December 2016

Another year is over...wow time goes fast.  As promised here's two of my favorite shots from our Christmas card photo shoot.  So thankful for all my mom's hard work.

December is always a crazy busy month with church Christmas programs, parties, birthdays, and Christmas! But it was fun and I'm thankful for the time I got to spend with family and friends. The month started off with the kid's choir program.  The musical this year was Candy Cane Lane, a super cute story.  Hannah really enjoyed the music and the picked a craft class this semester which she LOVED.  The preschool choir actually joined the big kids on 3 songs this year so Abigail got to participate too.  All the preschoolers wore Christmas jammies....so adorable!! (Photo credit goes to Jack Hess)

The adult choir and orchestra did a program as well.  Hannah's choir sang a few songs and Nathan and I played in the orchestra.  It was a really good program.  No pictures of us playing, but here's good one of Hannah singing. (Photo credit goes to Jack Hess)

Abigail and I got to help at Hananh's Christmas party at school again this year.  I'm so thankful that I have the opportunity to volunteer.

Hannah's best friend in kindergarten was Mikayla and she was so sad that she moved about an hour away over the summer.  The girls have kept in touch on Facebook and mailing pictures.  Mikayla's mom contacted me a few days before Christmas to say that she was renting some reindeer to come to her house for a little while on Christmas Eve.  She wanted to invite us to come and see them.  The girls were so excited to see Mikayla and the meet reindeer.  The reindeer were so sweet and gentle.  Such a fun experience!!

Both girls got a doll as their big Christmas gift this year.  Hannah has taken really good care of Emily that she got last year and plays with her all the time.  So we decided she was ready for a real American Girl doll.  We really debated about getting one of the current ones or searching for an old discontinued one. In the end my mom ended up buying an original Molly off e-bay.  We had to do some work on her hair, but overall she was in really good condition.  And i think it's cool she's been loved and played with before.   Abigail will often play with Hannah's doll Emily while Hannah is a school.  So my sister got her a cheaper Target doll.  The girls were SO excited and have not stopped playing with their dolls.  They've dragged them all over the house.  It's so much fun to watch them play!

We still have another week of vacation before Hannah goes back to school.  We're going to look at Christmas lights one night, and maybe have a play date.  Otherwise we plan to hang out at home and relax.

Hannah is SEVEN

How can this sweet girl be SEVEN!!!  Hannah has the sweetest, tender heart.  She is kind, caring, and helpful, as well as creative and funny!

We had so much fun with her birthday theme this year.  We saw a booth at my sister's Halloween carnival that had painted paper plates and wrapped paper towels in tissue paper and then covered them all with cellophane.  Super cute and not to hard or expensive to make.  The most challenging part was attaching them to the wall without wrecking the paint.  Love all the bright colors.  And Hannah said this was the best photo shoot ever because she actually got to taste the real candy sucker...LOL!

This is always a crazy time of year so we didn't get to do our celebration with cake until the weekend after Hannah's birthday.  My sister's friend made the cake again this year.  SO CUTE!!

Happy Birthday my sweet sweet girl!!!

November 2016

This month was busy!  As a bonus...it finally decided to cool off in Texas so we got to enjoy some outdoor activities without melting.  =)  No really good pictures from my mom this month either.  Next month there will be some.

A local church adopted Hannah's school and they put on a carnival at the beginning of the month.  I have zero pictures, but we had lots of fun.  The girls enjoyed hot dogs, lots of games, and both won a small stuffed animal.  We had a great time and are very thankful for all the church volunteers.

We've spent most of our weekends at the park or riding bikes at the school.  So thankful for the cooler weather.

Hannah had the whole week of Thanksgiving off school so take took off work too.  We usually spend our "stay-cations" hangout out at home and playing.  This year we packed in lots of family activities.  It was busy, but so much fun.  I love spending time together at home but it was nice to make lots of fun family memories.

We started off the week by going to the zoo.  Trying to get a few more visits in before our membership expires in the spring.  The weather was perfect and it wasn't crowded.  We rode the monorail, watched the young mandrill and chimp jumping and playing.  And we got to see the zoo's new baby elephant.  So cute!!

We did our annual Christmas card photo session with my mom and got several really cute photos.  And she got them edited quickly so I was able to take advantage of a sale on cards.  They are ordered and already on their way to my house.  Yeah me!!!  I will post my favs in next month's update.  We spent Thanksgiving day with my parents and sister.  The girls got to play at the school playground and take a walk to the college to feed turtles in addition to eating yummy food.  We had a nice relaxing day together.

