Taite's 6th Birthday

I can't believe Taite is SIX! Every year sounds older & older! She had a great birthday this year. Her birthday fell on a Saturday, so Mrs. Vermeer gave her the birthday crown & ribbon on the Friday before. That same day, Lewis surprised Taite & brought her lunch at school. That was fun.

Saturday morning, Taite woke up to a GIANT present in the living room. Check out what she got....Her very own BARBIE house. Now her 40+ Barbies have a place to hang out! It fit just perfectly into her room. She & Lewis (who shares her birthday!) also got Guitar Hero from Paige & I.
Saturday afternoon was the big birthday party. This year, she wanted to have her party at a "jumping place" (you know, where they have rooms full of giant bounce-houses, slides, etc.). We also decided to invite her whole class to the party. She ended up having 16 kids from her class, along with her long-time friends & all together, there were over 30 kids at the party!! It was a little bit crazy, but LOTS of fun for the kids. The kids were all really good. It was the perfect place to have a party with 30 kids!

Taite & all of her friends really enjoyed all of the jumping. Just watching them made a lot of us adults tired!

I love this picture (although it's blurry) of Taite airborne on the bouncy slide. And, notice Paige in the background...

We also had a lot of fun watching Paige "hang" with the "big" kids. She got right to it. She was right in there with all of them and nothing slowed her down. One of her favorites was this 'rock wall' that had a slide at the top.....
After the kids jumped, they went into the party room for cake and gifts. Many of you know that I ALWAYS make the girls cakes for their party. This year, Taite wanted a Strawberry Shortcake cake. We bought a really cute, personalized icing cake topper on ebay for her cake. It was really easy. BUT, I forgot to take a picture of it! So, you can kind of (barely) see it in her picture as she was blowing out candles....

I wanted to include a picture of the kids eating cake. This is a little over half of the kids who were there. There are other kids sitting at another table in the background. Really - the kids were great overall & it was fun to have them all there!

And, I had to include a picture of Lewis (the birthday "boy") sitting on the inflatable thrown. This is where Taite sat to open her gifts!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TAITE & LEWIS!!!

Christmas

We had a great Christmas. I can't believe it's almost time to get back to reality!!

We went to Lewis' parents' house, north of Dallas for Christmas. I should've taken a picture of our "Grizwald" vehicle that we took up to their house. We had our "turtle-top" carrier on top of the Tahoe, a platform on the back, and the entire back was full. We left a few gifts for other family members, but we definitely came back with more stuff!

It was fun to see the girls' reactions to their gifts. Wii was our big "family" present. We've been having lots of fun with that. Some of Taite's favorite gifts were a fashion drawing table, a Lego set, board games, arts & crafts kits, the cupcake maker, & a Barbie computer. I'm probably forgetting something, but that is enough! :) Paige was so cute and was SO excited to FINALLY open presents. She just enjoyed the whole day. She got a little dollhouse, the Little People town, Elmo Live, and lots of other fun little toys.

We still haven't done Christmas with my parents yet. That comes tomorrow. So, I'll probably have more to add later.

Other than that, we enjoyed New Year's Eve. Taite, Lewis & I stayed up playing Wii. Taite made it until 11:15, then said, "wake me up when it's my turn" and she was OUT on the chair. We couldn't even wake her up at midnight. She was DONE. 11:15 was LATE, LATE for her, though. I was impressed with her stamina. Oh, I didn't mention that Paige rang in the new year with a nebulizer treatment! We haven't done the neb. in a LONG time...inhaler, yes, but not the neb. She has been coughing like crazy & the treatments are definitely helping!

ANYWAY.....I suppose that's all for now. I could write a book. The long & short of it is that we had a a great Christmas. I'm kind of sad to see it go!

Paiger-Rager

Gotta share a quick little story about Paiger-Rager (I've never written this nick-name....I guess that's how you'd spell it!)....

Yesterday, she was having a typical fit over "whatever". Then, she acted like she was about to throw a book.

Mommy - "Don't throw the book. Do you want to go to time out?"

She threw the book.

.....then walked into the living room & sat in the time out chair. (I was already about to crack up laughing!)

Mommy - "Do you know why you're in time out? Don't throw....."

Paige - "....books!"

Paige adds - "That's dangerous!"

Then, she looks at me and says, "I'm sorry Mommy!"

......and waits for me to say she can get out of time-out.

Hmmmm.....you think she's getting the hang of this 'time-out' stuff? I think Super Nanny would be proud!

Too funny!!

SNOW!!

Only in Houston, TX do the kids stop what they're doing to jump for joy over falling snow! Yesterday, it was 78 degrees. I almost turned the air conditioning on. Tonight....it's snowing! Crazy Texas weather!

