Fall Christmas

We had a "Fall Family" Christmas party at my Mom's house. Everyone was there which was great! My kids had a lot of fun playing with my cousin Erica's boys. We took a group photo and even "retook" a photo from 15+ years ago, we all stood in the same spot and that turned out great. I am sure my Grandmother was in Heaven with a tape recorder and loving every minute of it. She would have been so happy to see us all together laughing and eating!!! Of course she would have loved to see the little ones running around with all of their energy. Santa came and of course Riley was scared our of her mind. But she did love the toys Santa brought, she got a couple of dolls a really cute bear and a stroller. Cameron loves all of his toys and spent the entire day today playing with them all!!! What a memorable afternoon!

25 Members of the "greatly extended" Fall Family

9 Grandkids

Riley showing off her Baby

Santa

Riley is not a Santa fan

Santa and Cowboys

The weekend was nice despite me catching a cold. Saturday was spent organizing the house and getting it ready to put on the market the friday after Christmas so get in line folks this one could go fast HA!!!
Sunday morning we got up and went to church to eat breakfast with Santa and Mrs. Claus. The kids loved eating of course, and I think Cameron had a total of four pancakes and Riley had two and a plate full of eggs. Santa was great and spent some time with Cameron talking to him about what he wanted for Christmas although he couldn't garuntee a Cowboys Super Bowl he promised to try. Riley did not take to Santa to well and took one look at him and immediately started screaming. I ended up sitting next to her so we could get a nice picture.





That afternoon Ryan and I headed out to the Cowboys game against the Giants. We bought new sweatshirts for the occasion and were very excited to wear them, unfortunately it was 70 degrees most of the time. The Cowboys won and we had a great time meeting people and tailgating with fans. We sat in front of a guy who very much resembled Tony Romo so of course I had to get a picture with him! By the end of the game we were very happy that we brought our sweatshirts because a cold front hit and it was 40 degrees walking to our car.....talk about a change in weather! I was a little sad being our last game at Texas Stadium but we are looking forward to the new home of the Cowboys!

This past week

The last half of the week was jam packed.......
Thursday morning I was admitted to the hospital because I was unable to keep food down, was dehydrated and having mild contractions. They ended up keeping me for observation, which was tough on Ryan having to work and handle the kids but fortunately for us we have an amazing support group of family and friends, my mom stayed with me the whole time, Ryan's parents took Cameron to school and picked him up and cleaned the house, and Allison managed FIVE kids by herself all day Friday so I could recover!!!!
Saturday was promised to the kids for about a month now and we had plans all day for activities for them, so we kept our commitment. The morning was spent at Uncle Kent's firehouse where Santa and Mrs. Clause landed in a helicopter! The kids did great they both saw santa and of course Cameron told him everything he wanted for christmas.



We headed home and Ryan headed out to the neighborhood we want to live in to take a look at the house we want to make and offer on and we decided that Monday December 9th we are going to start negotiations!!!!! That evening was spent at the North Pole Express where we saw many trains, and got to ride the train which was a blast for the kids....Santa made an appearance there too!!!
Here is Cameron driving the train!

Riley was a dancing machine all night!!


The only pic you will see of me for a while ; )

Eyes of wonderment

My current favorite picture of Riley and Daddy


Everyone was so happy!!!



The kids don't look like themselves here but I love this picture


It snowed that day!!!!

Thanksgiving weekend

OK OK so it has been a while but we have had so much going on so here it goes........

Thanksgiving was wonderful of course, we started the day with a trip to the park with Uncle Kent and Ryan and the kids really enjoyed playing of course.


we had a fun time at Grammie and Yoda's eating, laughing and watching football. Cameron and Riley ate their weight in ham and turkey. Then we headed off to see Grandpa and Doris and the kids were being very cute hanging together on the couch.




That night I went to spend the night at my Mom's to be ready for our "annual shopping trip." We woke up at 2am and headed to Grapevine Mills Mall for some great bargins. We also went to Kohl's and Babies R' Us....we were done shopping by 730am and headed home for a nice nap!!!
We rounded out the weekend by playing some Wii and watching the Sooner beat OSU!!

We have had a busy week that started with my Dr. appointment where I was told that the baby is big and he will be here before his due date!!!! I had my glucose test and have not heard back so I assume its fine. Thursday morning was very busy. Ryan took Cameron to get an ultrasound done on his tummy to check out the bump next to his belly button. The tech told Ryan that they saw something abnormal but wouldn't be able to tell him what it was until they sent the report to the Dr. ??!!! That left us on pins and needles for the rest of the day! We ended up hearing from Dr. Robert later that day and the report said that what was "abnormal" was mearly fat cells clumped around his umbillical cord.......what a relief. At 10am I took Riley to a dermatologist because her excema was so bad and covering her legs. I had the appointment for two month and have been working dilligently to fight it on my own with no luck. Dr Gahli was awesome and just one day later her skin is almost clear!!! I wanted to cry when I saw how much better it was this morning, what a relief. At 11 Cameron had his annual Thanksgiving play and Luncheon at school and it was really cute although Cameron kept singing to the kids behind him it was still fun to watch and of course the food was great! We received our new camera that afternoon and can't wait for the upcoming events to try it out!

Zoo Day

We have a season pass to the Ft. Worth Zoo but it has been about a month since I have been able to take the kids. Today was a perfect day....well before the wind hit. So I decided to take the kids for a few hours just to wear them out. We got there only to see a massive about of field trip kiddos and I thought about turning around and telling Cam the zoo was closed today but we braved it anyway. Riley really does not enjoy seeing the animals, riding the train or really anything about the zoo but i keep going in hopes that she starts to like it. We ended up riding the train the whole time after we saw a few exhibits because none of the schools were on the train and we had it all to ourselves.
We started at the Giraffe's because Riley loves her stuffed "gg" and I was told they had baby ones, I thought she was enjoying the sights......


But quickly realized she had not seen them yet.

So here we are waiting for the train

And here is the "yellow rose express"
Cameron was consoling her.....she did not like it at first but she got used to it

Around the house

Last night I was able to get a cute video of Riley with the still camera, its not great quality but its "classic Riley" notice how she cries until she is distracted....oh and her waving hi to the phone is cute too






Her are some cute pictures of "Daddy's girl"

Preston's bedding

Baby Preston's bedding came yesterday. I took Riley's bedding out of her bed and put the new bedding in to see what it will look like. I custom ordered it from a lady in Canton and she has a website whistlestopbedding.com if you are interested. She did everything just how I wanted it and shipped it to me when she said she would, she even put a dryer sheet in the box and it smelled wonderful.....what a great idea! We are going to do Cameron's bedding to coodinate since the boys are going to share a room.

I decided not to tie every tie this time since it was a trial run.

The past few days

I took Cameron to the Dr. on Friday to check out a lump on his stomach. His Dr. was not in so we saw a different one in the practice who told me he knew it was not a cyst or a hernia but he had never seen anything like it before. That did not settle well with me so today I talked to his Dr. and we will be doing an ultrasound in two weeks if it does not go away. I am sure its nothing but we are going to make sure.
Here are a few pics of the past few days.......
she is getting so big!!!

I love these towels from Ikea and want to go get more!

Our little Cameron is growing up too fast. He is an absolute joy. And yes my kids can't keep their hands off the tv we really need it back on the wall!