Dallas Weekend

Saturday after Thanksgiving Marcus and I drove to Dallas for the Baylor and Texas Tech football game. We won't talk about the game itself, but the weekend which was more fun anyway!

Chick-fil-A was tailgating and they gave us pom poms and footballs. It made the perfect take home gift for Abby.

We got there early and Cowboys Stadium was pretty empty! The stadium is huge, but I really liked it. It was open and lively even an hour before the game. Good concessions and easy to find restrooms!

There were 44, 186 people in attendance and we had seats next to friends from Great Hills. Isn't that crazy? Thank you God for the reminder that we will see our Great Hills friends outside of church. It was super sunny where we sat, so Britney and I used our Raider Red masks as visors.

I love college bands- they make live college football so much fun! The Goin' Band from Raiderland did a great job!

After the game we walked to the hotel, checked into our room, and then had dinner at a Dallas-area favorite, Red Hot and Blue. Their smoked sausage and potato salad are the best!

Sunday morning we had breakfast with our cousins Jason and Courtney and met their new baby boy, Callum. Look how sweet he is- those big lips! I loved holding him and seeing our friends/cousins in their new role as parents.

Since we were coming back the Sunday after Thanksgiving, we took an alternate route home to avoid the traffic. It took longer than IH35 with no traffic, but was stress free! We took Hwy 67 to 220 to 281 to 183 and it took us through Glen Rose, a fun little town we had never visited before.

We stopped and had lunch at The Riverhouse Grill. This was out side porch table view...

And, this was the view of my lunch on the table. The best food I have had in a long time. I ordered the house special mac and cheese with bacon and jalapenos. It was au gratin style with penne noodles and Alfredo sauce.

I also had the house salad with an orange vinaigrette that was so good, our server smuggled a to go cup of it for me. I loved the sweet of the oranges with honey on the salad.

You can see a friendly butterfly joined in on my salad!

We had a fun weekend with good food, football and family!

Gruene Family Photos

We love taking pictures in Gruene at Thanksgiving. They have so many great little family spots and there is hardly anyone there! We tried to capture a few favorites from last year and also find new spots. We all wore red and brown, but then we didn't really get a great photo all together!

We had Captain with us, so we became those people who include their dog in their photos!

Why yes, my niece is wearing make up. I didn't think her eyes could be any prettier!

What do you think.... are we related?

Week in Reverse

Oh what a lazy blogger I have become... I used to blog each life event in a seperate well thought out post. Then, I would lump our weekend together. Now, you get a whole week. Sorry- life is fun and busy!

Friday we took advantage of Mom being at our house and painted Abby's room purple. She has been asking for a purple room for months and the delay was child care and me finding purple bedding I liked. Purple is not my color! I'll share more room details soon! Suffice it to say, she likes it!

Thursday we drove to my sister's house in New Braunfels for Thanksgiving lunch. It was pretty low stress since we bought the turkey, potlucked the sides and desserts and had made most everything on Wednesday. It is the way to go!

We took Christmas photos in nearby Gruene on Thursday afternoon. Last year's pics were so good that we did it again! Some of those new pics are on my new header and I'll share the rest this week. I love them!

On Monday we took advantage of the week off from school and met our friends Kaylinn and Kiersten at the bounce house. We girls ran and jumped for 3 hours, we ate Sonic for lunch and then Abby didn't nap. It was a fun day- ha!

It was made much better by my time holding Kiersten and Kaylinn's new baby brother, Keegan. Nothing like loving on a 4 week old to make you stop and savor. He is all that is good in the world.

We had a fun week off of school!

Sea World Christmas

When our friend Heidi asked if we wanted to go to Sea World yesterday, we jumped at the chance! When we found out our friend Lauren and her girls would join us, we were even more excited! 

Our season passes are good through January and we had heard Sea World does a wonderful Christmas show. It was fun from all sides! They have lots of photo opportunities, all of the shows are tweaked to include Christmas, the whole place is festive, and the crowds are light!

Abby was especially excited to get a new Sesame Street stuffed animal. We bought Honkers this time. She only needs a few more to have the full set. At $11 each, they make for a great little souvenir!

I will not lie that we spent most of our time in the Sesame Street Bay of Play area. With 4 girls under the age of 6, it was the place to be. In the holiday SS show, the gang explained Christmas to Abby Cadabby.

We also saw Shamu! 

His show was the miracle of Christmas and include the wise men and all! It was a wonderful message!

We walked to a part of Sea World we hadn't seen before- did you know they have animals there, too? I kid! The penguin display was stinky, but fun to see.

After the penguins, we made our way to the Christmas Market with trees, Santa, angels, and more!

I highly recommend going at night- it was just beautiful. They used tons of blue lights that created this "cool" look, like ice. This is the entrance/exit where the Santa mariachi band was playing.

We rode the Sea World Express (small train) through an icy area near the water that was covered in white trees, blue and purple lights, and had inflatable Santas of all sorts.

Finally, we explored the Candy Cane Forest. By day, it was a gathering of trees with large candy canes in the ground...

By night, it was magical!

We plan to go back just after Christmas for Abby's birthday!

Man's Best Friend?

A dog may be man's best friend, but at least at this point, he isn't a little girls best friend :) Abby is adjusting and I know this is good for her, but it is still hard! Being an only child, she is used to getting her way, having her space, and not having to consider others. That has all changed! 

We did have fun giving him a bow tie to match his little collar. We are girls after all and accessories are part of our core! We moved to one large water bottle for both animals and that seems to be working well.

Captain likes to be around Abby because she always has little toys around her. He loves to take her stuffed animals, drag them under her bed and chew on them. She is learning to forgive and to pick up her room!

He loves his new bed I made and we are slowly learning "go to your bed" as a command so that he leaves Abby alone. He loves to chew on her pants and ends up biting her leg all too often. It doesn't help their little relationship :)

This picture sums up the cat's feelings. She knows where he is at all times and watches him closely. If he gets close, she stands firm and he often backs down.  When he barks, she can flinch and he will run. It is pretty fun to watch!

We have had a couple of quiet weeks, but this week is filled with fun! Bounce house with friends, Sea World with friends, Nana comes to visit, Thanksgiving with lots of family, a new room for Abby and watching the Red Raiders and Baylor Bears in Dallas! The blog should come alive again soon ;)

Our Weekend

We have spent much of our weekend at home with this little guy. Abby is excited to be home with him and we are crate training (although luckily my sister really did most of this for us!) so we didn't want to be gone much. We are all adjusting- his version of play is a little rough for Abby. Lots of tears for simple things and lots of learning about taking toys away and what growling means. 

We did leave the house on Saturday morning for our cousin Bella's birthday party. Abby was watching Signing Time and just signing away. She has always loved and learned sign language so easily. I would love to know if God will use this with her later in life. I happened to snap a picture as she finished a "word". 

Bella had an American Girl 6th birthday party on Saturday morning. Kristi (her Mom, my cousin) did a great job with the theme. She did American colors of red, white, and blue, and served foods that coordinated. She also had a cute little craft for the girls- they made American flags using small squares or red and blue paper, and they dipped marshmallows in red and blue sugar.

Isn't this real life? Everyone was watching Bella open gifts and Abby was pouting since I would not let her go upstairs and play. She loves doll houses anywhere she goes and she just knew theirs was upstairs!

Bella opened all her presents and really loved this Pooh bear. She apparently loves Winnie and has a bit of a collection! We picked up some American Girl items for her when I was in Dallas last weekend.

Happy Birthday Bella!

Today we did church, football, naps and hopefully a nice quiet dinner at home!