Happy Valentine's Day!!

Celebrating holidays with kids is so much fun!! It was such a fun day to do special things for the girls - not that we don't do those every other day but we love any reason to celebrate around here =)

The girls woke up to some stickers, chocolate candy hearts and handmade valentines from mom and dad. They got heart shaped peanut butter sandwiches for their lunch along with a chocolate candy of their choice!
These pictures crack me up!! Claire's big, smile, Eden hugging her goodbye and Eden drying her nails =) It's never dull around here!


They each had class parties where they passed out their crayon and candy treats to their friends, did crafts and ate a lot of junk! I helped with Claire's party and got some pictures of her and her friends! Here is Claire with her friend Nina.
Mrs. Lopez with her whole class

Dusty and Claire... apparantly Dusty blows kisses to Claire everyday =) He's a sweet little boy and his mom is Eden's music teacher!

Me and one of my Valentine's... I just LOVE this girl!! She was beyond exited and proud to have her mom there helping with the party. I wonder how long that will happen. I still remember my mom chaperoning my first dance in the 6th grade and so embarassed. I better savor it while I can!
Eden's class is so sweet - she only has 8 kids in her class and she comes home with story after story of them all! Here are some of her friends - Maverick, Sarah, Eden, Olivia and Ella (aka "not Bella")
Ella hugging Eden (they are so sweet with each other) and Olivia
They each came home with a ton of loot from their class parties!! We had a great day and enjoyed a visit from Grandpa, we went to visit Maw Maw and Mary Ellen and then dinner at Mimi and Poppa's after Claire's first gymnastics class (post coming soon!) What a wonderful day to celebrate!

Valentine's Prep!

I resisted pintrest for so long but gave into it about a month ago. As a person who has always LOVED Valentine's crafts I've had a great time searching for fun and easy ideas for the girls. The past week and especially over the weekend we got really busy on working on the girl's valentine's along with a few other fun things!

First things first, major bed head and decorating heart cookies to send to Great Grandma Ann!
Sending cards to the most amazing great aunts along with our pintrest heart crayons! Each of Claire and Eden's classmates will get a crayon along with their vday card and candy treat =) I didn't get a picture of the finished product but this was the tag I made from Claire's original design!

A crafting break for a lemonade stand to raise money for Leukemia Research. Claire's class has been collecting change so Claire wanted to do a lemonade stand. Of course it was about 40 degrees and windy but she was SO cute with her planning, sign making and determination to touch out the cold. She lasted about 30 minutes and tallied all the cars, cats and dogs she saw. Fortunately one car stopped and gave her a dollar - she was more than excited! We will try again later this week!
Back to making gifts for the teachers - a "crayon" made of a roll of rolos and a hershey kiss! I used the same label "You color my world!" The girl's teachers are so amazing and we are so grateful for them.
And flower shaped banana bread for our neighbors! The girl's just love knocking on all our neighbor's doors to give them something special.
Neil and I had our big Valentine's night out after a lot of plans falling through, rearranging plans and being spontaneous thanks to my amazing parents! Neil's roses to me have brighten up our kitchen and made our crafting area that much more beautiful!
Can't WAIT for tomorrow! I have a few surprises up my sleeve for my loved ones along with helping with Claire's class party =)

MLK

"The most persistent and urgent question is, what are you doing for others?"

MLK

Isn't this the coolest mural? We went to our third annual MLK walk along with thousands of other San Antonians! It was another great experience and the girls really enjoyed being part of it. We ran into the Van Houten Family from church and had a great time getting to know each other. It goes a lot faster when you are with people you know and Claire had fun walking with Evelyn. It was a wonderful time celebrating such a courageous man of our history!






This will be a family tradition as long as possible as we look forward to it every year and every year the girls understand more and more!

December # and a New Year

Well, we haven't gotten our official email update with our number but everyone else has so we know we are number (took this at Sea World yesterday as we found a parking spot right by our number!):

Can you believe that? Wonder how long we will be #13 but you just never know... we are expecting to wait until #1 because of our parameters so it will still be awhile. We couldn't be more excited about starting the new year being so close to single digits (well I guess we could be if we were actually in single digits but don't want to get greedy or ungrateful here!).

This month we haven't done much to get baby's room together. My mom was so sweet to think of us and him for Christmas and got the CUTEST Hungry Caterpillar quilt kit and will have it made the next couple weeks. I was a blubbering mess when I saw that it was for him. Made me miss him SO much... The girls got a rock painting kit for Christmas and have created many. They were so sweet to think of painting some for baby brother all on their own. They are sitting on one of his shelves:
With the close of 2011, we anticipate this to be the year we welcome baby #3 into our lives. It's hard not to hope and have an expectation so we will wait patiently to see his face sometime this year. God has taught us so much in the year of 2011 and I can't wait to see what He does in 2012!

Speaking of 2012... we had a wild and crazy party at our house tonight to welcome the New Year. You know, one of those parties that starts at 5 p.m. and people start leaving at 7:30 p.m.? 17 kids, 2 babies and 11 adults...My how New Year's Eve has changed with having kiddos =) It was actually a lot of fun to get together with our dear friends in life group to share food, catch up, have the kids play, do a mock countdown at 7:15 p.m. with hats and party blowers. So glad we had those over who could make it and missed those who couldn't be here!

Here was the kid crew for the evening! Look at all those boys (14 to be exact)!! We were missing a lot fo families but glad we had the Gibbins, Craftons, Millers, Lamars and Zimmers to help us bring in the new year!
Celebrating with Channing
Party hats, blowers, glow stick bracelets and sparkling cider
Linden, Ethan and Reef
Hadley
My sweetheart
Crystal and Henry
The Millers stayed for a little longer and the kids were so cute playing together!
May God bless you this year and show you how He wants to use you to further HIS kingdom!

Downtown Lights

Eden ended up running a 103 temp on Christmas so instead of us all staying downtown with my parents that night, Claire and I went to see the lights while Neil stayed home with our little sickie. I'm so glad we did because Claire was SO excited - she LOVES going downtown for whatever reason but with her love for Christmas lights, hot chocolate and her new camera, she was in heaven. What a fun evening to share! Wish Eden would've been well so we could've all been down there together.

Loving her hot chocolate on our river boat ride to see all the lights!
Cheers with Grandma!
Our budding photographer - she's actually pretty good! I love to see her wanting to capture things she loves, things she wants to remember, things she wants to show others...
What a memorable evening!

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was spent with Neil's family as usual but we started for lunch this year so we could get to our church's service. We had a great lunch and opened gifts. Neil's mom wasn't feeling well and ended up in the hospital that evening and an appendectomy a few days later. Claire had just gotten over her 4 day fever and on the mend and little did we know Eden would have 103 the next day.... besides all the sickness we had a great time!

Claire found the fish ornament on the tree so she got to open the first gift

Kyle and Justin
Maw Maw and Mary Ellen
Loves to paint even in the bath!
Squinkies!

Shannon and Steve



Our church service went really well - I was a caroler in the drama and conducted our ensemble that prepared a gorgeous arrangement of "Coventry Carol" - we ended it with our traditional candle lighting and singing of Silent Night and Joy to the World. All went well and I was releaved =)

Mike, Heather and Pierce, my parents and Heather's parents were all there and it meant the WOLRD to me to have them there! How awesome to worship with so much family!
Isn't Pierce's Santa Coat cute?!
My mom and dad got to spend time with the Williams and my brother's family while we were with Neil's fam. Couldn't resist snagging this picture!