Christmas card photo shoot

When I finally decided to take pictures for our Christmas card (on the 19th!) we went out back to the greenbelt for some natural light and pretty scenery.

Logan's idea of a good pose!





I think the pics turned out pretty well. The kids cooperated and we picked out the clothes in about 10 minutes. I hadn't planned ahead for these outfits only the ones at the photographer. December is nuts! I'm glad it's almost over!

Christmas Portraits

We just went for our annual portrait session and I think they turned out pretty well.

I didn't get all of these poses, but they were my favorites.I like the new place we've been going the last 2 years called Portrait Innovations. The only "problem" is that they take sooo many pics! This year we ended up with 74 taken. That's a lot to whittle down.

Overall, I couldn't be happier. This was very little planning on my part and not a lot of expense, so I really can't complain!! I know I'll be glad that I did this every year once they're grown. It's definitely worth the hassle (what little there was this year)!

Merry Chirstmas!!

Coolest Christmas lights EVER!!!

You have to go check out these lights in the Lake Forest subdivision in Round Rock. It is worth a drive from anywhere in Austin. Amazing!!! They have their already amazing lights synchronized to Christmas music playing on a radio station. You sit there in your car and watch while listening to the music. It's mesmerizing!! Below are some you tube videos of the lights. You really need to see it in person though!

https://sites.google.com/site/listentoourlights/videos (watch the Wizards of Winter song. It's awesome! Mele Kalikimaka is pretty good too.)

Grandma's Pillows

Erica just mentioned Grandma's pillows in her blog. Here are the originals. Keep in mind they're probably at least 40 years old. I've always loved them. They seem like they'd be hard to make. She did them out of velvet which seems especially difficult to work with since it's so thick. I like the shiny ones Erica found too. I may have to go pick some up! It's nice to have some reminders of Grandma all around. She was an amazing lady.

She was always so crafty. She painted, sewed, crocheted, and did all sorts of other crafts as well. You never knew what you were going to find her working on when you went to visit. I wish I would have been able to know her longer and learn more from her.

Love and miss you Grandma!!

School Pictures

What happened to my babies?! Where did these big kids come from? They look so old! Way older than 9 and 6. Crazy!!

These are pictures of their pictures and thus not the best representations, but I think they're pretty good. School pictures are kind of a gamble. You're not there to supervise, so you never know what you're going to get and you have to order ahead of time. I was pretty happy though.

Angels and Demons

Here are a few pics from Halloween.
May I just say that those of you who still have little kids that let you either pick out their costumes or at least steer them in the right direction... you too will one day have little control over their choices and may end up with something gross like this! Let me also say, that I didn't buy that mask. It was a hand-me-down from his Uncle Garrick. Many thanks, Uncle Garrick. Logan did add the blood dripping from it's teeth. Who am I to stifle creativity?

Logan with a couple of friends before we started.

Ellie still let me help pick her costume out. I'm not looking forward to the day when she wants to dress up like some little tart, which I'm sure is coming.

Here's Ellie's little friend from down the street dressed as a "cheerless leader". We "had to" trick-or-treat together this year. They're pretty cute together.

We had fun. The weather was great! My hat even stayed on. I realized too late that no one took a pic of me! Oh, well. We even got to bed at a decent time since it was a school night! Hope you all had a great night too!

Spooktacular Halloween!

Our annual haunted castle! This year we got a Halloween house (chocolate cookie) and a Christmas gingerbread house at Sam's. It's a great kit that even came with colored, flavored fondant! It has become one of our favorite holiday traditions!

This kit gave a good tip that I'd never done before. You decorate the sides before you put it together. It works a lot better. We each had our own sides, then we let them dry and put it up! Voila! I highly recommend it!

Pumpkin patch

We went on a great trip today to the Elgin Christmas Tree Farm's Pumpkin Festival. It was great. They charge an admission fee ($7/adult, $5/child and you can download a coupon for 1 free child admission on their website), but everything inside is free. So I think it's a pretty good deal. Also, their pumpkins are really cheap!! I think tomorrow is the last day of the festival. Here's what was included in the price:

Face painting and pumpkin painting
Live music with a Bluegrass flavor
Scenic hayride
* NEW * Permanent Crazy Maze (wood post and netting)
Hay jump (cancelled because of drought, no hay)
Hay maze
Animals to visit
Antique tractors to see
Children's play area
Kid activities (carnival games)
Rubber duck races
Kiddie train ride
Great fall/pumpkin photo opportunities
Visit with the Elgin Humane Society puppies

First was the "crazy maze". Good for the little one's since it's pretty simple to get through, but still fun!

Here's the hay maze. The kid's loved it!

