Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!



Hoping you find joy, love and peace this holiday season!

5 more days

I feel like I'm not prepared this year. I still have shopping and wrapping to do... menus to plan. I'm not exactly sure when it will all get done, but it always does.

The kids are officially out of school. Yesterday they were getting on each others nerves terribly. This might be a long two weeks.

Here are some pictures from their Christmas party at school last week. The girls made gingerbread houses.


I'm the homeroom mom in Abby's class and we did these cute little snowman ornaments. I went in a few days before the party and did the kid's hand prints on the ornament, and then they decorated them at the party. I thought overall they turned out pretty cute, except for the kids who just decided to paint over their hand print and name with black paint.

Here's all the kids with their teachers. They are awesome!! We couldn't ask for better teachers this year. They are all so sweet and challenge our kiddos. LOVE THEM!

Christmas Karaoke

One of Cole's favorite things to do is find the TV remote and press as many buttons as he can... we he somehow stumbled upon the Santa channel. They have games, music, and I think on Christmas Eve you can even track where Santa is.

So every night (and morning lately) the Christmas music is on... and it is loud.

I must have had my finger on my phone speaker... but the kids love singing and dancing around to the Christmas music. Sorry in advance if this makes you dizzy...



How I wish I could bottle up their energy! They seriously did this for over and hour... back and forth, back and forth! Oh and yes, if you've never noticed Abby still walks/dances/runs on her tip toes. We are trying to work on it. Easier said than done.

Super Speller

Austin participated in the school spelling bee yesterday. He ended up losing to some 4th grade kids on a word that he knew.... he added an extra letter in the word and knew immediately he made a mistake. The spelling bee was in front of the entire 3rd & 4th grade - he asked before school that morning if anyone ever died of being so nervous. HA! I was nervous too! I couldn't even hold the video camera straight when he was on stage. He did awesome though. Next month he will perform in the district UIL competition. I think Austin spells better than some high school kids. We are so proud of our boy!!

I thought we were done with soccer this year... but got a call from one of the coaches asking if Austin could play in a weekend tournament in South Houston. It was the first time he has ever "played up" and he did great.... mainly played defense so he didn't score any goals.

One of the games was in the evening. He felt like a professional playing under the stadium lights.

The whole family joined



It was a long weekend... we were all tuckered out!

I just realized it's been awhile since I posted. All is well in our family.

This is what we typically do on Sundays. Church and football. Austin failed to mention unpacking as well though. We still have a garage full of boxes and a few more trips to get everything out of our apartment.

We finally just got our tree up on Friday night. Usually we have our tree up the day after Thanksgiving, but we're behind this year. I think Elfie, our Elf on the Shelf, was getting a little concerned that Santa would not know where to put the toys. The kids relayed that message directly from Elfie.

This is the first year for Elfie to join our family. He's been great. The kids have been pretty good especially since he reports all naughty and good behavior directly to Santa himself every single night. Absolutely brilliant.

I was able to find a few Christmas boxes so we have some decorations out now.



Sneaky Cole has been trying to find a way to get a hold of the ornaments on the tree. Only 2 have been broken so far... although I can't really blame Cole. Blame the girls.

All moved in!

Well we are homeowner's once again!! The close was far from smooth, but it all worked out in the end. We were able to get our keys last Monday night and had the movers come late Wednesday.

I must say I have the greatest friends EVER. Between helping us move and unpack, and help watch the kiddos... we were covered! I am so thankful for all of our sweet friends (& mom who helped watch Cole).

I really don't have many pictures to post, it has been a busy week. There is still some unpacking to do and some furniture to buy, but we have a new place to call home. So all is well.

The kids camped out Tuesday night. There was no way we were getting them back in our apartment.

Thanksgiving day we made a ham and some fixins... including a pumpkin swirl cheesecake. YUM! Twice the time, twice the mess and ten times the fun! Although Abby doesn't look happy to be at the end of the mixin' line.

The girls couldn't wait for it to be done baking. Too bad it had to sit in the fridge for 6 hours after that.

They eventually gave up and I found ballet bear in their place.

Oh my... the things you take for granted when living in a tiny space... like a YARD. They've been running around like crazy outside several hours a day. It's great!

You can't take your eyes off this one for a second. There went the breadcrumbs that were a key ingredient for our dinner. Thanks Cole.

Family game night is back!

Some space for ring around the rosy! Now when "they all fall down" they have to be careful - hardwoods hurt!



