One week to go...

We are taking our very first cruise for Thanksgiving and the much anticipated countdown is finally at t-minus 7 days as of this morning! It's become our family tradition to take the week of Thanksgiving and go somewhere awesome with the kids. This year it's Belize, Honduras and Mexico! And even more exciting, Joshua's Grandma Ruth is joining us!! So in the interest of anticipation, we drove out to the Port of Houston last Saturday to see our ship at dock as it was trading out passengers. Here it is. Kinda CRAZY HUGE, eh?!

I will have lots to share once we get back. But since we will be officially unplugged for the entire week of Thanksgiving, here's our Happy Turkey wish for everyone!! Hope you have a fantastic holiday and stay tuned for updates on our adventures when we get back!!!

(Carter and I at his Thanksgiving Feast at school yesterday!)

Happy Halloween 2013!!

The forecast all week had been for significant rain all day and evening on Halloween. I'd been seriously worried about what-the-heck we would do if it was too wet/dangerous to go trick or treating. (Yes...dangerous...as in there had been crazy lightning, serious enough that you shouldn't be outside for safety's sake...especially holding an umbrella over your head, ie. lightning rod lol. And that was beside the fact that we got 4 inches of rain in a couple of hours so it was not just WET, it was flooded!) Anywhoooo, about 4pm, the skies started to part, the clouds cleared off and the sun even peeked out. Trick-or-treating was ON!!!!

Super cute monkeys 1, 2 and 3!

Yes, Carter was a pirate...again! He's just so in love with pirates...still...that he couldn't imagine being anything else, even for variety's sake. So he got a new and improved eye patch, a gold earring and a pirate hook for his hand to spruce up his beloved pirate costume from last year.

Trevor was a green skeleton guy. Funny note...we thought it was hilarious that he didn't have to "smile" for my pictures cuz of his mask. Who knows what crazy face he was actually making as mom snapped away hahaha!

As you can see, the candy haul was very successful! And you should be impressed, Mommy and Daddy haven't eaten ANY of it...yet!

Emilee dressed up as Minnie Mouse so it was an ADORABLE coincidence that Mandi had picked the same for sweet baby cousin Austin. It made for some super cute pictures when they came over to visit later that evening!

And not to be forgotten, Reese wishes everyone a very Happy Halloween!!!

Almost Halloween!!

We saved our pumpkin carving for tonight, because here in hot and humid Texas (yup, it's still easily in the 80s here and STILL crazy humid) you can't carve much earlier or your creation will turn into a moldy, icky mess. So here's a few pics from our fun...

We started out in the driveway.

And had to move inside the garage when a downpour came through...

Emilee's boyfriend, Garrett, stopped by to help get the goop out of the inside of the pumpkins.

And here are the finished creations! One pirate ship (that also doubles as a pretty cool pumpkin face)...one pig...and one crooked smiling jack-o-lantern!

What's For Dinner?

Carter and I are on our own for dinner tonight (Em is at the barn and going out with a friend and Joshua and Trevor are scuba diving). So I gave him the rare treat of picking anything he wanted me to cook for dinner tonight. I was 100% sure he was going to ask for chicken nuggets and yogurt...his two absolute favs. So I was shocked when, after asking him what he'd like, he immediately and excitedly exclaimed "GREEN EGGS AND HAM!"

Yes, Boog, Mommy can definitely make you green eggs and ham! (Well, green eggs and sausage because that's what I had on hand, but he told me that was just fine lol!)

Geez he just tickles my heart with super cute out-of-the-blue requests like that!

Someone was also not in the mood to get his picture taken...

But he finally peeked all the way up for the shot!

Homecoming, Texas Style

So here's a new one for us! It's Homecoming Week for Emilee's high school. Celebrations and spirit activities are happening all week. Today is the much anticipated football game and it's tradition that all of the girls wear these Homecoming Mums. I was kind of like "WHAT??!!" when I was told about this tradition. We definitely didn't do anything like this when I was a kid in California. And I should clarify, these mums don't just show up or get handed out. They are HAND MADE. And PERSONALIZED. By CREATIVE PEOPLE. And that's pretty much not me lol! So I was super lucky to have an awesome creative friend who took me under her wing and helped me make made Emilee's mum while I watched (Miss Kelly, THANK YOU!!!). It might be a bit hard to see, but Emilee's is personalized with a pig for FFA, a treble cleff for choir and some silver western charms.

So here's Emilee as she headed off to school this morning, jingling and smiling and looking very school-spirit-filled!

First Week Of School

Everyone is out the door this morning for their last day of the first week of school. The week seems to have been a success. Everyone is fairly happy with their teachers, was excited to see their friends after the long summer, and we're adjusting to the get up and out the door routine fairly easily.

Here's their annual First Day picture from Monday. Each of them is seeming soooo grown up right now!

Emilee, 15.9 yrs old, Sophomore

Trevor, 13 yrs old, 8th grade

Carter, 6.5 yrs old, 1st grade

We are outta here in a couple of hours to go camping for the weekend. Yup, we are being THOSE parents and pulling the kids out of school
early :-)! Have a great holiday, everyone!!!

Committing

So it's been almost forever since I got something up on my blog. Well...two months...but still, that's terrible, when in the blog world daily or three times a week at least is much more the norm. Oh well, life is crazy/good here and I'm just not getting on my computer for much more than a quick facebook check, email triage and the handful of hours I put in each month for my awesome work from home job. Anyway...here I am! We are out of town hanging in OKC while Joshua works. The boys and I are going to have some fun, visiting favorite friends and hanging out in our former home city. And this morning, the boys are still snoring so I thought I'd shake a little dust off my blog link and check in.

Soooooo. It's already been said, I'm RIDICULOUSLY behind here on my blog. I have aspirations to catch up months of updates, but for this morning I thought I'd share a quick current project. I'm seriously trying to talk myself into embracing and committing to the fact that we just might be staying put for a while in Houston. 7 years of moving constantly has me pretty gun shy. But the radar screen says "nothing ahead" so I'm talking myself into tackling making my house look more "homey" and "decorated"...not so much like I'm ready to move next week if need be. So in the interest of baby steps I tackled our entry way bench this weekend. The cushion was SAD. The cover is not removable and it's been spilled upon over and over by various multi colored concoctions.

So, I pulled out some of the upholstery fabric I had leftover from our camping trailer remodel a year ago, sat down with my sewing machine for a few and gave it a new (removable/washable) facelift! Much better, right?!

Next projects...paint and decorate Carter's room in a pirate theme, paint and decorate Trevor's room in a Houston Astros theme, buy new furniture to fit our WEIRD/ANNOYING living room shape and paint the kitchen. Stay tuned!