St. Paddy's Day

We began our St. Patrick's Day with green hot chocolate, green eggs and green iced cinnamon rolls!  That crazy leprechaun had so major green fun in the kitchen this morning.  :)

 We went upstairs, tossed on our green garb and began or day of play!

Valentine's Day

A & D had fun putting all of their classmates Valentines together and gearing up for a fun party day!

Happy New Year

We rang in the new year with a nice evening at home. The kids crashed early but woke up for the dropping of the ball and new years family "toast".

A & D's New Year Resolutions:

Be nice to each other

Help others

Christmas Wrap Up

Christmas baking with the kids was SOOOOO much fun this year! They did it all with very little instruction!. It was nice to have the cookie creation as a family activity. :)

Prepping for Santa...

Christmas morning

Santa brought Little Miss A the unicorn she asked for ad Mr. D the famous Neville Longbottom wand he wanted as well. Lots of new fun things to play with made for HOURS of playtime fun for everyone!

Nutcracker 2010

Our Nutcracker tradition continues!!! We began our evening all dolled up and ready for a night on the town. One of our traditions has been to try a new restaurant every year. This year was another winner. :)

Here is a glimpse of our traditional intermission festivities. :)

What an awesome night!

Holiday in the Park

We drove down to one of our favorite cities this time of year...San Antonio. Our first stop was a trip to Six Flags for their Holiday in the Park. There weren't very many people there, so we were literally able to bounce from ride to ride without much of a wait at all. :)

With hot chocolate, cookies, Christmas carols and lights all around it was the perfect Christmas scene. To make it even more perfect, we worked in a trip to see the big man...Santa!!!

Little Miss A asked for a soft toy unicorn.

Mr. D asked for a Neville Longbottom Wand.

We ended our day with a trip to the River Walk to see the lights, but didn't get very far with 2 passed out punkins. I think we might need to head down once more over the holidays. :)

Polar Express Pajama Day

The Kinder classes at school had a Polar Express Day planned for the kids. Let me just say, that wearing PJs to school is the best gift to parents EVER!!!!! Our get up and out the door was AWESOME!!!! They received tickets upon their admission to the "train" and bells as they exited. CUTE!!!! What a fun day!

21st Century Christmas Cookie Decorating

We picked these cookies that looked too fun to pass up...

COOKIE COLORING!!!!

Happy to report they were not only fun to decorate, but actually YUMMY to eat too!!!!!

Lakeway Trail of Lights

We took a very impromptu trip through the Lakeway Trail of Lights after dinner on Friday night. All I can say is WOW!!!! Who knew there was such a local treasure? We didn't have to drive an hour to find a small trail that's just perfect for the kids to run through. We got back to the beginning tunnel and Mr. D said, "Wow, look!!!! Another tunnel" We were contemplating letting the 3 of them keep going and see how long it would take them to realize it was the same tunnel. Alas, it was already late, so we called it an evening! How fun!!! We have another tradition to add to the list. :)

Christmas Decorating...

Getting in the spirit with some holiday decorating...

This was a scary scene!!! I had visions of the 3 of them falling off the chair into the tree, through the window, down the back steps and into the yard. My hands are sweating as I type this just thinking about it.

A Tradition in Belton

We met our bffs for dinner then began our traditional treck to Belton for the drive through trail of lights.

Little Miss Energy!!!!

Mr. Tuckered Out...halfway through the drive!!!

Thanksgiving in New York City

It was another year of our every 5th year tradition celebrating Thanksgiving in the Big Apple. This year, my family was joining us...what a fun treat! :) Here is the WAY condensed version of our trip...

Bagels on the steps of the library

Grand Central Station!

Mamma Mia was AMAZING!!!

My dear friend L was in the city for Thanksgiving too!!!

Our kiddies FINALLY get to meet one another! :)

Balloon Inflation

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Thanksgiving dinner with the fam!!! :)

Ice Skating in Bryant Park

Carriage ride in Central Park

D, Daddy and Grandpa head to the Ghostbuster Fire House while the girls braved Black Friday shopping at Macy's with the CROWD!!!

Family pics in Central Park!!!

It was an absolutely amazing trip!!!!!!! We were so happy the family came with us...made the visit that much more special! :)

Native American Day

We were feeling better enough by Friday to join our friends at school for a super fun morning of Native American rotations.

