wishing you....

Christmas cheer! Have a very merry Christmas.

8 years old

Today is Dario's eighth birthday. I swear it seems like just the other day he was born, time needs to slow down! Dario always gets so excited for his birthday and was counting down the days. We had a fun day going to the library, then McDonald's for lunch. When Brian got home from work we went to Chuck E Cheese, then to the Grandparent's house to open presents and have cake. Happy birthday Dario, we love you!

my girls

Playing outside with the kids today it felt more like a spring day, rather than a week before Christmas! Laila is really into Christmas this year and has become obsessed with "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas." She asks to watch it several times a day. We were singing Christmas songs and she yelled out "No, sing the Grinch song!"

trimming the tree

This past weekend we went to the Christmas tree farm and picked out a tree. The kids always have lots of fun running through the field looking for the perfect tree. Later that night the kids helped us decorate it. When they went to bed I rearranged all the ornaments that they had clumped at the bottom or had hung on the stand of lights.

gingerbread houses

Yesterday we made gingerbread houses. We had one for the boys to decorate and one for the girls to decorate. The boys didn't put their house together well and it collapsed on them while they were decorating it. As I was laying out the pieces of gingerbread for the houses, Laila grabbed one and was just about to take a big bite out of it. Luckily, I caught her in time!

gracie

I took these pictures of my sweet, little niece last week for her upcoming first birthday. Don't you just love her cute outfits and hair bows? My sister in-law is a hair dresser so we traded a haircut for photos!

thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving spent with both sides of our family. Wednesday night and Thursday afternoon we celebrated Thanksgiving with Brian's side of the family. The rest of Thursday and the weekend we spent with my family. The kids had fun playing with Uncle Carl who is home from his first semester of college. They missed the cousins who went to Utah for Thanksgiving. Ava didn't get the fact that they were out of town and would ask me several times a day when they were coming over. Jessica showed us her new apartment in downtown Houston and took us to some of the trendy shops in the area. We also got a cupcake at Sprinkles, yum!

new shoes

Yesterday Ava got a birthday package from Aunt Jessica, a pair of pink sparkly Toms! Thanks Jessica, Ava loves them.

fun weekend

This past weekend we had a birthday party for Laila and Ava and my family was able to come down. The girls were so excited to see everyone and loved all the nice presents everyone got them. I didn't get that many pictures from the party because I was busy entertaining. On Saturday night night Lauren and her family spent the night. The next day we went to the park and I took pictures of her family. Then, Lauren took pictures of my family.

ava is four!

Ava turned four years old today. We had a party for her tonight, she was looking forward to it all day. She had a great day, except for when we were in the store parking lot and a big gush of wind blew all of her pink birthday balloons away. Luckily, daddy bought some more. Happy birthday Ava!

happy halloween!

scarecrow festival

The kids got out early from school for homecoming on Friday and we went to a Scarecrow Festival at a botanical garden. All of the scarecrows were so cute and the gardens were decorated for fall with lots of pumpkins. There were lots of good places to take pictures, unfortunately the kids were more interested in running around and trying to touch the scarecrows, than taking pictures!

laila is 2

Another year has flown by and Laila is now two years old! This year she understands that it is her birthday and is excited. When she sees a commercial for a toy that she likes she'll say, "I want that my birthday!" I think she learned that from her older brothers and sister. Even though she is now a big two year old, because she is the youngest she is still my baby. Happy birthday Laila!

halloween treats

This week I've been having fun making Halloween treats. I love this time of year! The little flags for the cake pops can be found here, and the vintage pharmaceutical labels can be found here.

pumpkin patch

Today we took the kids to a local pumpkin patch. We've never been to one before and the kids were going crazy when they saw how many pumpkins there were to choose from. If I had a huge pumpkin budget I would have bought a bunch of the pale green pumpkins and spotted pumpkins, they were so pretty. Laila loved picking up the little pumpkins. We are going back next year!