3rd annual Easter picnic

Each year we host a picnic for our Church group. It's always such a fun time and it's a blessing to see all the families together! This year, we had made some cascarones for the kids' school so I thought it would be a good idea to make some for the picnic too. So fun! And nice to have a little helper!

So this was egg hunt #1....that's a LOT of kids!!

Attempting to get a family pic...

and Easter baskets....and egg hunt # 2...

And the final (futile) attempt at a family pic - following lovely Easter lunch at mom and John's...

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.

Christmas 2010

I love Christmas! It's definitely my favorite holiday. I always have the sense of "over abundance" with all the things that we do during this time, not the least of which seems to be an obscene amount of gifts. But we really tried to spend some time focusing on the right things during this time as well, including a birthday party for Jesus, which the kids really seemed to understand and enjoy. As always, this year was filled with the hustle and bustle of shopping and parties with family and friends. Phelps (the Elf on the Shelf, a gift from the Cheathams) made a reappearance this year. He would bring daily surprises and land in a different spot each day. The daily surprises at some point became an expectation, making me wonder why I ever starting doing that to begin with, but maybe next year with some maturity, they will be a little less demanding. It was also the first Christmas in the remodled house, so it was a challenge learning how to decorate in my new space! The kids big presents from Santa this year were a life-like white puppy for Charis and a big orange talking dinosaur for Price. Additionally the Charis got a pee/poop baby and Price got a cool train set. They got lots of other fun toys, puzzles, pjs etc. We are certainly most blessed with all those "things" but remembering the blessing of the birth of Christ is what truly makes this time so special.

A great accomplishment for Daddy

In the summer of 2008 Chris started a graduate program at UTA. He decided to pursue his Masters in Professional Accounting, a 42 hour program that would make him CPA exam eligible. This was a pretty big undertaking since he maintained his full-time job and Daddy duties. He thinks it helped that he was "shacking up" with the advisor of the program :-). At one point it even looked like he might have to take my class, but circumstances changed and we never had to face that (even though I thought it would have been kind of neat)! Well, he finished the program in December 2010 with a 3.8 GPA and is now CPA exam eligible - because as everyone knows, one CPA in the house is clearly not enough. I am so proud of him though - he did a great job and it's a great accomplishment!