Book Club/ Girls Night Out

Elizabeth and I have been talking about starting a Book Club for over a year and we finally got it going! Sometime in December we made our first book selection.  

                                 

                                                     

                                            

I would have never chosen this book as our first book selection, but imagine this:  Four girls in a bookstore at 10:00 p.m. trying to agree on a book.  We just couldn't decide until 10 minutes before the store was going to close, one of the employees suggested Water for Elephants, so we went for it.

On Friday, Elizabeth, Kristi, Kim, Brittney, Heather and I met for our first Book Club meeting.  We went to get a pedicure and a manicure.  Oh it was so nice!  We will definitely going to have to do that again.

 

Later, we went to eat at Easy's and discussed the book.  And then, it was time for Elizabeth to reveal the next book selection: 

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

                                                  

  

Oh what a great night out with the girls.  Can't wait for our next Book Club meeting.

Still Under Construction

I don't think construction will ever stop at our house.  Last week, Dave finally was able to install the pantry door!  Yay!  I'm super excited about that.  You must understand, that curtain was not cutting it.

Dave also finished running the electrical to the study, which was a lot harder than what it sounds like.  He had to crawl under the house.  Pretty tight fit.

After the electrical, he finished taping, floating and texturing "his" new office.  For those of you who don't know, "his office" is part of the porch that we enclosed right on the other side of the fireplace.  

All we were missing was deciding on a color, so during lunch one Sunday, we were trying to decide.  Natalia and Carson thought that it would be a good idea to paint it Aggie color.  Luke wouldn't have anything to do with that.  For several days, he went around saying, "No, me no like A&M, me like Longhorns."  ~Sorry Daddy!!!!!

Our Little Rebel!

Finally, we decided on this color....and the kids enjoyed helping out!

Noodle-and-Spinach Casserole

A couple of you have asked me for this recipe, so here it is...

Noodle-and-Spinach Casserole

I didn't take a picture so I had to borrow this photo from myrecipes.com

I made this dish last Friday and even Dave liked it, which is a good sign.  In addition, it was very easy to make so I'll be cooking this again!  ~Enjoy!

Sea World, here we come!

For Christmas, my parents gave us season passes to Sea World.  We were so excited, so we decided to take a short trip (well, short trip for me anyway - the kids stayed with my parents for the rest of the week :0)!) to San Antonio right before Natalia had to go back to school.  I planned it just right.  I left to San Antonio on Monday and then took the kids to Sea World on Tuesday right before driving back to Beaumont all by myself.  We had a great day.  Luke was so ready to ride the Shamu roller coaster.  He was so excited to know that he was tall enough to ride it.  This was his very first time to ride it!  He felt like such a big boy.  He had the biggest smile as he was preparing for take off.  That look quickly changed as soon as the ride started.  After the ride I kept saying, "Luke, wasn't that fun?"  Forcing a smile he replayed, "yea!"  

Luke could not wait any longer to ride Shamu Express!
Enjoying The Polar Express - 4D.  It was funny to see their reactions with all the special effects.
This thing always makes me nervous.  One minute I see them and then I don't, just like that.  There are so many ways out of this thing that I don't know where anybody is!

He may not be old, and he may not be a Saint, but you can call Dave "Nick"

At approximately 6:30 Christmas morning, the phone started ringing.  I would pick it up and nobody would answer.  So I would hang up again.  This happened 3 more times until I finally woke up, and I knew without a doubt that it was Dave calling.  I asked him if it was him and he confessed with a big smile on his face, "Yah, I just wanted to wake everybody up!"A few minutes later, Natalia ran into our room excited about all the gifts Santa left.  We went back to the living room and started going through all the stuff in the stockings.  I was taking video while Dave took pictures.  All of a sudden Dave says, "Natalia, what else did y'all get?"  She looks around and screams, "the Wii, the Wii, the Wii!"  I looked in the direction she was looking  and saw a small box!  I was a little confused and anxious, because I was unsure how well the Wii shortage/elf delivery explanation was going to go over.  But then I noticed that the box Natalia was looking at did not look like the box for the Wii controller we left out the night before.  I didn't know if it was just an empty box, or just another part to the Wii or if Dave had broken into somebody's house and taken the Wii from them (no, just kidding, this did not cross my mind).  No, the only explanation was that Old St. Nick had visited our home!  And, needless to say, we had a lot to talk about once the kids weren't around, part of which involved my ride on the Polar Express!

The funny part is that while I was so concerned about the kids not having a "big" gift from Santa,  to my surprise they enjoyed their stocking a lot more than any of the other stuff...even the Wii!  Natalia's favorite was the $2 glitter dough Dave found the day before.  Luke and Carson's favorite gift was their new Nerf guns (just what we needed, more weapons in the house).  Although, Natalia kept wondering why Santa had not brought her the roller skates she had been asking for.  We told her that she could not be disappointed, but to be thankful for all the wonderful gifts she had received.

