It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

We had to get out the ingredients to make Grandpa Larry's traditional mint flavored sugar cookie cutouts. He always put flour on our noses when we made these cookies so we have carried on that tradition!

Claire did most of the work. Mom was only allowed to work the dough and roll it out part way!

Then we spent some time decorating the tree and going through all of our ornaments from previous vacations we have taken! Always fun to remember all of the amazing places we have been able to see!

Look Mom and Dad...The dogs can dance with me! Poor Emma.....

and poor Belle! At least Belle was wagging her tail during the dance!

 

Happy Thanksgiving!

We have so much to be thankful for...our family, health, safety, shelter, friends, jobs, the list can go on and on. We spent Thanksgiving are our family of 3. We made and ate way too much food. Jeff and Claire have a process they go through to make the best mashed potatoes!

I thought Jeff was crazy when he bought this potato peeler a few years ago. Turns out, it was a wonderful investment and it saves our hands from hurting with peeling!

Our little family spread...super delicious. Good thing, because we will be eating it for the next week!

This year we did a thankful pumpkin. Daily, beginning on November 1st, we would each write things we were thankful for. On Thanksgiving, we went around and explained what we wrote and why. It was pretty special and made us stop to appreciate all the blessings we have in our lives!

And we couldn't take pictures without Jeff and Claire acting silly, so had to include one!

 

Touring Sam Houston University!

Last week Shannon and Ellie came to visit and tour Sam Houston University. We had so much fun learning about the school and campus on Thursday. Ellie liked the campus so much, she wanted to show Jeff and Claire. We headed back to campus on Saturday and spent a few hours walking around. We are super excited to think about the possibility of having Ellie so close!

 

Camping weekend with the Fink family!

We spent the weekend at Jellystone Park in Waller, TX with the Fink family. Claire and Abby got a tent to themselves! It was pretty chilly overnight (down to 39) and we were all glad we brought stocking hats to wear sleeping. During the day with the sun shining, it got up to the low 70s and was perfect camping weather.

The girls spent lots of  time  on the giant jump pillow! 

Friday night we roasted hot dogs over the fire and also made smores.

We were very thankful we could have fires at night! They kept us warm until we had to crawl into our cold sleeping bags!

Jeff created a scavenger hunt for us all to do on Saturday. We divided into parents vs kids and had one hour to find everything. The requirement was we had to show a selfie with all the people on our team in the photo along with the object we had to find! This was a fantastic activity that took over 2 hours!

Saturday for lunch we had walking tacos which everyone had fun with!

We had to all get a round of mini golf in. Of course the girls wanted to go ahead of the parents and do their own game. It is so not cool to hang with the parents!

Blessed to have a great weekend with wonderful friends and ideal weather for camping! Many great memories were made!

 

Halloween 2021

Claire and her friend Averi wanted to be sumo wrestlers for Halloween. Their costumes were hilarious and were the talk of the neighborhood! 

The best part was watching them try to walk!

When the night was done, Claire came home with a bucket full of candy!