Vivian's 7th birthday

Today was Vivian's 7th birthday. We baked cupcakes last night and then this morning headed over to the cemetery with 2 balloons for Viv. Izzy picked a Rapunzel balloon and Logan picked a Mickey Mouse one. After saying hi and happy birthday we headed over to preschool. After I dropped Logan and Isabel off at school I went for a run. We had great weather and I flew through my 3 mile run. After showering I headed up North to meet Brian for lunch. Since we can't eat Thai food anymore with Izzy's allergies it was a nice treat to go to Madam Mam's and have some delicious Thai food. After sending almost an hour laying on the floor in Logan's room trying to get him to nap I eventually stumbled into my bed and took a much needed short nap. I was so so tired.

We had dinner and then sang happy birthday to Vivian and ate cupcakes. I can't believe Vivian would be 7 years old today. I looked back at all of our pictures and noticed how young we look! I guess a death, miscarriage and 2 births in 5 years tends to age you a little bit. This year was definitely one of the tougher ones. I hate how grief will just reach up and rip open scars when you least expect it.

Thanksgiving Feasts at Preschool

Today we had Thanksgiving at the preschool.  I dropped the kids off a little late with their food (corn muffins for Logan and an ice cream pumpkin pie for Isabel) and headed way up north to a doctor's appointment.  I had just enough time to grab a sandwich after my appointment and head over to the preschool.  First up was Logan's party.  The parents went crazy and there was SO much food.  Pretty much all of the parents came too, so it was a big crowd.  Logan just wanted to eat the yogurt covered pretzels and drink juice boxes.  He had fun.  I left him to go visit Isabel's class for a bit.  Again, lots of good food.  I totally forgot to get the pie out of the freezer.  Oh well.  There was enough pumpkin pie from the other one someone brought.

Logan ready to eat!

The pretty table

Yummy!

Delicious.  that crown always finds a way on her head!

Ham!

Eating her pumpkin pie like pizza.  (She lost her fork and they were all out)

Look who found Isabel!  Logan in outside on the playground and came to look for Isabel.  :-)

F1 weekend and let the holidays begin!

This weekend was finally the big F1 race here in Austin. We have been looking forward to this weekend for months! Brian, papaw and grandpa headed out Saturday morning to watch practice #2. They came back right after to watch the Montana vs Montana state football game. Go cats!

Gramma, Grammy the kids and I headed out to walk around the domain for a bit. I saw that the new H&M store was opening and thought that might be fun. I checked the traffic maps before we left and it was totally green, so off we went. We got there and the line to go into the store was CRAZY long. No freaking way. It was a beautiful day out and we just walked around and ate at CPK. No H&M this weekend!

Today the guys headed out to the track early. I did a little target shopping while the kids and grammas went to the park. We made papaw a cake for his birthday and that was about it!

The race was a big success for Austin. I didn't notice any traffic problems at all and the guys had no trouble getting to and from the race. I guess the whole 'prepare for the worst' thing really worked out. A+ Austin!

I have most of the inside Christmas decorations up in the house, but as we were putting the ornaments on the tree I noticed some sort of rodent poop on the box. Gross!!!! I made Brian pack everything up and got the can of Lysol out and sprayed everything. I'm not sure what to do. Do I hose all the ornaments off? Soak them in bleach water and hope they survive? Spray them with Lysol? Soooo nasty and frustrating. For the time being we will just have an undecorated tree.

Logan vs cement and some homemade applesauce

Logan was riding a tricycle today at preschool and went over the handlebars. Unfortunately his BFF Ms. Frankie was out today. He did get lots of cuddles from the other teachers. Poor guy.

I made homemade applesauce in the crock pot today. So good and so easy. Mmmmmm. Surprisingly low in sugar (1/2 c brown sugar) for the amount. I used 8 medium sized apples.  Yum. Some chili was perfect for dinner on this cold day. Isabel was confused as to why we were having chili. "But it's cold out. We should be having warm foods." :)

Before school.

My helper girl.

ouch.  :-(

Aggies! Outlets! Chuys!

Logan checking out the village.  There is a train, so he is pretty stoked.  It doesn't move, so he's still stoked, just not crazy-stoked.

Yay, Christmas!

On Friday Isabel had swim lessons and it was water safety week so half the class was devoted to that. They learned how to get in a boat, what to do if they fall out and that they need to 'yell and tell' an adult if someone is in trouble in the water rather than jumping in to help. It was so funny watching them in the boat and then watching the teacher flip them. No one freaked out and there was lots of giggling. I was amazed.

