Old friends are good for the soul. :)

I was so blessed to get to spend the weekend with 2 of my oldest and dearest friends.  Courtney and her hubby have been living in Springfield, Illinois for the last 5 years for med school and we sure do miss them!  Courtney wanted us to get to experience the season of Fall (real Fall) before they move back to Texas next summer, so Pamela and I headed out to the beautiful Midwest!  I was having a very hard time thinking about leaving Reid.  I was never away from him for more than a few hours until this September when Chris and I took our little College Station getaway and then last month I went on our small group girls' weekend.  I felt guilty for leaving him for a weekend three months in a row.  This time I would be getting on a plane and flying across the country instead of just being an hour away from him.  I have major anxiety with flying anyway, but thinking about leaving my baby to get on a plane was almost too much to handle.  It was really, really hard.  BUT, it ended up being the most wonderful and perfect weekend and I am so glad we went!  There is just something about being with friends that you have known and have known you for almost 20 years.  I love that we can talk each other's ears off for 3 hours straight or just sit silently in the car together without feeling like we needed to fill the silence.  The weather was absolutely perfect the whole weekend.  Pamela and I kept saying that we sounded like we were from Mars with the comments we were making.  Haha!  We were just amazed by how "fallish" everything was!  Courtney said we missed the peak of Fall, but we were still completely satisfied by the firey red and golden trees that we did get to see.  Crunchy leaves were EVERYWHERE, pumpkins and mums were on every porch,  the air was crisp...it was FALL! :)

We got into St. Louis on Friday and Courtney was at the airport to pick us up.  We stopped for a yummy lunch in St. Louis before heading to Springfield.  On the way to Springfield we made a stop at a little winery and enjoyed some gorgeous scenery.  The town of Grafton was so cute!  Once we got to Springfield that evening, we settled in and then headed out to dinner.  We went to bed pretty early Friday night because Pamela and I had been up since 4:30 that morning.

Saturday was such a great day.  We stayed in our comfy clothes all day.  We went to breakfast, went on a walk, got mani/pedis, went to lunch,  watched the Aggies BTHO Bama!!!, got pizza for dinner, made smores in the backyard, and just enjoyed being together!  (Clearly there was a lot of eating going on.) It was so sweet of my Baylor Bear and Red Raider friends to sit through the game with me and cheer for my team! I think I may have scared them a few times with how into it I was.  All of Chris' hard work for the last 12 years has finally paid off.  :) Sidenote: Chris was coincidentally 3 hours away from me all weekend.  He had to go to Indianapolis for work.  He was watching the game in a sports bar with strangers and we were texting each other freaking out the whole game!

 Excited about the big win!!

Sunday was mostly spent traveling.  Another sidenote: My bag didn't make it back to Houston, but thankfully it was delivered to my doorstep in the middle of the night last night.

Thankful for old friends.

I was thrilled to be reunited with my boys last night.  I loved the weather in the Midwest so much that I brought it back to Houston with me.  It's BEAUTIFUL today!!!

Also, my dad got Reid his first official Aggie jersey for the game.  I am not used to him looking so old in big boy clothes like this!  I am thankful for technology that allows my mom to send me pictures of Reid while I was away! :) 

Nice Weekend

Reid and I had a nice, relaxing weekend.  Chris was out of town for a guy's retreat so Reid, Chloie, Annabelle, and I spent the weekend at my parent's house.  We just hung around the house most of the weekend and watched football and let Reid play.  It was so nice!  Thomas came home from College Station and Alli and John came over for the day on Saturday.  Here are just a few pictures from my phone!

My mom ALWAYS has a blanket spread out and diapers, wipes, powder, and a little brush set out on the bed when Reid is coming over.  It's always ready when we get there.  So sweet!  

 My dad got this horse down from the attic and cleaned it all up.  It was ours when we were little.  Reid had so much fun riding on it!  

 Gig em! 

 Reid was being SO hyper on Saturday night!  He was running around the game room and falling down on purpose to make us laugh!  He probably did that for 10 minutes straight.  Then he turned this basket over and kept running over to stand on it and then getting off and running around the room some more!  I've never seen him so wired!  He was definitely showing off! ;)

 We missed Chris while he was gone, but I am so thankful to have parents that live so close that we can spend the weekend with!  

Halloween 2012

We had a fun and low key Halloween!  I was happy that Reid had two chances to wear his adorable puppy costume!  My sweet friend Lindsey let us borrow it and it was perfect!  We had a fun play date with some friends from my old school.  I loved seeing all of them and their precious kids!  Amanda was such a great hostess and had lots of fun Halloween treats and a craft!  

Not too impressed with the costume at this point...

 Reid and his friend Parker the pirate!

 I decided to let Reid paint his pumpkin.  He was really into it for about 7 seconds. ;) 

 All of Reid's grandparents came over on Halloween and we had pizza and just hung out.  The paparazzi was in full force and Reid was loving the attention.  He was really hamming it up!  I thought he looked ADORABLE! 

 Since Reid was dressed up like Annabelle, I tried to get a cute picture of them together. This was the best we got! 

 My sweet baby...

 Our friends stopped by with baby Lily!  Isn't she the cutest cupcake you've ever seen??

 Chris and I took Reid out for a few minutes in the neighborhood.  

 We ran into the LeVrier triplets!  We are missing one in this picture, but trust me, they looked adorable! :) 

We didn't really knock on any doors, we just pulled Reid around in the wagon for a few minutes and came home.  It's kind of awkward knocking on random doors with a 1 year old that obviously won't really be eating the candy! 

This is an awful picture of me, but I LOVE Reid's expression in it!  I forgot to get a family picture.  Oh well!  

Happy Halloween! 

San Antonio

Chris had a few extra days off that he needed to use before the end of the year, so I had the brilliant idea of taking a little family trip.  We used to go to San Antonio all the time when I was growing up, so I thought it would be fun to take Reid.  Well, the lesson that came out of this trip was not to take a 17 month old that doesn't like being confined in a car, stroller, high chair, or pack n play on a trip.  None of us slept well either night, which left us all a little bit cranky. ;) Reid never sleeps in bed with us except on trips (because he hates his pack n play).  Both nights it took a couple of hours for him to fall asleep, but while he was trying to, he would lay there and softly touch our faces and giggle.  That was my favorite thing about the trip. :) 

We had to take our little Texan to see the Alamo as soon as we arrived in San Antonio on Thursday evening.  After the Alamo we wanted to eat on the River Walk.  Well, the River Walk isn't exactly conducive to strollers or fussy babies that don't want to wait a long time, so we ended up eating at the first place we saw right by our hotel.  

On Friday we went to the zoo. Twice. The first thing we saw when we got there was the hippos being fed pumpkins.  Reid really liked that.

Then we took shelter in this little toddler area while it POURED outside.  

                                      

 Once it let up a tad, we ran to the car, went to get lunch, and then drove around for a while to let Reid take a little nap.  We decided to go back to the zoo once it stopped raining because we hardly got to see anything.  San Antonio actually has a really great zoo!  When we went back we were literally one of maybe three families there.  That was nice because we got to just let Reid run around instead of making him be in the stroller.  

 The best part of the trip was when we drove to Austin on Saturday before heading home to have lunch with my sweet friend/college roommate Maryanne and her beautiful family!  We don't get to see each other nearly enough.  Her children are all so beautiful and sweet.  I LOVED seeing them!  

So, basically we went to San Antonio to go to the zoo and eat non-river walk Mexican food., things we could have done in Houston.  However, we made memories as a family of three on our first little trip by ourselves! :)