Holiday Happiness

The whirlwind that is December has come and gone for another year!  We had a great holiday season this year and are so fortunate to have spent it with so many of our friends and family that mean the most to us.  

We kicked off our holidays with the annual trip to see Santa at Enchanted Gardens.  This is our favorite location to see Santa -- it's such a great location and atmosphere to really get you in the spirit.  I love it because there's good picture opportunities (if everyone contributes) as well as some really good holiday shopping.  Bell and Will love to look at the animals while enjoying cookies and crafts (ok, mostly just cookies...).

Bellamy was not so interested in Santa this year.  In her defense, she was fighting a case of strep throat that week and probably wasn't really on her game anyway.  She was SO excited while we stood in line to wait.  Here I was attempting to get a cute picture in the trees, but instead I got this.  Still cute, just not quite what I had in mind...they were just too excited to get to Santa to care about giving me a good pic.

Then it was our turn to actually sit with Santa and it was downhill from there...

But Will wasn't going to miss an opportunity to let Santa know exactly what he wanted.  As usual, he let Santa in on some requests that he hadn't told us about...

Yep, not a Santa fan this year.  Better luck next time...

For now we'll just stick to hanging out with big brother.  I love the way she is looking at him in this picture.  I want to freeze their relationship as it is right now -- they absolutely adore each other.

On to other holiday festivities -- Gingerbread house making!  It was so funny to see the difference between Bellamy and Will's sides of the house -- and I bet you can guess which one sparkled more. :)

And learning how to make pretzels with Grandma...

A little light looking time is always good to get you in the spirit.

 

It was certainly a merry Christmas at our house and I hope you can say the same.  Love you all and hope to see you soon! 

Celebrations

If October is about fall fun, then November definitely begins celebration season!  There's the end of soccer season to celebrate, birthdays of great friends, and to top it off?  A trip to Nebraska to kick off holiday season and see some of our favorite people!

Birthdays galore!  Two of Will's favorite little ladies both have birthdays in November, so we always get to participate in some great parties.  This was really the first time that Bellamy could really participate in the festivities and she enjoyed every minute!  Our friend Kate always has her party at her gymnastics gym and it was a HUGE hit with Bellamy.  I think we've found the first activity she'll be signed for (as soon as her parents come to grips with the idea that she's old enough to do stuff like that!)

Here's Will, just hanging around. :)

At school this year before Thanksgiving Will's class had a big celebration and everyone was given an Indian name by the teacher and their classmates for the party.  Here is "Wise Owl" showing off his costume that he made.  

On to Nebraska!  Yet again, I did not take nearly enough pictures, even though I say that each and every time...you would think I would learn, right?  

It was cold!  Ok, it wasn't THAT cold, but it was cold enough for this crew to use it as an excuse to spend a lot of time just snuggled up in AJ's house.

And thanks to a little babysitting help from Grandma, Jess took Todd and I on a little field trip around Omaha to check out some new places.  Lucky Bucket was definitely a fan favorite, even if we did have to wear our coats inside. :)

A November in Nebraska wouldn't be complete (at least to Will) without a trip down the zip line!  Thank goodness when Jack and Marlys moved they made sure to find a spot for it at the new house. :)  

Had a great time and can't wait til next time. :)

Dynamo Cheetahs!

Another fall, another soccer season!  This year Will's team (led by Coach Todd) was the Dynamo Cheetahs.  Such an obvious team name...I mean, the Houston Dynamos are the soccer team in town and all the boys are as fast as cheetahs, so there you go!  At least that's the explanation I got from the 5 year old...;)

It was amazing how much difference a year makes!  All the boys did a great job this year.  On the kinder soccer teams they start having a goalie and Will decided that was his favorite place to play.

The whole team had a great time together and really were a good time this year -- so proud of all of them.  We may have to try and organize for all of them to play together again next year -- they will be unstoppable! ;)

 This is one thing I know -- I better get a better camera lens before next season -- it's harder and harder to keep up with these guys with my little starter lens, that's for sure!

