Extended Family Christmas

We were lucky enough to have my mom and oldest nephew in town for our Pourciau family Christmas celebration, so we really had a bumper crop of little boys...

Watts is just like his daddy and Uncle Chad...he LOVES babies!

Selfie with our sweet little Ourso!  I am not great at telling Harper and Riley apart yet, so I'll have to ask Chad or Alaina which one this is.  The kids had a blast at Aunt Lacie's playing with cousins, eating until we were ready to pop, and opening a few surprises.

Holiday in Gatlinburg

As soon as school was out for the holidays, we hopped a plane to Gatlinburg for some R&R!  The big kids had a pajama day the last half day of school, so they actually flew in their jammies, and I have never received so many compliments on their outfits.  It actually got to be pretty funny, considering they were dressed so inappropriately, but they were comfy and everyone loved it.  Corinne loved snacking and iPadding on the plane...

What kind of temperatures do you prefer for your waterfall hikes?  We like the 20's to start out...

The front porch of our "den"...

We had a great hike in spite of the low temps, and warmed up by the time we reached our destination...

Although it was still a tad chilly...

After attending a wedding for one of Damon's high school buddies, we continued the family fun with Dollywood...

I think Grandma Tonie should join this union...

One of the kids' favorite parts of the condo...hot tubbing with the parents!

Strutting their stuff on stage at the Comedy Barn...

If you visit Gatlinburg, do not miss the comedy barn.  The guy with ping pong balls in his mouth will test your urinary continence, trust me...

But obviously the cutest performers were the Pourciau children...

Back to Dollywood for more thrills the next day...

On stage at the Hatfield and McCoy's Dinner Feud...

We did ride the mountain coaster, but this was taken on a fake mountain coaster at the bottom of the mountain.  Perhaps we should have saved our money...it looks like they may have enjoyed this one more...

Damon tested out some new mattresses...

And of course we had to work in some more hot tub time...

Hopefully we can return to the Great Smoky Mountains when they are a little warmer!

Family Christmas Party 2018

As kids get older and have more activities, it gets harder and harder to carve out time for an extended family Christmas party each year.  To be honest, for a while it looked like we just weren't going to be able to make things work, but we finally were able to pick a Sunday afternoon that fit with most of the schedules and had a great time visiting with all our family members who were able to join us.  Unfortunately, we were having such a great time visiting that I neglected to take very many photos, but here are a few of the kids playing outside...

...and inside...

The more relaxed come and go format was a nice fit and skipping any big games or activities allowed us to focus on just visiting and spending time together, which was nice.  Can't wait to do it again next year!

Sneaux Day

One of the advantages of living in South Louisiana is definitely the climate, but this year global warming apparently took some time off because we have had a long, hard winter!  Hopefully all these freezing temps are killing some mosquitoes!  We even got a super-rare sneaux day...

Corinne had never seen snow before, having been left behind during ski trips...

She was curious for a second...

...then cold and completely OVER IT!  She begged us to take her back inside.  "It's cooooooold!" she said.

Not having it...

This one, however, had to be forced to come back inside to warm up...

Note the footie pajamas (or "zippers" as Watts calls them) under the ski bibs.  Tres chic...

See all the snow in their hair?  It pretty much snowed all day, and we had about 4-6 inches in the yard...

Watts was rocking Graham's hand-me-down ski suit...

I convinced Corinne to go back outside and pose with the giant snowman the kids made...

Sneaux isn't an everyday thing around here.  This photo was taken of Stella the last time it snowed in South Louisiana...