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. :)

Just a little more soccer

This girl finally decided to play a little soccer!!!!  For the last 3 games.  We literally got to the point where I would ask her to just give me a good warm-up.  “Meredith…just warm-up with your team.  Please…  Will you just give me a good warm-up?”  Haha!  She was willing to do just that, but then they decided to use her ball as the game ball, so I asked her if she’d like to go kick off, and she did!  She’d play for about 1 to 2 minutes at a time, and then just run off the field when she decided she was done. 

The next game, she was a little less enthusiastic about warm-up, but she still did it after some coaxing.  And then she played a little in the game again and actually scored a goal!!!  She’s so big that when she decides to play she really has a presence on the field and can be effective. 

And in her last game, she warmed up great, and played a little in all 4 quarters!  And she scored another goal, and I caught it on video!  I noticed she was more likely to go and play if I was recording with my phone, and then she’d watch herself on instant replay. 

And boy was she pumped about her trophy! I’d say she actually earned her participation trophy this time. :)

Halloween

Since Halloween fell on a Wednesday this year I think I’m okay with posting about it a few days late, especially since squarespace was being a bit finicky when I first tried typing this up.

This year I decided to try making their costumes again. Anna quickly decided she wanted to be a peacock after glancing through the Chasing Fireflies catalog. Although I managed to come in cheaper by making it myself, this costume seriously had me stressed out since the beginning of September. We couldn’t decide on feathers up or feathers down…end the end we ended up going with the anatomically incorrect feathers both ways.

She doesn’t look super thrilled here, but she’d honestly been on an emotional roller coaster that afternoon. We trick or treat at my Mom’s and she was certain I’d left her tights at home. She called me hysterical about it, begging me to stop and get more on my way there from work. And then 5 minutes later my Mom found them. It was intense. So…she didn’t have much emotion left to give to get into character. She pulled it together in time for trick or treating though.

Meredith had pity on me and almost immediately said she wanted to be a witch. I decided it was just going to be a tutu kind of Halloween, and her costume was pretty much finished in about 2 hours. So glad my sister had this hat laying around. I was struggling to figure out just how to make one.

It wasn’t supposed to be a kitty cat witch costume, but her teachers painted her face at school that afternoon. As if she was about to let me wipe that awesomeness off.

And when Wallace told me he wanted to be an astronaut my heart just sank.  How the heck was I going to pull that off?  I showed him some of the ideas on pinterest, and the only one he really liked was a cardboard space shuttle that he could wear, similar to his bulldozer from last year.  And then one day he just up and changed his mind and said he wanted to be the bulldozer again (probably because he knew about how hideous his astronaut costume was likely to turn out)!  I was so excited.  I just needed to make a couple of repairs from trick or treating last year!  We were all set.  And then at the last minute all of these boxes started arriving with pieces of the astronaut costume he’d wanted so badly.  Josh secretly got it for him, which was very sweet.  Wallace LOVED being an awesome astronaut.  At one point he told me it was “the best costume ever.”  If he still fits in it, he will likely want to wear it again next year. 

Josh got him this cool little laser gun that makes all sorts of noise and lights up so he could fight aliens… I left it in my Mom’s truck when I dropped Meredith off at her house that morning so it’d be there when she picked him up from school on Halloween, and he pretty much drove her crazy all the way home. Oops!

We carved pumpkins the weekend before Halloween on the 21st, which was apparently too early. Wallace’s literally melted! It was crazy! The girls’ both hung in there and still looked good on Halloween though. Lesson learned.

Since it was raining cats and dogs on Halloween, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to get outdoor photos of the kids (it let up just in time), so I took some inside while we waited and fretted about the weather. Well….my fancy flash that can bounce light around a room has been broken for months, so I had to use the on camera direct flash…. I just love how these photos look like they were taken with a 90’s disposable point and shoot! I’ve got photos of me and my sisters that look almost identical to this! Lol

Soccer Saturdays

Oh my goodness…I’ve posted nothing since August. Well…nothing much is new. School started and so the kids’ sports have started as well. So, that’s pretty much what we do now. I’m super excited that we appear to have gotten into a nice groove with all three kids where we see familiar faces on each of their soccer teams each season. Anna’s is a little different this season. She’s on her first all-girl team, but 5 of them are in 3rd grade together at her school! Unfortunately, there weren’t enough 8-year-old girls to make a team at their level, so they’ve all been moved up and play against older girls every week. :( So, they are getting their butts kicked. But fortunately Anna’s taking it in stride and appears to be having a good time.

