Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and whatever else I'm behind on...

Hope everyone enjoyed the holidays! We sure did but kinda glad everything is back to normal, although I loved my time off that I was able to be at home with the kids. Christmas was pretty laid back. We just stayed at home, ate good food, and the kids played with all their new toys. I have pictures, but not on the computer yet.

New Year's Eve, we hit up Chili's. We got a gift card for there from my sister for Christmas so we thought that'd be a good night to use it. We got there pretty early because I figured it'd get busy they later it got. The food was great (and so were the marguaritas! It's ok, I only had 1). Once we left there, we went home and hung out. We played the Wii with the kids most of the night. I think we were actually in bed before midnight because we're just cool like that.

Kenzie is still off from school. She doesn't go back until tomorrow! She was out for like 2 1/2 weeks, I know, crazy right!

Other than the holiday stuff, not much else has been going on. This Saturday, we are going to Monster Jam (monster trucks) at Reliant Stadium so that should be fun. Aydan is into watching them right now so he'll love it. Definately going to have the kids wear ear plugs though because it gets pretty loud and both of them don't do well with loud noises.

The last weekend in January, my brother, his fiance (oh yeah, my brother got engaged!!! Woo Hoo), Mom, and Dad will be coming down for a few days. The Houston Marathon is that weekend and my brother was going to run it however it was already full so he's just going to run the 5K race. I had thought about running it too but I haven't been able to go run in a long time and I'm feeling very out of shape so I don't think I'll do it this time. So anyway, we are looking forward to having visitors again. No one has came since we moved into our new apartment and its always exciting when people come visit!

That weekend is also Aydan's birthday so we will be pretty busy that whole weekend. I can't believe he will be 4 years old! I don't want him to grow up because right now he's so cuddly and lovable! When he's like 10 or 11 he won't be coming up to me all the time saying he loves me and giving me hugs and kisses. So sad! I guess all I can do is enjoy it while it lasts! :)

Well, that's about all I know right now! Hope you all have a great week!

Shots and x-rays....Yuck!

I took the kids to their check-ups at the doctor last Friday afternoon. They ended up getting flu shots, which Kenzie was not happy about. Apparently, she's very scared of needles. She hasn't had shots in about 3 years, so I think mostly she forgot about them. Aydan did ok with them, but he went first so he didn't really know what to expect. Here are their height and weight stats:

Mackenzie-8 yrs old- Height: 47 inches Weight: 57 lbs

Aydan-3 yrs (4 yrs in Jan)- Height: 40 inches Weight: 43.5 lbs

Well, they were a little concerned about Kenzie's height. They said she wasn't even on the charts for her age. She was well below average height for other girls her age. She asked me if we noticed that she was short. Well obviously we did, but I told her I thought she would eventually have a growth spurt. Kenzie has said that kids at school tell her she is short and she is aware that she is a small girl, but we tell her not to worry, that she is cute just the way she is. The doctor said that she wanted to run some tests on her blood and take an x-ray of her left wrist, which will give them her 'bone age.' I never knew there was a difference in bone age compared to actual age but I guess there is. She said if her bone age is less than her actual age then they would consider growth hormones for her. If the bone age was the same or older than her actual age, then she said the growth hormones wouldn't work.

So, Monday we headed off to get the blood work and the x-ray done, and of course we had to go to 2 diffrent places for each one. She had never had her blood drawn so she was pretty nervous about it but she did really well, considering they had to draw it from each arm because the first arm wasn't giving enough blood fast enough. Poor girl! She only shed a couple of tears. The x-ray went alot better! Fast and painless! We went out for lunch afterwards and got milkshakes to cheer her up.

So now, I'm just waiting to hear back from the doctor what, if anything, they found out. I'm not sure what to think about the growth hormone idea. I don't want her to grow freakishly large either ya know! I'm sure they wouldn't do that, but its just scary. I think its just a genetic thing. Danny and I are both fairly short and so are our families so who knows. Aydan, on the other hand, is a big boy so maybe he didn't get the 'short gene.' :) So, we are trying not to make a big deal out of it because I'm sure it will be fine.

Well, I will keep everyone updated on what we find out.

P.S. I finally got all my gift wrapping done! Oh yeah!! :)

Santa and snow on a 75 degree day...

No it wasn't Christmas in July but I was beginning to wonder. This Saturday was the Christmas festival at the park by our old apartment building. The weather was awesome, although it didn't feel one bit Christmasy. They had a truck come in and make a couple of patches of man-made snow for the kids to play in. The kids around here just think its the greatest thing ever! It never snows here (at least not enough to amount to anything.) I'm surprised the snow lasted as long as it did with it being so warm out. They also had cookies, lemonade, hot cocoa, popcorn, face-painting, and crafts for the kids to make. Best of all, Santa made his appearance.

Aydan, being shy at the moment, wouldn't stop making faces with his hands as you can see in the picture. Kenzie talked to Santa a bit but she did say that he kept pushing up his beard and she could see his gray mustache underneathe. I let her know that he was just one of Santa's helpers because Santa is too busy at the North Pole right now. I think she bought it, for now. Phew!

Well, these pictures are out of order but there was a boat parade in the evening along the water. All of the boats were lit up and some were playing Christmas music. It was very pretty. It was a calm, clear night for it, unlike last year when it was so foggy you could barely see the lights at all.

