It's hard to find time to sit down and blog. I'm less likely to do it when I have a bunch of pictures to upload:)
Friday, we had such a fun day. We ran to the grocery quickly to get four things. I went to the grocery on Thursday with a list, but forgot four important things, b/c my sweet Brady was being bad (or raising hell!). I got flustered and forgot a few things. Friday was cold!!!! And, snowy. Then, mid-morning Rebecca, Averie, and Mr. Lincoln came over to hang out. We hadn't seen them in way too long!!! Averie and Morgan were stoked to see each other, and played perfectly. And, I got to cuddle with Lincoln and catch up with Rebecca! We love you guys so much and are so glad to call you friends! After Matt came home we all headed to take dinner to Ryan, Brianne, Mikaela and new Mr. Mason! Brianne had Mason on Thanksgiving morning and both are happy and healthy (Brianne had the blood clot.). How thankful and blessed to have them in our lives and that the birth went great! Mason is so tiny!!!! With a full head of dark hair. Then, it was off to PF Chang's for dinner with Nana and Papa Gene to celebrate Matt's 32nd Birthday!!! We had tons of fun! Thanks for helping us celebrate! Morgan and Brady couldn't get enough of their Nana! It had almost been a month since she saw them!
Morgan taking pictures!
Love Brady's chocolate face!
Saturday was Matt's actual birthday. Morgan went in to wake up Daddy and said to him, "Dad, it's your birthday...I'll go back to bed!" Ha!!!! We've trained her well! She then wanted to make him a card :) Awww. All day we hung out at home, watched football, cleaned, etc. Then, at 5 PM was Morgan's first dance recital!!! Nana and Papa Gene came and our neighbor, Lynne! Morgan did great! They were all so pretty and cute! Then, Nana and Papa Gene took the kids to McDonald's and Matt and I headed to Matt's company Christmas party. There was a fun white elephant exchange, and we had the TX game on. Wow it was a nail bitter!!! A win is a win, though! National Championship here we come!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Our neighbor Ralph, put a 'Go Big Red' sign in our yard! I just love that he feels good enough to joke with us! We put a 'Hook'em Horns' sign on it:)
Love it!!!
Sara: This is what we did with the terrible towel that Jeff sent us!!!! It's a yellow Bronco towel now!
Morgan's teacher Hilary
Matt and I at his Christmas party.
Barbara opened Matt's rocker wig! It was hilarious!
Sunday Matt was a little hung over! Ha! Why would I make note of this? Well, Matt rarely ever has too much to drink. He's such a fun, life of the party, kind of drunk guy. He was fun! And, I was happy to see him let loose! I feel like everyone should let loose every now and then. Makes life more interesting! So, with that said, we started slowly on Sunday. It's not hard to start slowly when it's so darn cold and snowy outside too. We have gotten snow storm after snow storm :( We haven't had a chance to thaw out in between either. So, we have A LOT of snow! Actually, I think this is the most snow I've ever seen. Crazy. I wouldn't say I like it yet, but I'm trying to tolerate it:) With a good attitude:) Sunday at 1PM I invited a few friends and family for cake and ice cream for Matt's birthday! I made my second cake ever from scratch. A strawberry cake, Matt's favorite. It turned out good! Yippee! I just need to tweak a few things for this altitude and then I can call myself a baker. Sunday night we headed over to Matt's cousin's house, Lisa and Peter. They just adopted a precious baby boy, Ashton. He is cute! Babies, babies, babies all around! It makes Brady look and feel like a Haas! Brady is so interested in all these babies! He's really quite gentle with them, surprisingly.
The barrel Man died:(
Monday when Brady went down for a morning nap, Morgan and I worked on our annual gingerbread house! Trying to be less type A, I let Morgan do most of it. I put the walls up and then the rest was her! The house stayed up for about five minutes, and then started slowly collapsing. Morgan was happy as can be to be able to eat the candy (the candy on the kits tastes terrible!!!). It was fun, though! Monday night Morgan had her Christmas program at her preschool. I just love seeing all the kids dressed up for Christmas and singing! Nana came to watch! Thanks Nana! We've kept you busy this week! Afterward, they have a cookie party, and of course Morgan ate five or so cookies and was difficult to get to wind down.
Lots of things keeping us busy right now. Our Christmas cards are done and if you haven't gotten it, it's on it's way! I love this time of year! It's so fun with Morgan and Brady. I'm so thankful and blessed to share it with my sweet family. We stay busy, but not too busy, and are truly having a blast all along the way!
