be a huge benefit to have once we start traveling. I want to make sure that I have a bag large enough to fit any and all necessities to take with me to Saudi. Brooks wanted some new clothes and a new pair of tennis shoes. We're also building up our collection of TV Series DVD's so I started him The Everybody Loves Raymond Series (only he changed his mind and wants a different series) That's okay... we just need some good options for TV shows to watch once we move.

We feel very blessed to get to celebrate Christmas as a family!  We spent the past week in Lake Charles and celebrated Christmas with my side of the family on Saturday.  Santa was REALLY good to us.  I'll post those pictures later.  It's 12:30am and I'm tired.  Off to bed.

Playing around

Hi friends!  The Perry's are getting really excited for Christmas!!!  Santa Claus is going to be visiting Lake Charles tonight so everyone is already in bed awaiting his arrival.  Brooks, Gavin, and I are in Lake Charles for the weekend celebrating Christmas with my family.  Brooks is off of work until the New Year so we are extremely pumped about getting to spend some quality time with him.

Brooks and I are amazed at how fast it seems that Gavin is growing up.  All of a sudden he has become a lot more aware of things... he soaks up everything like he's a sponge.. he mimicks us, he uses his sign language ALL the time (saying please, more, eat, cup), and he's started to speak actual words.  Today, we were wiping his nose with a kleenex and he blew in it (how cool is that?)  He LOVES blowing on food and saying "hot".  He really emphasizes the "h" sound.  It's precious.  He has officially figured out how to climb on EVERY single chair, couch, stool, step, coffee table, etc.  He's really good at it and we learned that we can't leave him in a room alone because he will end up climbing on the tallest item in the room.  He has heard us say sit down so much that he started repeating it back to us.  He's sooooo cute and fun to play with everyday.  We had some presents for him the other day that we let him unwrap and he really unwrapped them.  It was really fun to watch him understand the concept of ripping off the paper and finding something underneath the paper to play with.  Needless to say, we think Gavin is really going to enjoy Christmas this year.

In order to get ready for the many different days we will be celebrating Christmas with family, I decided to upload all the videos from my video camera onto my new computer, so that I could make more room for all the videoing (is that even a word?) that will be going on.  I am trying to learn the video software that comes with the MAC and I realized that you can create "movies" with your videos.  I decided to play around with a short clip and created this.  I thought it was cute of Gavin.  Hope you enjoy!

Not ONE, but TWO....

Meet David, he is my 6 month old nephew who is my brother Bryan, and sister in law Anna's little boy.

David is going to be...

That's right.  David will be meeting his little brother or sister who is due June 3rd.

Now, meet Neve.  Neve is my 2 year old niece.  She is the daughter of my brother Kyle and sister in law Liz.

Neve is going to be a big sister, too!

We are super excited to know that the Lord has blessed both these families with a child and we are looking forward to meeting our new nieces and/or nephews.

Congratulations Bryan, Anna, Kyle, and Liz!!  We love you guys!

Christmas Tree Farm

Brooks and I started our own family tradition for Christmas where we go to a tree farm every year and pick out and cut down our own Christmas Tree. We have loved doing this over the past few years and look forward to it every year.

This year, Gavin was older and was able to walk around and help us. He really enjoyed the wide open space, but thankfully, it was so cold, he stayed right by us since he was bundled up.

Hope you are enjoying this Christmas season!