Family College Station Visit

For six years now, we've been talking about needing to make a family trip to College Station to see my friend Rachel and her family.  We've seen Rachel and Elaine at least once a football season, but they'd never met the girls.  We finally made it!  Had a super fun time, got to spend some time with Rachel and then got to run around campus with the girls.  I think that the girls had a great time - I've never looked at campus from the parent perspective, but there is a lot for the kids to see and on a random December weekend, there was plenty of free space to run around.  That being said, there wasn't a lot of sitting still for picture purposes, but I got a few.

 I didn't spend a lot of time on main campus and maybe saw this fountain a few times during my time at A&M.  The girls could have spent the entire afternoon there.  

 Pretty flowers attract butterflies and little girls.

I guess maybe the corp uses these monkey bars during drills or something.  They were crazy tall, but Ella really wanted to hang from them.  Michael was just barely able to get her up there.  

Thanksgiving 2012

Another great Thanksgiving.  Pretty much the same routine as every other year.  Great time with family and yummy food. 

 This year Ella was big enough to help with the green bean casserole.

 Very focused green bean stirring. 

 The annual turkey dunk.

 Cute family pic minus Addison.  She had a big slumber party with Aunt Jean, Uncle Tom, Betsy and Granny and they hadn't made it to the party yet.

We kind of wondered why all of the guys volunteered to sit with the kids and then before we know it, the TV was unpaused and they were watching the Texans. 

Silly Ella

She always keeps us laughing...

For a couple of days, I'd go in to get Ella up from her nap and she 'd be sleeping on Big Dog.  One day he was more of a pillow, the next a full mattress.  

Ella LOVES White Kitten.  Here Meow, Meow White Kitten is giving Ella a hug.  She totally comes up with this stuff, not us!

Ella's First Haircut

I was fully expecting this outing to be a huge mistake - taking both kids to the haircut place on a Saturday and Ella had never been before. Therefore, it was the exact opposite of what I expected and it was a wonderful experience, Ella did great.  I expected fighting when we put her up in the chair, none of that.  I expected she'd hate having the drape thing on her, she didn't even notice it was there.  I figured she'd pull the clips out when the lady was putting the sections of her hair up, not at all.  The end result was a super cute trimmed hairstyle and a super happy mommy and Ella.

 So, maybe the lollipop, sparkly thing and tv show helped the situation! 

San Antonio

We took a break from Feast with the Beast this year and decided to head out of town for the weekend with Mark and Melissa to celebrate Melissa and my 21st birthdays!  When we arrived in the city the only thing we knew we wanted to do was watch the Aggie game.  We ended up doing dinner and drinks of the Riverwalk on Friday.  Then a casual breakfast at a local dive on Saturday, followed by some shopping at El Mercado.  Even managed a trip to the Alamo before planting ourselves on bar stools for the game.

Zoo Time With Friends

An official Ella play date!  No Addy friends, no Addy, just Ella and another 2 year old.  Poor second child only gets play dates with Addy's friends and their siblings, mainly because we don't know a lot of kids her age that aren't in school on the days we have off.  But E's school was closed today, so her friends were out and about and we met with a friend for a play date at the zoo.  Granted, I'm not really sure they were close friends until today.  Our play date was with the little brother of one of Addy's good friends.  Just happen to be talking to their mom at a party this weekend and she mentioned a trip to the zoo, so we tagged along.  I know Ella and Ian see each other in the breakfast room at school, but they are in separate class rooms most of the day.  They are good buddies now though!

And randomly, as we were walking through the African forest, we ran into the parents of my friend Dan.  They had Dan's little one out for a day at the zoo.  So it was Ella and the boys hanging out in the African forest.  Here they are posing with the rhino cut out.  They were all balanced on a step behind the rhino and I think Jake is holding on to Ella to keep from falling off.  Pretty sure the step is for adults to stand on, but Ella doesn't seem to accept that theory and she always jumps up on it. 

The Circus

Here is just more proof that our house is a circus...

Addy seems to really enjoy the gym class she is taking after school on Fridays and she came home demonstrating "the tripod" the other day.  Ella wasn't quite able to do the tripod, but she apparently enjoys doing head stands, which aren't exactly headstands because her legs are flipped up on the ottoman, but it is close.

And unrelated to gymnastics, but in case you are wondering, we'd gone out for Mexican for dinner and Ella was especially messy with the queso, plus she had spilled juice from a fruit cup on the shirt at lunch.  So yeah, she was out in public looking like that, but I only had 1 dirty shirt to clean and not 2, so that is all I care about!

Halloween Festivities

 We have gotten our money's worth of Halloween costumes this year!  1st we had Addy's birthday party, then the carnival in Jean and Tom's neighborhood, Zoo Boo and then the official night.  And fortunately everyone was super excited to put on their costume each time!

