Davis got out of school on December 21st and we spent the next couple of days hanging out with friends/cousins and squeezing in some last minute Christmas fun.

On Christmas Eve, the Joiners came over first thing to have breakfast and let the kids open presents from each other. We also let the cat out of the bag that we are taking the kids to Disneyland and Legoland in California in a few months! They were not super impressed when we told them how long they’d have to wait, but we know they will love it when the time comes and realize that we are the best parents ever for taking them.

That afternoon, we headed to Friendswood to celebrate with Wade’s parents and sister. (We missed Uncle Sam, who had to stay in Idaho to work.) We spent the afternoon decorating cookies and stuffing our faces before going to one of the Christmas Eve services at their church and watching G-pa on the drums!

As soon as we got home, it was time to sprinkle reindeer food in the yard, set out cookies for Santa, and read The Night Before Christmas (with Tucker, who seemed even more into it than the kids, ha) before hitting the hay.

The kids woke up extra early the next morning, as expected, but we forced them to wait until a slightly more reasonable hour (6:45am) to wake up the rest of the house and see what Santa brought (and see if he liked our cookies – spoiler alert: he did!). The biggest hits this year were a drone + an Echo Dot for Davis and a Barbie dollhouse + an L.O.L. Surprise! baby doll for Avery.

The rest of the day was spent playing with new toys and stuffing our faces some more before heading back to Sugar Land that night.

It was a wonderful Christmas for all, although today is actually like a second Christmas for ME because I’m spending it doing one of the things I love most: organizing all the things!

Both kiddos had their Christmas parties this week! We started off with Avery’s last ever preschool Christmas party on Tuesday, where they decorated mini gingerbread houses, consumed all the sugar, and played a couple of games. They also came home with the cutest snowman fence posts! The boards were cut to be the same height as each kid and they used their thumbprints to make the eyes and mouth. Adorable, right?!

Yesterday, it was time for Davis’s party! I helped plan his party so it was a little more stressful than attending Avery’s, but I think the kids had a good time. They snacked, made paint swirl ornaments, did snowball relay races, and decorated each other as Christmas trees. Davis went home sweaty and with stamp marks all over his face, both of which are signs of a good party.

Oh, to be a kid at Christmas again…

Let me tell you a little story about my friendship with the girl who was in half the pictures on my last post, Meredith.

You know those friendships where you instantly hit it off with someone? You just click right away? Yeah… ours actually wasn’t one of those friendships, ha! We met a couple of years ago when these little ladies were in the same preschool class.

About halfway through the school year, Avery started coming home regularly talking about her friend, Blaire, and how she really wanted me to plan a play date with her mom. I rejected her requests probably 20 times because I hardly knew Blaire’s mom and didn’t want to awkwardly ask them to hang out, and I honestly hoped she would just forget about the friendship once the school year was over.

But then they ended up being in the same class again the following year, and they picked back up right where they had left off. Eventually I worked up the nerve to text Meredith and ask if they wanted to play some time… but when she DID NOT RESPOND to my text, I took that as a clear sign that we were not meant to be friends. A few weeks later, I texted her to ask for a mutual friend’s number, and it was only then that she saw my invitation to hang out some time. So plans were made.

We had a few play dates and the girls continued to talk about each other at home all the time, but it took several months for Meredith to finally realize what an awesome human being I am… and I finally realized that she is “not that bad,” as she likes to say. Since then, we have become annoyingly and obnoxiously close. We see each other nearly every day, much to the fascination of many mutual friends and strangers who think we seem too different to genuinely enjoy each other’s company.

We are an unlikely pair, to be sure, but we really do compliment each other well. She loves to shop; I love to save. She loves to be spontaneous; I love to be practical. She is generous with affection; I like to pretend my heart is cold and black. But when you find a friend as generous, loving, funny, loyal, encouraging, inappropriate, and fun as Meredith, you make her be your friend as long as you can.

This morning we took some time to celebrate this new friendship (as well as our girls’ not-so-new friendship) with a Christmas-y “BFF brunch.” We obnoxiously dressed ourselves and our girls alike and felt no shame about it.

Meredith, you are a big freak, and many people may find our friendship ridiculous and over-the-top, but I love you and I’m glad we’re friends.

