LJA Christmas Party

The weekend before Christmas was the LJA Christmas party.  I was very excited this year as I had a cute new dress and felt awesome!  It was lots of fun as usual although we did not win anything for the first time in a few years...bummer!

Kids R Kids 2011 Winter Showoff and Christmas Party

Katelyn has been taking dance lessons since about September at school.  She has class every Friday morning.  The fall semester was ballet and hip hop (K's favorite).  At the end of each semester they put on a show.  I was so excited to see what she had been working on all year long!  She had a large audience of Mama, Daddy, Granny, Grandpa and Nana!  As usual, I was thrilled to the bone and expecting great things for my little dancer and what did she do...stood there!  Yep, thats right, she stood there.  Not one dance move in either form of dance.  I do have to applaud her though.  She stood at the front with all of her friends and did not throw a fit to come stand with us.  Guess I should take the small victories and be happy!  She is still in dance and this semester is Tap and Jazz. We just purchased her tap shoes this past weekend and she was more than happy to show off some dancing skills at academy while trying them on. I can't wait for the spring recital!!

After the recital, we joined her class for their Christmas Party.  I had so much fun making treats for her friends and teachers this year.  We all enjoyed watching Katelyn help her teachers hand out lunch and drinks.  Apparently she is quite the helper in classes and loves to clean up.  Oh yes, the other kids were playing and where was my Katelyn?  Cleaning up!!  She had fun regardless.  After some parachute time, it was time for nap for the other kids and time to head home for Katelyn.  After my Thanksgiving experience, I was not about to try and leave her there after spending basically the entire morning with her.  No way jose!  So, off to the house we went.  Katelyn took a nice long nap and I started on all things Christmas.  It was a great day.

Visit to Dallas

Dad was in Dallas to finish cleaning out the last few items in his house and Frisco and asked if Katelyn and I would come up for a quick visit.  We flew in on Friday morning (yes we flew...I hate that drive) and spent the weekend there.  Mom, Aunt Judy and Steph were also in town.  We all piled in at Mimi's house for a busy weekend.  It was great to see Mimi and for Katelyn to spend some time with Mimi and Dad.  I think Katelyn's favorite part of the trip was Steph putting makeup on her.  She absolutely LOVED it.  Hopefully thats just because it was something new and she doesn't think she is going to start wearing makeup!  It was a short trip, but nice to see lots of people.

Pearland Hometown Christmas

This past Friday, we took Katelyn over to the town center for the Christmas tree lighting.  They have Santa come in and they make a big thing out of it.  Its the first year we have been able to go and we had a great time.  They have little crafts and activities for the kids all around the tree area along with Christmas music and a cool laser show to music.  Katelyn enjoyed all of the music and was a dancing queen.  She got to decorate a cupcake and get her face painted as well.  After the tree was lit, they had a guy carving an ice sculpture with a chainsaw.  Talk about cool!

On Saturday morning, we headed to a small Christmas tree farm close by.  We have never been there before, so we didn't quite know what to expect.  They have some activities for the kiddos right upfront and Katelyn was thrilled to participate in those.  As far as the tree shopping...we didn't get much accomplished.  Katelyn was not having it, so we called it quits without a tree.  Total bummer.  Hopefully we can get one before the weekend...I am missing the tree smell in my house.

After tree shopping, Chris was off to a work thing for the night.  Katelyn and I had some quality girls time.  After a monster nap, we headed out to the Pearland Christmas parade.  I took Katelyn last year and she had a blast.  This year was no different.  We got our chairs all set up and patiently (or not so patiently waited for the parade).  Lucky for me, there was a group of kiddos playing right behind where we were sitting.  Katelyn decided playing with them was way  more fun that waiting for the silly parade.  Mommy was ok with that too!  When the parade started, she ran over to sit on the curb and watch and waived intently!  I had a great night spending quality time with the princess.

So much to be Thankful for

We have so much to be thankful for this year!  We are very blessed in so many ways...too many to try and list.  This year we headed to Austin for Thanksgiving again.  Since it was the last year A&M would play the t.u., we thought it would be appropriate to watch the game with a true t-sip.  Looking back...probably not the best idea.  I am sure Mark is not going to let us forget the outcome of the game even though Chris and I would like to erase it from our memory.  Ok, enough about that miserable 3 hours and on to something more fun. 

This year, we were able to head up a day early (Tues night).  On Wednesday, we were able to meet up with Kristen (Kegr) and Daryl.  They moved to north Texas (Abilene area) shortly after Avery (3) was born.  We rarely get to see them even though they are in Austin for almost every Aggie home game (can you say die hard Aggie fans...thats like a 9hr drive with 2 toddlers...NUTS).  Anyways, they were in town for the game, so we made it a point to see them and catch up.  It was nice to finally meet Harper and to chat with them and hear how things are going.  The girls played very well together and we had a blast sharing old stories.  Hopefully next year we will be able to plan a few more visits in Austin.

Thursday, mom, Katelyn and I were up bright and early for the Austin Turkey Trot.  The little angel and devil on my shoulder were battling it out all morning.  Angel..."yes you need to run this.  It will make you feel good."  Devil..."its too damn early to be up on Thanksgiving.  Get your butt back in bed".  In the end the Angel won out and off we went.  Mom and Katelyn walked the 1 mile...well they were supposed to.  Mom missed the signs and ended up walking closer to 2.5 miles.  Its a good thing the diaper bag was well stocked with snacks and Katelyn was happy as a clam chilling in the stroller.  I on the other hand took off running the 5 mile.  I have never done 5 miles, but was able to finish and only had to walk a short (under 6 min) the entire 5 mile run.  Needless to say, I was thrilled (and starving) by the end.  I will definitely be doing more of those in the future.  From there, it was home to eat.  We had a nice relaxing low key dinner.  Sometimes its nice to have all of the stress of a huge Thanksgiving.  After dinner, Judy and the girls were able to drop by for the game I am not talking about.  It was nice to see them and spend time with them again.  They are all growing up so fast.

Later that evening, Chris and I decided we should shop away are sorrows!  Yep, we went out with all of the crazies at midnight and shopped until 5am.  We headed home for a short nap and were back at the store by 11am.  Crazy I know.  Mom, Katelyn and Allison joined us on Friday and we had a blast.  Needless to say, after a 5 mile run, cooking/cleaning/eating all day, shopping all night and all day, by Friday night, my legs were screaming at me!  It was all worth it though. 

I am so thankful that we have family close by to spend these holidays with.  It sure does make it so much more fun.  We are looking forward to Christmas with Jim and Patsy and possibly the Aggie bowl game on New Years Eve.

Catching up with old friends

A few days after Katelyn and I returned from Florida, Jill and her family (minus Mark...he came later), mom and Megan came into town for the annual Nutcracker Market.  Friday was the market and we shopped til we dropped.  Friday night, Mark came into town.  He and mom had plans to go to a yacht and jazz fest.  On Saturday, mom and Mark headed out and Katelyn and I waited patiently for our visitors.  An old high school friend of Jill and I lives in Katy and we arranged a play date for all of the kids (6 between the 3 of us) and some chit chat time for us girls.  It had been a long while (12+ years) since Jill had seen Marci.  I was lucky enough to see her this summer for Katelyn's 2 year pictures.  It was so nice to see the kids playing together and to catch up on life although in the process we just discovered we are getting old.  As always, we had fun with the pictures!  I am looking forward to many more fun weekends with these girls in the future!