Thanksgiving

We had Thanksgiving at Aunt B's house and it was a great time. Uncle Schim did a wonderful job on the turkey and everything else was perfect. We all sat at the same table (no kids table for Aunt B's feast). Ryan sat down at his spot a few hours before lunch was ready and stayed there off and on until it was time to eat. Meme and Poppa came over too.

The day before Thanksgiving Mike & I took care of all 6 kids while Aunt B and Uncle Schim went to work. Aunt B is working part time now as a librarian at Palo Alto college. It was nowhere near as hard as it used to be. Maybe because Nolan and Matthew played playstation all day. Unfortunately that night after Uncle Schim got home Matthew fell and busted his chin. He had to get 4 stitches but he was really brave.

Saturday we went to lunch at Cheesy Jane's and met Grandpa and Uncle Dave there. Ryan was in rare form, I'll post a picture of Uncle Dave trying to calm him down. Thank night Mike, Maddie and I went out to eat Mexican food by ourselves. It was wonderful but sort of strange. I don't think we've ever gone out with Maddie without Ryan being there too. She talked the ENTIRE time.......

Potty humor: Don't read this next paragraph unless you're interested in some potty humor. For some reason everytime we go to SA Ryan starts holding in his bowel movements. A lot of his days were spent hiding behind the couch or behind closed doors trying to keep it in or maybe trying to go but he was constipated. Anyway, at one point I found him hiding in Matthew's room and asked him what he was doing. He said he was "taking a dump." Wonder where he learned that........

We came home on 281 to avoid holiday traffic and it was a good drive. So nice not to have to sit in Austin traffic and listen to Mike yell at everybody on the road.

I added a few more ICE pictures that my friends took. Enjoy.

Ice, Ice, Baby

Today we went to the ICE exhibit at the Gaylord Texan. It is an exhibit entirely made of ice. It's 9 degrees in there so we bundled up and had a blast. We met some friends there and waited around for Santa to show up but it turns out he was not scheduled to be there until 4. The kids were a little disappointed to miss Santa but still had fun playing on the train, sleigh and running around the hotel.

Sick, sick and more sick

We have all been sick off and on the last few weeks. Except for Mike of course who has an "iron stomach." I had to cancel our flu shots and the kids missed some school. Ryan missed 4 days and Maddie missed 1. Tori got stung by a yellow jacket in the midst of all this and had to go to Urgent Care too. Her hand swelled up but she ended up being fine. Maddie missed her Thanksgiving party at school so we had one at home. See the pics. Note the chocolate turkey she made.

Cousins Visit

The cousins came to visit last weekend so Daddy and Uncle Schim could go to the Nascar race. Saturday Aunt B. and I got to go shopping by ourselves for the whole day. It was AWESOME!! I only got 2 calls from Mike, one to ask where the formula was and one to ask where medicine for a bee sting was. (Ryan ended up with fire ant bites not a bee sting.) I decided I really need to get out more often so I have scheduled several things over the next few weeks. Last night I had dinner with 3 of my college sorority sisters at Uncle Julio's. We try to get together for dinner once a month but figured out last night that the last time the 4 of us had dinner together was when Tori was just 8 weeks old, 8 months ago!

While the guys were at Nascar Aunt B. and I took care of the kids. We had lunch at Dickey's BBQ (kids eat free on weekends). Tori ate briscuit, turkey and bread and loved it. Then we went to the playground. Mine all took naps. The rest of the day they all played well together. There were a few fights (the result of Mike teaching Ryan to "hit back".) Ryan kept hitting poor little Colin because "Daddy says to hit back". I finally had to tell Ryan that Daddy was wrong. (Mike are you reading this? Sorry!)

Ryan is home from school sick for the 2nd day in a row. He has a fever and cold. Hope no one else gets it. Which brings me to today's poll on flu shots. Please give us your opinion.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween was the best so far with the kids. Ryan had to dress up like storybook character for school and they had a parade. Maddie, Tori and I went to watch and he was so excited to see us there. He was a superhero from his "How to be a superhero" book.

That night they both dressed up as Spiderman and Tori was Tigger. It was a little too hot for Tori in her costume, good ol' Texas weather. We had a great time trick or treating. Ryan would go to the door and ring the doorbell while Maddie waited in the driveway to make sure there were no dogs. Once Ryan got his candy and no dogs appeared, Maddie would run up to get her candy. This started because at the very first house we went to 3 big dogs ran out when they opened the door. Every once in awhile Ryan would yell out "Happy Halloween" as we left a house. Maddie's favorite candy is M&M's and Ryan's is Hershey's bars. They are very good about sharing all the other candies that they don't like which is good because we gave away every last piece of our candy and now I don't have anything to snack on except theirs!