decking the halls

Sunday we got in the Christmas spirit by decorating our house and putting up the Christmas tree.  The boys loved sorting the branches and were so excited to help.

Even Lauren got in on the fun.

Ethan insisted that he hang the top of the tree.

 
After we got the tree all finished, the kids went outside to play.  They decided to wear their Santa hats and turn their picnic table into Santa's sleigh.  It was so cute!

Thanksgiving weekend

We spent our Thanksgiving in Fredricksburg with my parents, my sister's family and my brother-in-law's parents and nieces.  I've known Russell's family since I was seven, so I consider them my family too.  We had a great Thanksgiving lunch at Phil and Laverne's house. 

Friday night we went to downtown Fredricksburg for the lighting of the Christmas tree and the German pyramid.  It was really cool! 

They even had a little patch of snow for the kids to play in.

I love this picture of my parents with the kids.  Lauren is screaming and the boys are fighting, so it's pretty accurate of our life at times! 

The whole gang.

Next, we headed to Dripping Springs for their Christmas festivities.  It was coooold!  When we got in the car to leave that night, the thermometer said it was 29.  Brrrr!

 

Lauren ran around calling all the deer "Bambi".

The boys were so excited to see Santa and Mrs. Claus.  Lauren, not so much.  Austin asked Santa for Matchbox Wolf Mountain for Christmas and Ethan asked for Legos and a zoo. Lauren didn't stop crying until Santa's helper handed her a candy cane. :)

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving and I'm so thankful we got to spend it with family!

Cameron Park Zoo

Last week my sister and her family came in town since they were off for a week for Thanksgiving.  It was so nice to have her family in town for a couple days before we headed to Fredricksburg to celebrate Thanksgiving.  We  loaded up all the kids and drove to Waco's Cameron Park Zoo on Monday.

The weather was perfect and the zoo is just the right size.  The kids loved it!

Austin has a thing for wolves.

We got to see some amazing animals!  The bears, otters, gorillas and chimpanzees were all hiding from us though.  Maybe next time!

My little monkey!

Since we didn't' see any bears at the zoo, Sherry insisted we drive over to visit her Alma Mater and see the Baylor Bears.  It was a great day to spend with family!

Thanksgiving Day Pie Feast

Ethan had Pie Feast on the last day of school to celebrate Thanksgiving.  The kindergartners dressed up as Pilgrims and Indians and sang four cute songs for us. A little boy in Ethan's class is a native American and his family came and did a tribal dance for everyone. It was amazing! It was a great way to celebrate being out of school for a whole week!

Down on Allie's farm

A couple weeks ago we spent the weekend at David and Sharon's ranch with our friends Markus and Constance. We always have so much fun out there relaxing and seeing all the animals.

The kids had a blast riding Cutter, playing with the new lamb and checking on the chickens.

 

Believe it or not, we did not lock our kids in the goat trailer.  They had great fun pretending to be goats and loved every minute of it.

I had fun taking pictures of Eric and the kids riding Cutter.

As always, we had a great time hanging out with our friends on their beautiful land!

virus!

4 out of the 5 people in our house are sick. Kirby was sick this weekend and even my computer has a nasty virus. Thankfully, I can now blog from my phone. Hopefully we will all be better soon and my computer can be repaired. At least we got this out of the way before Thanksgiving!

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O.L.s in training

I'm not sure how or when it happened, but it's official... 

We are old ladies in training. 

Thursday morning Carrey, Erica and I got up at 5 a.m. to board a bus sponsored by our local fabric store to drive to 3 1/2 hours to the Houston Quilt Show. 

I was the first person to pull into the parking lot at 5:50 if that tells you how excited I was.  After our Starbucks, we were bright eyed and bushy tailed.

Once we got there, we waded through the crowds of ladies and searched for treasures.

There were piles of fabric to dig through.  Searching and finding rare fabric for me ,is like finding a brand new iPad at a garage sale for $20 for everyone else.  Pretty exciting stuff!

We met Jenny at the show and shared a yummy picnic lunch outside. The weather was gorgeous!  As much as we didn't want to take a break from shopping, it was just what we needed to recharge.  After several hours of more shopping, we headed to Ninfas for some margaritas before we boarded the bus at 7 p.m. 

I'm very happy with my fabric finds!  Some of it will go in my Etsy store, some is for my personal stash, and some is for a baby quilt for my crazy friend Sammy who isn't finding out if she is having a boy or girl.  I had no choice but to buy fabric for a boy and a girl quilt just in case!  

We had a great time at the Houston Quilt Show and look forward to going back next year!

Soccer Saturday

 
Saturday we had another fun-filled day of soccer.  The games were back to back and the weather was gorgeous!

Austin had another great game!

We tried every trick in the book to keep Lauren off the soccer field during the two games.

Ethan has been practicing running super fast and he got to show off his running skills at the game. He had a great game and we were so proud of him!

 

The face he made when running as fast as he could was priceless. 

I sure love my little soccer players!

Halloween 2010

We had such a great Halloween this year!  The kids are at such fun ages and we loved watching them have so much fun.

Lauren dressed up as Dorothy and carried her little Toto dog around with her in her basket.

Since Ethan LOVES horses, he decided he wanted to be a cowboy this year. 

Such a handsome cowboy!

Austin wants to be a Texas Star hockey player when he grows up, so that's what he wanted to be for Halloween.

He's one tough looking guy!

Crazy kiddos ready for some trick or treating!

Kevin and Sarah pulled their trailer with their four wheeler and we went on a hayride.  It was soooo much fun!  The kids loved it and so did the grown ups!

McDreamy sat in the back of the trailer and pulled the wagon with all our extra stuff in it.  It was quite a humorous sight!

Dorothy got a little too excited by the large bucket of candy, and fell right in.  Being the loving mother that I am, I snapped a picture instead of helping her out.  Our little champ still came out with a fistful of candy!

We had an awesome Halloween and loved spending it with our family and friends!