Friday we had a friend's birthday party in the morning at a bounce house place.  There was hardly anyone else there, it was nice to have the place to ourselves.  Then we grabbed a quick lunch and headed to Six Flags for Holiday in the Park.  We hoped that most people would be shopping and were glad to find that must have been the case.  There were WAY less people there than normal.  We had lots of fun and even got to do the Frosty Snowhill which was cool. They cover a hill with real snow and give you sleds to slide down on.  It was really fun.  There was Christmas music playing all day long and tons of beautiful lights.  It was a great day.

While we were at Six Flags, my friend Jamie texted me that her neighbor had won 4 ticket vouchers to Disney on Ice.  Jamies's dad had already bought them tickets so she wanted to know if we wanted them.  I sent Nathan to the box office as soon as they opened on Saturday to exchange our tickets. There were 3 show times left that worked with our schedule and thankfully we were able to get our first choice.  The show was truly amazing!  They girls were enthralled and Nathan and I enjoyed too.  Such a fun opportunity!!  They encouraged kids to come dressed in costume so we pulled out our dress up box and went as Princess Elsa and Princess Tiana.

October 2016

I swear time keeps moving faster each month.  Totally CRAZY!!

After taking the girls to the water park over the summer, Nathan and I started talking about taking them to Six Flags.  We looked into ticket prices and they were nuts.  Then we saw the Labor Day sale on season passes.  We're not going to renew our zoo membership this year because we only have so much time to go do things.  We'll see how it goes and re-evaluate next September.  We did our first Six Flags visit at the beginning of the month.  There were a few tears, we had to force the girls on a few rides, we learned a little about which lines to avoid....but overall it was a fun day.  We mostly hung out in Loony Tune land, but that was the plan.  Here's just few pictures I took with my phone.

The city of Plano had a Family Safety event one weekend.  It was free and the weather was nice so we decided to check it out.  We had fun and will go back next year if they do it again.

 posing with the Plano East high school mascot

going up in the observation tower 

My mom and I started talking about and planning Halloween costumes over the summer.  We often like to DIY and we wanted to give ourselves plenty of time.  We saw this adorable idea on Pinterest http://www.thehairbowcompany.com/minion-costume.html and decided to copy.  Then because Nathan and I also enjoy dressing up we decided to go with the Despicable Me theme.  Nathan's aunt graciously agreed to make Nathan a scarf and I set about finding pieces for my costume.  Thank you Amazon for the orange wig and sunglasses.  Then I found the dress on sale at NY&Co.  It's so cute I have worn it alone as just a dress.  =)

 minions are silly

Even Hannah's doll got a costume

We tried to hit as many Fall Festivals as we could so we could get lots of use out of the costumes.  We managed 3 this year and then I took the girls around the block last tonight while Nathan is at BSF.

We also took the girls to the Arboretum for pictures in the pumpkins.  We were disappointed that they only had pumpkins in the designated Pumpkin Village and not everywhere in the park like in years past.  But we still had a fun.  

September 2016

I really don't know where this month went.  I swear it was just Labor Day like 3 days ago.  I don't even really know what we did.  All our church activities officially kicked off: MOP, Bible Study, choir, Tiny Tots music class.

School is going well, Hannah LOVES it!  She has a super sweet teacher and is really enjoying 1st grade.  Part of her homework each week is to rhyme her spelling words and Abigail enjoys helping with that.  =)  And she tells everyone who will listen that she can't wait to start kindergarten next year. Love that both my girls like to learn.

Only 1 real photo from my mom this month.  Again I know we were busy, but I really can't remember anything specific other than a trip to the zoo.

Sweet girl reading!

Teaching her own "Tiny Tot's" Music class

Sweet girls walking in to school together.  Ava isn't in Hannah's class this year, so they get excited when they run into each other in the morning.  Her mom and I good friends so they will definitely stay friends.  =)

Last week Abigail wore some of her dress up jewelry to Grammy's house.  And she brought a stuffed giraffe that was given to Nathan many years ago when he was sick in the hospital.  It normally sits on a high shelf in her room, but every so often it comes down to play with.

