Prairie Lights

Thanksgiving night my mom and I took Jane to see the Christmas lights in Grand Prairie. There is a drive through lights display called "Prairie Lights" out there.

You can't tell from this pic but this was a really cool part of the drive.

I made the mistake of mentioning to Jane that we might get to see Santa at the Christmas lights display so the ENTIRE time Jane said things like, "I don't see Santa, Mommy" and "Santa, where are you?" Towards the end of the drive there is a spot where you can park and there is a carousel and concessions and there was also a magic show and a walk through portion that we skipped but the REALLY important part was of course Santa. It was fun to see Jane with him because this was the first year she was really excited to see him. She walked up to him like he was a celebrity (which of course he is to a three year old). She jumped up on his lap and told him what she wanted for Christmas and then smiled really big for her picture. If only Santa had been even half as joyful as she was (he was a little humdrum).

Here she is right after her Santa picture. Still reeling from excitement perhaps.

The Trains at North Park

Today my cousin Kerri and I took the girls to see the trains at North Park Mall. It was a great time. When we got there the girls were given conductor hats.

They didn't last long.

So Kerri thought she would give it a try.

It was a pretty cool display that had a model of downtown and of Mount Rushmore and the White House and New York City.

I didn't think Jill would get much out of it but actually she really liked it too!

After the train display we headed to the library (did you know they actually have a branch of the Dallas Public Library in the mall?) Jane found a nice reading spot.

Jill also found a good spot and an Eric Carle favorite.

Yeah, she's tracking words already. ;)

After a few good books Kylie and Jane made turkeys at the library's little craft table.

Jill met and played with a friend while the big girls made their turkeys.

All in all it was a really fun day with my bestie cousin!!! Love ya' Kerribear!

Curious George Live

Today we took Jane to see Curious George Live. Not much to say about that but a picture is worth a thousand words so here they are...

She REALLY REALLY enjoyed it. I think she liked the one on one time with Mommy and Daddy as much if not more than the actual show. Thanks to Maw Maw for the tickets and the babysitting!

The weekend's adventures

So the really big news this weekend is that Jay and I found out on Saturday that we will be adding another girl to our family. I was pretty surprised because with this pregnancy being so different from my first two I felt sure that it was a boy. Wrong again! I kept asking the sonogram lady... "Are you SURE?" and "Can you check again?". I think in our thirty minute session she checked no less than 10 times. She would say, "There's nothing there Momma" and "that's a hamburger not a hotdog" (her words not mine). We are very excited and looking forward to years and years of nightly slumber parties ;)

In other news... Today I met up with my friends Laura and Jessica at a nearby park. Here are a few pics from there...

Jill is hating the swing isn't she? ;)

Here is a pic of Jessica's boy, Cooper.

We were there for about thirty minutes when Laura and her kids got there and they were there for about 5 minutes before it started pouring down rain! We all said quick goodbyes and ran to our cars. But the adventure (unfortunately for us) doesn't end there. When I got back to the car ready to go the car kept dying and I quickly realized that we were out of gas. Yes, I felt as stupid as you are thinking I am right now! In my defense I wasn't in my car and it just didn't occur to me to check the gas gauge in Jay's. So as we waited the next hour for help to arrive (in the form of my dad and a small gas can) I took some pics of us playing in the car because as I said it was raining.

Jill is like, "Hey mom, here are the keys... can we get going now?"

"Look, Jane I have the keys! Can you give them to mom so we can go?"

Teachers Camping Trip

This weekend I went on the annual teachers' camping trip to Caddo Lake. It was such a great time! There were about 25-30 teachers who went but this pic is of the girls in my cabin. Going from left to right that is: Allison, Janelle, Jennifer, Me and Sophie (all kinder teachers from past or present).

We left Friday afternoon after school and when we got there Friday night we met up with the whole group in the main cabin. Here is a pic so you can see what it is like generally...

That night when we got back to the cabin we made smores.

The next morningish my cabin mates and I walked down to the lake.

Here are some pictures of the lake. Pretty creepy huh?

I thought this was a cool picture of our shadows from the dock. Can you tell who is who?

After we got back from the lake we spent most of the day crocheting, talking, eating, and just hanging out. ( I know we look like 97 year-old women but REALLY it was so much fun!)

We had a fun slumber party that night.

It was such a great weekend and even though I REALLY missed my family I was so happy to get to spend time with such great friends.

Trick-or-Treating

Jane was so excited about trick-or-treating that she woke up and put her costume on and was ready to go by 9:00 a.m. so.... you can imagine it was a LONG day. We finally let her go before the sun was even down around 6:00 (okay 5:45).

A few people were ready for trick-or-treaters but we got several, "Wow! You guys are early". Jay was so embarrassed we stopped after a street or two, which was a good thing because we had to rush over to Southlake to Jane's friend Jennifer's house for real trick-or-treating. Jane was dressed as Belle and Jennifer was Cinderella. The girls held hands walking to all of the houses. It was so cute!

After a while the girls got tired of walking around in their plastic high heels (or at least we thought they should have been tired) so we put them in the wagon. This is Lola, Jennifer, and Jane.

The highlight of the night was one of the last houses we went to. They had a fog machine and a cemetery with scary noises and a witch that watched over the candy bowl to be sure you only got one candy (which were FULL size candy bars- let me tell you trick-or-treating in Southlake is a different experience). The witch would "wake up" and cackle and move which scared the girls to no end. It was all Jane could talk about on the way home! Here are some pics of the girls walking up to the house and then the pic of the witch. She looks much more harmless in this pic than she did in real life.