Non-Christmasy December Happenings

Kingston no longer naps, but he probably still could. So, anytime we are out and about between around 3 and 4 in the afternoon he passes out in the car. This time he took it even further and passed out in the car cart at HEB. It actually made my shopping rather pleasant.

The YMCA had a snow day where they brought in a bunch of snow/ice for the kids to play in. It was actually kind of cold that day so you could almost believe you were playing in real snow. The kids loved it even though it wasn't nearly as impressive as what they had just seen in Utah. It doesn't take much snowish stuff to impress Texans.

They also set up these hills for the kids to sled on, which was great except that the bottom was a huge pile of mud that Netta fell in. I did not get a picture of that. Instead here is King in all his sledding glory.

I have a love hate relationship with Chuck e Cheese. My kids love to go there, but the pizza just isn't good. Conrad now has a love hate relationship with it as well. He was having a blast until the Chuck E himself came out and then he was just terrified.

They opened this new theater called IPic that has reclining chairs, blankets and upscale food. The ticket prices are ridiculous, but John got a gift card from work so we had to check it out. One of the perks of him working in sales. Now this is how you see a movie when someone else is paying.

Thanksgiving in Utah

As is becoming tradition, we went to Utah for Thanksgiving this year. It just so happened that my sister Katie and her family were flying to Florida the same day and had a stop in Austin. They weren't actually supposed to get off the plane but my sister got the flight attendant to let her and Noah off for a quick hello.

Usually we stay at one family's house for the entire trip, but this year we stayed at 3 different houses and even though it was kind of a pain to move our stuff around, it was actually really nice, because basically you see the people you stay with the most and this way we made sure we got to see lots of people. We started the trip at Jeremy and Kimmy's house. The kids had a ton of fun in their crazy awesome game room. Here is a sign we found on the wall one day "In 3 minutes there will be a play including Harry Potter and Red Riding Hood." It was epic.

My sister Meghan and her family still live in Utah so they joined us on some of our outings, including the requisite trip to the Discovery Zone. Here is Lucy and Netta doing their best cow and mailman impersonations. 

 We also hit up the indoor amusement park Jungle Jim's which is a must do in my book. Meghan joined us for that as well. Here is one of Timmy and Conrad. I loved that Conrad was willing to ride everything.

One night we met up with John's friend Chris from high school. We went out to dinner and Conrad is so stinkin cute that he actually got himself a free shake the size of his body. He really knows how to win people over.

Our Thanksgiving meal was of course followed by frisbee dodgeball. Netta took the lazy approach and rode this little tricycle around the whole time.

EZ was much more in on the action.

It is hard to find places that can fit all of John's family when we get together. This year we ended up renting out a gymnastics studio. The highlight of the night would have to be John and his brother in-law Adam launching all of the kids into the foam pit. I love this shot of EZ and I am amazed no one broke anything.

The second house we stayed at was Buffy's. We have actually never stayed with her before and I am so glad we did. While we were there Conrad discovered that he can sneak out through their doggy door. He was very proud of himself.

One of my favorite parts of going back to Utah is getting to visit BYU. Meghan and I took the kids to the bookstore, which ended in a lot of tears and probably wasn't the best idea, but they loved getting a treat in the Cougar Eat and chilling in the Wilksinson Center. 

We also got to visit with my friend Peter and his wife Maile and their family. We haven't seen them since EZ was a baby. They moved to Utah from New York over a year ago, but I had forgotten they were there so we didn't visit them last Thanksgiving. Oops

EZ and their son Asher are just a couple months apart in age. Here they are the last time we saw them at about a year old and then at age 7. I would say they have grown a bit.

Netta hadn't met any of their kids before, but of course that didn't stop her from becoming instant best friends with their daughters.

The last family we stayed with on the trip was Misha's. While we were there, there was a huge snow storm. My kids were ecstatic. Netta didn't last very long, probably due to the fact that we don't have the best winter clothes, but EZ would have stayed out there all day.

I wasn't sure what Conrad would think of it but he loved every second of it. It was so funny to see him crawling through it. I figured he would be out after the first bit of snow touched his face, but nope he just kept going.

We always get comments when we travel about how many kids we have. Well especially when we are flying out of Austin. SLC not so much. HaHa. John made quite the impressive haul this year with 6 suitcases a backpack and 2 car seats on his back. Oh and I am sure he was carrying a child at some point as well.

As always we had a great time and loved seeing so much family. We also worked on some family history and of course John's is all done thanks to his pioneer heritage, but I learned that there is lots of work to do on my side of the family. I guess it's time to get crackin'!

November Randomness

Conrad has all of a sudden decided that he loves to sit on the table and we can't keep him off it. As you can see he likes to eat on it and watch tv. He still isn't walking, but it almost feels like he is to me because I am getting exhausted chasing him all the time and trying to stop him from climbing on things. It looks like he is going to officially be the latest walker in the family, which just kills me. He is so tiny and usually it is the tiny ones you see walking young, but not our lazy butt.

