Santa came to town

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. Santa arrived in Corpus and brought Reese "what she wanted" so she's driving around in her Princess car. We are working on teaching her the rules of the road. Look out residents of Wood River subdivision.

Christmas Pageant

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.

December already???

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

nothing to report

I have nothing to report other than I'm a dumba$$! No pictures to post for the same reason. Yes it's true, I lost our camera...So that is why you can continue looking at the same old boring pictures from Thanksgiving. However we are kindly being sent my Mom's camera while we decide which one to buy...and so sometime this week, when the nice Mail Lady comes to my home and rings my doorbell I will have a camera on hand. With that camera I will take pictures of Reese at her school Christmas Pageant to post for the world to see. Until then remember...NEVER set your camera on the bumper of your car (even if you are in the driveway playing with your daughter when you do it) because you just might forget it's there until after your husband gets back from Home Depot. :(

Thanksgiving etc.

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.

In his defense it was warm on the bus…Reese fell asleep too! Dancing with Sister

This girls The family Me and my Reesie…it was COLD

me and the hubs Leslie the tour guide….things you can do when let on the bus early because you are part of the handicapped party. Thanks Chips…without you this pic would not have been possible.

wearing her flower girl dress and dancing with Leslie

Dancing..she LOVES wearing her Princess dress

Waiting for food at Whataburger

Just finished blowing out 30 candles

my super fancy boots (thanks Mom and Dad)

The girls went to Hobby Lobby and left the boys in charge….needless to say they got her to nap by forcing her to watch football. Notice she fell asleep in disgust plugging her ears with her fingers.

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.

Aggies are BACK!

Happy Halloween!

Yes I know...I am a slacker. It's November 5th and I am only now posting Halloween pictures. Sorry for the delay.
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

Reese had a BLAST on Halloween. I am not sure what she enjoyed more, trick or treating or handing out candy to the older kids when they came by.

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!

Pocahontas!

At school yesterday they had a Fall Festival and the kiddos got to wear their costumes. Reese plans on being Minnie Mouse for Halloween but she insisted on wearing Pocahontas to school. So after wearing Minnie all morning we made a quick change 10 minutes before school and transformed into Disney's Indian Princess Pocahontas. They had games, hay rides, spooky stories etc. Here is a picture my friend Paula took of Reese in action. (I was unable to volunteer as I was teaching Stroller Strides while the party was going on, AND given Reese's desire to cry whenever I leave school in the morning it's probably better I wasn't there)
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.

Halloween pics coming up next week!

Run Forest Run!

Oct. 9, 2010 our friend Valarie Herbst got married in Houston, so we went up to stay with my family for the weekend and attend the wedding. Reese got to dress up and see the princess walk down the aisle. She's going to be in a wedding next month so we played up the princess thing and now all she can talk about is walking down the aisle at the wedding just like princess Valarie did.
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

Over the past weekend my friend Rebecca (who I purchased Stroller Strides from) had to move out of her house but wasn't able to head up to Dallas to get to her new house yet...so they moved in with us. Her boys are 4 and 2 and they also have a 120 pound lab. Bailey and Thurman had a great time together, and so did the kids. Riley, Reese and Coen have seen each other everyday for the past 2.5 years so they enjoy each other's company. This pic is from when they were "fighting crime" as you can see Pocahontas was there to aid Batman and Superman.

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!