Busy, Busy, Busy.....

Howdy Partner! Last friday was Go Texan day at Crosby Kindergarten. They had square dancing during motor lab and learned all about the history of Texas. The kids were able to dress up as cowboys and cowgirls. Mya was soooooo excited about the pink boots and the BEAUTIFUL skirt that she was able to ware.

We also celebrated Gerald's birthday on Friday. It was actually on Saturday, but we weren't able to do anything on that day so we moved it up. Quote from Gerald's facebook, "Had a great day....we actually celebrated my birthday yesterday. Went out to eat @ Iguana Joe's and afterwards saw our school put on a play: Annie (7 out of 10) if I had to rate it... Shout out to my lovely wife and friends and family for making a brother feel quite special this day."
We got him a couple of things for his birthday... here are a few pictures of him opening up his ties and cologne.

I have been busy trying to prepare for the new baby. I am starting to feel rushed and out of time. There is only 4 weeks left!!! This last weekend we decided to switch things around with the kids rooms. Keegan was in the front of the house next to the garage and right over our bathroom, so when Gerald was getting reading and after he pulled out of the garage Keegan would think that it was time to get up. We moved him to the back, dark corner of the house and it has really helped. We also moved Mya to a bigger room and she is now a princess and the pea on a queen size bed. Both were extremely excited to change rooms. It was a lot of work though. After changing some furniture around I made some curtains and hung them up. Here is a fuzzy before picture of Mya's room and and after picture. Unfortunatly, I didn't think to take a before picture of Keegan's room, but there is an after one.

Happy Valentine's Day

We started off the Valentine's festivities at Kareena's house last wed. Keegan had so much fun decorating hats, playing bingo, exchanging valentines, and frosting cupcakes. It was FUN, FUN, FUN!!!! The mom's had a delicious meal with my personal favorite chicken salad. Everytime that Kareena wants to make something to eat, I always request the best chicken salad in the world and since I am pregnant she is happy to serve! I have to take advantage of it while I can :) To go with the chicken salad there was a really good broccoli and cheese soup YUM YUM YUM. Super great start to Valentine's!

Mya's teacher decided not to have an official valentine's day party, but they still exchanged valentine's. I don't think that the kids even thought that there was a difference. The had a cake walk during motor lab (gym) and Mya said that everyone got cookies even if they didn't win. This bag was filled with all kinds of goodies. From suckers to pixie sticks to candybars. Yea for sugar.

And now to the best husband in the world. On saturday Gerald came home from working at the the bank with the beautiful chocolate arrangement. He sure does know what his pregnant wife wants! The bottom of the vase was filled with miniture chocolate bars. Any girls dream! A great friend watched Mya and Keegan while we went out to dinner with another couple. We attempted to go to dinner at the cheesecake factory, but the wait was rediculous. I got a caramel pecan turtle cheesecake and Gerald got a strawberry shortcake to go. We ended up in China Town at a fantastic place with authentic Chinese food. It was FABULOUS! Such a great night to spend with my wonderful husband. I love you.

And here is Mya and Keegan all dressed up for church on Valentine's day. Mya said today that she had to call grandma and grandpa because today was the last valentine's day. Even though there is technically only one day that is valentine's since ours lasted four days she was kind of disappointed that today was the last one. So....... Happy Valentine's Everyone! Hope yours was as great as ours was.

Extra, Extra...Read All About It

Mya is student of the week at school. When she came home on Friday she was so excited to be selected as student of the week. She was telling us that she gets to be the line leader. Something that she has aspired for since school has begun. I asked her what all else it entails and she let me know that we had to make a poster so that she could tell the class about herself and then it gets to be displayed in the library for a week. I am sure that you can't read it....

Favorite Food
Pizza
Pumpkin Pie
Peanuts

Favorite Things To Do
Ride My bike
Play with toys
Play with the Wii

She is one excited little girl. She talks about how she gets to pick from the teasure box and that the only job left that she hasn't been able to do is lights (where you get to turn the lights on and off when the class comes and goes in the classroom). Oh the joys of being 5 and the duties that are required of you at that age.

Ok.....I'm a slacker......

I was informed by my mother this week that it's been awhile since I made a post to the blog. She finally joined the rest of us this week with a new computer and high speed internet access and she can now view things on the blog that she hasn't been able to do before. This is both good and bad...... I think that she is going to expect me to do a lot more updates.

I can't believe where January has went. It feels like we just had Christmas yesterday. Here are a couple of highlights that have happened this month........

