Trip To Houston

For Columbus weekend, we took a trip to Houston to visit friends and go to a baby shower for our friends the Florezes....and ate a ton!! We arrived late Friday and checked into our Galleria hotel - that we got on priceline (I am still so excited to get such a cheap room....I never get my bids accepted!) Saturday D took a run in Memorial park while the girls and I walked around the Galleria.  Saturday afternoon we at lunch at Lupe Tortilla with Emily, then had the shower while the girls got to play with their aunt Amy and cousins.  To end the evening, we ate Texadelphia with the Flemings. 

Sunday morning we met up with the Bridges and Tewes families at the zoo.  It seemed like a great idea but the weather did not totally cooperate as it was COLD!  We had lots of fun at the zoo and followed that up with lunch at Freebirds.  That afternoon we got to visit with our friends the Bradleys.  It was cute to see how well the girls got along with all of our friends' kids!  To end our day we had a delightful dinner at Chuys.

Monday we finished our mini-vacation by eating at Star Pizza and getting Ruggles Bakery dessert for the road.  Can you tell that we have missed the food of Houston?

On Tuesday the girls were off from school for teacher conferences.  Both went well.  The girls seem to be doing very well both academically and socially.  Mrs. Mestayer did say that Audrey if very quiet in class and rarely raises her hand.  We have been trying to encourage her to be a little more outspoken in class.  Both of the girls had taken some sort of assessment (letters, numbers, sorting, etc) and both did very well on them.  Apparently they take this little assessment three times during the year - though with different teachers the next two times.  Brooke still seems to be a star in her class.  She was nominated for student of the year (which we are not sure if all star students get or what and it seems so weird to do that in October).

Field trip

The girls had their first field trip. It was to a local church that does a little fall fest type thing. The school divides up and does half the classes one day and half another day. Since the girls are on the same hall, they will always go together. I volunteered to be a chaperone and was selected to go with Audrey's class. At the church each class went through a rotation - pumpkin maze, story time, hay ride, snack, pumpkin decorating, jumpy castle, fishing for prizes, and a ball rolling game. It was cute. But since I was with A's class I did not get to see B very much on this trip. Though the three of us did sit together on the bus.

Here are some pics (Audrey was so cute posing with the pumpkins!!)

Carving the Pumpkin

The girls were so excited to decorate for Halloween and to carve the pumpkin this year.  So I gave in and let them carve the pumpkin a couple of weeks ago....and now it is so gross sitting out on the porch in the 80+ degree weather.  Fortunately we did buy another pumpkin and will carve it up.

Here are some pics of the event:

Houmas House

A few weeks ago we had a visit from Papa and Weecie. We had a fun visit and thanks to Papa we got our patio's ceiling fan fixed!!

Overall it was a rainy weekend but during a break in the weather we were able to squeeze in a trip down to tour a plantation called Houmas House. We had a fabulous meal, toured the gorgeous grounds, and took the guided tour of the house (which the girls were superstars during thanks to the effective bribery of ice cream).  Here are a couple of the pictures from the day.

 Out front with Papa and Weecie.  It was a Saturday, so Brooke likes to be decked out in FSU gear :)

 With Weecie out in the gardens.  The tree behind them is like 700 years old.

 The girls with D in front of the side of the house

This is one of my all time favorites! and how I know I will not be winning any parenting awards...

First Dance Performance

Today the girls had their first dance performance at a (sort of) local church fall festival.  Next weekend they also have a performance at our local elementary school fall festival.  So I may be posting another video next week too.  The girls are in the middle on the front row. (As an aside, it was blazing hot out on the asphalt where we had to wait for 30+ minutes before the show....hard to really feel like it is a fall festival when you are dripping sweat!)

Here is the pre-performance pics and then the video.

Fall Garden

The girls have been wanting to have a garden since we moved in (really before that but I was able to convince them that we needed to wait until we moved). They were so excited that our new house had a place for a garden. But by the time we moved and got settled and got back from the beach it was blazing hot and really too late to start one. I promised the girls that we would do a fall garden. Which really is hilarious as I know absolutely nothing about gardening at all.

A few weeks ago we tilled it up, put some top soil on it, and planted some stuff...which may or may not be fall appropriate. Who knows. They were being sold at Home Depot so they must be good.  We also bought some spring bulbs that we are supposed to plant sometime between now and December.  Hopefully those will actually grow in the spring....our landscaping around our house is really starting to look pathetic!

We did one section with flowers, one section with food, and one section we left empty.  Our flowers are some mums and little pansy looking thinks that start with a v.  Our food section has cabbage, basil, green onion, broccoli (which is not doing well and we have already lost one of the plants), strawberry, and some mystery plant (which is, of course, doing the best).

Here are a few pics:

All tilled up...or pretty close.  I used one of the things that you spike into the ground and then turn it and then move it.

Plants all planted

The girls were raking the soil around the cabbage

The garden as of today

Tricycle trail ride

As a fundraiser for the school, the kids participated in a tricycle trail ride. They got sponsors for each lap that they did in 15 minutes. Parents were invited to watch the class ride so of course I showed up with camera in hand. It was blazing hot and humid that day. The girls did 11 laps...which was amazing for Audrey as she still hates pedaling anything. As an aside, I made all of the tails for the tricycles. It's hard work being a SAHM.

Brooke with her friend Cullen getting ready to race

Brooke making the rounds

Audrey with her class getting ready to ride

Audrey pedaling her heart out....I was so proud of her

Weekend at the lake

One of our neighbors has a lake house across the river about 45 minutes away. The last weekend in September they had us and some other friends up for the weekend. It was fabulous. Even though it was late September, the weather was perfect! We rode in the boat, jet skied, swam in the lake, and tubed. It was all three of the girls first time in a tube. Super fun!! Only bummer of the weekend was when Audrey got in a fire ant bed and got about 20 bites on her feet! The upside was Audrey has a super high pain threshold and was able to rebound quickly and did not seem bothered by them after the initial stings. I on the other hand found the two that I got from her rescue to itch like mad for a week!

I took very few pics cause it is hard to have a camera out at the lake but here are a few: