Successful Night with Santa

Nothing but smiles for Santa this year!!  As we all know, the "real" Santa comes to Brenham very early in the Christmas season to get all the kids' wishes.  A&A&C were super excited to share the "top 3" with the man in the red suit and white beard tonight.  Not sure if Santa can fulfill all the wishes, but I'm sure he's going to try.

From 4 wheels to 2

One of the best things about living in the country is the acres of green grass and lack of concrete everywhere.  One of the worst things for a kid that loves to ride their bike is acres of green grass and the lack of concrete everywhere.  Avery & Austin have had bikes for a year and a half and the majority of their riding time has been spent riding in circles in the garage and small slab where we park.  As much as I'd love to have a concrete drive way for them ride on, I'd prefer to spend that $10,000 else where.  (I despise spending money on things like concrete and rock!)

So... on Thanksgiving when we knew we'd be spending the day at Aunt Bonnie's, we knew it would be agreat time to bring the bikes and scooters along.  It was a great day to try taking off the training wheels and see if we could go from 4 wheels to 2.

Coordination, agility and balance come easy to this girl.  Didn't take her long to catch on to riding without training wheels.

Austin needed a little more help, just a little more reassurance.

And he's off.....

He took a bit of spill and hurt his backside.  As you can see, he was not happy that I was capturing it on camera.

Had to include this picture.... Uncle Jason spent Thurs - Sun with us.  What a treat!!!!  

Welcome back, Little Red!

He's back!!!  Friday afternoon we got back from a little shopping and Little Red was sitting there with a note to the kids letting them know Santa had asked him to keep an extra good eye on them this year.  This little guy is magical and a great way to get the kids up in the morning ;)  Can't wait to see what mischievous pranks he'll pull this year.  Sunday morning we found him fishing for goldfish.... crazy elf!

We are thankful...

We had a GREAT Thanksgiving Weekend.  We started with a nontraditional Mexican Feast at Toppe's on Wednesday night.  Thursday we feasted on turkey and all the trimmings at Aunt Bonnie's and then Saturday we spent the evening at Aunt Jerri's for Maurer Thanksgiving with chicken and stuffing.  In between all that feasting, we were able to get  all the Christmas decorations up, enjoy the awesome weather, and spend lots of time with family.  It was perfect!  

SO thankful...

2012 THANKFUL LIST

I am thankful for... mild Texas winters, Avery's back handsprings, Chick-fil-a waffle fries, positive parent/ teacher conferences, seat belts, Friday night lights, Austin's love to hunt with his daddy, ice cold diet coke, my mother-in-law's sewing ability, random "I love you's", new wood floors (no more carpet!), Easter egg hunts, Ms. Deramus, wii Just Dance, pretzels with dip (hummus), pedicures, Wes's love for the outdoors, trampolines, kids sleeping past 7am on Saturday morning, vodka with sprite and lime, Brenham, TX, my new work office location, memories of all my grandparents, the Ten Commandments, running, my mom's voice on the other end of the phone, Twizzlers,  Jack Elliot, Jason & Bruce's hospitality, good hair days, full days at the beach, Christmas lights, night time prayers, Caleb's smiles, Forest Grove Church, American soldiers, seat warmers, St. Paul's Christian Day School, 4-hour spans at the pool, fresh garden veggies, marriages that truly stand by "for better or for worse", Adam's Angels, God's love for all.....

So much to be thankful for!  We are truly blessed to live in a country where we are able to express our opinions and worship our Lord and Savior.  We are blessed to be surrounded by family and friends who truly stand by us through the good and the bad...and we are lucky that there is very little bad.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!!

Soccer, it's a wrap

We finished up soccer tonight.  The last 10 weeks have kept us on the go, sometimes with one game a week and some weeks up to 3.  It's been nice having Austin & Caleb on the same team.  Next year we'll have 3 separate schedules to plan around.  Austin & Avery scored pretty much every game, sometimes 1 goal and other nights up to 6.  Caleb preferred to enjoy the defensive side of the game and protect the goal, at least when we weren't yelling at him "get in there, go get the ball!"  

