Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving!  In one day, we got to see so many people, it was great. 

Thanksgiving day started with a crepe breakfast.  Trish, William and James came over to spend some time with us.  We had lots of fun during our short visit.  Unfortunately we did not get to see Brad and Thomas for breakfast, but Chris and I were able to see them on Wednesday evening.  As usual, the crepes and the company were amazing!

After breakfast, we enjoyed some down/nap time before the 2nd set of company arrived for dinner.  Judy, Steph, Maddie, and Allison and Jenny joined us for dinner.  We had enough food to feed about triple the amount of people we had, but the leftovers have sure been nice to have today.  On the menu was:

Appetizer:

Fried Pickles

Dinner:

Baked Turkey, Fried Turkey, Spiral Sliced Ham

Mashed Potatoes, Sweet Potatoe Casserole

2 types of Baked Corn Casserole

Green Bean Casserole, Green Bean Bundles

Stuffing, Cranberry Stuffing

Cranberry Sauce, Jalapeno Tequilla Cranberry Sauce

Jello Salad/Mold

Salad

Crescent Rolls

Dessert:

Snickerdoole Cookies, Oatmeal Cranberry Cookies,

Pumpkin Roll, Pumpkin Pie

Texas Trash

Brownies and Ice Cream

Like I said, we had a TON of food!!

After dinner, we enjoyed a couple of hours to visit before the football game....Gig'Em!!  Since Judy and the girls, Jenny, and Mark are t.u. fans, Chris, Katelyn and I were out numbered, but still sporting our maroon.  Mom was playing the fence with her Aggie & t.u. shirt.  We convinced Mark and Judy to bet us both $1.  Though nervous for a while, the Ags came through.  LOVE IT!!

All in all, it was a fantasic Thanksgiving!  We are so lucky!

 The appetizer...friend pickles

 Putting the turkey in

 Pulling the turkey out and Jenny trying to check the temp

 The jello mold, apparently a staple at Judy and moms Thanksgiving's growing up

 Judy and Maddie

 Judy, Steph and Maddie...wonder where all the pictures of Allison are?  She was behind the camera all day.

 While Katelyn was clinging to Grandma, Chris took advantage of the sofa

 Me with Maddie and Steph

 Katelyn was very fond of the jello mold...she might have been the only one!

 Katelyn discovered she loves to flip over backwards on her sofa

 Helping Grandma put the turkey away

 Judy and the girls

 Getting her nails painted

 Showing daddy her newly painted nails

 and Mark too

and Aunt Judy too.

Haley stole Katelyn's sofa, so Katelyn covered her up with her blanky.

Pictures...Nutcracker Market weekend

As usual, lagging behind!

Wow...the past 2 weeks have flown by.  I can not believe that its time for Thanksgiving already.  So much has happened in the past 2 weeks.  Here is a short recap.  Pictures to come over the Thanksgiving break hopefully.

Nutcracker Market-
Oh what fun that was.  We had quite the crowd this year.  Myself, along with mom, Jill, Marney, Pam, Diane, Alyce, Monica, Kristen and Joan all met up at the Market on Friday morning for a fun filled day of shopping.  Mom, Jill, Marney and I did not leave until 6pm!  Needless to say, we had a great time and did alot of damage.  It was so wonderful to spend some time with Jill.  Hopefully we can make it a yearly tradition now.

Hanging out with Jill and Kailyn-
Jill and Kailyn were in town the whole weekend of the Nutcracker Market, so on Sunday they came over to hang out.  Megan was in visiting as well, so we had a fun Sunday morning.  Much to my surprise, Jill had Megan make the girls matching Christmas dresses.  They are adorable!  Yes we are dorks and like to dress the girls the same when they are together.  They are only 6 weeks apart so its so much fun.  They were both drama queens as usual so picture taking was a bit difficult until we headed outside.  Once outside, in the freezing cold and slight rain mind you, they were happy as clams!  They ran and played with Chris.  They ended the day holding hands walking along the sidewalk.  I love that the girls are so close in age and hope that we can continue to have fun vacations together so they can grow up to become good friends and college roommates at Texas A&M!!  Whoop!  We did miss Mark and Luke during their visit, but they were enjoying a boys weekend in Illinois.

