The Levee Family

Jackson's pre-school performed a great Christmas program for us this year. Jackson's class made great shepherds! It was great to see Jackson really grasping the words of the songs and singing them as he played. "Away in the Manger" was his favorite.

Our oldest has made another milestone! We celebrated his 7th birthday with friends at school and family at home. This is the year of "Star Wars". The boys got to watch their first Star Wars movie a few months ago and it all came to life after that. It is fun to see them play with toys that I played with as a kid (with my brothers of course).

We were able to get all the cousins together for a few pictures - do you know how hard it is to get 6 kids to look at the camera and smile at the same time? Jeremy's brother was coming up with all sorts of crazy things for them to say just to get some "real" smiles out of them...it's a good thing MiMi wasn't there to hear all of that!

For many years now there has been a tradition of heading to Rusk for Thanksgiving. My grandparents live in Rusk and as kids we loved heading to the woods to be with family during this time. Now that my parents have their own property there, we enjoy heading to their house for Thanksgiving as well. We don't get to see many of our cousins at Christmas but most of us still head to Rusk to enjoy the woods and family at Thanksgiving. As the Cotten clan has grown, we now have to eat our big meal in the large garage at my parents or grandparents, complete with decorated tables of course. We also get to eat the food we enjoy as a Cotten clan, which some of our new family members don't exactly love...but we love them anyway! Thanksgiving in Rusk usually brings out the gumbo, fried fish, shrimp, squirrel and of course blackberry cobbler. We also have a fried turkey for the traditionalists in the family! There is just something about being in the woods during this season that has become such a part of our family. My boys know that they get to put on their camo, go hunting and play in the woods and don't ever want them to lose that. Jeremy got his first deer this year and Austin was so excited to watch all the events that took place after that...the "dressing" of the deer, the meat processing, etc. He was full of questions, just like he always is, and wanted to be in the middle of it all. Now we get to enjoy having ground meat, sausage, tenderloin and back strap steaks in the freezer...(thanks Dad for helping us cut it up all the right way!) God has blessed us with a deep heritage and a long line of Godly family members. Thank you Father for all the blessings you have given to us with our family! May we always be thankful and aware of those many blessings.

There are few things that are more fun for Jeremy and I than camping with good friends. We have some great friends that we have gone camping with since Austin was 3 months old, so that would be for almost 7 years now. Even though we have moved away, we were excited to get a camping weekend planned again. The kids had a blast making a fort or hide out in the woods behind the campsite. One of our friends brought a canoe and we brought all of our bikes. I am so thankful my parents took us camping as kids and taught us the fun of the whole event. There is just something about being out under the stars that makes your heart be full of praise for our Lord and the beautiful creation he has made.

I have some pretty adventurous boys - all 4 of them :-) This is just one of their favorite things to do. Usually they have contests to see how high and far they can jump. It won't be long before Ryan is joining in on this one.