Natalia excited about the Wii!?! 

Luke playing dead with his $15 gift!  He loves to play dead.

Later that day, we went to Grannie and Papaw's to open more gifts.

Natalia and Grannie went the next day to "Build a Bear"

Carson got a wooden castle from Papaw & Grannie

Luke got a Fisher Price Camera!

After being at Grannie and Papaw's house, we went to our house to meet my parents who drove from San Antonio with more gifts.  Natalia and Carson finally got the roller skates they had been wishing for.

Luke and his remote control dump truck

Carson & Natalia got the roller skates they had been wishing for!

We were blessed to enjoy Christmas with our family and that's what made this time so wonderful!

I BELIEVE

I Believe...

I Believe...

I Believe...

These were the words that kept coming out of Dave's mouth as he stared at the Christmas tree with his arm around me on Christmas Eve!  I didn't know what was up, but then again, this behavior is "normal" for him.  He was even incoherent at times, talking about some Polar express picking me up that night?

On Christmas Eve, Dave left the house at 5:00 in the morning to look for something from Santa for the kids!  Yup, you read that right, on Christmas Eve!  He was looking for a Wii out of all things.  One salesman even told him that he was more likely "to find an unicorn on Christmas Eve than a Wii."  Anyway, after being gone for several hours, he came home with a few small gifts for the kids and the controls for the Wii.  ~~His idea was that Santa could leave a note for the kids explaining to them that there were no more Wiis but that an elf would drop it off at a later time.  WHAT?!  I let him know that was the stupidest idea I've ever heard, but what else could I do?!!

That afternoon, I went out shopping for a few other gifts from my parents, but before I left the house, Dave kept telling me to please let him know if I was going to purchase any big items.  I didn't know where that was coming from, but anyway, I reassured him that I would let him know first.

I was a little concerned about the whole "Santa's letter" idea!  Dave's mom was also a little concerned.  She even went to Toy's R Us later that day to get the kids something extra, but Dave wouldn't let her bring them over to the house.   He kept reassuring us that everything was going to be fine, that "this was not the true meaning of Christmas".  So she took the extra gifts back to her house, and Dave kept staring at the christmas tree with his arm around me saying, "I believe..."

That night, we got ready for Santa as usual:  we read the "The Night Before Christmas" and tracked Santa on the Iphone one last time (we had been tracking Santa every 15 minutes since we woke up!).  We prepared Santa's snacks - everyone knows Santa Clause loves Dr Pepper more than anything, and finally we wrote the jolly old fellow a note.  

At Natalia's constant insistence, we finally put the kids to bed (she didn't even want to read the story, because she was afraid she wouldn't be asleep when Santa came by).  Normally Dave goes to bed right after the kids go down, but for some reason, Dave waited for me to go to bed this night.  I couldn't understand why though.  I cleaned the house and got everything ready for the next day, all the way to 2:30 in the morning, and there was Dave still awake, 4 and half hours past his bedtime?!? He even decided to read a little as I was falling asleep?  Well, it ALL made sense on Christmas Day - as you'll see in my next post!

Tracking Santa on the iPhone

Reading "The Night Before Christmas"

Writing note for Santa

Preparing snacks for Santa

Snow in Beaumont?!

I couldn't believe it. On Wednesday, December 10th, we were watching the 10 o'clock news and we heard something about getting snow in Beaumont. So, Dave sent me outside to check. I saw no snow. Five minutes later, somebody called to let us know that it was snowing! I went to check again and sure enough, there was snow! We were so excited so we automatically went to get the kids out of bed. We didn't understand why they weren't as excited as we were. The responses we got were "can we go back to bed now?" and "one day I want to see real snow." ~What? We were a little confused. So we just put them back in bed.  

Dave also disappointed me. After a few minutes, he decided that it was bed time, so he went to sleep. I couldn't believe it!  I couldn't sleep. I was so excited that I didn't fall asleep until 2 AM. The next morning, we were all up by 6:00 AM ready to play in the snow. We didn't even take the time to get the kids out of their pajamas (now I wish I would have, for pictures you know)!

Family Photo in front of our house before we went to Grannie and Papaw's house to eat breakfast and play.

Grannie & Papaw's back yard.

Making our first snowman.

Snowball fight right before Daddy had to go to work.

This is my big girl in front of Grannie and Papaw's house on her way to school.  She chose to go to school that day because she was afraid that if she missed, then she would have way too much work the next day.  

I picked her up early though :0) !

Later that day, Solomon and Susan came to Grannie's house to play.