2nd week at the new school-
Well, Katelyn finished her 2nd week at her new school.  While its still extrememly difficult to drop her off every morning, its getting a bit easier.  We are trying to stick to a strict schedule to make it easier on her.  She does great after we leave which is good news for us.  She is also taking to the new schedule and menu.  When I pick her up, shes all smiles and so excited to see me.  Shes typically worn out from the fun day and is starting to go to bed slightly earlier than usual.  Guess thats a good thing.  We are hoping things continue to get better and that we have found a long term place for her to stay.

Aggie Football-
How about the Aggies football team?  Wow...what a turn around they have made.  Since the games have been on tv, we have made it a point to watch.  Some nerve wracking games, but they seem to be finding the wins lately.  This past weekend, we were excited to watch them play Nebraska.  Both Chris and I remember our freshman year at A&M and watching A&M beat Nebraska (then ranked no. 1 or something like that) in the first Maroon Out game.  It was great to see them pull out another win and to see the Wrecking Crew make an appearance again.  We do love our Aggies and we love them even more when they are winning.  We are very excited to watch them play t.u. on Thanksgiving Day.

Babysitting and sickness-
On Saturday we offered to babysit for Chris' boss.  Erin is 3mo already.  Wow how time flies.  Jason and Diane had a dinner to go to, so we headed over that way in the early evening.  Shortly after arriving and before Jason and Diane left, Katelyn got sick and threw up all over their wood/tile floor.  My poor princess.  I felt so bad for her and for the mess she had just made.  We got everything cleaned up and thought it was over.  No fever, acting normal, etc.  Not to much later here it came again.  After than, she was good.  We thought she just had too much Icee at Target (yes we are terrible parents and got her an icee, what can I say).  Since she seemed to be ok, we sent Jason and Diane on their way.  They had a great time at the dinner and Chris and I enjoyed the Aggie game after both of the girls were peacefully asleep.  I was hoping that was the end to the sickness, but nope.  Sunday morning, I had it.  Yuck!  After a rough morning and a nap, I decided Chris needed to come home (he was working).  I was able to rest the remainder of the day and am finally feeling better today.  Lets hop it stays that way.  Unfortunately Jill called this morning to tell me that Kailyn had it bad last night and is still trying to recover today.  Poor Kailyn.  I hope for their sake, the rest of the family doesnt get it.  I do not wish the stomach bug on anyone! 

Thanksgiving-
Yahoo...its finally here!  I am super excited about Thanksgiving this year.  We are headed to Austin to spend Thanksgiving with my mom and Mark as well as Aunt Judy and the girls, and Jenny (Mark's oldest daughter).  We are supposed to head there this evening.  This year we get an extra special treat.  Trish and family are in town visiting Brad's parents!  We are so excited to see Trish and Thomas Wednesday evening for dinner and the whole family Thursday morning for breakfast.  We just saw them in October, but we never miss a chance to visit with the Staats family since we rarely get to see them and they are so special to us.

Well, I think that gets us up to date.  Pictures to come soon...I promise!

Fun weekend!

Yahoo....BFF is on the plane right now headed to Houston!  I am so excited.  Tomorrow is the Nutcracker Market and the start to a great weekend.  Mom and Megan will be here this evening to join in the fun!  Pictures and stories to come.

Halff Shrimp Boil

Today was my company shrimp boil. Our head of surveying just finished rebuilding his house on the bay and decided to have a shrimp boil to celebrate. We headed over there about 2:30 and had a great time. Katelyn had a blast playing with my co-works daughter Ophelia. It was nice to have a break from carrying her around all day and it sure did wear her out. She was passed out in the car about 10 min after we got on the road. Here are a few pictures:

And finally some pictures!