Look at that girl behind her….she’s probably 12! grrrrr.

I don’t think I’m going to get too many more pics of Anna playing soccer this season….she’s on a full-sized field now, and I don’t have a long enough lens for it. She just happened to be playing close to where I was sitting for this first game.

Meredith so far this season appears to feel about the same towards soccer as she has for a while now. I don’t know why we keep signing her up… Before she started playing soccer I just knew this girl was going to be a natural athlete. Lol. She had more fun playing around on the sidelines with her buddy than playing soccer today.

He actually ended up getting in trouble for this… “/

Meredith comforted him. Poor guy.

And Wallace seems to be holding his focus longer this season than he ever has been able too! It’s been downright exciting!

Look at him go!!! He actually ended up scoring on this drive! :)

All these action shots of Wallace!!!

But….he still has his moments. :)

So…we’re in it right now. The long monotony of school, sports, and all that other awesome stuff! It’s busy, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. :)

Bolivar

We managed to make it out to Bolivar again this summer.  :)  My favorite beach.  And, I guess I'll say it again like I do every year...I know it's not the prettiest beach, but it's the beach I grew up going to, so it will always hold a special place in my heart.  I just love this place, and I love the time spent with family.  This year's fun activities included the usual ferry rides, big slide, Rain Forest Cafe, and beach time, but we added to it mudding (we might not keep this one on the list of annual activities), crabbing, kayaks, perler beads, and a new baby!  I also let Anna shop for souvenirs at the Big Store for the first time.  On the whole, I think this was one of our best trips yet.  I love this standing vacation, and I can't thank my Mom enough for making it happen.

Our first walk out to the beach. It doesn't matter how early my Mom and I leave home, we can never manage to make it to the beach before about 6:00pm. This time I blame the hour and half ferry line. It also took a couple of hours in the grocery store... Oh well. Good thing we stay for a week.

I explicitly said "don't get in the water." Next time we'll just wear our swimsuits for the car ride.

He was so glad to finally be at the beach.

We spent the next day playing in the sand and the water.

He talked about wanting to the buried in the sand for weeks before the trip. So, this was literally the first thing we did.

Carson worked hard on giving everyone fish tail designs in the sand.

Wallace was a trend setter. Everyone ended up getting buried in the sand this year. Lol.

Jenny brought her kayaks, which this was the perfect year for. We had like 5 days of very calm water.

I'm so glad Carson and Hannah got to come along this year. We kept finding them in my mom's giant bathroom at the beach house doing their nails with Anna. Haha. It was adorable.

The new baby in the family is Bristol! She's got some sass! And she kept us all cracking up with her insatiable appetite and random words. It was nice having a little baby around again...even if my kids did try to give her a black eye and fat lip... My kids don't really know what to do with a baby anymore, so they assume she's as durable as a big kid. "/

So, like I said...we went crabbing this year.  I remember doing this at least a couple of times with my parents and sisters when I was little.  I recall getting sooooo excited when I'd pull up a crab, and it seemed so easy.  Much easier than fishing, which I've just never really gotten the hang of.  Plus, my Mom always followed it up by making stuffed crab, which was just super awesome!  Anyway, I've been talking about doing this again for the past couple of years, but I finally just started buying stuff to make it happen this year.  I'd considered getting the nets on Amazon, but I'm glad I didn't.  Shockingly, they appear to be the only item you can purchase on Bolivar Peninsula for a fraction of what it costs online.  Well...nets and chicken necks.  They are well stocked on chicken necks at the Big Store.  Haha.  

We tried crabbing at Rollover Pass to start, but it was just such a bust. We were staring right into the sun, and all we were catching were hermit crabs.