 The recently opened a new gas station by our house. I kept seeing tons of people in there and I couldn't figure out what the big deal was. We finally decided to check it out and it is awesome. It is like whole foods meets a gas station and they have amazing made to order food. On top of that they have the Maine Root bottling company sodas on tap, including my favorite Diet Mexican Cola. It is a little piece of heaven in there. Sarah and I took the kids and got this hilarious picture of Lincoln and Conrad. I know the photo quality isn't the best, but I just love seeing them cracking up.

A portion of November was spent neglecting my children so I could make them all hats. I don't know why, but I got on this hat kick and so here they are: Hello Kitty, Minion, and Pokemon Ball. I can't take credit for design, but I will take credit for making them and the cute kids too ;)

 We knew we wanted to use our passes to hit up SeaWorld one more time, but when I suggested one weekend in November, John wasn't so keen. Well then some friends called and said they were going so I won! King was really really excited to be there as you can see.

We went with the Coffeys, who we met through John's sister Nikki. Valerie is one of Nikki's old roommates and good friends. They moved to Austin a year or 2 ago and whenever Nikki and Darren come to visit us, we get together with them. Our kids have a lot of fun together. Here is a pic of Netta and Karston. They have only really hung out twice before, but kids are always instant best friends. 

One of these things is not like the other . . . . 

We had a lot of fun that day, but we did have one little hiccup when King peed his pants. I hadn't really planned for that so he ended up having to wear a pair of Conrad's pants as shorts. I was amazed and grateful they fit and didn't look too bad.

Fall Sports

Of course the fall means soccer. This was Netta's first year playing. She did pretty well. She wasn't the most aggressive but she usually at least stayed in the vicinity of the ball, so we will call that good for her age. It was crazy trying to juggle both of their game schedules. One Saturday was particularly busy with John and I both running in different directions. After EZ's game I drove him home and when we got in the driveway I realized that I had left Netta at the fields, which are a good 15 minutes from our house. I immediately started crying and floored it back to the fields. In my defense, I had spent all morning running around with just EZ and then we all met up at the fields and John took King and Conrad home and left Netta with me. Not the best excuse, but I promise if I had brought her I would have remembered her. Haha. Anyway, when I got back to the fields she was sitting with the sports director. I was so embarrassed and a little nervous to explain myself to him, because he doesn't have the friendliest look about him, but to my relief he was totally cool about it. He said it happens all the time and he had even left one of his kids behind once. I take this as a sign that we shouldn't have anymore kids since we can't keep track of the ones we have ;)

This was EZ's 3rd year of soccer and he is definitely improving year to year. He still really likes to play defense and goalie. Offense just doesn't go with his personality at all. The whole aggressive thing isn't really his style.

Of course Aunt Sarah, Uncle Casey and Lincoln came to watch one of the games.

This year they installed one of these Ga Ga Ball courts and EZ was in heaven, since he fell in love with it this summer at the family reunion.

Netta has loved her dance class at the rec center, but she also has been talking about doing gymnastics, so this fall we decided to let her try it out. She really liked it and I was honestly impressed with what she was able to do, especially on the balance beam. In her heart though I know she loves to be on stage so I think she will probably end up doing more dance than gymnastics.

They all got a medal at the end and with no other adult there to help me it was impossible to keep Conrad out of the picture ;)

Halloween Festivities

 Halloween was a blast this year with a ton of different events. Of course we did some pumpkin decorating. We opt for the Mr. Potato Head type decorations and coloring, since as you can see, the kids are in shorts and carved pumpkins just rot. Here are the kids with their master pieces. 

We went trick or treating in our neighborhood. I find it's best to have small buckets, because then they fill up really fast and the kids think they have a ton. Plus they don't have the stamina to walk around and fill a pillow case. We had a slew of costume changes. This year. For trick or treating EZ was Spiderman. 

 

Netta was a Lalaloopsy doll.

And King was Super Why. Both King and EZ both repeated costumes from years before. Hey if they don't want me to go out and buy new costumes that is fine by me. 

Our Church had a party and I was super excited about our costumes this year. In March there was a major sale online and I was able to get all of us angry bird costumes for dirt cheap. When we arrived at the party, kids were going crazy for our outfits. Unfortunately, the costumes were a bit too big for the kids and John couldn't see past his beak so they didn't last very long. At least the kids can grow into them and we should be able to use them again.

Finally, our friends had an adult Halloween party and this year I really wanted a funny and creative couples costume. I found this "deer in headlights" idea online and I would have to say we caused quite the stir. We were robbed of any of the prizes, but I don' think anyone is going to forget about this costume ;)