Saturday morning we decided to go outlet shopping for a bit. Mainly because I had a 40% off coupon at Gap. We just hit up Gap since Logan was still not feeling great. Brian stayed with the kids for a bit and let them ride some of the little quarter rides around the stores. The line was SO long, so I texted Brian and asked him to stand in it for me. We were in line for an hour. Insane, but I got some good deals! I was thisclose to bagging it and just leaving, but I'm glad we toughed it out. Only one major meltdown towards the end.

Since shopping took longer than expected we decided to stop at Chuys up north for lunch. It was SO loud. Like, it was so loud that I couldn't hear my kids screaming and I was 10 inches away from them. Perfect kind of place for us! Logan broke a plate, but other than that it was a pretty good lunch. When we got home we put the kids down for naps and started watching the A&M game. Oh my gosh. The Aggies beat Bama! Whoop! Awesome game!

Today we stayed close and just went to Lowes and Home Depot in search of a new security light for outside of the garage. The other ones we've had shorted out of something, so hopefully a new brand will work better. Not sure what's going on with that, but it's annoying. We also went in search of an inflatable train for Christmas for the yard. After looking online and in stores we decided on one at Walmart, but none of the ones around us had it and it was out of stock online. I'll keep looking. I was amazed at the number of people out shopping and buying Christmas decorations!

When we got home from our search we set up the Christmas village. Brian had planned on starting cleanout of the garage, but I think he got a little overwhelmed and stopped. It's a mess and desperately needs to be organized. It'll have to get done slowly over several weekends.

I am happy to report that today Logan is completely fever free!!!!! Yay! It seemed like the longest virus ever. 4 days with a high fever is not fun.

Getting in the boat at swim lessons.

Logan took all of Mommy's pillows.  This was Thursday.  Day 2 of the fever.  We watched of lot of movies.

Victory dance!

Isabel after her impressive face plant at the park.

Cbuys!  Pre plate breakage.

Racing.  Isabel after another fall.

Brian teaching Logan the 3 point stance.

Ren Fest and Fever

Last weekend we headed over to go to the Texas Renaissance Festival.  We tried to go last year and it poured down rain the entire time.  We went this year and had great weather.  The kids had fun, but as usual it was a lot of work.  Everything is so $ and of course they wanted to do everything.  Logan got into the jousting a little and clapped for his knight, so that was fun.  He also peed all over Brian, so that wasn't much fun. He's been battling this diaper rash/eczema thing that I think was making him not want to use the toilet.  Wiping hurt and he associated the toilet with getting wiped.  I guess he didn't realized that there is much more wiping involved when he has accidents.  Anyway, he's doing better, so that's good.  Unfortunately he started running a fever late Tuesday night.  It seemed really high all day yesterday, even with Tylenol.  I started alternating Advil and Tylenol and that seemed to help.  I took him in last night just to be sure it was nothing more serious because he seemed really lethargic and actually fell asleep on the couch.  That was a first!  By the time we got to the doctor (6:45pm) he seemed to have more energy and his fever was almost gone.  She did a step test because he was drooling so much, but it was negative.  He was ok last night, but has been up since 5:15am tossing and turning.  Brian took his temperature before he left for work and said it was around 99, but I took it at 5:30 and it was up to 101.  I gave him some more tylenol and hopefully he'll be more comfortable and get some more sleep.

Isabel had dance class yesterday and had a really good day.  I'm glad because she's had a couple of tough days recently.  It's amazing how different the kids are when you have them one-on-one.  It's like their best qualities come out and shine.  Just shows me that most of the bad behavior is really just attention-seeking.  Duh.

While Izzy was dancing I took Logan over to Target to get some sick day stuff.  We stocked up on acetaminophen and ibuprofen and got a couple of Christmas movies.  Target had all of their kid Christmas movies on sale!  We got "Santa Buddies" (the prequel to Santa Paws with the Treasure Buddies in it) on blu-ray for $8.99 and a "Prep and Landing" DVD for $5!  They LOVED them both.  Logan was asking for Santa Buddies last night before bed.  I kept telling Izzy that the dog in the movie was Santa Paws, but she just looked at me like I was crazy and started laughing and saying 'Mom, WHAT are you talking about?"  I was like "look, that's the Santa Paws crystal, so it has to be him."  She turned and looked and then looked back at me and it was like mind=blown.  So funny.  If you've never seen the movies that paragraph was probably very confusing and incredibly boring.  Sorry.

So today I'm providing the pizza day snacks for both Isabel and Logan's classes.  It should be interesting getting them both in the building, Isabel dropped off and the food dropped off without Logan having a meltdown because he's not staying to play with his bestest buddy ever, Ms. Fwwankie (Frankie).

And now both kids are up with <10 br="br" greeeat.="greeeat." hours="hours" nbsp="nbsp" of="of" sleep.="sleep.">