Long Lost Blog, Part 2

Well, since the following activities were in the new year I decided to make a new post to cover them. We kicked off the new year by making our way to the Dallas/Ft Worth area for Tech's bowl game. The day we were supposed to leave to go to Ft Worth, which was also New Year's Eve, so many things went wrong and we ended up getting a very late start on our trip. We finally got to my sister's apartment at 11:45 pm, just in time to ring in the new year! When we got to the door we were welcomed by some very "swanky" hosts. My crazy sister & BIL decided to dress to the nines for us! She was in a cocktail dress & fancy wedding shoes and he was in a full tuxedos with his cuff links and all. The lights were out in the apartment and it was only lit by candles and the Christmas tree, jazz music was playing, and drinks were being served. Us weary travelers were tired and wearing sweats so we didn't quite compare to the swanky atmosphere but we tried our best to fit in. Jonathan even had a gift waiting for him; a pair of suspenders with shot glasses attached to them. My sister and brother in law are absolutely crazy but it made for a really fun time.

 
 
We had a great time at the bowl game! It was cold and early but it was a bowl game nonetheless so it was fun. I had actually never been to a Tech bowl game so the TicketCity Bowl was my first. Tech won and wrapped up the crazy season on a good note. Go Tech!

January 8- Happy Birthday Elvis!

As a crazy Elvis fan I celebrate all things Elvis, especially his birthday! This year he would have been 76. To celebrate his birthday we had a day full of Elvis' favorite things. To begin, we were all decked out in our Elvis attire. I wore my Elvis shirt with a 50's style skirt, Kate wore a little onsie with Elvis' face & a mini version of my skirt, and Jonathan even amused us by wearing his black leather jacket. We were a little 50's family in the making! We listened to Elvis Radio on the satelite station and danced til we couldn't dance anymore. (The "we" being Kate & I, Jonathan mainly laughed at us) Kate may not quite understand who Elvis is just yet but she does enjoy his music and dancing around. I love dancing like a fool with her and giggling until my stomach hurts. Once we were danced out we began making our feast of Elvis' favorite foods. We made southern style comfort foods- fried chicken, mashed potatoes, cream gravy, cornbread, & for dessert sponge cake- everything made from scratch! After eating our great Elvis style feast we spent the evening watching Elvis movies while I was wrapped up in my Elvis blanket. It was a fabulous day!

 
 
 

The end of January and beginning of February brought on some freezing cold weather- literally freezing. Highs in the teens and wind chills in the negative teens & twenties. In the words of Kate, it was "Ooo, burr cold." It was absolutely miserable so Kate and I hibernated for about a week. We didn't leave the house at all and looked at the snow from inside. Once the snow melted Kate was sad that she couldn't see the snow anymore and kept looking outside the window saying, "Oh no snow, what happened?" It was kind of fun to see the pretty snow outside for a few days but I was glad to see it go and hope its gone for good.

 
A little peek of Kate's toys buried in the snow in the backyard.


 Valentine's Day!
So I'm actually not really a big fan of Valentine's Day, I think its a little pointless; however, it is fun to spoil Kate a little and have a special day to do fun things. Grammy sent her some money for chocolates so we went to the candy store at the mall to pick out red and pink M&M's. Kate's discovery of bins filled with her favorite candy in every color possible was like finding buried treasure! After she realized that there were even more goodies all around she really went crazy. I now fully understand the old phrase "like a kid in a candy store." After the mall we made a trip to Target to pick out Kate's Valentine's gift. Kate loves Target. She loves going around the store trying to spot the Target dog. Some people look at her like she's crazy when she starts barking randomly throughout the store but it amuses me. We followed up our trip to Target with a stop at the movies to see "Gnomeo & Juliet." It was a sweet movie & very fitting for Valentine's Day. That evening we finished up decorating the cake we made earlier in the day & had a yummy steak dinner with Jonathan once he got home. We got Kate some flowers because lately she has been obsessed with them. Every time we see flowers she insists on stopping them and giving them a little sniff. (See the pictures below to see how Kate likes to smell the flowers!) If you want to make your way into Kate's heart these days bring her flowers, or M&M's...or both- so I guess Valentine's is right up her alley. The day was full of fun adventures and most of all, filled with love! I love you Kate and hope you stay my Valentine forever. To Jonathan, I love you so much- everyday of the year. I'm blessed to have the love of a devoted husband and sweet little girl.

