Home, Glorious Home!

After not posting for 2 weeks, there is a reason.  I've been vacationing in Utah for Christmas.  It's not easy posting pictures on a different computer and storing pictures etc etc.  So I figured i'd be fine doing it after when I got home.  Well I didn't realize how many pictures I took while in Utah. And even in this post, i'm not putting pictures in because I still haven't downloaded them into my computer.  I'm barely getting up and getting laundry going!  

So I never thought I'd look forward to going back to Texas.  Don't get me wrong, Utah is great and ALL my family lives there so it's like a big Terry bash every time.  Yet when you get stuck into 1 room with everyone for 9 days, with an unfamiliar bed to sleep on, it's not really a "vacation."  So now that we are back, it's so nice, with my comfy bed and humid air to breathe!  

On that note, I was amazed at how dry the air is in Utah.  I grew up there so I guess I never realized that.  I am now used to the humid air of San Antonio that Utah, in the winter, is horrible and very uncomfortable.  It's now no wonder why I was sick all the time growing up!  And poor Emma, her hair was a pure static ball the whole time!  I HATE static hair, it's the worst feeling so I knew what she was going through...

So once I get my pictures downloaded, i'll just be doing an array of pictures from the trip.  I got some funny videos too.

So anyways, my home has now become TX, which is a scary thought sometimes but I can't complain.  It really isn't that bad.

"Wicked Awesome" Game Night

Saturday night, we were invited to a couples' game night.  Jamie Smith and Jenni Konkle co-hosted it at the Konkles.  It was so much fun and so glad that we were able to come.  Luckily we were able to find a babysitter for the kids so we could go.  Just have to say thanks Jane for watching my girls.  Emma took right to you so expect another call from me :)

Anyways, it wasn't only a game night but also an appetizer contest and smore making over the fire pit.  So I made some crescent cream cheese and bacon rolls and brought way too many.  We first ate and "judged" the appetizers.  I think Jami won by a landslide since everyone loved the bacon-wrapped chicken she brought.  It was pretty yummy.  I have to give a shout out to the 2nd place winners, The Rays, who brought some yummy mini corn dogs.  Nice job guys!  Jami got some awesome prizes :)

Next, we played one round of Charades.  

That was just a transition to the good stuff.  BUNCO.  Fun game.  Not good at it...but Joe is and was that night.   He was the #1 winner of the night.  He got the highest number of Buncos with 4.  He had never played it before so I was so proud of him!  

Here are all the "winners".  Chrissy got most wins, Joe with most Bunco's, Brian with most Losses(#1 loser), and Jami with her appetizers.

Here is Jamie explaining the rules...Everyone Listen Up!

After wards, we huddled around their "wicked awesome" fire pit they have in their backyard and made smores and talked.  It was really fun and just nice to not have the kids around for a couple of hours...kids, still love ya...so it was great!

They were talking inside for way too long...

So Jill and I made ourselves comfortable and shared some warmth :)  We love those smores!!

Here we are getting smoked on...and I completely forgot to tell Joe to bring a coat so he got pretty cold...sorry sweetie..wha wha...

And here's a pic of Emma with her new winter outfit...LOVE iT!

Poop in the bowl continued

Thank you all for the "ideas".  Karrie was the closest to what actually happened.  Emma was playing out on the porch when I guess she pooped.  Instead of leaving her diaper on and coming to find me (a parents greatest wish), she took off her pants then diaper.  There she found her poop sitting there.  So she got curious and grabbed the ball of poop.  Not too far from her was that empty bowl that was previously filled with animal crackers.  I have tried to drill in her head that things like food need to be kept in a bowl or on a plate so its' not all over the floor.  She probably used that concept for the poop.  So she placed the poop in the bowl so it wouldn't be on the floor.  I guess I should be happy that she's grabbing that concept but for some reason, I'm not :)  Anyways, she ran inside, naked from the waist down with poop all over.  So I had to run and see what she did this time.  Luckily, she had contained the poop in the bowl.  There was some smears on the trampoline cover so that wasn't bad.  I wish they had an "ankle bracelet" to indicate poop.  That way I know when she does it so she doesn't get annoyed or bored that there's this thing in her diaper, which leads to curiosity...Anyways, that's my poop story.  I just thought it was funny when I walked out on the balcony and found the poop in the bowl.  So congrats Karrie for being the closest :) ...and looking at what I just wrote, I see the word "poop" way too many times...

