The Holidays!
The holidays have finally slowed down just enough for me to get all caught up here. :)
It’s been a busy month! Everything kicked off with the 3 Thanksgivings we get to celebrate! First was one in Blanco with Josh’s Mom, then one in Valdina with Josh’s Uncle, and then we hosted one here at home for my family. I love Thanksgiving, so getting to celebrate it 3 times sounds great to me. :) I didn’t get any photos in Blanco, but we rode around Valdina for a while with the kids and got some.
The kids love this ranch.
Then back at our house…
Jenny tried very hard to give the kids their Christmas present from last year. lol. It was sort of a shared gift where they would unwrap items and I think get whatever came out of the big ball next. But that concept seemed to be lost on my kids.
I think she eventually got to the point that she just handed them what was next….but then they proceeded to barter among themselves to get what they really wanted.
In the end, everyone was happy.
Temporary tattoos were in the ball of goodies. She had to have this on her forehead.
This puzzle is still sitting unfinished on my table… Maybe I’ll work on it this evening.
It was awesome getting to see everyone for Thanksgiving!
The next weekend I took Anna and Wallace to Canton to do some camping and shopping. I don’t quite trust Meredith just yet to not just throw big fits all day long, so she got to go live it up with Big Mama and her cousins since the State Park is pretty close by.
Wallace spent most of his money on tractors, trailers, cement mixers…
When everyone else went shopping for a second day, Wallace and I went for a very long hike. And then I got him this little bald eagle miniature flego kit from the Park store thinking it would keep him entertained for a few hours…but it was ridiculously challenging to put together. It quickly became my project, and I didn’t get to sit and chill and read my new cookbook I’d bought myself as I had envisioned. We finally finished the eagle after we got home.
The next weekend, Hunter and Wind came back to my house to help us out with a new little pet we were planning to get. Wallace asked for a lizard this past summer after he caught one in the back yard. We weren’t really prepared to keep a lizard alive, so we had to let that one go, but then Josh told him we would get him a lizard at some point. Wallace has a memory like an elephant. He never let us forget that promise, so I went ahead and started researching reptiles. I settled on a bearded dragon. They are becoming pretty darn popular, and there’s a lot of information out there on how to care for them. So, we made a plan to get one at the reptile show when it came to town.
Meet Harvey! He’s a little older than a baby and loves to eat his weight in live roaches, crickets, and fly larva. Having this little guy around has been like my own personal episode of fear factor. I’m getting to where handling the bugs aren’t bothering me nearly as much (I use tweezers to mess with them). I quickly discovered that I surprisingly prefer the roaches (as does Harvey), we aren’t going to be keeping live crickets around (too stinky and noisy), and I think I might just start my own roach colony because you’d be surprised what people charge for these special little roaches.
He’s growing pretty fast; he’s already shed his skin once!
Then came the Christmas plays and presentations at school.
I made the mistake of putting antlers on him with bells. He stood there and just shook his head for quite a bit of presentation.
Meredith’s presentation was adorable as well, but I struggled to get good photos. It’s like a mad dash to get up to the front and elbow your way in front of other parents…and then realize you left your long lens on… So I got these super close up photos of her. Oh well.
And then it was finally time for the ski trip with Josh’s family. The kids have been so excited about this since we told them about it a couple of months ago. I wasn’t able to get any photos on the slopes because it was snowing so much, but I took some around the cabins we were staying in.
We let them play on a frozen river like crazy people.
They got the biggest kick out of all the ice.
We were on the trip over Christmas day, so Anna sent Santa 2 different letters letting him know where we’d be.
Wallace has been on this Titanic kick for a while now.
You would not believe how long the battery charge lasted on this microphone. Meredith was so excited that Santa got this one right.
She pretty much played with it non-stop.
Anna rode and rode this hover board around that tiny living room every day. I think she’s pretty much mastered it.
The kids got to spend lots of time with their cousins!
Anna won the cookie decorating contest this year! Meredith is still working on being happy for others’ good fortunes… lol
The best part was that it actually snowed this year! And snowed a lot! The kids got in some great skiing and snowboarding lessons, and they got to sledding quite a bit as well.
On the way to Colorado, we drove through Roswell and stopped at the alien museum, but on the way home we visited a prairie dog town in Lubbock! The kids went crazy over it! They are just the most adorable little creatures.
The funny thing is, you don’t even need to go to the park to see the prairie dogs. They appear to literally be all over the town! Once we knew what to look for we saw them for miles as we drove along the highway.
We drove straight through on the way home yesterday, and slept in this morning. And now I’ve got a couple of days off before I go back to work. Just enough time to relax and get started on my roach colony. :)