Red River Rivalry & Fredericksburg Wine Festival!

Two weekends ago Jacob and I went up to Dallas to meet our awesome friends, Greg and Lauren, and Wes and Kyle for the Red River Rivalry game (TX vs. OU). They had a flown in from Seattle on thursday night and Jacob and I arrived in Dallas on friday evening. We met them at the Iron Cactus in downtown Dallas for dinner and had a great meal and had lots of catching up to do. We only get to see our buddies 1-2 x's per year, so when we finally do see them there is lots to talk about! Dinner was lots of fun and we got to watch a mini UT pep rally outside of the restaraunt when we finished.

Jacob and I eating dinner at the Iron Cactus in Dallas the night before the game.

The girls after dinner at the UT pep rally, GO HORNS!!

Our handsome boys getting geared up for the game!

That night we headed out to Allen, TX to stay at Wes' grandparents house. It was so sweet of his grandparents to let us stay at their house for the weekend and we had a great time! Saturday morning we woke up early and got all ready for the big game.

All of us ready for the game bright and early on saturday morning.

We got over to the fair around 9 and checked out the fair for a couple of hours before the game started at 11 a.m. The game was allright, although nothing spectacular. Both teams weren't playing very well and the game seemed to go on forever. It probably didn't help that I was pregnant...standing for the entire game (4+ hours)...in cowboy boots...with the sun beating down! Whew! Thankfully the Horns ended up pulling off the victory, so that was all that really mattered! After the game we tasted some fair food, then headed back to the house.

The whole gang at the Texas State Fair before kickoff!


We were all so pooped out by the time we got home that night that we just wanted to relax. We relaxed for a little while then us girls went on a nice leisurely walk around the neighborhood and headed out for a quick shopping trip to the outlet mall. I found some cute stuff for Jacob at the Banana Republic outlet and we got the boys some delicious chocolate covered smores at the Rocky Mountain Chocolate favorite, Yummo!! After a quick and fun shopping trip we hit Cheddars on the way home for a late dinner. It was so fun hanging out with the girls and the boys had lots of fun watching football and catching up back at the casa! On sunday morning we got up and made a yummy big breakfast consisting of waffles, eggs, and sausage. We all enjoyed our last meal together and then Wes and Kyle headed off for the airport. Greg and Lauren's flight was later that evening so they went with us to the Dallas Galleria for a while before heading out of town. The 4 of us went and got pedicures at a nail shop in the mall and we all loved it! It was so relaxing and nice especially since we had all been up walking or standing the entire day before! We grabbed some mexican food with Greg and Lauren then took them to the airport! It's always so sad when they leave because we know that we won't seem them for several more months, but we had a blast with you guys! We already miss you all and SO wish y'all lived closer!!!

Our wonderful neighbors, Scott, Michelle, and Riley are finally back home after being gone temporarily for 7 months to Washington state! We are SO happy that they are home and the girls are having a blast playing with one another again! They were so happy to see each other and held hands walking down the side walk!

Riley and Jayda finally reunited!!


Jayda was so excited to see Riley she was jumping for joy!


Last Tuesday night we had our friends Scott, Michelle, and Riley and Tara and Keirsten over for dinner and to celebrate Michelle's birthday the saturday before. The 3 girls ate so well together at the picnic table. They were all feeding each other and sharing, it was so cute.

The 3 musketeers having dinner at our house to celebrate Michelle's birthday!


Sweet Michelle with her yummy strawberry cupcake, courtesy of miss Tara!


Jayda and one of her playgroup buddies pushing Jane at the playground. I thought this picture was hilarious, seeing that they could all get on and go together, but they decided just to push one person at a time!


This past weekend we went to Fredericksburg with Scott and Michelle for the Food and Wine Festival. We stayed at a Bed and Breakfast there called Camp David and had a really good time. The B&B that we stayed out was only a 1/2 mile from the festival so that was pretty cool. Each morning the inn keepers brought us a yummy homemade breakfast, so that was pretty neat. Jacob and I went walking both mornings and enjoyed the slow pace of life there. It was very quaint and peaceful and made me think I could definitely live somewhere like that! The wine festival started at noon on saturday and went until 7 p.m. We spent most of the day tasting wine (not me of course), foods, cheeses, and shopping. The festival was really neat and we all had a fun time! For lunch we went to eat at a German pub, so that was fun to try some different kinds of food.

Jacob and I at the wine festival!


One of my favorite spots in Fredericksburg was a gourmet store, can't remember the name of it. It had all kinds of gourmet dips, salsas, chilis, spreads, oils, vinegars, jams, fudge and on and on. The best thing about it was you could try everything in the store!! Eveything was so good and I could of literally eaten lunch there just by trying all of the samples! You should of seen Jacob and I. We were going from one thing to another to another just stuffing our face, it was soooo good!

Michelle and I tasting lots of delicious things at the gourmet shop in Fredericksburg.


That evening we went to another restaraunt with live music and hung out there for a while. By saturday night I was worn out and went back to the B&B and hit the sack early. On sunday morning we woke up to nice homemade breakfast (altough I wasn't a big fan of the Huevos Camp David, the homemade banana bread was great!) and then hit up the Fredericksburg Pie Company on the way out of town! We tried their Key Lime pie and Peanut Butter Cup pie and they were sooo good! It was a great end to a great weekend! Thanks so much for inviting us Scott and Michelle!

