It's getting close. . .

Wow, it's almost here - only 3 days til Christmas :-)  I'm all done with shopping, just have one more gift to wrap, and all that's left to do is a little house cleaning today (wash floors, clean bathrooms etc), and I'm ready for the big day. Oh, and I have to make a grocery list and get to the store first thing in the morning (before the rush). Then I'll have nothing to do on Christmas Eve except prep some Christmas Day food, and make dinner for my inlaws coming over.

Thanks to a great friend, we finally got our Gingerbread house decorated (Cheryl had an extra one). It was a packet from Ikea that didn't have icing or candy with it and it needed gluing together, but Kristen and I worked on it the other night and had fun together.  Jason popped in to the kitchen while we were 'playing' and grabbed the camera!

Kristen had just come out of the shower and still had a towel on her head!

 Then she swapped it for her Santa hat when she realized Daddy was taking pictures :-)

 

 

 The breakfast table is all set for Christmas morning :-)

 On Tuesday night Kristen's school friend Eden came over to have a sleep over. I've only just started getting to know her mom too, Keri. She stayed for a sleepover too ;-) The girls had fun hanging out upstairs, while me Keri and Cheryl had a girly night with some wine.

Her friend Eden loves pigs - look at her cute little slippers! And Kristen's slippers (being the not-so-girly girl that she is) are animal feet with claws!!

Ok, I must jump off here and go clean up a little. I hope you're all ready (or nearly ready) for the big day. 

Another Party!

Happy to say I'm feeling a little better today, but still very congested and I have a stuffed up nose and head! Thankfully I'm still managing to do a little shopping here and there so I am not really behind on my Christmas stuff.  As promised I am sharing more pictures (especially for my Sis) ;-). Last Saturday night we celebrated Cheryl's Mom's 65th birthday, with a cocktail themed party!

Remember I showed you this dress a few weeks ago that I bought for the night . . .

here it is . . . and I love it!

 

and here's a few more pictures from the night

Connor and Kristen

I was taking some pictures with Cheryl's camera, I nabbed these ones from her FB page

The birthday girl - Seera

Cheryl and her sweet Mom and Dad

Kristen in her new black and red top, it's about as 'girly' as I can get her!

Hubs and me, being silly :-)

I think that's all the partying we'll be doing til Christmas! School finishes on Friday, then we have all next week to catch up with things, bake cookies, make Chex Mix , decorate gingerbread houses, and all that good stuff. I still want to take more pictures of the decorations this year, and the outside too, it's just finding the time to do it. Hopefully over the weekend I'll get a chance.

Getting busy . . .

Things are starting to speed up here! Kristen's birthday party is fast approaching. I'm having the neighbors and some of her friends over on Saturday afternoon so I need to start planning. I can't believe next week is Thanksgiving - NO SCHOOL after Friday :-)  I am not hosting this year so there isn't much to do for that.  

The gym seems to be taking up all my time, although I don't know why as I'm only there for an hour and a half each morning, usually getting home by 10am!  I didn't go this morning - Cheryl called just as I was leaving the house at 8.30 to say she'd been called out. She planned on going later about 11am, but I went for groceries and when I got back decided to get stuck in to housework. I want to tell myself it's ok to have a day off (from the gym) or even two days off a week.

I got the game room all cleaned up, dusted and vacuumed. Did 3 loads of laundry, put the laundry away, cleared up in the kitchen, swept the kitchen and hallway floors. At least I feel like I've accomplished something today. 

We went over to Cheryl's on Saturday night. She'd bought some champagne to try that the store was having samples of :-)  I had to take a couple of pictures (especially for you Nenna - we were wishing you were here). 

Hope you're all having a great start to your week. I just realized why I want to decorate for Christmas so early. . . every time I turn on the tv there's a commercial on with Santa in it!! AND they're already showing Christmas movies on Hallmark channel!!!!!!

Weekend Update

Good morning everyone, it's another HOT one here in Texas! I wanted to get here yesterday to post about our fun weekend, but that never happened. I had to run over to my ENT to pick up my allergy drops, then went to the grocery store with Kristen, back home to clean up (inspired by the lovely Debbie, her kitchen was featured in the Country Woman magazine) ;-) do laundry, then it was time to make dinner, and then we popped over to Cheryl's so Kristen and Emily could play in the pool and I had a glass of wine with Cheryl.

