Another busy week!

I am sure you have all been checking the mail daily wondering "Where is that Christmas card from The Dwinells???" Ha- just kidding! But just in case you have been anxiously awaiting- I took them to the post office this morning! Yea! Check that one off the list!

This week has been another busy one! Monday I worked at home getting a lot of "work" stuff done. Tuesday I had meetings in Dallas all day with my boss and my technology specialist. Fun times! Wednesday I took Addyson up to Chelsea's school. Chelsea teaches Kindergarten and OMG- her classroom is so cute and her kiddos are so lucky to have such an awesome teacher!
Addyson had the best time! She loved playing "Kindergarten" and pretending like she was in school. While we were there the class had centers, lunch and recess. Addyson played with all the kids and went to recess with them. They were all so funny playing with her. She was the fun new kid in the class for the day! Thanks Chelsea for letting us come up and play!

Later that afternoon Addyson and I played Santa for a little while and dropped off some presents to a family that we had adopted this Christmas. We adopted them with Chelsea and Nick and it feels really good to give to others and do something nice for a complete stranger who is in need. It absolutely breaks my heart when I think of kids who don't have toys, a home, clothes, etc.

Thursday Addyson and I had dentist appointments! Fun times! She loved it again (thankfully!) and was mad when her turn was up. She wanted to go again! That's about the best case scenario you could ask for! I love it that she is not afraid of doctors and new situations. This helps a lot!

Playing doctor...

Picture of Addyson at Vanessa's house! She loves this little snoopy!

Today is my catch up day. I need to catch up on a few work things, get my oil changed in my car (way overdue!!), wrap some presents, etc. Tonight Ryan and I are supposed to go to Del Frisco's for dinner. Yummy!! Love that place! Have a good Friday!

Crazy, busy, fun filled week!

Starting last Wednesday I had a full schedule!! Wednesday night I had neighborhood bunco. No pics of that, but it was fun! I won 2 prizes!! Thursday night we had a girls high school Christmas get-together. It was so fun to see these girls that I used to spend every day with! We had a fun time catching up!

Here is half of the table at Chuy's! Despite the noise, it was great! ;) JOKING!!

Other half! You can't see little Landry by Sara but she is there. So cute!!
Me and Katie

Kelsey and Jennifer (Kelsey came in from San Diego which prompted this get together. Thanks for organizing Kelsey!!)

Jennifer, Kim and Me at Kwanza night at the piano bar! We stayed for about 3 minutes then high tailed it outta there!! We then ventured over to BlackFinn, which wasn't much better! We did have a good time talking, people watching, etc! Fun times!!

Friday morning came and it was play date time!! We all met with our kiddos over at Abbey's Playtown in Grand Prairie. It was fun. My camera died after about 10 minutes so I don't have many pics! Addyson in the trampoline- and no I didn't tell her to pose like this!

The baby bin!! Ben, Colton and Ellington- all within a month or so of each other! Ben was the toy stealer....

Addy on the roller coaster! Wee!

Friday night I had a girls Kappa Christmas party- again, no camera, but super fun times! We met at Fireside Pies in Grapevine and had a gift exchange. It was good catching up with those girls!

Saturday was Holiday in the Park day. It was cold and very crowded but we had a great time!

MiMi and Addy Tate

Me and my baby girl! Nana watched Ben for the night!

So Ryan had been talking up roller coasters all week to Addyson and being the dare devil, not afraid of anything girl that she is, she was SUPER excited to ride all the big rides. The height requirement is 42 inches and this is the first year she met that. Shock Wave was first on the list or "the one with the loop-d-loops" as she called it! Here they are standing in line!

Me and LeeAnn were a bit nervous that our babies were riding the upside down roller coaster!

And the verdict is......FUN!!! Addyson loved it and couldn't wait to get back on! All smiles!

A quick stop to hug Frosty!

We actually only rode 4 rides- Shock Wave, Mine Train (which Addyson informed me was very boring and not very fast after riding Shock Wave), bobsled (loved that one!) and Judge Roy Scream (my personal fav!). The lines were so long that by the time we rode those, ate some dinner and played some games, it was time to go home! During the Judge Roy Scream Addyson was screaming out at the top of her lungs (while arms were in the air!), "MOM, I LOVE ROLLERCOASTERS!!!" It was pretty funny!

Ryan has conditioned Addyson that he will win her a prize if she wants one..... so of course, we couldn't stop by the games without daddy winning her a stuffed animal. Seriously, we have like 500 of these things! This one was pretty cute though- Rudolph!