Poop in a bowl...

After reading other "poop" blogs, I guess I was feeling a bit left out.  I had no "crazy" poop stories to tell.  That was until I found this:

Does someone want to guess what happened here?  No seriously, I want all of you to guess how this came about.  The one closest to the actual story gets it published on my blog :)

On a happier note, I found these wicked awesome boots for Emma at Walmart. (yes, I just said "wicked awesome"...yes I need to get out of the year 2000)   

Now Emma and I have matching boots!!  I figure she's going to need some sort of winter footing for Utah.  And occasionally it gets "cold" down here too so i don't feel that bad getting them :)

My little prides and joys

A few weeks ago, I was able to take my girls to Krista Adams's house to take some pictures. She is an awesome photographer that is just starting out. She is really really affordable for what is done. She was great with my girls. Emma, as some of you know, is a bit of a fire ball so she wouldn't sit still in the studio. So Krista just followed her around with her camera, taking pictures of her playing with toys or running around outside. It was great! Kate was a bit moody since it was the day after getting her 4 month shots. But even with that obstacle, she did a great job! Her are some pictures that she did. I LOVE THEM! Thank you Krista for doing a "quacktastic" job on it. I can't wait to get these printed off and distributed all over my house :) And if any of you are interested in taking some pictures from her, click on the "Adams" link under my Friends List of Bloggers, to get more information.

I love this mirror shot!!

These are just so fun! And it was hard to decide since a couple of them, she made them in color, B/W and sepia so it'll be tough to figure out the best look!

Annual Cookie Frosting/Gift Exchange Party

 A big group of girls came over Friday night to do our Annual Cookie Frosting/Gift Exchange Party.  It was so yummy and fun...I hate to say it but we all probably gained like 5 lbs from all the cookies we ate.  My mom has THE best recipe for Sugar cookies and frosting so it was really good!

Marcie, Linsay, Jamie, Courtney, Christine, Me, Jill & Jenni.  Thanks Jazmin for taking the picture!

Next we gathered around the Christmas "Trees" to do our Chinese Gift Exchange.  Everyone brought great gifts.  And everything we ended up with was pretty cool.  I got this adorable black scarf and hot chocolate (Jill, I really did love the Milk Chocolate Hot chocolate...Just ignore our "hot chocolate dislike" from the party.  Your gift we great!!)  The most wanted gifts would have to be the "Willow Angel" figurine and the Cupcake holder.  There was quite a fight on those items but Marcie and Jenni fought to the bitter end :)

Christine, Jill, Me, Jami

Amber, Jenni, Jazmin, Hillery

Jami, Marcie, Linsay, Courtney

After that, we played some games.  We first played "Faces" which is a pretty fun game.  That didn't last long since we went straight to Pit and that was CRAZY.  By then, there was only eight of us left.  We got into it so much, I was surprised that my kids didn't wake up from all the "TWO TWO TWO...THREE THREE THREE!!!"  We played many rounds and by the end, who was the winner?  ME!  I had one five games.  Jill came in a very close second place.  I really thought she was going to win since she had some great tactics down.

So it was a great night, Thanks everyone for coming!  I'm still recovering from it!  We won't go into detail of how late the party went but believe me, being used to going to bed before 11, this was well past that :0

And I just have to give a shout out to the original partiers!  Jaime, Emily & Melissa, we missed you guys here!  Hope you're having Happy Holidays!!

it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas among other things

Well I've noticed a common theme in blogs this week...Christmas Time!!  So here's my "Getting ready for Christmas" post.  So we are going to Utah for Christmas, it's true.  Yet we have 20 days before we leave.  It would have felt empty and un-holidayish if we didn't do some sort of Christmas decoration so on Sunday night, we busted out all that we have...which isn't that much and it's probably a good thing.  For how little we have, it took all night to set up!

Our many boxes pre-decorating stage.

Kate's first Christmas!

So here's view of some of what we did:

There's other stuff and we fixed up the tree but it wasn't on the same day.  And I hate waiting to upload pictures so that's all you're going to get in this post.

The rest of just some fun ones of our days sometimes.  The ones of Kate are actually from her experiencing Solid Foods for the first time.  She did pretty well but that night, she was grunting all night so I don't think she's quite ready for it yet...

I was getting ready to give Kate a bath.  I got it all ready, went to get her and this is what I find when I came back.  Such a sneaky devil!  But such a beautiful one :)