It's beginning to look a lot like CHRISTMAS!!

It's been an adventure already! We went to put the tree up (way later than I would normally put the tree up) and the cords to the lights had gotten caught in the attic ladder and were all frayed. I didn't want to worry all season about a tree fire, so we tossed it and David and I went to Garden Ridge to find a new tree. And here is where the fun begins. David likes big, huge, full trees with colored lights. I like smaller trees I can wrangle myself (since we disagree on when decorations should go up), and white lights! Well, we "compromised" and got a huge fluffy tree with no lights, cause it was a lot cheaper than the one with lights. David thinks after Christmas he can spend some time wrapping the tree with lights (that were much cheaper to buy separately) and then pack it away with the lights on.  The only lights they had though, are white lights, so yay for me!

Whatevs, it's up and done and it looks pretty. We had our annual tradition of watching White Christmas with Danny Kaye and Bing Crosby while we pulled out the ornaments and laughed at all the ones the kids made when they were little, and talked about all the ones they pick out every year. Riley has a little collection of Navy ones going, that he wants in a clump.  Regan has a bunch of horse ornaments that all have to have a very important spot on the tree!

Oh, and we had to keep all the "good" ones up high, just in case Hunter decides to eat them. (side note, the lollipop at the bottom didn't make it one day, and sadly, neither did Baby Jesus in a nutshell that Regan made when she was 3!)

And you know who comes once the tree is up...

Annual Decorating of the Gingerbread!

Our Girl Scout troop has been doing this for years now, one of our leader's church hosts a Gingerbread House decorating event, and we've gone for 5 or 6 years. Our whole troop goes, and it's a nice fun family event. But, they made some changes this year and the houses were much smaller, and the icing was WAY runnier! And the kids just weren't as into it as before (growing up, they need to stop that!) So, Regan sat with her friends and they decorated their houses while Riley and David goofed off. It was still fun, but a little sad that it will be our last year to do it.

And Regan boxed her house up before I got a picture of it, and then it didn't quite make the ride home too well. It kind of tilted and some of the roof fell off. So, these are the only pictures I got.

Six Flags for Black Friday

I am SO anti-shopping on Black Friday. I don't care if other people do it, but I hate crowds, and there's nothing I need that badly!! I just don't feel it.

So instead, we headed off to Six Flags! It was great, no lines, and it's the "Holiday in the Park" so there was yummy cocoa. It didn't open until 4, so we had a lazy morning at home and then headed down to San Antonio, hit the rides the kids wanted to ride, had some cocoa, met Bugs Bunny, bought some capes, and headed home. We have season passes that we got last year, and this was our first time to use them. We are planning on using them again over Christmas break too. It's fun because it's not crowded!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had a great thanksgiving! David and the kids were off Wednesday, so David and I went grocery shopping to get all the food we needed, and checked out the new Costco. David smoked a practice turkey just for us Wednesday night, to make sure the wood wasn't wet, and it would taste okay! So Thursday morning, we didn't have much to do, smoke the second turkey and I made sweet potato casserole. We headed over to Pam and Dave's around 1, and they had a house full! We had 31 people there with all the aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. The kids had fun playing the Wii, and we had so much food.

It was fun to catch up with everyone and just spend time together. It wasn't a crazy busy holiday and we came home with a lot of yummy leftovers :)

And I didn't take one picture. Shame on me!

Mystery Meat Lunch and Progress Report

Regan's school was having a special "Thanksgiving" lunch for parents, so I went and met her, but "forgot" to order a lunch from the school! It didn't look like I missed out on too much either! But it was fun to sit there and talk with her and hear about her day.

The next day, I had a 504 meeting with her teachers and the school staff and it was a very good report. They re-evaluated her dyslexia and dysgraphia and she has shown so much improvement! They look for an 80 point increase in one program over a years time and Regan made over 180 point increase! They were all very nice and had wonderful things to say about Regan and her dedication to her education. She's doing so well in math and has really been getting into reading, and is on book 5 of a chapter book series, which is a big deal for her! She and I have been reading Harry Potter together in the evenings too, because she's been wanting to read them but I think the size of them has been a bit daunting. But I don't mind, it's probably my 5th time reading the books, I love to read and gladly read them to her!!