Behold! The reasons I have felt very tired and very fluffy, but also very happy over the past several weeks…

We took the girls to “Nutcracker in a Nutshell” at our local Barnes & Noble, which was basically a 20-minute condensed version of the full ballet. It may not have been a “legit” Nutcracker experience, but it was free and the girls got up close and personal with the performers, so I called it a big win.

Wade and I went to the Pentatonix Christmas show! We went on a double date with Meredith and her sweet mom (who was happily taking Meredith’s husband’s place when he had to back out), and Meredith even convinced me to get all fancied up for the occasion.

Avery and I got to watch cute Clara perform in her Christmas dance recital.

We put on some of our festive Christmas attire and joined our Small Group for our second annual hayride to look at Christmas lights.

We saw Santa (and Mrs. Claus)! The rest of the PTO board and I put on a “Sweets with Santa” event and it turned out super cute. (I also felt much better about paying for the kids to see Santa knowing the money would support our PTO, rather than spending an arm and a leg to see Santa at the mall!)

Meredith brought me as her “plus one” to a super cute Stocking Stuffer party.

We shamelessly took Peanut to see Santa! (Stop judging us.)

Wade and I got an entire kid-free weekend! Every year, his parents take the kids for a weekend in December to do fun Christmas-y things with them while we do fun Christmas-y things without them, like sleeping in, ha! This has truly become one of our favorite traditions.

One of the highlights of our kid-free weekend was going to a fun party at the Collinses’ house! (One of the low points of the weekend was returning home from the party to our freezing cold house since the power went out for 14 hours.)

I got to attend Amanda, Katie, and Kristen’s 9th annual cookie exchange!

I also got to attend a fun ladies only gift exchange with some of my favorite preschool mom pals.

And we got to spend some quality time in the old ‘hood, first with the cousins and then at a fun family Christmas party that night.

This morning, our Small Group celebrated another great year together with a Christmas brunch, where apparently the unofficial attire was plaid tops!

And finally, I got to attend another cookie exchange tonight, hosted by my sister from another mister (Meredith). Santa even made a special appearance!

So like I said, I feel tired and I feel fluffy, but I also feel grateful for the quality time we’ve gotten to spend with some of our favorite people in these weeks leading up to Christmas – and somehow there is still more fun to be had with them over the next couple of weeks!

This year, Amanda, the kids, and I traveled to Dallas the Monday before Thanksgiving to spend a few extra days with family. Thanks to technology, the kids did really well on the drive and we never had to threaten to leave any of them on the side of I-45!

The kids were thrilled to spend the extra time with their cousins (or in Davis’s case, thrilled to hibernate in my parents’ new playroom with the Xbox). They were also extra pumped to see their Uncle Andrew (who they haven’t seen since last Christmas) and finally meet his girlfriend, Kendra.

Once Thanksgiving Day finally arrived, it started out quietly enough, but quickly became a blur of family pictures…

… and FOOD. So much food.

But the real stars of our Thanksgiving feast were my 2 great grandmothers. How cute are they?! (Really hoping I inherit their abilities to age well!)

Franny and Pop Pop did a great job hosting Thanksgiving for all of us + extended family members at their new house and we appreciated them putting up with our crazy crew!

Being on the PTO board at Davis’s school this year has been an interesting experience so far. It has taken a little more time and energy than anticipated, but I’m still glad I chose to do it. For one thing, I get to spend extra time with Davis while also getting to know his friends and teachers. Can’t complain about that!

For another, it gives me extra opportunities to do one of the things I love most: make other people laugh! Whether that means dressing up as the school mascot, Sue the Dolphin…

… or taking a pie in the face to make light of a school fundraiser gone awry.

Cheesy though it sounds, I’m grateful I have the time and availability to volunteer in this capacity and make a positive impact at my child’s school. Good thing we still have 6.5 years left there to make a fool out of myself on a regular basis in the name of bettering the school!

Fact: having a birthday the day after Halloween can be tricky. Everyone is exhausted and overstimulated from too much activity and too much sugar on Halloween, so it can be hard to rally the next day to celebrate anything else – even if the “thing” to be celebrated is as wonderful as Avery! But she’s worth it, so rally we did.

