Thanksgiving Break - Part 2.. A wonderful Thanksgiving with lots to be thankful for AND a weekend family trip to Austin to go hiking

Okay the continuation of our busy but amazing Thanksgiving break. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving at Matt's parents house. This year, as always, we have been so blessed and so so many things to be thankful for. I am thankful for Katherine, Colin, Matt, our very supportive families, a group of friends that we have fun with but can also rely on, a career for a great company, Texas Children's hospital, the support from our heart family network, a beautiful home, fun family trips, time spent cherishing my loved ones, oh and not to forget.. A great season for my Aggies!! 

I did learn that turkey has the opposite effect on my kids. they were HYPER after we ate or maybe it was all the ore balls I made and they seemed to LOVE! 

Our two turkeys on Thanksgiving

Our 2 daughters :)

Katherine and her cousin Copper, he is 2 months and is almost bigger than her

Colin flexing, showing us his muscles

Yummy.. Oreo balls

Friday morning we got up early.. not to shop on Black Friday, but to meet my family up pin Austin for the weekend for hiking, BBQ'ing, and quality family time. This make our 3rd trip to Austin this fall, it is such a pretty place to be, so may pretty things. Though after this trip, we are taking a little break, I figured in 6 months, we did 8 road trips.. ready for some down time!

Colin wanted to swim so bad, convinced him it was way too cold!

Katherine and Kannon ready to go exploring

So the fun part of the day was putting sticks in the water

Daddy helping Colin over the water

Love this picture!

What a pretty hike

Katherine named this "Katherine's fall"

The boys just had to climb this

More waterfalls and double at that

The larger waterfall of the day

Grandma and the grand kids

So sad to see lake home with no lake

Katherine climbing a tree with grandpa

Pretty girl

Thanksgiving Break Part 1 - Trip to Fort Worth, Rainforest, and a missing tooth

We have so much going on over the Thanksgiving break, I decided to blog about the first half now. I luckily had enough time off to take the whole week off with the kids. We started our holiday off with a trip to Fort Worth to go see our friends who moved up there this summer (it's a 4.5 hr drive, but the kids did pretty good on the long trip). We had an action packed two days. We arrived Friday night and got to hang out and visit, while the kids went crazy playing. 

Saturday we got up and went to the Fort Worth zoo, it is so pretty and BIG. It took us 4.5 hours to go through most of it, some of it we had to skip through. Katherine loved the exhibit where we got to feed the birds. Colin loved the alligators the most. I think it was a big success! After the zoo, we went to the Fort Worth stockyards to see the cattle drive and do some shopping and some dancing to the live country band playing. 

Sunday we went to Legoland, Katherine LOVED it, Colin was so so on it. I think some of the rides he was just not sure about. BUT he loved racing the Lego cars down the ramp. Katherine loved the 4D movie, singing Karaoke, and DRIVING the Lego cars. After Legoland, we took the kids to Build-AB ear for the Christmas ones (expect Liam who wanted a camo bear). We had such a good visit,  we miss the Madl family very much, but we are lucky they let us come stay with them. After Build a bear, we had to take off for Houston, we grabbed a bite to eat, but I think Colin was so warn out, he didn't get a chance to eat it all. When he woke up hours later, he wanted he shake.. oooppps.. mommy drank it! I think that means it was a very successful trip, Colin had sooo much fun, he just plain passed out!

Yesterday we had a great day at Moody Gardens in Galveston. We went through the rain forest and the aquarium. We were excited that Aunt Lara and Kannon could join us for a fun filled day. We had so much fun that Katherine did not even notice when her tooth fell out, so she wrote the tooth fairy a note and drew a picture about how she lost her tooth, no worry, the tooth fairy still left her money! Colin LOVED the sharks and the big drum. Katherine loved watching the bats eat their fruit and getting to get real close to the monkey. We were lucky to also meet up with an old friend of mine and have a nice visit. It was such a GREAT day. So far we have had a blast for our Thanksgiving break.. but more to COME! We have Thanksgiving at Matt's parents house then off to Austin for a few days to see my family for the holiday.. so another blog post to come!!

Out of breath trick or treater, day out in the country, and a GOAL!!!

We had a great Halloween this year. Katherine was a beautiful movie star, Colin was superman, and I even dressed up as a 1920's flapper. Though I almost didn't make Halloween since I had the stomach flu the few days before it. But I mustered enough strength up to go trick or treating. We met up with some friends in our neighborhood and went with a big group of kids. Katherine and Colin had a blast RUNNING from one house to the next for more candy! After about 20 minutes, Colin started huffing and puffing, you can tell that was all the energy he had. Matt and I switched off carrying from house to house after that. At one point his bucket was so heavy, Colin looked at me and said "I am done, I have too much candy, it's too heavy, can you carry my bucket too?" Poor sweet kiddo just can't keep up, it's another reminder about the daily struggles he faces as we get ready for his upcoming surgery. 

 

 

 

This past weekend Katherine had a slumber party on Friday night, Colin was sad when he realized he was not spending the night. About 2 hours after I dropped her off, Colin was very sad, he wanted sissy to come back home so they could play, her missed her already! Saturday Katherine had a soccer game where she scored her FIRST goal of the year! It has been an adjustment to moving up to the bigger fields, she is just now getting the hang of the bigger fields just as the season is ending.

 

After the soccer game, we went to Matt's aunt's house to celebrate the life of his grandma who passed away last month. Before she passed, the family was planning her 80^th birthday party and they decided to go ahead with the party in her honor. It was great to see all the extended family and spend the day with them eating good food, playing on the tractors, running around, watching A&M win, and playing on the tractors (I did say it twice because the kids literally spent 4 hours taking turns riding them and having races). Colin was glued to the tractor! Katherine had fun with Jack climbing fences and playing with the dogs, and well just being a kid and getting dirty. It was a great day. When we left, we passed a HUGE rainbow in the sky, we even pulled the car over to take a picture because it was so pretty. I think it was a great sign that Matt's grandma is still with us.