Aunt Barbara's Visit

Apparently up in Boston, they have a February Break and an April Break but no Spring Break. So for February Break, Barbara came down to Texas to visit with us. It was all Lindsey could talk about for weeks. She was counting down the days and I'm pretty sure the visit was not a let down. She loved every minute of it. Each of our days was busy with fun things to do.

It started on Monday with shopping. Not so much fun for the little girls but lots of fun for the big girls. We also got to eat lunch at Double Dave's per Barbara's request. And I certainly wasn't going to turn it down. Yummy! Monday night, Robert and I had a dinner to go to so Barbara loaded up the girls (with Nana and Pops, too) and went to Mr. Gatti's.

Tuesday was school. Nothing new there but afterward we got Barbara and went to Dairy Queen and Walmart. Barbara and Lindsey had decided that they were going to make cupcakes from this great cupcake book. Lots of wonderful ideas - they chose Box of Chocolates. We needed supplies for those and luckily all the Valentine candy was on sale. We found great deals on chocolate and decorations.

Wednesday morning started bright and early with Lindsey and Barbara making the cupcakes. Lindsey even has her own apron now. So cute!

After they were all cooled off, the decorating (and mess) began.

Reagan wanted to get in on all the fun too. She even managed to taste test a cupcake. I'm pretty sure it didn't take much talking into.

The finishing touches on the white cupcakes. They turned out really cute.

And during this time was Reagan's snack time. I wasn't here or I'm confident her snack tray would not be full of waffles, Cheetos, and Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Kinda strange combination.

All of the finished product. And they were pretty yummy too.

Thursday was another school day followed by ice cream, this time at Coldstone. We also went and picked out a movie at Box Office Video. Lindsey chose Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.

Friday was also full of fun. We started by going to Red Robin for lunch. Then came a visit to Mine by Design, one of Lindsey's favorite places.

Reagan picked out a dragonfly to paint. They will make it into a magnet for me there. I can't wait to see it.

Then Lindsey painted a T-Rex. All because of the movie she watched that morning. We are pretty anxious to see how it turned out too.

The last stop before coming home was Cookies by Design. Usually Barbara makes it so that Lindsey can go and decorate a cookie there but it didn't work out this time. But we still got two very pretty flower cookies to eat (and one peanut butter cookie for Barbara).

Friday night brought Lindsey's first Sing Song. Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures of that. But she had soooooo much fun there. Her favorite act was the princes and princesses. She was excited to see the people that we know in the show too. We saw both Zack and Zen and then even got to talk to both of them after the show.

We had a blast with Aunt Barbara here. We all got spoiled in different ways. And I'm pretty sure the countdown to her April Break will be starting soon.

Snow? In Abilene? Again?

It all started sometime during the night/morning on Wednesday/Thursday. Not sure exactly when because I was out cold. We have had a hard week - Reagan has been sick with an ear infection so several nights we have been up taking care of her and getting little sleep. She and I stayed home from school on both Tuesday and Thursday. Not fun with a sick little one.

Anyway, back to the snow - it was beautiful!

See for yourself.

I thought it was interesting to not be able to see the roof top of our house. It just blended in with the color of the sky.Lindsey helping Daddy with the snow family.Tiphanie came over for a little bit while we were all outside. She had the job of holding Reagan (who didn't want to get down in the snow) while I took pictures.It was starting to all come together.Robert taking a break from building snow people to have a snowball fight with some boys from the neighborhood.My snow bunnies! (Well, grass bunnies would work too.)Reagan was all smiles once we came back inside.The kinda finished product. We still had to figure out hats, eyes, noses, mouths, etc.Here we are this morning - all done. What do you think?

We had a lot of fun being outside and being together. We love snow days!

Our First Oklahoma Christmas

And I hope there are many more to come. But this year was our first Christmas in Oklahoma at my parents house. We had a lot of fun and I loved being able to spend the nights there. I always loved going to my grandparents house in Granbury for the holidays. We all (meaning my family, my aunt and uncle and my cousins) would stay at my grandparents house. And it was the best. I loved being with everyone all the time - night and day. So I was so excited to spend the night with my now "extended" family at my parents house. We had lots of fun, ate lots of food, and made some new memories. It was wonderful!

The Christmas tree with all the presents. One of my favorite things of the Christmas holidays is seeing all the pretty presents under the tree. And amazingly, the kids left them alone - for the most part! :)

Our Christmas "morning" which was actually the 30th. It didn't matter what day it was. It was so fun to see the kids excitement with it all. I mean, just look at Reagan's face. So fun.

And then there was Lindsey. She's not excited is she?

And then the lull brought about Reagan getting a bit sleepy. Even with all the new presents she got so tired. After this was an early lunch and naptime for both her and Andrew.

My parents got around 14 inches of snow on Christmas Eve. There was still plenty of snow once we got there. Robert even got to workout on vacation by shoveling my parents driveway. The grandkids had fun going out in the snow, building small snowmen, and tromping through the snow making deep footprints.

Reagan was happy staying on the porch watching the others play though.

A trip to Edmond means a visit to Pops. We went for dinner one night and now we can honestly say, go for breakfast instead. While dinner was good, breakfast is so good there. We highly recommend Pops.

My parents just bought this tent for the kids to play in at their house. But I do believe that my mom spent just as much time in there as the kids did.

To fill some of the time while we were visiting, my mom and I came up with the idea to make bird feeders out of toilet paper rolls, peanut butter, and bird seed. It was fun to let her be the one to have the mess at her house. Here is Lindsey making her bird feeder.

And Andrew really wanted to taste it so that is what he did. I don't think that bird seed is poisonous to humans but I'm not too sure about how good it tastes either.

And Reagan got a bit messy with hers. She just grabbed the roll and the peanut butter oozed through her fingers. What fun!

Then we all went outside to hang the feeders on the trees for the birds. Hopefully they found the food.

Daddy helped Reagan with hers. Look at the pretty red berries on the trees. There were a couple of cardinals that would come by to eat some. It was such a pretty scene with the snow, trees, berries, and the cardinals.

We had such a great time. Loved it all. And I look forward to all of us getting together again soon.