Thanksgiving

Rewind back to November - I failed to take single picture at Thanksgiving, so I had to ask for help from family so that there was something more to this post than my rambling.  This was a Thanksgiving for the record books - our new kitchen/living area, 21 people including all the aunts and uncles and cousins.  It was great!  Festivities started with dinner at Dad and Mary's with all of the Densons and Schroeders.  It was great fun to not be hosting and to be able to sit around and catch up and relax. 

Then Thursday was not not so relaxing, but was just as fun.  We didn't get pics of everyone, but here is the list of everyone who came 1) me, 2) Michael, 3) Addison, 4) Ella, 5) Helen, 6) Dick, 7) Susan, 8) Jon, 9) Heidi, 10) Mary, 11) Dottie, 12) Fred, 13) Michael, 14) Kristi, 15) Dave, 15) Vicki, 16) Will, 17) Ann, 18) Granny, 19) Jean, 20) Tom, and 21) Betsy.  Only person missing was Dad.  He was home sick with a 24 hour stomach bug that happen to fall right on the 24 hours surrounding Thanksgiving.  It was a bummer, but fortunately we had plenty of uncles to fill in the role of turkey fryer helper!

This may be my favorite pic, the two youngest girls on the iPhone with the beer bottle in the pic.  

Me and Michael at the Denson dinner the night before Thanksgiving.

 A sampling of the Denson crew on Thanksgiving

The girls playing in Addy's room

Me and Michael in the kitchen.  It kind of looks like he is about to stab me, but note the turkey carcass in the background.

Merry Christmas

Santa found our house again this year!  He kept it simple, but went big - Ella got a Barbie Dreamhouse Townhouse and Addy got a sewing machine.  I think that both were a pretty big hit.  It was a very Barbie Christmas for Ella, she got the house and then multiple Barbies or Barbie figurines.  The theme for Addy was crafts and reading.  There are not a lot of "needs" here at the Wolf house, but I think that the girls got most of their "wants" plus some things they didn't even know they wanted until they opened the package.  Only exception is maybe Ella, she wanted a mermaid princess fairy...Santa and the rest of us are still trying to figure out exactly what that is. 

After presents and breakfast at home, we had some time to play and then headed over to Jean and Tom's for a fiesta themed Christmas dinner.  Even had a pinata!  Here are Addy and Ella collecting the loot from the candy cane pinata. 

Granny and the girls!

 Cousin time!

Me and my Granny!

Me and my Dad!

 The family!

Christmas Eve

Our Christmas Eve tradition continues.   Early kid-friendly church service and then dinner at the Wolfs.  I am really hoping that next year Ella can just sit and stand at the appropriate times as opposed to feeling the need to climb around the pew the entire service.  Maybe next year, or hopefully when she is five! 

After the service is over, it is mandatory that we go to the garden with the statue so that the girls can climb on the statue.  And it is a great place to take a pic!

We all had the same plan when we got together - get a picture early in the night before we forgot or people get cranky.  Well, we weren't fast enough because we were gearing up for a picture and Ella had already made it into dress up clothes.  Got this cute one at the end of the night.  I think there was some bribery involved, but we got it!

Holiday PJ Party at Kolter

Nothing like a PJ party to wrap up the end of the fall semester.  Crafts, waffles and the opportunity to wear PJs to school - not sure there is anything better!  Here is Addy with some of her friends eating some very unhealthy waffles covered with sprinkles and chocolate chips

2013 Book Character Parade

So cute that they do this.  No Halloween costumes at Addy's elementary school, but the week of Halloween they have a week focused on reading and it wraps up with a parade where the kids get to wear a costume that goes with a character in their favorite book. 

If you look closely there are a number of girls with fairy wings on - Rainbow Magic Fairy books are THE book to read if you are a 1st grader, so a number of the girls dressed up as their favorite Rainbow Magic fairy.  Here is Addy

Ella's Dentist Visit

I imported pics from my phone and found some that had been lost for a while - pics from Ella's first visit to the dentist earlier this year.  She did great, we got lucky and have 2 kids that seem to really like the dentist.  Based on comments from people at the dentist's office, that isn't always the case! 

Here is Ella posing with some dental equipment.  I wasn't thinking pictures while we were here and the lady cleaning Ella's teeth actually mentioned it, so she got her setup and posed for the official first dentist pic.  

I am not sure why, but Ella spent the whole visit with her arms above her head like this.  Not sure if it was more comfy or what, but definitely the preferred position.  It was pretty funny.  

Winter Beach Weekend

Mid November we went down to the beach for the night to get away and relax and prepare the house a bit for winter weather.  It was cold, not freezing, but I had on a jacket and jeans and was chilly down at the water.  Ella had insisted packing a swimsuit and then insisted on wearing it to the water.  It is just easier to let her do some of the crazy things she comes up with vs. fighting with a 3 year old.  Not always, but this was a case where there was really no harm.  Addy and I were finishing a card game at the house and when we go down to meet Michael and Ella at the water, we see this

Yeah, she went in the water just like it was the middle of July.

