Comparisons

I had to get a Baby's First Christmas ornament for Charlotte so Zoey and I searched and searched the other day.  We finally found one at K-Mart that was so cute, it almost matches Zoey's!

Here is Zoey's:

And here is Charlotte's:

It's so fun going through all these first with Charlotte and Zoey thinks it's pretty cool too.  She is such a good big sister.

I cleaned off the front of the fridge the other day and I noticed we had 2 family portraits up. Here is one Zoey did at the beginning of the school year:

I love how she had Charlotte still in my tummy even though she was 4 months old when Zoey started school haha.
Here's one she did the other day when we went out to eat:

Now she has me holding the baby, she's such a silly girl.  I was very impressed by how much better her pictures have gotten! It's only been 3 months or so since school has started so she has improved her drawing skills quite a bit.  So proud of my girls!

Holidays

Alright, who else has been super busy this season? Between the birthday parties, planning Zoey's class party for school, and just enjoying the holiday season, I have not had much time for anything!  I've been doing some organizing and cleaning things out, getting ready for our big move.  Beau is on leave and has been keeping busy going to all of his appointments for out processing.  Charlotte is almost on the move and can get around really good in her walker now so she keeps us on our toes.  Zoey is doing fantastic in school and is so excited for her party tomorrow.  Here are a few pics from what we have been busy doing:

We went to Sarah's birthday party a couple weekends ago at Mr. Gatti's, it was a blast!  Charlotte loved looking at all the lights and I don't know if Beau or Zoey had more fun playing the games haha.

They rode the bumper cars and had so much fun.  It was just Beau and Zoey and another little boy and they pretty much went after Beau the whole time, it was so funny.

Happy birthday Sarah!  She's getting to be such a big girl!

Zoey's school put on a pajama party skate night last week so we decided to check it out.  Did you know it's a lot harder to skate when you're 27 than when you're 15?  Yeah, it had been awhile, I did maybe one lap and put my skates up haha!

The skating people can actually tighten the wheels on the kids skates so they're not so slippery and that really helped Zoey be able to get the hang of it.  There were quite a few tumbles and falls but she kept saying how fun it was.  She's a trooper!

It was my birthday, happy birthday to me! I told Beau I wanted the cheesiest best pizza ever, we usually have homemade since Beau can't have dairy, so we went to Double Dave's. Yum, it was just what I wanted.  The Teague's came and we had an ice cream cake and it was a really fun birthday.  Priscilla got me this really cool wood saying about friendship and some socks and some smelly goody soap. I have it in my bathroom now, it's awesome! Thanks Priscilla!  Beau got me a new set of pans! I was so excited, I have been using the same ones for 9 years and they were about done for.  I love them, they even have silicone handles so you can put them in the oven if you want to, amazing!

We went to the Fire Department Christmas party, it was a lot of fun.  They had a bouncy castle for the kids, it was so nice since they usually just run around whenever they have parties. 

The night can't be complete without a tiny bit of pouting :)

Santa came, fake paper beard and all, and Zoey told him what she wanted. 

She got some Hello Kitty stuff from Santa, she's been playing with it all weekend! Santa did good!

Of course the young guys had to tell Santa what they wanted too haha!

I have lots of shopping to do today, I have to get Zoey's teacher gifts and I have to make cupcakes and a fruit tray for her party tomorrow.  I'm excited and nervous I hope it all goes well.  Santa is going to be there so I'm hoping for some nice pictures, maybe with Charlotte too.  Happy Holidays everyone!

Christmas parade

A couple weeks ago we headed downtown for the big Abilene Christmas Parade!  I had only heard little bits and pieces about what it was going to be like and I wanted to go check it out.  I knew there was a tree lighting somewhere and businesses were giving out hot chocolate and treats and there would be a parade.  We headed downtown and immediately saw all the people.  Like tons and tons of people.  WAY more people than I ever thought would be there haha!

Don't ask me where the peace sign came from, she did it all on her own!

Baby was bundled up nice and tight.  She didn't know what to think of all the crazy people, but she loved watching and soaking it all in! 

There was a band playing Christmas music, they were so good!  We stood and listened for a while.

While we were listening we ran into Mrs. Sanders, Zoey's teacher!  Zoey was over the moon to see her and Mrs. Sanders was so sweet and seemed so happy to run into her.  It really made Zoey's night. 

We saw where they were giving away stuff like popcorn but the lines were loooooooooong.  We went into the AT&T building where we got a balloon and signed a big poster they were sending to the troops overseas.  We continued to mosey around and tried going into another building where Zoey walked by a tree and POP her balloon popped!  It was so incredibly loud, it honestly sounded like a gunshot.  It echoed off the buildings and scared everyone around us.  Poor Zoey, she melted into a puddle of tears so we headed back to AT&T where they told us they were all out of balloons.  Then Beau saw one straggler that had gotten away and was on the ceiling so the guy said if he could reach it we could have it.  Beau leaped up and grabbed it and saved the day!  You could tell he was Zoey's hero for sure!

Finally the parade started and there were so many people we really couldn't see much.  Beau could see ok and he put Zoey on his shoulders so she could see but I could just see the tops of people's heads and some lights.  I still can't believe the amount of people that were there, it was crazy!  We watched for a while and then headed home to beat the traffic. 