Sunday we got home so early that we had most of the day to decorate. Brady broke two ornaments before they even made it on the tree. So, I contemplated not even putting on ornaments for my own sanity, but I did. He's actually been fine since the ornaments went up. The lifesaver has been all the stuffed animals that make noise and sing, and the fisher price nativity scene. Zart, The Elf on the Shelf, is back!!!! We love Zart! He's so much fun! Thanks again, Auntie Sarah, for a wonderful gift/tradition! Morgan looks for him every morning. Matt got the outside lights done and they look great! But the most lights/Griswald award goes to my friend, Harris' house! www.teamcross.typepad.com You might have to scroll down a bit, but it's awesome! You guys rock, Crosses!
Here's some pictures of our Christmas decorations:
Getting back to the routine has been difficult, b/c now that my kids are well, I have tons of head congestion. Also, teaching spin on top of that after not riding for two weeks... well, it hurts :) And, Matt's busy and stressed with tons of work this week.
This morning we woke to snow... yay :( Here's my favorite kids checking out all the snow. Kids do love it! And, truly, it's the best in December, b/c it sure makes it feel like Christmas!
We did so many fun things while in Texas that it's going to be hard to get it all down...
Morgan, Brady and I flew in early on Saturday, November 14th. Our flight going down, Matt's flight going down, and our flight coming back were all 15 minutes early. Isn't that unheard of???
As soon as we got there we headed for a mexican restaurant! Most of the first weekend we just hung out with family. We celebrated Mimi's birthday on Saturday night! Morgan had so much fun with her cousins! She will miss them tons! They played in the hot tub, and at the ponds! Playing there new game...shoe boat. Floating there shoes over the overflow from one pond to the other. I love the imagination of kids! I totally remember making games up as a kid!
Monday Brady started running a fever and was down sick for three days. It was pretty miserable. So, we just hung out at Mimi and Grandy's waiting for him to feel better. We got stir crazy Monday night and went out and did some shopping and then to one of our favorite mexican restaurants... Verde's.
Tuesday we needed out of the house again, so we all headed to Texas Hill's Vineyard. What a neat beautiful winery! Then, on the way home we stopped at Perdenales State Park and hiked. These places are all over the hill country, and they will just take your breathe away. I'm glad most of the world doesn't know about the hill country, or they would want to move there!
Wednesday afternoon we headed for Houston!!! My Dad and Tresa dropped us off at Wes and Jen's. It was fun to catch up, but too short. We just love them. Morgan just played her little heart out with Watson, Bailey, Kathleen and Wesley. Hopefully we'll see them soon in Colorado...hint, hint.
Thursday my Dad picked me up and we went to visit my Grandma. She's doing awesome for 97, almost 98. She plays dominoes with all her friends and likes her assisted living place. She loved seeing the kids. Then lunch was at my favorite mexican restaurant in H-town...Lupe Tortillas! On our way home through Austin, we stopped to visit another cousin, Mary Lee and Johnny, in their assisted living place. It was great to see them too.
Friday we had a busy day of errands. Brady stayed home with Grandy and the girls went out. Friday night we hung out with cousins again. Sam, Morgan, Kat, and Mimi played musical chairs, hot potato, and had a dance party!
Saturday was huge for us! Morgan's first Longhorn game!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My Dad, Morgan, John, Hollie, Jordan and I went. First we headed to a beer garden, Shultz's. One thing to note. Only in Texas can you meet the nicest people in the bathroom line, and probably get their number and call them friends! Everyone is so friendly! I really miss that about Texas! Then, we walked around the Texas campus. Grandy showed us all the neat buildings. Then it was off to the game. We sat in the nose bleed section, but it was tons of fun. It was the biggest crowd to date at a Texas game... 101,000 people. It was also senior day and Colt McCoy's last game at Darrel Royal Stadium. Morgan's favorite part was seeing Bevo live! It was a 7 PM start time...late night for Miss Morgan. She did awesome! Thanks Dad for such a fun time! Mimi was so nice to stay home with the babies :( We wish she was there too! Longhorn games are such a great childhood memory for me!
Sunday the kids and I headed to Georgetown to see my Mom, Taylor and my Grandma. It was a good visit. Brady loved riding with Taylor on my Grandma's electric chair. My Mom got Morgan all kinds of things to color, so she spent most of her time coloring.
Monday we ran errands again, grocery shopping and such. Morgan played with Baby Kiwi, Mimi's bird. She loved Baby! Probably a little too much. We put Brady to work sweeping. And, then Hollie and John and crew came over for dinner. After dinner we made smores! We had so much fun just hanging out, eating, visiting, and of course, drinking a little wine.