Just to prove there was no harm done and she was OK after having gone in I don't know how cold water, her is happy Ella playing in the sand in November.

College Station Reunion Weekend

Fun weekend with old friends. Sorry everyone couldn't make it this year, but it was a fun time still. Got to see the last game before the major Kyle Field renovation, likely Johnny's last home game, Aggie's 700th win, and as it turns out the last win of the season.

Who knew they would do fire works at Kyle Field!

Happy Halloween

The little witch and mermaid at Zoo Boo.  This year was a bit different in that we had a map and now that Addy can read, we spent less time looking at animals and more time having Addy find all of the candy stations on the map and we went around gathering candy.

 



 Another new thing - Addy loves playing with pumpkin goo.  She was the first to dig in and start scooping out the seeds.  Ella is still not a fan. 

 

Ella made sure that we all had costumes this year.  We were on the Halloween aisle and she found the mask and insisted that Daddy needed it for his costume.  Then she came up with the idea that I should be a cat.  Fortunately unfortunately we found the cat ears at Target one day.  So here we are in all our Halloween glory. 

 

 The kids had a BLAST trick-r-treating with our neighbors this year.  I didn't think that we'd gone to many houses, but I guess the kids got extras for being cute or something because they ended up with quite a haul!

 

 

Renaissance Festival

We made our first family visit to the Renaissance Festival.  I am not going to lie, I was a bit skeptical because of the long drive and I had never been so I didn't know what to expect, but was kind of expecting a bunch of drunk people in strange costumes.  But it turned out to be really fun.  We went with another family that have kids in both Addy and Ella's classes and we walked around the village.  Definitely something to add to the calendar on an annual basis now!

It was fairy weekend so there were people dressed up in very elaborate fairy costumes.  All of the fairies were by the entrance so we got to meet them all when we first got there.  The fairies that work at the festival all have some kind of thing that they give out, some give glass marble type things, we got a shell, a feather...just random things that the girls loved collecting.  Ella was skeptical at first and then finally warmed up to the fairies about the same time that Addy had made the rounds and we were all ready to move on.  O'well, we still walked away with plenty of treasures!

We didn't do many of the shows, did see the jousting, but it was fun just stumbling across the random musician or magician.  I have no clue what this instrument is called, but Addy got to give it a try. 

Look Who Is 7!!!

We had a super fun day on Friday, Addison's actual birthday.  She had school and then her art class, followed by presents from Ella and then a trip to buy a new bike and dinner at Skeeter's.  The girls even remembered to take money to play the games at Skeeter's which was a hit. 

Then Saturday was the big birthday party at the roller skating rink.  Addy loves skating, although a lot of her friends were skating for the first time.  It was a little tricky to get pics of the kids on the rink, since most were just trying to stay vertical, but here is a pic of Addy and her best friends from preschool. 

Michael wins dad of the year award for putting on roller skates and skating around with the kids for the whole party.  There were a handful of parents that were brave enough to put skates on and most of them had one or two kids hanging off of them the entire party (quite a workout for the parents!)  Here is Michael and Addison modeling their skates.  

Everyone looking at the camera and smiling!  This is a birthday present in itself.  

I got a little excited about the roller skate cake!  Addy and her friends loved it.  It was hard to believe that I was putting 7 candles on the cake!    

Ella even tried skating.  When we first got there she put skates on and went about 12 inches.  Then later in the party she wanted to try again and maybe went about 6 feet.  So she is improving, but skating is definitely not at the top of her list right now.  

Ella and The Big Girl Bike

The training wheels are back on the princess bike and Ella is officially biking.  Using the pedals and all.  She's been fully capable of pedaling a bike for a while, but she just uses her feet to scoot around.  This bike is too tall for scooting, so pedaling is mandatory!

Ella The Soccer Star

Today we introduced Houston to the cutest soccer player in town!  In true Ella style, she did the complete opposite of what I expected.  Her team color is light green, but the uniforms are not in yet, so they said to just wear the closest you had - this is about the only light green shirt we have and Ella put it on with no fuss.  I had zero expectations of her wearing shorts, but the biker shorts came to mind and she put them on again with no fuss.  Then there were the shin guards and shoes.  Our past attempts at putting these on did not go well, so I expected screaming.  Nope, she put them on like she had been wearing them for years.  The shin guards did come off mid practice, but she doesn't have the right socks yet, so they were scratchy - I was just amazed she wore them as long as she did!  I asked her if she wanted her hair in a pony tail, yep, no problem. 

Here is Ella with a sign that Addison made for her. Addison really got into getting Ella ready and was helping at practice until she found one of her friends, then they ran off together!