Outside the hay maze, they had this goat tied up all by itself (weird). It was really nice and didn't mind being petted.




The pumpkins were OK, not the best selection, but you don't really go there for the pumpkins, it's all the other stuff that's fun!

Like free face paint.

Picture opportunities.

A corn field maze. This one was fun because it was hard to find your way through.

And the hay ride. It was great. It took you through the farm with 3 different stops and stuff to do at each place.

Overall a great day. On the way there we stopped in Elgin and ate at one of our favorite BBQ places Meyer's. Awesome! In the car on the way home I asked Ellie, "So did you have a good day?" Her response, "It was an unbelieveable day!" Nice to hear once in a while.

Sleepover!!

Ellie and Logan have made friends with some kids that live right down the street by the park. Cameron and Cayden. Cameron's in 2nd grade and Cayden in 4th. It's a perfect set up, one playmate for each of them. They've been going back and forth between our houses for the last few months. The idea of having a sleepover has been in the works for a while now. Tonight's the big night.

It started out to be just Logan staying with Cayden. But Ellie really wanted Cameron to come to our house. At first I resisted this only because Ellie has a Daisy sleepover tomorrow night and I didn't want her sleep messed up 2 nights in a row, but what are you going to do? So we decided it would only be fair to have Cameron come to our house if Logan was going to theirs. So that's what were doing.

The girls are having a great time and I can only hope that Logan is being nice and polite over at their house. This is his first time to have a sleepover with anyone but family. I'm sure he'll be fine though.

Wish us luck for a night where everyone sleeps well!!

I also wanted to throw in a few pics of the ever growing Gordan! He still doesn't croak or do anything annoying. And I still think he's cute. Go figure!

Spring by Ellie Smith

Ellie's been playing school today. She's the teacher. Stuart and I are the students. We've done worksheets, read, been read to, etc. Ellie just brought me a book she made. It's the cutest thing and I think it's worth sharing.

Spring

I love spring it is fun and there are flowers
I do not love snow no no

Spring is the best season in the world to me
I do not love winter no no

When it rains I love it
the plants grow after

I love flowers you see
Now I told you about me

I think that's a pretty good poem by my 6-year old!

Unplugged

That's how I've been feeling at least-unplugged, detached. I'm at a new "job" right now with a bunch of strangers. It's proving a little harder to make friends here than at the preschool. Or maybe I just don't remember back to when I started there. The teacher I'm working with is perfectly nice, but she doesn't have kids and is a newly wed. Need I say more?

I've realized something about myself lately. After worrying about Logan being a little anti-social in some ways. I realized that I am that way myself. Always have been. I can make good friends, but I'm not good at keeping up with them. Mainly with phoning. I never call people. I'm not sure why. It makes me uncomfortable to do it. I'm always thinking that I'll be disturbing them or something. So I just never do it. Not to mention that it's harder to find times now with the kids, etc. But I still could find time, so maybe that's just another of my many excuses.

And since I started at this new school, I've been completely consumed by this new difficult schedule, so now I'm not even talking to the people I usually talk to- which is only Erica and occasionally my mom. Literally I'll go all week without talking to anyone on the phone. Sad really.

What's wrong with me? I always blamed this anti-social tendency on growing up with a sister so close in age (who needed friend when you had a built-in playmate?) and friends who were long distance. Yes, my best friend in high school lived so far that it was long distance to call each other. I grew up in BFE. So I didn't spend hours on the phone in high school. I'm thinking now that maybe that wasn't my problem.

So what do I do now? Maybe I should start forcing myself to call people. Maybe put it on the calendar or something? Because this just aint workin' for me. I'm feeling isolated and lonely. I'm also worried that the good friends I've made are going to think I don't care about them and we'll lose touch. And that makes me sad.

It's late now. I'm only up because I've been sleeping a lot while recovering from being sick and because I had iced tea with dinner. I'm a wimp with caffeine. So, I'll try and go to sleep and think up a plan to improve my situation. Thanks for listening.

Random stuff...

Wow, it's been a while since I've posted. Things have been really busy since I started teaching. I've really been enjoying it though. I'm sure my body will adjust to the new schedule soon, but until then it's been rough. I've pretty much been in survival mode.

Here are some pics I've needed to post.

Logan jumping off Erica and Ray's boat into the lake on Labor Day weekend. Cool!!


The kids after they came home from a fun day with Ray! Rudy's for breakfast, then the train, Taco Cabana for lunch, then Jumping Beans and face paint! The coolest face paint ever!!

Logan doing a flip.Ellie jumping like a cat!


Our pancakes this morning. We decided to make some initials. S-Smith, L- Logan, M- Mom, D- Dad, J-Jack (the cat), E-Ellie!