Fall School Pictures

Why do they have to grow so fast?!

Ava is in 1st Grade - here's her picture from Kindergarten.

Carli is in 2nd Grade - here's her pictures from 1st Grade & Kindergarten.

Mud Pies

The girls have gotten into making mud pies over the last few weeks.  And with Drew refusing to nap today, he and I ventured out this afternoon to investigate the pie making shenanigans!

 

Turns out the girls are pretty mud pie makers!  And they were pretty patient with Drew and his mud flinging.  Needless to say, they all had showers/baths before dinner and had worked hard enough baking they were in bed by 7:30!

Happy 90th Birthday Granpa Herb!

One of the biggest reasons we took off to Amarillo for Thanksgiving was so that we could help celebrate Grandpa Herb's 90th birthday.  We helped Naggy & Aunt Beverly get things decorated for Grandpa's party, then met the rest of the extended family at Rudy's BBQ for lunch.

 After lunch, it was time to celebrate with cake and ice cream!  Grandpa is doing really great!  We enjoyed getting to spend time with him and help him celebrate.  Pretty sure Grandpa can't deny that Keith belongs to him!  Ha!  Excuse Drew's somber expression, he had just woken up from a nap.

While the big ppl were visiting, the kids made use of the hallways at the church bldg.  With Uncle Kevin's help, Drew figured out how the water fountains worked and thought it was great fun to help everyone get a drink!

After the party was over, it was time for us to head to the airport. 

We had the last flight coming back to Dallas which made for a late night.  But with the girls having school on Monday, we needed to get home to prepare for the week.  We sure enjoyed our time in Amarillo and are so thankful for getting to spend part of the week with Naggy and Pappy!

Thanksgiving in Amarillo

Bright and early Wednesday morning, we hit the road to Dallas to catch a flight so we could spend Thanksgiving with Naggy and Pappy!  The kids were pretty excited and so were Keith and I!  :)

Drew did great on his second trip in an airplane.  I had the girls sit on either side of me b/c I had no desire to nurse Drew with a stranger on one side!  :)  Drew was pretty pumped, I guess he fed of the energy of his sisters.  Even though it was after 2 when we got to Amarillo, he had yet to nap.  He usually naps around noon.  So it didn't take long for him to conk out in the car!

We started things off with a bang and went straight from the airport to the mall to help Naggy pick her angel tree kid and of coarse, help her shop!  Santa was already at the mall, but staying true to our past the girls were not the least bit interested in seeing him.

Shopping done, we were off to Rosa's for an early dinner.  Drew was pretty entranced with the tortilla maker. 

Drew isn't the best sleeper, so we came prepared with his own air mattress and a plan for Keith and I to take the twin beds.  He had one bad night but we figured out the air mattress was a little cold.  Once we added a blanket under him, he slept much better the rest of the time we were there.

Thanksgiving day we spent at Naggy and Pappys.  We didn't go anywhere, didn't have to get dressed up...simply stayed in the house and enjoyed being with family.  For the girls that meant playing games and helping Naggy cook between pestering Pappy to take them to the park.  For Keith, that meant visiting with Naggy and Pappy while helping keep the kids alive.  For me, that meant catching up on the blog (from all the way back in Aug) while trying to stay out of Drew's way so he would interact with everyone else!  :)  Naggy made us some awesome pasta for lunch and chili for dinner.  We thoroughly enjoyed our non-traditional Thanksgiving day!  :)

Friday, Kevin and Megan came.  We got to catch up a bit with them, baby Jax will be here in February!  And when Megan wanted coffee, the girls decided they wanted Bahama Bucks!  So, we all went our separate ways to satisfy cravings!

Between visiting, eating and sleeping we also managed to squeeze in a Christmas craft...these are gonna end up as part of a gift for someone special!  We sure were thankful Naggy had a well stocked craft closet!

Our trip to Amarillo wouldn't be complete without getting to see Grandpa Herb, and Saturday was all about him!  More on that in another post!

