Getting Ready for Christmas...

We've had a wonderful Advent season with a peppering of fun holiday family traditions, as well as some down-time for focusing on the real meaning of the season. Having SA in kindergarten kept me busy as "room mom", but school was out last week and we've enjoyed a slower pace. Some things we've done leading up to Christmas... two days and counting:

-Put up our Christmas lights, tree and decorations the day after Thanksgiving (avoided Black Friday shopping at all costs.)
-Attended a Christmas concert at our church and had our baby Jesus for our nativity blessed
-Got to sit on Santa's knee at our neighbor's Christmas Party!
-Watched Olympic ice skaters perform at the Christmas tree lighting at the Galleria
-The kids were somewhat good sports about letting mom get a pic for our Christmas card
-Baked and decorated TONS of goodies for friends and teachers (and ate quite a bit ourselves)
-SJ and I got to help and attend SA's kinder Christmas party at school
-Girls sang in our church's preschool Christmas program
-Drove around looking at Christmas lights
-Bought most of our presents on Amazon! With only one trip to the dreaded Toys R Us.
-Went carolling with friends on our street for the first time, and were given brownies by a neighbor for our efforts!
-Attended a Christmas story time at our library
-Visited my mom's entire side of the family for a great meal, presents, and fun with cousins
-Played lots of Christmas songs in the car, at home, and on the piano
-Lit our final candle in our bay window for the closing of the Advent season
-Vowed to do more each year to help those less fortunate as time and finances allow - this has been a tough year for almost everyone. We are looking forward to the new year full of renewed hope.

Have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Here Comes Trouble!

Little man is 7 mos and sitting up, crawling, and pulling up. He's hanging with the big girls and is bored with "baby toys" preferring dollhouses, legos, and remote controls (all to chew on and crash around.) He's got two big bottom teeth and is complaining about his two uppers trying to come in. He's eating solid foods and really won't eat baby food very well, he instead prefers homemade stews and soups (of course!) SA is reading him a book below - she is great with handling him as he tries constantly to rip it from her hands and eat it.

Happy Halloween!

We had another fun Halloween, the kids are at fun ages for it. I talked them into letting me create "Thing 1" and "Thing 2" costumes from Cat in the Hat this year instead of our 6th straight year of princess costumes. I was meaning to create a Cat in the Hat outfit for the little man, but ran out of time, so he got to wear a baseball uniform for the neighborhood Halloween Carnival, and went as a Lobster for Halloween night. The last picture is of him in a stock pot - haha. V went as a vampire (all the rage right now, but where's all the money and cool cars to go with the re-vamped vampire image - we had to settle with white skin and blood dripping from his mouth.) I went as a vampire victim - notice bite marks on my neck. Depending on if you follow Vampire Diaries, True Blood or Twilight, I'm either merely a bitten human, or in the process of turning into a vampire myself!

Big 4 Year Old...

We have another big girl now... SJ turned 4 and had a little family party on her actual birthday and a Dora party a few days later with a treasure map and pinata! Happy Birthday big girl!

State Fair

We went to the Fair with our good friends on our street... corndogs, funnel cake, rides, games, fried oreos, chili pie, warm pretzels, and cotton candy. Just remembering all we ate makes my stomach hurt all over again. Thanks PW for the great pics and to Nana for watching little N so the big girls could have so much fun!

Adventure Princess!

SA is now an Adventure Princess (long ago known as Indian Princess) with a group of girls from school. It is a daddy-daughter thing where they collect badges for their vests from various accomplishments and community projects. Here are some pics from the induction ceremony where they got war paint on their noses and the first daddy-daughter camp out. Activities were bb gun shooting, horseback riding, rowing in canoes, and shooting bow and arrows!