party!

It is certainly Christmas party season!  I got to go to a super fun get-together with my high school girls on Friday night, and last night we got dressed up and went to the Flowserve holiday party at the W downtown.  Matt has only been with Flowserve for about 4 months now, so I knew zero people, and he only knew the people in his group.  So it was a fun chance to meet new people and enjoy a kid-free night with a beautiful view of Dallas!  It only took us ONE HOUR to get to the valet line once we were in sight of the W, because there was a Mavs game going on {and probably several other holiday parties}.  It was insane.  I've never seen so many cars going nowhere for so long.  But it was worth the wait!  We had a blast, and we realized as we left that we never really made it to the dinner line at the party, so we pretended we were in college and stopped at In-n-Out burger on our way home.  I noticed the other day that I didn't have any recent pictures of Matt and me {in real clothes and without at least a couple of kids photobombing}, so we took a pic in front of the tree before we left.  :)

Merry Christmas!

a day with Santa and several days with ice!

I think we all knew how a visit with Santa would go this year.  Let's be honest.  Emily and Caroline will sometimes burst into tears just at the SIGHT of a FAMILY MEMBER who has a beard, is wearing unexpected glasses, or perhaps has decided to wear a sweater or coat on a cold day.  So the idea of putting them on the lap of a bearded stranger wearing a huge red suit and glasses seems obviously ridiculous.  But I love the Santa pictures, even {and especially} the one we got the year Will was screaming in terror.  So while some people may think it's a little bit mean to torture the babies, I see it as a great way to remember each child's personality at Christmastime of any given year.  And this year, these pictures pretty much sum it up perfectly:

Will was giving his cheesy smiles {as you see in the above pictures} until Santa mentioned the chocolate chip cookies, which brought out a genuine smile!

Sweet Will asked Santa for greek yogurt {second year in a row that this is his main gift request} and a slide.  He also mentioned a playhouse, which we later learned was meant to describe playground equipment {more specifically, the jungle gym that Ben has in his backyard}.  So we discussed that Santa probably knows that we have a pool and no place to put a jungle gym.  And now he's edited his list back down to yogurt and a slide.  I bet Santa can accommodate those requests for such a good little boy!!  

Here are just a few pics I snapped after we got back home because I love the kids' outfits, and I felt like the Santa fiasco sort of detracted from that.  ;)

 hugs!

And then, after we got home from visiting Santa, it got REALLY cold, and started sleeting!!  We woke up Friday to an icy wonderland.  Well...maybe less like a wonderland, and more like 2-3ish inches of solid ice on everything!  All of the roads were completely covered, which is crazy considering that about 48 hours before, it had been 80 degrees.  Welcome to Texas!  So Matt stayed home from work, and we all stayed at the house for 4 days!!  We had to have some outside adventures each day to keep from going stir crazy.  But we never stayed out long, because it was so cold!  It's warmed up quite a bit this week, but there is still ice on some roofs and shady spots.  Crazy!

Everyone was interested in the ice at first.

Even the girls loved it for about 5 minutes.

They wouldn't even look up for a picture because they were staring at the ice!

{and this was right about when they realized how cold it was and stopped enjoying the ice}

Matt and Emily

And here's one of me with Caroline. Yes, I am sort of head-locking her because she was freezing and not pleased.  And yes.  My hat is RIDICULOUS.  It is one that I made a long time ago with the intention for it to be for a child, but I was still learning sizing and it ended up being adult-sized.  And it was the first one I grabbed when we came outside because I had spent 15 minutes getting everyone else bundled in their gear and they were ready to go right then.  And those are my excuses.  But look at the cool ice covered pine needles behind us!

And to finish strong, here's one of Will looking about 50 pounds heaver than he is because of the multiple layers, and me...still wearing the ridiculous hat.  :)  Happy Ice Day!

Christmas pictures

We got to participate in A Walk in the Park Photography's holiday minisessions again this year, and as always, we made Allie work!  Will was a pro - he came right in and started cheesing it up for the camera.  But, as expected, the ladies were pretty hesitant to enjoy themselves in front of a camera.  Caroline especially wanted NONE OF IT.  So although we never got a smile out of her, I love the pics we got.  Here they are!

{I'm holding Emily and Matt has Caroline}

{caroline}

{emily}

Merry Christmas!

thankful

We are thankful for so many things around here, and we had a great time celebrating Thanksgiving with our family this year.  I am especially thankful for these three monkeys who keep me too busy to blog about Thanksgiving until December 10th!  

