Christmas Pictures

 

 

 

 

Christmas List

We had so many great ideas of things that we wanted to do during the Christmas season.  Tessa is just like her daddy.  What are we going to do?  Where are we going to go?  Who are we going to see?  I move at a slower pace and I needed to find a way to maintain some control over this holiday madness.  So we made a list of 25 things to do during the month of December.  Some of them were easy like drive around and look at Christmas lights.  Some were things we needed to do anyways like wrap presents.  Some were silly like go swimming.  Some were already on the calender like the previously mentioned cookies and party.  We made construction paper ornaments and wrote one thing on each one.  Then we decorated them with glue and glitter and Tessa hung them on the tree with pipe cleaners.  Each day she picked an ornament off the tree and we did something.  After we had completed the task, I rehung the ornament up high on the tree.  This was a great system and I plan to do it again next year.   

Fancy Nancy Turns 88

Nanny's real name is Nancy so, when it came time to choose a theme for her birthday, Fancy Nancy was an obvious choice.  We raided Tessa's dress up bins and made ourselves up to look "fancy." 

Then we went out to dinner at Red Lobster in our "fancy" apparel.  I love this picture of Tessa and Nanny in their feather boas.  Happy Birthday Nanny.

Christmas Party at School

It was pajama day for the Christmas party at school.  The kids all brought some kind of breakfast food, a blanket and a stuffed animal or doll.  When you can't decide which princess nightgown to wear, you pick the one that has everybody on the front.  And when you can't narrow it down to just one doll (bear in mind Tessa's bed is piled high with at least fifty of her favorite friends) you pick one that flips over and turns into another doll.     

The kids really love Ms. Haynes, you can tell by the way they all hug on her.  So sweet! 

These kids are just precious!  Tessa has announced that she wants to marry Brady, the super cute boy in snowman pjs.  I told her I was fine with that, he's a nice kid and his mom is nice.  She's currently obsessed with the topic of marriage.  We were talking about it one day and I asked her what she had to do before she got married.  I was thinking something along the lines of "fall in love."  She sighed and said "I know, I know, go to college."  Awesome!   

The kids planned the menu for the party, so mature of them.  Tessa volunteered me for fruit.  My MIL said that Tessa was making sure strawberries would be available and she's probably right.  I had a Pinterest moment and made this fruit tree, which I was pretty proud of.  The kids actually ate a good bit of it, despite the fact that other snack options were doughnuts and cinnamon rolls.  They had much more restraint than this mom.  Cooking tip, apples can be dipped in pineapple juice to keep them from turning brown.  It's just as effective as lemon juice but more palatable for kiddos. 

Then it was time for popcorn and a movie.  At this point while chitchatting with Ms. Haynes I realize it is the last day of school before Christmas.  Why in the world did I not realize this?  I had even thought it was weird to have the party the day before the last day.  But, chalk it up to working too many hours or something, I was confused.  So, I  ran home and got Tessa's teacher present, plus the candy and cards for the kids.  I am so glad we live close!  I made it back with gifts in time to help clean up.  In a flurry of gifts and hugs and excitement, Tessa's school semester came to a close.   

Christmas Cookies

One of the joys of the Christmas holidays is baking cookies with Tessa.  She loves to bake and it melts my heart when she joins me in the kitchen and hops up on a chair wearing her little apron.  She now rolls out dough, cuts with cookie cutters, squirts icing out of the pastry bag and adds sprinkles.  All of these motions are, coincidentally, great motor skills for a five year old to practice.  Her favorite thing to do is run the big stand mixer.  We sometimes have clouds of powdered sugar and usually wipe out the kitchen pretty good.  But she helps me clean up too.  And let's not forget tasting.  Little Miss Food Network uses her pinky to taste, it's pretty funny to watch.  You can see the variety of cookies we made.  Some are more, um, creative than others.  Tessa couldn't wait to deliver these to our friends and neighbors.  For you lucky people who received these as gifts, they were truly baked with love.      

Adoption Day

Each year, we remember the special day that our adoption was finalized.  I didn't get to make as much of a fuss as I usually do because my work schedule has been horrendous, including working on this special day.  But we still managed to have cupcakes and presents.  We love you and are so glad you are part of our family! 

Santa Party

The rowdiest party of the season is always our Sunday School Santa Party.  Our class, and the ever growing number of kids, gather for pizza, cake and a special visit from the big guy.  Just look at my beautiful baby sitting on Santa's lap. 

Since this was the first event we ever participated in with this group, it holds special memories for me. This picture doesn't include everyone, but we did get a fair number of the munchkins to sit still and pose. 

