Beauty in the Common Things: My husband taking on some extra 'chores'. Due to my recent injury...see below...Daniel has to do all the dishes, which he hates. So shout out to him, thanks!

Listen In: Watching "The Office" from Thursday for the second time. So good. "She's one sassy black lady!" Buhahahha!

View from the Kitchen Window: Christmas lights twinkling. I heart the holidays.

Dinner Plans: left overs from lunch with friends. Good times!

Fletcher came in a for a weekend visit (anticipation of this can be seen in the previous post). We visited the Dallas Children's Aquarium which recently got a makeover. It is small, but interesting.

They have a covered outdoor area where you can pet small sting-rays.

Awesome eel.

The stingrays were quite hungry.

Watching the anticpation of the stingrays was the best.

The lady in the background fed the sharks and stingrays while we watched. I decided it'd be a great job for Daniel. Fletcher and I liked it, too.

Fletcher loved this sea turtle. You can't see it, but it was handicapped. So sad!

Two cousins who had a good day!

"Jerry's World"

Each student got a picture of themselves on the prestegious blue star. The photographer figured out that Daniel and I were married and made us pose like this. It was kind of embarassing to do in front of my students. Daniel is a huge Cowboys fan. I even looked into getting married at Texas Stadium when we looked into wedding venues. Yea, it was way too expensive and I'm not sure I would have anyway. All bathrooms in that place were scary!

View of the Ballpark in Arlington, home of the Texas Rangers. A possible field trip location for next semester? If I get brave enough again!

After tour, we took them to CiCi's Pizza. Some student told me the food was the best part of the field trip. Well, I was glad to spend 3 months planning this trip just so you could enjoy some pizza!! Anywho, most of the students were male...so guess what they did after eating.

You can tell Daniel was ready to go. So bored, he tried to ride the 'quarter' horse.

Here is Corbin and Grant waiting for the parade to start. Haven't I seen this before???

Our float wasn't as decorated as some in the parade, but we got our point across. We handed out invitations and candy to the children for "Breakfast with Santa".

Here is Amber and I with our little ones. We kept them bundled during the parade as they yelled "Merry Christmas!" Grant enjoyed it so much. He didn't care about his hands freezing!

Beauty in the Common Things: A good doctor. As a kid, I had to wait almost an hour just to get to the little room, then wait again to see the doctor. Now I get in the doctor, have time to flip through the front part of a People magazine and I'm in! Then I sit in a comfy room and see the doctor pretty quickly.

Listen In: My boys are playing hide and seek this early Saturday morning.

View from Kitchen Window: We are finally getting our new fence today. Looking forward to getting that done.

Last weekend we went back to our old stomping ground for SFA's homecoming. First stop was the big bonfire.

The next morning, we met friends for the annual homecoming parade. This is the first one I've actually been a spectator at. I've been in a few back in the day, but it was fun to watch and see Grant enjoy it. Here is the Yellow House's (the Church of Christ Student Union where Daniel and I met) float. The theme was "Lights, Camera, Axe'Em!", a Hollywood theme. The float is along the lines of Jurassic Park.

Here is Grant's favorite part, the Lumberjack band.

Daniel's sister, Erica, is now a freshman at SFA. She met us at the parade.

That afternoon, Grant and I had a great nap while Daniel and his Dad, and sister Erica went to the football game. We saw many friends that we miss and their kiddos. That night Erica showed me her dorm, where is actually where I lived, and is actually named after a relative of mine. This sign was on the wall of the dorm, and I thought it was pretty appropriate!

I learned many lessons while in college, some good, some not so good, and some just plain stupid, but I bet I'm not alone. In the end, I got my degree hanging on my wall, met life long friends, and met the man God made for me. Ok, enough of the reflecting...lets get back to the subject!

That evening we went to one of my favorite restaurants, one that I crave quite often, Szechuans Chinese Restaurant. Thanks to my in-laws for going with us, even though they aren't big Chinese food fans. In college, my friend Matt and I used to hit this place up about once a week and definatley before going to look at Christmas lights (an annual event for us). In this picture, Daniel is eating what the call the PooPoo Platter. Its basically some meat items with fire in the middle. Fun to say and fun to eat!

My sister went to SFA as well and we have mutual friends at the Yellow House. We were able to spend some time with them as well. Here is Vivian and Daniel hanging out. I love how they both have a little smirk on their face.

Speaking of Vivian, my mom sent me these pictures of her and Grant playing one day. Aren't these the sweetest. I'm confident that Grant will be a great big brother one day.


Ok, back to the weekend, we left SFA early to be back for Halloween festivities. First stop, Trunk or Treat. Mimi went with us while we left the men at home to watch the World Series. Grant wanted to wear his rooster costume, but it was covered in pizza sauce from children's day out. I found a train whistle for him to use with this conductor costume, so he then got easily excited to wear that.

We ran into Christine and Eric while we were there. Their little monkey kept trying to eat the Play-Do.

From there, we headed to another church's festival. Here is Grant checking out his finds.

Grant patiently waited for his turn to ride the horses. He kept turning around to me and saying, "It's my turn, Mommy."


Grant finally got his turn and he seemed like a natural. Of course, I had to pull him off as he was screaming for more.

Overall, it was a wonderful weekend. Nothing better than friends, family, and candy!!!

I got white and yellow felt and cut 'feathers' basically in the shape of a leaf.

I cut a rooster comb out of red felt, stuffed it with pillow stuffing and sewed it to the top of the hat.

I made chicken feet by using orange felt and pillow stuffing and sewing it on the front of the sweatpants.

I sewed the felt feathers along with white craft feathers to the front of the shirt, making sure to cover the blue shark. I sewed it all by hand so it could be easily warn again with the feathers off. Grant wasn't interested in trying it on when I was done for a picture, so I conned my unhappy husband into doing it!

It took a while to convince Grajt to put it all on (and I had to take some feathers off around his neck) but we got it on and he loved it!

He ran around his classroom screaming "cocka cocka doo!"

It was a hit and Grant was one happy customer!

He loves being a 'big cousin'!

Vivian in her stylish fall outfit

He couldn't decide where to start!

I had to bribe him to keep that hat on. It worked, I love it!