Playing Catch Up

I had uploaded a few pictures from my phone earlier last month to do a blog post, but just never got around to it.  So these are a little late, and I have a few things to catch up on, but here is our November.

Olivia put a dress on, so Logan wanted one on too.  He's going to hate me one day for this. :)

He's a mama's boy

This guy is constantly making me laugh. :)

More dress up

Oh my word.  This kid and his prayers.  It is a mixture of straight up adorable and hilarious.  He'll say "pray" and then insist on holding hands.  Then he'll squint his eyes and say "Dear God" and then all sorts of other babbling talk that can't really be understood, and then "amen!".  Love him!

We went to a park to enjoy the cooler weather

Olivia loved it.  It was rainbow colored and really big. She especially loved the purple part.  She and Michael just ran around chasing each other while I chased Logan.

We went over to see a pond, and Logan didn't want to leave.  So he just plopped himself down and pouted.

Ha ha!

Family pile up!  I was laying on the couch and Michael came over and laid on top of me.  The kids thought this was a fun game and immediately came over to climb on.

We did a little fine motor practice one morning

more dress up

sweet girl

Are you catching a theme here? :)

We went out to eat for Veteran's day.  Michael got a free meal, and I got food poisoning.  Awesome! :)

Working on using pattern blocks

We had a play date with MOPS friends and the kids were in love with their play room.

That sums up our first two weeks of November.  More to come...

Advent 2015 {{ day one and two}}

We've started our advent activities here!

You may remember that I made one last year out of tins and magnets and it was in the shape of a Christmas tree... yeah, it was a hot mess.  The tins were way too hard for Olivia to open.  The magnets wouldn't stay on the fridge.  If you knocked one tin then a domino affect took place.  I'm going to ahead and claim it a Pinterest fail.  So I threw it out and started over this year.  While I would love a Pottery Barn advent calendar, it was not in the budget.  So instead we went with this $3 beauty from Target. ;)

 I wanted cheap, easy for Olivia to use, and to make it more about the fun family activities we are doing together rather than caring about the calendar itself.  I mean, it's obviously cheaply made, but it works.  I didn't really want to be digging in each pocket for something, so instead I used craft sticks that I already had on hand to write on.  I used festive stickers from my teaching days to add a little fun to them, and there you have it.  If this system works, then I may spruce it up for next year--paint the back of the sticks or something.  But I will be honest and tell you that I needed as simple as possible this year.  So that's what I did.

 Day one was open one gift.  That one gift was, of course, their Christmas pajamas.  Logan didn't quite know what to do at first, but he watched his sissy and figured it out quickly.

Olivia is really into nightgowns right now, and she doesn't have a ton of them.  She can actually still wear her Christmas pajamas from last year, so I thought a fun fleece nightgown would be a nice change for her.  She was thrilled.

Michael had just got home from work and was standing there watching, so this is Logan proudly showing off his new jammies to his Boppa.  So cute!

They wore them that night, but I was at work, so no picture.  But we will get one!

Day two was read Christmas books.  Again, they were both so excited!

You may not be able to tell in this picture, but that is because the first 20 pictures I took were a blur of excitement.  This is one of the only clear pictures I have from when they settled down. :)  Remember last year when I wrapped them all to read one a day? And then Olivia opened them all one day while I was in the shower!  I decided that while that is yet another cute Pinterest idea, we aren't even going to attempt it.  So I put all of our Christmas books in a basket and brought it out.  I have a lot from my teaching days, and then we've collected a few over the years.  I keep them with my Christmas decorations, so they really are special when they make their one month appearance!

Thanksgiving 2015

Well, since the last time I posted was for Halloween, I figured I'd better get our Thanksgiving post done before December hits!  I can't believe it's almost December!  The end of the year seems to be flying for us!

We actually had a Friendsgiving this year.  We went over to Wil and Alycia's house for a Thanksgiving day lunch.

We kept it casual this year.  Olivia is wearing her outfit from last year, and Logan is wearing 100% hand me downs.  But don't they look festive and cute?!  Logan was being a stinker and was refusing to look at the camera... and when he did look, Olivia was giving some crazy fake/weird smile face.  So this is what we get. :)

I texted Alycia and told her we would need a family picture ASAP upon arrival.  We don't have too many of all 4 of us, and since we were all coordinated and cute I thought we better snap one.

Alycia made the kiddos cute little festive headbands.

100% stinker!

The kids played while we finished up the last touches of meal prep.

The cute little kid table

We ate, we played, we had dessert, and then we headed home for a late afternoon family nap!

It was a very relaxing and nice Thanksgiving!

Then at about 5:15 I headed on over to Target to start my 5:45 "brown Thursday" shift.  The line had already formed, and was weaving in and out of the barricades.

Before anyone feels bad for me, I actually volunteered to work.  I work every Thursday night at 6 o'clock anyway.  So I went in a few minutes early, and stayed an extra hour past what I usually work.  BUT I got paid holiday pay (which is time and a half plus $2/hr).  So I figured why not?  All I would have been doing otherwise is sitting at home.

