FINALLY 5!

My baby girl is finally 5!  10 friends at a pottery painting party, too many gifts from family, and the most special day ever.  We love Fran!

Spreading Holiday Cheer

 Austin is notorious for "elves" showing up on the roadside and decorating the city's Evergreens Mountain Cedar Trees like they were a 60 ft Douglas Fir.  After sharing a wonderful Thanksgiving meal with our favorite Texas cousins, they had the great idea to be elves ourselves!  

Tinsel and candy canes in hand and Santa hats on head, we headed to the largest roadside patch and found one of the last few trees remaining.  Uphill in flip flops, enjoying our neighboring tree's music, we decorated as well as rookies can for this spontaneous idea.  

Here is to a great Holiday Season and that these trees will treat us EXTRA nice in the allergy season they are about to decorate us with.

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Thankful...

I am thankful!  Happy Thanksgiving Day from ATX.

Our First Stitches

With 3 kids I have survived 21 years and 8 months (if  you tally their ages together) without stitches.  We had a close encounter with Will in 2011 but he made it out of the Urgent Care Canter with Dermabond on his forehead laceration.  

Poor Fran, 10 days shy of her 5th birthday and 3 stitches later AND the Plasma Car she fell off of was not even ours.  She did break my #1 rule and was riding without a helmet so I am very thankful this was our only injury.  She was as tough as nails during the procedure and fell asleep on the couch before 7:00.

Best Coach EVER!

After watching season after season of her dad coaching her brothers, Fran finally got her turn...and let me tell you, all 5 girls fell in love with this guy.  Today marked the end of an amazing soccer season and these SuperGirls ROCKED!

Free Range ~ Free Candy

First (and probably last) year ever my 3 kids dressed in sync!  It was a perfect evening, hanging out closer to the house while the kids "free ranged" it around the street and back.  It helps having many neighbors look out for each other's kids.  They all had a blast.  Candy buckets overflowing.  And we even hit up another street for the first visit ever to a real haunted house.  It was fun until the clown with a chainsaw jumped from the forest!  

And to end yet another perfect Halloween, my husband received the greatest compliment ever on our neighborhood message board "To many of you in the 'hood with elaborate decorations all over. I rode my bike and check then out end to end. I gotta say, i LOVE the house on Pointe View Drive in VIsta Canyon who has the special lights in their windows or movie screen thingy? I dont get how they do it. It makes the top floor ..all the windows...look like the house is an aquarium....full of water with sharks and fish swimming by. AMAZING. simple yet so creepy and amazing!"  

Pumpkin Patch

When the cutest 4 1/2 year old says "I have never been to a pumpkin patch Mommy!" you know it has been too long since her last visit.  We headed out today as soon as the boys went to school and she loved our 1-on-1 time...not to mention she is FAR from camera shy.  These are just a few :)