We had Reese’s Christmas Pageant at school this week and she practiced really hard for the past few weeks. She has been singing all the songs in the car, while playing with her toys and even had all the hand motions down.
Ryan’s Mom came for the afternoon to see Reese perform her hits. Well no matter how well she knew those songs, once she hit the stage she barely sang a note. I think she was stunned by the amount of people that were watching her. She’s very much an independent girl, in the fact that she only will sing when she’s good and ready. If you ask her to sing the songs she will tell you no. Then low and behold about ten minutes later when no one is really paying attention to her she’ll bust them out…it’s all on her own time. In fact yesterday Ryan and I were chatting in the front seat while we were driving, and she was minding her own business in the back. All of a sudden here comes the entire program, every song with all the hand motions to go with it. She knew we were not paying attention so she did it all on her own. We just laughed (I had showed him the video) at how she really did know the entire thing but didn’t show her skills during the show. She’s obviously saving her talents for us.
At the program she did well, didn’t cry while she was on stage, sang a few words of a couple songs and then for the last song she really threw herself into the hand motions. She was a lamb and wore the cutest little thing in her head. I have made her wear it at home several times because I love it so much.
Here are some pics from the big pageant. 
She is the second lamb in from the left
At the end we took her pic all alone. I LOVE these lamb ears.
I will work on posting some video as well but right now I have got to get her dressed, fed, and ready to go to Stroller Strides.
It’s hard to believe that it’s already the middle of December. Time flies when you’re having fun. You’re probably wondering why I am posting a blog…I know you’re thinking this dope left her camera on the bumper and it’s MIA.
There are MANY reasons that my parents are cool. We all know that. My Mom exhibited her coolness once again by sending us her camera to borrow for the time being. We have Reese’s Christmas pageant at school this week so I needed to document this for the blog. She slapped that little camera in a box on Saturday and by Monday I had it in my mailbox. She’s awesome.
We’ve had a busy week so far and more fun to come. Here’s recap.
super excited kiddo on my hands
silly smiles
I let her do all the decorating after I assembled it
she highlighted my wall. I bet you know how thrilled I was when I discovered this little gem
Pocahontas figurines and the reindeer from Santa’s sleigh…they play very nicely together…better then the English settlers ever did
She was scratching her legs but for about 20 minutes she sang songs to them while they were all lined up
I’m not going to lie, I have clearly slacked off on keeping up with the blog. I am going to take more pictures now that we have lots of fun things going on for the holidays.
Clearly turning 30 has slowed me down. I hate to see what happens when I am 40.
We went to College Station the weekend of the Nebraska game. WHOOP! Even though I was in the hotel room for the game with a sleeping Reese, it was still a super exciting win. I also got to have a great 30th birthday breakfast with the Mom, Dad, Ryan, Reese, Stacey and her friend.
After a couple days back in Corpus to teach Stroller Strides we headed to Geronimo to visit Ryan’s family. I made the mistake of telling Reese she could play the clarinet when she gets to high school. I also told her I had one at home she could play….thus the weekend of “I wanna play your clarinet”. I showed her how it worked and she even cracked a few ear piercing notes. Luckily she has time to learn before she’s in band.
Mom, Dad, Chips, Leslie and Stacey came to visit Corpus for the rest of the weekend. We all had a great time. So glad everyone got to come hang out.
We hit the King Ranch for the guided bus tour of the cattle working side of the Ranch. It was a lot of fun. Our tour guides’ name was Dusk…yes we asked, her sister was Dawn.
Special thanks to Stacey Ryan’s facebook page for allowing me to copy and use the pictures she took over Thanksgiving. I have some on my computer however since I am on the new laptop (perks of owning your own business) I am using her pictures to update the blog first.
This is what happens when you don't nap anymore but are so tired at 6 p.m. that you can't even stay awake until dinner is ready.
