Oh, this girl

Well I have some blog catching up to do.  I'll do all things Christmas but I feel it appropriate to do a little post on...this girl.  This miss Kendall.  She.is.a.mess.  I mean - a mess!  Silly me - I thought after Will - who has given us a run for our money with his intense meltdowns, that I would get a sweet, demure little girl.  Hahahaha!  I got a spunky girl is who is so full of life and who loves attention!!  She loves people - strangers!  She is everywhere!  She is dramatic and can throw a fit to rival Will's, for sure. She is also a blast.  I mean she smiles...all the time (unless she's fit throwing, of course).  She dances - anywhere, anytime.  She loves to have her picture taken - just pull out a camera and you'll get a "cheese!"  She is silly, funny and ceases to surprise us.  She is her own little person.  She has a personality so, so different than her brother, her mother, and her father!  You leave the room for a minute and you might walk back to see her sitting on a coffee table.  And smiling at you like - what?  I'm cute, right?!?

 You dress her up for Aunt Kayse's party and it is like she knows she's got on some adorable outfit.  Cheese!

 You beg her brother and cousins to sit for a picture and she runs over and plops down and just says cheese over and over.  And just keeps smiling.  Oh, this girl.  Adorable.

 You leave the house without a paci (because you are trying to cut down) and she's tired.  So she proceeds to scream - I mean "body-thrashing full on fit throwing" for a FULL 38 minutes in the car (but who's counting).  It gets quiet and you're scared to turn around so you peak in the mirror and spot this.  A sweaty headed precious little girl who finally gave it up!  With one shoe on, one shoe off and her leg swung over the seat.  Oh, this girl

 You try to get ready to go anywhere the cutest shadow you have ever seen makes that nearly impossible.  So you give in and you plop her up on your bathroom counter.  And she is as happy as can be.  Give her an old make-up brush and she thinks she's pretty cool.  Oh, this girl.

Our family is complete with her.  We needed her.  She keeps us so entertained and so on our toes.  We took the paci away from her for good last week.  We went cold turkey as weaning her was pointless.  She was all out addicted.  She's done really well.  Much better than I expected.  However, her paci addiction shifted to shoes.  I mean - she's shoe crazy right now.  She won't leave her room in the morning without "shoes!!!!!"  And she prefers the sparkly ones, of course.  She knows.  She knows if you try to put the normal comfortable shoes that match her outfit on her.  No, no - she wants the red glitter!  She doesn't care what she's wearing.  Oh and she's wearing thick, fuzzy footed pj's?  She doesn't care - she wants them on!

Christmas Eve

The kids were so cute in their pj's on Christmas Eve.  They were so excited.  Kendall didn't really know what she was excited about, but she seemed to know it was not a normal night.  I love this series of pics.  They are so sweet with each other.  A pretty good one...

 Love how she is looking at her brother.

 Now we're losing her.

 The kids.  Love them.

 And there she goes! Will - still smiling.  :)

Christmas at Ally's

We celebrated Christmas at Ally's house on Christmas Eve this year.  The kids got lots of fun goodies and we had a a yummy lunch.  It was a bit chaotic with the gift opening.  Will has this process down and is very compliant.  Kendall and Jack on the other hand - not so much.  Kendall opened maybe one or two things but really she was just enjoying the excitement!

Love this pic of Kellie holding court with the kids and Jack reading his new coloring book upside down.  :)

 Kendall and Will got new sleeping bags.  Will put his on...so of course Kendall did, too!

 We are really into super heroes right now.  Kind of sad.  Feeling like he is growing up so fast.  :(

 Photo bombed by his own daddy!

 Aunt Kayse was very helpful with the gift opening process and even put together a special chair for the event.

 Jack wasn't totally sure - but he looked cute with a bow on his head.

 Trying to get good pics is a challenge.  Not too bad of these two.

 Getting all 3...almost impossible.  This was the best I could do!

 Then is just got all kinds of silly!

Love having these precious kiddos to celebrate with!  Fun day!

Phone dump

Here are some random cute pics taken recently. 

This is so Kendall. Funny girl in her cute pj's with some lotion chillin' in her closet. Oh how I love this funny girl!

Her funny face!

A mess!! At least she likes my dinner. 

Still love watching them sleep. Warms my heart. 

Cutie living it up at a Mavs game. 

They were just happy and cute on the way to school one morning! 

Trying really hard to limit the paci to naps. Girl is addicted! Need distraction! Let's go outside!

Cousins

Will and Kendall are blessed with some awesome cousins! Here are a couple of good pics of them recently. 

We celebrated Jack's 2nd birthday this past weekend! We had a great time and look how cute they are!

We took a train ride at a neat park. Will loved his time with Jack. 

Kevin snapped this precious pic of the kids with Dylan and Miles. So thankful for all these kiddos!!

New fave pic

I LOVE this pic of Will! He is so sweet and this smile just shows his excitement for life. He was on the train at Six Flags and he was so excited about being on a real train!

Company Day at Six Flags!

