Cousins Preview

Bright and early the morning after Halloween Kyle and I hopped a plane to Florida to vacation with two other couples without kids. I know - who are we???  The Beach. In November. Without kids. (It's why you're getting all of these updates!)

Meanwhile, back at home...Bee and Nana are running the homefront. But before they came in shifts to take over on Sunday, our wonderful Marisela handled the kiddos in preparation for and during some cousin photos with the Mezger cousins and Franny. 

Here they are a week or two ago trying on pieces of their outfits - you can tell they were stoked. 

Maggie is crying about something. 

Rebecca is just having an attitude.

Owen is I don't know what.

I got reports that the actual shoot went well. Won't have any of the professional photos for a while but love these snapshots that Marisela took.

Pretty good looking (and patriotic) little clan - can't wait to see the real pics!

Halloween 2015

Halloween #1

 (Two days before Halloween)

I feel like we're in quite the Halloween rythm - it really is one of my favorite times of the year. We hosted the Bridges party again - a group that works with international students at UT and ACC. 

Here's the garage set-up for pumpkin carving. 

Students playing some sort of wrap the mummy game (student + toilet paper).

Eating chili and hanging out.

Listening to a fun recap of the history of Halloween.

Costume contest.

Getting ready to do some pumpkin damage.

Rebecca joined right in with a group. I think she actually dictated the design - but they went with it.

Here she is with her group (and their fairy pumpkin - no surprise) and wrapping another little guy (who just went with it).

O & K worked on a star wars themed one. Rebecca helped. I have no idea where Maggie was during most of this.

The line-up. And Owen's.

The group.

Halloween #2
On Saturday night we did the full neighborhood Halloween. Everyone came up with their costume this year...except Kyle. I ran out of steam so he was gracious enough to repeat his Waldo. Plus, he just makes such a perfect Waldo!
I'm Katniss Everdeen (Hunger games), Maggie is a Minion, Rebecca is Twinkle Bell (she and I made her costume - completely her brain child - from the dress that she wore in Alex/Deidre's wedding) and Owen is Obi-wan Kenobi.

Mom came over in her gypsy get-up to hand out candy. She is the best. Hands down.

Maggie Minion.

Twinkle Bell (plus Rosalon with matching costume, by Rebecca)

No prompt needed - serious Owen doing his best serious Jedi look as Obi-wan.

Hitting the pavement, candy buckets in tow (not us, just the kids)

Got to walk the hood with several fun neighbor friends, not the least of which is the Murray family - in full double-Darth-Vader star wars mode (plus giant dog as an AT/AT and the best Princess Leigh of all 25 we saw).

So thankful for this friend.

Check out her amazing knitted Leia hair.

And who is Katniss without Effie Trinket - nobody. It was so fun to find her wandering the neighborhood. We or course had to take a pic. She was in full character - introducing me as her tribute. Come to find out she is the actress who played Buddy Garrety's wife/x-wife in the show Friday Night Lights.

Maggie loving some Minion pumpkins.

Owen and Oliver - Captain Jack Sparrow.

We wanted to take full advantage of the fact that Halloween would be on a weekend night this year (and not again for 6 years) so we rented a big outdoor screen and showed It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown on repeat a couple of times.

Kids were hopped up on sugar and completely mesmerized and still.

Great great Halloween. Love our hood. Love the fun with the kids. Love the parental duty to eat all of Owen's peanut butter candy. 

Maggie (4) has definitely gotten the hang of trick or treating - she would YELL: Trick or Treat, Thank you, Happy Halloween - all in about one breath. 

So: TRICK OR TREAT THANK YOU HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

October Otherness

Just a bunch of random stuff from the past month. 

A sweet neighbor friend gave Maggie this great Minion hat - and even though its 100degrees in Austin still, she's been sporting it a lot. And then there's Owen - who has discovered the selfie. It used to be that if I coudn't find my phone it was because Maggie had stolen it and was hiding watching a show somewhere but now its more likely that Owen is taking selfies. Oh how the times change.

Kyle was the Garden Helper one day with Rebecca's class - here they are pulling some weeds. Love everything about this.

Rebecca was a sweet friend Ivy - with matching missing teeth.

Rebecca was "sick" one day so she and I went to Ikea because what else do you do with a girl who's "sick" but feeling fine? We did some serious damage.

I think I already shared the story of Uncle Carlos pulling the tooth - but here is a great before and after shot.

Maggie rediscovering banilla ice cream after the Blue Bell drought of 2015 ended. She and her daddy were the happiest ones.

Cousin time. And Maggie/Blair hugs.

I got to take a sneak peak int Rebecca's "afternoon class" where she travels the world (a different country every week) to learn about culture through music and art. She loves loves this extra part of school and its fun to see her world get bigger. Its also really funny to hear her talk about it - because she has a hard time remembering the names of the places but can remember all sorts of interesting facts about the people so we have to piece things together.

Oh this girl. Give her an okay to use some face paint and this is what she's going to do.

Even with a sweet friend from school who wants nothing to do with anything messy - except a little nail polish.

Can you see Maggie's toes? She's quite talented.

Fun times with the Warren.

Owen has been playing soccer again this semester - its been a great little time - most of the guys from the previous teams. Plus a great coach, and Kyle as the assistant coach.

Owen working on his birthday present. Four days and it was done. Now safely on a shelf.

Random selfie with this girl.

I went to Atlanta to see these two precious sisters - Megan in the middle just had her first baby - sweet baby Molly. Megan lives in Atlanta, and Cary (on the right) lives in Raleigh - so she and I met there and we just had the best weekend. Mostly laid around in our PJs oohing an ahhing at Molly. Got to serve Megan a little by doing a few fun chores around the house. On the last night stayed up until 4 something talking - we're crazy, and it was so worth it.

Sweet Molly

Also got to see this dear friend - Geanine who lived with us for a while and moved to Atlanta to work with a nonprofit. So great to reconnect with her.

So, there is sometimes an ice cream truck right outside school when we're picking the big kids up - we usually bypass and my excuse is that we need to get our carpool buddy home, but one day when he wasn't with us I caved. Love what each of them picked.

The minion.

Traditional chocolate goodness on a stick.

Some sort of crazy ice cream taco.

Random funness with Maggie. She still loves the incredibly boring little "rides" outside Little Randalls. My baby. But loves to do everything on her own - packing her lunch. Big girl.

Random early morning pic of this sweet girl.

Good October.