Preschool Turkeys

We made these turkey hats in preschool when I taught the Monday before Thanksgiving. I had to get a picture with them all wearing them. They really liked wearing them and Allison still wears hers. There are actually 9 kids in Allison's preschool class but 2 were already on vacation for this class.

Allison absolutely loves going to preschool. I get to hear about everything she learns. It is really fun to see her so excited about going to her school:)

Because

Allison loves when I take pictures of her so I have lots of random pictures of my sweet little girl. As I was taking pictures of the diploma she wanted me to take some of her so here they are.

I must have had the camera out for another reason because this is another, "Mommy, will you take a picture of me please?" How can you say no to that.

Her pink baby got taken away when it didn't get put away so this is now the baby of choice...or it is the only one out right now, she has to cling onto it.

Mother/Daughter

I tried to go to the last Saturday Volleyball game of the Aggies. I wasn't going to go since I didn't have anybody to go with me and then I decided that Allison could be my buddy. I think when I took Matthew the last time I saw a game, he was this old. I got us dressed in our matching clothes and went to the game...only to find out that the game had actually been moved to earlier that day and there was a women's basketball game going on that night. I thought the tickets to the women's games were really expensive since they are the raining national champions so I decided we would just come home, but had to get a picture.

A week or so later, I found out that the Volleyball teams' last game was Wednesday night before Thanksgiving. Since I didn't have cub scouts that night I planned on going and taking Matthew. The game was at 5pm. I was watching a little girl until 4:30 and then I was planning on leaving right after that. I am not a big fan of going by myself especially leaving Chris with both kids while I go "play" when I could take a child. Chris let Matthew go to a friends house since he didn't have school that day and they said they would bring him back at 4:30. 4:30 came and the little girl came got picked up, but Matthew didn't get dropped off. I kept calling and calling but nobody answered. I figured if I knew where they were I would just go pick him up. I was so frustrated but determined to make it to one of the Volleyball games. I finally ended up driving to the friends house, looking at every car on the way to see if they would pass me. He was still at the house, I picked him up and sped off to A&M. There was a huge line for tickets and by the time we got up there to get tickets it was already too late to watch much of it. I was so frustrated because I didn't get to spend that time with Matthew, which he was excited to go to a Volleyball game and that was the last chance to get to watch A&M Volleyball this year. Needless to say, I cried and I was not in the mood to take pictures of Matthew and I matching. I guess a good thing about if we can't find a job, is that we will still be here for next years season and then I might be able to make it to a Volleyball game....I hope that is not the case though.

Three Letters

Chris actually picked up his PhD diploma on August 16, 2011 which was Allison's 3rd birthday. He went and got it framed with a maroon frame. He wanted it to look similar to his Masters diploma but it is boxed away. Hopefully when we finally pull it out it will look similar. Chris' parents have been wanting a picture of him with his diploma but you aren't going to get one with Chris smiling. Right now he thinks it is not all the useful since he hasn't gotten a job with it yet but I know it will get him a good job somewhere. Here he is and then some with a little boy that was much more excited about holding it then his father:)

The funny thing about this is that it doesn't even say what field it was in. He is just a Doctor of Philosophy. On his Master's degree it at least had a little memo in the bottom that said, History. This one, not even a side note. It is still so crazy to see letters addressed to Dr. Chris Thomas. He is funny when he turns it on and off. He definitely doesn't like people addressing him as Dr. Thomas but I like having the kids call him Dr. Daddy:) I am so proud of him and yet sometimes it is still hard for me to wrap my head around that he is actually done and finished and has those three letters behind his name that have so much weight.
Really? He is now Dr. Thomas? That is CRAZY!!! I LOVE IT!!! I am so proud of him for making it through all the stuff that he had to go through to get it. We survived the 7 years of graduate school!!! That is also a huge accomplishment:)

Chris Thomas, PhD

Those a three beautiful letters after his name:)