It was full on fall. It was beautiful weather! I know many people don't like Texas, but I love it! And, I'm glad everyone doesn't want to move there, but I would love to buy some property there, and maybe retire. I'm still trying to convince Mimi and Grandy to start a winery, and I'll move back and run it! Hint, hint. Ryan Volk was so sweet to pick us up from the airport, and he said to me, "You couldn't pay me to move back to Texas!" How sad! Texas is so pretty, it's a little warm in the summer, but it's beautiful! It's still so green, and the leaves are changing red. I would totally move back! These fall pictures are of Mimi and Grandy's house/retreat in the hill country of Texas! Several days, I set up shop with Morgan by the pool and took naps outside! It was heaven! By the way...as soon as we landed in Colorado, all I could think is...it's so brown right now in Colorado! :))) I'll forgive you, Ryan, for ripping on Texas! :)
Tuesday afternoon the kids and I headed into Austin to pick up our Turkey Trot packets, visit with my friend, Audrey and her kids, and pick up Daddy!!! Audrey was my manager at Hallmark in high school. We ordered Mr. Gatti's pizza (all who know me know this is one of my favorite meals!), and just caught up, and drank a little wine. She also gave us tons of hand-me-downs from her boys! Thanks Audrey! I miss you and hope to see you in Colorado this summer! Then it was off to pick up Matt! Oh, were we all ecstatic to see him! Morgan said everyday, "I miss my Daddy!" It was the sweetest! Also worthy to note, we were going to take Morgan and Brady to the Austin Zoo on Tuesday morning, and Morgan didn't want to go! She wanted to stay and play at Mimi and Grandy's! They have the ultimate grandkid house! There is so much for them to do they don't want to leave!
Wednesday, we again just hung out during the day and played with cousins. Wednesday afternoon Mimi and Grandy watched Morgan and Brady so Matt and I could go on a date! We headed to the Oasis on Lake Travis! Beautiful place, gorgeous sunset, perfect margaritas, and my favorite... Matt! It was fun, and relaxing! We also stopped by to see the place where we got married, Vintage Villas. It's still gorgeous, and I would do it all over again! It was fun to reminisce.
Thursday was Thanksgiving and Turkey Trot day!!!! 16 of us went down, 14 participated, and GMommy and GDaddy watched! We all had a lot of fun. We even saw Forrest Gump! It reminded me of the Bolder Boulder, with all the people dressed up. After that we headed home to make dinner, but we really weren't celebrating Thanksgiving with the whole fam until Saturday. So, we made a meal of ham, potatoes, carrots and pie. Thursday night Glen and Monica came to stay!!!! Yippee! Monica is beautiful preggers!
Friday we hung out and watched football most of the day. Monica and I got to head to Austin by ourselves!!! We walked around Zilker Park (my all time favorite park), and then ate at Chuy's (another one of my favorites!). It was just like old times! I miss living close to her! It will be even harder living far away from their baby! They are so sweet to our kids, and we just love you guys for that. Thanks for coming down! Friday night Micah and Jen came in from H-town, but really from Colorado.
Saturday we were up cooking away. Steve, Sandy, Eric, Krystal, and CJ all came in for Thanksgiving. It was ciaos with 23 people! Fun, though. We ate a lot, had a sweet little family baby shower for Jen and Micah, and then visited the rest of the day away with family drinking a little wine. That seems to be the common thing in this post. But it was fun and everyone had such a fun time.
Sunday we left at 5 AM for the airport. I'm not sure what I was thinking booking flights that early with kids, after a fun day of food and a lot of drinking, but nonetheless, it all worked out, and we made it back to Colorado by 8:30 AM. We had an awesome trip! Thanks Dad and Tresa for everything! We love you guys BIG! We will miss you so much! But, we are glad to be home and working on getting back in the grove of the daily grind. We'll see you guys in three weeks!
I think I got most of our trip!
Tuesday we got to meet our friend's, Danton and Rebecca's, little boy, Lincoln Alexander. What a cutie he is! He has strawberry blonde hair and is just the tiniest quietest little guy. Here's some pictures. How can I not have baby fever after holding this precious little guy??? Good thing I'm heading to TX! :)
This week has been crazy, as always. Matt is still knee deep in renewals and is working long hours. Wednesday Morgan had ballet/tap. They started learning the recital dances. It's so fun! I think she's the oldest in her class, and you can completely tell from attention span. It's nice to see my high energy little thing being able to pay attention. I taught four spin classes this week. I finally got into the chiropractor to get adjusted (hoping that makes my knee feel better). I also broke down and bought some orthotics to try and help the knee situation too.
Yesterday Matt left early, we all got up early and got ready for school, and my Mommy group. The topic was holiday desserts and they had stations set up for us to walk around and learn how to make them. This is way more up my alley!!! Maybe someday I'll have the Angela Anderson cooking show...wishful thinking :) After that Brady went to lunch with Matt and I finally got my grocery shopping done. Wow it goes fast with no kids! I came home and made a birthday cake for my sweet friend, Karen, that comes to my spin classes and then headed to spin.
