Let the Festivities Begin!

And we're off! The festivities have begun! We had some friends over the other night. The kids had fun making stockings, cookies and...funny faces!

The next evening we celebrated Christmas with Nene, Uncle Jay, Lynette and Jordan. Jordan got a trip to Disney for Christmas so they are already there having a great time. The kids had so much fun giving and getting gifts! Matt said his favorite gift were a pair of UnderArmour baseball cleats Dad purchased for next season. And Marlie liked anything! Each time someone gave her a gift she said "for me?". She would have been happy with just one thing!

Matt had a Christmas program at school. The boys dressed up as Joseph and the girls as Mary. They sang some really great songs...our favorite was of course "take me out the stable" in the same tune as "take me out to the ball game". It was too cute!
Then of course we had a blast at our Christmas parties at school. Matt's class had a party to celebrate the birth of Christ! Marlie's class attempted a few Christmas carols but I think 1, maybe 2 of the kids actually knew the words. Marlie was too busy just being silly!
We wish everyone a blessed and wonderful Christmas!

San Diego Pics - Part II

So we got our pictures back from our photo shoot in San Diego. There are a few really good ones. But the best are of course of Matt. The session started out great and after about 30 minutes everyone kind of fell apart. While we were trying to calm Marlie down (after a wave snuck up on her and she fell in the cold water...white shirt now brown) the photographer captured Matt being Matt...silly and having fun on his own. I love these pics! We got a few good family ones too. The next one is by far the best shot of Marlie. My little Princess! You can see more in the slideshow!

Some Catching Up To Do!

It's been awhile I apologize. I have been sick for over a month now. Marlie has been sick and even our dog, Hannah, has been sick. It's times like this when we are so thankful that we are generally healthy!

Happy belated Thanksgiving to you all! We actually had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Gram and Aunt Dani came to pick up both kids so Doug and I had a weekend and a few days to ourselves. It was our first time without little Marlie, but she did great!

Doug and I are lucky to have some good friends that like football as much as we do. They invited us to the ATM vs. Baylor game in College Station and to see the Texans play - Monday night football! We tailgated with them at both events and had SUCH a good time. Walking into Kyle Field was so neat. It's been so long since we've been to a college football game and it's just awesome. My mind was on the kids and so I was obviously fast forwarding to the day they will be off to college. Hopefully the will go to Rice University which is not too far and.. .well... they have a great baseball team too.

We are all home now and guess what? It snowed in Houston!! And I mean snowed! The kids loved it. Here's a picture of our backyard...look at it come down!

M&M had fun making snowballs. Matt would get a good one and get about 2 inches away from you and throw it!

Dad helped them make a snowman and they were so excited. It was neat because even after most of the snow melted, their little snowman stood proud a few more hours.

Ironically, the next day was "snow" day in our neighborhood. Each year they bring in snow for the kids and Santa comes to visit. Matt was so excited to see Santa.
Marlie talked about Santa all morning and then froze when she saw him. She was hanging on to me for dear life!
So we went to play in the snow with our friends for awhile.
We tried one more time with Santa, but Marlie still insisted I go with her to see him. She looked at him like he was crazy! Of course when we went home she said "I go see Santa"...and when I asked if she would sit on his lap she smiled and said "YES!". So we might have to try again!

World Cup Champions - The Sharks

Well that's what their trophies say! Soccer season has come to a close and let me tell you...it was SO fun! We started off with Matt not too interested but it wasn't long before he was in full soccer mode. The Sharks took a beating the first game. I mean a real beating. And after that game they completely dominated the remaining games. There was maybe 1 in there that was tough. Not that it matters with 3 and 4 year olds but my point is that these kids were clueless to start with and by the end of the season were SO good. There was no telling them which goal was ours or to kick it IN the goal. These kids were taking the ball down the field and whacking it in the goal. AND we played defense too! When the other team thought they had a breakaway we ran them down and kicked the ball away. We had an awesome goalie who literally dove on top of the ball even if the other team was kicking it. It was unreal. I was so proud of Matt and all of his teammates.

Here are some shots from the last game. I like this series of pictures...Matt and Caden going after the ball during practice...

And here are Matt and his teammates just having fun...who knows what Matt was saying!

The parents hosted an end of season party for the boys at our favorite Chick-fil-A. They were so excited about their trophies. Here are Matt and Evan showing it off!

And when we thought the season couldn't get any better....Coach Joel and his wife Melissa (and Caden too) hosted a party for the boys at their house after our last game. Let's just say that one day maybe someone will host a party like that for me! It was over the top fun for the boys and the parents. We ate pizza and had a great ice cream sundae bar. The kids bounced in the bounce house and played football. And to end the party a few swings at the soccer ball pinata. This was prep for tball next Spring! :) THANK YOU guys for all that you did.