Dressed for the Trick or Treat parade at school.

 Waiting for her turn to get candy

 At the pumpkin patch

Falling behind

I got all caught up with my blogging last week and then Halloween, a sick kiddo, and a hurt dog came and slowed the progress!  Not to mention that my computer has been acting up and HATES when I try to get into the blog.  So, I am taking a few min of time from work to post a few update.  Pictures will  have to come later since they are all at home.

Halloween was lots of fun this year.  On Friday, Katelyn and I headed to her new school for their Halloween trick or treat parade and party.  It took her some time to warm up, but she had a great time.  On Sunday, Katelyn and I headed to the pumpkin patch in the afternoon to check out all of the pumpkins and maybe try and get some great pictures.  She wanted nothing to do with the picture taking, but loved running in the sand and climbing on the pallets the pumpkins were on.  I did get a few cute pictures, so I cant complain much.  Later it was candy time!  We decided against taking Katelyn trick-or-treating this year and instead let her hand out candy at home.  So, as soon as it started to get dark we put her in the adorable pumpkin costume and headed outside with the candy!  She had a blast watching all of the kids.  In between trick or treaters, she entertained herself by digging in the candy bowl and moving it from the big bowl to her pumpkin and back!  She also helped herself to some of the treats and was none to happy when we would not give her anymore.  Guess we have a candy eater on our hands.

On Monday, Katelyn started at her new school.  We chose Kids R Kids which is very close to the house.  It was a tough decision and it took us a long time, but we made it.  I hope this school becomes a place that we all love and where Katelyn can stay up to kindergarden.  Anyways, back to her 1st day.  I dropped her off and hung around for a few min to make sure she got somewhat settled in.  She seemed to be doing great, so I snuck out when she wasnt looking.  Later that day at work, I logged on to the website and was able to see her enjoying her afternoon snack and playing.  I was much relieved that things seemed to be looking up.  That was until 4:30 when they called and said that she had a fever and would need to be picked up.  Dang it...not even 1 day and shes already sick.  Thankfully, I was already on the road headed that direction.  She spent the next 3 days at home with Patsy (thank goodness for a wonderful mother in law living so close) getting better.  Today was her 2nd first day and so far so good.

On top of all that, Haley had to go to the vet which is an ordeal.  On Friday evening, she was playing ball in the yard with Chris and hurt her paw.  She does this often so we were hoping it would get better quickly like the previous times.  Apparently not.  She was still limping on Monday, so off to the vet she went.  I dropped her off before taking Katelyn to school and waited to hear back.  Alot of money, meds, and xrays later, the vet "thinks" its arthritis thats just not showing up on the xrays.  So, she has to take a joint supplement everyday for a while as well as some anti-inflamatory meds.  We are hoping this along with a strick diet will help.  Only time will tell.

So this weekend will involve a little relaxing, an office shrimp boil (for my office), and maybe some shopping.  Next week can not come soon enough.  Its Nutcracker Market time and this year is going to be so much fun.  My mom, Megan and Jill will all be in town for the Market this year.  Talk about a fun ladies day!  I am so excited I can barely stand it.  1 week from today and we are off to enjoy ladies day and shopping!!

As promised

Just a little late, but I put all the blame on blogspot.  I tried to upload my gardening pictures last night, but it just wasnt having it.  So here they are...
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Gardening

One of the many many things I love about my mom is that she knows just how to make me smile!  I love to garden and love when my landscaping is picture worthy, but I dont always have the time to keep up with it.  This is where mom comes in.  She loves to do it as well, so when she is here visiting, she works on my landscaping.  Since she was here for a week this time, she got lots done.  I was so happy that we had a free weekend where I could be out there with her.  We got everything in tip top shape for the fall.  It looks so great...pictures to come tomorrow!  Thanks mom!!