The kids started the day with War Shields with Dad. Then it was on to several different stations across the grade level completing different activities with their classmates. It was so fun to see their loot at the end of the day.

Since I had classes, I wasn't able to make it, so we don't have pictures. I'll have to take some of the kids with their treasures and post later. :)

Thanksgiving "School" Lunch

We had our Thanksgiving lunch at school, which Little Miss A informed me was actually a "feast"! :)

I was fortunate enough to be able to rearrange my school schedule with my own students in order to be able to join my own little pilgrims for a feast at school. What a fun treat!!!!

I am so thankful for you two!!!!!!

Happy Halloween

We started our day with the last and final arrival of the Halloween Witch. The kids came running down the stairs, way too early, to find the treasures the witch left.
We spent a nice morning playing with our treasures, while Halloween shows played in the background. We took advantage of Halloween landing on a weekend and too the day to slow down a bit.

Pumpkin carving on the back patio, baking in the kitchen...it was TOTALLY fall! As the great pumpkin scoop out progressed outside, the kids began to find germinated sees inside the pumpkins. In fact, ALL of the pumpkins were growing pumpkin plants INSIDE them, leaves and all. Is that bizarre or what?

Pumpkin carving at the hand of Mr. D. Daddy and Grandpa had to help him finish it off.

Little Miss A and her famous LIPS!

This is her hand drawn pumpkin face...

After a nice lazy day, we began the wind up for a super fun evening. Little Miss A and Mr. D dressed up as characters from Pirates of the Caribbean...Elizabeth and Captain Jack Sparrow.

Grandma and I began the trick or treating and Daddy joined us at the halfway mark. A good time was definitely had by all!!! Sure wonder how things are going to play out next year when Halloween falls on a school day!

Pumpkin Patch

We took advantage of the beautiful weather and early afternoon to take the kids to our FAVORITE pumpkin patch! We couldn't have asked for a better afternoon! The place was virtually empty...we parked in the FRONT space and didn't have to wait in line for anything and had PLENTY of awesome pumpkins to choose from!

We were able to do everything we wanted...picked our favorite pumpkins, ran through the maze (several times), went on a hayride, ran through the flowers, fed the goats, painted pumpkins and even had pumpkin ice cream and still only spent the afternoon. :)

It was so nice to be able to share one of our traditions with Grandma and Grandpa!!!!

Fright Fest

We took advantage of the nice weather weekend to head down to Six Flags for Fright Fest with the neighbors! After Mr. D's soccer game, we got dressed in Halloween t-shirts hopped in the car and drove down to San Antonio. What a fun afternoon! The kids were a little spooked by the walking zombies. (Little Miss A way more so than Mr. D.) They loved the fun Halloween music playing around the park though. With trick or treat trails around the park, we were completely loaded with goodies, not that we didn't bring enough of our own, but it made the day that much more fun. The concert at the end was so much fun...glad we made it for that. What a fun new tradition to add to the list for this fun, festive fall time of year. :)

Halloween Fun...

We are FINALLY getting festive around the Caswell House. In talking with friends a few weeks ago, I realized the only holiday we have really decorated for in the new house was Christmas. How sad is that?!?!?! This...from the girl who used to decorate for EVERY holiday throughout the year. As new homeowners, we all concurred that there was so much that was new that it was hard to put up the old stuff from the old house when we were still enjoying the newness of the brand new house. New smell, new furnishings, new decorations, etc. Well, the newness has worn off and we are in full holiday decor mode once again. :)

So we began shopping a few weeks ago by hitting our local favorite...Halloween Express. We already have costumes, but it was time to start looking for fun, festive indoor and outdoor decorations for the new house. I think we spent 3 hours, looking for yard embellishments, finding fun things for our new rooms, crazy items for the entryway to and of course, trying on masks and hats and as well. We had a blast!! We bumped into a whole bunch of friends while we were there, so I think that made it even more fun. :)

Miss J, you'd be proud, the inside of the house is FINALLY decorated!!!! We are once again a lively bunch in the morning with all of our traditions...the Halloween advent calendar is still a hands down favorite. Running down the stairs in the morning to see what the Halloween Witch has left that day.

We are decorating the outside of the house today, but still have a few more "finishing touches" to find before we wrap things up out there. :) It's so nice to be fun and festive again...