Also, huge thanks to Oma and Oupa for taking care of miss Jayda while we went to Dallas and to Nanna and Pawpaw while we went away to Fredericksburg. We are so thankful to have great parents/grandparents like y'all who are willing to take care of miss busy body for the weekend! If it wasn't for y'all we wouldn't be able to go on trips like these, thank you and we love you!

First Haircut and Pumpkin Patch Pics!

These are Jayda's pictures from her first haircut this past saturday!

Getting her hair washed, her favorite thing!


All done washing, time for the haircut!


First hair cut ever! She was such a good girl!


All done and fixed up with pig tails!


Justin and Jayda hanging out at the mall.


Today we went with our friends, Tara and Keirsten, to a pumpkin patch near our house. The girls had a lot of fun running around in all the pumpkins and the mommys had lots of fun trying to get their pictures, haha!

Jayda at the pumpkin patch holding one of her pumpkins.


Jayda and Keirsten posing together at the pumpkin patch.


Sitting with the pumpkins.


Putting lots of stickers on all of her pumpkins.


The finished pumpkins, so cute!

Jayda @ 2 Years + Some!

Jayda is 2 years old plus a couple months and I realized that I needed to do a post on what she's been up to lately, recent milestones, her personality etc., etc.

-For starters she just had her first hair cut ever this past saturday. It's hard to belive she was a whole 2 years old before she ever even got a hair cut!! We took her to the kids hair salon, Snip Its, in the Woodlands mall for this experience. She loved getting her hair washed and looked so cute walking over to her chair with a little towel wrapped on her head. She did so well while the lady cut her hair and they even fixed her hair up with pig tails, bows and sparkles! After she finished she got down and started walking around strutting her stuff like she was a big deal, which she was of course, right?! It was so cute and such a sweet memory! And don't worry, crazy picture/video camera mommy got it all on tape!

-She is realllly into changing clothes/shoes/panties ALL the time. And, no she doesn't want mommys help, she wants to do it all by herself. Everytime we leave the house, get home from going out, get dirty, get wet, eat lunch, take a nap, do anything, miss Jayda thinks it's time to change her clothes. Most of the time I let her do it, but I do have boundaries to what she can wear and she usually doesn't leave the house looking too crazy...although I'm sure those days are going to be gone soon! It's pretty cute seeing her dress herself and she loves the independence!

-We are pretty much completely potty trained! I'm sure I've said this before, but this is a LONG process! She had been doing really well about using the potty at home, but did not want to use the potty out in public. Well, just within the past week she has started going on the potty when we are out and about and wearing panties (instead of a pull up). Then, today for the very first time EVER, she went on the potty at church!! For as long as she's been "potty trained" she has never gone in the church nursery. Today when I walked in to pick her up from bible study her teacher told me that she went on the potty in class! You don't know how proud and happy that makes a mommy that has been potty training their child for the past 6 months!!! She was SO proud of herself! We yelled and clapped all the way home and even called to tell daddy at work about the good news! This truly was a huge milestone for her! And, a huge lesson for mommy. It doesn't matter how badly I want her to be potty trained, or go potty in public, or whatever it may be, she has to want to do it herself, in her own time, and when she feels comfortable. Praise the Lord that time has finally come!

-Jayda has learned many bible songs at church and she loves to sing the Lord's Army and Jesus Loves Me. For some reason especially after she gets out of the bath at night she runs around in her room naked and sings the Lord's Army. And, she doesn't sing it at the normal pace, she sings it really fast and crazy. It is so funny and so sweet! One of the sweetest things ever is to hear her little voice sing Jesus Loves Me! Oh, it just melts my heart! I love her little sweet, innocent voice!

-She is very affectionate and loves to give us hugs and kisses and loves for us to love on her. She is very sweet to her baby dolls. She rocks them, sings to them, hugs them etc. She also likes to talk to baby Sydney in mommy's belly! One of the funniest things she says is (in her own grammer) "Hey baby Syndy, whatcha' doin in der? Playin wit' toys, yah?" It makes me laugh everytime she says that. It is so sweet to think that she really does think that little Sydney is playing with toys in mommy's belly! I can't wait to see her interactions with Sydney once she gets here, I just know that she is going to be a great big sister!

-Jayda is talking very well. She puts together many sentences and will copy you like a parrot with whatever you say. Here are a few of the common things she says:
"I want to watch Mickey Mouse mommy"
"I want some milk"
"I'm tired"
"Can I ride my bike to the park?"
"I need my flip flops"
"I need a new shirt"
"Where's my ______?"
"I need to tee-tee"
And you get the point. These are only a few examples that I can think of, but I just want to remember these little details.

-She loves going to chruch on sundays and tuesdays and playing with other kids. It is great for her to have the social interaction, plus it's a great place for her to learn about the bible! She also really likes going to playgroup once a week. She is very much an extrovert and loves to play with other kids. She would much rather play with kids than play by herself. She has a strong personality and has an opinion about everything. She is always telling me "I like that", or "No, I don't like that!" At least the girl knows what she wants!

