Full of Cheer

It has been an extremely busy but wonderful month!  The kids all had their Christmas concerts and parties at school last week. 



Ty and Catelin are both in the preschool so they were together.  I tried to zoom in so you could see them -Ty is in the middle of the first two pictures.  In the second set of two, Catelin is in the front row on the end (she is the tall blonde!) 





Here are a few pictures from their class parties – Ty’s included a living nativity (he was Joseph!)

MJ’s concert was in the school gym – all of the kindergartners looked precious in their Christmas attire.

The kids have had a nice break thus far although we all seem to be passing around a nasty cold!  We have had fun baking cookies, decorating gingerbread men/houses, doing arts and crafts, and watching Christmas movies. 
 



And we all adore Simie (our elf on the shelf)!  He and his best friend Bear have been entertaining this year…




We took the kids to the Botanical Gardens to see the Christmas lights this week; in spite of the cold and rain we had a wonderful time!  MJ even made us some smores.




This is how I found MJ and Ty the other morning- I couldn’t help but take a picture. 



The countdown is on for Santa!

Up With the White and Gold

When Georgia Tech football started this year, I don’t think anyone thought we would have such an incredible season.  After clinching the ACC Coastal division with a Duke loss (not ideal, but hey we’ll take it!) and an incredible win against UGA, Steve and I went back and forth about making the trip to Charlotte for the ACC Championship.  The logical part of us knew we should probably stay home- Thanksgiving was late this year and there was still so much to do in preparation for Christmas… but then we received text after text from our friends- “MAKE A PLAY!  WHO KNOWS WHEN WE WILL BE IN THIS POSITION AGAIN!”  The blood that courses through our veins is truly white and gold…so three days before the ACC Championship game we decided to go- frantically getting tickets, transportation, and a sitter for Catelin!



There was NO WAY we were going to be able to go without MJ and Ty- they have become the ultimate GT fans (this warms my heart to its core!) so we planned to take them.  We also knew Catelin wouldn’t be able to make it through the game- her bedtime is between 7:30 and 8:00 and kick off was 8 PM.  Ms. Lisa was kind enough to watch her for us.  Steve was able to get the Bud bus to drive a group of us up to Charlotte that Saturday afternoon.  We got there around 4:00, checked into our hotel and headed to the stadium.  After tailgating for a couple of hours, we started our walk to the stadium and caught a ride on a “rickshaw” that was pulled by a bike!  AWESOME.



Thankfully there were 16 of us who pitched in for a suite (which was perfect for the kids), and our dear friend Kelley brought his son, Austin (who is 8)… those boys had a BLAST!




It was an incredible game, and while we all wish the outcome had been different (GT lost 35-37), we were so proud of our team.  Poor MJ started crying at the end – but when we explained how proud we were of the Jackets for coming this far he seemed to cheer up. 

We won’t be able to make the trip to Miami for the Orange Bowl…but we will be cheering our hearts out from home.  GO JACKETS!!

A Visit to Santa

We went on our annual visit to Santa at Phipps last Monday.  I talked Santa up all day to Catelin with high hopes that she would climb willingly into his lap this year.  She was actually pretty excited before we got there and even sat long enough for me curl her hair.  Here are a few pictures of her and Ty before we went to pick MJ up from school:



She also did well while writing her Christmas list for Santa with daddy.



But once we got in line, her anxiety started to rise.  “No mommy, I don’t want to see Santa…I stay right here.”  Uh oh.  Well, unfortunately it didn’t get much better.  Santa did his very best to gently get her to come over to him- which she actually did for about a minute but it wasn’t long enough to set everyone up for a picture.  In the end, we decided it would be best if Steve and I got in the picture with them.  So, as you can see above, that is what we did.  I guess baby Eco #4 didn’t want to wait until next year to be in the picture!  haha

Here are a few more pics of our precious ones:






Yesterday was the one year anniversary of Catelin's surgery...I was surprised at how emotional I was all day.  I thought a lot about the power of prayer...there was a lot of reflection, prayers, and praise. 

It's hard to believe that this was her one year ago:

And here is our little angel now:

God is good.

Happy Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving here in Atlanta.  We are blessed to have both of our families here, so we had two Thanksgiving dinners!  We went up to my parents’ house first.  Unfortunately Eddie had to stay in NYC to study for his finals so it was just my parents, my “Aunt” Amy and Bob (who drove in from North Carolina) and our family.  We had a wonderful time and it was great to catch up with everyone – Amy and Bob hadn’t met our little princess yet! 




And Eddie sent us some pictures live from the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade – he said it was awesome to be there in person!

Then it was off to the Eco’s house for “dinner” number two and dessert.  Most of the cousins and family were there and the kids had a blast seeing everyone.  I can’t believe I forgot my camera so all of the pics from the day were from my iphone (which are not nearly as good)!.

Prior to having the whole week off for Thanksgiving, the kids had their Thanksgiving feasts at school.  Catelin’s was on Thursday and unfortunately neither Steve nor I could make it, but she didn’t mind at all!! 



Steve pulled double duty on Friday and made it to both Ty and MJ’s feasts before heading down to the hunting cabin in Griffin…




We had a lot of fun down at the cabin- MJ was so excited to “go hunting!” 



At MJ’s Muffins for Moms two weeks ago, they had “How to Cook a Thanksgiving Turkey” worksheets hanging right outside the classroom.  The task was for each of them to answer the questions by themselves without any help from the teachers.  The first question was “where do we get the turkey?”  Most of the kids answered “at the store” or “Publix”, “Kroger”, etc.  Oh, but not my MJ!  Here was his answer:



That’s right! “My daddy shot it”!!!!  Right outside the classroom for everyone to see.  I hope there aren’t too many “anti-hunters” in the school! 

It was a wonderful holiday.  Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!