Roper Mountain Science Center

Tessa had a field trip to the Roper Mountain Science Center.  We have only been here once before, and I found it a rather boring place.  However, I was pleasantly surprised to find this experience was much better than I expected.  The kids walked down a path, through a recreated turn of the century town and gathered in the stable.  There were ducks and chickens for the kids to look at and lambs, a cow and a pony for the kids to pet.  The leader then proceeded to tell the story of the birth of Baby Jesus.  As she described each character in the story, she took a volunteer and dressed them accordingly.  I was surprised when Tessa didn't volunteer.  As the story progressed, I figured she must be holding out for a cool costume.  In fact, the leader offered that she could be the star.  Aw, that would have been so cute.  But, Tessa was having none of the star costume because it had to go over the head.  Whatever.  She didn't want to be the angel either, not sure why the hesitation there.  We had more kids than characters and soon the story was complete.  The extras were told they could play the townspeople of Bethlehem and they could visit Baby Jesus too.  Ms. Haynes knows Tessa so well, she said the townspeople and the local princess (Tessa) went to see the baby.  I love it!  The storytelling and the fact that we were in an actual stable with a manger was a great way to tell the Christmas Story.  

After that, we trekked back up to the school house for a fun craft.  We were all glad to get in out of the cold and enjoyed the real fire.  Tessa was sad that she didn't get to ride the bus back to school but, they were short by two seats.  I tried to make it a fun ride by beating the bus back to school which Tessa liked.   

Poinsettia Parade

For some reason or another, we always seem to miss the downtown Christmas parade.  It's a cute parade with all local businesses on floats, walking or driving cars, very Americana.  The weather wasn't freezing cold, as it has been in years past and we didn't have anything planned for the night.  So, when we saw the advertisement in the newspaper, we decided to go.  We were late, no surprise there, and didn't get the best spot on Main Street but it was fun.  Tessa spent most of the time up on our shoulders so she could see.  She kept yelling, "look it's so and so, can you see?!"  Not really, but as long as she was happy we didn't care.

We had a spot at the end of the parade route where the floats turned off to head down a side street.  The crowd thinned a little as the night went on.  By the time Santa's float made it to us, we had a pretty good view.  Tessa was so cute waving at everyone, she is at a great age for parades.  It was a nice way to get into the Christmas spirit. 

Thanksgiving in Texas

We have many things to be thankful for, especially Ryan's family.  Joining us at his parent's house this year were his Aunt Carol and Uncle Carl from P.A.  (That's how people from Pennsylvania refer to Pennsylvania.)  Tessa is totally enamored with Aunt Carol, notice that she is parked right between Nanny and Aunt Carol at our Thanksgiving dinner.  Tessa even tried sleeping in Aunt Carol's room at night, which kind of worked.  The food was delicious, as always.  I try to pay attention to what Paula does in the kitchen because she has some great cooking tips.  But, sometimes, I pay more attention to my wine glass and forget all about cooking.  With Carol to play with Tessa, and Paula to do the cooking, I had a very relaxing holiday.     

 

After a morning of shopping in Old Town Spring, we settled down for lunch at Wunsche Brothers, pronounced Win-chee.  Texas has a huge German population and nothing is pronounced like it's spelled, except my high school name.  Klein is pretty straight forward.  Since Germany is our country this year for Christmas, I was able to pick up a few things in Old Town Spring.  At lunch we started with fried sausage and sauerkraut balls.  For those of you that just thought - yuck - don't knock it till you try it.   Wash it down with a Shiner Bock, brewed just down the road in the Hill Country, and the taste is amazing.  I kicked myself for not ordering the chicken fried steak here.  Never mind that I had just had the light chicken fried steak the night before at a popular barbeque place, I could have eaten it again.  Now don't think I had ordered some diet entree, light just means it was a smaller serving of the famous fried beef, only twelve ounces or so served with gravy and my side choices of fried okra and french fries.  My kind of food!  Sorry about the fuzzy picture, I think our waitress may have had a couple of Shiners also.

 

I love when Uncle Carl comes because he and I always have a list of "must eats"  and they are usually many of the same foods, taquitos and fajitas topping the list of course.  After braving Santa at the mall and the Disney store, we girls joined the boys for Mexican.  You just can't get good Tex-Mex outside of Texas, believe me I have tried.  We mowed down red and green salsa and killed a few pitchers of margaritas here.  We shared fajitas and carnitas and I had a stuffed and fried avocado.  Yes, you read that right, a fried avocado and it was delicious.  After lunch, we all had a nice little siesta by the pool.   

