A Visit to Lala Land

We spent Thanksgiving with the newly weds, my brother, Ronny & his wife, Lauren (or Aunt Lala to Laney). Kathryn christened their house Lala Land because that's where Aunt Lala lives. We got to Ronny & Lauren's house in time to finalize the Thanksgiving feast. Here they are posing for a picture before we took the turkey back to the kitchen to cut it with the electric knife.
Our little family posed before dinner.

After loading up on a Thanksgiving foods, we went to the beach for a walk. Here's Kat messing with a jelly fish. Ok, to some it's gross, to us it was kind of cool to get that close to one & just get to check it out. Laney loves her Aunt Lala. They spent a ton of time together. At the beach:

Watching the Aggies get stomped on by the evil Longhorns:You may not be able to see it, but Laney has an orange bow on one pony tail & a maroon one on the other. My mother made her "House Divided" hair wear, since Daddy Ron was a Longhorn and Ronny & Lauren were Aggies.

Desert time - Good moms let you let the beaters, great moms turn off the mixer first. My mom is a great mom when it comes to homemade whipped cream.

Friday morning we decided not to shop until we dropped and instead went to the park. We did some sliding & climbing, and Laney got in some swing time with Mama Janie.

In the afternoon, it was time for more tradition - turkey tamales! What a great way to use the leftovers. Laney gave spreading the maza a try, but wasn't really too keen on it.

Daddy Ron & Mama Janie getting their maza on.

Lauren's brother, Adam making his first tamales with Lauren and Kathryn.

My cheesy brother and industrious husband.

The tamales turned out yummy and we had a fabulous couple of days with the family. Hope you had a great Thanksgiving too.

Turkey Bowl

Our church had a youth vs. adults flag football game called the Turkey Bowl on Sunday. Rob & Kathryn signed up as players, Laney & I went as spectators. Elena also gave cheerleading a try.
Laney & I hanging out in the gazebo while Daddy & Sissy play.

After Rob left the game to give someone else a chance for the fun, he & Laney had a game of tackle.

We ended up the evening at Fuddruckers. Here's my cutie patootie girlies.

We're out of town for Thanksgiving. May your holiday be safe, blessed & yummy!

Ren Fest '08

We made what has become our annual trip to the Texas Renaissance Festival this weekend. In addition to our little family of four, we took Kat's friend Paige & our good friend, Christina. Kat & Paige spent most of the day without the uncool grown-ups, so we didn't see much of her.

Here's Laney on the carousel. She kept telling us all day, "I rode the bunny"
We went to the dance lesson at 1:00. Here's Rob dancing Half Hannigan.

We finally caught up with Neil (our friend who works at the festival) late in the day. This is Christina, Rob & Neil.

Laney wouldn't stay with Neil, but at least this year she didn't cry at the sight of him. She was still very cautious of the people in costume, especially the barbarians, but they did not scare her as bad as last year.

Is this Rob's new princess hat?

No, it's Elena's.

Getting in a little swing time with Kat & Paige as we leave for the day.

Take a look at this!

Kat brought home an honor roll certificate for 1st six weeks!

Christmas Portraits

We went and took our Christmas portraits last weekend. It was a zoo who knew so many people take Christmas pictures more than month & a half early?!? The shoot was smooth and they turned out pretty good if I do say so myself. We actually had a hard time picking which ones to buy.

Tricks & Treats

Or how to get a 2 year old to wear her Halloween costume.

I have to tell you, getting Laney into her costume has been touch & go. I decided that she would go as a princess after thinking about the various characters she likes - Elmo would have been too hot, Minnie Mouse would have required store bought ears, you get the idea. And I asked, many times, Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty. She picked Sleeping Beauty repeatedly. I bought blue fabric, because the girl wore the blue dress for most of the movie, and if Laney suddenly changed her mind I could tell her it was Cinderella.

As I mentioned in the previous post, she refused to put it on at Zoo Boo. The next day I really wanted to take her picture in at a pumpkin patch. Our church didn't have ours this year, but the bridle club down the street did. So armed with a baggie of candy corn for bribery, off Elena, my mom & I went to the pumpkin patch. She refused to take of her shirt, but did eventually allow me to pull the dress on over her clothes. After I gave her the candy corn.
Checking out the minature horses at the bridle club:
With my mom (note the jeans sticking out of Laney's skirt):

Cut to Thursday. Kat was invited to Trick or Treat with a friend & I wanted pics of the girls together, so we took them a day early. Getting the costume on this time involved me wearing it first (I am so glad no was around to take MY picture!) And the promise of playing outside. And possibly a cookie.

Onwards to Friday morning. Elena was asked to wear her costume to school. They were going to Trick or Treat at the other classes at 9:15 & then change clothes. I convinced her in to the dress with yet another bribe, the joy of wearing church shoes to school. She tried to take the costume off before we left the house, but I got back on. She made it about 10 minutes at school before she was tugging it off again. Hoo-boy! Her teacher was changing her clothes when I left. There was a note on her take home sheet that she did put it back on, over her clothes again.

Friday night was the easiest. The ultimatum. No costume = No trick or treat = No candy. Problem solved. Costume on. Trick or treat accomplished. Here she is enjoying a hard fought bag of M&Ms.

Hope you had a less frustrating Halloween!