Daddy-Daughter Dance

Feb 5, 2011, Compass Church hosted a Daddy Daughter Dance. And of course we signed up for that!! But in all the excitement there was also some apprehension. It was one of the few times the kids have been separated ever and we just weren't quite sure how they'd each handle it. We attended Church together but then went our separate ways.

I had a big night planned for Price. Despite the still-cold weather, we headed over to Grapevine Mills mall and checked out the Rainforest Cafe. He thought it was SO cool! His reaction when the gorillas started their little show was just priceless - surprise, excitement, awe...it was so cute!!

And Charis looked like a little princess and Daddy like her Knight. They were so precious. She loved the night of being dressed up so pretty and getting to spend special time with Daddy. She cried in the care on the way though, saying she

missed her brother. She did have the benefit of most of our friends (who all have girls) being there with her too. All in all it was a great night and the special time with just 1 parent seemed to overshadow any anxiety from being separated!

January 2011

January tends to be sort of an off-month for me...not back in school for most of it but finished with the holidays. I love January, really! I had some fun days home with the kids, we took them to the Stock Show for the first time. Price loves animals so much (maybe he will be a vet?!) that he enjoyed it the most I think. But they all thought it was cool seeing all the animals!

We also celebrated our 17 year high school reunion with an informal gathering with some closer classmates. Not as big an event as last year, but lots of fun!

It was a really cold January, and even closed out the month with some snow, that continued into February, causing us to miss 3 or 4 days of school. Daddy is so fun and goes to play outside in the snow and of course the kids LOVE that!! Mommy waits inside and gets the hot chocolate all ready. We actually lost power during one of the cold snaps and were out for 8-10 hours. We all huddled in bed together until the kids could no longer tolerate that then we had to pack up and head to the Andrews' for the day, as we'd used all of our firewood the day before. We were fortunate to have somewhere to go but even more fortunate that we don't have to suffer through the elements of the weather on a daily basis.

Ringing in the new year

Undoubtedly I was exhausted after a fun New Year's Eve! Poor Chris had to work again, but I took the kids to Church and we finally got to have our anniversary steak dinner (at home). This day, though, the kids decided they wanted to go to the beach....now. "We will go get our swimming suits on Mommy, then we can go to the beach!" So I did have to explain that it wasn't quite that easy to get to the beach that actually it took some planning, but I promised them we'd go this summer. And so the seed was planted and the planning began! This, of course, is a picture of them playing "go to the beach" - I do love the way they can be satisfied with a promise and some pretend at this age!

Closing out 2010

December 29 (also our 9th anniversary) I took the kids to their first ever movie at the movie theater, Yogi Bear. We went with Rilee and Miss Amy and it was so fun!! I like this picture because Charis and Rilee sometimes looove each other (like here) and sometimes...well, they don't! These are two strong-willed little girls whose wills do not always align. It really is so cute to see their personalities coming out - and Amy and I do our best to hide our giggles. Poor Chris was actually sick as well as working this entire week so we did not really have any anniversary celebration. Hopefully our 10 year celebration next year will hold a little more excitement!

December 30, a group of us brought our kiddos to the zoo. I guess that's a benefit

of living in Texas, that it is warm enough to go to the zoo in the winter (but too hot to go in the summer). Oh well - the kids always love the zoo!!

And we closed out the year with a grown-up party. We had friends over, which has been our tradition each of the past several years. It was a fun time, as always. It's a good time to remember how blessed we are to have our close circle of friends.