Family Pictures . . . amidst the mosquitoes

With our original photo session date rained out, we headed out towards the deep suburbs on a soggy Sunday afternoon for family photos.  We had a 20-minute session and were a few minutes late due to picking the wrong gazebo in this huge neighborhood, but in the few minutes with Rachel, we think she was able to capture some great photos!

Our Christmas card photo -  

The runner up shot -

Into the woods, despite being sprayed with Off, the mosquitoes were out in force.  I'm pretty sure Rachel had to photoshop out the 20 mosquitoes between us and the camera in these shots!

Sweet Collin was ready to pose with us -

Our little diva, not so much - 

But tell her to hug her brother, and she's all over it!

Oh how I love them!

 

Thanksgiving - Hanukkah 2015

Our Thanksgiving vacation was full of highs and lows.  It started the day before Thanksgiving at 10am at a park, where we met Uncle Alex and Aunt Coady, who had woken up at 4am to catch their flight, and we took advantage of their early arrival with a play date.

Collin showed off his monkey bar skills - a new feat learned in kindergarten.  And Maya wore herself out to take a much-needed nap so I could cook and pick up the house!  A successful morning for our family -

Wednesday evening we had Cas' family over for dinner - a low-key gathering where I was quite proud all the guests left without food poisoning after my first baked turkey.

Collin and birthday girl Lita, who turned ninety!

Cas with nephew Nico -

The cousins on the couch - to get everyone to look and smile was too much to ask -

Birthday celebrations for Cas and Lita -

Collin got in on the candle-blowing action

 Trying some group photos -

 Maya's personality shining through -

 Grandma Libia with her adoring grandkids -

Lita joined the couch photo session -

 Lita, Libia, her two sons, and one cooperating grandkid

Thursday morning Maya had me up bright and early.  And I felt terrible.  I tried to get Cas to help but he had a stomach bug and was in fetal position.  We watched a lot of Sesame Street while I laid on the couch, and finally with some Advil, my fever receded.  Cas and I debated all morning.  Neither of us felt up to parenting, and we kept saying, "if we can just get to New Bransfels, we can unload the kids."  We strongly desired to keep our normal plans - to spend a long weekend with family, some we hadn't seen in months (including my brother and sister-in-law.)

Poor Cas wasn't in shape for a three-hour drive, so my wonderful Mom rode with me, and off to NB we went on Thanksgiving day.  Since we were in a condo with Alex and Coady, they gave me plenty of breaks to be lazy (I figured out on Saturday that I had tonsillitis).  Reading Anamalia with Uncle Alex -

Pretending with Aunt Coady -

As we gathered for the Thanksgiving meal that evening, we started by sharing something we were thankful for, and suddenly Collin interrupted - "I lost my tooth!"  He was mildly excited

Sweet Uncle Bobby had my kiddos constantly entertained.  

Collin woke up at 6:30am on Friday morning and there as a gold dollar coin under his pillow.  Since the kids and I were in the same room, I got to see the discovery unfold, which was a lot of fun!

After showing his dollar to every family member, we got ourselves together and visited Landa Park.  Still posing to draw attention to his lost tooth - 

 Our photo bomber -

Wouldn't be a trip to Landa without feeding the ducks -

Alex and I played with Collin while at one point my mom was swinging Maya.  We looked over at them, and my mom was bopping around with jazz hands and then turning in circles.  Maya had talked her into a Hokey Pokey performance.  Collin was delighted to show off and play with Uncle Alex!

Friday night we celebrated Hanukkah - lighting the candles from youngest to oldest -

We sang the songs, ate the latkas, and then it was present time.

While Maya (and I) had a stellar nap after Landa, Collin had played with family -hiking for deer, jumping on a bounce house, basically going non-stop since his 6:30am tooth fairy wake-up.  So when we started Hanukkah after 8pm, he was nearing delirium.  We survived the night, but we may need to pay for the chiropractor bills for the aunts/uncles/cousins that he hugged around the neck in his out-of-control state!

After Collin's very full day, he slept until almost 10am on Saturday.  Which is by far the latest he has ever slept.  I kept walking in to make sure he was okay.  We rounded up our crew for a trip to Natural Bridge Caverns.  

Most of my cousins hadn't been since we were kids, and we all enjoyed it much more as adults.  Maya wanted to be held most of the path, and between the 80-degree with 100-percent humidity cavern and not feeling well, I was SO thankful when she went with my cousin Jasper for the last bit of the tour.   Some of the cousins had told Collin there was a monster, Grendall, in the cave, so he stuck close but was pretty tense throughout the cavern tour!

Cas was missed in NB - my cousins kept texting him the whole trip to see when he'd be arriving.  Poor guy felt bad when we came home on Sunday, but we all recovered by the start of the week.  Collin was thrilled to go to school on Monday and share in morning news time of the deer he saw, the caverns he toured, and the tooth he lost!