-She has become more of a monkey! She goes around the house to any ledge on a counter top and says "Look mommy!" and pulls herself up on the counter while her legs dangle. She does this probably 20x's a day! Everytime she says "I'm cong (strong) mommy!" She also discovered that she can pull her little tricycle around the house, stand on the seat, and reach just about anything on the counter tops that mommy has put away so that she COULDN'T reach them. That's been fun! The other day I was talking on phone and turned around to see her with her bike pulled up in the pantry and standing on the 2nd to highest ledge in my pantry! Talk about a heart attack! I ran over and yanked her down. Of course she started screaming and crying because I had taken her down since she had seen some left over Nemo cups from her birthday party up in the very top of the pantry and was trying to get one down before I got to her. I simply told her to tell me the next time she wants a cup and I'll get one down for her, sheesh! Once she decides she wants something, she goes for it!

-She is very fearless! That is a good and bad thing. It's good because she is very independent, doesn't need mommy too much, happy playing on her own, and lots of fun to do all kinds of fun things with. On the other hand it's bad because she is not scared of running out into places where she shouldn't be, jumping into water when she shouldn't be, climbing onto things where she definitley does not need to be, etc..I just have to keep a very close eye on the little miss while continuing to encourage her independence!

-Her favorite color right now is blue. She picks out blue panties, blue candy, blue t-shirts, blue crayons, blue everything! Most of the time she says "blue _____, like daddy". So I think it's because daddy likes blue and wears blue shirts that she is so in love with blue right now, it is so sweet!

-She loves to look at pictures and photo albums. She will either tell you who everyone in the picture is, or ask you who everyone in the picture is. She could sit down and look at a photo album for 30 minutes straight (which 30 mintues for a 2 yr. old is really good).

-She is very curious and loves to learn new things. If she ever sees or hears something and doesn't know what it is she always asks us "what's that?" Altough it does get tiring answering 100 million questions a day, I love that she is so aware of her surrondings and wants to learn about everything around her.

P.S- I'll be putting up first hair cut pictures very soon!

Fun Fall Festivites!

Well fall seems to be in full swing, despite the yucky, rainy, hot weather! We have been doing lots of fun activites lately and we're gearing up to do even more fun stuff throughout the rest of October!

Two weekends ago we went to Jayda's little friend's 3rd birthday party at a park by our house. The park that the party was held at happened to be where we met her friend, so that was pretty neat. The girls had so much fun at the party playing at the playground, riding around in someone's wagon (not sure who it belonged to), playing in the sand at the volleyball court, and eating cupcakes! Oma came in town for a short visit on saturday so she got to go the party with us and hang out on sunday for a while.

Jayda and Olive taking a juice break at Olive's 3rd birthday party.


Who needs the cake when you have icing?? Enjoying the top of her cupcake at the party.


Oma and Jayda last weekend.


Last wednesday we went to Joe's Crab Shack for playgroup. The moms got to sit around and talk while all the kiddos played on the playground and ran around like crazy. We had a lot of fun and it's a great place to take the kids! Jayda kept running inside to the restaraunt (we were sitting outside on the patio so we could watch the little ones) even though she wasn't supposed to. I kept having to chase after her and pull her back outside. One time I ran inside to get her, for the 100th time and I didn't see her right away. All of a sudden I heard a little voice say "Hey mama!!". I turned around and there she was hiding in the booth with her little friend who she had brought inside with her. It was pretty funny so I just had to get a picture. Little turkey!

Jayda playing in the tunnel at Joe's Crab Shack. She thought this was the funniest thing!


Jayda and Thomas being mischevious at playgroup, can ya tell?


This past weekend my mom came to stay with us to do the Race for the Cure in downtown houston on saturday morning. Unfortunately this year I could not run with her (boo) since I'm prego, so I went along with her for moral support. As usual we had a lot of fun and mom even improved her time from last year by 15 seconds, way to go mom!!! Jayda and Jacob came up to meet us after the race was over and we walked all around and got lots of fun, free stuff. We always have a great time at these races, I can't wait to participate again next year! Later that evening we went to check out our neighborhood's annual Harvest Festival. We didn't go last year, so this was our first time to go and we weren't sure what it would really be like. It ended up being really awesome, especially for the kids. They were giving train rides, had 4 bounce houses set up, booths, bake sales, concerts, rock climbing wall, petting zoo, camel rides plus lots more! Jayda had so much fun and we were so mad we only went up there with 1 hour left! Next year we'll have to get out much earlier!

The 3 of us at the Race for the Cure Houston on saturday.


Jumping around like crazy in the bounce house at the race.


Our little running back!


Going for a ride on the choo-choo train at our neighborhood's Harvest Festival.


Sliding with daddy at the festival.


Sunday was Oma's birthday! I made us chinese sundae for lunch after church that we all enjoyed and then we celebrated with homemade carrot cake for desert! We hope you had a great birthday Oma!

Giving Oma her homemade birthday present.


Singing happy birthday to Oma!


Soooo excited that she helped blow out the candles!!