Gingerbread House Building

Our friends invited us to join them for a gingerbread decorating party.  There was a huge table with all the decorating pieces you could imagine, our house turned out fantastic! Fortunately we were able to put it back in the plastic box it came in, otherwise I am not sure it would last too long.  At some point Ella just started eating the candy and Addison was sculpting things out of tootsie rolls.  I am not sure I had ever decorated a gingerbread house before.  I am a fan!

Thanksgiving 2015

Loved spending my favorite holiday of the year with my favorite people in the world.  Unfortunately I didn't get pics of everyone, but they know who they are!

 The official turkey dunking pic.

 Post dinner entertainment included Addison telling jokes and riddles and the adults trying to guess the answer.  Based on the laughs, I think a fun time was had by all. 

Family Day In Aggieland

We celebrated the end of the Aggie's home season with a family day in Aggieland.  The day started off with lunch at one of our favorite College Station restaurants, a quick visit to say hi to friends at Northgate and then lots of campus game day festivities.  While Addy would tell you that she did not have fun because she was forced to go to a football game, I think that a good time was had by all. It was Ella's first time to a real game and I think she enjoyed soaking in the sights. And the Aggie's treated us to a final win at Kyle Field this season which was nice.  

 Since we were on campus we got into the stadium early and were able to capture this super cute pic.  Unfortunately it was pre-game so the stands were pretty empty, but we all did a great job rockin' our Aggie hats!

There were quite a number of photo ops and while this statue is actually a bit creepy when you look at it closely, I love the pics of our future 12th Men! 

Big Day!

The tooth that I swore was going to come out the first week of school finally came out 3 months later! Ella was not going to let anyone pull her loose tooth, she swore she was going to be the one to do it and that is exactly how it happened.  In Spanish class she said it started bleeding and she told her teacher, but her teacher told her to go back and sit down.  Then she kept tugging on it and pulled it out herself!! Off to visit the nurse and she got a treasure chest for it, but it was apparently not real secure.  She happened to go to the JCC that afternoon after school and they safely put it in a ziploc and gave her the cute Hip-Hip Hooray sign.  

Her adult tooth was coming in behind the baby tooth, so here is a picture of her minus one baby tooth, but you can hardly tell because the adult tooth is already so far in.  There is a wiggly tooth next to the one that fell out, so we'll see what the story is on that one.  Maybe she will let Michael pull it, or maybe she'll lose it at school again.   All I know is that it is going to happen the way Ella wants it to happen!

Halloween

The big day FINALLY arrived!  I think that Halloween may give Christmas a run for its money has far as level of anticipation and excitement.  Fortunately the torrential thunderstorms left the area in time for trick-r-treating.  Once again our block was the place to be, so the girls had fun passing out candy, we had friends come play and the kids hauled in plenty of candy after some pretty serious trick-r-treating themselves.  There was even a candy exchange between the kids to make sure everyone got plenty of their favorite sweet treat!

 Our beautiful peacock and angel (with kind of frozen smiles, they were wanting me to hurry so they could get back to passing out candy!)

 In their element, passing out candy - Addy was especially excited about it from the 1st time the door bell rang to the last.  I think it was especially exciting since half the time she opened the door it was someone she knew from school.

The crew had a great time running around together.  In addition to the Taylors and we had Caroline join us for the night and then they picked up Josie while trick-r-treating.

Pumpkin Carving

After much debate, Addy ended up doing a Minecraft Creeper face (on the left) and Ella ended up wanting something more free form that I was able to draw and carve to her satisfaction (on the right).

Book Character Parade

Another first for Ella - she has been a spectator for years, but she finally got to participate in Kolter's Book Character Parade (a.k.a. a fun way to allow kids to wear costumes to school, but make it educational since they are supposed to be dressed up as a character in their favorite book - good thing you can find a book about nearly anything these days!)

 Ella picked the peacock costume first and then we found a great book about a peacock that she loves to read (thank you Amazon)

"Technically" Addison was not the same Harry Potter as she was last year.  This year she carried book 7 and she had finished reading the series. Last year she was just getting started with the series.  Completely different apparently.  She chose an angel costume for Halloween and our only angel books were packed up with Christmas decorations, so I got a cute book about kids behaving in school and earning their halos, it was called Third Grade Angels.  Apparently I should have consulted with her first because the cover of the book was a school play ground and it was about kids, not real angels, so it was not acceptable for the book character parade (according to Addy, it would have been totally fine).  9 going on 15!

Ella's First Field Trip

Ella got to go on her first field trip with her class a few weeks ago.  And it was a trip to the zoo which is super fun!  She got to ride in a big yellow school bus for the first time too.  She said she had fun, although the 1st bit of news she shared about the experience was the fact that it started raining when they were leaving and they had to run to the buses. Always so interesting to hear the highlights from the 5 year old perspective!