Santa and his 2 reindeer

This Saturday we had a company family Christmas party at a nearby hotel.  I love this event - it's completely over-the-top and perfect for young kids.  They had jugglers, face painters, balloon animals, hills of fake snow for sledding, and the kid highlight - gingerbread houses with a candy bar.  After brunch and some photos inside, I waited in the very long line for pictures with Santa.  

While I waited, Cas took the kids to visit one of the two live reindeer - 

Collin bravely sledded down the big hill -

 

 And then it was our turn with jolly Ole St. Nick and we got this little gem of a photo.

I had been talking with a co-worker inside and she remarked how her daughter was scared of Santa and she didn't want to be that parent taking photos of their screaming child in front of everyone.  Maya was fine the whole line, and we had been prepping her on how she'd sit next to Collin.  He's grabbing her hand trying to calm her but she wasn't having it.  So we snapped a photo and then I climbed in the sleigh with Cas next to it for a family shot, and Maya immediately calmed down.  As soon as we were out of the sleigh, she was waving and shouting, "bye Santa!"  She's just not a fan of grown-ups in costume (Halloween, Christmas, Easter, Chucky Cheese, etc)!

Before we left, we snapped a few more by the Christmas tree - 

 

My sweet boy with some his mouth full of gingerbread candy!

Another great Christmas party.  Maybe next year, Maya and Santa will be friends!

Waldo, Elsa and Spider-Man

The week before Halloween, Collin's class had character dress up day.  I showed Collin lots of examples online, but he chose Waldo.  Easy enough, an $8 purchase on the internet and we were set.  His school has "family Fridays" where we can walk the kids to their class, so Maya and I came along to snap a few pictures before he started his kindergarten day.  

She's always happy to skip into his elementary school, despite her expression here!

Our Waldo came home excited about the compliments he received throughout the day.

On the Friday before Halloween, our church had a trunk-or-treat.  Members provided games out of the trunks of their cars.  We kept the Waldo theme going, and hid Waldo among the tons of stuffed animals our kids own. We invited the community that lives near our church, and our kids had a blast eating too much candy and playing on bounce houses while I almost lost my voice by the end of the night conducting our trunk game.  

Our game was to hide a small Waldo under one of three plastic cups, and then spin the cups around to see if they could find Waldo.  Children who played our game thought they were going to win a stuffed animal and were always a little disappointed with a Hershey bar!  Plus those eight year olds are good - at least half the time I had no idea where Waldo was in the cups I was spinning, and yet they picked him at least 80% of the time!

After a crazy rainy Friday night and all day Saturday, the rain stopped just in time for trick or treating.  We once again crashed our friends' neighborhood with the best block party.

Spider-Man and Elsa.  This is probably the 25th time these have been worn in the last few weeks.  My kids love dressing up, which means we have Elsa glitter EVERYWHERE!  And we had a panicked search for the Spider-Man mask minutes before we were supposed to leave, since it's been worn and taken off in various rooms throughout our home a few times each day.

Maya wore her dress the Friday before Halloween to a fairy tale ball at her school.  She told me that after I put on the dress I should tell her, "Beau-ti-FUL!" in a loud, singing voice.  Clearly this one does not have a self-esteem problem!  And clearly we tell her how beautiful (and smart and strong and silly) she is ALL THE TIME! 

Maya was not a fan of the witch that made noises, but Collin was game to pose with it -  

We walked down the street to the block party, full of pizza, chicken nuggets, snacks and desserts.  Collin made a bee-line for the doughnut game (you're not supposed to use your hands, cheater)!

Here's most of the gang of kids.  The cul-de-sac where they meet is across the street from my great aunt and uncle's old home, so I grew up visiting the neighborhood.  As an adult, I am so jealous of how well the neighbors know one another and what a sweet group of families live here.  Luckily, we've been able to meet several through their schools and church.  Collin again saw lots of kinder and soccer friends, and my kids (front row) are sitting in between some friends from church and two of Maya's friends from pre-school.

Walking along, lollipop in mouth.  She wasn't the fastest trick-or-treater, but she ate the most candy.

Stopping along the route for a photo opp.  The homes near the block party starting point have families sitting on their driveway, so their jack-o-lanterns were filled with minimal walks up to front doors.

Another lollipop!

Collin didn't touch his candy until we got home, but he did have fun with his glow stick / weapon.

Thankful for these beautiful ballerinas and their wonderful family that invited us allowed me to invite ourselves to join them for Halloween again.

We stopped by three homes in our neighborhood once we got home, but one of our neighbors invited us inside and we got to meet his family more than we had in the three years we've lived on our street!  Halloween 2015 was a great night with friends, fun meeting neighbors, and a sugar-filled evening with Spider-Man and Elsa!