I'm just proud of her for sticking to it, and not getting discouraged, and making such huge improvements. She wants to be a vet so bad, loving reading and math will make that so much easier for her in the long run!

Riley's Wrestling Career Starts, Then Ends.

Now that football season is over, Riley decided to try wrestling. Practice has been in the evenings until the last varsity football game (this Friday, since Hendrickson made it to the playoffs, go Hawks!) so last night David was waiting to pick Riley up and he came out on crutches. Not good.

Riley was wrestling with another kid, and his leg got twisted around and he fell on it wrong and when he went to stand up, he heard a pop.  So this morning we brought him to the school for the trainer to look at his knee, and she said it looked like his MCL and meniscus. I made him an appointment with the Pediatric Ortho that Regan saw for her broken arms, and we got right in. They did some x-rays but didn't see anything.

So they think he has a sprained ankle, and a badly sprained MCL. They don't think anything is torn, but they want him to wear this brace for 2 weeks and see if he gains any movement. If it still hurts, they will do an MRI then. Until then, rest it, no sports, and take it easy. Which means no football or drills or PT. Down time is never easy for him, so this will be interesting!

Veteran's Day Parade/We Are Girls

It's been a bit of a "divide and conquer" weekend. One of our Girl Scout leaders had something come up, so they asked me to take her place at the "We Are Girls" Conference today. Riley had a fundraising hike for ROTC but he also had a parade for Sea Cadets, and he's color guard, so he really HAD to be there for the parade. We did raise money for ROTC, but he went to the parade. David met them out there so he could take pictures for me.

So Regan and I headed out with the troop bright and early this morning, and the keynote speaker was a young lady that was on the Olympic Boxing team. She was pretty inspiring, and it was neat to see a girl do so well in such a male dominated sport. Then we had several breakout sessions, but it was pretty unorganized and we weren't able to get into the sessions we really wanted, but overall, it wasn't too bad. We all got to wear our new troop shirts, and they were cute!

And then David went out to Cedar Park for the Parade and he said Riley did great. He look so dog-gone handsome in his dress blues! AND, I got to use my sewing machine again right before he left for drill, he got a 3 stripe instead of a 2 stripe (I don't know what that means except it's a rank up) so I got to sew the new patch on, and being a small sleeve, I think I did pretty good!

So we have about an hour of down time before we head off for our small group. We are now entering the "busy season" of our lives! From here till Christmas, it seems like it's just non-stop activities!

Regan's 'Role Model' she said, "My mom, she's nice, careing and loves me!" Aww!

Regan's Veteran's Day Ceremony

Regan's school has a special Veteran's Day Ceremony every year. She's in the choir so they sing a special song, "To Those Who Serve" (it's very good and always makes me tear up!) And then being a Girl Scout, she and the other Girl Scouts in her school present a wreath to the Veterans. It's a nice ceremony, and they invite the veterans to a reception afterward. Regan really wanted to invite her family veterans, but we have none that live close by! Riley's school ROTC Color Guard presented the colors (they had the girl's team this year!) so it was neat to see them there.

So here is Regan in choir (she's second from the left on the back row, hard to see her), and helping present the wreath.

Riley is 15. FIFTEEN!!

Riley just turned 15. I can hardly believe my baby bird is FIFTEEN! We are giving him the gift of Driver's Ed for his birthday, so he doesn't get a party or anything else really. But I did pick him up from school and took him to Chili's for lunch and we split that yummy dessert. He is done with football for now (after school football, he still has football class every day where they do tons of weight lifting and training) but now he will do wrestling, and that might be before school, we aren't sure on the schedule yet. Anyway, after wrestling practice, we met Mimi and Papa for dinner at Chuy's, where we decided to be nice and not have them come out and sing to him, and embarrass him! He's excited about starting Driver's Ed, and driving. I can't believe he's 15. I sometimes really miss the old days where the only thing he drove was his little 4 wheeler around Grandma and Grandpa's house, doing tricks on it, like laying on his stomach and pushing the gas pedal with his hands. Let's hope he doesn't try anything like that while he's driving my truck!

Happy Halloween!