Last Friday I got a flat tire! First time EVER since I have been driving I think (and that's many many years!). Thankfully Cheryl's hubby Steve came to the rescue. He doesn't go out to work until 3.30pm so he was the first one I tried to call. He not only came out to get us but immediately called AAA and the arrived not too long after to put the spare tire on for me. We were only about 10 minutes from home. I got two new front tires put on the car the next day, and all is well. I can't thank Steve enough, he was my knight in shining armor.

So, Saturday night we went out for 'Cuban'! Cheryl had gotten a Groupon for this Cuban restaurant in Austin, called Habanas, known to have the best Mojitos in town ;-)  They really were GOOD!

Kiki and me ready to head out.

Yummy Mojitos!

After we got home we went over to Cheryl's for a dip in the pool, I deliberately waited til it got dark so I could have a 'moonlit swim' :-)

I'm still having issues using Windows Live Writer to post to my blog, it won't let me! I had some computer issues last week and ever since Jason fixed them I can't post using WLW. I don't like posting with blogger now, it doesn't seem to leave a space between my paragraphs! I'll have to get Jason to take another look at things.

Hot Summer!

Would you think I’m crazy if I said I’m already done with Summer? The temps have been over 100 degrees here for what seems like weeks now! We don’t go out unless it’s to the grocery store. The kids don’t play out in the cul-de-sac either, for obvious reasons. I’m starting to wish it was Fall, actually I just wish the temps would drop, I’d still like to enjoy a nice long lazy Summer!

This is helping . . .

Our neighbs next door put in an above ground pool last weekend. Actually we ALL put in an above ground pool. We could hardly sit and watch them when we had every intention of joining them in it ;-) So, just a few days before the 4th July, we set to work . . .

It wasn’t an easy task! The heat was unbearable at times. Then we couldn’t believe it when we saw grey rain clouds forming. especially when rain wasn’t even forecast for that day. While still trying to hold the sides up, we heard thunder too! Thankfully we got no lightening, but we got a down pour and we couldn’t run inside because we were all still holding the pool up. Cheryl’s son had to run over and ask our other neighbors for a hand, things were getting desperate, the wind was blowing really hard too. Thankfully, the rain didn’t last long, the sun came out again and we finally had the lining in the pool and the sides supported!

Then it was time to ‘fill er up’!

Ok, so that took a day and a half, but it was all worth it in the end. The kids got to play in it on 4 th July afternoon :-)

We pop over there every other night or so and join Cheryl and the boys for a swim/play time.  It sure does beat the heat.

Kristen was letting the ball go between her legs in this picture (below), I was trying to catch the ball in mid air!!!

Things in the garden are winding down. We won’t be planting anymore til later in the Fall, the water restrictions are just too bad right now to be able to keep anything going out there. We did get another ripe watermelon (picture courtesy of Kristen) :-) And we’ve had a ton of peaches and cantaloupe. I’ll share more of that next time.

The Oasis

Hey all, thought I’d jump on here again before too many days pass us by! While Sue and Doug were here last weekend we took them to The Oasis – the famous  and very popular (actually I’m not sure it’s famous, but it is VERY popular) tourist attraction on Lake Travis in Austin.  It’s only about a 30 minute drive for us but we haven’t been there since my sister was here 2 years ago!

It’s always so crowded and parking used to be terrible, but they’ve put in a multi storey parking garage since we were last there so that helped a lot.  Here’s some photos we took while we were there (and again, I know Sue has some much nicer ones but she must still be busy unpacking and catching up on her laundry as she hasn’t added them to her blog yet!).

  

I tried to get a picture of the ‘boys’ but didn’t have it on the right setting! I don’t even have a pic of Sue and Doug on my camera! I must have been taking them for Sue using hers!

The Oasis is known as the Sunset Capitol of Texas – hence the many photos that follow ;-)

   

 

 

As the sun was setting we noticed a young guy and girl below us on the steps, he was on one knee and was proposing to her at sunset :-) When he stood up I actually started clapping and everyone joined in. I told Sue we should ask if they wanted us to take a picture for them, it didn’t look like they had any camera with them. I walked down to them and asked and the young guy was so appreciative and said he had his Iphone with him. I snapped a couple of pics for them but not sure how they came out, it looked like their silhouette against the sunset, which hopefully was ok. At least they had a picture of their special moment.