We are thankful

I LOVE November!! We have a few weeks off in-between football and basketball, the weather begins to get a little cooler-not cold but perfect, and Thanksgiving is the perfect time to sit together as a family and be deliberate about giving thanks!

I am a preschool pro by now (this is my 5th year to have a preschooler at WCS) and one of the projects I look forward to the most each year is decorating their 'thankful feathers'. I asked Ally how she'd like to decorate hers this year and keeping true to her personality she danced around and told me she wanted "jewels, lots and lots of jewels". Easy enough.

Ally loves a good craft project so she dove right in with no help.

Lookin' good sister

A wonderul surprise this year was that Ryan had to disguise Tom the Turkey so he would not get eaten for Thanksgiving. He also got very into his disguise and chose Darth Vader of course.

He also required very little help from me this year.

I love these hands.

Meet Darth Turkey and...

the most dazzling feather you've ever seen!

My little crafties :).

They were asked at school what they are thankful for and Ryan said, "everything", and Ally said, "My family, my cousins, Texas, Mrs. Dunlap and BU."

Love them!

BU Homecoming Parade

This year we were super excited to go to the BU homecoming parade because WCS was #125 in the parade and Honey, Ryan and Stacey got to ride on the float! That's right we're pretty big time around here :). Unfortunately, Ally was home with a fever and Mark stayed back with her since she's four and all. However, I got to go see the BU parade in all it's glory with the Smiths and we had a great morning!

Wy-guy was very happy to see some candy being tossed his way.

Sic 'em BEARS

We ran into these two while we were there. Lila looks like she could be a child model in this picture. She's so CUTE!

And bringing up the rear of the parade was Woodway Christian School!!

Such a cute sign

OK, this picture makes me laugh for a couple reasons. Look at Ryan 'gently tossing' us some candy!! I wonder if others were hurt?? He's firing that stuff with some serious POWER!. And second check out Honey's face---she's seeing what's going down and directing Stacey to come our way. So thankful for that Honey.

Sisters :)

I'm so thankful that we live in a college town and get to experience all that BU has to offer.

Happy Fall Y'all!

It's a ...B-O-Y!!!

Finding out we were expecting again has taken a while for both of us to wrap our heads around. I keep trying to picture what our family will look like and I have a hard time not picturing another baby Ryan, or baby Ally. I can only hope and pray this baby will be as easy as baby Ryan. God really allowed us to ease right into parenthood with Ryan. He slept great, ate great and was all around a very compliant baby. Now toddlerhood was a different story and age 5 was terrible, but we're back to the easy life right now and starting over again is just plain scary.

Now baby Ally was completely different than my first. She came three weeks early and she was a terrible eater, didn't sleep through the night for 15 months and a much more difficult baby. We literally tried everything you can imagine including her crying for hours each night and nothing seemed to work with this one. Ally likes to tell everyone that she used to be 'nocturnal' and that's exactly right!! This is what keeps me up at night now because those were some extremely hard days on me, Mark, Ally, and our marriage. But Ally has been THE easiest toddler, and there isn't a sweeter girl on the planet. She's so easy right now and is much more laid back than Ryan. She's my little shadow and we have a blast every afternoon together.

Mark and I couldn't wait to find out what baby #3 was going to be! We were thrilled to find out that we are adding another B-O-Y to our family. We got the privilege of going to Care Net to have a 4D sonogram and see first hand our little miracle. Our wonderful pediatrician set up the appointment so I could be a "sonogram model" since this machine is fairly new and some volunteers still needed some training. We love Care Net and all the amazing things they do for women in crisis. And this new sonogram machine is literally saving babies from abortion. I love how God works!

After the appointment we immediately headed over to Kacey's to reveal the mystery to our family. Mom got Ryan out of school for 30 minutes so we could tell every one at once. Ryan was really hoping for a brother and of course Ally wanted a baby sister. The suspense was killing them!

We had them sit on the couch and told them that we had some jelly beans for them and that if they were blue it meant a baby brother, and if they were pink a baby sister is on the way!

Ready...

Blue!! It's a BOY!!

We were all very excited and it was a wonderful moment for our family to share.

Of course Honey, Aunt Cary, and Aunt Kacey came prepared with baby gifts for their little guy :). Aren't those socks cute??!

Grandbaby #9 coming in April-WOW. (My scanner's not communicating with my computer right now, but we did get some AMAZING pictures at 16 weeks). I am almost 19 weeks now and feeling oh so much better. Praise. the. Lord.

Proud Honey and GP

For some reason I knew this time that we were having a BOY. I have been wrong with the other two but I distinctly remember after taking my pregnancy test in the Walgreen's bathroom(story on that later) the name James immediately popped into my head. Mark's dad's name was James as well as my Gran's so this baby officially has the middle name James. We have a long way to go on the first name but two out of three names isn't bad!

I am so thankful for this surprise and I am feeling baby kicks now all the time. It is truly one of my favorite stages of pregnancy---I'm done getting sick and it doesn't hurt to walk yet:). We are trying to figure out the whole office/nursery and things are slowly coming together. I am so glad I wasn't in control and that God thought we needed another BOY! AMEN.

Happy Halloween!

I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween this year. Halloween is always fun, but always a very busy week for us. We started the week by finishing up Ryan's flag football season with two games and a team party. The Crocs won their last game with two touchdown passes by my #1 stud-RW!! Way to go Crocs!

Ally then got dressed up for ballet and gymnastics, we attended the super fun Fall Fest at Church, followed by a preschool party and then trick-or treating---whew. No wonder I'm tired this morning. Since I am finally catching up on the blog I decided to combine all this week's activities into one jammed packed post full of several costume changes by Ally:).