Thank you to the parents who are all amazing! We are blessed to know you all!

Check out the slide show with more soccer pics!

Pumpkin Parmers

Well we love Halloween and pumpkin time in our house! Marlie's Godparents, Great Uncle Tony and Aunt Ruthie sent the kids John Deere boots a few months ago. We decided they would be John Deere farmers or as Marlie's says "parmers" and they looked SO cute!

They got to wear their costumes to the neighborhood Fall Festival. Of course we couldn't pass up the pony rides!

And of course we couldn't miss the pumpkin patch. The kids had a great time picking out their pumpkins. When we got home we decorated them with stickers which was less messy than carving and the kids loved it!

Matt had a party at school that was tons of fun. They started off by singing Halloween and pumpkin songs and it was SO cute. All the kids were in their costumes and it was awesome to see them all. Marlie had a parade at school. As usual she lasted about 30 seconds before she spotted me so Matt and I marched with her and we let Dad take pictures.

Then it was finally time for the Halloween! Our parmers got dressed and ready to go! Here they are showing off their boots! And Halloween was a blast!!!! We started at our neighbor's house who were so nice to have a party for all the kids. They had creepy snacks and the kids played and had so much fun. Then we were off to trick-o-treat! We met up with a few families in the neighborhood and were off! Matt definitely had the routine down this year. Marlie tried hard to keep up and did really well.

The adults had a blast too. Mr. Andy had their gator that was used to cart us around and also served as the adult bar. Mr. Kevin made his famous sangria and as you can imagine we had just as much fun as the kids!

Marlie decided she was ready to go home so we ended the night at our house handing out candy which the kids loved too. It was a great night!!! I can't wait for next year! You can check out the slide show for more pics!

Sunny San Diego

We had a great time in San Diego. Not only did we get to visit all the animals but we got to see lots of cousins too which was really icing on the cake!

Day 1 was Sea World. Yes although we spend many weekends in SA, the kids have never been to Sea World. So we were excited to take them. Even better, my cousin AJ came in from LA and my cousin Shelley and her daughter Abby from SD and Doug's cousin Ed who just finished law school in SD all came with us!!! Marlie was fascinated with Shamu and Matt rode a real roller coaster. I couldn't believe he did it. I chickened out myself!

I love this picture...it pretty much sums up the day for Marlie...she would not leave Ed alone and poor Ed carried her throughout all of Sea World!!

Here are the girls...Marlie and Abby...SO very cute!

And here's Shelley and I with the kids. Hey girl we did pretty good huh? They are adorable.

Here are the boys on the roller coaster. Apparently Matt loved the first drop, but after it went faster and dipped more he had completely buried his face in Ed's armpit! Here we are at the Sea Lion show. The spooky cooky castle!

Darn I wish you could see this picture better. Abby and Matt are making their scary faces!

Funny look who's riding with Marlie! Hilarious!

And we couldn't skip the tea cups!!!

And after a long day we had great Mexican food in Old Town.

Day 2 was relaxing. We got up leisurely and headed to Fletcher Cove. The kids played on the play ground and we sat and watched the waves. After a nice long nap we headed down to the Hotel Del Coronado to take some family pics. Those will be coming soon and I can't wait for you to see them. I got a sneak peek at a few of them and some are super cool. Afterwards we let the kids play in the sand and they had a blast!

Day 3 we went to the Wild Animal Park aka Madagascar to the kids (if you haven't seen that movie it's hilarious!). It was really awesome to see so many animals living in similar to habitats to where they live in Africa. We got to see them feed the cheetahs so the kids came away loving the cheetahs.

We ended the day with dinner at In-N-Out Burger and dessert at Cupcake Love where we shared 4 amazing cupcakes!!!

Day 4 was busy! We got to the zoo early and were lucky enough to see a zebra who was only 1! We also watched the gorillas for awhile. There was a baby and it was so cute to see her with her Mom. The baby gorilla was gazing at Marlie. Maybe she recognized she was little too. It's almost as if she wanted to play with her. It was so cute!

After the zoo we went back to the Hotel Del where we met cousin Rick and had a picnic on the beach!! Matt played football in the water with the boys and Marlie was happy as a lark sitting and playing in the sand. The seagulls ate most of our lunch but no one cared because it was so beautiful out there. Honestly we could have skipped the parks and just played on the beach every day and the kids would have loved it. We will do that for our next vacation for sure!!

That night we rushed home to get ready for the party! Ed tried to teach Doug how to surf and Doug said after only a few tries he was exhausted! Everyone came to our little condo (which turned out great), Doug grilled some steaks and we had a great time hanging out with everyone one last time. Shame on me for not taking pictures. We enjoyed one last sunset and promised to come back and do this all again! Thank you Ed, Shelley, AJ and Rick for spending time with our crazy family!! It wouldn't have been as fun without you!