Christmas Program

Mady had her first school Christmas program this year.  They gave us a CD after Thanksgiving with the 3 songs her class was going to be singing.  Being the overachievers that we are, we put those songs on our phone, and played them everywhere.  In the car, the house, every day.  I would wake up singing those songs in my head!  After the end of year program Mady had last May, where she had to potty, and showed everyone her undies, I had to make sure she didn't have a repeat, haha.  I wanted to make sure she was comfortable and confident!  I think we succeeded.  She sang those songs loud and proud on stage, with a quick solo "Yippee!" during the Rudolph song.  It was really cute and the kids did so great.  You could tell they were so proud, and of course, so were all of us parents!

"There were 2 little angels!"

Sing it sister!

And now she's showing him her tongue, oh my!

We had to celebrate with a stop at 2tarts after the program!

They're so cute!

Even my parents were able to make it in for the program and to visit for a couple of days.  That meant for extra spoiling time!

Build - a - Olaf

Little man really took to Lola this time, and was constantly found wherever she was

Leading up to Christmas

There are only 4 days left until Christmas. This month flew by in a flurry of parties, gift buying, baking, programs, and festivals.  I had a constant battle of making the season fun and magical for the kids (really Mady, because what does Owen really know at this point!), and keeping us rooted in true meaning.  I think we make it too hard on ourselves, or maybe that's just me.  At one point I felt like Charlie Brown, and wanted to scream out "Can anybody tell me what Christmas is all about?!"  And today at church, I got my answer from Pastor Jason: Christmas is for sinners.  That means, Christmas is for everyone.  It's not just for the religious, the good people, or the Christians.  That night, long ago, we were given a gift.  We were ALL given a gift.  I'm taking my gift, and enjoying it with a grateful heart, during these last few days left of the Christmas season, and every other day of the year.     It was a great sermon today, and with it being our last service at Gospel Life for the year, I left thankful for having found it.

While we were busy, this month, a lot of it has been with fun things.  We have been in New Braunfels for six months now!  This time last year, this wasn't even a blip on our radar.  Oh, what a change a year makes!

Christmas tree lighting downtown:

Christmas in Boerne:

Wassailfest:

Getting the Christmas tree:

Decorating the house:

Santa visits:

Poor Owen was not a fan

First time to see The Nutcracker:

The next morning she told me "Those ballerinas spin around too much Mommy" LOL

Visit from Lito and Lita:

Dine and Flick with St. Nick:

Halloween/Thanksgiving

Oh yes, I'm posting about Halloween in December.  Surprisingly my little Frozen obsessed daughter did not want to be Anna or Elsa for Halloween.  She wanted to be Ariel, so of course, I had to dress up Owen like Sebastian the crab.  They looked so cute!  The wig did not last past this picture though.

We went to Port Arthur for Thanksgiving, and spent it with the family.  It was nice and relaxing, filled with great food and good company.  We had fried turkey for the first time this year, and it was wonderful.  I think we started a new tradition! Our little man got to have some turkey too for his first Thanksgiving!

During the month of November, I put up a "thankful tree" in our house.  I traced Mady's hand and cut out her handprints to make the leaves.  On them we would write throughout the month various things we were thankful for, and put them on the tree.  It was a great everyday reminder of all that we have to be thankful for.  We will definitely be doing this again.

10 (and a half) months

Yes, our little man is ten (and a half) months.  Life has been busy, and before I knew it, we were halfway through December.  From Thanksgiving to now we have been non-stop, but I guess that's most people these days.  I wrapped up my online classes this past weekend, and feel like I can breathe a little easier now.  I've found that working from home can be tough sometimes with two small kids!  One of my new year's resolutions will be to be more intentional about carving out dedicated time for my classes.  Let's see how that goes!

Owen is doing great, and getting so big!  He. is. everywhere.  He crawls all over the place, pulls up on everything, cruises around anything he can hold on to, and gets into everything.  He can make a mess like nobody else.  He loves to get into everything, take it all out of its place, and he is great at ignoring you!  He would much rather play with random things around the house like doorstops, and paper, than actual toys.  He's now using his walker too, and can walk around the house with it.  He loves it, and has a huge smile on his face while he's doing it.

He can make shopping a little tricky

And he's such a great helper

His world of food has expanded quite a bit and he loves table food.  We haven't found anything he doesn't love.  He's a bottomless pit.  He will eat if there is food in front of him, and I haven't ever had him stop eating with food on his plate.  I don't think he ever gets full!

Sleeping is great, with him sleeping through the night, and sleeping until 7!!!  Because he was so sensitive to caffeine when he was really small, I had to cut it out.  That was really tough, especially with him waking up no later than 6 every morning.  I brought back caffeine last week with a cup of coffee in the morning, and it hasn't affected him.  So I'm sleeping until close to 7, and drinking my morning cup of caffeine, and I'm a brand new woman!  Yay!

Those eyelashes!

We got some wonderful news this this month.  We had a follow-up appointment with a pediatric urologist in San Antonio to check Owen's kidneys.  They are now normal, and he has hydronephrosis no more!  The doctor said that in majority of cases, there is no re-occurrence, and he should be normal from here on out.