Thankful

Happy Thanksgiving to all our friends & family!

Justin and I both had the entire week off and we really enjoyed spending time at home, together, and with the kids. We did utilize one day of childcare this week to get a head start on some home projects and Christmas shopping, but otherwise were home as a family.

The girls and I joined Mimi & Pops, Auntie K & Michael for the Peanuts Movie one day. Then, of course, we had to go get ice cream. Nora picked BLUE ice cream and Janie just shared some of mine. We got Milwaukee Joe's REAL ice cream and it was yummmmmy.

Ready for a movie!

Blue ice cream, sprinkles on cone.

Shoulders: a favorite place to sit!

Blurry!! Shared photo from family.

Two happy girls!

We were able to get together with some dear friends of mine from high school. You know, those friends you have where it doesn't seem to matter how long between your visits, you feel like you can pick up right where you left off? All of our kids ran around and played together and we had a great time catching up and meeting everyone's significant others.

Of course, we also ate lots of yummy Thanksgiving food with our close family. We enjoyed relaxing and some football, too.

A rare family shot. 

I'm finding it harder to take decent pictures of both girls together...

So you make do with what you get!

We hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving holiday with your loved ones! We feel very thankful for the many wonderful people in our lives. We are looking forward to a great December!

Welcome November

I love October & all things pumpkin, but it did not slow down for us much in October. Between the work, the girls at home, extracurriculars, and Justin traveling, I just feel as if I haven't had a second to really catch my breath. Now that November is finally here, there are some good breaks in my future. Of course there are now new challenges with Thanksgiving & Christmas & Janie's birthday approaching, but at least there will be time to spend with family, & things at school are more predictable for me.

As the girls grew up, I would update with monthly posts, which turned to every three months, and now are every six months. There is a lot of random things that happen in between those six month posts! I am going to have to try and figure out a way to update everyone more often than that. I wanted to share some random, everyday things that we have been doing around here for the last couple of months...

Justin & I celebrated 12 years together (not wedding anniversary) this past September! He sent me a dozen red roses at school since he was out of town all weekend. 

We celebrated Homecoming at school with cute kindergarten mums!

Janie had a couple of sick days. She had croup once and the second time probably just a little bug since she didn't really have symptoms after 24 hours, but did spike a fever. She of course snuggled with mommy while we were home together!

The girls are both loving their school! Drop off and pick up usually goes pretty smoothly. They both have sweet friends they like to play with.

Janie is moving more than ever! She is running. She is full of personality and it's so fantastic yet so terrifying! You'll hear more about her on her TWO YEAR POST in a matter of weeks. Yikes.

The girls are inseparable at home. They play together constantly. They also argue quite a bit. Janie is always watching her big sister and at the same time knows exactly what to say to push her buttons. They have a sweet, sweet relationship, though!

Nora is proving to be a lot like her mommy! She has started to enjoy lining up her blueberries before she eats them... She likes to put the big ones in a line and then the little ones in a line.

Blue Bell is BACK! We stopped to get some ice cream on the way home when it was restocked in local grocery stores!!

Nora playing "Room on the Broom" with her babies and animals. She scoots around on her broom and says "Down!" and then looks and looks for things on the ground while saying, "She looked for the ____ but no _____ could be found." It's so cute!!

Baby Jo is still getting the royal toddler treatment. She goes everywhere with Nora. She sleeps with her own blanket in her own crib, which is one that my grandparents made for me to use with dolls when I was a little girl. Baby Jo needs a bath... really bad!

We celebrated Veteran's Day in November!

We welcomed November with our new turkey shirts. Two Haute Mums (on Facebook) custom made them for the girls and they are precious! We are wearing them weekly, at least, until December!!

 That's all for now... A couple more days and it will be Thanksgiving, so more updates to come with family fun!

Weekend Wrap: Austin

We spent this past weekend in Austin and had so much fun!! Awhile back we had decided that we wanted to take the girls down to our old stomping grounds to check out the campus and watch a football game. We committed to coming this weekend so that it wouldn't be so hot and miserable at a game. We had been talking to Nora about going to see "Texas" all week and she was super excited to head down for the game, too!

Janie AKA Bevo

The girls getting ready for the big weekend!

On Friday, we headed down to Austin and got in pretty late; past bedtime. The girls went to bed and we caught up with old friends. Saturday we headed to the Thinkery Children's Museum and the girls had fun playing around with all of the different activities and their new/old friends! I also got to take a solo trip to the Co-Op which was great!!!

Playing in the water!

I'm pretty sure her hair is wet...

Our friends!

Ahhh, campus. (from the top of the Co-Op garage)

Saturday night we got ready for the game and Nora was so excited - it was precious! We put on matching longhorn face stickers, brought the pom-pom along, and made sure we bundled up as much as we were prepared for, which probably wasn't quite enough! Janie stayed home with a sitter. Side note: I can't remember if I have mentioned anything about those pom-poms, but the girls fight over the one with the long stick ALL the time, so I made sure to pick up another at the Co-Op. Now everyone can be happy!!

Once we got to the game, Nora was so intrigued by all of the things going on - the big flags, the drum, the cheerleaders, etc. The crowd was cheering and at first she just had to take it all in... it was great!! And then she got to cheering. We had to explain to her that the players were not fighting, they were playing a game. We also had to explain to her that we do not cheer for the blue team!! She made it until the 3rd quarter and then we had to call it quits for the night. By that time, the score of the game was not close anymore and we didn't feel like we were going to miss a whole lot anyways.

Yay, Texas!

Snuggling up to keep warm!

The next morning we took the girls to campus first thing. After we finally found parking (how can you forget how awful it is to find parking there!?!) we took the girls to see the fountain in front of the tower. I tried to get pictures but of course they weren't super cooperative at the same time. We took a walk through the six-pack and by the tower. After leaving the tower, we went down by Jester (where mommy lived) and by the McCombs School of Business as well as the George Sanchez building, which is were a lot of my classes were. We played on the lawn before hitting up the fountain one last time. The girls really liked walking around and picking up acorns and sticks! It was a pretty morning for a walk, too.

Future longhorns??

We met up with our friends for brunch at Kerbey Lane before we headed back home. It was a fun weekend in Austin! I'm so glad the girls got to see some of campus & Nora enjoyed her first longhorn game!!

Playing with friends while waiting for pancakes!