Baby showers

OK!! So, I have a little time while the kiddos nap, so I will do my best to update this blog to a current, more managable state. :)

In October, I was blessed by friends to have 2 wonderful baby showers. It was amazing to be celebrated by friends and family & to be given all the necessities to welcome our little girl. We did both showers is one weekend- mainly so my family could come all at once- which makes for a busy weekend! It was a little exhausting, but it was great. Here are a few pictures.

On Saturday, October 2nd, my college buddies (AKA my Barrio sisters) threw a shower for me in downtown McKinney. We met and had lunch at The Pantry, which is one of my favorite lunch spots.

Here is a picture of myself and the girls that hosted (well, the ones who could attend): Chrissy, Kelli, Bethany, me, Melisa, Whit & Hannah. Thanks ladies for loving me & my family!

I also had several family members in attendance. :) In this pic are Amanda, Sarah, Mom & my grandmother- Ma.

Some friends who were sweet to come: Jessica Estes & then Sharla & Amy.


On Sunday afternoon, my friends from church hosted a shower at Jill Rasmussen's house. I could not believe all that went into the detail of this shower & was very humbled by the time spent for it. I have used everything that decorated the shower in the nursery somehow & it all turned out perfect! The nursery is now my favorite room in the house & really feels like me- but that is another topic for another blog entry. :) Let's get to the pictures!

The amazing hostesses for this shower: Annamarie, Katie, Jill, me, Lauren & Colette. Not in the picture were Jes & Christi.
Here is my grandmother with my niece- aren't they cute!!
This is my Mom and my sister-in-law, Amanda. It was great to have them with us.
Here is where the cuteness begins... this is the quilt that is the main piece from the bedding my grandmother made for the nursery.

These pictures were painted by Jill and will be hung on a tree mural behind the crib. The bird houses were painted by Annamarie and are a perfect touch to the bird-themed nursery.

Cuteness on the food table. :)
On this table, they had a 'Wishing tree' for the guests to write well wishes and short messages. I love that it is a little tree & I have now put it on a top shelf in the nursery so we can look at it all the time. :)

Pumpkin Patch

We made our annual trip down to the Dallas Arboretum to take pictures in the pumpkin patch. My friend Colette and I were the only ones who could make the trip that day, so we chased the kids around & got a few shots worthy of posting.

Here is what I saw most of the time from Evan. He just wanted to run through the pumpkins and pick up the ones that were small enough.
Trying to get a 2 yr old to smile results in many different things... the fake, 'look how funny I can be' face...

The cheesy, 'please let me down so I can run' face...The 'OK, you told me just one more' face...
And if you are lucky... you get an almost normal smile! :)

Now, trying to get 3 kids to smile, at the same time, and look in the same direction... pretty impossible for 2 Moms who's kids are tired of hearing us talk to them. :)

Thankfully, it was a beautiful day & the kids were totally tired when we got home. :) Next year this same crew will have 3 girls and 2 boys... kinda crazy to think about!

Plano Balloon Festival

In mid-Sept, we headed down to Plano for their annual hot-air balloon festival. It was quite warm, but we were in the shade & it was quite a hike from our car to the park where it was held. The kiddos enjoyed playing and running around & we were able to see the balloon glow. So, here are a few shots of the evening.

Janina entertained the kids for a while. We were very appreciative!
Evan gave us his surprised but happy face... he is the king of making faces. :)

Page rested a moment... he and Ben spent most of the time getting food and drinks for us.

A great shot of the balloon glow. The kids loved the mushroom & the lady bug.
Our little family. Evan making another face & me trying to keep him from putting his hands over his face. :) It was a fun outing.

The Great Clean-out

I will make this short, and not bore you with pictures... but Sept turned into a clean-out frenzy at our house. It started when we wanted to put Evan in his new room. Well, we had to find somewhere for all the stuff in the guest room to go. So, we had to start cleaning out other areas of the house to accommodate the stuff. After that, we worked on getting Molly's room cleaned out (it had become the staging area for all the stuff we did not know what to do with) and from there, we moved to our room, the living room, kitchen, office, garage & even the attic. It was quite the task & pretty much consumed our lives for about 3 weeks or so. However, I am happy to report that all is where it should be & I have been able to be more the housekeeper than I have ever been. It is quite a relief. We are still working on a couple of last projects around the house- cleaning out the garage again after we emptied Lisa's house & we are sprucing up our bedroom to make it a little more like a place of rest. But, those are minor compared to what we got done. So we feel much better now & nesting is not really on my agenda any more. :)

Short weekend away

As of June 11th of this year, Page and I have been married for 5 years. It has been a wonderful journey of ups and downs, but we would have it no other way. :) To celebrate, we originally wanted to take a fun trip & let my parents take care of Evan... we did get to it- on Labor day weekend. So, a little late- but better late than never, right. We did not do anything glamorous- we dropped Evan off at my parent's house & drove into Louisiana to a town called Nachtitoches. I went to college in Nacogdoches, TX, and they are a rival of sorts, so it made for an interesting trip... among many other things.

On Saturday, we got to town, checked into our hotel & headed to the historic downtown area. There is some great shopping there & there are a few historical things to see as well. We were there on a day when there were 2 events that seemed to completely clashed in my mind... a motorcycle rally & a Zydeco music festival. Let's suffice it to say that the combo made for interesting people watching... which is what we did the most of. :)
On Sunday, we did not really want to do a plantation tour (even though that is most of what tourists do there in the summer), so we decided to be adventurous and head out of town to take in the sights of the Alligator Ranch!! It was interesting, for sure!

We stayed around after touring the whole place for the alligator feeding 'show' that was supposed to be the best part of the park. Well, just what you see in this picture is what happened. There was a scripted story being played over the loud speaker & pretty much the 'show' was that this boat came out into the middle of the little pond, the guys did the feeding, and the boat went back to shore. So, not really a show. It made for lots of laughs though for Page and I. :)

Here is the best shot we could get of ourselves with gators in the background.

We love wooden cutouts that make great photo-ops!! There were about 15 of these around the park- we each picked our favorite. :) I think Page chose most wisely.

All gators dress like farmers, right!?

After the ranch experience, we headed back to Grapeland and got to hang out with my family for the evening. It was a great weekend & much needed time away. :)