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| The girls loved their Christmas glasses they got from the Scavenger Hunt so much, they wore them to school! Kindergartners release 10 minutes earlier than the rest of the school so Lilly and I eat snacks while we wait for Wendy to get out of school. |
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| Wednesday's I would pick up the girls from school, drive straight over to Wendy's piano teacher for her lessons and then, from there, go straight to gymnastics for both girls. We would get home a little after 6 so PJ was in charge of dinner those nights. He spruced up chicken nuggets, macaroni and cheese, and broccoli by serving it to us in a smiley face! |
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| I contacted a guy I know that does painting and asked him when he was available to do some painting. He said "I'll come by tomorrow" and I thought he was going to give me a quote. He showed up ready to work so the girls were displaced for a night. We made a "tent" for them in the living room on the fold out sofa. |
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| They loved it! We might have to do more "living room camping" in the future! |
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| The kiddos from our church congregation were invited to sing in a Christmas concert. I played the piano and PJ was invited to sing in a choir that was also participating. It was a whole family affair! |
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| December is mostly a blur of cookies and Christmas activities for me. I'm still not really sure how we got everything done. I made 1,000 cookies in the month of December and it was a learning experience for sure! Mostly, I learned I never want to be that busy with cookies ever again. |
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| The whole children's choir in our goofy Christmas glasses! |
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| Checking in on the girls after a crazy day and I saw they were both sleeping with these stuffed Dalmatians the firemen had given them after we dropped off cookies. |
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| If you can make it out, Lilly has hers in a pillow case for the doggie's own bed. |
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| We also had a church Christmas party! I played the piano one more time for the children to sing their Christmas song. I was happy to put that song to rest! |
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| Lilly didn't want to sing so she sat with me while I played. |
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| Checking in on the girls another night. |
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| Lilly had flopped to sleep at the end of her bed... Silly Lilly! |
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| Christmas in a picture... |
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| PJ would sit with me at my "cookie table" aka the dining room table as I stayed up all night decorating cookies. He even helped flood a few for me. He snapped this picture of me finishing my last cookie for the month! |
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| The girls were able to participate in a gymnastics show case where they showed off all their new tricks. Here is Lilly on the balance beam. |
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| And doing a summersault. |
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| Here she comes with her newly earned medal! |
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| I sent my sister and her kiddos a Texas-shaped waffle iron and she assured me they put it to good use! |
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| The girls and I celebrated the beginning of the break from school by going to get our nails done! |
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| It was good I already had my nails done because our babysitter showed up just after I had made some chili for dinner reminding me that I had made reservations for PJ and I earlier in the month. We had each had a bowl of chili but got dressed up and hit the road anyway. Whoops! |
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| I put all that hard earned cookie money to good use by gifting PJ with a stationary bike for Christmas! It was delivered a day or two before Christmas and Wendy wanted to be the first to give it a try. |
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| I took Lilly to get her hair cut and then stopped by a favorite BBQ place to pick up some brisket for our Christmas dinner. She had fun posing as a statue while we waited. |
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| Lilly also decided to wear her PJ pants as a shirt and her PJ shirt as pants... |
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| I do my best to encourage the girls to entertain themselves and keep educational worksheets on hand in case they get bored and want to use their brains. I think this was day 3 of Christmas break and we had already finished three worksheets and they were bored of their iPads by 8:00 a.m. |
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| Lilly accompanied me to pick up some Christmas tamales! I never knew this to be a tradition but it has become one! |
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| While checking mail one night, Lilly ran ahead of PJ and shoved herself into the big parcel box. Surprise! You've got mail... |
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| Grandma came to celebrate Christmas with us and was front and center for the girls opening Christmas presents! |
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| Lilly asked for this Magical Mixie that PJ and I had no idea what it was. By crafting a potion, she was able to "birth" this little creature! She had it laying out on a towel because it was a little wet. |
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| This is what Christmas morning looks like for the parents however. I thought I would sneak out for a run after we finished the Barbie House "real quick". 4 hours later.... |
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| We also enjoyed Disney's new movie Encanto. |
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| For dinner, we kept things pretty chill and had S'mores for dessert! Christmas in Texas: brisket tacos, fresh hand made tamales, and warm enough outside to be in T-shirts around a fire. |
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| The next night we put our new Laser Guns to practice and played laser tag. PJ pretty consistently won but it was fun to run around in the dark and try to shoot each other! |
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| Ready to break free from the house, we ventured to this amazing fun center. We started off with this indoor roller coaster that I thought would be pretty basic but it was actually fairly scary! Lilly was not pleased. |
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| The carousel was more her speed. |
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| Wendy got to ride an ostrich! |
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| She also loved this fire truck ride. I lost count of how many times we rode it. |
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| Go Karts! I thought the kids would be more excited to drive by themselves but they both wanted us to drive them. |
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| Wendy did a great job at the rock wall too! |
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| Lilly had a blast playing arcade games. She could have spent the whole time there swiping virtual fruit. |
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| Lilly also loved this Fiesta Express roller coaster outside. Wendy was able to ride it a few times too! |
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| We started off riding everything with them but they got up the confidence to ride by themselves. |
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| Playing with the neighborhood kiddos. |
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| Out on a bike adventure! |
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| Baxter gets seasonal allergies. I usually don't notice there's anything wrong with him until he has scratched himself until he's bleeding. I was able to catch it a little earlier this year but it was a long wait in that vet room! |
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| Happy New Years! Wendy had a go with the Roman candles. |
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| And we met up with some neighbors down the road to shoot off everything from fountains to mortars! |
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| Gotta love fireworks in Texas! |