Drew's Hat

Keith really would love for Drew to wear hats - especially his Texas Ranger hat.  But Drew is not interested and if you put something on his head he will quickly reach up and take it off.  He also enjoys taking off everyone elses hats from their heads!  :) We went to Alto Tuesday to take the dogs to the vet and pick up sisters from Grammy and Pa's.  Logan was there too and had left his hat on the couch.  Without prompting, Drew picked it up and put it on his head.  The look on his face said, "Think Logan will notice his hat is missing?" Ha!  It didn't stay on his head long though, he pulled it off and proceeded to play peek a boo with Pa with it. 

The Dinosaur

Uncle Kevin and Aunt Megan gave Carli this rocking dinosaur for her second Christmas.  She loved it and played with it a lot.  She shared it with Ava and now it's been passed on to Drew!

 

Cousin Pictures 2016

Grammy tries every year to get some cousin pictures taken and this year we had some pretty cute ones!  Michelle and I got things coordinated and had the kids in two outfits!  :) 

 

Unfortunately, Drew was not cooperative which was very unlike him, so the fact that we got some really good shots of all 5 kids is a miracle in and of itself!  Our photographer did an amazing job! 

 

I absolutely LOVE the cousin shirts.  We had a good friend make them for us and she did an awesome job!  Check out her store:  http://www.carneycreationsbya.com/

The two older cousins:  Logan and Carli

My Girls

 

 

We didn't get a group sibling shot of my crew b/c my littlest refused to be photographed.  She captured these pics while I was holding him. 

 

And our creative group shot!

Isn't there a card somewhere about the naughty and nice list...Drew must think he's on the naughty list!

 

And of coarse, after pictures and church (where he screamed through class), we changed him back into comfy clothes and put his crocs on and he was a new baby...such is life!

 

Eady is 3

Sweet Eady turned 3 last week, but she had her party this weekend!  She had a precious Minnie Mouse party.  It was fun to watch all the cousins together.  Eady was so sweet to love on Carli and Ava.  She was so proud to have them come.

 

While Eady was breaking a piñata, Drew was trying to drive away in Uncle Andy's mower.

 

Drew was quite disappointed he couldn't help unwrap all the gifts, so Pa helped keep him entertained with Grammy's phone.

We enjoyed our family time and it was the first time we had gotten to see Andy and Michelle's new house.  We stayed in a hotel just up the road so we could do our cousin pictures first thing in the morning.  The girls were pretty stoked to stay with Grammy in her room!

Funny Faces & Funny Places

Drew has started making faces and imitating ppl.  He will stick his tongue out and making popping noises with his mouth a lot.  The hard to catch picture of him sticking his bottom lip out is the one I wish I could get.  It's so cute - this is as close as I've come so far.

 

We put a dog crate in front of the dog door b/c my old dogs are ruining my rugs.  They do just fine as long as we are home but if we leave they were either marking things in retaliation or Shea simply refused to go out.  So now they have to go in the kennel when we leave and it's worked.  Drew really enjoys locking himself in the kennel and playing...I guess he must see it as his own little playhouse, just his size!

A Dog Playhouse

Sometimes we find our dogs in strange places...mostly they accidently get locked in a room or closet, courtesy of Drew.  But the other day, Keith found Shea lost in the couch cushions...

 

 

And as we were trying to leave one afternoon, we looked out the window to find Sadie up in the playhouse.  It would have been pretty cool if she'd gone down the slide!  But she didn't, she went back down the ladder in the back.

 

Cat's Gift

Last Christmas we gave the girls a couple of cats with the intention of them helping keep the snakes and mice away...so far they've killed a rabbit, several frogs, a beautiful blue bird and many mice. They bring them to the garage. Unfortunately they tend to hide them and we have to follow the smell to find the prize. This week they've started showing their love by placing their kills directly in front of the garage door...I had a mouse waiting in me on Monday and Wednesday they brought us a snake...laid out very nicely right across the threshold. Thankfully it was dead, garter snake or not! We took it to the burn pile. Apparently we didn't appreciate Kitty Tom's effort enough, bc he brought it back this afternoon.