Start of Christmas

After returning from the relaxing Thanksgiving family trip, David and I were ready to start celebrating the beginning of the Christmas season! I had been eagerly anticipating the month of December this year. Sophie is finally at the age where she's comprehending most things. So, I was looking forward to introducing her to the meaning of Christmas, Santa Claus, Christmas music, advent calendars, and much, much more. The Sunday after Thanksgiving, we put up the majority of our Christmas decorations. It's our family tradition to decorate the tree while drinking egg nog... yum! Sophie LOVED the stuff. What's not to love? It's rich and sweet! She kept asking for more and finished off our glasses along with hers. Look at the smile and the nog mustache!

A Hill Country Thanksgiving

This year, Thanksgiving was with the Cramers. Several months back, we all had decided to spend some quality time together and utilize the entire holiday weekend by taking a mini-trip. We drove down to San Antonio for a long weekend and stayed at the beautiful Hill Country Hyatt. I thought this was best idea ever! Even though we live in the same town, it's a rare occasion we spend four days in a row together. It was a wonderful way for some bonding time with the entire family... from having the kids run around, to playing cards with the adults, to the guys golfing. And, as an added benefit, we didn't have to do any work with cooking and cleaning for a Thanksgiving feast! Where are we going for our next holiday trip?

The resort did an amazing job planning family activities for the entire weekend. There were a few "firsts" for Sophie. She roasted her very own s'mores in a fire pit the first night. Sophie, with her sweet tooth, was loving the melted chocolate and marshmallows!





























On Thanksgiving morning, Gayle (Gigi) and I walked around the resort and saw Santa (who Sophie told she wanted an "orange present" for Christmas), the clowns, as well as a Texas cowboy who lassoed Sophie. We then went to find Daddy on the driving range and Sophie hit her first golf ball. Daddy was a pretty good teacher! We met back up with Gigi and Sophie made her own fun in the golf pro-shop by finding a tricycle and a big teddy. We pulled her away from the tricycle and enticed her with a game of pool. As Sophie's favorite color is orange, it was apropos to find her trying to shoot the "orange" ball. After a busy, but fun morning, we got ready for a delicious Thanksgiving dinner.

The day after Thanksgiving, David, Jeff, Josh & Rick went to play a round of golf, so Kristin, Gigi and I took the kids to the playground. You can see Sophie was freezing outside, so we came in and introduced them to hot chocolate. Look at the mustaches on both Ethan and Sophie's faces. They loved it! The rest of the day, we had some quality family time playing games and cards. My kind of vacation! Of course, unfortunately all vacations must come to an end. This was wonderful, but too short of one!

Surprise visit from The Hinzes

Right before the weekend, we got a pleasant call from our friends, The Hinzes, asking if they can come stay with us while Rod competed in a national tennis tournament. We absolutely love seeing them and spending time together, so it was a big treat to have them here. Rod, keep playing Austin tournaments, so you can continue visiting us! :)

Sophie and Savannah get along so well, so Sophie was in heaven with our company. Of course, little Will is just precious and I was thrilled to see Sophie being sweet to him given she's about to have a "little one" of her own in the house!

As the weather was perfect, we took them to Flying Tomato for some outdoor fun including the playscape, grassy field, live banjo music, and delicious pizza. When the weather is nice, it's one of our favorite kid-friendly places! All three kids absolutely loved the fiddle and banjo and were dancing front and center!














We collected the troups for a picture:














That night we assessed the sleeping situation and decided it would be fun for the girls to have an official slumber party in Sophie's room. We blew up the aero bed for Savannah and Sophie to share. The two of them were giggling and talking way too late into the night, but completely had fun sleeping together!

Will got in on the action before "lights out":














Look at the smiles on the girls' faces. Words can't describe how it feels to see your child so happy.

Happy Halloween!

After all the Halloween festivities we attended the week prior, we could hardly believe the "real" day was here! David, Sophie & I went to a very fun & large neighborhood block party in the evening. Sophie was a bit overwhelmed with the over-the-top decorations and the crowd of people, but she definitely got into the entire trick-or-treating thing afterwards! She had the entire system down... Daddy pushed her in the stroller, she ran up to a front door & rang the doorbell, the nice owners would come out, Sophie would say "trick-or-treat", they would comment on how cute she looked and give her candy, she would say "thank you" and then get back in the stroller, and of course she would tell Daddy "I do it again!". Our plan for hitting only a few homes turned into a much longer evening! Surprisingly, Sophie wasn't as interested in eating the candy as she was with the entire process of obtaining it!

Shannon, Cal, Sophie & I took a quick picture at the party. Sophie was happy as a lark in her stroller, checking everything from her vantage point:














Daisy, David & Sophie refreshed before we started trick-or-treating that night!














Sophie coming in at the end of her night with her loot:

Our absolutely beautiful and happy Jasmine!