Merry Christmas to All

Hope each of you have a wonderful Christmas!

Christmas Tree Farm

Each year our church takes the kids out to a Christmas Tree Farm to pick the Sunday School wing's Christmas tree and this year Ella Kate was old enough to participate.  We started off the morning with pancakes at the church and then a special visitor came by to greet all of the kiddos!

Ella Kate started off patiently waiting for Santa to read his story but that didn't last very long...

They allowed each of the kids to take pictures with Santa before we headed to the tree farm and I asked EK I don't know how many times if she would sit on Santa's lap and take a picture and she refused.  Instead this happened...

Can we say BEST SANTA EVER!

After all of the festivities at church were over we loaded up and headed to Plantation Farms to pick the perfect tree for the Sunday School.

They had lots of great things for the kids to do including a little play area, animals to see, and a hayride out to the tree picking area.

My two favorite curly Q's enjoying watching the chickens. 

And again waiting for the hayride.  When these two are together they are just inseperable.  I am so glad that we found Ella Kate such a great playmate who is only three weeks older than her and lives so close to us.  Makes for lots of fun adventures.

It was so much fun to just walk amongst the trees and smell them.  These three enjoyed walking around together in the trees looking for the perfect one!   

As you can see we let the boys stay home for this little outing and took an all girl morning to enjoy some time with our little misses.

It was a great morning and we were all exhausted after but it is a great experience for Ella to have since we have a fake tree!

Rowan's Eric Carle Birthday Party

While we were in Houston we attended Rowan's 2nd birthday party.  Courtney through a great Eric Carle themed birthday and the kids had such a great time just eating and playing.
 

 

I am pretty sure that the Dicke family might have every Eric Carle book ever published!  Some of these I had never even heard about.  We definitely need to expand Ella Kate's collection since she loves Brown Bear, Brown Bear so much.

It was a gorgeous day in Houston - actually rather warm for the 1st of December so we definitely took full advantage and spent the whole morning outside which my little monkey just loved.  She was so excited to see her Ro Ro and Eastie that this was probably the only time she left their sides and not surprisingly it was to eat. 

Brad and Courtney have the best playset at their house which EK loves so she played and played on that for as long as we would let her.  She also took full advantage of sharing the swing with Rowan and I don't think I have seen two kids so happy ever!

The very happy birthday boy with his family.

Happy birthday Rowan!  We love you

Zoo Lights

We took a little trip down to Houston last week since we had Keith's company Christmas party and Rowan's 2nd birthday party so we decided to head to the Houston Zoo to see Zoo Lights!

This was a great family event and I am so glad that we got to see it while we were in town.  We went on Friday night super early - 6:00 actually right when the zoo reopened for the event and I definitely recommend that if you plan to go before it is over.  This way not everyone has had time to make it home from work and back out to the zoo so it is not really crowded yet.  By the time we left at 7:45 things were really starting to pick up and the crowds had arrived.

Now if you are really hoping to see animals while you are at Zoo Lights, then you are going to be disappointed.  Unfortunately the only animals we could really see were the giraffe's and that is because they were right by the carousel and that area is very lit up.

 

No while you do not get to see real animals they do have lots of light displays with many of the animals that they have at the zoo... Lions

Fish

Elephants 

And Apes!

We even brought along two little monkeys of our own who actually posed for a picture in the face frame things...
 

 

 We couldn't get our 3rd monkey Easton to participate unfortunately.

 One thing that Ella Kate has loved every time we have gone to the zoo is the carousel so of course we had to take a quick ride on it.

The kids loved it as usual! 

 

 If you are in the Houston area and have time before New Year's to make it by Zoo Lights I would highly recommend it.  Great atmosphere and a great thing to do!

 

Thanksgiving 2012

As usual I am behind on posting so bare with me as I try and catch up!

For Thanksgiving this year it was my turn to host my family here in Tyler and it was so great to not have to do any traveling.  We started the week with Keith's parents stopping in on their way to Keith's brother's house in Lubbock and finished it with my parents, brother, SIL, and Austin arriving on Wednesday to spend the rest of the week here with us.  It was great to have so many family members in and out all week but boy were we all exhausted once everyone was gone!

We started our Thanksgiving off running the Turkey Trot, a 5K that a local gym holds in honor of the Boys and Girls Club.  I don't know what possessed me to decide that I wanted to run a 5K on Thanksgiving morning and how it is that people actually agreed to run it with me but it really was a great way to start off a Holiday of pure indulgence. 

I convinced my dad and SIL to run it with me and after training for 10 weeks, I finally can say that I have run a 5K.  Now it took me close to 36 minutes to complete but who cares... I ran a 5K!  Now I have no plans to do it again anytime soon but who knows maybe I will do it again one day.  I really enjoy running... but only during the months of September - November and March - May when its about 75-85 and pretty outside.

We had a great rest of Thanksgiving day which of course involved a huge lunch where all of us ate way too much but isn't that what you are supposed to do for Thanksgiving?

My two favorite munchkins in the world enjoyed lunch just as much as the rest of us and definitely needed naps after all of that food!

Friday after the ladies did there usual Black Friday shopping we decided to take the kids out to the park to run off all of that energy they always have.  After playing for about an hour I convince an almost 4 year old and a two year old that it would be a great idea to pose for pictures...

 

At first things didn't work out so well - mainly because they were fighting over who got to hold the big stick...

But eventually I got one to smile and one to at least look up even though she was too distracted by a lady with dogs to actually look at me.

I am sure I have mentioned it before but my mom is a Kindergarten teacher and well that really comes in handy when entertaining two little people.  Granny came very prepared to teach all about Thanksgiving and had plenty of crafts ready to go.  These two got to make Indian necklaces and headbands and even had an impromptu jamming session on some drums. 

 

See the perks of having a Kindergarten teacher as a mom... she is always prepared to entertain.  Though I think she needed to sleep for a week after entertaining for three days straight!

We ended every night that the family was here curling up on the couch and watching movies which the kids really loved.

They however did not enjoy that I tried to take pictures while they were doing this.  Oh well at least they are both in the picture. 

 It was great having the family here for a few days and can't wait to see everyone again... looks like we will try to head to Arkansas sometime in the Spring and take over my brother's house this time.