Thanksgiving

We are all nestled in front of the TV while listening to the boys argue over how the blankets are arranged on their makeshift bed that is on the floor in our bedroom. Our Thanksgiving was quiet and delicious; the two best things you can ask for on a Thanksgiving. (And just as a side note: yes, we art sticking to our no cable experiment but AT&T is trying to suck us back in by giving us all the channels for free for this week.)

I didn't take any photos of our day but I am including one of a recent school project the boys worked on. Their school is having Diversity Day next week and each child was asked to create a family tree and then draw a person in traditional dress for a nationality (or is it ethnicity) in their family tree. They will have a parade through the school with their "doll."

JT selected Creek Indian, which is from Rick's maternal great-grandmother and Zachy picked Polish because it is from Grandpa Pete.

This picture doesn't do their artwork justice especially since you can't see the awesome glitter shoes that Zach created.

We hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving.

Gearing up for the holidays

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and I feel woefully behind. Rick's family will be in town to help us celebrate and we will partake in what is quickly becoming our own Thanksgiving traditions - long walks with the dog, a family trip to the big Half Price Books, and a trip to one of the art museums. I think we are trying the Blanton again this year because they have an Impressionist exhibit right now.

While I don't love Thanksgiving the way Rick does there are a few things that I do love - the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, having permission from Rick to start listening to Christmas music, and it is typically the weekend that I embark on one of my all-time favorite Christmas traditions: the Christmas card.

For those that know me well, they know that I absolutely love giving and getting Christmas cards. While social media has made it easier to stay in touch with friends that are far away it doesn't replace the intimacy and joy of receiving a photo card or a hand written greeting no matter how short. Imagine my surprise then when I learned that Shutterfly was offering this fabulous deal to bloggers (not to worry, you can sign up too - just visit http://bit.ly/sfly2010). I used to use Shutterfly all the time but then life got busy and I got lazy and I just started keeping all my photos on my computer and posting some of my favorites here on the blog. So now I am back on Shutterfly and I am looking forward to some Christmas card making and perhaps a few Christmas gifts!

There are a ton of cute options at Shutterfly.

I love this little girl but the card is cute too!


I like the design of this card and I could plug the blog with a note on the inside.


And this photo card is cute because it incorporates the letter.


It looks like I am going to be busy this Thanksgiving weekend trying to decide which card I want to use this year but despite the stress of it all, I am excited to get my cards together. I beg everyone to break away from facebook and order some cards. And if you aren't already, send me an email and I will be more than happy to add you to my growing Christmas card list.

Rickwood Field

I am gearing up for some Christmas gifts that involve me gathering photos, which involved me admitting that I never finished going through my 800 photos from our summer vacation. And it means that I missed posting about what was one of the neatest parts of our trip, Rickwood Field.

Here is a brief overview (you can click on the link above to see the official website):

Rickwood Field, located in Birmingham, Alabama, is the oldest surviving professional baseball park in the United States. It was built for the Birmingham Barons in 1910 by industrialist and team-owner Rick Woodward and has served as the home park for the Birmingham Barons and the Birmingham Black Barons of the Negro Leagues. Though the Barons have moved their home games to the suburbs, Rickwood Field has been preserved and is undergoing gradual restoration as a "working museum" where baseball's history can be experienced. Rickwood Field is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.


Here are a few of my shots from that (very hot) day.

Fall Tourney

JT was asked to play in a fall tournament with some other kids from a Hutto team. It was an intense weekend of 6 games. The team managed to put together a stellar effort and went undefeated for the entire weekend. Even better was instead of adding another trophy to the already growing collect, each player was given a t-shirt.

Silly me for thinking baseball was over. Sounds like there is a chnace we will be playing in another one this weekend.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid Book Signing

JT's reading habits have been interesting. I think I have mentioned before that his first big, complete, read-it-on-my-own read was a biography about Roberto Clemente. After that he started some other books but he struggled with finding something that kept his attention until he bought Diary of Wimpy Kid #4 (for the record Rick purchased the book because I would have never sanctioned reading a series backwards) and then consumed 3, 2, and 1 (in reverse order because for some reason he thought it was fun).

Since then he has read other books although he started AR (Advanced Reading? or maybe Accelerated Reading?) at school this year and reading suddenly lost its enjoyment and became about a competition and being frustrated about not being able to read the Warrior books (which I think I am fine with him not reading - it is a series of books written by multiple people about a some warring factions of cats). And while he could read the Warrior books he can't check them out from the library because you can only get books within your AR level.

As usual I digress because what this is all about is that Diary of a Wimpy Kid #5 is out and thanks to the Largents being in the know we found out that Jeff Kinney would be at BookPeople for a signing. I took the little boys and Lexy took the big boys.

I should ask JT to provide a guest blog post to fully capture the event. He absolutely loved going. BookPeople had games set up, they got to meet the two stars of the movie, and of course they had their books autographed by Jeff Kinney, which when Rick and I asked JT if he told the kids at school about he responded with  "only certain moms and dads and a friend like Rhys would think having a book signed is cool."

Lexy has tons of cool shots that you can see, just click here.

And for the record although I have no photos to prove it, I took Zach and Griffin to Science Night at school. The teachers set up various experiments and activities throughout the school. The hit of the evening of course is the coke explosion, which is where they put a package of mentos in a 2-liter bottle of coke and it well, explodes or rather gushers out.

I just wrote a letter to Santa!

I just wrote a letter to Santa!

For every letter received, Macy's will donate $1 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, up to $1,000,000. Help make wishes come true by writing your own letter to Santa!

fall baseball

I have been storing this one up for a while and I am going to finally post some shots (sans commentary) of the boys from baseball. I can't take credit for any of these photos (thanks Lexy). I also wish I had time to put them in a collage or something fancy but instead you just get to scroll through some photos!

And now JT

This one requires some explanation. JT and Rhys are longtime Rangers fans. They both followed them religiously over the past few years and can tell you various random team facts.  The Rangers give each other the antlers when a player uses speed to make a play and they give a claw when a player used power on a play. This shot is of JT giving Rhys antlers for beating out a play at second (after JT hit the ball).