It has been nasty all day - windy and rainy all day. The temperature hasn't gone above 35. Tonight, we pulled into the gymnastics parking lot and the snow had just started to fall. All of the kids had come out of the gym & they were all running around cheering in the parking lot! It was pretty neat - big flakes of snow coming down. I let the girls 'take it all in' for a little bit before we went into the building. It was still coming down when we left an hour later.

When we got home, the girls wanted to 'play' in the snow. Luckily, there was a little bit of accumulation in the back yard. Taite was able to make a snowball to throw at her dad. Then, she made a SNOWMAN! Yeah, it was only 4" tall, but it is indeed a snowman & she was very proud of it.

IT STUCK! I really can't believe that the snow continued into the night. Lewis ended up waking Taite back up to see the snow falling and on the ground in our yard. Pretty cool!

What a cool little treat tonight. Something that is a nuisance or no big deal to many people in other places is going to be a great memory for lots of kids, and adults around here!

By the way - the forecast is in the upper 70's again next week! Crazy!

Thanksgiving

Taite was off the whole week of Thanksgiving. It was a nice break for all of us. She had a few friends over at the beginning of the week. She hasn't gotten to see several of her friends since school has started, so that was fun.

This was our year to be with the Magsigs for Thanksgiving. That means we go to our friends, The Trykoski's for Thanksgiving. 25+ years ago, when we first moved to Houston, Mom & Dad became friends with the Trykoskis & Fiores, two families who were also from out-of-state. None of us had family around, so Mrs. T invited all of us over for Thanksgiving. We've now been celebrating Thanksgiving with them for 25+ years! How cool.

So, we went out to the Trykoski's ranch in Huntsville. It was a really fun day. The girls got to fish & run around and ride on a tractor thing (I forgot the name of it) to see the cows. ALSO, they had a SNOW machine out there! The girls had a BLAST in the 'snow'!

The girls enjoyed fishing. Paige caught her very first fish! She thought that was pretty cool!

And, the guys enjoys a time-honored tradition of playing a few games of bocce. Our dads used to play this when we were kids. Now, I think all of us 'kids' have a set of our own. It's just a fun game - especially out on a lot of land!

I wanted to include a video clip of the girls playing in the snow:

New Look

Today, I'm just messing around with a new background for my blog. I found this cute Thanksgiving background at thecutestblogontheblock.com. Now, I just wish I could make a cuter header. I will keep playing around & maybe I'll figure it out. Even if I could choose a cuter font, that would be a start. I have about a million fonts installed on my computer. I can't believe I only have about 5 choices for fonts to use in this blog! Hmmmm.....

Halloween!

We carved our pumpkin on Thurs. The girls didn't help much. Neither of them want to get their hands dirty. Taite helped a little bit....using a spoon, mostly!

I am one of the room moms for Taite's class, so I got to help plan the Halloween party. The kids are actually allowed to wear their costumes to school in FISD. Interesting to me! Anyway - the party was a big hit. It reminded me of my teaching days when we did our fall stations. This was just on a smaller scale. It was lots of fun. I am glad I got to be up at school for something fun like this!

Taite looked & looked on internet costume sites for a Halloween costume. She kept eyeballing the fairiy costumes. We found this Disney Fairy costume at Target. She just liked it because it was pink, (not because of the movie character).

I wanted Paige to wear Taite's Elmo costume. It is absolutely one of my most favorite costumes she's worn in her short 5 years. Paige was just as cute as Taite was when she was two. The week before Halloween, Paige was telling everyone, "I be Elmo" (for Halloween). She was really excited & had worn the costume around the house a bit. Although, she was NOT happy when it was time to put the costume on Friday night.

We went ahead & left to go trick-or-treating. Paige cried at the first 10 houses, I bet. It was pretty funny. She was fine until the people said, "bye" and closed their door. She just lost it every time. I think she thought she was going to go in and play!

After a while, Paige started getting the hang of the trick-or-treating. She said, "trick-or-treat, thank you & happy Halloween!" She wanted to walk, not ride in the wagon & carried her basket with her.

We only went around the block, but the girls' baskets were completely full of candy. We did stop at this house, at the front of our neighborhood. They always decorate BIG TIME every year. Very fun!

When we got home, Taite wanted to 'organize' her candy. She was sorting & counting to see which candy she had the most of. Quite the little kindergartner!

I didn't mention that Mom & Dad and Uncle Steven came down to join in our 'festivities'. Steven walked with us as we trick-or-treated and Mom & Dad stayed at our house to hand out candy. It was a fun night! Now, how long will this sugar high.....or low.....last????