Halloween costumes were a little rough this year. Regan isn't into the "little girl's" things or sizes anymore, but the women's and junior's sizes are WAY to provocative!! So, we had to really shop around to find one that she liked, and that I agreed to. The one she picked was WAY too short, but paired with black leggings, I figured it would pass. She really liked it, and was excited to be a "Zombie Bride". Riley decided about 2 days before Halloween that he wanted a horse head mask. Of course I couldn't find one anywhere and had to order it on Amazon, overnight (thank God for Amazon Prime!)

So, here's the little darlings on Halloween. Riley had a football game, so he got a late start. He only ended up going to a few houses, I think he just wanted to feel like a little kid again for one night. Regan went around with her friends while I stayed home and tried to keep Hunter from going crazy with all the doorbell rings. And I added a picture of Elise on her "first" Halloween! She had fun!

Destination America!

Regan's 5th grade had a special musical program, it was called Destination America. She was in a group that did a little song and dance, and it was cute. She has officially declared herself free of "stage fright." (I refused to believe that she ever had it). But, it was cute, Mimi and Papa came and then we went to dinner at Jason's Deli afterward. I'm trying to enjoy every little detail because it's really hitting me that this is my baby's last year in elementary school. Soon she will be in high school like Riley!

She's in the center, in a black v-neck with orange glasses on her head:

Safari Champ

Today my new Mom 2 Mom small group from church had a meet up at Safari Champ. It used to be called Jungle Java and I took the kids there all the time when they were younger. But now, everyone else in my small group has little kids but since it was a school holiday we all met up there so the kids could play. A couple of the kids are in Regan's 2 year old class that she works in on Sunday's, so she enjoyed playing with them. One little boy wanted her to carry him around the whole time, it was cute (and she did).

Regan had spent the night last night with Piper and Brooklyn, so I took them with us to play too. They all had fun, and we played for a few hours before coming home to a Minecraft marathon.

Regan still has a little bit of swelling, but she's starting to get a black eye. She's afraid her eyes are crooked now. 

(Riley had spent the night with his friend Yash on Sunday night too, so David and I had a church thing to do, and after that we went to see Gravity in 3D at this really cool theater that has motion seats. He hated the movie, but I loved it, but more than that, I loved the seats! They move you around so you felt like you were floating in space when they were floating in the movie, or when there was debris flying around, the seats vibrated, and made you feel like you were getting hit too. It was so cool.)

County Line

With Austin City Limits Festival in town, there's not much to do in Austin on the weekend that isn't super crowded and full of hipsters. So, we were at a loss as to what to do to get out of the house that wouldn't hurt Regan's head, and wouldn't get us stuck in a crazy crowd.

So we took Riley to Camp Mabry for his military approved haircut. Then we decided to have some BBQ and since we were semi close, and the kids had never been, we took them to County Line. We hadn't been since Riley was 1 month old and Walt and Linda were in town! (It looks the same by the way).  The kids loved it, I think Riley ate his weight in ribs and then we went out back and fed the turtles.  It's so pretty there, and the homemade ice cream was pretty good, too!

The Dangers of Trampolines

I had a Groupon for a Trampoline Park, so we took the kids for some Friday night, pre-long weekend fun. Well, that backfired. We weren't there one hour before Riley decided to brush up on his gymnastics spinning back flip skills and Regan got a shin to the forehead. She came over crying with her hand on her head, and David says, "It can't be that bad, there's no blood." Then she removed her hand and David said, "Oh my God!" there was a knot the size of a grapefruit on her forehead, that thing was huge! She was crying and I know it hurt, so I got her an ice pack and we went to sit in the car for a bit, then decided to have David bring us home, the lights and sounds were bothering her. I was afraid of a concussion but she wasn't nauseous or dizzy so we just laid around for a while and I gave her ibuprofen. She was very concerned about the swelling not going down by Tuesday for school, but I told her I would get her a Klingon costume for Halloween and she would be fine! (She doesn't know what that is, or she probably would have hit me). This was her before the bump, looking cute in her kitty ears (that she tells people are really wolf ears).

National Night Out

Our HOA hosted a Pool Party/Fish Fry for National Night Out. I took Piper and Brooklyn and the kids and headed up there. The water was cold, but you know my kids, they are fish and did NOT care! There was a lifeflight helicopter there for the kids to look in, a fire truck came by, they had fried catfish and french fries and chips and cookies. Hey, I didn't have to cook, and got to lounge by the pool, it was a great night for me!