it was a celebration

Here is what we did tonight...

We enjoyed celebrating with the Box family.  After a two-year process they brought their son, Enock, home from Uganda today.  It was wonderful getting to love on 2 little Box boys tonight!

summer memories :: sprinkler park date

Pflugerville's sprinkler park with the Magees

The littles ones are so funny and cute.

Impromtu dance party...with "kissing-my-muscles-move?"

Rock-paper-scissors

The group all together...almost.

summer memories :: lemonade stand on Saturday

Our oldest never fails to amaze us with her entrepreneurial skills.  She turned her stand into a tiny company and she outsourced the marketing to a friend down the street.  He made a cut of the profits if he rode his bike around the entire neighborhood announcing their fabulous lemonade.  They had so many people drive by in cars and buy a cup on their way out.  Totally hysterical to us. :)

I am not sure what we find more hilarious:
1. Our ridiculously, silly friends (whoever they may be) for doing this between 6:30-7:00 at night!
2. Or the embarrassing size of our dinky trees...

Any guess on the culprit?
Adam and I are laughing so hard, while giving everyone the suspicious-eye.

look at these supercute babies!

I took some baby portraits for my cousin & 2 close friends at the end of the summer. I just wanted to post some, even though they are already filed away in the archives. These 3 wonderful families have adorable babies, don't they?!

it is still hard to believe...

...that when we get our daughters together for a playdate - there are 6 girls! Mary and her 3 girls joined us today for lunch & a little playtime. They are so sweet.

We love where we live.

Tonight, we took part in National Night Out. We were so glad that Pflugerville chose a later date for the event, so we could beat the heat (well, sort of...it's was a little better than August). Our neighborhood does a great job with the event. We enjoyed hot dogs, sno cones, a clown, bounce house, music and door prizes. The girls had a blast. Adam and I had enjoyed visiting with neighbors (we think more than a 100 people were there, at its height). It was a fun family night.

more of our best buddies

Last night we grilled fajitas with our best buds. It's a shame how infrequent we get our whole families together. It's too much fun! Our kids were playing great together last night, and we got a little talking in (in the midst of the chaos). ;)
The Magees have 4 adorable kids. The night almost went by without any pictures...Mary and I weren't in the mood to pull out the cameras. But now I'm so glad that we have some kid pics. When they are older how are we going to convince them that they are all life-long best friends, without this kind of proof?

cool kids.

Mary's cute kids...

A few more...just had to.

Are girls born on the phone?  Filing their nails?

Are boys born knowing how to do the Heisman pose??

sweet, tired baby.

best buddies

We got to hang out with our best buddies tonight! I had to grab a shot of these two before they discover that the opposite gender has cooties. Mary and I have done an excellent job convincing them that they are best friends, and it's awesome!

i'm a thirty-something.

I'm 30 now.  Do I feel old?  Not really, however, I do feel like...college was a long time ago!  I've discovered that I like "milestone" birthdays.  You get pampered and I'm into that.  I knew that I didn't want a big party.  I don't enjoy being the center of attention of a big party.  Several little celebrations is much more my style.  Adam was kind enough to ask me what I wanted.  I said it doesn't really matter, as long as I'm pampered a lot over a long period of time.  Heehee.

During my birthday weekend, I had a blast going to dinner with my parents, a valentine's date with my man, and a night out with girlfriends.  On the night of my birthday,  I enjoyed a ladies night at Phil's Icehouse (Amy...as in Amy's ice cream...is married to Phil).  It's a fun burger stand connected to an Amy's.  The best part - they have an old photo booth.  My birthday gift was sitting in the photo booth with each gal & taking home the pictures of us.  I loved it!

     

it has already been an eventful day! updated.

My best friend, Mary, had her baby girl last Friday.  She is a doll!  Now we both have 3 girls each and can be totally terrified of the teen years together...6 girls!  We will have many, many stories to share with each other.

Here we are...

