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!

Zilker Kite Festival

One of our favorite Austin traditions...Zilker Kite Festival.  Even better when it's a crystal clear, breezy kind of 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. :)

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!!!

Six Years Ago Today...

6 years ago today our lives were changed forever in the most amazing way!!! I can't believe that our sweet little punkins are six!!!!! Where does the time go? Although, having said that, I think back and can't really even remember what our lives were like before their arrival November 3, 2004.

Little Miss A is the sweetest girl. Always so caring of others, super kind and considerate. She loves to take care of her family and friends...wanting to make sure everyone is happy all the time. She is so thoughtful and always wants to do the right thing. We are so lucky to have her!

Mr. D is our little funny man...he has the most amazing sense of humor. He loves to laugh and make others laugh as well. His laugh is contagious...completely infectious! Like his sister, he loves for everyone to be happy and is more than willing to share his laugh and silliness to make people smile. We are so lucky to have him!

I am happy to report that the bug they had yesterday was completely gone by the afternoon so they were able to spend their special day as we regularly planned. We had an early release day at school, so the kids had the best of both worlds...school with friends and a nice long afternoon of fun as well.

The kids woke up in the morning to the traditional birthday song. We learned when we split them up to their two separate rooms when they were 2, that we needed to sing loud and have them both come to the great room for presents together. (Not quite the same as my childhood where the whole family walked into my room singing the birthday song carrying presents, but we can't be in 2 places at once.) After a shower of gifts, the kids began to get ready for school. I headed out to Starbucks for our traditional birthday morning pick me up...hot cocoa. A little bit farther drive in the new house, but a tradition we can't possible give up. :)

At school the kids had their names called on the announcements...birthday wishes from the principal. As all of my students heard their kids names, they came to my class passing on birthday wishes, some of them even made cards for them...how sweet is that? Little Miss A and Mr. D thought that was so cool! They were both line leaders for the day sporting their birthday crowns from their teachers for the day...

The kids picked special cupcakes to share with their classmates:

(Princess)

(How to Train a Dragon)

We celebrated both birthdays in the cafeteria as one great big group. Which meant the boys in Little Miss A's class were able to enjoy dragon cupcakes/rings and the girls in Mr. D's class got to have princess cupcakes/rings. :)

With an early out at noon, I took the afternoon off to spend A & D's special day with them doing something exciting and fun! After a few changes in plans, we ended up at the Main Event. (A fun indoor play land.) We ironically bumped into some of our old playgroup friends, so we were able to join lanes and bowl together. :) After a few hours of bowling, the kids and I headed to the arcades to play some more. What a fun afternoon.

We left the Main Event and met Daddy for dinner...A & D's choice our old traditional Mexican favorite. I think we've celebrated their birthday dinner there for the past 3 years now even though we've moved. :)

In maintaining that tradition, the kids fell asleep (AGAIN) on the way home and we ended up having birthday cake the next day instead...

What a great day with two AMAZING kids!

Happy birthday "babies" we love you!

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!!!!

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...

Happy 4th of July!!!

After fun filled day with the fam, we headed home to cookout, watch the fireworks and do some snappers, poppers and sparklers of our own. In doing so realized, that we are never leaving our house again for the 4th. We had a panoramic view of fireworks all around us from all sorts of publicly and privately purchased displays from about 8:30 - 11:00. It was awesome!!! I'm so happy to report that no iPod was necessary for Little Miss A to view the show. :)

What an amazing day!!!

Blackberries

We decided to spend Memorial Day by trecking out to our favorite little farm picking berries. We missed the strawberries for the most part, A & D did find a few, but the blackberries were GREAT!!! The Caswell Kids were FAR more engaged this year. (Last year they each lasted all of like 5 minutes, granted it was extremely hot.) This year was much more of a game...actually a competition in the beginning that ended wih a nice sibling tie with each of them trying to have exactly the same amount when we reached the scale. We may have found a new Memorial Day tradition. :)

Bluebonnets!!!

After the Bunny Breakfast, we took advantage of the beautiful weather to take some traditional Bluebonnet pictures in our wonderfully blooming neighborhood while the kids were already dressed in their Easter best! :)

Bunny Breakfast

We had our traditional Bunny Breakfast this morning at Nordstrom's. Thanks, again, Miss A for letting us know to reserve a table!!! :) As always, we began the morning with a yummy breakfast at a table reserved just for us with a fun surprise at he table waiting for us. Strawberry Smoothie kit and cute reusable place mats with erasable markers and a visit for Mr. Bunny himself. Little Miss A was actually scared of the bunny when we were at the breakfast table. Holy crow, seriously miss animal extraordinaire herself...CRAZY!!! She warmed up when we got downstairs for the festivities though. :)

Waltzing through the infant section for hidden eggs, the Caswell Kids came up short. Thanks sweet K for sharing with Little Miss A, you are such a sweetie pie!!!!

Our traditional face painting...true A & D style. A wand for Harry Potter Junior and a sweet zebra for my animaniac. :)

As for he balloon artist, Little Miss A actually passed...shocker number 2 of the morning. Mr. D on the other hand wasn't going to pass up an opportunity to have a Star Wars blaster

What a fun start to Saturday morning!!!! Gosh, we LOVE this tradition!!! :)

A Night at the Nutcracker

Our anniversary tradition has been to see The Nutcracker. Knowing the the kids (Little Miss A in particular) would the the Ballet as much as we do, we did a family celebration this year. It was wonderful. We got all dressed up and headed to dinner. It was a really nice Italian restaurant, that TOTALLY reminded us of our trip to Italy a few summers ago.

Then it was off to the Ballet! We had great seats right by the orchestra so the kids could REALLY see the dancers on stage. Even though we've watched the Nutcracker movie SEVERAL times prior to the big night so we would know the story line and be able to follow the dance without words, the kids still had a ton of questions. It was cute. They did REALLY well...definitely a tradition to continue with the kids. :)

Chasing lights after the show!