Since I am a GSA, my job was to help watch the front lanes.  I have honestly never shopped a Black Friday in my life... at least night the 6pm on Thursday or middle of the night on Friday morning deals.  I think I've gone on a Friday afternoon after everyone else was back home in bed. I must say, Target has it VERY organized.  Everyone enters through one side and exits through the other.  Everyone waits in the same line to get to the registers.  So I stood and watched to make sure no one was trying to jump the line (which multiple people did actually try to climb under the stanchions--because they are above the rules?! Yeah, no).  I also called to my co worker to tell her which lanes were available.  Then she'd call to the guy holding up the line and tell him how many to send, etc.  It was fast and efficient, and out of all of the jobs I probably had one of the easiest ones.  I did walk up and down the front of the lanes a billion times, but that's about as hard as it got.

I worked Friday night too (which is also normal for me), so my next pay check should be a pretty nice one!

The rest of our weekend was pretty low key.  We went to the store at one point, just to get out of the house!  We had our first fire in the fireplace, watched some Christmas movies, played with play doh, painted, napped, cleaned, and just relaxed. We have been passing around a cold for a few weeks now, so the extra rest was nice. Now it's back to the hustle and bustle!

HAPPY (belated) THANKSGIVING!

Halloween 2015

The lead up to Halloween has been big in our house.  It all started about two months ago when Olivia watched the Curious George Halloween movie.  She has been pretty excited about it since.  She says it's her favorite holiday. It's her Aunt Jenny's favorite too (Michael's sister)!  And she sent the kids a goody box.  Every sticker has been used, practically every page in the TWO coloring books have been colored, the kids drank out of the pumpkin cups and wore the little masks and were just in heaven. They also got a Cheryl's Cookie delivery of all Halloween treats from Grandma Pryor.  I bought Halloween peeps and put some in Olivia's school lunch, and she basically thought it was the best thing ever.  She would ask me every day if she was getting "ghosties" or "punkies" in her lunch.  One package cost a dollar and I'd break them up and make them last forever.  It was a little thing that made a big impact.

So after two months of pumpkins, ghosts, spiders, bats, and lots and lots of writing and saying the word "BOO!"... the day was finally here!

Target had this cereal on sale and it was on Cartwheel for an extra 25% off... so I figured why not!? :)  So that was breakfast.

We had a regular old Saturday morning.  Halloween Mac and Cheese was also on cartwheel.  So for 60 cents, that was the kid's lunch! Olivia has declared this is what she would like for her Thanksgiving meal. Ha! Then we headed out to Frisco's Square for some trick or treating of the businesses.

Olivia chose Doc McStuffins, which was a little surprising since she hasn't watched the show in a while.  She already had the doctor's coat and tools.  So I just bought her a pink skirt from Once Upon a Child.  The newer costumes come with the skirt and leggings, but hers is over a year old so it only had the top.  There wasn't really a good way to have Logan match her, so we went with a ninja turtle.  He has ninja turtle pajamas, a place mat, a plate, and a cup. He can say ninja turtle and points them out whenever he sees them.  So aside from being a ball or a car, I suppose it was the best option. :)

This is one of my favorite pictures.  Once we started going and he got his basket, he was in love.  He didn't want to be held.  He refused to let go of the bucket.  He was totally into it.  And he got LOTS of compliments.  He's just too cute!

I don't think he ever said 'trick or treat", but he knew to hold his bucket up and he did say "thank you" to everyone. :)

There was a petting zoo, inflatables and a carriage ride.  But it was pretty crowded and we were already pushing Logan's nap time.  So we headed home with happy kids and full buckets and had rest time.  We actually had to wake Logan up around 5 to go to dinner!

After dinner we headed to Trick or Treat.  Remember that Frozen birthday party we went to a few weeks ago?  Well Faith's Fairytales (Elsa) and her friends were hosting trick or treating.  (Hello, genius marketing!)  So we decided to go there.

We hit up Belle's house first.  (She is actually the girl who did Elsa.  She's only 15.  I think I heard that she sews all of her own dresses.  She is a Christian and she got girls from her church to play Anna and Ariel.)

Olivia was already beyond excited just to go trick or treating, and then to add live princesses on top of that.  She was star struck and elated at the same time!  (See Belle's stained glass door. Details!)

It was just so sweet!  We got there at just the right time, too.  Because she actually got to spend time with each princess and there really wasn't a line of kids waiting.  It got way busier as it got darker--we revisited all the princesses on the way to the car.

She had all of the dresses on display of who she plays--Cinderalla, Snow White, Rapunzel, and Elsa. And of course, Belle. 

Anna!  And she even had a snow machine!

She went running to the next house yelling "you're my favorite princess!"

She was suppose to stand next to Ariel to get a picture, but she kind of just made herself at home on her lap. :)  This is one of my favorite pictures of the night.  That is pure joy on her face!

There was a bubble machine at Ariel's house, too.

Love!

Logan was there too. :)  There were lots of houses that went all out with the decorations, so we just went around the neighborhood and hit those up. They are the most fun for the kids.

"Cheeeeese"

I love that in Texas people just stand outside and make it a whole event when handing out candy.  I guess it's because the weather isn't too cold, so we can do that here.  One guy was even passing out "adult" drinks to the parents!  It's way less intimidating that the whole "should we knock? is the porch light on? Oh, no one is home..."  God bless Texas! :)

We had a great day.  I don't think Olivia is going to stop talking about it any time soon.