Special Visit

Since Mimi and Paw-Paw made a special visit, we decided to make day 20 on our calendar a little trip to close by Marble Falls to eat at the famous Bluebonnet Cafe and go to the Walkway of Lights.  

Good food and good times!

It was very cold, but it actually felt like Christmas! 

Ellie just kept asking to see the stable!

So fun to have Mimi and Paw-Paw here!

Look at all these lights!

Great Christmas memories!

Preschool Sing-A-Long!

I've really been trying not think about all the "lasts" that are happening this year before Hudson heads off to kindergarten, but this one was a big one.  His last preschool Christmas sing-a-long.  Thank goodness I'm also a teacher there and was very busy getting my own class ready that I didn't have time to stop and wallow in how I will never see him in his pajamas again on that stage.  Ahh! Tears!

Ready to sing Joy to the World!

At least I still have this one with me for a few more years! 

My parents surprised my kids and showed up to the sing-a-long and this is Ellie's confused/excited face!  She didn't know what to do!  But she did so good singing Jingle Bells and We Wish You a Merry Christmas! 

She did not care for Santa, however! Ha!

This is some serious conversation right here!  

Santa called Hudson by name and he was so excited!  

(He had no idea this was Mr. Ben, his Sunday School teacher! Ha!)

I'm so blessed to be right with me kids during these preschool years.

I'm going to miss this next year!

So proud of my Hudson and Ellie!

Getting into the spirit!

The kids are loving the advent calendar and we are loving watching the wonder on their faces this year.   They are very much in the Christmas spirit!  I've tried to come up with activities for us, but sometimes all I can come up with for the day is to put in a couple of Hershey kisses!  One guess as to which of my kids prefers chocolate over a special activity! :)  Either way, we are counting down and talking about how we are closer to Jesus' special day!

Opening a Christmas Look and Find

(Surprisingly this is currently ranked #1 on their favorites list!)

Please excuse, this must have been a clothing optional day.

Making Handprint Reindeer

So proud!

And a Christmas Carriage Ride!

We waited in line waaayyy too long for this, but they loved it!  Sorry the pics are dark and blurry!

Some of our other activities have included looking at Christmas lights, watching Christmas movies, and reading the Christmas story from the Bible.  There are a few really fun ones coming up too. Stay tuned!

It's Advent Season!

We love the Christmas season here!  Our tree is up, the Christmas books and Little People Nativity are out and we are ready to celebrate Advent!  We want our kids to experience the whole season leading up to Christmas day, so we brought out our Advent calendar again today.  They were so excited!

Ready to open #1!

What's inside??

A new Christmas movie about the story of Jesus' birth! Yay!

We love seeing their excitement around this time of year.  We are doing our best to point it back to Jesus every chance we get.  So excited to show you some of our fun Christmas activities! 

Hootie

Hudson is in the Owl class at school and they have a special friend named Hootie who gets to go home with a student over the weekend.  We were so lucky and had the privilege of taking Hootie home for entire week over Thanksgiving.  Good times.

Hootie goes to church with Hudson. 

Riding in the gator at Mimi and Paw-Paw's!

Hanging out with all the cousins!

And some play time before heading back to the Owl class.

Bye Hootie! We had fun with you!!

Thankful

Ok people, let's just move on to Thanksgiving, shall we?   No excuses for another very long lapse in blogging, just moving on...

Hudson at his Thanksgiving Sweet Feast.

His Native American Indian name was Dancing Ant.  Ha!

Dancing Ant showing off his skills.  So cute.

This year we wrote the things we were thankful for and strung them up on the mantel.  

Couldn't be more thankful for these two.  So blessed!

Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

And now for my favorite time of the year!!

Preschool Pumpkin Festival

Saturday was our church Preschool Pumpkin Festival and this year we brought along Cinderella and Jake from the cartoon Jake and the Neverland Pirates!  They were so excited that they wanted to get dressed at 8:00 a.m.  

Cinderella and Jake, ready to go!

First stop...snowcones!

Pony ride!

This one makes me laugh!

We also went on a hayride, found a pumpkin, ate some popcorn and played carnival games!  Such a fun day with beautiful weather (it's really still summer here!).  

Next stop, another pumpkin patch with our MOPS friends!

Pumpkin Patch #1

A couple of weekends ago we went with the Testones on our annual pumpkin patch outing for pumpkins and pictures.  This was by far the hardest year to get our children to smile for pictures.  Between the tantrums, running off, fake smiles, underwear showing and more...I didn't have much hope.  We got a few good ones.  Let's just say it was more about making memories!

Our pumpkins!

Hudson-4 1/2

Ellie- 2 1/2

And this pretty much sums up our lives with five kids!

Ellie, Hudson, Kate, Meg and Jack!

Lot's more Fall fun coming up!

Back to School!

Even though it was 103 degrees in Austin today, summer is technically over for us!  We all started back to school today!  For the most part, everyone was excited and ready! 

My happy students, ready to go!

"We got this mom! We've done this before!"

When did they get so big??

Hudson is ready for Pre-K in the Owls class!

Ellie is ready for the Ladybugs Class!

(I hope they are ready for her!)

We are so blessed to have two of our friends as Hudson and Ellie's teachers this year.  It's Hudson's last year in preschool and I cannot even think about what this time next year will be like.  We're going to focus on right now and hope for a great year!

Go Rangers!

We took Hudson to his first Rangers game.  He was a little overwhelmed at first, but quickly perked up (with the help of some ice cream!) and loved it!  This was a fun milestone for us, as we introduced him to something we loved doing as kids.  He is now obsessed with the Rangers and Dusty isn't complaining! 

My two guys!  Who's happier?!

A little treat!  Where is the little blue hat the ice cream used to come in? :(

His fave, Josh Hamilton hit a home run in the first inning! And that was it.  Hudson really needed everyone to hit it over the fence so that he could see fireworks! Ha!

Still happy though!

Getting a closer look at Hamilton in the outfield! 

Fun memories!!

Babies and Birthdays

We have celebrated a lot around here over the last couple of weeks!  My best friend Lyndsey had her third little one, I turned 30-something and my sweet niece Chloe turned 1!  Happy days!!

Meet Meg Elizabeth Testone!  Born July 31st!

Hudson wants to hold her and Ellie wants to know "What's Meg doing?"

Sorry Meg, I'm afraid you will get all kinds of unwanted "love" from my children!

Dusty took me to see The Sound of Music at an outdoor theater on my birthday.  Austin is so cool...probably too cool for us! Ha!

And sweet Chloe at her first birthday party! I think she's in shock from the icing! 

If you are still reading...

here's what we've been up to.  

(My mom has threatened to disown me if I ever have a blog lapse this long again.  Geeze.)

Trying to stay cool!

Going to VBS!

And just being cute!

Summer is flying by. :(

4th of July

We decided to brave the local 4th of July celebration this year, and honestly it was kind of a let down.  Not many things to do for little ones.  Thank goodness there were snowcones. :)

Always up for a good bouncehouse!

Please excuse the sweaty faces.  And the same shirt from the previous post.

Playing at the park, waiting for the fireworks!

Hudson gaves us a play by play through the entire show.

And Ellie buried her head.  She hated it.

Hope you enjoyed your 4th!