Austin played in his first tournament over the weekend. He was on a new team that didn't do so hot, but he did score the only goals on his team. I was thinking we would take a break in the spring, but after talking to the coach he told us to keep him in... said he is very good and makes quick decisions for his age. He said they are watching him for when they make club selections. So here's to a crazy spring schedule also...

Packing up

Austin's at a birthday party, James is sick, and Cole is asleep. The girls and I are packing up.

Well at least Abby is. Emily is busy reading to her animals.
If we're lucky, we're out of this apartment early next week. We thought there was a 0% chance of this changing, but after going back and forth with the mortgage people yesterday it is not guaranteed any longer. They ordered a late Friday inspection... why they didn't do it earlier is beyond me. So extremely frustrating.... they have known our closing date for the past 4 months and wait until the last minute to perform an inspection. So fingers crossed that all will go according to plan!

Here's a couple of pictures of the new house a week ago.

This is my favorite part of the house... big kitchen and I love the stone arch!

Just some random other stuff. Here's Austin at his Veteran's Day program.


and the girls at their Thanksgiving program called "Totally Turkey." Super cute!




And look who is toothless just in time for Christmas!

Well I gotta run. I hope y'all have a great Thanksgiving! Don't forget to count all your blessings, we will! :)

Abby Update - Wednesday

Abby's home!! Her face is pretty much back to normal. She might have a tiny scar where they made the incision in the crease of her nose... but I don't think it will be a big deal.

We're so glad to have our sweet girl back home with us... really don't want to experience it ever again.

This is her before:




And after:




She's home with me today, but should be headed back to school tomorrow. I think she's back to feeling like her usual self except her hand is very swollen from the IV... but that's pretty much it.

We so appreciate all the prayers :)

Abby Update

What a difference a day makes! Abby's face looks so much better. The antibiotics are kicking in.

I'm still not sure how much longer we are going to be here at the hospital. There is still a chance of a second surgery. We are all ready for Abby to come home and get back to normal.

We are so grateful for our sweet friends that have been helping with the other kiddos.

So thanks for all your prayers, keep 'em coming :)

Please pray for Abby

I wouldn't normally post this, but our sweet little Abby could really use your prayers right now.

She's in the hospital with a really nasty infection. She should be ok, but it's still scary. We went to the ER yesterday for an abscess on her face that turned bad very quickly. It went from a small pimple, to the whole right side of her face swelling. We got transferred by ambulance from that hospital to the big children's hospital downtown.

She had surgery yesterday, and woke up this morning worse. She can't even open her right eye now. We've had slews of doctors into see us... the last one being an infectious disease doctor. We're still not sure what it is (probably MRSA). They changed her IV antibiotics to a stronger one today, in which she didn't react to well. If she doesn't respond to these, she'll have a catscan in the morning followed by more surgery... and we're already guaranteed another 48 hours there. She started off in good spirits, but she's really tired of it all right now. Poor baby.

So like I said, I wouldn't normally post anything like this, but we could use all the prayers we can get. I'll update more on here when we get more information. Thanks for the prayers!!

Happy November!

It seems like we have been waiting and waiting all year for November to get here. If all goes according to plan, we should be moving in our new house around Thanksgiving! It can't come soon enough. I have to keep reminding myself as much as apartment life completely stinks, we need to stay positive! After all - we have a roof over our head, food in the fridge, and a healthy/happy family. We are blessed!

They just put the carpet in our house this week, and I completely teared up after seeing it. It's so real now. YEAH.

Here's a few pictures from Halloween this year. A sweet friend invited us over to trick-or-treat. Unfortunately her son, and Austin's best buddy, had strep and couldn't join us. We missed him, but the kids had a blast. And we have tons of sugar. The one good thing about all this sugar is that if the kids misbehave, all I have to do is threaten to take away candy and they immediately stop. Haha. Whatever works, right?! Little do they know... a handful ends up in the trash each day while they are at school.

This is the only picture I have of Cole in his full costume. He would not leave that thing on his head. I got it at Target after last year's Halloween for 90% off. Honestly I didn't even know what it was, but apparently it was some sort of martian from Toy Story. All I cared was that it was a costume and cost $1.

Austin was Darth Vader. Every year he picks out something he knows nothing about.

Emily was a bumble bee and Abby was a witch - another Target find from last year that went into the dress-up drawer.



Don't let this picture fool you... this was the one time Cole actually held the pumpkin and kind of went up to the door. He pretty much was cranktified the rest of the evening. I'm sure next year will be more fun for him.



Hope y'all have a happy November!