Wait!  Hold the phone!  I totally forgot to talk about the actual first place we tried to go to.  It'd been so long since we crabbed that we literally had no idea where to go.  So, we started off by just looking for any old street to take us to the bay side of the island.  What a mistake.  The first one we went down was apparently what people at work like to call a "paper street".  As in it only exists on paper!  It was just a big wetland.  And, like an idiot I just kept driving and driving down it thinking a street or some gravel would just materialize at some point.  I've never used my 4-wheel-drive as much as I did that day!  I can't believe none of us got stuck, I was leading a 3-car caravan!  Jenny was the only smart one who didn't just take off driving into the wetland.  We finally found an old foundation for I guess an old house that had blown away in a hurricane (probably with the road) and used it to turn around.  The only thing remaining on that foundation was an old toilet, which Meredith saw and immediately decided she needed to go pee in it.  She was so mad at me for not letting her.  I didn't get any photos of this particular excursion.  I was just freaking out thinking we'd be trying to call a tow truck or maybe a boat to get us out of there at any minute.  Lol.  Like I said...we won't be repeating that one next year.  But, my kids were literally talking about the "potty street" today, almost 3 weeks later!

Anyway, back to the crabbing...

As I was saying...Rollover Pass was HOT!

Meredith had had it within about 5 minutes and went and sat in the car. Still mad at me about the toilet I'm sure...

So, after about half an hour, we gave up and looked for a new spot. 

We found this great little pier at the end of a real street, and it was perfect.

There were frequent barges, and it was cool to watch the water rise and fall around us when they'd go by.

Dallas caught the first blue crab, but it was way too tiny. We were super pumped he caught something other than a hermit crab though!

Wallace actually caught the first keeper! And we were all shocked and excited! Just like I remember from when I was a kid! I was literally jumping up and down screaming for a bucket. I know he looks all calm, but Wallace was just bursting with excitement over the whole thing. He still talks about catching the first crab, and then the biggest one too.

So, Josh had to work this year and wasn't able to make it on the trip, and I think honestly the crabbing was probably the hardest thing for him to miss.  I sent him a photo of Wallace as soon as he caught that first crab, and he quickly called back to facetime with Wallace and have him tell him all about it.  And he kept telling me to take them back to keep crabbing for the rest of the week.  Lol.  If he's able to make it next year, I think this is one event he will definitely want to be a part of.

Crabbing is so easy! And this location was soooo much nicer.

Anna and Hannah had some bum luck. Everyone else managed to catch a few crabs, but these two only caught a fish. What a stupid fish too...How the heck did it get hauled up in a little crab net?

Anna was so pissed about not catching any crabs that we ended up going back the next morning to try again.

Barge traffic... So cool to see it all up close.

Even Meredith got into the crabbing! Little miss sit-in-the-car.

Hannah managed to catch one crab the next morning, and that was it. Anna had a tough run-in with some oyster shells. "/ Maybe crabbing isn't for her after all. Oh well...better luck next year.

Oh, and I when I say we were catching hermit crabs...they were no joke! Hermit crabs on the bay side are HUGE!

So, we all enjoyed some stuffed Sebastian that night, and we all got to help out with it in some way.  It was great!  People...take your kids crabbing!  

Anyway, that was our last day with Hannah and Carson, and we'd tried cramming in all of the non-beachy stuff while they were with us, so we just spent the next few days bumming around in the sun. 

Meredith is ALWAYS posing these days.

Anna made the prettiest sand castle. It was tiny, but her use of shells put it on top.

The wind picked up and the water got a little more rough. Lol

Like I said. She's posing a lot. I have sooooo many photos of Meredith from this trip.

Meredith actually took this one! I didn't trust her with the camera for long. She kept acting like she was about to put her super sandy sunblock soaked fingers on the lens!

Wallace took a few trucks with the expressed purpose of playing with them in the water...which he did for hours.

We built him a little ramp. It was great.

There was a golf-cart parade. Bolivar is a bit different than when I was a kid. In the 80's and 90's there were just TONS of cars driving up and down the beach (in my head it seemed like it was just bumper to bumper all day long) in the "zoo". But Ike wiped all that away. Haha. Now it's perfect.

We weren't expecting the parade...In fact, I'm not sure how much of it may have passed us before we realized it was happening. You know...no marching band or fire trucks...and golf carts aren't that loud...

Anna figured out she'd get more beads if she hid her stash behind her.

Not bad, huh!

And, Hunter and Wind made it down for the last night. Which was good too because they pretty much Jenga'd everything back into my car for me.

So, the beach trip is a keeper.  :)  I can't wait to go back next year.  And I know at least three little kids who can't wait either.