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. 

Field Trip to Dewberry Farm

Tess’s class went to Dewberry Farm and Clayton and I decided to tag along and be chaperones. We had a really fun day with our little one on her first big field trip. The day started out a little hectic right before we pulled into the farm a truck rear ended us, the damage was minimal more of a nuisance than anything.

We eventually made it to the farm and had a fun filled day. We started by jumping on these large pillows. Tess liked jumping on them but she is so small that everyone jumping around would make her fall and bounce her around.

We jumped for a while and then moved on to various other activities. We took a picture with a school bus, our friend Anthony, and in cow barrels. The cow barrels were really small and the ride was pretty bumpy but the kids really enjoyed the experience. Tess and Anthony are really close friends and hang out at school all the time.

One of the things that we did was this huge slide, of course Clayton volunteered to go up to the top before anyone else did. He sent Tess down the slide and then after all the other kids at gone down, he also went down the slide.

We also visited some animals on the farm, Tess loves all animals even the smelly pigs. She couldn’t see all the animals so I picked her up and was showing her all the different ones. This one goat found his perfect place in of the cement cylinders and wasn’t moving no matter how much you offered him food. The farm also converted an old fire truck to shoot out candy during Halloween for all the kids.

At the end of the day we all took a hayride out to the pumpkin patch and all the kids could pick a pumpkin. Tess found the perfect pumpkin and wouldn’t let it go. We had to get a pumpkin picture with Anthony.

We had good weather for most of the day, by the time it was getting hot we were done with most of the activities and ready to head home. We need to come back on our own to Dewberry farm, but it was a good introduction to the place. 

Every Picture has a Story to Tell

We did 2 rounds of family pictures this year, 1 set with the grandparents/granny and another with the Braun family. Tess was really good throughout both sessions and I think the pictures turned out really well.

I picked up Tess early from school and we went and got our nails done. She was super excited about getting her nails painted and loved getting pampered for the 20 minutes.

My neighbor/friend took the pictures for our first session. We met at this park around the corner from our house and walked around and took pictures at various parts in the park. We didn’t realize that there was this event going on during the weekend at this park and it was being set up the morning we were taking pictures. Some of the spots that Alex usually used were not available because of this setup but all in all I think the pictures turned out great.

I really wanted to get some good shots of Tess and her grandparents, I think Alex did a great job at capturing her relationship with each person. We also got a couple of good shots of her and granny even though that relationship has had some ups and downs lately with the changes from Chemo.

The second session was a couple weeks later and the photographer was a teacher at Strake. We met at a park in Sugar Land and he had some particular locations he liked to take pictures, we just smiled. Tess was the star of the show. At one point we changed into our Christmas Sweaters and took a Christmas picture. All the pictures this year turned out great.

It's as Much Fun to Scare as to Be Scared...

We were Rapunzel again this year for Halloween. My mom made the costume and Tess loved the fact that she had long, long hair to go with the princess dress. At school they had a fall festival, you could buy individual tickets or buy an all-inclusive wrist band. We went with the wrist band and Tess could play as many games as she want. We met up with Kayla and took some picture, got out face painted, and painted a pumpkin. Tess had fun at the fall festival and she enjoyed seeing her teachers outside of the school setting.

On Halloween night we met up with the neighbors and we trick-or-treated around a couple of streets. Clayton stayed at the house to scare all the neighborhood kids. We didn’t get a good picture of our house, but he has started his haunted house vision.