Christ-giving

I can't remember if it was Lily or Ollie that combined Christmas and Thanksgiving to make Christ-giving, but it was a perfect fit of what we celebrated in Missouri. 

Helping to mix up some biscuits.

Game time with grandpa!

Two of my favorite little buddies.

Happy to help his mama in the kitchen!

Time to climb on the indoor play equipment.

Grandma said she had some cat eye glasses when she was a little girl, and tried mine on to see how they would look. I think she looks so classy! I love them on her!

Play-doh!

Story time! 

Helping gpa

Jon and Lizzie-Lou!

Grandpa and sweet cheeks

My turn for the sweetest 6 month old!

Thanksgiving's kid table never was more spirited.

Jenga!

Snuggle time!

A couple queens in their castle.

Love to our Missouri family! Miss you!

2020 Wrap Up

 I'm waaay behind! Since I last checked in we went to the farm in MO, celebrated Thanksgiving and an early Christmas with G&G and our cousins. When we got home I got a wild hair and decided to paint the interior of 60% of our house, then decorated for Christmas. I also started seeing a PT for some hip pain and while it's nothing major, I've been surprised at how long the strengthening exercises take me. The kids wrapped up their school semesters with low-key Christmas celebrations and I subbed every day. Mimi, Momo, Eli, and Alexa cancelled their tickets to visit and Jon and I decided to try and figure out some social-distance day-trips to try and make up for our non-traditional Christmas. We have been to a few drive thru light shows; one even ended with a Ferris wheel ride. We spent the day on the beach on Christmas Eve Eve, baked a feast and enjoyed wrapping up our advent and gifts on Christmas day. The boys were thrilled to discover that we were getting two puppies for gifts and made a super quick trip to Lubbock to pick them up. We saw a couple of our good friends and were back in the car for the trip home. In the last few days we have enjoyed our puppies, a game-a-thon, and had a mock Superbowl for Jon and Ollie's season of Madden on wii complete with Superbowl food.

So, yeah. I'm behind on the blog. Ha! 

Stay tuned for pictures! 

Over the River and Through the Woods...

 ... to grandmother's house we go. But, first the Covid test! See you soon, Grandma! 

16 years

Oh my word. I can't even believe we have been married 16 years. That's only four away from 20. 

The year Jon and I got married, both sets of our parents were celebrating their 25th anniversaries, which is just a smidgen over 20.  

And I don't know if you know this or not, but those people are old!

Celebratory Picnic!

Looking cute and only kinda old.

Happy 16 years babe! I bet we've got at least 16 more good years to come! Love you!

Random Bits of Life

 Look at this impish, early morning expression. Cutie.

Pre-K Pics

Sunday, late afternoon. I came back from the grocery store to find Nolan and Seth sound asleep.

Playing on our favorite hippo after haircuts. 

Mouse patrol is serious business.

Meet Daxton, Nolan's new best friend from school. Nolan talks about him approximately 4,799 times a day. (More on weekends.)

Hat Creek patio for the win!

Football and Soccer Wrap-Up

 Ollie's flag football team wrapped up their season last weekend, complete with playoff games and a championship. Guess which team won?!?!!  I bet Ollie won't forget these games for at least a decade. 

For the championship, it was Orange against the undefeated Red. Last time we played Red, they slaughtered us and held us to zero. This time Red started out strong with two touchdowns right off the bat. You could tell that Orange was starting to slump their shoulders a bit. But!! Somehow they turned it around and came back from behind to take the lead and win the game! Nolan and a couple other little sisters started a pretty major cheering section for our Orange, and honestly I feel like it really gave our team just the pep they needed. It was a pretty sweet victory. 

QB Ollie

My friend and other Orange mom, Lauren, went over and took a picture of our husbands. To say they were heavily invested in this game (season!) would be an understatement. 

Nolan also finished up his soccer season, and I don't even know what to say about this kid. Is it bragging to say that he dominated to the point of embarrassment? There were games that he barely played because as soon as he was put in the game he would score in under a minute, literally every time. For his last game I stopped counting after his 8th goal. And there was plenty of game left. 

I will say that the league was super unorganized and seemed very helter skelter, so maybe this wouldn't be the case if we were playing in a real league?  For his part, Nolan didn't really care. He usually started asking to go home sometime around his fourth or so goal. Jon was creative and would tell Nolan we could go home as soon as he helped Abram (or whoever) to score, so Nolan would focus on passing and cheering, but in the end he would usually just score himself. Sooooo, sorry Nolan if you ever read this someday. I didn't take many pictures or videos of you and hardly blogged about it because in all honesty it just didn't seem fair. 

Nolan, soccer prodigy? ;)

Camping at Lake Georgetown

We may have stumbled upon a few secrets to perfect camping. (Pay close attention, because even at this optimum, it likely won't be repeated for a good long bit.)

    * 2 tents (perfect for the people who need to sleep in a little later than 4:47 am)

    *Camp in central Texas in November after the first freeze. (Not one bug, lows in the high 50s, low 60s)

    *Camp half an hour from your house so you can jet home for whatever, whenever.

    *Bring two cars. (see above)

Hands-down the most memorable part of this trip was our kitty buddy Scarlet/Ginger/Sky who joined us. Right when we got there and started unloading, she showed up to welcome us and check out what was for dinner. 

After we got the tent set up, Jon was going through the camping box and realized we had our little pup tent as well. Seth wanted to sleep in that by himself, so we set that one up too. When Seth woke up the next morning, he found that Scarlet had snuggled in there with him. I'm not sure there could ever be a cuter or sweeter start to the day. Seth named her Scarlet and although his brothers fought with him over the name, I say Seth earned the right because she chose him to snuggle up with him for the night.

Hiking and Geocaching

Ollie and I only camped Friday night and came home Saturday after an early campfire dinner. We ended up watching Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, which was perfect because he had just finished the book and hadn't seen the movie yet. It was the perfect Saturday for two Potter heads. It sounds like Jon, Nolan, and Seth also had a great time and thought they had the winning Saturday night plan. Win/win; how often does that happen??

Donuts for breakfast while camping, a tradition as long as the invention of tents.