This year I was that mean mommy who said I'm not buying costumes. You each have at least 10 different things you can be and the last thing I need in this house right now is more costumes. I know...it was mean. They honestly didn't care and just rolled with it. I think they both have come to realize that messing with their preggo momma doesn't go very far these days!

We'll start off with the beautiful Ballerina at dance class. She was very excited to wear one of her sweet friend's old costumes this year. She LOVES Ainsley and this made her week---thanks again Heather!

Pretty pretty

I love this picture of her at Ballet, getting ready for class. Doesn't she look like a real Ballerina?!!

Next up was Ally's gymnastics class. She opted for the BU cheerleading outfit for this class. Here are some of her sweet friends. Look how cute!

Her 4 year old gymnastics class

And then a quick change into her 'real outfit'. She picked this one out all by herself, and it fits her little personality perfectly.

Next up was the Fall Fest with the cousins. AHHHH these two are so adorable I can't stand it. (Wait until you see the entire Warren family this year...awesomeness coming soon on Kacey's blog)

Then we have Crocodile Hunters. Stacey and Wyatt were the hunters and the babies were the Crocs. I laugh every time I see this crew in their cool costumes!

Ryan choose to be "a City Champion" I mean it was a pretty cool choice since they did win the city tournament.

Best one I got, but you get the idea. Check out sweet Caroline the Crab!

These two melt my heart.

Look who made it in a picture :) Do you like my costume??!!

HA!

Now onto Ally's preschool party. Since we are equal opportunity fans here she chose to be a TUU cheerleader this time. Cute little one!

Daddy made a surprise visit and made her day.

Mrs. Dunlap's class. Basically all my friend's kiddos in one super-charged class.

Honey was a Zoo Keeper, which is a fitting title for her everyday.

Last but not least. Halloween night and trick-or-treating with the Weavers.

We made a quick stop by Grandma's and got some yummy treats

And then came to meet up with our friends and neighbors the Weaver family. We have a standing date with them every year and it's a blast roaming the neighborhood with our every growing crew.

Sweet Brinley

And the rest of the gang

Happy Halloween!

Texas Rangers playoff game

Over the last 12 years of our marriage we have logged countless hours watching the Texas Rangers play ball. In fact Mark was working for this ball club when we got engaged! I also remember the night Ryan was born eight years ago, the very first thing Mark and Ryan did as father and son was watch a Ranger game together int he hospital. It's in our blood and has been a wonderful activity that we can do as a family. So...you better believe that when the Rangers made the ALCS playoffs Ryan and Mark were going!!

Mark surprised Ryan while we were in Lubbock with tickets and I think Ryan probably asked me 4,000,000 times on the way home how much longer until he gets to go to the game. We had a plan. Since we were traveling home from Lubbock with my parents, Mark would just meet us in Eastland and then he and Ryan would drive to Arlington from there---you know to save R some drive time. This was a fantastic plan until we all got to Eastland at 3:00 0n Sunday only to find out that the game had been CANCELLED. I haven't ever seen a more disappointed father and son in my entire life. So we drove home and waited for news of when it would be rescheduled.

Fortunately the game was on for the very next day at 3:00, which was perfect since Ryan was out of school for Columbus Day. YAY for good ol' Columbus! The plans were on and Ryan couldn't wait any longer.

Tickets

Getting some pizza on the way to the game

Watching BP before the game at The Ballpark in Arlington

One happy duo. This picture makes me smile from ear to ear!!

The rangers won with an impressive walk off home run by Nellie and they saw the game of the series in person!! Way to go Rangers! I wish they could have won the World Series too. We watched every single game and let Ryan stay up WAAYYYY too late but they couldn't win game 6 and it was all downhill from there. Next Year will be our year :).

Thank you Mark Wood for making your son's dreams come true.

Purdy Pumpkin Party

If you've been reading this blog for a while you know that my mom is VERY creative and always up for some chaos and fun for the grandkids. A few weekends ago she asked the older five to come over for a Pumpkin Party, and they had an absolute blast!1 Thanks Honey and GP for making this a day to remember.

They started by making cards for their teachers, complete with lots and lots of foam stickers!

Caroline got to come watch since her Momma was out of town on a fun trip. She was really happy Kacey I promise :). Caryn was also out of town on a fun trip which is why you'll notice the hodge podge outfits on this particular day. I however was there and have no excuse.

After making the cards it was onto a race to find mini pumpkins in the backyard. Here's Honey going over exactly what to do.

Ryan counting the loot!

"Look Aunt Angie, I found one!!"

"I found TWO!"

"And I'm the happiest baby on the planet, especially when I'm outside watching these crazy cousins!"

Next was game time. Ryan was tossing the pumpkins into a bucket for candy---he could have played this all day.

Each time you got a pumpkin in the bucket you got to add a piece of candy to your plastic pumpkin on the table. Ally was showing Daddy all her candy.

And then...the Pumpkin Painting station! We have some serious artists in the family :).

Fun for all ages. Check out the beauties.

And then we raced to the front yard to find some spiders. They were pretty tricky to find in the grass but these kids were determined and loved "helping" each other find them.

(Yes that's chocolate on Wy-guys' face, I forgot to mention the ice cream treat.) After the spider game there was one more surprise. Honey came up with a great scavenger hunt to find their treasure.

We finally found it in the back of Uncle Josh's truck---whew!

THANK YOU again Honey and GP for loving these kids the way you do. The Purdy Pumpkin Party was AWESOME!