Mya was so excited to start back to school after Christmas break. Everyday she would get up and the first question that she would ask me was if she was going to be able to go to school because Christmas break had too many days when she wasn't able to go to school. I started back to school in January too. I am really trying to finish up what I started. I graduated with my associates degree in December and the plan is to be able to graduate with my bachelor's in May of 2011.

I was released from my calling as semenary teacher this last week. It have a lot of mixed emotions about it. I am going to LOVE sleeping in for a whole extra hour each day. I know that it is not something that I could be able to do after the baby is born, but I am sure going to miss studying the book of mormon each day and I am really going to miss the boys every morning. I told my replacement (a dear friend Kareena) that I would teach for a week so that she could have a little bit of a transition period and get her house in order. Today was my last day. I told myself that I was going to keep it together. I was fine until the last five minutes of class when we were doing scripture mastery and one of my senior boys let out a deep sigh. I asked him what was going on and he turned to me and said that he was just thinking about how he wasn't going to be coming here anymore. That did it.... my eyes feeled with tears pretty fast. I don't know why, it's not like I am not going to see them anymore, I will see them in church every week! He then continued to tell me that the last year and a half that I have been teaching semenary was the best semenary experience that he has had. I reassured them that Kareena was going to be just as good, and that she is going to be able to teach them more then I ever would have. How do teacher's do it? How can they put everything into their proffession just to let the kids go at the end of the year. I think that I would get too attached to some of the kids that I wouldn't want to see them go. Granted there are always those that don't leave soon enough ;) Overall, it has been a great experience and I look forward to seeing just how the Lord is going to mold me in my next calling.

Mya has become really creative. Everyday she comes home with a new project that she has done or that she wants to work on. This week she has been focusing on making cards. Today she came home with a valentines card that she had made in school telling me how much she loved me. She then sat down and made one for Gerald describing all of his good qualities that she likes about him. It's fun to see just how the mind of our five year old is develping. I am amazed at how much she has learned and continues to learn from school. Here are some pictures of the cards that she made.

Christmas Visitor

My brother-in-law, Phillip, came and visited us for the Christmas break. He is stationed in North Pole Alaska but he will be doing some training over in San Antonio until March. Since he was unable to go home he came and spent a couple of days with us. He drove his Motorcycle over and got stuck in a lot of rain. A three hour trip turned into a seven hour one. I felt so bad for him because he was wet and covered with dirt from head to toe when he fianlly made it to Crosby. Keegan and Mya were super excited about the motorcycle though. They dressed up in all of his motorcycle gear and Phillip let them go out and sit on it and both of them were laughing histerically. The thing that he will be most remembered for in our house is his homemade chicken noodle soup. It was fantastic and I didn't even have to do anything because he just took over the kitchen.
The other visitor of course was Santa Clause himself. The kids spent the 24th baking christmas cookies for him and then they frosted them all by themselves. (I am still sweeping up sprinkles). The Missionaries came over that evening and we had a big dinner (ham, potatoes, rolls, salad and green beans). We watched Mr. Krooger's Christmas and had hot chocolate and cookies. Mya told me before she went to bed that it was going to be really hard to go to sleep because she was so excited. We got up at 7:00 and they were able to open up gifts. Keegan's favorite was the remote control car and Mya's was the barbie doll that she had been asking since the beginning of December both of them sent by Grandma.

Merry Christmas!!!!!

Christmas Vacation Has Finally Begun....

It felt like it was never going to get here. I think that I look forward to the time off more then the visit from Santa Clause. It is amazing how your perspective changes the older you get. I am looking forward to first and most importanantly... SLEEPING IN. It is going to be great to have Gerald home more and spending time as a family.

Friday was a half a day of school for everyone. We started the day off with Mya in the bathroom with an upset stomach. (great way to start the vacation) When I told her that she wouldn't be able to go to school she was devistated. She told me that everyone was going to be having fun without her because they would not be learning anything.... it was a fun day. Today she was telling me how much she was missing her teacher Mrs. Taylor and how her teacher was probably disappointed that she wasn't there yesterday. It might be a long vacation for our little five year old.

Today we had our ward Christmas party. Last year we had an issue with Keegan not wanting to go anywhere near the big man in the red suit. I had to settle for a picture of him next to the Christmas tree. This year he waited patiently in line with all the other kids, ran up to him and sat on his lap telling him that he wanted a "lighting mcqueen" car under the tree Christmas morning. I think that he has figured out how it all works now. After visiting with Santa Clause the kids were able to decorate cookies and santa clause hats. It was lots of fun!