Before the parade began, there was a short fireworks show, which was also very pretty.

More boats.

More fireworks.

The kids had a great time throwing snowballs at each other, although they ended up being more like ice balls-Ouch!!

I'm so ready for Christmas to get here!! For one, maybe the kids will play with their new toys and stop asking to play with my iphone :) Aydan has figured out how to download more apps and one night while he was playing a game (or at least, I thought he was) he ended up downloading $4 worth of new apps. I'm just glad they weren't the expensive ones. I told him he owed me $4 and he looks at me with his eyes brows narrowed and says "Seriously?" I about died! Maybe you had to be there, but it was hillarious. I think I was just surprised that he even used that word. His vocabulary is definately expanding, lol!

Well, thats all for now. Keep checking back for more updates :)

******Merry Christmas to you all!******

bunk beds, stockings, and other things I accomplished this weekend......

The kids got a new set of bunk beds-Finally! I put them together all by myself, except for the beams that go across the bottoms. As you can see, Aydan helped out a little too! He is obsessed with this drill now! He did a pretty good job :)

Here is the finished product. They can be switched to 2 individual twin beds too, which will be nice when the kids get their own bedrooms eventually.

I'm a little bit leary of Aydan being on the top but we will see how he does-so far so good. Kenzie wanted the bottom so she can hang up blankets from the top bunk and have her own little "tent." They love the beds and so do I. They still have lots of room in their bedroom to play. Hunter likes the new beds too, as you can see he's made himself comfortable.

We tried something a little different than we've done before and I bought some plain Christmas stockings and some craft supplies and let the kids decorate them themselves. Well, I ended up making Aydan's because he lost interest after a while and went and played, but Kenzie did her's entirely on her own. Aren't they cute? ;)

Kenzie and I decorated one for Hunter too. Santa might bring him some treats this year.

~Have a great week!!~

completely random pictures.....

So I don't really have anything exciting to blog about so I thought I'd share a few random pictures from my phone.

Here's Aydan with his BFF Hunter. Hunter is so good for putting up with Aydan :)

The Ballunar Festival was Halloween weekend so we didn't go but we still got to see some balloons out our window as they were headed over to Johnson Space Center. It was quite a sight. Danny and Kenzie counted almost 40 balloons in the air at one point.

Aydan at the park being goofy as usual. There's a dog park we've been going to (with the dog of course, lol) and next to the dog area is a playground that the kids like to play on.

This is so funny! I took the kids to dollar theater (yeah like the best thing EVER!) to see Despicable Me (great movie by the way.) They found these fake mustaches in the little quarter machines. Kenzie's looks more like a caterpillar on her face , lol! Nice!
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Other than that, we haven't really been up to much at all other than then normal stuff. I'm so ready to put up my Christmas tree but I'm forcing myself to wait until after Thanksgiving! I just love Christmas decorations so I can't wait! Plus I have a full size tree this year. Last year I just had a small 3 or 4 ft tree that we set up kinda last minute so I'm looking forward to this year. I even got a head start on my Christmas shopping-whoot whoot!

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Well thats all I can think of for now! Hope you all have a great week!

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Oh and just a side note, I'm thinking about changing the name of the blog to get rid of our last name-it just seems to be too personal. Any ideas please leave a comment. Thanks!!

Happy Halloween!!

Hope everyone had a great Halloween!! Ours was pretty good. Our apartment building had a Halloween party with food and games for the kids on Wednesday night so we went to that. They also let the kids go trick-or-treating within the building. The pictures above of the kids were taken there. Aydan was Bumblebee the Transformer and Kenzie was a Witch.

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Then on Saturday night, we went to the Halloween festival at the park. Most adults and kids were all dressed up and they had music playing. There was lots of food and games and they even brought in a mobile home set up as a walk-through haunted house.
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We didn't go trick-or-treating this year. Some neighborhoods did theirs on Saturday and some on Sunday so it was kinda confusing. Plus, I really don't feel comofortable going to strangers' houses.
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Now that Halloween is over, I am getting very excited about Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up! I can't believe how fast time is going by! I've started a little bit of my Christmas shopping so I'm pretty proud of myself.
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Meet Hunter!!!!!!!!!!

This is our new little buddy, Hunter. We adopted him from a local shelter. Hunter is the name he's had his whole life so we thought it'd be best to just leave it so we didn't confuse him. He's a 2 year old pug/daschund (weiner dog) mix. We picked him up Tuesday night after waiting since Saturday to see if we were approved. He had 3 applications turned in on him and they decided to pick us since we had small children and they thought he would do best with a family our size. Woo Hoo!!

We couldn't have asked for a more well-behaved dog! He doesn't jump; he doesn't bark; he doesn't beg for food (much, lol). At first Aydan was a little leary of getting close to him because he'd never really been around dogs much and he gets scared when they bark at him. Eventually he warmed up to him and now he won't stay away. He wanted the dog to sleep with him in his bed. Kenzie loves him and didn't want to go to school today because she wanted to stay home and play with the dog.

He does great on a leash. They weren't sure if he was house-trained but he must be because he's been doing awesome at "going" outside, not inside.

When we sat at the table to eat supper, he layed by the doorway and didn't try jump up at the table or anything.

He loves his stuffed animals.
Kenzie and her new sidekick.

Now the big question---What can I dress him up as for Halloween??? LOL!!