Team EXTREME

Shelby, Avery, Heidi, Kolbie, Adylynn, Lilly

HOTSHOTS

Mason, Caleb, Brady, Austin, Jase & Weston

Maurer Power

Our biggest fans!!!  

Must work for meat...

The deer doesn't just get cut up and put in the freezer by itself around here.  We are do it youselfers so getting the deer cut up to be made into steaks, sausage, and jerky is a team effort.

I know, I know, big knives and small children don't go together.  We kept a close eye on them and I'm happy to report everyone still has 10 attached fingers.

The big kill...

It was a BIG weekend for Austin as he not only shot his first deer on his own, he shot two!  Two does.  Wes would be better at telling the exact stories of each deer kill so I'll just show the pics.  I apologize for a few of these, the open deer mouth is a bit frightening if you ask me.

 Deer #1

Not  only was there an excited hunter... there was one  proud daddy!

First deer. 11-9-12.

Being official and filling out his tag.  Caleb was there for moral support :)

This was doe #2 with a much better shot!

Hunting buddies.   

Kade and Austin showing off their does.

Doe #2 w/ dad.

So now we have plenty of deer meat and the boys have stories to tell.   A pretty cool father/son experience!

Boys will be boys...

It was the weekend at the deer lease WITH the young hunters.  4 boys at deer camp = lots of memories  and 2 exhausted dads!  

Caleb, Brady, Austin, and Kade

Silly hunters with their camo faces on.

The young pups who insisted on painting their faces every time they left the camp house.

Kade & Austin checking out their bb gun shots at the 'mickey mouse' looking cactus.

These boys shot at just about everything with their bb guns and ran out of bb's half way through day 2.

Brotherly love!

The guys spent 4 days in Mason at the deer lease and came back with stories to tell lots of dirty laundry!  They grubbed on cheetos and homeade fried chicken and ran the batteries out on the iPad and iPhone several times.  These are great accesories for sitting with antsy boys in a 4X4 deer blind.  Overall a great weekend!

Major project in progress

All the bedrooms are being cleared out....

 Furniture is gone...

And the carpet is being replaced with hardwood...

 But for now, this is how things look around here....

When we built our house 5 years ago, we made a money saving decision to carpet the bedrooms.  We thought about going with hardwood but felt that for crawling and toddling, carpet might be the way to go.  So carpet went in all 4 bedrooms and tile covered the rest of the house.  Well, carpet has worn out it's welcome around here and we are in the process of putting hardwood floors in all the bedrooms.  My advice to anyone reading... if you are thinking about hardwood, do it right away.  Right now we have 3 bedrooms worth of furniture and toys in the living/game/dining room and mattresses are in the garage.  This will make for an interesting week with soccer and the guys going hunting this Thursday.  It will take a little while to get back to "normal", but I know we will love the new flooring and new look.  I'm actually excited about rug shopping,  can't say I've ever said that :)

Weekend recap

I find it interesting that our social calendar on the first weekend in November is usually pretty light.  No bday party invites, no family dinners, no community events and in this part of the country I feel I can pretty much contribute that to opening weekend of deer season.  Our hunter headed  to the hill country on Friday and will be out until Monday.  With Wes gone for a whole weekend, I usually try to do something with the kids that takes us out of town or pawn the kids off  for a few hours so I get a bit of a break, but this weekend it was just the 4 of us the whole time, except for about an hour.  We watched the last home Cub game, visited with Granny Maurer in the nursing home, visited with Jack at Toppe's, ate out with Mimi and Popo and enjoyed an evening out at the Brazos Valley Corn Maize.  In addition, I got a was able to move some furniture around and follow through on a few decorating ideas while the kids entertained themselves playing school in Avery's room.  All in all we managed to all get along, minus a few time out situations and my patience stayed around most of the weekend.  Whoo hoo!  We're ready to see our hunter and will have him around just a few days before he leaves again, this time with Austin in tow.

Trick or Treatin'

Halloween 2012

 Spider Monkey

 50's Poodle skirt girl

 Pirate Caleb!

 Our favorite shark, Jack!