This year, we had Thanksgiving at our house for the first time ever!  Sometime around when Matt and I got married {I can't remember if it was before or after}, we combined the Goodman and Hawkins family Thanksgivings into one celebration, which is so fun.  We've always had it at my parents' house, but this year we offered to host so we could make use of our new(ish) dining room table, and also just because it's fun to finally be settled in our house and have the ability to have everyone over for a meal!  And what a great reason to use our china and crystal after 8 1/2 years!  I completely forgot to take a single picture once everyone arrived on Thanksgiving day, but here are a few of the table setting and decorations.

Dessert table looked kinda lonely until everyone brought more desserts!

It was such a fun day of celebrating, eating, and spending time with family.  And here's a random collection of recent photos of the children I am so thankful for.  :)

Caroline driving in the coveted red car  {saying "beep beep"}

Whenever the girls wore these Thanksgiving turkey shirts, they would walk around saying, "gobble gobble!"

Playing in their favorite coats from Will's closet.

I made a special order mickey mouse hat/shorts set for a photographer, and the shorts needed to fit a 1 year old, so I had Emily try them on for me since I had only ever made newborn pants and shorts before....too funny!  Maybe I should start making all their clothes out of yarn?  {no.}

One of my favorite pictures EVER of Emily's hair.  It truly defies gravity.

And for comparison...Caroline

Fun times at Will's preschool rodeo! 

{blurry phone pic...these kids are always in motion!}

Something else I am thankful for...Caroline and Emily will usually play with each other in their cribs when they wake up in the morning or from a nap.  They pass dollies back and forth, jump up and down, shriek in delight, and talk to each other.  I hope they always have such fun together.  

And finally...it's my favorite time of the year!!  Christmas is here, and we have had a blast decorating!  Will really loved putting ornaments on the tree with me this year.  I just had to stay a few steps behind him to rearrange them, or every single one would have been in that spot, right there.

We added a felt Christmas tree to the playroom this year.  It's obviously a pinterest idea...who comes up with all this stuff?  Everyone loves it, especially the girls, although they seem to enjoy taking the ornaments off more than putting them on.  But hey - it's entertainment, and we've just had 4 straight days of being iced in, so we'll take whatever entertainment we can get!  ;)

Looking forward to more holiday celebrations to come!

an angry birds halloween

This year, we had an angry birds themed Halloween at the Hawkins house.  If you know Will, you know how much he LOVES to play games on the iPad.  And one of his favorites has always been angry birds.  So because the girls aren't old enough to express an opinion on their costume choice quite yet, we let Will pick his, and I made the girls' costumes to match.  Will chose the red angry bird, so obviously, the girls had to be the little green piggies! I had so much fun making their outfits.  I was even originally planning to make the rest of us shirts with faces of the other angry birds.  And then I remembered that I don't have enough spare time for that.  

Here's sweet Will modeling his costume on one of our practice days.  The girls weren't big fans of the tutus I made them at first, so even though it meant shedding green glitter all over the house, we had a couple of practice runs to get them used to wearing the costumes.  

    

Caroline and Will

{Emily was having NOTHING to do with sitting on the couch on this particular day}

Caroline

And then came the big day.  We got ready...

tutus, check.  headbands, check.  piggie shirts, check.

Emily

Mimi and the girls

The girls even loved their trick-or-treat bags, which they happily called their purses.

And of course, Will was always ready.

And then.  We tried to take a picture of all three kids together.  And the wheels came off.

HOT MESS piggies emerged, and they never really recovered.

So I'm not sure if the horror of taking pictures was just insurmountable for my sweet ladies, or if they would have rejected trick-or-treating anyway.  But we tried to leave with the whole crew after pictures, and the girls were just NOT.HAVING.IT.  It should be mentioned that in the past month, the girls have developed a completely unwarranted and irrational fear of our cat.  This is our former housecat, who now lives outside, weighs in at about 6 pounds, and with the exception of mice, bugs, and small rodents, wouldn't hurt anyone.  Nevertheless...anytime we go outside, whether the cat is around or not, Caroline and Emily start yelling CAT!!! in complete terror.  Sometimes they get over it, and sometimes not.  So Halloween was one of the nights that they just couldn't get over the cat fear, plus were already out of sorts from pictures.  And the idea of taking them to meet strangers just seemed like the worst plan ever.  So my sweet parents stayed home with the girls and passed out candy while the rest of us had a blast trick-or-treating. This was the first year that Will really got it, and once he realized the candy reward potential, he was ALL about trick-or-treating.  He was so sweet, and even kept the neighbors laughing by reporting to several of the houses exactly how many pieces of candy he had collected.  We had a great time, and apparently with the impending doom of trick-or-treating out of the picture, the girls had a delightful evening as well. 

They played...

They hugged...

They danced...

...and they discussed very important piggie business.

 When we got home, Will counted his candy and enjoyed a few pieces.

We even put together an angry birds puzzle from Nana...while dressed as an angry bird.  What could be better than that?

Happy Halloween!!