So This Is Christmas

We are a few weeks in to December and a few things have made its presence: 20 degree temperatures, the roaring fire in our fireplace, Christmas carols and our elf, Christopher, from the North Pole (which you will hear more about in another post).

Every year, Grant and I have made a gingerbread house from a kit, but this year I was lucky enough to come across a gingerbread train. I liked it much better! We decorated while Daddy took an evening nap.

On a Saturday morning, we had Breakfast with Santa at our church. They always do a great job of putting this together. I was excited my sister and her family got to join us.

Here is Grant and I mixing some food for Santa's reindeer.
He also made an ornament for me and this reindeer hat for him. Vivian enjoyed the food and getting to see Santa as well!
Here is Grant talking to Santa about his wish list of robot dinosaurs and a newly added pogo stick (I'll have to talk to Santa about age restrictions on that one!)

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving came, and what was I thankful for? Besides the obvious, a week off! We started our vacation by making a late night trip to visit Daniel's family. Daniel's Dad had to referee a football game nearby, so we had to wait until after dark to go. To keep Grant and I alert, we did all sorts of things out of the ordinary. He chose to break out the stroller and walk his baby penguin around the neighborhood. I loved the look on my neighbor's face when she caught me pushing Grant out in it at that time of the night.

Here, we caught up on some needed rest and ate until our heart's content. We visited with family and watched Grant play and entertain the crowd.

Grant and his Aunt Erica built a fort for a showing of "Finding Nemo"

Upon our return home, we got all sorts of things accomplished like backed up cleaning duties, laundry, and movie watching. Grant was a good help. I found him reading in bed one night, so cute.

My Mom and I went Christmas shopping one day and hit the pre-Black Friday sales. I found the weirdest things while we were out.

Like this Hilary Clinton nutcracker and this Bill Clinton corkscrew. Real classy!

And for the nostalgic ones, a Farrah Fawcett Barbie doll in her classic red swimsuit pose.

I came home with things MUCH better, and cheaper than this!

Wednesday we prepped for Thanksgiving. I made cream cheese lemon bars (a recipe from Pinterest) and Daniel tried his hand at coconut meringue pie again. We tried a few years ago, a couple of times and meringue just never worked. This time was a great success! Good for us, bad on my waistline...so good! I can report that the lemon bars were only OK. 'Regular' lemon bars are better.


Thursday was Thanksgiving Day. We woke up and Grant actually didn't care to watch the parades. He joined me in watching Beauty and the Beast which happened to be playing on the Disney Channel. I spent the majority of the morning singing the entire score of the movie.

We went to MiMi and PawPaw's house for Thanksgiving and my sister and her family joined us. Grant wanted to say the prayer, and I thought I filmed it. However, this is the only thing that came out: A picture of him scratching his nose and Vivian in the background looking shocked. Oh well, it was a great prayer of Thanksgiving.

We spent the majority of the day with the family and then went home just in time to watch the Texas vs. Texas A&M game...the LAST one. I seriously haven't watched an entire football game this season, Cowboy, UT, whoever...but this one I felt I must pay attention to. I was so glad I did! Watching this last 2 minutes got my pulse up and some loud cheers. I was glad to see TX pull out the win, but also happy for A&M that they didn't get stomped on during the last game of the rivalry. Great way to go out.

This weekend we decorated our home for Christmas, wrapped presents, and ate more pie and had Pinterest recipe attempts. Here is Daniel putting out the lights outside as the temperature began to drop drastically. I always hated decorating the for holidays wearing summer clothes!



I also tried to get some pictures of Grant for our Christmas card. He was NOT happy about it. I even tried bribing him with ice cream. I came away with 1 usable picture and he got 'bamilla' ice cream.

He acts as though its painful...

...then he just turns on his attitude!

Cousin Fun - November Edition

My brother and sister-in-law had a wedding to attend in which they were there DJ and guests, so we offered to keep Fletcher while they did they job/had fun!

We started out at the playground to enjoy the beautiful weather. I like living within walking distance to the elementary school and its huge playground!

From there, we went to feed the ducks at a nearby park. When I pulled up, most of the ducks were asleep. When I opened the car door, its like someone yelled "Attack!". We fed them bread as fast as we could. Grant got nipped by one, so I made sure to remind them to hurry and get rid of the bread.
I really could have sat all day and watched the boys chase (or be chased by) the ducks, geese, and one random kitten. It was fun to watch.
That night, we went to see "Puss in Boots".


(Don't worry, I took these before the movie started, but they were involved like this throughout the whole movie.)

After the movie, we went to eat with my sister, niece and brother in law. For dessert, we came back home and decorated the cookies we had made before the movies.

Grant kind of over did it on the red sprinkles!

Fletcher went home Sunday after joining us for church and a big lunch. Needless to say, Grant and I napped the majority of the afternoon. Grant slept for over 3 hours and I'm pretty sure he could have slept longer than that!

Candy Man

On actual Halloween night, we decided just to hand out the candy we had left over from trunk or treat. When it started to get dark, things got a little slow, so Grant decided to 'spur' on the business...

Happy Halloween

Grant's little school has Noah's Ark Day instead of 'Halloween'. I ordered a mask and shirt a month ago. I'm so glad it came in. It was supposed to arrive the day we needed it, but ended up arriving two days earlier! I was so excited I didn't have to throw something together at the last minute.

My niece was a kitty cat. Usually all smiles, she was weary of us leaving her at the school.

This is the first year we've actually been home Halloween weekend in a while. So we made some plans with our church's Trunk or Treat event. On Friday, I came down with a nasty stomach virus. I was for sure I'd miss all the festivities on Saturday. I did my best and pressed through and felt fine by Saturday afternoon. So I got out of my funk and put the finishing touches on our costumes (ways to make them warmer) and trunk decorations. The first stop was my sister's church for their event.

My little pirate played some games, and won some prizes.

My big pirate helped chase a beautiful butterfly, my niece.

It was a wonderful day, weather wise, for the events. Even a little too sunny!

Next stop was our church event.
Vivian and my sister decided to come with us. You can see her wings really well here.

Grant scarfed down the cotton candy, and pretty much became the usual giant sticky mess.

I didn't get a picture of our trunk, but it was basically a giant 'friendly' skull my Mom and I made. I had a plan of kids reaching into the skull's mouth and drawing coins. The color of the coin told me how much candy to give them. Well, I left the trunk up with the bowl of plastic coins in the skull mouth and when I came back from eating, all but 1 coin was gone. I guess some kids went early and thought thats what I was handing out. So, yea, Greg, I have to buy you some coins to replace the ones I borrowed...sorry. Arrgghhh.
The kids that DID do what they were supposed to got some great candy and Play-Doh. Vivian came by to get some as well. Grant didn't care much for the trunk or treating as he did the playground and bounce house.

Happy Halloween, mateys!

Pumpkin Patch

Ahoy maties! We will be a family of pirates this year. Daniel didn't join us for the pictures, he had the scurvy....(technically a Cowboys game to watch).

We then had an outfit change to match Miss Vivian.