Finishing up November (in the second week of December)

 I think I've mentioned this before, but sometimes when we have a weekend where there is nothing going on and we just need to get out of the house, we head to the mall.  Olivia will tell you that the mall is one of her favorite places to go.

 And we usually don't even play at the play place because it is always CRAZY.  We like to go to Barnes and Noble.  Logan likes the train table...

 And Olivia can always read a stack of books. 

Other fun things to do are the Lego store, browsing Build a Bear, checking out the candy store, and Olivia likes to go for a $2 carousel ride.

His life is rough. ;)

Olivia helped me put the tree up while Logan was napping one day.

Logan watched Michael shave one day.  The next day he took the extension cord from the Christmas tree and started moving it up and down on his chin making a whirring sound. :)

On the last day of preschool before Thanksgiving, Olivia's school had a family feast.

Thankfully Michael's work is pretty close, so he was able to come as well.

We had a play date with our friends Sadie and Sophie at a library story time.  Logan and I were unplanned partners in plaid.

I knew we weren't going to make our towns Christmas tree lighting due to black Friday work, so we attended a local outdoor mall's event.

There were some glitches, but we got to see Santa and the whole place light up at once...

and then we were right under the fireworks display!  Yay for free entertainment!

I mentioned in a previous post that we went shopping on the Saturday after Thanksgiving... just to get out of the house.  This guy cracks me up!  He looks good in fur, huh? :)

 A Christmas tree, fire, hot chocolate, kids in bed, and a book... it was a great way to end my crazy Thanksgiving weekend!

a selfie of my sweeties

He's not emotional. At all. LOL!

Advent 2015 {{day three and four}}

Our advent activities are a mix of free stuff at home, family traditions, fun events around town, and simple arts and crafts.  Since we are back in Texas this year, we had to change up some of our usual Ohio events for Texas events.  I found out about the Grapevine Parade of Lights through Facebook, and thought it looked like a great event to add to our list!

Michael's mom offered to buy us dinner, so we were able to eat at The Rainforest Cafe since it was so close by. Olivia has been asking since her birthday to go back, so it was a special treat.

 Not the best picture... but this is all of us waiting for it to start.  We brought the wagon, and the plan was for them to sit in there.  But since we were a little early, they ran around in a grassy area for a bit before it started.  Olivia and Michael sat on the curb, Logan sat in the wagon for part of it, and I stood behind.

It wasn't exactly what I thought it was going to be based on the Facebook pictures, but it was still fun.

There were marching bands, which Logan totally got into, floats, lights, horses, and even Santa.

I was impressed with some of the school floats!

It was actually chilly out for Texas standards, but it wasn't too bad.

Day 4 was window clings.  These were the same ones from last year, so they didn't stick very well at first, but we managed.

Olivia's room had the best windows to use, so that is where they did it.  She worked on the tree and the nativity scene and Logan and I tried to put up the snowmen and penguins.  They are still up on the windows, so I guess they just needed a little extra love to get them up.

The next day Olivia said, "I hope today's activity is exciting.  Yesterday was not exciting."  I guess going from a parade of lights to some window clings was a little too anticlimactic for her. ;)

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!