Playing games!

Six Flags was a super big hit this year- lots of fun now that she can ride the big rides!

Seriously 2 minutes later....she was OUT!

Sunday our across the street neighbor had Santa come to his house and also his reindeer! Yes, the real Santa and 2 of his real reindeer!! How cool is that! We went over to visit Santa and see Comet and Vixen.

Family pic!

Santa and his reindeer. They were so cute!

Vixen!

Okay, looks like the pic of Ben and Santa did not upload. He was not happy Sunday- he was super snotty and cried the whole time! After Santa we went over to Nana and Pops house to celebrate Ryan's birthday!

Whew! Doesn't all of that make you tired just reading it! It was a busy 5 days but lots of fun. It was actually this same weekend last year (full of the same non-stop events) that put me into early labor with Bennie Boo! Good thing he decided to stay put- but that sure was scary. We are so blessed and thankful that all of that turned out okay! Merry Christmas to you and yours and hope you have lots of fun happenings going on as well!

Christmas Cards!

It's that time of year again! Where exactly does the time go? Each year I say I will be more on top of getting my Christmas cards out and here it is, December 9th and I still don't have mine out the door! I did go to the Shutterfly website to pick out a card and they have some super cute ones! They have so many designs to choose from- oh where to start!

We just had family pictures made Thanksgiving weekend and are just now getting those back.....we had a group of 26 people from Ryan's family do a group pic. It actually turned out really good considering we had 26 of us and 8 of those were kids! Fun times!! It turned out to be a beautiful day and everything went as well as could be expected! No one was sick, screaming or refusing to get their picture taken which is all we could ask for!

Now, on to the Shutterfly site! So many choices- I like cards with a lot of pictures! It was easy to filter down that I wanted a 5 X 7 card, 5 pictures, etc. Just fill in the info and wa-la- it was done! Now off to get them mailed!

If you want to do your card at Shutterfly, it was super easy! Just go to www.shutterfly.com and you can look through all of the different designs! Have fun!!

Happy Birthday Ryan!

Today is Ryan's 31st birthday! It was pretty uneventful..... he had a work appointment this morning (as did I) and then we met for lunch. He came home and got some work done and I went to another school to pass out Christmas goodies to some of my professors. Fun times!

Tonight we had crab legs for dinner- it was really yummy!

And cookies for dessert...........yum yum!! Ryan didn't want a cake, much to my dismay. :)


Ryan did, however, buy himself a little b-day present. He has been wanting a golf cart for a while now. He is going to put in an seat in the back that folds down into a utility bench and there are a few other things he wants to do to it. He has been taking Addyson on Christmas light cruises at night around the neighborhood!

Ryan with his babies! Happy Birthday Ryan- we love you!

And he's out!

The other night I was giving Ben his bottle and he was fading fast.....he took one last little drink and then his head just fell and he started snooring. It was so sweet!! He snuggled up and was fast asleep.... I love moments like this! He doesn't really do that very often and I snuggled with him for a while before I changed him into jammies and put him to night night. Love my sweet boy!

He had milk all over his sweet little face- so cute!

The Cocoa Sisters

Tonight me and Addyson had some hot chocolate and some of our Christmas cookies for dessert. PLEASE do not look too closely at me in these pics- I am looking a little rough! Ha! Oh well! Addyson looks cute! It was a sweet little mommy/Addy moment. When we were sitting there Addyson gave me a big hug and a kiss and said, "Mom, we're the Cocoa Sisters!". It was cute!

Yummy!

Addyson has been really attached to mommy lately. I'm not complaining- I love every minute with this sweet little girl! (Ahem, unless it's at the doctors office with 50 other things going on, but other than that I'm loving it!)

Cookie Exchange!

On Sunday I hosted a cookie exchange at my house. It was a lot of fun! There were about 15 of us and everyone brought 3 dozen Holiday cookies. We all traded cookies and everyone took home a few of everyones cookies. Yummy!! I had some appetizers and some Christmas tea (that Jennifer came over and made!) Thanks for your help Jen Jen!

Marcy, Cristie and Jennifer

The cookie table!
Tammy and Julie

LeeAnn and Tiffany

Vicki, Tracy, Addyson, my mom, Maida and Helen. Cheryl must have been upstair for this pic!

We had a good time and now I have lots of yummy cookies in my kitchen! We all brought the cookie recipe as well and gave everyone copies of those too.