Ready for the Holidays

With kids the holidays are super fun. The kids are ready and helped up prep.

The weather is so warm we've still been able to play outside some evenings.

The kids have helped with decorating. Making decoration's at GiGi's house and designing.

Making decorations

Decorating at GiGi

They helped with the big tree. I only had to do the higher up decorations.

They loved decorating so much we got them a small tree of their own.

We are all enjoying the holiday season!

Not Just a Puppet Show

KiKi knows the twins have a ton of toys, so she and Uncle Martin like to plan experiences as their birthday gifts. This year the twins saw Hansel and Gretel at Geppetto's Theater and Workshop at the Anatole.

Cool experience for the twins

First of all, I didn't even know this theater existed. It's downstairs at the Anatole hotel and when you walk down the stairs you enter the most adorable, cozy little theater.

Before the show starts, the puppeteers show the kids the different kinds of puppets and let them try working the marionettes themselves.

These puppeteers take their craft seriously. In turn, the twins actually got the hang of working a few of the puppets and it was fun to watch them.

The show was a blast and they even let the kids go back stage afterward to see how everything worked. It was a wonderful experience.

Of course, KiKi didn't let the kids out of the theater without buying them puppets of their own. A mouse Connor named "Cheesy" and Chloe got a cat she named "Kittyball."

With Uncle Martin and our new puppets, Cheesy and Kittyball

Halloween Costumes and More

As you may know, Carl and I met at a Halloween party. Lately we've learned the kids enjoy dressing up too.

Halloween 2011

This year for Halloween, Connor was Batman and Carl was his side kick Robin. Chloe and I were both butterflies.

Swan Halloween 2014

But dressing up isn't only for Halloween. The kids like to break out costumes throughout the year.

Spook Symphony with GiGi and KiKi

Neighborhood princesses

Cowboy Spiderman

Birthday party dress up

Superhero birthday party

A very serious batgirl at her birthday party

Pirate breakfast

Mermaid and sword fighting

Cowboy day at school

Light up masks when you have an awesome babysitter!

We love you Amy!

That's it for now, until the next opportunity to dress up. Maybe a random Tuesday.

Birthday-O-Rama

The twins turned 5 on the 14th, but we've been celebrating their birthday for over a week.

We travled to Louisiana the weekend of their birthday to see Carl's side of the family.

We had a birthday lunch with Popsie and Nana at Connor's favorite pizza place. 

The next day the twins got to decorate their own birthday cakes for a celebration in New Iberia.

When we got back to Dallas we had a taco party and cupcakes at preschool.

And finally, last Saturday we had a super hero birthday party.

Bat Girl is very serious about her responsibilities 

Very serious

Except you can smile when hanging out with Super Girl

Capes and masks ready for decorating. Thank you to JoJo and Kiki for all of your help with the decorating. I think it was really fun!

Super Penelope

Super Connor

Super Ashleigh

at the end of the party we're Super Tired!

The bar may be set a bit too high for future birthdays.

Loving the Perot Museum

We joined the Perot Museum of Nature and Science right when it opened. It was great a first, but they needed to work out a few kinks that first year, exhibits were getting worn out, it was too crowded and hard to get around.

I didn't renew our membership, but then as summer came around I knew we needed something indoors since the zoo and the Arboretum would be way too hot. We has cousins planning to visit in July so I figured I'd renew our membership before they arrived.

I'm so glad I did. We've been a ton of times this summer and the kids really love it. On our last visit:

We got to dig for dinosaur bones at an example excavation site.

We played music

I even bribed the kids to be in a picture with me, since I'm usually the one taking the pic

For taking a picture I let them get little dinosaur excavation kits.

Serious excavation

Dino prize

We saw a 3D movie about butterflies and liked it so much we went back the next day with Daddy and GiGi to see the one about pandas. (The pandas were cute, butterflies are awesome in 3D)

Now the museum has found a mammoth and you can watch the dig site live. So cool. The kids are so excited they want to help raise money to "bring the mammoth home!"

Way to go Perot.