Weekend in Gruene!

On Friday afternoon my mom, sister, and I headed out for a girls weekend in Gruene with some of our oldest friends!  The timing was perfect because Friday morning was just rough.  It was basically one continuous meltdown from about 5:40 am until I left at 2:30.  At some point that morning we had to run to Target for a few things and we left our mark there too. ;)

We met the Morrises when Ashlee was 6, I was 5, Alli M. was 4, and Alli (my sister) was 3.  We were all in San Antonio (separately) for vacations and we were at the zoo.  The Allis both got caught in a net at the playground at the same time and our moms went over to help them.  They started talking and then we kept running into them in San Antonio while we were there, but never discussed where we were from.  Once we were back in Katy we ran into them again at the grocery store and the rest is history! :) We were basically inseparable when we were little girls and then as we got older and life got busier we just don't see them near as often as we would like to!  We had such a fun weekend catching up, shopping, eating, and LAUGHING.

Chris did a great job holding down the fort. 

He said they did a lot of laundry because it kept the kids entertained! Ha!

They made cookies, which is one of Reid's favorite things to do!

It was a great weekend, but I was so happy to come home to these sweet faces!

Birthdays!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO CHRIS AND MUMSIE!

Chris and my mom have the same birthday and she always says he was her 25th birthday present. :) 

We went to my mom and dad's house on Saturday to celebrate and then tonight we just spent the evening at home.  

Chris is super self disciplined (much more than I would be on my birthday) and didn't want to veer off the healthy eating path, so we made him a play-doh birthday cake!  It didn't seem very festive to put a candle in a piece of chicken. ;)

He's such a good daddy and ate his (boring) birthday dinner with two kids in his lap! :)

We are so thankful for you, Daddy and Mumsie! 

Confessions of a Girl Dad

Just in case you couldn't tell from the title, this is a guest blog entry by Chris.

These are my confessions...please raise your hand if when you read these words you did so in Usher Raymond's voice and then continued to sing some more of the song…OK I guess it was just me.

• I will get the big one out of the way first…I have in fact Shaken it Off to Taylor Swift.
• 
  
• Georgia Kate and I's first "dance" together was to "Rockin' Robin" by the Jackson 5.

• I abide by the rule:  No Bow, No Go

• I tolerate the rule: The bigger the bow, the closer to heaven

• The first "outfit" that I bought Georgia Kate was a Poodle outfit in Charleston.

For those of you who know me or have been long time readers you might have caught on that I may not be the best at showing/sharing my emotions.  I think that began to change after Reid was born.  I can definitely say that is the case now that Georgia Kate is around.

I was helping Santa put together Georgia Kate's play kitchen while listening to a George Strait Pandora station.  I was about half way through my three hour mission when a song came on that I hadn't heard in forever.  It was "I Held Her First" by Heartland.  At first I was excited that I remembered the name of the band and the song title. 

Timeout: I take great pride in being able to know the song title and artist of 80s and 90s country songs within the first few notes.  I honed my gift on long road trips back and forth to the ranch and the coast growing up.  Also as I am sure many of you did, I wore out tapes and CDs, yes TAPES, listening to every song and memorizing all the words.  Can I also sound like an old man yelling at the clouds and say that country music in the 80s and 90s >>> today.

Time In:  Well I was singing along with the song until it hit the chorus...half way through I completely lost it.  I went to talk to Brittany and I think she thought something was wrong at first before I told her the story.

I was told many times that the relationships I would have with Reid and Georgia Kate would be different.  I didn't fully understand it until that moment.  At that moment, I saw her as a little girl instead of a baby for the first time. 

To wrap this up, I had music on in the background at work last week and "Stealing Cinderella" by Chuck Wicks came on.  My first thought was what happened to Chuck Wicks (sadly I knew that he was on Dancing with the Stars and dated Julianne Hough but then disappeared).  My second thought was you can't let the waterworks turn on at work.  While very challenging, I was able to win this round, barely.

A Day in the Life (Preschool Day) - 3.5 years, 18 months

I'm still having a little bit of a hard time getting out of the holiday fog, but we are slowly getting there. :) 

It's been a while since I've done a "Day in the Life" post.  Tuesday is our busiest day of the week, so I decided to document it today!

My body (or Reid) almost always wakes me up by 7, but today, my 7:30 alarm is what woke me up!  Reid was in our bed and it woke him up too.  99% of the time he is in our bed when I wake up.  He comes down at some point during the night/early morning.  They're only little once and I love waking up with him next to me!  We went in the living room and I got Reid his breakfast and turned on his morning show.  He still only wants drinkable yogurt and dry cereal.  Easy! :)  I sat with him for a few minutes and then went into the bathroom to start getting ready before Georgia Kate woke up.  

I had to go wake Georgia up at 8:15!

I brought her breakfast into the bathroom so I could finish getting ready and Reid could get dressed. 

I quickly got Georgia Kate dressed, everything loaded into the car, and we pulled out of the driveway at 8:51 (only 6 minutes after our goal)!

I love this picture because look at that belly!!! :)

I love our conversations on the way to school in the mornings.  Today I said, "Buddy, I love you so much!  I think I'm the luckiest mommy in the whole world!" He said, "Okay. Can we go to Sea World?" Oh, boys...

We dropped Reid off at school and Peach and I headed straight to Little Gym for our 9:15 class that we usually don't get to until 9:25.

We got home at 10:30 and she immediately told me she wanted to watch "amos" (animals).  She always makes this face when it's about to start! It's so cute!  While she was watching her show I unloaded and loaded the dishwasher, started some laundry, and tried to pick up a little bit.  

Georgia Kate had lunch at 11:15 and then we headed upstairs to play for about 30 minutes before she went down for her nap at 12.  We have our small group from church at our house on Tuesday nights, so nap time is spent cleaning with a quick lunch break.  Georgia woke up from her nap around 1:45, so I finished up what I was doing and then went to get her.  We got right into the car and she had her snack on the way to pick up Reid.  We went in to get him at about 2:20.

After school we went to the mall with Katy (aka Reid's teacher) and her boys to play in the play area for a little while.  I forgot to take a picture!  We got home around 4 and went straight upstairs to avoid destroying the downstairs before small group. :) We played for a while and then cleaned the playroom before Chris got home at 5:20. He normally doesn't get home until closer to 6:30, but on Tuesdays he tries to come home early.  

We went downstairs and fed the kids (it's always leftovers or frozen pizza on Tuesdays) and then Chris gave them their baths and got them dressed while I vacuumed and did some last minute straightening up.  We try to contain them until everyone gets here, so here they are playing in our closet. :) 

Our wonderful friends come over from 6:45-9ish.  We have babysitters upstairs with all the kids while the adults are downstairs.  Georgia Kate is still a little young to be up there with all the boys (she's the only girl!), so I put her to bed about 7:15.  After everyone leaves, it's off to bed for Reid.

  And that's what a typical Tuesday looks like at our house!

Happy New Year!

2014 was so good to us!  In a lot of ways it was a sweet and simple year.  That's the best kind.

We celebrated a wedding...

We celebrated birthdays...

We learned new things and had new experiences...

We celebrated holidays...

We welcomed some dear friends' new babies into the world… (there were others not pictured) :)

We visited some of our favorite places, some new places, and spent time with family…

But my very favorite moments are the ones that aren't always represented in pictures… all the moments in between.

We are usually New Years Eve at home people, but this year we are living life on the edge and going to some friends' house and my parents are keeping the kids!

I snapped these pictures before we dropped them off.

Happy New Year!

Update: Looks like Reid and Georgia Kate had fun ringing in the new year too! :)