Today is a day of cartoons for the kids (great Mom, I know), painting toes, and packing for TEXAS! The kids and I head out tomorrow morning (EARLY), and Matt comes the week of Thanksgiving. We will miss him so much! Everyone pitch in and take care of him, and feed him or he'll eat out every meal :) I'm so excited to head to 80 degree weather in a snow storm!
Other notable news around our house: Morgan and I jointly decided that we would work together to get her to stop sucking her thumb. I pulled out all the bribes. I figured even if I promised the moon, it would be cheaper than orthodontics! So, she is wearing a band-aid on her thumb all day and all night. The first night it took her an hour to calm down and go to sleep. Last night it took her two hours. But, both nights she finally fell asleep with no thumb. And, yesterday her teachers told me that she didn't suck her thumb all day. Maybe this is it...I'll keep everyone posted.
The Broncos came out on the loosing end :((((( But, the funny part... Jeff sent the kids a Pittsburgh basket with a terrible towel, Pitssburgh pen, coffee mug, beads and some other misc goodies from Pittsburgh. Morgan decided last night that she was going to root for Lily's team! Ha! So, later in the night she said, "Daddy, I will root for the Broncos if you give me a piece of candy!!!"
Matt and I went to Family Life's Weekend to Remember this past weekend in Estes Park. Wow! It was awesome! It's a marriage conference all weekend. My Dad and Tresa sent us. Thank you so much! What a huge blessing. Deb and Gene watched the kids! Thank you too! The sessions were on communication, why marriages fail, priorities, sex, parenting, and leaving a legacy. It was perfect timing, we enjoyed each other so much and just reinforced what a blessing we are to each other. We've never spent a whole weekend with no kids with the sole purpose of working on us. Our date night Saturday night was to the movies to see Michael Jackson: This is It. Matt loves MJ music and I married into it, and the movie was awesome!!!! He is definitely the king of Pop. Then we went to a wine and cheese bar. There weren't many people out, so we just sat and talked and chatted with the management of the place. Sunday night we had small group. What a fun filled, spiritual weekend. Here's some pictures of an elk right outside our door to our hotel, and the beautiful river and bridge right outside our door. We would recommend this weekend to anyone!
Yesterday Brady had his 18 month check up and both kids had flu shots. Brady is 23 lbs (15%), he's 32 inches tall (50%), and his head is 48 cm (75%). He has a big head for all that intelligence! He's doing great! Morgan was a super big stinker at the doctor... I was super disappointed in her and frazzled for a while afterward. Then we met Emily and the twins for lunch.
So, not much has been going on around here this week. But a few funnies:
My budding piano player... Everyone loves the piano!!! A big thank you to G and G Anderson for a wonderful gift! Also, we are looking forward to handing it down to our grandkids, when the time comes. I promise I'm not getting ahead of myself.
And, Brady eating food off the floor. His new activity is to throw food. Yay for me! So, he was throwing all his food on the ground yesterday, and when I wiped him down and got him out of his booster. He started eating the food on the floor, with a princess crown on. He is such a funny little boy. What a blessing he is as I am constantly pulling my hair out! Ha!
We forgot about the time change and were up super early! Ugh!!! Anyhow, I put a brisket in the night before to take to Hal and Carol's. Thanks Harris for the awesome brisket recipe! We all loved it! We stopped by Christine and Ann's first to visit and they had candy for the kids! Then it was off to Red Feather. We wish the Broncos would have won, but we had fun anyway. Hal and Carol are so special to our family. We love them to pieces and they just love our little munchkins. We have the best time going up there! Hal hooked the sled up to the 4-wheeler and man, did we all have fun. Our kids LOVE riding that thing! I brought a brisket, and Carol made all kinds of yummy sides, and Hal fried up the fish that we all caught back in September! I don't eat seafood, so the kids hardly ever get it, but both ate the heck out of the fish Hal fried! We had such a great time! Thank you, Hal and Carol! We love you guys tons!
Brady has this weird allergy/reaction on his face. It's bumpy. Not sure what it is, but it doesn't seem to be bothering him. So, I'm going to wait for a few days to see what it does or doesn't do...
Today we have hung around the house! We needed it! It's going to take me all week to catch up from our business! When Matt gets home, I'm going to take Rachel out to dinner for her birthday... kid-free. Yippee!
Assume the position...
Touchdown!
Super cute little Broncos!
My favorite picture!
Morgan loved sledding!
A perfect postcard picture!
Only in CO can you wear a onesie and play in the snow
Mommy and Brady sledding
Gorgeous view!
Mommy and Brady falling out of the sled!
Wet butt!
Daddy's turn to sled!
Comin' over the hill...
What a crew!
Mommy and Morgan!
Mommy and Brady!
Daddy and Brady!
Daddy and Morgan!
Snowball!
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