Renaissance Festival 2015

The Renaissance Festival did not disappoint this year and to top it off we went with Ella's BFF and her family for extra fun.

 Ella and her BFF Ella sporting some fancy face painting.

 Since we left the Renaissance Festival in 2014, Ella has been watching Clan Tynker Family Circus videos on YouTube and talking about wanting to see their performance again.  She was SO excited to see them again this year. Here she is waiting for Santiago to give her a Clan Tynker sticker.  

 All the other kids were excited to take a pic with Santiago.

 People dress up for the Renaissance festival in all kinds of crazy costumes.  The girls just like to wear their Halloween costumes, not that they have anything to do with the Renaissance time period, but anything goes!  Addy had on her Harry Potter robe at the beginning and then got hot.  

The Wolf girls and the Cumagen girls make for a cute pic!

Happy 9th Birthday Addy

 Addison may be Harry Potter's #1 fan, so a Harry Potter themed birthday it was!  We tried to incorporate as much from the stories as possible, so our guests walked into the house through the brick wall at platform 9 3/4, were greeted by Dobby, there were owls with the mail hanging out in the family room, Aragog the spider was climbing on the wall, Moaning Myrtle surprised people in the bathroom, cupcakes had icing in the Hogwarts house colors and chocolate frogs on top, guests dined under floating candles like in the great hall at Hogwarts and guest all won with the golden snitch in their party favor bags.  The main event was watching the 1st Harry Potter movie and then some of the kids went home and 5 of Addy's good friends spent the night.  No clue what time the girls went to bed, although the next morning they talked about having sang Happy Birthday to Addison at 12:01.

In costume of course! 

9 candles barely fit on the cupcake - she is getting so old!

5 spunky girls the morning after the party.

October the 10th was spent celebrating with friends and then we got to celebrate her actual birthday with the grandparents, Jean, Tom, Granny and even Betsy on the 11th.  I think Addison felt pretty celebrated.  One more year in single digits - I can't believe it!

Aggieland With Dad

Fun time watching the Aggies beat Nevada with Dad!

Kolter Kuties

My baby is in kindergarten!!!!  And my other baby is in 3rd grade!!!!!  Both girls have had a great week.  They hop out of bed in the AM and get dressed.  Ella's transition to more of a uniform has been seamless so far.  The first few days I walked the girls in to school and walked Ella to her class.  Day 4 and I was already dropping them both off at the front of the school from the carpool lane.  Ella ate from the cafeteria on day 2 (not making any lunches is a wonderful thing!) and all reports are great.

Guest Bath

I'd like to think it is the last home improvement we need to do, but I know better.  There is never an end to home improvement projects!  But we are officially done with 1960's bathrooms!

Before...

After...

Annual Beach Pic

They are growing so fast!  Always fun to compare to the same pic from 2013 and 2014 pics too.  

Beach Time With Friends

Swimming Star

The Circus

There is a rumor that they are phasing out the elephants at the circus in the coming years.  I am not sure if it is confirmed or when it happens, but I can't imagine the circus without the elephants.  After seeing elephants in the wild in Africa, I think that those guys at the circus have it pretty darn good.  But really this just means that I am going to make sure we go to the circus when it is in town!  This was Ella's first time at the circus and even though there were a few fireworks and loud noises, she wore her ear plugs like a champ.  She said she really liked the part where the lions and tigers did their show.  Addy liked the part where there was some super fancy horseback riding and also the Chinese acrobats on bikes.  There were a lot more Chinese acrobat acts...I feel like that is the direction things are going.  Kids seem to love it.

Addy and Ella with the elephants.  Asian elephants to be exact.  Since we have been to Africa, Michael and I are now full of elephant knowledge and can point out the differences between African and Asian elephants!

The children's are not growing moss in their mouth - those are 2 snow cone faces! 

Lakehouse 2015

Another super fun year!  Amazing what a difference 12 months and tons of rain makes - I think that the lake was 30+ feet higher than it was last year. The kids continue to absolutely enjoy each other's company and get along great.  Of course Michael and I love hanging out with old friends.  Ms. Ella was the water bug this year - most importantly this is the first year she did not get any injuries climbing up the ladder to get out of the lake.  That is a big win.  But she also had no fear hopping on the tube.  In fact I think she was the first one on when we got down to the dock.  Addy continued to love every minute on the jet ski and continued to try and master surfing behind the boat.  She is still just on her knees, but maybe next year she'll stand up!

 

4th of July 2015

Michael is starting to work on his sand sculpture art skills.  Pretty impressive work.  Ella destroyed it shortly after this picture was taken.