Wade, Davis, and I woke her up bright and early on the morning of the 1st with a round of “Happy Birthday,” per tradition. She certainly could have used some extra sleep, but we knew she would want to see her brother and her daddy and open her presents ASAP.

She spent the morning happily playing with her new stuff and then the birthday girl headed off to school for the day. Instead of bringing cupcakes or cookies to share with her class, she opted to bring Pringles and fruit snacks – ha! She was also excited to see her bestie, Blaire, as soon as she got to school so she could show off Anna & Elsa.

Davis had early release that day, so he and I picked Avery up from school and then we all came home for a couple of hours of R & R. Then it was off to dance class, followed up by dinner with friends at her favorite, El Vaquero.

We sent our tired 5-year-old off to bed after her busy day and when she woke up the next morning, it was time to party with some of her friends! We opted for a very low-key pajama party play date at our house this year and after a crazy few weeks, it was about all this tired mom could handle!

We sure do love our 5-year-old and hope she felt as celebrated as she deserved to be!

Our favorite little girl turns FIVE today!

In honor of her big day, I had Avery answer some questions about herself…

What do you want to be when you grow up?

“First, a ballerina, and then a scientist forever.”

Tell me your favorite joke.

“What does the flashlight say to the sad flashlight? ‘Look on the bright side!'”

If you had one wish, what would it be?

“To have a unicorn as a pet!”

What do you think your life will be like in 20 years (when you are 25)?

“I will have 3 kids and I will be married and I will work as a scientist and I will live in Texas.”

Tell me 3 things you think you are good at doing.

“I am very good at riding a bike, being an artist, and being kind.”

Happy 5th birthday, Avery! We love you!

Halloween has (finally) come to an end! (Seriously, as a parent these days, Halloween feels like it has its own season and that season feels like it lasts for an eternity.) We packed some more festive fun into these last few days.

On Tuesday, Avery had her (last ever… womp womp) “Mother Goose Party” at preschool. She and all her little classmates looked adorable! We are both going to be sad next year when these parties are a thing of the past.

That night, I got together with some gals to see Hocus Pocus in the theater! I’m honestly not sure if I had ever seen this entire movie all the way through as a kid, but it was fun to watch it as an adult.

This morning, everyone was a little bummed to wake up to the forecast, which predicted lots of rain, all day long. And we sure did get plenty of rain – plus a tornado warning!

But thankfully the worst of the rain cleared out just in time for us to party hop and trick-or-treat with friends!

I think I was even more disappointed about the potential of no trick-or-treating than the kids, to be honest. But we were all relieved that it worked out and they got to have their fun after all.

That’s a wrap, Halloween 2018!

We’re still a few days out from Halloween, but we’ve been gearing up for it for weeks – even Peanut has been getting in on the fun!

Avery was lucky enough to inherit some cute Halloween hand-me-downs, the first of which she sported for her very last Bike Day at preschool.

Avery also got to go to Zoo Boo with her cousins and some friends at the Houston Zoo! It was crowded and chaotic but we had a great time.

For the first time since becoming a mom, I gave up on the idea that we MUST visit a pumpkin patch this year. TOO MUCH GOING ON. So we picked out our pumpkins at HEB before soccer/basketball one morning, snapped a picture with the iPhone, and crossed that one off our imaginary Fall bucket list.

We also FINALLY ushered in some Fall weather, allowing us to finally put away our summer wardrobes for a few days! (And I went to a fun sign making party where I made a super cute “welcome” sign for our front porch!)

I also helped the rest of the PTO board at Davis’s school put on a “Trunk or Treat” event. Thankfully it was a huge success!

I was a little bummed to not get to walk around with the kids during the event, but thankfully Amanda, Brian, Colby, and Clara came to our neck of the woods to join Wade and the kids.

Being the awesome sister and sister-in-law that she is, Amanda made sure the kids’ costumes were on right and that there was photographic evidence of their fun night out.

Wade and I also got the chance to dress up, and we decided to resurrect our classic “Pumpkin Pi” costumes from 2004!

We had plans to go to the fall festival at Avery’s preschool this afternoon, but due to exhaustion from some of the previously mentioned activities, we opted to carve pumpkins at home instead.

It was good to have a mostly quiet day at home while we gear up for another busy week. Next up – Halloween AND Avery’s 5th birthday!