The Twelve Days of Christmas

And so it begins!  Let's start off with a great big Merry Christmas from the Party of 5!  Not only does today mark the beginning of the Twelve Days of Christmas, it is also two very special little peoples 22nd month birthday!    

This picture sums up my sweet little boy:

 

 He is quiet, calm and a great big lover of anything that moves: 

cars, trains, airplanes, trucks, etc.   

He must have said TRAIN 50 times at my parents during the five minutes we watched Papa's old train clickity clack around it's track:

 

He knows no strangers.  

He will go to anyone especially if they offer to hold him:)  

Even this jolly old man:

  He is a lover of the outdoors as long as Mama is close by.  

He has such a sweet little smile!  I just love this little boy!

 He has many words and can almost clearly say Kiera.   He has just started to string two words together and he can count to 1!   He loves fruit and sweets and his "big sister" as she has taught him to call her.   His most favorite toy is his bus!  He is a sweet and sensitive boy whom we love dearly!

Crazy, party of 1!

Never a dull moment with this little stinker:

 She is not such a good sharer, so please don't ask her for a bite:)   Speaking of biting, she finally stopped chewing on her brother for her enjoyment!   She really looks up to her big sister and mimics many of her actions.     She is the life of the party wherever she goes...just don't pick her up.  She knows who she belongs to and she doesn't want anyone to be confused by that! 

 She knows ALL of her colors and can count odd numbers:  One, Three....   lol.  She has many words and starting using two word phrases:  my daddy, brubber nigh nigh (brother is night night), and she calls herself Bee.   She loves meat and Fiber One Bars.   I told you....Crazy, Party of 1!  She loves her Daddy like no other and of course that warms his heart!   We are so lucky to have this little bit of spunk in our lives!  We love her dearly!

Tis the Season

To be way behind in blogging.    But here's a little teaser of what's to come in the Twelve Days of Blogging!

Five Little Indians

I adore this picture:

 

It captures a sweet little moment between four seemingly ordinary preschool walls.  Each child is so different and their expressions are sweet as pumpkin pie.

Of course, this is my favorite little Indian from above during her Thanksgiving feast:

Two more of my favorite little Indians in their classroom 

enjoying a little Pumpkin Pie:

 and being a little silly:

 and a little serious:

 Did you see their cute little feet and handprint placemats they made?

And just a week or so ago, my little Indians were the cutest Patriotic People during their Veteran's Day Parade:

All too often, November is skipped over as people tend to go from Halloween to Thanksgiving, but it is probably my favorite time of year.  Yes, it's my birthday month, but it is also a time to be thankful.   Thankful for our freedom and the heroes who fight for that freedom and thankful for the blessings bestowed upon us.   We as The Party of 5 have much to be thankful for!

Peek-a-boo

 

I see you!   

Just stopping by to say Hi!

Nature Fanatics

Life with a camper is fantastic!   Especially when you find that the campground you randomly picked sits on the shore of Lake Conroe:

It's ok that it was a trek through a swamp to get there:

Well it WAS ok until this lady saw that my kids were covered with sand on the way back and asked if they had been down to the lake.  No lady, we went for a roll in the dirt in our tub....   After I told her yes! with a proud smile that said: I allow my small children to do incredibly fun, but dirty things, she looked at me and said, you know there is a sign that says to keep your children and pets out of there because there are alligators.

Alligators? 

Gulp!  

Good thing we had already had a ton of fun!  Ignorance is bliss!

We have an amazing story that went along with this particular campout.   Fortunately, it did not have to do with alligators.  

About 1:00, we pulled into Sam Houston State Park, but were quite unsure exactly where to go.   We realized (or thought) we had missed our turn, so we turned down a road to turn around.  The road seemed pretty wide and desolate, so Kevin made the decision to turn the whole rig around Uturn style.   Don't you know, both the trailer AND the truck got stuck.   The trailer is so low to the ground that it's jacks actually sat on the pavement and sort of dug themselves in.  The truck's tires got stuck in the sand on the side of the road.   So here we were, 34 feet of trailer blocking the road and our truck can't do anything about it.   Turns out the road was not so desolate and a few cars stopped and said the blatantly obvious "Your stuck!" and then I helped them maneuver around our roadblock trailer.   After Kevin fiddled with a few things and remained quite calm about the whole thing, I sensed this was beyond our capability.  I said a quick prayer that God would send someone to help us.   Within minutes a Dodge Ram pickup pulls up complete with a compressor and air bags to lift the back end of his truck.   This is just what we needed to lift the trailer off it's jacks to pull it off the road.   Within minutes his truck was hooked to our trailer and he pulled it free.    Kevin happened to notice that one of his twin sons had an airplane engine manufacturer on it and when he asked where he got the shirt from he said his dad-who was a pilot.   So, here we are an hour away from home and we run into a Corporate Pilot from Katy (20 minutes from our house!) with three children (two of them twins!) with a Dodge Ram with airbags and a compressor that is staying 5 campsites away from us!  Coincidence?  I think not!  An answered prayer?  I think so!  This is how I know....
When we left, they headed out before us.   They turned around and left the same way
the came.   They never went past us and did anything.  It was like they were just taking a drive and happened upon us!
We spent a good part of the afternoon and evening chatting with them and felt very blessed to meet them.   At one point, they said in a different conversation, I don't know if y'all are Christians, but we are!   Of course we are...Thank God!



