Santa Photos at Highland Village

Sug and Joe meet the 4 Claytons at Highland Village to have photos taken with Santa. Elizabeth Haze did wonderfully well. She ran straight up to Santa and told him that she had been a very good girl and began spouting off her wish list. Gray did not do so well. He was not a happy camper and again we all four ended up having to get in the picture! They turned out horrible, but we all had fun.

Sug and Joe gave the kids coins to throw in the fountain and they loved it!

The Clayton Family Christmas 2009

December 20th we loaded up and traveled to Ellisville for Christmas with Big G and Dee. Dee cooked brunch and it was delicious. She made STICKY TOAST!! We had so much fun. It was so nice to just veg out and watch the kids play.

Here's one......


Here's the other one!!!


Here's two...


The other two...


Here's three...


And we did it! Here's the whole crew with Big G!


And with Dee too!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Cleveland Family Christmas

We had the Cleveland Family Christmas Friday the 18th. We had an absolute blast. Believe it or not, this was at the very end of the evening. The kids hung in there with the adults and were still going strong at 11! Here's the whole crew minus the gorgeous wives/mothers!

So here's our attempt at getting all three of the oldest cousins together....

One....

Two....

A different silly two....

A comfy three in their Christmas pjs!!!!



We love Uncle Keith....


Uncle Keith watching Aunt Dawn crack Gray up.....



There's Anna Cooper hanging out with Ross and Aunt Amy!


The Kyle Clayton foursome....


The Drew Clayton foursome....


C.C. and E.H.

Christmas pics that I had to post!

Elizabeth Haze Clayton, 4 going on 14. She is growing up so fast!


Little Paige and mini Kyle cuddled up on the couch watching cartoons first thing in the morning. Notice they choose to watch Daddy's new birthday present in the den now, and Daddy lets them.

Umm, just cute! haha

Girls Night Out to The Nutcracker

Elizabeth Haze and I went to see the real Nutcracker ballet with Tonya and Presley at the Madison Cultural Arts Center. It was a fancy girls night out that required us to dress up and act like ladies!

Here we are at the house after putting on our makeup and flat ironing our hair. Ironically, EH told me earlier in the week that she was ready to take dancing lessons again. I tried last year, and, well let's just say, it was a fiasco!


Elizabeth Haze was in complete awe of the ballerinas and sat through the first act like an angel. She said, "See, Momma, that's what I'm talking about. That's what I want to do." Wonderful, I thought.


Well, after the intermission and half way through the second act, she and Presley decided that they needed to practice in the aisle. Here Presley is practicing lifting Haze up like the ballerina did! Needless to say, we quietly snuck out after this "performance!" It was hilarious!


We had so much fun. I think dancing is going to be a large part of our lives from now on. Parenting lesson #487- let children do things in their own time and everyone will be happy!

Baking Cookies!

As the kids get older, life is getting easier in some ways and more difficult in others! While Kyle and I can sit down to relax and not worry about every move the kids make, we hardly get to sit down because they require constant activity!

So, while Kyle took a nap Saturday afternoon, EH, Gray and I baked cookies from scratch for the first time.

Here we are before we started.....

She was so excited and felt so accomplished with all she did to help. She is SO SWEET. I know it won't last, but it sure is fun right now.



These two absolutely adore each other. They rarely fight and they share better than we could imagine.


Once again, I was proven wrong. I thought this baking adventure would be a disaster. It was so much fun for all of us and we didn't even make a mess!

El Nino Snow!!!!

This weekend we were surprised by a couple of inches of snow thanks to El Nino. We had a blast playing in it.

Kyle was actually the biggest kid about the whole thing!


Elizabeth Haze loved it; Gray did too until he actually touched it with his hands and then....not so much!




If we didn't send Christmas cards to people that we hardly ever see, this could be our Christmas card picture! I haven't been able to capture smiles like this in any other trial for pictures!


I finally made the cut! Late night in the snow puts a smile on every one's face!