Dad Kennedy's Birthday at the Camp!

Dad Kennedy celebrates his birthday at the camp every year.  He LOVES hunting and his birthday falls on the last day of hunting season each year.  This was my 1st experience!  We all met there and stayed for the weekend.  Everyone decided to go hunting on Saturday afternoon, so Abby and I decided we would go shop!  We went to a few little cute places and then I thought about needed a birthday cake!  You can't have a party without a cake!!  I know one of his favorites is carrot cake, and well, we were just a smidge too far to get Nanny to throw one together.  So, I noticed a "Calling All Cooks" cookbook sitting in the kitchen and found a recipe!  We looked at the pre-made cakes while at the store purchasing the ingredients (we just might have needed a back up, since this was my 1st attempt at a carrot cake!)  We gathered all of the ingredients, checked out at the little grocery store, and headed to the house to get started!  Remember we were at the hunting camp....there aren't many meals cooked there, except breakfast and grilling out!  We make good use of the catfish house near by =)!  You can't beat all you can eat yummy catfish, especially when you can call ahead and they have it on the table when you walk in! Anyway,  back to the cake.  So we are at the camp where the proper tools were hard to come by, so I sat and prepared the carrots with a single vegetable peeler...only took me 2 hours!!  Didn't know it would take quite that long!  That's ok though!  Dad K is totally worth it!!  So here it is......

Icing is in hunter's orange to go with the theme (Kinda ran out of room, so the icing is sliding off. Opps!)

Not bad for a 1st attempt though!

Dad K and Me with the cake

Blowing out the candles

Mom and Dad K

Abby and I served the cake

We had a fun weekend with the family and made some good memories!  Happy Birthday Dad K!!! 

Haley turns the big 3-0!

One of my dearest friends, Haley Noble, turned 30 on Christmas day!  Her sister threw her a surprise party in Nashville (where they live) the 1st weekend of January.  Robbie and I drove there to surprise her! 

Haley and me

Me and my handsome husband

The limo Hylan rented to drive everyone around for the night

Haley in the limo

Haley and me in the limo

Haley and me out on the town, celebrating 30 together!

Our 1st New Year's!

So our first New Year's was spent at Camp Kennedy!  We went to the hunting camp with both of our families for a few days.  We had a great time and the kids did not want to leave!  We attempted hunting.  

Katie went with Uncle Butch (She's holding her snack bag)

Lesley went with Mom K

We went together on our 1st hunting adventure. 

In the tree stand (I think that's what it's called. Ha!)

My hottie hunter on the walk back. 

I think we only sat in the stand about 20 minutes.  It started raining shortly after we walked all the way down there, so we had to walk all the way back, in the rain!  We were soaked when we got back!!

Another soaked picture!

Since we couldn't hunt, my crew decided to nap!

All snuggled up!  (Pumpkin is TERRIFIED of bad weather!)

Lounging with Uncle Bob

Happy New Year!!!!!

Our family (minus Pepper - he wasn't refined enough to be inside at that point.)

Mom and Dad

Mom and Dad K

David, Lesley, Katie, and Taylor

We had an awesome time, except for the rain, which shortened our trip a day.  Welcome 2011!!!

Our 1st Christmas!

Our 1st Christmas was absolutely A-MA-ZING!! I might have to say it was the best ever, well at least pretty close!  =)   Happy Birthday Jesus and thank you for giving me my sweet precious husband!

Our 1st Christmas tree....We had it decorated (so we thought).  Mom and Dad Kennedy sent Neil (florist) over to spruce things up (I wasn't feeling well when it was time to decorate).  Boy, did he do some sprucing!

Our fun Christmas china!

Our stockings

Our living room fire place

So this is what my Santa left for me on Christmas morning! Too cute!!  I think he was up until 2 AM wrapping gifts, God bless him!  He was super tired on Christmas morning, but we had to get going early since we had so many places to visit that day!!  We had an awesome day!

This is what Santa left for Pumpkin, Pepper, and Sunshine!

This is what Santa left for Robbie

Pepper opening his gifts.  Pumpkin and Sunshine waiting patiently for their turns!

Pumpkin opening her gifts.

They were so excited!!

Sunshine opening her gifts.

Loved their stuff from Santa!  Especially the raw hide bones!! 

Robbie opening his gifts.

My stocking!  Every single gift had a sweet note on the tag!  So precious!

So after we finished Christmas morning at our house, we were off to Mom and Dad Kennedy's for some present opening there.  We were supposed to be there at 8:30 AM and of course, we were a little late!

Christmas morning at Mom and Dad Kennedy's!  

Robbie opening his gifts from Mom and Dad Kennedy

Some super cute flip flops!

Brother Ricky gave me a gift that he picked out himself.  So sweet!! 

Dad Kennedy got me LOTS of camo stuff for Christmas.  I think he wants me to be a hunter!  Not really sure that's going to happen.  =(  But I'll wear all of my attire around the hunting camp! 

Love these boots!  No more muddy shoes at the camp!  These are awesome!

Robbie got a pistol.  He wasn't expecting this one!

Reviewing the pics or maybe trying to figure out how to use the timer for a complete family pic??

The Kennedy Children

The Kennedy Family

After opening gifts at Mom and Dad Kennedy's, we were off to Nanny's for lunch at 11 AM.  We ate some yummy food at Nanny's house and had a great time with family there.  We were slacking on the pictures for some reason.  After Nanny's house, we were off to Mom and Dad's for some more lunch and gift opening there.  We had some delicious food here as well!  We have little ones on this side of our family (or should I say big, because they have all definitely grown), so Christmas is all about them, and it's a blast! 

Taylor and Jacob

Katie Sarah

We had such a wonderful day and enjoyed spending time with each other and all of our family!!