2014

Wow! I can't believe 2014 is coming to an end! It has been a great year that has included a lot of firsts for our family! The Lord has blessed us this year in so many ways, and I can't wait for 2015! Here are some of the highlights from our year...

JANUARY

While Daddy was away hunting, Caroline and I took a mini trip to Tulsa for the weekend to see some of our friends.

FEBRUARY

This was such a fun month! We headed to Mexico with two other couples! It was a great trip, and oh, how I wish we were all going again in 2015. Mandi and Josh announced to us on our trip that they were expecting, and baby Faith was born in September. Now Lindsay and Wes and Stephen and I are both expecting.

We also took Caroline to her first Razorback basketball game.

MARCH

Stephen got a lab for his 30th birthday. 

I painted Caroline's nails for the first time. I'd looked forward to that day for some time. =)

We also had a huge snow, so she and Daddy had a lot of fun playing in it!

APRIL

Caroline went fishing with Daddy and Papa and HELD the fish all by herself!

MAY

Caroline had her spring dance recital. She was so precious up there on stage and did a great job too!

JUNE

This month we had a lot of cousin time. Andrew John and Ella were in town from Maryland, and we were able to spend some time with them. We enjoyed a couple afternoon dates to Rick's Bakery.

We also had our first sleepover. Rebekah came and spent a couple nights with us, and the girls had a blast!

JULY

This was a busy month! We celebrated Caroline's THIRD birthday and finished off the celebrating by going bowling for the first time. She had her first trip to the dentist and ended the month welcoming baby Jack to the world.

AUGUST

We moved Caroline to her big girl room!

SEPTEMBER

Caroline started PreK-3. We also took our first mini-vacation just the three of us. We stayed at Big Cedar Lodge and went to Silver Dollar City!

OCTOBER

We revealed to our families that we were expecting baby #2!

NOVEMBER

Caroline had her Christmas dance recital

DECEMBER

We found out that baby #2 is a BOY!!

Meet Sparkle

Last year, we had the elf, but he didn't have a name and all he did was sit on the tree. So this year, we stepped it up a notch! He made his first appearance on December 1st. He was in Caroline's stocking after she woke up from her nap. Last year, we also started doing the 25 Christmas books to open each day of the month, so like last year, book number one is the Elf on the Shelf. Caroline decided to name him Sparkle. She loved waking up each day to see what Sparkle was up to. Some days, he was having fun, and some days he was just lazy. Ha! Here are a few pictures of Sparkle's journey...

Christmas 2014

We had a great Christmas this year, but the picture taking was very lacking! Caroline received so many fun new toys, and she has played with all of them non-stop! Of course, her favorite gifts were all her new baby dolls and the karaoke player my Granny gave her!

We celebrated with my mom's side of the family the week before Christmas. Now that everyone is married with kids, it is just too hard to try to fit in seeing the whole family on Christmas Eve and Christmas! All the little cousins are very close in age, and they had so much fun playing together this year!

On Christmas Eve morning, we went down to celebrate with Oma, Opa, and Uncle Chris. We came back home in the afternoon, and then that evening went to Mimi and Papa's. Aunt Ashley gave her monogrammed Christmas jammies, then we came home and decorated cookies for Santa before bedtime.

Christmas morning, Santa came and made a delivery. =) But of course, on the mornings we think Caroline will hurry out of bed, those are the mornings she actually decides to sleep in a little bit. She didn't get up until around 7:30am, but she was very excited to see what Santa had brought and that he had eaten all her cookies!

Around mid-morning, we headed over to John and Ashley's house for Christmas with my family and to eat lunch. Oma, Opa, and Uncle Chris were able to come up and eat with us. 

We couldn't wait to get home and take good naps, so we could play with all the new toys! 

Merry Christmas from The Lieuxs

December Happenings

Random pictures from December...

Mimi and Papa took Caroline and Henry to a Christmas tree farm. A local news station was out there doing a segment on "real trees". This is a screen shot I took from our tv. Caroline wouldn't quit looking at the camera so she and Mimi didn't make their debut. =)

Oma outdid herself this year! This was Stephen's advent calendar growing up. Oma loaded it up with gifts for Caroline this year. She looked forward to opening this every day!

Daddy and Caroline reading a Christmas book by the fire

Annual family outing to the Fayetteville square to see all the Christmas lights

We took Caroline to our church's annual Christmas program. Each year, they have a "special" act, and this year, an artist painted this upside down while they sang three songs. It was amazing!

Our church had a live nativity a couple Sundays before Christmas. Our friends played Mary and Joseph with their new baby. I can't help but smile when I look at this picture!

This year, they have been working on writing at school. Some one evening, we were being lazy on the couch, and Caroline wanted to write. I wrote the names, and then she copied what I had wrote. I was shocked and very proud! =)

Sweet girl all ready for school

Caroline's friend Ava gave her some Christmas presents. She hid something in the purple purse, and it took me a week to look in there! Little stinker!

One of her advent gifts from Oma was this Frozen microphone. I lost count as to how many times we watched the Country Christmas special. But Caroline requested to watch it a few times a week, so this microphone came in very handy! =)

She was stylin'! Aunt Ashley bought her this glitter deer shirt, so we had to paint her nails red glitter to match. She was loving it!