Christmas parties, Nutcracker Ballet, Visit to Santa, Gingerbread House, and more

Yet another catch up from the first part of December. We have had so much fun so far this month and can't wait 4 more days until Christmas. The kids are so excited! And I am too. I have almost 2 weeks off work to hang out with the kids and my family. A much needed time off.

Company Adult Christmas Party

December kicked off with my work's company Christmas party in downtown Houston. We had a lot of fun (and drinks, well I had a lot of drinks). The food was great and they had a photo booth and person rolling cigars. I won a door prize for the first time, tickets to the New Years Houston Texans game. We were lucky Matt's parents let the kids spend the night, so we had no curfew!

Company Kid's Christmas party

The next weekend, my work had a Christmas party for the kids and families. It was at a fun place that had moonwalks, big play set, indoor train/car ride, and an inflatable floor. Even a visit from Santa. The kids had a blast.

Nutcracker Ballet

That Sunday, my mom got her, Katherine, and I tickets to the Houston Nutcracker Ballet performing at the historic 1894 Opera House in Galveston. I love the history venue as it is small, intimate, and so full of history. This was Katherine's first time to the ballet. She really enjoyed it, except for the fight between the toy so and the mice. But she really like the story and all the dancing. Afterwards we went and had dinner, we had a very nice girls day out.

Visit to Santa

Making Gingerbread House

Festival of Lights

Kindergarten Christmas Party

November 2011 - A long catch up.. haven't posted in awhile

I can't believe it's been over a month since I posted... Time and life have just flown by lately. I will catch up some things on November, then next posting I will get into December. Guess we are having o much fun, just haven't had time to sit down and write about it.

Texas Renaissance Festival

Matt, the kids, me, my parents, and brother and family traveled back in time. The kids loved watching the jousting, jugglers, magicians, riding the animals and rides, eating turkey legs and so much more. It was a super fun day, the ride home was quite with tired children and adults.

Houston Downtown Aquarium
One day we took the kids to the Aquairum, we lucked out and got a great deal on an all day pass. So we got to go to the Aquarium, see all the fish and pet stingrays, see the white tigers, ride the carosel, and ride the train through the shark tank. It was a great family outing.
Houston Zoo
The kids, me, my mom, sister-in-law, newphew, and a few friends met up and went to the zoo. The kids always love a trip to the zoo, as do I. Colin had a great time being a good big cousin and pulling Kannon around in the wagon. Colin might be small but he is strong. Katherine loved having Kannon and her friends there all together.

Thanksgiving
We hosted Thanksgiving for my family at our house then that night we went to Matt's family. We have a lot to be thankful for this year. I am thankful for all my friends and family for making 2011 a great year. I am thankful for my kids health, as well as my own, and the rest of my family. I am thankful to have a 5 year old that asks to do homework and enjoys it. I am thankful Katherine has a huge heart made of gold and Colin loves to cuddle. I am thankful for my husband who I love very much and brings so much laughter and fun into our house. I am thankful that our families are close and we get to enjoy so much time with them. I am thankful for the chance for Colin to live on half a heart and still has the energy to wear me out.. really can't we take naps sometimes. :)

Halloween 2011

A little late, but things have been busy since getting back from San Francisco. The kids of course enjoyed Halloween last week. Colin was none other than... (drum roll)... Buzz Lightyear. Katherine at first wanted to be Jesse from Toy Story UNTIL we got to the store and she saw a "purple" witch. The girl is mesmorized by anything purple, last year was had to a be a "purple" ballerina.

We had plans to go Trick or Treating with Katherine & Colin's friends, but I was not sure if Colin was going to be up for Trick-or-Treating since we just got out of the ER with croup at 5:00am that morning.. so who knows what kind of mood he was going to be in by 6:00pm. But as soon as I got Katherine in her costume, Colin was ready to go, pretty much throwing his costume at me ready to get some CANDY :)

The kids had lots of fun, Colin really enjoyed and got into Halloween this year. One time Katherine started running to a house with no light on and Colin was yelling "Sissy, no light, Sissy, no light". Both of them were good about saying Trick or Treat, and Thank you. Niether one of them seemed scared by any of the "spooky" houses.

Katherine the "Good" purple witch Buzz Lightyear still sporting his black eye from bouncing off the bed onto the end table

Not looking at the camera.. I was so excited that the 2T costume fit my little man
In motion running to get more candy

San Francisco - Amazing Trip

Last week I had an wonderful opportunity to go to San Francisco for a 3 day training seminar. Matt was luckily able to join me and we make an extended trip out of it to get some sightseeing in and some quality adult time. I have never been to San Francisco but it has always been on my top "MUST SEE" list. I am so glad we were able to go, the city and scenery is amazing! It was very hard to leave the kids for 6 days. We flew out early Sunday morning and got back Friday afternoon. I talked with the kids everyday and even got to Skype with them on the computer. My parents stayed with them at our house while we were gone. I know Grandma and Grandpa were ready for a break when we came back.. My house is hectic during the week, but I love it and wouldn’t trade it for anything.

