Nutcracker Market

Sunday I set out with 3 of my favorite shopping friends to the Nutcracker Market at Reliant Center. It's a HUGE showcase of hundreds of stores from across the country. There are very unique items and some not so unique. Dana, Jill, Amanda and I had a great time. My friend Nancy joined us also. I bought some fun decorations for Jordan's Christmas tree along with a wallet and some Christmas gifts for family. Can't wait to go again next year!!! (I sure do wish I had a photo of all of us together!)

Decorating the Shop!

We decorated Gayle's shop this past Saturday. And we finished in record time!!! I remember still being there around 9 or 10 o'clock at night, but Saturday, we were finished by 5:30. So either we're getting really good at it, or the pre-work that Gayle and her employees are doing is paying off. I say both. ;-) It also helps that the shop has expanded in size in the past 2 years, so there's much more space. So what starts out as this...


...ends up like this...

Yep, that's an upside-down Christmas tree. It's sooo cool!

Unfortunately, I forgot my camera and had to use my phone for these pictures. Trust me, these pictures don't do it justice. The shop is beautiful, as always.

Gobble, Gobble

The Thanksgiving program at daycare is this Friday the 13th. They have a program where the kids sing songs and then there is a full all-out Thanksgiving meal with all the trimmings. And of course I thought it would be fun to make turkey cookies. So while we watched the Country Music Awards Wednesday night, Kenny and I iced almost 2 dozen turkey cookies. Jackson put his request in that 1/3 had a red eye, 1/3 had a yellow eye and 1/3 had an orange eye. So I didn't disappoint. We did make an ooops and do the gobbler(isn't that what it's called???) orange instead of red. I don't think the kids will know the difference. I'm sure my dad will though!

This was the best one because I did the color along the full tail. I was accused of being "chinchy" on some. :-)

Stay tuned for pictures from the program!!!

Texas Conference for Women

Wow! I just got home from the Texas Conference for Women, and it was fantastic! Tory Johnson from Good Morning America and famous financial planner Suze Orman were keynote speakers along with a long list of other famous people. Nastia Liukin, the gymnast that won the all-around gold medal at the last Summer Olympics also shared her story during lunch. It was so great! I would encourage all of my female family and friends to attend next year. It was really that good!!!

Finally Home for a Full Weekend

The weekend was somewhat of a blur. Kenny drove to New Orleans to see a good friend Friday, stayed the night, and drove back home on Saturday. I don't think I sat down until supper Saturday night. The kids kept me busy, but they were really good except for a Play-Doh incident at 9am that morning. I did a TON of laundry and packed up the Halloween decorations from inside the house. We hadn't been home for a full weekend since I don't know when, so there was a LOT to do. Then when Kenny got home, we put the pumpkins up from outside and pulled out our turkey. Jackson and I also planted some pink colanchoe plants along the back patio while Jordan supervised.

Oh, and I want to show you my bird of paradise blooms that I cut Saturday morning. Aren't they cool?!?!? I decided to enjoy them inside of my house instead of having to search for them through the windows outside. They also blend very nicely with my autumn decor.



Jackson had a big day today. He got rewarded with an outing to see Astro Boy because he had 4 out of 5 "greens" last week. (He gets a color at the end of every day that tells us his conduct was for the day. Blue is the very best, but green is the next best and is still awesome... at least to us.) His behavior had been "iffy" at best since they started the color system in September. So we were very proud that he did so well last week. This week we're going for all greens. And who knows, maybe he'll even get a blue one day. I can dream, right??? :-)

Happy Birthday Aunt Carla!!!

Happy, happy birthday! We hope you have a great day!!! Thanks for all you do for us! We really appreciate it, and love you LOTS!!!!!

We celebrated Carla's 50th birthday Friday night with a surprise party at her house. She was really, really surprised. I don't know how many times I almost slipped up, or called her with a question about HER party! But nobody spilled the beans, which was great. We had so much fun! Tara, Tamara and Martin did a great job organizing it all. I Wish I had taken a picture of the "Fifty and Fabulous" shot glass!!!


I did get pictures of the cookies I made. This was my first attempt with numbers, and I think they really turned out really cute!

Trick or Treat

The kids had a great Halloween weekend. It started on Friday with the costume parade at school. Jordan was Sleeping Beauty, but all she called herself was the Pink Princess. She could really care less exactly which princess she was, she just wanted to be pink! Jackson was the leader of the Transformers, Optimus Prime.

The students paraded up the sidewalk to the neighboring businesses and got candy. It was the first time Kenny and I were able to see the parade. There were more parent there than I thought. Good thing because we had a few "runaways" from time to time.

Here's Jordan leading her class out of the door.


Jackson's class was at the end since they're the "big kids".


I tried to get a good picture of them together, but there was too much going on, so somebody was always distracted.


And of course they weren't supposed to eat the candy they got, but Jordan tore right into her lollipop!


Halloween morning, we woke up early and headed to College Station for the A&M vs. Iowa State game. The Aggies won, so we were in a great mood to Trick-or-Treat in Shari's neighborhood.

Here are the Princess and Optimus Prime.

We pulled out the props for the princess for Trick or Treating. And she insisted on carrying her wand and wearing her crown the entire time.




They had a great time, but were ready to get back home after a while. It was a lot of walking.


A big thanks to Shari and Ashley for helping us wrangle the kids! Hope you had as good a time as we did!!!