It's a ...........

Last week we were scheduled for an ultrasound to find out what we were having. Gerald got off work early. Jessica came and got her kids early and a really good friend Kareena volunteered to watch Mya and Keegan so that we could go to the appointment. We ended up being late for the appointment and they could not get us into the ultrasound. To say that everyone was disappointed was an understatement. Well we went home and waited it out for one more week. Today we did it all over again and this time we were on time just to wait 35 minutes in the lobby. Don't you love that they expect you to be on time to your appointment but if they are running late then it is okay? So the long awaited new is that it is a.........

BOY!!!!Now is the hard work to come to an agreement with the name. It is a good thing that we have 16 more weeks to figure that out.

Feet

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

They said that the snow scrappers were sold out in the stores by 8:00 this morning and that there was a mad rush to the store to buy warmer winter coats. The news reported it as a historic event. Two years in a row with snow and this is the earliest that they have seen it snow here in Houston since they started keeping records back in 1870. It snowed most of the day, with 1-2 inches predicted, only a few specs actually stuck. The cold front came in and with freezing temperatures there might actually be some slick roads out tonight, but I am not going to venture out to see if it is actually true. There are just too many people down here that don't know how to drive in these conditions. Schools were released early today. Mya has been asking when we were going to see snow and when I told her that there was an actual chance that it might happen today she was elated. Today I was thankful that I am not a kindergarten teacher that had to control the mahem of all the five and six year olds. On the up side, Gerald was home early!

We put up the Christmas decorations this week. Now Mya and Keegan are so excited about Christmas. I had to laugh at my mom when she said that she had to take two vacation days this week so that she could make it till Christmas vacation. She said that if she had to hear "jingle bells" one more time she was going to scream. I guess first grade teachers don't have it easy either.

Mya lost her second tooth yesterday. Does anyone else out there have light sleepers? I have decided that it is kind of hard to be a discrete toothfairy when you only have coins to offer.

So Much To Be Thankful For....

This is the couple that made all the preperations and were gracious enough to invite us over.

We had such a great thanksgiving.

#1 because I didn't have to cook and I just got to enjoy the festivities

#2 because I got to spend the holiday with great friends.

What is Thanksgiving without a kiddie table. We had two... one for the boys that was so appropriate with a cars theme and one for the girls that was a tinkerbell theme.


The missionaries. The one on the far right if from Idaho Falls, Idaho and I give him a hard time and we enjoy talking about Idaho when both of us are feeling homesick.


The yummy dessert table.

All the really good food. The turkey was one of the best turkeys that I have ever eaten and it usually isn't one of my favorite dishes at Thanksgiving.

More food!

I am just noticing that we both wore red today.... no it wasn't planned.

I have so much to be thankful for. I feel so blessed with all the the Lord has given us.

Busy and Fun Weekend

Wow! I don't think that I have done so much in one weekend. Mya had her first field trip to Old McDonalds farm on Friday. I wasn't able to attend because I had a doctors appointment that was rescheduled for that time. The doctor said that eveything is going well and the ultrasound to find out what we are having is scheduled for December the 9th. Mya had lots of fun and actually rode one of the horses. She said that she was really brave and that she wasn't scared one bit.
We started off the weekend with Bunco at our house. Ten amazing women having lots of fun. One of my best friends came and spent the night with her three children. It was so much fun to have a guest in the guest bedroom. It doesnt' get utilized like it should! To end the weekend, we were blessed to be able to attend an amazing baptism last night. It was such a bad weekend for the camera to be out of commission so you get to hear about it through my ramblings instead of letting the pictures do the talking.

The women at bunco wanted me to post the recipie that I used to make Pumpkin Cheesecake. I am kind of ashamed to post it because then they will know just how little time spend in the kitchen. So..... here is a super good cheesecake that is also really super easy. This recipie makes 2 cheesecakes.
First off, I buy the graham cracker crust. (everytime that I try to make one it always ends up so crumbly one big mess)
2 cream cheese bars
2 tsp milk (you can a little more milk if it isn't as creamy as you would like)
2tsp sugar
Beat cream cheese, milk, and sugar in a medium bowl. Pour mixture into pie crust and set in fridge.
2 pkg of pumpkin holiday spice pudding.
3 1/2 cups milk
Mix together pudding and milk for 3 minutes. Pour over the cream cheese mixture and let set for 1 hour.