happy 2009!

Yoohoo! Is anyone there? *Tapping computer screen* Hello?

So much has happened since the last time I posted...
*We drove home to see all the families for Christmas.
*Miss Thang sat on Santa's lap.
*The Tigers won the Alamo Bowl. (And the only reason I knew the name of the bowl game is because I just asked Dan. He's such a valuable contributor to our family blog!)
*Auntie Michelle came back to Mississippi with us.
*I took down all the Christmas decorations.
*Danny finished another week of seminary.
*Reese has remained toothless.

But I haven't been able to blog about any of it because someone hijacked my blogging machine! I know! To make matters worse, I left a cord to our camera charger at my mom's house, so I can't upload any pictures from our trip.

Does anyone else hear that tiny violin?

But we here at the Hinton home are persevering. Side note: to this day, I cannot for the life of me spell persevere. It takes me two or three tries before I get it right.

Moving right along.

Before we left for Christmas, we opened our family presents here at our house. This was by far my favorite Christmas ever because Baby Girl is hysterical when she opens presents. Still convinced that laughing at your kids is one of the best parts of parenting, I documented as much of the delightful dismantling of presents that I could get.

The process went something like this. Hand present to Reese. Reese lunges for bow. Reese rips off bow. Mom or Dad opens small corner of paper. Reese grabs paper. Reese rips a strip of paper right off. Reese eats strip of paper. Mom or Dad takes slobbery strip of paper away. Reese swipes another strip of paper. Reese eats strip of paper...and on and on. You get the idea.

Here we are sitting among piles of slobber soaked wrapping paper. And for the sake of what little fashion pride I have, I must tell you I was only wearing that sweater vest for our Cheesy Christmas Sweater Youth Party later that night. Ok, I feel better.


Here's Reese with a present from her Daddy. It's a girly Nerf football. :)


I had to include this picture because it captures perfectly the types of facial expressions we saw all Christmas long. She is too funny.