The night before we left Colin decided to get his first black eye, by launching over Katherine on our bed and hitting the end table. Good thing it happened on our watch. It was super hard to leave Colin, I have never left him more than 2 days. But it is good for us to have some separation, though he has been SUPER clingy since we have been back.. Of course he has been sick. We got back Friday and Sunday night Colin and I spent the night in the ER with a really bad case of croup. I think the black eye and croup is Colin's way of telling me never to leave again! Monday when getting ready for school, Colin started crying, I asked why and he said "Don't leave me again".. Heartbreaking!

Back to San Francisco…Sunday Matt and I had an amazing time sightseeing. We went to Lands End, a beautiful park with walking trails right on the coast and is home to several ship wrecks. That night we went on a sunset catamaran sail around Alcatraz and Golden Gate bridge (thanks Syl for the suggestion)! The sunset was amazing and it was great to have Matt there to share it with me! While I was in class Mon- Wed, Matt went to Golden Gate park, potential gardens, Japanese gardens, Haight-Ashbury, tour of Anchor Brewery, and some other places. In the evenings we went and ate & shopped in Chinatown, ate at Pier 39, Fisherman's Wharf, but our favorite place was North Beach also known as Little Italy. We found two great places to eat there and the Italian bakeries.. Yummy! The food there was amazing. Good thing we walked so much up all those hills, so I didn’t feel so bad about all that we were eating. One evening we also went to go see Lombard Street.
Thursday we had all day to sight see. We did the early morning tour of Alcatraz.. What a beautiful island so rich in history. I really enjoyed the tour and walking around the island. After that we went and saw amazing views from Coit Tower, then we headed to Presidio Park (an old military base that sits at the bottom of Golden Gate Bridge.) The park has biking and hiking trails that give you amazing views of the bay, Golden Gate, and the rocky shoreline.
As much fun and amazing sights we got to experience, Friday I was super ready to get back to our kids. Friday night everyone started off in their own bed, but by Saturday morning, everyone was snuggled in our bed with us, the best feeling to wake up Saturday morning with everyone all cozy in bed!

PS- We have 250 pictures from the trip, so this is just a small small sample of pictures we took.

1st visit from Tooth Fairy, Fall Festival, Pumpkin Patch & Pumkun Chunkin

Last Wednesday, Colin and Katherine were playing in our room "watching" cartoons while we fixed dinner. We heard Katherine crying, when she came in the kitchen, she had a bloody mouth and shirt. Colin bumped into her mouth and knocked her two bottom front teeth loose. In the morning, I scheduled Katherine a dentist appointment to get it checked out. Before she even got to the dentist, she pulled on of them out at school. The dentist said that the teeth were already loose, just not enough of her to notice yet. Everything looked good on the x-ray, Colin just sped up the process by a few weeks. That night the tooth fairy made her first visit to our house, last night she made her second visit. That should be enough for awhile.
Over the weekend we had beautiful weather, so we decided to take full advantage of it. Saturday we had Katherine's soccer game early in the morning, then we got the family packed up for a nice day trip. We loaded up the kids and my parents in the SUV (Good thing for 3rd row seats) and headed to Fayetteville, TX ..a small town that my aunt and uncle live in halfway between Austin and Houston. They were having their annual fall festival, Lick Skillet Days. It was a nice day for a drive through the country and a nice little town fair. The fair wasn't very large, but the whole point was to get out of the house, enjoy the weather, and spend time as family.. Mission accomplished. Was a little disappointed that they were selling beer, but not till the dance at 6:00pm. I don't drink beer, but others were looking forward to that. They had some nice vendors where Katherine and Colin stocked up on toys, cookies, chocolate covered raisins, ice cream, snow cones, and other goodies. They both loved playing in the historic courthouse and jail. The kids had a great time running around, thought they would take a nap on the 1 1/2 hour drive home… no way.. But Paw Paw sure did fall asleep.

Sunday we hung around the house most of the day. We met up with friends and their kids and took the kids to a really cool pumpkin patch right by the house. They had tons of pumpkins to choose from and a nice little train ride, which Colin LOVED of course. All the kids got their face painted with pumpkins and they even had a catapult to do "pumpkin chunkin". Matt did the pumpkin chunkin, his pumpkin launched 450 feet. The kids had so much fun there, that we had a slight little breakdown when it was time to go. Last thing- A nice/slight mean moment by Katherine that I just wanted to get into the blog. Yesterday morning Katherine asked if she had surgeries on her heart when she was young like Colin. I explained that God make her a healthy heart and gave Colin a special heart that the doctors had to help out.

Then she hugged Colin and then... Stuck her tongue out and said "Ha Ha".

She loves him so so much, but he did knock her teeth loose :)


MATT"S VIDEO OF HIS PUMPKIN CHUKIN