We are busy these days, just like every holiday season!  We are going to the Fire Department party on Friday, I'm really looking forward to it.  Santa is going to be there and they are doing a white elephant gift exchange too.  Whenever I think about white elephant gifts I always think of the time my mom needed a gift for her work party so she took the kick-stand off of my bike.  The bike I still rode all the time that all of a sudden didn't have a kick-stand so I had to lean it up against the house!  Thanks a lot Mom haha!

Hope everyone is having a safe and happy holiday!

Christmas is coming!

I have about 3 new blog posts floating around in my mind but I keep putting off the chance to sit down and write one out.  Here's some Christmas tree pictures, better late than never! Haha

We bought a big Christmas tree last year on sale after the holidays, I think we got it for $40.  It's been sitting in the box all year long and I see it every time I get in and out of my car in the garage.  The anticipation to put it up has been killing me!  When the MEB people told us we might be home by Christmas I was still determined to put that tree up, I NEEDED to see what it looked like haha.  Turns out, Beau's last day is March 20th and I might be headed home earlier but for sure after the new year. That tree was going up for sure!  It feels so good to finally have a date to look forward to.

Charlotte is getting pretty good with her walker, she can go backwards really great and forwards when she wants to.  She did not like the tree going up at all.  She sat on the floor with me and rubbed her face in my leg and fussed almost the whole time.  I think she gets worried about change, she likes her routine.  Zoey on the other hand, was so super excited she bounced around the living room and was a great helper. 

We started setting it up in the living room and found out pretty quickly that this tree was going to be gigantic.  WAY bigger than our other one. 

Here it is!  I absolutely love it, it reminds me of the tree my parents have.  Beau made our star by poking a strand of lights through a paper 3-D star from the dollar store.  We are all sorts of crafty around here haha!

Beau got Frosty put up and he put some lights around on the ground.  He didn't feel like putting any on the house, we still didn't know his seperation date at this point so he wasn't interested in having to take a bunch of stuff down if we had to leave before Christmas.  He did add some lights and garland to the little tree out front and made it cute.  Zoey is impressed we have a Christmas tree inside AND outside. 

I'm almost done with my Christmas shopping, Zoey is asking Santa for a LaLa Loopsy Crumbs Sugar Cookie with silly hair.  If that isn't a mouthful!  We still have to go get their picture taken with Santa at the mall, Zoey loved him last year.  She ran and leaped onto his lap it was so funny.  I bet Charlotte won't like him as much. 

We woke up to snow on the ground this morning!  It's supposed to stay pretty cold with some flurries the next couple days and not get much warmer after that.  I'm loving this cold weather, after the crazy hot summer we had I didn't think it would ever get cold.  These are the days I dreamed about when I saw 112 degrees on the temperature gauge haha! 

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, I know we sure did! I was expecting it to just be us and at the last minute our friend Raz and his son joined us, we were more than happy to have them.  I started the night before and prepared a few things and then cooked all day on Thursday.  Everything was going so good, I was ahead of schedule, the house was clean, just perfect!  All of sudden, I noticed smoke.  Oh no!  I had made my mashed potatoes and put them in a casserole dish with some butter on top to reheat and the butter had boiled over the side and was smoking like crazy!  I opened windows and turned on fans and as soon as it reached the living room, the guests arrived.  Of course!  Isn't that how it always goes?  At least I grabbed the food out before it tasted smoky and everything tasted pretty good.  This is also my first year making a turkey, I just made a breast, but it's a start!

I was so busy I completely forgot to take any pictures but I grabbed a couple on my phone.

Beau helped me by napping with baby.  Thanks, I guess?  No, he helped out quite a bit including keeping the girls happy while I buzzed around the kitchen.

I decided to be fancy this year and break out the china.  I was putting it back yesterday and I noticed I used the cream dish thing for the gravy instead of the gravy boat.  Haha, I guess I'm not as fancy as I thought!

Last week I mentioned we went to Aubree's awesome karate party and here are the pictures!

She was ready to chop-kick someone!

All the fuss wore out baby Charlotte.

The kids had so much fun doing the exercises.

Charlotte had fun playing on the floor and watching the kids run around.

I love this picture of Beau, this is the face he always makes when he talks to the baby. 

The party was so fun, good friends, food, and fun, that's just what parties should be like!

Last, I was looking through pictures the other day and I found this one of Landon and Zoey on Halloween the first year we lived here.  They look like babies!

I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season!  We have our tree and decorations up, our holiday cheer is in full swing!

Silly faces

I upgraded my iPhone to a newer, better, faster, way awesome iPhone a few weeks ago.  I love it so much, I'm still amazed how fast it is!  I didn't get the brand new one with Siri, it looks cool though.
Mine has this cool feature that allows you to see yourself to take self-portraits, I love it, and so does Zoey.  I found these today, she took these in the car on the way home from a super fun birthday for her friend Aubree.  Without further ado, my first born:

I love her to pieces, she makes me laugh all the time and I love her personality.  The birthday girl recieved some play make-up for her birthday and dolled a few of the girls up, including Zoey.  She loved it, I think she might get some make-up for Christmas.

I've got some really cute pics of the party, it was at a karate party and the kids had a blast!  Hope everyone had a great weekend!