No matter how long the Winter, Spring is sure to follow…

We have already started to have a fun filled Spring, we have been out riding our bikes and soaking up the nice weather while it lasts. It will be hot before we know it. Tess has her last PreK picture, next year we will be in Kindergarten and have our first official school picture. She actually let me braid her hair, people always tell me that she looks older than she really is. I am just not ready for any of it, not ready for her to be 5, not ready for kindergarten not ready for her to grow up. I guess this is why people have more kids.

We sadly lost one of our fur babies recently, Toby was not doing well. He was not eating and as it turns out it was his teeth. He had an infection that would require surgery and the doctor said that after they did the surgery and got him eating she wanted to run some additional tests because she thought that there was some additional underlying issues. We made the hard decision to let Toby go and not put him through the surgery and additional tests. He hadn’t been himself for a while and we had to think about his quality of life. It was a very hard day, and it was even harder to get Tess to understand that Toby wasn’t coming home. We all miss him and it gets better day by day.

Mona and Kevin came down for a couple of days during spring break and we finished up painting Tess’s room. Clayton and I had painted it purple but it was now time to paint the butterflies on her wall. My mom came over and the girls got started. I had two stencils and I think the butterfly wall turned out pretty cute. She loves it and she even made a hand butterfly herself.

The next day we went into town to Discovery Green because they were having an event for the kids, she played and was able to climb in various different construction vehicles. We saw some art cars also as they were promoting the art car parade. It was a great day to be outside and we all had a lot of fun.

This Spring we have already replanted our front flower bed, played sand outside, we went to a crawfish boil, an Astros game, and have been to a couple of birthday parties. We don’t really plan on stopping as every weekend in April is packed with activities. This year is already been busy and it doesn’t look like it is going to slow down any time soon.

I am going to end this post with one picture that shows it is definitely spring time in Houston. 

Family Time

We took a quick trip up to Bedford in the middle of February and spent some time with the family. The girls visited the American Girl Store while the boys played guns. Tess has two American Girl dolls and loves both of them, one can fit in her back pack and she likes bringing Camille with her. After the American Girl Store we walked around the Galleria, watched the ice skaters and even made a build-a-bear. It was a full day.

One morning we were waiting for everyone to get ready so we could head out to run errands and Tess and I decided to Snapchat a couple pictures. Tess forgets about the app and then she sees it wants to take a million pictures. She really enjoyed the banana face one.

That night while the boys were out running an errand Tess scooted back in the chair and screamed out in pain, Mona and I looked at each other because we could not figure out what had happened. We put some ice on her arm and continued playing out game because we were not sure if she was in pain or if she wanted some sympathy. After about 10-15 minutes of her not moving the arm and she saying it was still in a lot of pain we realized something must have happened we got her shoes on and took her to an urgent care place, about an hour later we walked out good as new. She had nursemaid’s elbow. Basically the parts in her elbow came out of place and the doctor had to click everything back in. Her body relaxed the minute he put everything back in place. We are on the tail-end of this injury, so she should grow out of the risk soon. She was a trooper in the room and with the doctor.

We woke up early Sunday and headed home because we had bought tickets to Monster Jam. Tess had been watching Monster Jam videos for about a month getting prepared for the event and was pretty excited. She got pretty bored during the time trials, which I will admit is boring, but she loved the freestyle. In the end she said she liked it and would like to go back. We got tickets through the Buzz morning show so the tickets were cheap and great seats so if we have the opportunity to do that again I would totally take her again!   

Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365 page book, Write a good one...

We had a good but cold start to the New Year. Texas had one really cold weekend where the entire weekend was below freezing where we stayed inside all weekend and I passed on an activity that my mom did with us down to Tess. We made Ice Ornaments, before Tess went to bed we got everything ready and set the Water outside so that it would freeze overnight and make the Ice Ornaments. The first attempt didn’t go as smoothly as planned but by the second time we made some pretty cool ornaments and she was asking when we could make them again.

On one of the colder weekends we took Tess to the mall so she could run out some of her energy in their indoor play place. She loves running around and climbing on all the different obstacles, we have also taken her to the trampoline park so she can bounce out her energy.

Another indoor activity that comes around in the winter is the boat show, which for Tess turned into the RV show. She wanted to walk into every RV and picked out just the right one that we were going to move into. She picked out the perfect place for all her toys and she knew exactly where all her puppies were going to be sleeping. She was a little upset when we told her that we weren’t buying one and that we weren’t planning on moving. She was thinking we were going house shopping at the boat show.

Most of the time during January and early February we try as much as we can to find indoor activities that Tess will enjoy that will get us out of the house and burn some energy off. Even though Christmas is my favorite time of year it falls in my least favorite season, I hate the cold. What I hate more than the cold is having a toddler in the cold because when it’s cold you want to stay in bed and not get out from your warm bed, toddlers don’t understand this concept and need to be constantly moving. 

Dear Santa, I can explain…

I love Christmas, Tess loves Christmas, and Clayton tolerates Christmas. I love when the time comes to set out all the decorations and put the tree up. Tess would turn the tree on every morning and sometimes at night she would just sit near it. I would ask her sometimes why she was sitting on the floor and she would respond that she like sitting next to the tree and liked looking at it. I like her innocences when it comes to Christmas, like sitting next to the tree made her feel more Christmassy.