I do love to eat, but we did more in Texas than just eat.  I did some shopping.  How can I forget how huge and crowded the malls are?  Ryan forgot that they are swanky and have valet parking.  We zipped up I-45 to visit my dad.  On the way back, I drove because Ryan had to make phone calls for work.  He doesn't usually let me drive and I was flying.  Looking at the speedometer he asked me if I drove this fast when I was a teenager.  Yep, even faster hence the multiple speeding tickets.  My MIL says I drive like I'm from Texas and she's right, but I take it as a compliment.  We visited with friends.  Ryan's parents were nice enough to babysit for us so we could have an adult's night out.  We also got the kids together to play.  I cannot believe how fast these babies are growing up!

It was a good trip and probably our last Thanksgiving trip for awhile.  We plan to switch gears and travel during the summer starting this June so we will be back soon.    

New Orleans

One of the perks of driving to Texas is stopping in New Orleans.  We have done it for three years now and each time we see a new part of the city.  This year, we went to the Audubon Zoo.  The weather was beautiful, almost chilly even.  It felt great to stroll around after being cooped up in the car.    

We saw all the animals - except the snakes because I don't do snakes.  Several times a day you can watch the alligator feeding show.  It was very interesting but Tessa wasn't so sure.  She was much more interested in the baby alligator tank located in the gift shop.  They have a great play area called Monkey Hill with a rope ladder jungle gym in the shape of a spider web.  Tessa loved it.  In Ryan's memory, the hill is HUGE so it was fun to see it through adult eyes.   

We headed to the French Quarter for dinner.  There are so many great restaurants in NOLA that it is hard to decide where to eat.  The good news is, you pretty much can't go wrong.  We opted for the casual Felix's where we knew we could get some great gumbo.  I find it very amusing that my child loves gumbo, I wouldn't have touched it at her age.  When we sat down, we tried to order beer and were told the restaurant had lost it's liquor license.  What?!  But, the waitress told us Ryan could just go to the bar next door and bring in a couple of beers.  Yes, it's legal to wander around the French Quarter with open containers.  The food was worth it though.  Ryan's beans and rice were incredible and my gumbo was great.  We even ate oysters, not usually one of my favorite foods, because they were just that good here.  

After dinner, Tessa requested beignets.  Don't have to ask me twice.  Cafe du Monde is great, but usually so crowded it's annoying.  So we set out to find the little beignet place we ate at three years ago.  By this time, the bars were starting to really crank it up.  Music was playing and we were having a great time.  We didn't find our beignet place, but we did find an awesome courtyard bar that served beignets.  The jazz band was really good, Tessa compared them to the Aristocats.  Ha!  We danced to the music while Ryan ordered our drinks and dessert.  Before things got too crazy on Bourbon Street, we headed back to the hotel.  Even though our hotel was close, Tessa had her heart set on riding the trolley.  But the tracks for the line we needed were under construction so we ended up riding the bus for just one stop.  It worked for her.  Did I mention that our hotel was absolutely gorgeous?  Thanks to Ryan's travel points, we were able to stay at the Roosevelt, a Waldorf Astoria Hotel just off Canal Street.  It was total luxury.    

The next morning we went for Breakfast at Brennan's and it lived up to the hype.  The building is beautiful with many different dining rooms so you really get that cozy feel.  Tessa is now old enough to behave like a little lady in nice restaurants.  Don't get me wrong, I came prepared with books, crayons, stickers and a fun activity sheet called Princess Tea Conversation.  So while we enjoyed our three course breakfast, we listened to Tessa tell us all kinds of interesting things.  Tessa charmed our hostess out of several candy bars and made friends with the sweet old lady working as the restroom attendant.  People in New Orleans are so nice and my social butterfly fit right in.

Pleasantly stuffed with fried shrimp, poached eggs, strawberry crepes and Bananas Foster we headed out to do a little shopping.  The French Market is touristy but it's fun.  Plus, I was able to pick up a box of my favorite gumbo mix so we could have a little taste of New Orleans back home.  Time to hit the road for Texas.                 

Thanksgiving Play

 

Tessa's class put on a Thanksgiving play at school and everyone was invited to attend the performance.  Tessa was a turkey and she was the cutest turkey I have ever seen!  The kids had been practicing for days.  They recited the story of the First Thanksgiving and sang lots of songs.  They did a really great job and I was so glad Ryan, Gamma and I got to see Tessa take center stage.  

This was my favorite video although they are all cute.  If I can ever get it to upload!  Grrr. 

Gampa's Big 6-0!

My dad turned 60!  When choosing a party theme, we took into account his love of science fiction.  As luck would have it, Star Wars was having it's 35th anniversary this year.  So, guess what kind of party it was - Star Wars!  Princess Leia wanted to stay in her costume even when we went to dinner.    

All the girls had Princess Leia buns for the picture.  While you can't see them around Gamma's big hair, I promise they are there.

Princess Leia is an action princess, and our princess was having a great time firing off rounds with her gun.

 

 May the force be with you for many more years Gampa.