I'm sporting lovely bedhead (and trying to hide it) in this picture at 5:45am.  I've been waiting for you to post your pictures online, Mary.  What are you busy with a NB and 3 other children or something?? But I can't wait any longer.  I have to show the fam, who have heard to so much about her.

From Friday...

This is just a teaser.  Look what I got to wake up and see?!  More to come soon...

cookie baking with babies & cookie cutters that don't work

For Kathy & Barie...I can't help but look at these pictures and laugh.  I take all credit for what a funny, crazy baking endeavor this proved to be.  Kathy was so sweet to invite us over to her new, beautiful home the week before Christmas.  She thought it would be fun to do something crafty together.  So my brilliant idea was..."We can bake Christmas cookies with my new 3D cookie cutters!"  Now looking back, this would have been a fantastic idea if...

...3D cookie cutters actually worked & the cookies could stand up in their little stands

...we had picked the right time & temp on the oven to cook the cookies

...we weren't needing to nurse & care for little infants

...and if I didn't have "mommy" brain and put the wrong ingredients in the frosting to make it sour and yucky

Doesn't this sound like it was fun?  It was!  I love getting together and NOT being superwomen!  The time that I have with these 2 ladies is priceless to me.  I always leave encouraged and strengthened in my faith.  I thank God for their friendship constantly.  Only thing is - I'm putting myself on creative-project-idea-probation...for a little while.

secret agents on a mission

We enjoyed a fun "secret agent" birthday party today for a sweet kindergarten friend. Her mom, Kristi, did an amazing job on a creative party. When the kiddos first arrived she brings out the cake and starts to serve it. Only when she starts to cut into it, everyone discovers that it is a fake cake. And all of the kids have to become secret agents on a mission to find the real cake. So cute. They are broken up into teams and each team member gets a t-shirt with their team color. They run all around the yard searching for about 10 clues before finding the prize.

After food and cake, Kristi gathered them around and taught them that we are all given a mission. God gave us the Great Commission and He can help us be good agents for Him by telling others about His love. This was followed by one more mission, which led them to the pinata. Here is my girl with the empty pinata on her head, trying to be funny for her friends...classic. It was a great party!

having fun in "PrincessLand"

One of our sweet, little friend's birthday was on Saturday at My Party Palace in Round Rock (their motto: where a girl can be a girl).  Oh, my goodness!  This was the cutest little girl's party!  And one big photo opp.

It was little girl heaven. When you first entered the party, you had to change into a princess gown. Then you went to get your makeup on and your nails painted. (While they are sitting at the vanity, they are being interviewed...and the moms don't know this).

Once they were all dressed up they had a lesson in "how to be a princess." And, of course, you had to be powdered with fairy princess dust.

Here's my favorite part! There was a fashion show, where the lady on the microphone presented the answers to the girls' interview questions.

"Miss A. is 5 years old. Her favorite color is blue sparkles and her favorite food is ice cream. She says her favorite animal is a flamingo and when she grows up she wants to be a doctor."  (Sweet!...she can support us in our old age.)

"Miss C. is 3 years old and you can guess what her favorite color is...it's purple. She says that her favorite food is sandwiches and her favorite animal is a tiger. And when she grows up she wants to be a mommy."  (Ahhhh! My heart melted at this point and a few tears welled up.)

And if that wasn't enough - then they go to their tea party with birthday cake!

Thanks Garrett family! We had a blast at the party!

national night out

Our neighborhood celebrated National Night Out on Oct. 7th.    It was the first neighborhood-wide HOA event and a lot of people came.  Adam was volunteered by the ladies on the HOA social committee to be the MC, which he was a great sport about.  The kiddos loved the balloons made by Zippy, the bouncy castle and police badge stickers.  I met a few more moms in the neighborhood, so I was encouraged by that.  This felt like a good step toward getting to know some of our neighbors even better and a fun family night.

This was cool...one of our neighbors is in a band, Hot Sauce, and they performed.  Our neighborhood looked like they knew how to throw a party!  Adam and I really like the band. 

I thought Zippy the Clown was fun in a "keep Austin weird" kind-of-way.