Sugar Land has a light show similar to Zoo Lights but less expensive and I think a lot more lights. The Holiday Lights Show is at Constellation Field and we picked one of the coldest nights to go but it made it feel a little more like Christmas. Tess loves Christmas lights so this event was right up her alley. She liked walking around looking at all the lights and they do a good job with the display. There is so much to see in the small space. We also had never been to the field so it also gave us a chance to see the field for the first time.

This year we had Christmas at our house, Mona and Kevin came down and all the Brauns came over. It was a big crowd but fun was had by all. My little girl did so good, she woke up early, around 6 or 6:30 but she played on her iPad or watched Christmas Movies till about 9 when we all ate breakfast and then started opening presents. Since everyone was in one place this year, the present pile was ridiculous. Most of them were for her, but she helped me distribute the presents out to the family and then she had so much fun opening up everything. Everyone had a lot of fun watching Tess enjoy her Christmas.

Christmas wore everyone out this year, we did a big breakfast and a big lunch so everyone was full and content most of the day. Clayton used his Christmas present and smoked a huge brisket which turned out great and we had all the fixings to go with it. All in all we had a great Christmas this year, we are blessed and I can’t complain.

We had friends over for New Year’s Eve, we were so busy having fun that I didn’t get any pictures. We did do some fireworks for the kids early in the evening and I got a pretty good video. Clayton left me alone with the fireworks guy so I am glad to know that I picked out good ones. Tess didn’t make it to midnight so we had to get our family picture the next morning.

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What if Today we are Thankful for Everything...

This year I took the whole week of Thanksgiving off and we headed up to Bedford to spend some time with family. We spent the week lounging around with the puppies, playing around the house, looking for any all Christmas decorations we could find and spending as much time with family as we could. We enjoyed our time off.

One of our Holiday traditions is going to ICE every year, and this year the theme was Santa Claus is comin’ to town. Tess watched the movie the day before we went so she was excited to see all the characters in ICE. Tess loves ICE, she has gone the last 3 years and she knows what to expect now so she just plows through the crowds so she can do what she wants to do.

The one thing that she can’t wait to do once we get into ICE is the slide, she knows it’s there and she is constantly looking for it as we walk through the ICE sculptures.

After Thanksgiving Day we headed out to Lampasas, for the annual family reunion. This year was bigger than ever. Tess and I met people we have never met and Clayton hasn’t seen in years. It was a really great weekend for everyone. Tess had a lot of fun feeding the cows, walking around the property, throwing rocks into the pond and playing with all the kids.

One of Tess' Favorite parts of being on the ranch is feeding the cows. She would ask everyday if we could go out and feed the cows. She then talks about how she fed the cows at the Ranch all year. 

We had a great Thanksgiving week spent with family, on the way home Tess just couldn’t handle it any longer. She passed out and slept most of the ride home, the whole week tuckered her out.

Hello November..

I love November, not only because it’s my birthday month but also because it’s the start of the Holiday Season. This November was like any other, busy. We had our annual trip up to Bedford to go shopping in Canton.

Clayton and I loaded the car up and then we stopped by school to pick Tess up. We had all the dogs in the car and I looked back and Rosy had chosen Tess’s seat as her spot. She soon had to give up her spot when we picked up little. Rosy didn’t make it very far before she got car sick and rode the rest of the way in my lap so I could clean up the mess she made.  

Tess did wonderful at Canton even though she was pretty much over the experience by lunch. She started out in the wagon with her snacks, blanket, and movie. She was set for a good day being pulled all over the place. That lasted a couple of hours and then she wanted out. She wanted to walk and we tried that for a little bit and then we just gave up on the crowds and went home. It was a good trip, got some good things but next year she will probably stay home with the boys.

Rosy came to her first soccer game, this was an experience. Tess wanted to play with her, she wanted to play with Clayton and I was just trying to keep the peace. Rosy will be staying at home with the other pups for future games. Toby and Lexi don’t get to come to the games either. Toby chases the soccer ball and Lexi isn’t happy unless she is right next to Clayton.

Tess and I met Cat and Justin for dinner on my birthday and she wanted me to take her picture while we were waiting. She then proceeded to tell me who to send the picture to and what to say. I think we can all agree she is getting way too big.

Tess also learned about snapchat this month. She was obsessed for a couple of weeks and loved taking pictures with all the filters. The obsession has died down but every once in a while if she sees the app on my phone she wants to take a picture.

November has started and we have already had a couple cold/cool days. I love this time of year and can’t wait for the holidays, Thanksgiving here we come. 

Nerf, its all fun and games till you have to pick up the darts...

One of our friends was moving out of our neighborhood and they gave us a metal frame from their old table. The glass had broken in a previous storm. We had talked for a while about what we wanted to with it and decided to tile the table. We looked at various stores and finally found a main tile with an accent tile that we really liked.

We bought all the pieces and looked into renting a tile saw for the weekend and realized that it was going to be cheaper to buy a saw. Mona and Kevin were coming in for the weekend so they helped tile. The weather that weekend was really nice, a cold front came in so working outside was really enjoyable. The table turned out really well.

Clayton had been wanting to buy some Nerf guns for him and Tess to play with for a while but they all have springs in them now so he had to wait till she was big enough to operate them. Well he saw some small ones at the store and picked them up. She was able to operate them and instantly fell in love. Clayton and his dad had to run to the store to pick up something real quick so Tess played with one of her guns. Mona and I could not stop laughing, she was shooting everything upstairs.

I told her we needed to take a picture to send to daddy so he would hurry home, and she instantly posed. About once a week or so she will see the guns and ask if we can play, I will say it was a good investment.