Disney on Ice

My dad wanted to celebrate his birthday by taking all the grand kids to see Disney on Ice this weekend. Our seats were in the 2nd row, so we got to see all the characters up close and personal (and get hit with ice shavings from their skates too!) Brinley was absolutely in awe of the entire night. She is very much into the princess thing right now and has to dress up, role play and watch any show with Belle, Cinderella, Sleeping beauty and Snow white. She had stars in her eyes watching all the princess in person skating around. She even didn't eat her popcorn she was so entranced!

Brinley and Reese with their Minnie mouse ears

Clayton enjoyed the first 45 mintues, then he was ready to crawl around!

The whole gang from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (another exciting moment for her)
Nemo, Dori and the shark

Snow white with Ariel and Belle in the background

After the show, we headed to Buca Di Beppo for some yummy Italian food. We left very tired and stuffed. Happy birthday pops!

Halloween

Our Halloween week started on Sunday with trick or treat at the park. We got everyone all dressed up and headed to practice trick or treating with Brinley and her friends.

Brinley (Ariel) and Clayton (Sebastian). Brinley chose his costume and we figured this was the only year we could get away with it.

Thursday night, we carved our pumpkin. Clayton really enjoyed pulling out all the gooey stuff. He even tried to teethe on the opening of the pumpkin.

Friday, we co-hosted a Halloween party with friends. We had lots of delicious dips, deserts, chili and yummy treats. There was a bouce house with a slide, hay ride for the kids, pumpkin carving contest, games and lots of socializing. The weather was perfect with just enough nip in the air to make it feel like fall. Brinley spent the entire night on the hay ride...she loved it!

Us (Jason was Popeye for Halloween)

Saturday we headed over to my brothers for another halloween party and trick or treating. Brinley had so much fun trick or treating with Reese and her friends. She kept up with them really well, but we ended up leaving before they finished because she was exhausted!!!

Sunday was spent recovering from our halloween activities!

Pumpkin Patch and 10 months old

Ok, so I have decided to skip the Dallas post in order to stay caught up with this crazy month that is October! We spent Saturday at the Oil Ranch in Hockley, Tx....a good hour from our house in the middle of no where. It was a gorgeous fall day with plenty of sunshine and temperatures at 74!

The first thing we did was take pictures in the pumpkin patch. It was very hard to get Clayton to look or smile for any pictures since he was in observation mode taking everything in. We tried the wagon out for the first time with both kids and they loved it. While at the ranch, we got to ride horses, play in a haybarn, feed cows, ride a train around the property, climb, swing and all sorts of fun. Brinley had a blast and so did Clayton. We were exhausted after all the running and sunshine.

Clayton turned 10 months on Sunday. He weighs 20 lbs and is 28 inches long! He is still army crawling but moves so quickly! He is pulling himself up to a stand and cruising along furniture. He LOVES table food and can pretty much eat anything we give him. He has 5 teeth, can wave hi and bye, play peek a boo and is started to dance. He is such a sweet boy and loves to play with his big sister. It is so hard to believe I need to start planning your first birthday!

this video explains it all

It has been a very busy couple of weeks and I am too tired to write about it now :) We spent a great, kid-free, weekend in Dallas for the Hogs vs. Aggie game. This week I started boot camp at 5am every morning (which has made me exhausted since i was used to getting up at 7:30 or 8) and Brinley has been sick.

So I will leave you with a video of my kids' favorite new game, which they do for at least 30 minutes at a time!

I will update on the Dallas weekend later on!

what a week!

To say this last week has been busy would be an understatement! It all started Wednesday when Brinley attended her first day of dance. She started ballet and tap and absolutely loves it. She has been twirling and shuffle/ball/change around the house all week!

Thursday, Brinley also started soccer at the YMCA. It is more of a class where they learn the skills and then play a game at the end of the 8 weeks. Although Jason was ready to put her in soccer with the city, I was not ready to give up 1 day a week of practice and then Saturday games just yet :) She was really good at ball control, but I guess she should be since Jason has had her kicking a ball since she was 11 months old!!!! She was one of the few kids who could kick the ball into the goal with just one kick! She even got the celebration down....too much soccer watching with daddy!

Friday, my mom and us drove to Katy to meet the newest cousin of our family, Will. His mommy, Allison, is my cousin and we are only 1 month apart in age so it will be fun to watch Will and Clayton grow up together.

Brinley, Clayton and Will

Saturday was pure and utter chaos! We had 3 birthday parties to attend! Two of them were at the same place, Jump N Jungle! Needless to say we were completely exhausted by the end of the evening. With no nap and 4 hours of jumping, by the end of the third party Brinley said no to cake and wanted to go home and go to bed!

Maddy, Brinley and Addison after party number 1
Sliding during party number 2

no pictures from party number 3......to worn out :)


Sunday, we headed to Jason's parents house to visit with his brother, Bill, who was in town one night from Switzerland. His parents had planned a birthday party in his honor and rented a.........you guessed it moonwalk!!! Although I think the big boys enjoyed it more than Brinley and Hannah!

The Smith family--Andy, Erich, Cindy, Jason, Marian and Bill
Jason's superman fly off the roof of the house into the moonwalk

Needless to say we are being completely lazy today with no plans whatsoever! I think we will need to a week to recover from our week!

Hurricane Ike----One year later

Since the news is talking about nothing but the anniversary of Hurricane Ike, I figured I would join in too! It is hard to believe it was a year ago when Brinley, Clayton (in belly) and me evacuated to Arkansas for Kylie's wedding, while Jason stayed here to "hunker" down!

One year later, you can still see signs of the hurricane's destruction. Most trees are sadly leaning, boats are still abandoned along the shoreline in Galveston, and blue tarps are on roof tops! In fact, we just got our insurance check to fix our roof two months ago! It's a good thing Jason and his Dad did a quick fix to hold us over! Kemah Boardwalk is now open and fully functional after a long road of repair work to every restaurant and replacing every single ride due to flooding! We would drive by every week and see the sign to see what restaurants were opening up!

My parents neighborhood was very badly damaged. I was driving through last weekend and took these pictures of houses that are still destroyed. While most are rebuilding, a handful are abandoned or maybe insurance hasn't given them their checks yet either :)
We have been very thankful for a quiet hurricane season so far. Of course, we still have until November!

Nothing significant has been going on at our household....just very busy! Brinley does start her ballet/tap class and soccer next week, so I will have lots of post about then.

preschool

Brinley started preschool on Thursday. She was so excited to start school that she had a hard time going to bed the night before. I thought she would be apprehensive about going in because instead of walking her into her class, I would be dropping her off in the car line. But no, she jumped right out of the car and said, "Bye mom!" Clayton and I enjoyed the day to ourselves by going to the gym and hanging out at home. I noticed he was a lot more vocal while she wasn't around but I guess he can't ever get a coo in around miss motormouth! Speaking of motormouth, Brinley also started her speech class last week. I had noticed her speech was not up to snuff (leaving off ending sounds, not be able to blend sounds, or even make some sounds at all), so I took her to be evaluated and she does qualify for speech lessons. We are going twice a week right now with a private speech therapist, but she is set to be evaluated with the school district next week to see if she will qualify to take speech through our home campus!

got to get a backpack picture!

Right now, Brinley is obsessed with dressing up! She does it everyday at least 3 or 4 times. I swear she feels better in heals and crowns than she does in pajamas! Here is one of her favorite dresses right now (I think only because it is a hand me down from Reese)....don't you love how she hams it up for the camera???