Pumpkin Carving Time - Both girls were willing to put their hands in the goo this year.  Now, we did most of the cleaning out, but their hands went on the inside the pumpkin so that is pretty impressive.

Carnival Time:  I actually got double booked thanks to poor calendar management, so I didn't get to go to the carnival this time, but I hear that it was a fun time again.  No Sesame Street booth, but both girls came home with candy, so they were happy.  And we learned that Whoppers are Ella's favorite candy.  Or they were that night at least.  I'm not sure what Addy is doing in this picture, but it is a fun one of Ella and Jean!

Zoo Boo:  There were not as many booths passing out candy, so Zoo Boo was a good time, but didn't seem to be the hit it was in the past.  The focus was on finding the pumpkin patch to decorate pumpkins. 

 We ran into one of Addy's friends and they had fun pumpkin decorating together.

 Can you tell Ella is saying "cheese"??  Because she loves to say cheese and not look at the camera.  She was rockin' her bumblebee fairy though!  She left the wings on the whole time which was super impressive.

Addy has officially decided that the train is no longer scary (no clue why it was scary to begin with) and we went on a family ride. 

Halloween Night: The big night finally arrived.  We ran home from work and school and grabbed some pizza for dinner then hit the street.  We went to about 5 houses on the block and then they were done.  Addy did a much better job this year when it came to ringing the door bell and saying "trick-or-treat".  Ella wasn't completely sure about the whole gig, but got into it more at the last couple of houses.  Both girls were super excited about candy and I think that they were done  going to different houses because they just wanted to come inside and eat candy! 

 The official Halloween picture of Cherry Jam and Ms. Bumblebee Fairy

Visiting Grandma and Grandpa's

Book Character Parade

Today was a dress up day at Addison's school and they got to dress like their favorite book character.  Addy was Pinkalicious - how perfect is that?  They had a parade around the school and Ella and I got to go watch.  Lots of good costumes.  The rule was that you couldn't just wear your Halloween costume, it had to be a book character.  Fortunately for the kids though, there is a book about pretty much everything, so I'm sure there were a number of Halloween costumes that got worn an extra time. 

 Pinkalicious before school

Addison's class after the parade

Good Dog

Yep, Star is Ella's new favorite spot to sit and watch tv.  Fortunately, Star seems to care less.  She was just chewing on her bone here in this pic, and Star will stand up and knock Ella off when she is tired of being a chair. 

A&M vs. LSU Weekend

Fun weekend in College Station at the game this weekend.  The Aggies didn't quite pull off a win, but still a great game and fun hanging out with old friends.

 We were going to go up to College Station to just hang out, with no tickets to the game, but landed on some tickets after all.  Great seats, we'd never been that close at an Aggie game before.  We are typically on the 3rd deck and it is quite a different game when you are so close.  

One of the main reasons for the trip, other than the game, was Michael's fraternity's alumni weekend.  They had an impressively big tailgate - the new Pikes are much more organized and motivated than the Pikes we knew in college.   

Costume Carnival

The birthday celebration was topped off with a super fun party on Saturday. Lots of kids, lots of fun and lots of silliness.

The theme was "costume carnival" and I just kind of made that name up, but the kids were encouraged to dress up.  Figured all the kids liked to dress up and it is a good excuse to reuse last years costume or break out the new one from this year.  We used this years costumes and Addy was Cherry Jam, a character from the Strawberry Shortcake story, and Ella was a bumble bee fairy.  

One of the activities was Just Dance Kids - here is Addy showing off her moves.  

Addy's costume came with a wig that was clearly quite different from her normal hair.  She didn't wear it too much b/c it got hot.

Ella with Granddad and Meme in the photo booth.

Addy and her friends hamming it up for the camera.

Our little bumble bee fairy/doctor (Addy has named her Doc McBumbleBee) really enjoyed getting her face and arms painted

Honey Dew the clown was a the party doing face painting and a fabulous magic show that all the kids LOVED. 

Here is Addy's cake.  Designed by Addy, made by Mommy.  Don't look too close, I have yet to perfect the art of applying buttercream icing, but this is way better than past attempts.   Turns out You Tube is a great source for videos on cake icing techniques!

Addy enjoying her cake and a great shot of her arm decor and crown from Honey Dew.

 

Family pic.  Somehow we always think about it at the end of the event and there were 2 tired kiddos (and parents!) but an entertaining pic nonetheless.

Birthday Lunch at School

Addy's birthday celebration continued on Friday with a visit at lunch from me and Ella. 

Chick-fil-A lunch makes for 2 happy kids.

Addy Turns 6!!!

She turns 6 and she wears jeans - big day!

 Birthday cake #1

Lip gloss!