Christmas Cookies!

We've been doing some baking for Christmas around our house. Sunshine defiantly enjoys helping out in the kitchen and was excited to get to decorate cookies with her cousin one morning. I think the amount of sprinkles they consumed were equal to amount they put on the cookies. It was a lot of fun!

Red sugar tastes great!

Cheese!

Working on their cookies.

Showing me their messy hands and faces.

Mmmm!

November

November was a busy and fun month. At the beginning of the month we held our annual grad student party. We ate, had a campfire, and made 'smores. It was a lot of fun and I know Sunshine really enjoyed all the attention that everyone gave her. We had a early frost so we cleaned up our garden and harvested the rest of the pumpkins. I am excited about starting a spring garden early next year. Our winter garden is not going so well right now, so I am thinking about just taking a break from it until it February or so. But, garden fresh salads would be great- so I may change my mind.

Loading up the pumpkins!

This year we spent Thanksgiving with my family. Sunshine and I went early so that we could attend my cousin's wedding in Dodge City. It was great to see everyone at the wedding and I am so glad that we were able to make it. We spent most of our time at my Dad and Mom's. We had so much fun and made so many great memories! I did get to visit one of my roommates from college while we were there. It was great to see her and get our kids together to play!

We helped my mom prepare Thanksgiving dinner. Sunshine "helped" in the kitchen and my mom was very gracious to let her.

Helping Grandma with the cranberry jello.

My mom enjoys playing the piano and Sunshine enjoyed sitting beside her and singing. They sang/played hymns and Christmas carols multiple times. I loved it.

My Dad took Sunshine for a ride in the combine. She loved watching the auger come around to the side of the combine and hearing Grandpa honk the horn.

Thanksgiving day with the cousins! This is 4 of the 5 cousins. They are a blast!

We ended our trip with dinner at Puffy's Steakhouse (one of our favorite local restaurants) with 2 of my sisters. My mom watched the grand kids and we enjoyed the time to ourselves. Thanks Mom!

Country Fair

Last Friday we attended the Country Fair at our church. It was a lot of fun and Sunshine was especially happy because her cousin came too! Here are some pics from the evening.

Ready to play with the water guns!

They had a photo booth, which I thought was a great idea. The veterinarian and the ballerina liked it as well because they got a prize just for sitting there and smiling!

Exiting the bounce house

First Haircut

Last week I took Sunshine in for her first haircut. I was a little sad that she was old enough to have her hair cut. But her hair looks so much better now! Below are a few pictures I took of her prior to the beauty shop visit.

She's been real cheesy lately...makes taking pictures hilarious and sometimes a little frustrating!

She did a great job holding still- probably because I let her watch

veggie tales on my phone for most of the time.

We had family pictures taken Monday night, so as soon as I get those back I will post a picture of her with her new style.

It's been so long since I posted, that there is so much that I could write. On a sad note, we lost our little dog, Sadie, in an accident over the weekend. We miss her lots, she was such a sweet dog. We are glad that we will be able to get a full sister to Sadie around Christmas time.

Our fall garden is starting to produce. We have lots of okra and peppers right now and hopefully some tomatoes soon. Sunshine has some pumpkins that are about to turn orange- she has really enjoyed checking on them everyday. She also has a cucumber plant that has lots of "Larry's" (veggie tales) on it. She loves to look for "baby Larry's". The other day she picked a Larry and asked if we could take it in the stroller while we went for our run. When we got home she said, "Let's take Larry inside and eat him for lunch." It cracks me up! She put a Larry in the refrigerator a few days ago and then took it out because "Larry was cold." Oh the conversations one can have with a 2 year old!

Well more later, I need to go make that apple pie I've been thinking about making this afternoon.

Conversations

I realized the other day that I haven't posted in about a month! Wow, time flies. We recently purchased a new computer (I love it!), but I haven't been able to transfer pictures from my camera to the computer- which has contributed to my lack of posting. I need to make a phone call to Canon, because unfortunately it doesn't appear to be a simple fix.

However, I thought I could still share what Sunshine has been talking about lately. It is so fun to listen to her develop in her language skills. Lately she has been talking about halves. Yesterday she said, "Do not eat half of my banana." We usually share a banana at breakfast. She and her stuffed animals go "grocery shopping" around the house. She has them order "a half a pound" of cheese or turkey at the deli counter- it is so cute!

We've been encouraging her to tell God what she is thankful for. Here are a few people/items that have been on her list:

Daddy, Mommy, and Larry (from Veggie Tales)

Evie's food (a friend's play food set)

doors

cupcakes, grapes, cheese, bread (she is very specific about the food she is thankful for)

It's so sweet, and often is a reminder to me to be thankful for ALL things.

Lastly, I will share a conversation we had a few weeks ago. We have a bird that built a nest in one of our hanging baskets on the back porch. For at least a week we could hear the little birds chirping/crying for food. One day I took Sunshine out to see them I took the basket off of the hook and let her peer inside. She asked, "Can I hug them?". I explained to her that we could not touch them because they belonged to the mommy bird and she wouldn't like it if we touched them. She then said, "Their mommy will hug them."

So those are just a few conversations from the last few weeks. I am sure there will be many more memorable ones to come!

Texas Staycation

On Monday we returned from our family summer staycation. We had such a great time together as a family. We decided to take our old digital camera since we were going to Sea World, just in case we got splashed by Shamu. I forgot how slow that thing is! I would press the button to take a picture and like 4 seconds later it would take the picture....needless to say that doesn't work so well with a 2 year old. Here are some of the pics from our trip.

We all enjoyed Sea World. It was so fun to watch Sunshine get excited! We

watched all of the shows and visited all of the animal exhibits while we were there.

We spent one morning at the San Antonio Zoo.

We have a Texas State Parks pass-which is really handy.

Here we are at the Colorado Bend State Park.

Sunshine enjoyed climbing around on the trees at the park.

This picture was taken at Enchanted Rock near Fredricksburg. It was SO hot the afternoon we visited. Sunshine was trying to tempt us to get out of the shade.

One of my favorite things about vacation is finding new places to eat. We ate on the Riverwalk in San Antonio twice. Sunshine and I shared a slice of Raspberry Diablo from the Iron Cactus one evening. It was VERY good. I am trying to find a recipe like it so I can make my own!

One night we ate the famous Coopers BBQ in Llano. It was very good. We all three shared this pork chop and still couldn't finish it- it was huge!

The Lake

The weekend before last we went to lake LBJ with some friends. We had so much fun and really enjoyed the time to relax and be away from home. Sunshine loved the fact that the weekend involved water.

T and I were able be out on the lake by ourselves, thanks to our friends'

willingness to play with Sunshine.

This family canoe outing was very memorable. Sunshine used a

little shovel as her oar. It was so cute!!

Sunshine ADORES Abby! Here they are playing in the sand.

T's favorite thing about the lake was the jet ski. It was big enough for all 3 of us to ride on at one time. The first time we took it out, we flipped it on it's side...yea for life jackets! We also took the boat out a lot and I am hoping that next summer Sunshine will be big enough to try tubing.