Abigail and Rutabega Jane (the giraffe)

Hopefully next month's post will be more interesting.  I plan on "springing" Hannah from school early one Friday afternoon so we can go with Grammy to Arboretum to see the pumpkins.  That means more really pictures too.  =)

August 2016

Where oh where did summer go?  I really feel like school just got out a week ago.  It does however still feel like summer outside.  It won't cool off until October.  =P

We drove up to Arkansas to visit Nathan's family one last time before school started.  We had a great visit.  The girls are so good in the car and loved listening to me read Ramona the Pest.

We did lots of swimming.  It took LOTS and LOTS of coaxing, but we finally got Abigail to jump off the side and even the board.  We also met several friends at a local splash park.

Our biggest water adventure was a trip to NRH2O.  My sister takes her students there in the spring for an end of year trip/festival.  As a perk they give all the orchestra directors 4 free tickets to use anytime that summer.  Kara was nice enough to share her tickets with us.  Both girls are very cautious so we weren't really sure if they would enjoy it or do any rides.  We had a great time and ended up doing lots of things.  We did have to shove Abigail down a few slide though.  =)  It was lots of fun!

Earlier this summer I bought the girls adorable coordinating dresses off Zulily.  I really wanted my mom to take pictures of them.  So we headed to the college for a mini photo shoot.  It was SO SO HOT!!  We were dripping in sweat by the time we finished.  But the girls were very cooperative and we got lots of really cute shots.  I absolutely LOVE them all, but I'm only going to share a few here.

Hannah lost yet another tooth.  It was super wiggly but Daddy wasn't able to get it out yet.  We went to the dentist and it fell out while they were cleaning her teeth.  So funny!  Now she truly looks like a 1st grader with no front teeth.

And just like that it was time to start school.  Can not believe my sweet girl is in 1st grade.  She was so excited to start school and walked in with a big smile on her face.  Hannah loves her teacher already and has had a great first week.  It's going to be a fantastic year!  We cheated again and took our pictures BEFORE school stated and not on the first day.  This is so the way to go, no crowd, not in anyone's way.  YEAH!

July 2016

Lots of family fun on the 4th of July.  We started off at the Plano Lions Club Parade.  It's short and cheesy, but the girls think it's fun.  This was our third year so now it's a tradition.  Then we headed to Grammy's house where we made fireworks pictures (thank you Pinterest), went swimming, played, and ate dinner.

Last year I had Nathan scout out locations close to our house that we could watch the city of Plano fireworks....without having to go to the actual event and get stuck in traffic.  Luckily the church at the edge of our neighborhood has a decent vantage point and a large parking lot.  So we let the girls stay up late to watch this year. We watched a movie while we waited until it was time to go.  We all enjoyed the fireworks show, we could see about 90%...not bad.  And some storms rolled through that morning that cooled things off so it was actually kind of pleasant outside.

Hannah also lost her 3rd tooth at dinner that night (4th of July). We were eating and she said "Mommy there is something in my food I don't want to eat."  Then looked and realized it was a tooth.  Still not used to the snaggle tooth smile, but LOVE this picture Grammy took.

A few swimming pictures finally!  =)

Other fun activities this month include playing at the splash park, play dates with friends, and playing Pokemon Go with Daddy.  Yes we jumped in on the mania.  Daddy has been playing the nerd precursor version of the game (called Ingress) for almost 4 years.  Pokemon is more kid friendly and Daddy's previous knowledge helps us find Poke Stops.

Splash Park Fun

Play date w/ my college roommate and her kiddos visiting from San Antonio.  This is the 4th summer we've gotten together.  So fun!

Looking for Pokemon on Daddy's phone

Hannah started piano lessons at the end of last month, totally forgot to write about that last time.  There was MUCH debate as to whether Grammy would be her teacher.  In the end we decided to try it for a year and if it was awful then we'd look for a new teacher next summer.  So far it's going really well.  Hannah was totally ready to start, she does great in her lessons, and we've only have a few arguments about practice. LOL!  Here's a picture of her very first lessons.

Grammy bought a toy (but playable) pink guitar online a LONG time ago.  She envisioned it being a really cute photography prop.  It's hard to tune so we put in a closet and kind of forgot about it.  Hannah asks me about it from time to time, but never while we are at Grammy's house.  She finally remembered one day and she happily agreed to be the subject of Grammy's photos.  We got several cute ones, but I'm only sharing one here.  Love how she looks like a little hippie folk singer in her peasant top.  =)