Recently, my firm had a family day at Six Flags. Will so excited to go but he had only seen the big roller coasters from the highway and made it known he didn't want to ride those. Well he had an absolute blast and keeps asking to go back. Nothing is better than seeing your kids really enjoy life! We let him ride whatever he wanted. I was shocked he rode so much. He even loved the mini mine train! He rode with his hands up. So cute! He was way braver than I expected! Kendall did ok. She would not nap. Oh she fell asleep about 5 min before we left, of course. What a fun day and fun memory!

And That's All Folks...

So that might have been a new record.  I hadn't blogged in awhile and I just busted out 13 posts.  So - if you haven't visited in awhile and haven't given up on me - keep reading...and reading.  I went back to Will's birthday!  Woot woot!  I hate when I go that long.  I want to remember everything!  Work was a little crazy for me and I was going through a random rough period.  I think it is the normal working mom with young kids crazy life sort of thing.  I want to be everywhere and be there with my full self.  I get tired and the kids can be insane and work can be insane and you wonder how people do it all.  And then things slow down a bit and you gain some sanity back and things suddenly seem so much less crazy.  We've done a lot of fun stuff and I am enjoying my time with the kids so much.  The last 2 Fridays I have stayed home with them both and it has been awesome!  I have loved it.  They are both changing so much and their personalities are so interesting.  I love watching them and love watching them together.  I am so lucky to be their mom.  As crazy as life seems at times - I wouldn't trade it for the world.  And now I will get some rest.  We have a big day of heading to Six Flags tomorrow for my company party!

Halloween Festivities!

Update - got this adorable pic from a friend of Will and Maggie. She and Will are in SS together and live close by  -sweet friends!

So my Halloween pictures aren't that great.  Boo.  I was running late and didn't get home until it was time to go to the block party.  By that point - Kendall was not at all interested in taking any pics.  We got a good one of Will a.k.a Raphael the Ninja Turtle!  He didn't wear the mask after this picture.  The pic was it.

 Here's the best we could get of Minnie Mouse.  She wanted no part of wearing her ears.  Wasn't going to happen.  Ah well.

 Seriously - she doesn't stay still and this is the 2nd best pic - a blurry mess.  :)  Her little Minnie dress was really cute, though.

I am sure I said this last year, but Halloween in our neighborhood makes me fall in love with our neighborhood all over again.  They shut down the end of our street and have a bounce house.  They have hot dogs and way too much food.  It is so fun because now Will knows a lot of the kids.  Once we got there - we didn't see him hardly at all.  Brady is in his class at school and he lives on the next street over.  So that was awesome.  A sweet girl in his Sunday School class lives 2 streets over and they are fun friends.  Plus there are several kids on our street that he has gotten to know well.  It makes me happy that when he starts Kindergarten he'll know a handful of friends. 

My mom came over so she took Kendall home to pass out candy.  We took Will with his usual crew trick or treating down a couple of streets.  This is the 3rd year we have gone with Bryce and Victoria and the 2nd year we have gone with Meryl.  They all live on the same street - so much fun!  Bryce and Will could have covered double the amount of houses we did if they hadn't had to wait for the younger ones.  They would literally run up to a house, get their candy and run to the next one.  At times the littles were several houses back.  There was a lot of convincing them to slow down and wait!  Such a fun evening for all of us!

Happy Engagement Celebration for Justin & Lindsey!

So back in August, Justin and Lindsey got engaged!  We decided to throw them an engagement party!  The wedding date isn't until next October - so this was a fun way to start the year of wedding festivities!  We ended up having it at my house.  It is always a little stressful before you have a party and you think you might not get everything done in time - but then it all comes together and everyone shows up and it is so fun!  We put the food in the dining room.  Not all the food was out - but here's an idea.  The banner says She Said Yes.  :)

 A little decor - an I Do sign.

 The dessert table.  We did small desserts and the banner says Love is Sweet.

 Mom made cake balls and yummy peanut butter cup cookies!

 We had all of the beverages outside and the set-up was cute, I thought.  Luckily, Tricia has some impressive chalk board writing skills and it turned out fantastic.

 We had 6 tables set-up in the back yard.

 A few pics of the evening/guests.  Oddly I didn't get many of J & Lindsey together.

 We are excited about adding Lindsey to the mix!  I grew up with just 2 brothers and now I am getting my 4th sister!

 Dustin was the man.  He got up at 3 am the night before and smoked some amazing meat.  Brisket, chickens, ribs, sausage - yum.  He is good.

 So it is hard to tell because of the flash...but our back yard was really, really dark.  :(  I am not sure if people could see what they were eating!  Ha.  We tried to hang lights (by we I mean Tricia and Kevin) and it didn't really work out.  We had candles on the tables and we had the candelabras around the outer part of the yard.  Oh, well - no one seemed to mind.  I think that was the only snag.

 Luckily Lindsey had a pic of the 2 of them.  Aren't they cute?  Congrats you two!!

 So glad we got this pic at the end of the night.  Thankful for my family!!