Wednesday, December 20, 2017

almost ready for the big day

christmas is a crazy time.
we literally did not have one free weekend
since before thanksgiving.
it's a lot.
but, we made cookies with the family for 
our annual cookie exchange.
we had our annual christmas book breakfast with my
favorite friends and their kids.
we met up with kassie and chris downtown kc to
walk through union station and then visit santa at crown center.
brette had a christmas concert at school.
we took a trip down to branson to see 
ronnie's family and got tickets to the dixie stampede.
and i had THREE holiday parties at work.
tomorrow we're headed to powell gardens to see 
the festival of lights.
friday, i'm going to try to wrap all our gifts.
saturday, ronnie's mom and sister's family is coming
over to make cookies for santa and have dinner.
and i'm excited for sunday.
we have NO PLANS.
well, we'll go to church and hit up the magic tree.
but i'm just excited to have a day for the 4 of us.
christmas morning we'll spend at home and then we're 
driving down to warrensburg for a couple days to have
christmas with my side of the family.

it's true when they say it's the best time of the year.
i just LOVE christmas.


















and for those of you not on our christmas card list,
merry christmas!




Sunday, December 10, 2017

thanksgiving

i hope everyone had an amazing thanksgiving.
now that we'e a good way into december, 
thanksgiving seems like a distant memory,
but i wanted to share pictures so just so i have it down
for the girls to look back on one day.

we drove to illinois to visit ronnie's family.
the drive there was not great.
lots of pee breaks.
i maybe should have put reid in a diaper, just
so we weren't messing with it.
the 6 and a half hour drive, took over 8 hours.
oh, and there was not one minute of sleep during that ride.
8 hours and no sleep?
my kids are machines.
the girls did great once we were there.
brette loved it because we were all down in the basement
together so she got to sleep with us every night.
donna had a big dinner for us on thanksgiving 
and i whipped up the desserts.
(pecan pie and pumpkin pie cake)
it was nice to spend some down time together.
we also met up with ronnie's cousins a couple times.
one night to go out for pizza and another
where we left the kids with donna and went out to 
a "turkey hangover" party where you could ride the bull
and listen to a live band.
it was fun and i stayed out later than i thought we would,
which made getting up bright and early the next day to drive
home a lot less fun.
we did better on the way back though.
the girls took a two hour nap (so did ronnie)
and we were home in a little over 7 hours.









a thanksgiving success!

the next weekend we had "friendsgiving" down in
warrensburg with the crew we go campering with all summer.
it was nice to see everyone since we normally go months in between visits.
we took the girls and then they spent the night at mimi and papas since
we were going to be out later than 7:30.
so basically we got to chow down on turkey and 
all the fixins two weekends in a row while the kids played.
can't beat that.

now.... CHRISTMAS!

Sunday, November 19, 2017

rewind

we've had a busy few weeks.
like, really busy.

applebutter day with the fam.



a trip to springfield with my sorority sisters.

a wedding.

3 birthday parties



a baby shower

AND our ninth wedding anniversary. (look how young!)

its not slowing down either.
every weekend until january,
we're booked solid.
it's all fun thanksgiving and
christmas things so i'm 
looking forward to it.
i think ronnie is tired already. 

the girls both had pink eye last week,
so i worked from home one day and 
my parents came up another. 
they've also been busy at school with
their book fair, thanksgiving feast and
brette is in 'happy feet' (soccer) and 
'shining stars' (theater).
i signed her up for soccer but i have
no idea how she ended up in theater.
she has a little play coming up where 
she will be the cow. 
we have a real star on our hands, i'm sure.

we're gearing up for thanksgiving in a few days,
which seems crazy that its already here.
we head out to illinois on wednesday and 
will spend the holiday with ronnie's mom.
i'm baking a pecan pie and pumpkin pie cake.
my dad donated homemade rolls to the cause.
i'm excited. 
i have my fingers crossed that books, movies and
a long ass nap will make the 7 hour road trip bearable.

hope you and your family have
a wonder thanksgiving too!





Thursday, November 2, 2017

halloween

halloween is so fun with kids.
a lot of work, yes.
but still fun.

brette decided to be lippy lips from
the shopkins toys.
so i decided for reid, that she could
also be a shopkins character.
i like it when they coordinate.
i made her strawberry kiss.

i had grand plans of making both
costumes, but time got away from me
and in the end i made brette's and 
bought reid's.
(i actually bought reid's on oct 29th 
and prayed that it arrived in time.)
ronnie was in charge of brette's lipstick headband,
and i took charge of the rest.
and knowing ronnie, he spent WAY TOO much time
on a 4 year old's costume, who then told us
it was uncomfortable on her chin and didn't
wear it trick-or-treating.
what. the. hell.
i will admit that i was hot gluing reid's headband and
the face on brette's skirt at 9pm halloween eve, while
ronnie was downstairs spray painting.
procrastination nation.

but they turned out super cute and 
were a big hit at school.

i took a little time away from work so i could
to both girls' classroom halloween parties.
they started off with a big costume parade through
the grade school so the littles can feel really special.
then i was in charge of reid's, so we did a little cookie
decorating, read a few halloween books, and 
ended with a craft. 
easy peasy.
brette's was literally the same thing.
i just love their school so much and all the kids are adorable.

i picked them up from school and headed to my brother's.
since he only has his girls every other year, 
i wanted to take advantage and get the four girls
together for trick-or-treating.
my mom & dad picked up ronnie on their way through town
and we all met up around 5.
we walked a little shopping center and then up and down
brian's neighborhood.
it was way too cold to do much more than that,
so we ended around 6:30 - in time for 
dinner and jammies.
we were home and had the girls in bed by 8pm.

a perfect night!
(i'm hoping next year is a little warmer)




















happy halloween!