My friend Natasha had some mold issues in her air conditioning system, and her repair man suggested using a at home mold kit to test the levels of the mold as they were cleaning out their ducts. Long story short she told me about this and I was just POSITIVE that we had mold in the house. So I forced Ryan to buy the two kits at Home Depot and do the test for ourselves. So we put one kit outside and then placed one inside. After 3 days you compared the mold growth in both and if the inside kit was the same or worse as the outside...well then you had a mold problem. Since it's common in Corpus to have mold...I just knew we had it. Sadly I was proven wrong...as you can see by the amount of mold in our outside kit compared to the inside kit. G-R-O-S-S!!! It is nasty to see how much mold is outside. Thankfully our house doesn't have any. Woo Hoo. I know Ryan is sleeping better at night knowing that.
Our neighbor Mrs. Ferguson brought Reese a swirly lollipop the day before Halloween and as you can see Reese had a field day with it.
And now for Halloween! 
So excited to go trick or treating. Check out this sweet trick or treating pail I won in a silent auction. Never mind that I hovered over the sign up sheet and threatened my close friends not to outbid me. Hopefully they knew I was kidding. Ryan says when I outbid people I should raise the price up more than a dollar...but I am the world's cheapest human being and a dollar...well that is how I roll.
Miska, Mouska, Minne Mouse!
My friend Tanya who made this costume all on her own. Nicely played Tanya. Next year if I wanna hang with the big girls I am going to have to clearly step up my game.
Tanya's son Jack and Reese (they go to school together and attend Stroller Strides together. Reese loves Jack!) While trick or treating Reese made sure Jack was always there at the door with her to get candy. She is such a big helper.
Carving my pumpkin
Reese with all the pumpkins. Sadly hers was stolen off our porch on Halloween night...while we were handing out candy. Some kids are punks. Yes Reese is in her pj's. Taking after Uncle Chips we stayed in our Pj's all day Sunday...only getting dressed to go trick or treating.
Now you can see that my pumpkin was haunted house with bats flying in the air. Appropriate given the long summers with bats in our house when we lived in NY 
Fall arrived! Reese sporting her new outfit that I bought at Gymboree. Don't get excited it was on sale, which is the only reason she has an outfit from Gymboree!
She insisted on taking pictures next to the pumpkins, despite Halloween being over! Kudos to Ryan who left the pumpkins on the carpet. Super fun when I went to move them and his literally fell apart in my hands and turned into liquid ALL at the same time. Ryan rocks!
Playing the fishing game with her friend from class, Lily. They are the only two girls in class with 6 boys, so they get along very well.
As soon as she puts the costume on she runs through the house screaming "Just around the river bend", which is a song from the movie. My Mom was awesome and found the costume on e-bay. It will fit her to the next few years so that is even better. She even had the boots to complete the outfit.
This was outside the reception so needless to say we HAD to put her on top
There was an ice cream bar instead of a groom's cake. Can you tell who was thrilled to eat all the ice cream with M&M's that she could?
So happy with her Grampy
This weekend I also ran my half marathon. I was super impressed with how well I ran. I finished in 2 hours and 21 min which was a few minutes faster than I thought I would. I did very well (even if I say so myself) and can now check that off my bucket list of things do to before I am 30. I ran alongside my friends husband for a few miles and saw my friend and Stroller Strides member Lisa as well. Did I mention that it was "the highest Half in Texas" I ran over the Harbor Bridge TWICE. The bridge is 243 ft high!!!!!
Hey look...I made the newspaper (their website). I thought this was a race photographer and it turned out to be a photographer from the newspaper! Props to my friend Morgan Smith who is running next to me in the photo (his wife Danielle ran the 10K) This was coming off the bridge on the first half. As you can see I made sure to smile
Yup ran up and over this as well...after the bridge you still had to cross the causeway which was up and over again! (two times)
Did I mentioned I ran over this TWICE???
Waving to my pit crew, I mean fan club. My awesome hubby and kiddo got up and watched me run. They were great at timing me, and were able to stop and see me in three different locations AND the finish line. My friend/neighbor/Aggie/Stroller Stride member Julie and her hubby Kris Havelka (and their kiddos) also got up to watch me and were there to cheer me on at the finish line.
Saying HI to Reese, who was jumping up and down cheering for "Mommy"
Off I go to complete the last 6 miles
Coming up on my second pit crew wave spot. They also passed me twice driving the next location so I got to wave at them on the causeway and going on the bridge.
Home stretch and shockingly still feeling good
About to cross (note my official timing chip time was 2:21:49). So like I said...I did it!