So, when we got to the field, I expected her to cling to my leg.  There were periods of that, but she did awesome otherwise.  We started out with a "practice", so there was some kicking into the goal, attempts to kick to other team members.  Basically a lots of kids, parents and soccer balls running around on the field.  Ella was a huge fan of setting the ball up by the goal and kicking it in.  Then we had a "game" with another team.  Pretty much the same as practice, except there was only one ball and parents were at least trying to not be on the field as much.  It was minutes of chaos mixed with minutes of what looked like proper soccer.  The kids are obviously not use to playing ball only with their feet, so we'd be yelling to go get the ball and they would run over and pick it up.  When Ella was engaged she definitely showed potential, she is a fan of trying to get the ball and kicking the ball, but not really a fan when she didn't get the ball, so that typically resulted in her running over to me.  Overall week 1 was a huge success I'd say.  Not going to lie, I was dreading it a bit, but it was a lot of fun, I'm looking forward to the weeks to come!

San Antonio Vacation

We had a fun time in San Antonio last weekend.  HISD was closed on Friday, so we took advantage of the long weekend to get a quick family vacation in.  It was a bit of an adventure.  Our first stop was the River Walk.  When we went back when Addy was 3ish, it was raining when we were at the river so we didn't get to go on the boat ride, so we made sure to do that 1st thing.  Then we walked around for a bit and had dinner.  At the end of the day I would have said it was torture for the girls, all they really cared about was getting to the hotel and maybe every 5 minutes one of them asked "when are we going to the hotel".  But then on Saturday Addison asked to go back to the Riverwalk, so I guess it wasn't too bad.  I had fun! 

Here is a picture of Michael and the girls on one of the bridges.  We learned on our boat tour that this bridge was also in some movie (totally don't remember the name of the movie), but it is a famous bridge!

Saturday was a SeaWorld filled day.  I think we got there around 10:20 and left right before the park closed at 6.  The sea lion show was our first stop and for some reason Ella FREAKED out and cried through most of the show.  We are not sure what exactly set her off, maybe it was the animals and people together??  It seemed to start when the pre-show entertainer "fell" in the water - she totally did not appreciate his humor!  After that show she was ready to go back to the hotel.  Obviously that didn't happen and fortunately the rest of the day was less dramatic.  Not drama free though!  We saw Shamu, the dolphins (although you can't walk up and feed them anymore, appointment only, oops, we didn't research that and Addy was a bit disappointed), saw the penguins and fishes galore, there was a super cute Pet show with dogs and cats that was probably the highlight for Ella.  It was very fun.  Hot, but fun!

At the end of the day the girls played on the big climbing thing and I was certain Ella would get up there and get stuck and we'd have to go rescue her, but she ran around up there like a champ.  I thought that they would stick together, but they both went on their merry way...made them stop for 2 seconds to capture this pic. 

I think the highlight for me was Sunday.  We got up and went to the Natural Bridge Caverns Wildlife Park.  It is like a safari in Texas.  No lions and tigers, but the ostrich and zebra were an adventure enough.  Things started off tame, a lot of deer like animals that would stroll along the car and we'd throw food out to them (food the park provided - not goldfish!)  Everyone was happy.  Here is Ella smiling with a little deer in the background.  And they totally were not deer, but some crazy African name, so I'm going with deer. 

Then we get to a section and see this zebra picture.  I may frame this and hang it in the house.  it is hilarious.  But makes you a little leery about the zebra.  Little did we know, the zebra were nothing compared to the ostrich. 

Here is a picture of our friend.  Also the reason Ella will forever been traumatized when she sees a picture of an ostrich.  This guy is cute and innocent in this picture, but a second after I snapped the pic, this guy stuck his head in the car window and tried to grab the bag of food off of Addison's seat right there.  Fortunately the bag was too heavy so he dropped it and didn't run off with it, but unfortunately he dropped it in my car and there were food pellets all over the place.  Addison picked most of it up, problem solved, we were OK.  Ella was ready to head home though.  Birds in the car are not her idea of a fun time.  Rest of us thought it was hilarious.  Hadn't seen any zebra at this point.  

Then we see the zebra.  Most are just hanging out on the side of the road like this guy, but we'd been talking about the zebra biting sign, the ostrich stuck his head in the window, Ella is on the floor of the car in the front screaming she wants to go home.  Next thing we know, a zebra is walking up to my window and proceeds to stick his head in the car.  I'm laughing  and trying to not get any closer than I am, Ella is on the floor at my feet screaming louder because the zebra is now right above her head.  I wish I'd had my camera out to get a close up of our friendly zebra.  It was an adventure and totally hilarious. 

Needless to say, that was enough adventure for the day.  The park lets you drive through the safari multiple times, but the girls were done.  So, we went to the petting zoo there on the facility and  as usual, the girls LOVED the goats.  Nice and peaceful end to the adventure! 

Little Jumper

All I have to say is that she wouldn't even get in the water at the beginning of the summer and now she is doing this...

Last Beach Weekend of Summer

We had a super fun Labor Day weekend at the beach.  We spoiled ourselves by taking the pop up canopy, so we were made in the shade which meant we spent 3X as long down by the water, which was great.  Even ate lunch down there.  There was plenty of sand play, but the water was the big hit this weekend.  The water wasn't too rough, and the girls discovered the 2nd sandbar and loved that they could stand out there and just jump the "swells".  Not sure when we'll make it down again...craziness of fall has started!