How We Play a Game

Elizabeth and I were playing dominos, having such a nice game.... when here comes destructor Ben!! Kicking and wrecking his sister's game! Ahh, we were done anyway :)
(are those some teething cheeks or what??)

Tea with Grandma and Friends

Grandma B and Elizabeth decided it would be fun to have a Christmas tea at Grandma's house. Elizabeth picked 3 friends, cousins Drew and Josh, and friend Elliott to have the tea with her. (Cooper and Ben were also invited, and Grandma H.) It was a very special day for all of the kids, I think they felt very grown-up! Here are all the kids - minus Cooper. He wasn't really interested in a picture right at that moment :) The kids were all invited to bring a doll or furry friend. My mom had a kids tea table set up for the dolls. Cute, huh?!
Part of the fun was feeding the ducks by Grandma's house. I think all the kids loved that part!

Elizabeth and Grandma making "tea". (It's really snowman punch)

The adorable table. It's filled with candy - even the napkin rings were candy bracelets. My mom made those gumdrop trees and hung all types of candy on the light fixture. Isn't it the cutest ever!?! Thanks, mom, for the great time!

Valerie's Wedding

A good friend of Jessica's and mine from high school got married this past weekend. It was great to see her and some of our high school friends - some of which we haven't seen since high school!High school friends

Elizabeth and Katie - Katie is one of Valerie's daughters and she is 3 days older than Elizabeth. Valerie and I were in the hospital for one day at the same time delivering our girls.

Group picture! We all had husbands there, and yet they didn't make it into one photo! Strange, huh?!

The beautiful bride, Valerie. We had a great time at the wedding. Thanks for having us, Valerie!

Thanksgiving Day

We had a great Thanksgiving at my parent's house with all of our out of town family. They had lots of leaves on the ground, so the kids had so much fun rolling around in them, throwing them in the air. Doesn't Cooper look so cute in his sweater vest?
Here is my Grandma, Uncle Scott, Uncle Ross, and Grandpa. They are waiting for Thanksgiving dinner.

I thought this was so funny. It's my uncle Todd, Ross, and Jim and my dad. This is BEFORE dinner! The dinner is hot in the next room and the guys are in here digging away at the leftover turkey. That's men for you!
My Aunt Amy and her family. What a cute family!

Everybody outside enjoying the warm weather. A few crazys even went swimming! It is November! (I guess it was in the 60s which is pretty warm for them)

Our families...trying to get a Christmas card picture for my mom.

We had an early Christmas with the out of town family. This was Ben's favorite present - his umbrella. He had to walk around with it the rest of the evening. We all spent the day ducking out of the way of the umbrella.

Grandpa and Ben, what cute reindeer!

Elizabeth taking a turn as a reindeer.

Elizabeth and her daddy on "Christmas" day. We had so much fun with our family. We don't get to see them very often, so it was great to spend so much time with them. I'm glad the kids got to see their great-aunt and great-uncles, and their great-grandparents. I think they enjoyed it too!

Hanging at Grandma's House

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend with my side of the family - all the extended family came and stayed at my mom's house. This was the first day the family got to TX. The kids just played, played, played. Our family is from Minnesota, so they were loving the warm weather.
This is my cousin, Evan. Isn't he adorable?? He is about 9 months old.

This is his sister, Emma. She just turned 3, such a cutie too!


Ben, Emma, and Cooper were "thick as thieves" the whole weekend. If one would scream, they all would scream. If one threw a toy, they would all throw a toy. It was pretty funny.

These are the ducks at the pond next to Grandma's house. Ben was loving the ducks! We had a busy first day with our company!

Fun at the Gymnastics Center

We had playgroup this week at a real gymnasium with all the trampolines, pits, and all sorts of equipment. All of the kids had so much fun! I got a picture of pretty much everything the kids played...so here we go! Here Elizabeth is on the rope swing...so much fun! (I even tried it!)
Walking the beam. I really liked this beam because it's hardly sticking out of the ground, the soft mats are right on the side so they couldn't really fall.

Swinging on the bars,

and getting tugged on the, hmmm, I forget what it's called but it was fun:) We could get the kids spinning fast!

Look how long the tramp is! The kids could get a lot of speed on that thing!

The pit was everyones favorite. It's the first time my kids had been in anything like it. They loved just falling all over in it!

We had a great time...we can't wait to do it again!

Patience is a Virtue

Elizabeth had a good lesson in patience today. After baths we had a little while until bed so we decided to play Candyland. Everyone, including Ben, wanted to play. Poor Elizabeth had to be so patient...she didn't even get mad when her brother was playing with her game piece! Ben actually did better than I thought he would, he mostly liked to play with his cards he got.


Whoo...what a smile :)

We had a fun game night!

Ruldolf the Red Nose Reindeer

Elizabeth and I had a great time on Friday going to Rudolf the Red Nose Reindeer at the Children's Theatre. We went with a big group of neighbors and friends. There were no pictures during the actual show so we took a few while waiting for the show to start.

It was fun going to a live play with Elizabeth. This was the first live show (besides Elmo Live) that we have gone to and it was interesting seeing it through Elizabeth's eyes. She first of all didn't understand why all of the people were dressed like reindeer and wanted to know when they were taking their costumes off. I had to explain that they were pretending to really be reindeer and they would keep the costumes on the whole show.

Elizabeth and her friend, Elliott. Anabel and Baylee are in the background.

The show was a little different than the real story. There was a "scary"doctor in this play, according to Elizabeth, and she was ready to leave when he came out. He did have a gigantic shot, which was a little disturbing. All in all I think she enjoyed her first play. It was fun for just the 2 of us to go enjoy something together. (Grandma B was nice enough to babysit Cooper and Ben for me!)

Enjoying the Zoo

We have gone to the zoo almost every week because of Elizabeth's school - and we never really ventured to the end of the zoo. We were always so tired by then! Today we made it to the end of the zoo and found some really fun places for the kids. Here the kids are in the "barn".
Ben is riding the carousel. It had been a long time since either of the kids had been on one, and they loved it!

Elizabeth kept telling me "Look, I'm taller than you!" She thought that was very cool. We were the only ones there so the man gave us an extra long ride :)

Checking out the flamingos. It was fun for the 3 of us to hang out and enjoy ourselves at the zoo. I think they both had a really good time, I know I did!

Playgroup at the Bounce House

We had a great playgroup at a bounce place near our house. It's full of tons of bounce houses, slides, and obstacle courses that both of the kids love. Elizabeth can do all of the obstacle courses by herself! Yeah! So I don't have to crawl through and push her up all the tall ladders...of course Ben is another story :) He actually could make it up a really tall ladder on the slide, and he would slide right down all on his own. I followed him the first few times but he kept getting up to the top and sliding down without me, so I ended up just standing at the bottom, hoping he was being careful! He was - and he LOVED it! What a big boy :)

Ben was loving watching his sister slide down the slides.

You can do it, Ben!