Girl Baby

At Christmas we found an ornament that we gave Zack for Christmas the few days before Mary Catherine was born. It was signed from Alex, Taylor, and Girl Baby. It was all he got for Christmas that year. I remember that I got a Precious Moments figure with a little baby perched on a cloud. I loved it. Especially because we were going to have our little girl baby in 5 days. We were poor but those gifts were so sweet.

So now our little girl baby is 17 and so sweet, too. She and her friends had Sarah Beth do a photoshoot for them. They turned out so cute.

On her birthday she had a house full of girls added to our home. Our expert cake bakers and decoraters....Emma and Lily.....made her 2 cakes. One was traditional, the other a theme cake. Since she had girls spend the night, they decided on a bed and made pillows, and a chair out of fondant icing for her. So sweet. Makes my heart warm when they are so thoughtful. And boy were they proud, too.
Her wonderful brothers presented her with this cute horse that Elaine is demonstrating. They had a blast with that thing outside by the fire roasting huge marshmallows.
They boys also had a bolt of inspiration and made her this light bulb hat to show how smart they think Mary Catherine is. Brilliant!! They kept exclaiming how smart THEY were. It took a little electric skills to rig this up. So funny!!

So Happy Birthday to our first Girl Baby. We sure do love you much!!

So four weeks tomorrow I had surgery to remove my tonsils at 40 years old. I have indeed turned 40. So I had surgery on a Tuesday and this was me on Saturday....

ALL DAY!!!

I would love if I could say that I feel bad about it, but I really loved it and wish I could do it again!

We had a couple of months of surgeries starting with Zack in October having not one but two surgeries. He had the disk in his neck fused early in October and then by the end of the month he had his rotator cuff repaired....... courtesy of wrestling with Taylor.

These two were next........

They both had their wisdom teeth out the Friday before Thanksgiving. Lots of swelling ensued and TONS and TONS of mashed potatoes from Popeye's.

I was next on the 14th of December and then her...........

This was two days later. She had her tonsils out 3 days after mine. She was much more of a trooper than I was. She needed her pain meds for several days but really downed the Tylenol and macaroni and ice cream.

Then 4 days later after this cute kids came home from BYU-Idaho......

he had his wisdom teeth out, too. After he got this great haircut from Alex on the back porch. He was shopping the same day with his brothers and sisters. And again the next day. No swelling, no pain meds after I made him take them the first day. He just went right on.........but still ate tons of Popeyes mashed potatoes.

So 2010 was the year of surgery for us.


Lily helped us meet our deductible early in the year with her tonsils being taken out in March. She was so sweet at the hospital with Zack and me and GranJan. She wore her robe to the hospital and was so talkative. She was quite proud of herself.

So that makes my BYU-again son the lone holdout for surgery this year. Lets hope he doesn't jump into the fray in 2011.


Hope we can stay out of the doctor's office and hospital. We will eat our apples for sure!!

Ok, Sarah Beth made this picture above for our Christmas card but it would have cost a fortune to print. So instead I am making it our header even though it is Christmas. Just pretend it isn't. I LOVE it. She had become quite the photographer, even having a photo shoot that she got paid for.........well it was Mary Catherine and her friends, but still. She is so good and we are impressed with her abilities.

The pictures do tell alot of our activities for the year. I made me think that I should just put our Christmas letter on here to save for posterity! Mary Catherine and Elaine wrote it and I think they did an amazing job..........

(Joy to the World)……The Saints have won!! This year has been the craziest year since Taylor’s birth, but we loved every minute of it. How could it get any better than to start with the Saints unbelievable victory in the Superbowl that in these parts was met with many fireworks and raucous celebration? We were so thrilled to be able to continue our love of the Saints and LSU, even attending an LSU game where we were invited to sit in a suite that was extremely exhilarating. Our other most fun family outing was on a weeklong cruise with Daddy’s goal was to read a book!, Alex’s to get more sun, Taylor’s to eat as many entrees as he could, MC to meet many new friends, SB to break into the older youth room, Emma and Lily to run back and forth between their amazing siblings and their new friends in the Kid’s Camp! Mama just wanted to sit and be served….not disappointed! Daddy Zack has come back to the land of the living and now resides on Horseshoe Lane once more. For 5 months our beloved Padre was separated from the rest of the family working on the oil spill in Mississippi. In recent weeks he has survived two surgeries and is now in ship shape condition. In the season of giving, none shows more generosity than our dear Daddy. Mammy Zack is also recovering from a recent surgery and from the intense trauma of turning 40. As mother hen, she is constantly tending to all of us chitlens. She made a spontaneous trip to Utah with a couple of girlfriends, shopped up a storm, and extended a loving hand to all those within a 1,000 mile radius. AlZachy spent the year expanding his income. He first worked at Books-A-Million where he completely dominated the sales charts. Then he trucked on over to Biloxi to work with Daddy to make the big-bucks. Alex is also returning back to BYU for the winter semester where he hopes to become a physics teacher. We expect him to be the coolest teacher around. TayBro is the tallest of the Zachary clan at a whopping 6’3”. He graduated Sulphur High in the spring and spent the summer dutifully working on the oil spill, alongside Daddy Zach. Then he took a huge leap out of the home-coop to the frigid wasteland of Idaho to attend BYU-I. What a tragedy for Mother Hen. But he absolutely loves it there. MCAT,aka MCZ otherwise known as xxpoppinpappinpacxxxx is the health nut. She amazes us all with her stamina to withstand culinary temptations! She passed her driver’s test and is now the terror of the road, but puts her license to good use by helping her mom shuttle the younger ladies. She has flown into her junior year of high school and is going strong. Her life is full of school, friends, volleyball, church………...and writing Christmas letters ;) sBeth is a barrel of laughs. Her giggles are boisterous and frequent, but never without cause. She has found a new love of photography and if you need fabulous pictures at a good price sBeth photography is the way to go. She is young and fresh and has loads of pazazzzz! She has recently had a knee problem, but that doesn’t stop her moving and grooving. She is a big bad freshman this year and made lots of new friends on the 9th grade campus. EmJ received a brand new violin last Christmas and has taken to it like a duck to water. We are all repeatedly impressed by her willpower to get better and better at playing. She loves that she is a senior of the elementary school. She is daily improving her culinary skills and is training for motherhood with the American Girl program. She remains the only surviving blond. She loves to talk and tell magnificent stories to any willing listener. Emma is our cutie pie that is rapidly growing into a young woman. Lil is the Queen of Maplewood Middle School and runs that place with an iron hand. She has recently started taking lessons to become an equestrian and this has sparked a love for horses that is unparalleled by anything known to mankind. When she comes home from lessons, she is always using terms that half of us can’t understand, yet we still nod our heads and say “awesome.” She was baptized by Taylor this year. Family from all over Louisiana came in to witness the magic. Though this year was crazy, we find ourselves very grateful to have done it all together and for our Savior’s love and guidance through all we do.