UK Game with Both Kids

I took Brinley to a game earlier this year and she loved it. I planned to take Landon at some point too just to be fair, but things worked out for us all to go again this year. You might have seen where I entered a contest of a picture of Brinley and I for a set of UK basketball tickets. We ended up winning and scored some tickets in the lower arena. After I couldn't find anyone that wanted to use our tickets in the upper arena we decided to just take both kids.

Brinley in her favorite spot. She doesn't have to worry about not being able to see when she is on my shoulders. 

Me and the kiddos. Landon didn't want to put down his ticket. 

View from our seats. I hadn't sit this close to the court since I was a student at UK. We were able to see the action better live instead of having to watch on the replay screen. 

My little cheerleader and I supporting the CATS! 

My little crew. They can be so funny sometimes. 

My wildcat family. I couldn't have been any happier than with these 3 people. They are my absolute favorite in the whole world. 

Landon and his mommy. Here Landon is chugging his watered down icee!

Landon and Brinley consumed an entire feast while at the game. It would have cost us a small fortune if we hadn't brought some of our own snacks. They ate M&Ms, cheese crackers, Froot Loops, Doritos, cookies, and they shared an icee. This was all after we had dinner at Sawyer's and they both ate well. Here Landon was showing off just how cheesy his hands were after the Doritos.

Both kids acted pretty good for all things considered. We used our regular tickets to get them into the game, but we all decided to sit in the seats that we won. Thankfully the seat beside us didn't show up so we got an extra seat to spread out a little. After halftime we started to lose Landon and instead of making all of the nearby fans listen to his screaming we let him look at pictures on Jennifer's phone.

We spotted Scratch taking pictures a few sections over so we hurried out to see if we could get one. The kids were excited and gave him high fives after their picture. 

Towards the end of the game a concession worker approached us and asked if the kids could have these cookies. We said sure and the kids loved it. They definitely consumed way too many calories, but it was a special treat to go to the game.

Happy Heflin's after another wildcat victory! So glad that I have been able to take the kids to experience the Greatest College Basketball Tradition! Also we enjoyed getting to wear our new jerseys that we got each other for Christmas.

I think everyone should get to experience RUPP Arena a some point during their life. It is amazing to see 23,000+ wildcat fans on their feet cheering on the CATS. Thanks for reading and God bless!

Ringing in the New Year 2016

The past year has been quite an experience at the Heflin household. We have had a lot of fun and done a lot of new and interesting things with the kids. Both kids have also grown up so much over the past year and learned so many new things. It is so much fun raising these two little ones. So, we thought nothing would be better than to ring in the new year with just our little family at home.

Picture from our party at home last year to celebrate the beginning of 2015.

Our last picture of 2015. This was taken just a few minutes before the clock struck midnight. These kids are so much fun.

We watched a couple of movies together and then when the clock struck midnight we watched the ball drop and then put the kids to bed. Jennifer was tired so she went to bed too and I got a jump start on my fitness goals for 2016 by getting a run.

When I was doing my 30 by 30 goals over a year ago I dropped 50 pounds. However, instead of pushing on, I got relaxed and fell off the fitness bandwagon a little. Well, this time I am going to do it and keep up with it. I have always thought of working out as a chore, but now I am trying to view it as a way to keep me healthy so that I can spend many more years playing and being active with my kids. I got a Fitbit through work and it has been serving as a huge motivation for me. Since I wear it on my arm all day it serves as a constant reminder that I need to remain active throughout the day. I hope you all have a great 2016 and that you are able to keep all of your resolutions too! Thanks for reading and God bless!

Our Family Christmas

Christmas is always such a fun time of year. Sometimes the true meaning can get lost in all the hustle and bustle of the season. We have tried over the past couple years to make sure and tell the kids about the true meaning of Christmas, but some things are difficult to understand when you are just 2 and 3 years old. Easy to understand at that age is all the sights, sounds, smells and fun that comes with the season. We like to decorate the whole house inside and out. This year the kids got to help out with some of the decorating.

I decorated the outside of the house in early November because I wanted to get them all out while the weather was still rather warm. The kids enjoyed watching me from inside the window.

The kids loved decorating the Christmas trees. We had seven total trees that we decorated and placed around the house.

Landon was so proud of his decorating. He liked placing his all together in bunches. We had to go behind him the whole time and move a few of his ornaments around.

We got a picture made with the big Christmas tree in downtown Lexington before heading over to watch the Christmas parade.

Waiting with the little ones for the parade to start. The kids got so many compliments on their hats that lit up.

Our adventures at Southern Lights at the Horse Park. This is always a hit with the kids. I think their favorite parts of the night are riding on the train and getting some fresh cooked kettle corn.

Every year we have made ornaments for the grandparents and for ourselves of the kids footprints. This time we waited a little late and I needed to get them started so I made them one night by myself with the kids. It was frustrating because the kids were more interested in playing with the flour and making a mess than helping with the task at hand.

I think that I did pretty good turning the kids feet into Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

We also took the kids up to Cincinnati Zoo for the Festival of Lights. It was a really neat experience, but the nice weather made for a really huge crowd.

Every year since the children have been born we have celebrated with just us and the kids for a family Christmas. Since the kids don't have any idea about what day of the week or the date we just pick a day in December and tell the kids that it is Christmas.

Brinley is usually the one that wakes up early, so we went ahead and woke Landon up to come down and open presents. Here the kids are pictured with a gifts that Jennifer and I got them.