Yay Dynamo Cheetahs!  Here's to a great season!

October fun

October is always such a whirlwind around here between fall festivals and sports and halloween and...well, you get the picture.  And speaking of pictures, I might have gone overboard on how many I included in this post...but they all tell such great stories.  I tried to narrow it down, I promise.

The pumpkin patch!  One of Will's favs of October is always the church pumpkin patch.  It's one of my favs too because it is usually a great opportunity for some good fall pics.  I say usually because this year, not so much.  Every weekend something seemed to happen whether it was bad weather or illness or crazy schedules and the next thing I knew it was the last weekend of the pumpkins and we had no wonderful pics!  Ahh!

Needless to say, the weather still didn't cooperate and the patch was pretty picked over, but we made it work.  Will was determined to find a nice big pumpkin for he and Daddy to carve.  B?  Not as interested in the whole situation...(more on that later...keep reading!)

Ewwww...lots of rain = plenty of nasty pumpkins too.  

B checking it all out.  Not smiling, but not crying either, so we'll have to include it here because this was about as good as it was going to get with her that day.

Because this is what that turned into.  Didn't want to be in pumpkin patch, but didn't want to not be there either.  So what's the logical thing to do?  Stop in the parking lot and refuse to move, of course!  Ahhh...life with a 2 year old girl.  It's awesome.

Happy Trunk Treats everyone!  We couldn't miss the church parking lot extravaganza to kick off candy season.  Here's the crew -- an actual decent picture of all four of them -- on our way out to gather treats and have some fun.

Trick or treat!

Gotta sit down and enjoy some of your goodies immediately.  It's the only way to ensure that mom and dad won't eat them after you go to bed...

A great way to spend a fall Sunday evening.  A little music, a whole lot of treats, and some time with your big brother just taking it all in.

 Then it was on to actual Halloween night!  Before we went out into the neighborhood in search of more treats, we had some fun Halloween treats of our own for dinner. :)

And they are off!  Our shark wrangling scuba diver and his little cheerleader in tow.  I think it's safe to say they had a great time and we had October success for one more year. :)

September and Seventy

The month of September included celebrating one of our favorite ladies -- Alice!  Alice and Alicia have been such important people in our lives as part of our chosen family and when Alicia asked if we could host Alice's 70th birthday, of course we couldn't refuse!

It was a great night that was an amazing outpouring of love for a really special lady.  We love you Alice -- you will always be our queen!

Our royal theme for the evening was so much fun to plan and prepare for.  But I'm not sure anyone enjoyed it as much as our little princess -- I think we'll be wearing left over crowns around here for quite a while...

A night fit for a queen!

Memories

It may be hot outside and a 1000 miles away, but nothing makes it feel like home like homemade pretzels.  And no one does it better than mom. :)

While mom was here we finally went and hung out at the nature sanctuary that is a couple miles from our house.  It was still crazy hot, but Will was determined and we actually had a great time -- we will definitely be back.

This is one of those "hang on to and pull out when they hate each other as teenagers" kind of pictures. 

Take note far away friends that always want to say Houston is too big for them...this is just a few short miles from our house...:)

Long time coming...

Ok, so I'm not going to win any mom points for posting this a month after school started, but hey...at least I got it up here, right? :)  And anyone who knows Will knows that he and school have been a long time coming -- and I'm not sure that school knows quite what hit it!:)

Here goes our little big guy -- not hesitating a moment as he walked away from me and off into kinder - I barely got him to stop long enough to take a picture.

Since this is a little on the late side, let's just say I was waiting to give a true beginning of the year update.  No surprise, it's going great!  Will has told us that he's not sure that school has actually started yet...poor teacher...hopefully things pick up for him soon. :)

Love my guy -- so excited to start this new adventure with him!