Thursday, January 23, 2014

Tea Parties and Christmas Treats

This post is going to be a million years long. I apologize for that- not sure when I decided it was necessary to blog everything that happens again but I guess we'll roll with it :-)

The girls enjoy making sugar cookies every year.  They decorate them at their tea party as well as with their cousins for Santa so we make lots and lots.  

Berkley has gotten so silly and wacky every time we do pictures
 The cookie dough bandit could not stay out of the dough. She was constantly sneaking bites.  I don't know where she gets that from.....


 There's another bite-


 I don't even know what is happening here- but when she walked into my office and this was on the screen she cracked up laughing and said I HAD to put it on the blog. I think I'll print it out for any future boyfriends.



 P woke up from his nap.  Or should I say we finally dragged him out of bed- the girls went and tried to wake him up twice before he came down to participate.
 I think he wasn't very impressed
 Vanessa probably got a little flour on his hands



 The big Tea Party Day- This was my first year to do them back to back.  In the past Berk had pre-school off on Friday so we would do hers around lunch and I would have time in between to clean and regroup. This year Berks was from 3:15-4:45 and Elliott's was from 4:30-6.  They always do a craft and tea.  I was super nervous that it was going to be mayhem but my friend and my sister were here for Berk's party and helped me with the clean-up. It also helped that Elliott's party pretty much ran itself.  I just have to tell them what they are doing for the craft and after that they pretty much take care of themselves.  I don't really stay in there for the Tea part anymore- I just occasionally hear bits and pieces about crushes and pop my head in for more info.  It is SO cute! 



 Elliott's group
 Berk's group (she wanted to invite about 49 people I think- I learned my lesson at Elliott's kindergarten tea when I let her invite all the girls in her class.  Kindergartners are too high maintenance and the rule now is they have to all fit at the dining room table)



 Elliott's group made snowmen out of flower pots.  Berk's did a reindeer puppet- I forgot to get a pic of it.
That night I hosted my second annual Mama's "Tea" it was super fun! A bunch of my neighborhood/elementary school friends
 One of my crossfit girls- the others had left already
 Everyone knows Bec- and Zoe went to A&M and has worked with Becca forever- and is a photographer now.  Poor Becca when she hangs out with Zoe and I has to listen to a bunch of photography talk.
Amanda, Brad and the kids came to hang out one night- Elliott always gets the duty of keeping the little people safe and out of our hair.  On this particular night she scored 5 dollars for her work because she was able to get Eli to go to sleep.


 Some of our East TX pics- P was showing Paw Paw how to play a game on my phone. This was over Thanksgiving


 The kids stayed with Brandy and she brought them back to us on Saturday- Dakota was helping him hide his play doh in his jammies so the girls couldn't get it.
 Date night with Amanda and Brad to the movies and out for dinner


 I read this article over Christmas that was interesting- the author was telling people not to get her kids anything- they have enough of everything.  Just give them time- take them to the park- to do something fun- the memories last longer than some toy they play with for 3 day.  We're still working on how to pull that off with Amanda's kids or for her to do it for ours- but since Jamie and Rachel have no kids it was easy for them to come up with something fun to do and take the girls each out on their own.  They took Berk to Disney on Ice- she was SO excited!


 Elliott got to go to Six Flags with them for Winter in the Park- it was her first time to go- so I know she'll remember it forever and ever. How fun to get a date out with your Aunt and Uncle all by yourself? I had some SUPER cute pics of her with them in front of the tree but I managed to shoot over one of my memory cards- I am SO sad!


Wednesday, January 22, 2014

The Marathon

The first weekend in December turned out to be a crazy one in Dallas.  We had a HUGE ice storm.  When Chris and I were talking about him running a marathon we were deciding between the White Rock in Dallas and the Bryan College Station Marathon down at A&M.  We decided that the one down in A&M would be better because there would be a greater chance for warmer weather (sometimes the Dallas marathon is freezing and sometimes it is pretty nice).  And the BCS one was smaller so it would be easier for the kids and I to find him out on the course. Also, it would be a fun getaway for the family.  We were supposed to leave Friday after school but all the news was reporting ice to hit Dallas pretty hard on Thursday evening so we made the decision to get out of here before that happened so we wouldn't end up stuck.  Good thing we did because the entire city was shut down - AND we didn't have any electricity from early Friday morning until Saturday evening around 5!

A few random pics before the weekend in College Station
P was so proud of the snowmen we built.  Couldn't you just squeeze him?!
 How our living room looks nowadays
 We had planned stuff to do for a day- we pretty much did everything we had planned on Friday and had to come up with something for Saturday.  The kids spent a great deal of time jumping between the beds.  Over and over...and over and over.  Elliott is nuts
 Look at the air elliott has in the background jumping off the bed.  P is acting timid

 Berkley our resident silly party animal always turns everything into an opportunity for her crazy dance moves.

I have run a few 1/2 marathons in my day and always enjoyed seeing the kids and dads/moms out with signs to cheer on their runner.  I wanted to have the kids out there in a couple places on the course but a combination of my map reading skills and roads shut down we were only able to find him out there once.  

Berks sign says Run Daddy Run and E's says My Dad is Faster than yours






This was at mile 22 (I think) he was still in good spirits and had ice crystals forming on his hat.  It was SUPER cold!
Us at the finish line- we managed to miss him finishing with our stop at Starbucks and trek through the parking lot.
So proud of him! It was a lot of work and he did a great job!


All the race stuff for Chris was Sunday- flashing back to Friday night-- we took the kids to Santa Land which is one of our favorite things at Christmas in College Station. I think our last year of school we discovered the hayride and lights- we took Elliott and Berk back when I was pregnant with Patton- it was SUPER DUPER cold.  We decided to go before dinner so we could hopefully beat the rush- there was one year we tried to go (I was pregnant with Berk and E was about 2 1/2 and the cars were so backed up we didn't do it.) The mistake this time was going before feeding Berkley's belly gremlin.  She was too hungry to hang out by the fire, watch the band, go in the little shops.  SO we mostly just did the hayride and bailed.
 This tunnel is at the beginning and one of my favorite parts
 All of us in the little town where the attitudes were falling apart
 I love sleeping pics

 I don't know what in the world Elliott was doing here

 Saturday morning we woke up bright and early for the kids to do their marathon- 1.2 miles  Berk stretching out before hers

 These are a little out of order- all the kids at the finish.  They were all supposed to run in different age categories- but being that it was SO COLD (have I mentioned that before) they said if you were there to run another category you could run with your little siblings.  So that made it better :-)

 Berk and I finishing up- I had to prod her along at the end :)
 Sat night they were having a little winter festival with a bounce house, train, petting zoo and synthetic ice skating- it was cold enough that they could have thrown down a real ice rink if they had wanted to! Patton was not impressed

A typical sleeping situation with our kids