One particularly wet weekend we joined up with our neighbors and headed near San Antonio.   This campsite was right under the I-35 highway.   It was quite interesting and at arrival looked as though we had booked a mistake.   But, it worked for us even though we saw inches of rain!   The kids had a blast playing in the rain and hanging with some of their favorite people-as did we.   Unfortunately, the rain kept the camera tucked away for most of the weekend except for a few glimpses at one happy, silly little girl!

Here is a picture of our rig (right behind Kiera) and our neighbor, Jerry, cooking up a yummy lunch for us!

We truly enjoy spending time together snug against each other in our fancy home away from home!

Halloween

A cute little puppy:

 A ornery little giraffe:

 and one sick little Bear

  set out to see how much candy they could get!

First stop, our awesome neighbors, Chris and Jerry.

The difference between twins:

One sees what is put in his bucket and even gave it back as if it disrupted his bucket...

  the other heads out and eats everything she is given (on the way!), wrapper and all:

The former refuses to carry a bucket.  Apparently he is on a nightly stroll instead.

 but at last they make it to their first only door together.    After that, the littles went into the stroller and Kiera and me collected candy for them.

 
All the animals had fun but were quite tuckered out at the end of the night!

I am sure part of their exhaustion was because this was their second Halloween celebration.   The first was at their school during Trunk or Treat this past Thursday.  Once the twins saw me, they couldn't really keep it together.   Kiera, on the other hand had a blast and racked up the candy!
 

As we close one season of fun, scary, and dress up we head into my favorite time of year~ November!  A month of thankfulness!  I am thankful for all my readers!  I enjoy writing to you!

The Silver Lining

If emergency rooms had punch cards I'd be well on my way to a free visit.  I have been a patient there three times in six weeks.   The first two times we thought it was a food allergy because of the timing.   The third time it happened in the middle of the night and no I was not up having a midnight snack.   Unfortunately, the third time, Kevin was at work and so I had to impose on my sweet neighbors.  I asked Chris to babysit the kids while Jerry took me to the ER.   I had to use my Epipen and even considered calling 911- that is how poorly I felt.  
The itching starts in my underwear and then goes to the back of my head.   Weird, I know.   Then my face starts to swell and my ears itch like crazy.   The worst feeling is when it feels like my skin starts to crawl.  It is a horrible feeling to literally itch all over and be scared all at the same time.  The first time I required an Epipen, steriods, benadryl, Pepcid, and a breathing treatment.  They say each subsequent time you come into contact with the allergen it could be more severe.  Having that hanging over your head when the itching starts, sort of feels like a death sentence.  
But, once I get the Epipen and the steroid combination, I am good to go.   It is amazing how good steroids make you feel and then add a little epinephrine on top of that....ooooh la la!
This past Friday, I was sound asleep in my bed when the itching started.  I glanced at the clock to see it is 3 am.   Once the itching moved to my head, I got up and took one Bendryl and grabbed the Epipen just in case.  Then Brie started crying.   I figured I just stirred her, so I let her cry it out.   The itching continued and worsened, so I took another.   I tried to lay down and let it kick in, but the pulse in my ears and the swelling in my face began to concern me.  Brie continued to cry on and off.  I called Kevin who was inconveniently sleeping in Newark, NJ to see what he thought I should do.   He told me to take another Benadyrl and make a decision about the ER in the next 20 minutes.  I just love how he can speak so soundly in a dead sleep.   I guess that is the captain in him.   After about 5 minutes, I had called the neighbors and when the nausea and feeling of passing out occured I took the Epipen.  Brie was still crying.    I knew she was not comforted by Chris, but I had no choice but to leave her and take care of myself. 
Upon my return, I heard the sweetest little tale of my daughters.  Soon after I left, Kiera woke up and went to my room.  When she saw I was gone, she called out for me.  Chris went up there and explained to her what happened.  She told her she could crawl into my bed and sleep there.   Then Brie started crying again.  Chris went to get her and brought her downstairs.  I was told she went to the door and began calling out Mama, Mama.   Chris was unable to comfort her, so she asked if she wanted to go lay with Kiera.  She stopped crying, so Chris took that as a yes and brought her to my room.  Kiera opened her arms for her little sister and said, "Sissy, are you sad?"  She cuddled her and got her back to sleep.  Imagine my heart when I returned to my bed only to see my sweet little girls curled up together sound asleep.   Had I not been through so much, I most certainly would have grabbed the camera and frozen the moment forever.    I am so blessed to have such sweet little girls that care so much for each other.

And, I think I may have figured out the culprit....some new make-up.  I pray I am right!