Brinley only asked Santa for one thing this year. So, Santa got her exactly what she asked for - a sled! There is also the yearly debate in our household if Santa wraps gifts or not. This year Santa didn't wrap just like when I was a child.

The kids with their sleds from Santa.

The kids wanted to sit in their sleds while they opened up their gifts from mommy and daddy. We got them a little game each and some pajamas and socks. 

Mommy opening her gifts from the kids and me. She was excited about this shell cracker because she always has trouble getting the meat out of her crab legs.

The kids helping me open my gifts from them and mommy.

I will definitely be wearing this to some of the remaining games this season. 

I just couldn't help myself when I saw this one day at the store. Golfing has become one of my favorite things to do and the kids are always sad when I leave to go play without them. So, next year I will try taking one of them out with me on occasion to give them a feel of the game. Who knows, maybe they will love this game too!

We had one really special gift for the kids this year and it is the gift that keeps on giving all year long. Jennifer and I debated for a long time about this gift, but in the end we thought it would be a lot of fun and exciting for the kids. We had a box with a note in it along with their magic bands from last year and some Disney gift cards. That's right we are taking the kids back to Disney World!

Brinley didn't have a clue what this said, so I read it to her and she was so excited. She asked if we were going right then. I had to break the news to her, but explained that it wouldn't be too much longer before we went back to Mickey's house. Jennifer and I decided on season passes to Disney for the family because the kids had such a great experience last year. We also wanted to see it at different times of the year and because our work schedules are more flexible than most we decided why not. This is also the last full year that we could do something like this before Brinley starts school.

We all had a great Christmas celebrating with the most important people in my life. I am so happy to be Brinley and Landon's dad and I want nothing more than to make them happy. Sometimes we spoil them, but they make life so much more fun for Jennifer and me. We are excited to see what a year at Disney is like and I will be sure to share many pictures and stories about it all. Thanks for reading and God bless!

Heflin-Maitland Christmas

We had some visitors over the Christmas holiday season at our house. My family all came to stay with us for a few days and we sure packed a lot of stuff into the few days we had together. Each year it seems like it gets more difficult to get everyone together with work schedules and everyone living in different cities. As soon as everyone arrived in Lexington and got their luggage in the house we all loaded up the car to head out for a Christmas Eve dinner. We had planned to eat at Sal's, but unfortunately we didn't make reservations which were apparently a must so we just headed on down to eat at Drake's. We all had a good meal and even enjoyed playing with a few of the games they had in the bar of shuffleboard and ring the hook. We headed home to decorate some sugar cookies to end our night.

Helping mommy make the sugar cookies turned out to be quite a mess, but the kids both had fun and that is way more important than a mess!

Landon and mommy working on some decorating.

Brinley really loved decorating cookies this year. She actually was asking for colors and made some pretty nice designs.

Uncle McKinley and the grandparents working on their masterpieces.

We even had a little competition online to see who had the best cookie decoration. Here are the decorators for the different cookies. Top row from left to right are Brinley, Grandma, and Landon. Second row: Jennifer, Andrea, Grandpa. Bottom row: Chris, McKinley, and then mine. The votes were all tallied and McKinley's depiction of Tyler Ulis bleeding in the Louisville game last year was the winner. 

After sleeping in late on Christmas morning we all got up and the kids were ready to open some presents. It was so much fun to see them both excited with opening gifts this year.

This was the third time this Christmas that they had opened gifts and they had become pros at it.

The Maitland's opening their gifts from McKinley. Chris got a 6-pack of Ale-8-One and every bottle was wrapped as well as the box.

Brinley showing off some penguin pajamas that she got.

McKinley got a pretty neat hoodie from dad. It is an EKG that turns into an outline of a buck. He got this because just a few weeks ago he shot a buck of his own.

Aunt Andrea and Uncle Chris reading Brinley one of her new books that she got for Christmas.

 We spent the rest of Christmas day playing games and just enjoying spending time with each other. Our family is pretty competitive so a couple of times it got pretty heated, but it was all in good fun. We didn't get around to taking family photos so we had to get up early the next day to take some before McKinley and I headed out to the UK game.

A family picture was something that Grandpa wanted, but it can be pretty difficult with a 2 and 3 year old.

Uncle McKinley with Brinley and Landon.

Aunt Andrea and Uncle Chris with Brinley and Landon.

Grandma and Grandpa with their favorite grand kids! Just so you know, they are the only grand kids at this point in time.

A little more festive with the Christmas tree in the picture.

McKinley and I then headed downtown to watch the UK vs. Louisville game at RUPP Arena. It was a fantastic game and McKinley really enjoyed his Christmas gift from me which was my extra ticket. We even went down after the game and got a ball signed by Coach Cal and a picture of us on the court. I could barely talk from all the yelling that I was doing.

After the UK game we headed over to Breakout Games. This is something that I have wanted to do for sometime now, but had just never made it until today. The general concept is that you are locked in a room and you have to find clues to complete tasks in the room to ultimately find the your way to break out of the room in less than an hour. It was pretty intense and we all worked well together and finished with a little over 16 minutes to spare. 

Our Christmas card this year. We didn't order enough, so next year we will have to print out even more so that we can send them out to our family and friends.

We always have a good time when our whole family gets together and I wish that it could happen more often. Since it doesn't happen all the time we sure do take advantage and do as many things together as possible during the time. Thanks for reading and God bless!