Nine Years

We celebrated our 9th Anniversary on November 8th. Ok, we hardly ever celebrate anything on the actual day. Since our Anniversary was on Tuesday we went out Saturday night to celebrate. We drop the kids off at the Trousdales and then we went to a newer restaurant called The Lemon Wedge. I had heard a friend try to go there once on their date but it was closed Monday nights. I didn't really know what kind of a place it was and we were trying to figure out where to go. I looked it up online and it seemed like a pricier restaurant, out of league, however we had a buy one get one free entree out of our coupon book, we we decided to give it a try.
It was definitely fancier then we ever go, but it tasted SO good. Our waitress was new and it took a really long time, but everyone has to start somewhere right. We were the lucky winners of a new waitress but the food was SOOO good. My dish was a little spicier then I would have liked but the taste was so good I just had to keep eating it. Chris really liked his dish also. It is downtown Bryan and seems pretty new, maybe a year or so? Either way it was REALLY good food. We have another coupon there so we are going to have to go again for some big occasion.
After we got home, I wanted to get some pictures of Chris and I so I handed my camera over to Matthew. I don't do it all that often but he has a huge smile on his face when I do. He knows what a huge honor it is to hold or even touch my camera. Here are the pictures that Matthew took of my honey and I. I am sure glad he married me 9 years ago. He absolutely treasures me and makes me feel like the most precious/special thing in his life. He makes me feel so good about myself and supports me with all the crazy things that I do. I am so glad that he is my best friend and my husband!! He is not perfect, but I really like this guy:)

Brazos Valley Natural History Museum

We have lived here for seven and a half years and yet we had never been to the Brazos Valley Natural History Museum. We have been to natural history museums in New York City and Washington DC but never right in our town. Of course we knew that it would never compare to those other cities but it would still be fun to go. We found a coupon in our big coupon book for 50% off and we had a free Saturday so off we went.
We actually were wondering if it was even open because there was only one car in the parking lot. Like I said, it isn't very big. Ok so you have the front desk area. I bigger room, a small library and a kids room. It was so fun because we were the only ones there. The kids enjoyed looking at the different animals and guns, knifes and tools. Matthew told us which hand gun he was going to use when he went off to fight in the war:( I am not a big fan of my son going off to war. Hopefully I can work that out of him by the time he gets older. Those families that have husbands, wives, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles, mommys, daddys, sisters, brothers, and everybody else that go to war, I salute because that is one very hard thing to do. But hey, at least I know what handgun he wants to use now:)

Yep, one of these is the one he is going to use:)

He is obviously so scared that this bear is going to eat him that he is laughing about it.

In the library reading and looking at books. It was cool because Matthew found an insect book and some of its pages talked about caterpillars/butterflies and they talked about and hatched butterflies in their preschool last year so he already knew all about it and was telling me what all happens.

The kids room

This is turtle (tortoise) shell. I didn't know that they were actually attached right to their spine. It was interesting to see, since I had never seen the underside of a shell.


The kids room had a lot of snakes to look at as well as turtles and then spiders and scorpions and beetles and huge cockroaches. Seriously we really need to see what huge cockroaches and scorpions look like? It was DISGUSTING!! Other then those things, it was pretty cool to see everything else.


They had lots of different sizes of puzzles that we spent so much time doing. As a family we actually put together every puzzle they had. It was such a great day. One of those days that you really enjoy your children and are just thankful that you got so spend so much wonderful time together.

As we were doing our puzzles, this snake started doing dances for us. It was fun to see.

After we got all of our puzzles done, they had coloring pages for us to do, so we did that as a family. It was SO MUCH FUN!!! We actually spent 3 hours there and it wasn't until the very end did anybody else show up and then it was only a couple, no kids. That could be why it was so fun is because we didn't have to worry about our kids being in anybody's way, or other children being too loud or crazy for us.

All in all it was a great outing.

Pumpkins

Matthew was so excited to carve pumpkins this year. I finally made it a priority and this is what we came up with.

Cute Snow White

It's A First

Ever since Allison has been getting hair she has always had a longer piece of hair. The bottom part of her hair is long but it isn't very long on top. I await the day that I don't have to worry about keeping those little pieces of hair from flying away. This long stringy piece of hair I have wanted to cut and in fact my wonderful mother-in-law also thought I should cut it MANY moons ago but she had so little hair I couldn't cut what she had off. Allison's hair has curl it in except this long string piece the just hung down. It drove me crazy all of the time. I kept thinking I should cut her hair finally for the first time but I had a friend that finally cut her daughter's hair at age 4 and her long beautiful curls never came back. I always feared that with Allison so I didn't want to cut her hair at all. Finally one night it was just driving me crazy and I obviously forgot my reason for not wanting to cut it because I chopped it off. After I did it, I thought it looked terrible. I usually think that when kids get their first hair cuts it makes them look older but I made her look younger. I did not like it at all but figured it was hair and it was grow back. I definitely think it looks better once I actually put some water on it and scrunched it up with her curls. HER CURLS!!!! I was so glad to see those curls. I am still getting used to it but I will like it more when it grows out again but that long stringy piece of hair will not bother me anymore. Here are the pictures for the process.

Before

Long stringy piece

After

After...doesn't look cute:(

After



Here are the pictures after I put water on it. It is not cute, but cuter then the previous pictures.

After

After...of course with baby