 
 
 

Long Lost Blog!

I'm finally, finally back! Its been far too long since my last post. We've had a lot of things happen since the last post- Christmas festivities, New Years, Bowl Game, snow days, & Valentine's. I'll try to summarize our activities with pictures! Enjoy & I promise I won't be so absent anymore. (This may require a few consecutive posts to cover all of it!)

We started off the Christmas season by going to one of my favorite Tech traditions, Carol of the Lights. Kate had a blast looking at all the lights & running around Tech campus. It makes me so excited to share in Tech traditions with Kate & start training her to be a little Red Raider. We also got to share in our fun with our friends, the Maloufs.

 

Side note: I made the skirt wore!

 

We attempted to visit Santa but this is how it turned out. Kate wasn't a fan. We didn't try anymore after that.  

We attempted to be real Lubbock residents by going to the Christmas parade. It was pretty cold but we had fun. Kate liked saying hi to everyone who walked by & seeing the lights. She attempted to learn how to say "Merry Christmas" but all she could say was "merry" so she kept yelling that to everyone who walked by. Also, if you notice in the pictures, she made sure her baby dolls paid attention to the parade and stayed warm under the blankets. I think one of them was even bundled up in her stroller at one point.  

  After the parade we went to a neighborhood in town called "Vintage Township" where they had different Christmasy displays and tons of lights. They had little lit trees that danced along to the music of the Trans-Syberian Orchestra every hour. I wish I could have captured Kate's excitement when the music started and the lights went crazy. Some of Kate's favorite things right now (and especially during Christmastime) are lights and music; seeing the two together was an overload of excitement. She danced around and put on a little show for people who were standing near us. There were also snow machines throughout the area which I thought was a lot of fun. Kate wasn't fooled though, she knew they were really just bubbles; however, that in itself made her really happy so it still worked out for the best!

Another note about Christmas lights: Kate loved discovering that houses had lights on them during Christmastime. Every time we would drive around she would say, "Mom, you see lights?!" and get really excited. After Christmas was over & she couldn't find as many lights she would point out street lights or whatever. I hope next year she remembers her love for the lights and will still get excited when she sees them starting to appear on houses again.

 Starting on December 12, Kate started getting a little something in her stocking every day for the 12 Days of Christmas. My mom had this tradition with me and my sisters and I loved it as a kid (and still do now) so I want to continue this tradition with my family. The gifts are just a little something small but it made Kate really happy. However, I think she was a little confused at times and thought that stockings would re-fill themselves throughout the day. Sometimes she couldn't understand that she only got one little piece of chocolate in the morning & once it was gone there was no more until the next day. Silly Kate.

 
Before we left town to visit our extended families we had our own little Christmas with just the three of us. Kate got lots of play foods (which would make more sense to her once we went to visit Grammy), a Shrek game, and a red peacoat...which I was very jealous of actually. We had a really fun night playing with the new toys and taking in all the Christmas spirit in the air.

 
 
 
 
 
Christmas in Odessa was filled with lots of energy, laughs, and fun. When Kate gets to meet up with her cousin Mikey they become best friends and partners in crime. My mom has a Santa Claus doll that sings and dances on a rope that goes across the living room on the ceiling when its activated by noise; needless to say, with two toddlers in the house poor Santa got a lot of exercise while we were there. It was so funny to see the kids learn how to yell at the Santa doll to make him move then watch them giggle and dance the whole time. (That explains the picture in the top left corner) The next day we were there we got to pick up my older sister and brother-in-law from the airport. "Po & Mett" as Kate calls them are a treat for Miss Kate. We waited for them in the arrival area of the airport with a sign with their "names" since we were their chauferrs for the next couple days. Our Christmas celebration was on Christmas Eve and was a bit different this year. My whole life we have celebrated Christmas in Van Horn where my grandparents live; however, now that my mom is a grandmother she wanted to start her own traditions so Christmas is now in Odessa. I am not a person who likes change but I was ok with the move. We had fun and were with the people we cared about so thats all that truly matters. Oh, and Kate got a kitchen from Grammy so that explains the play foods!

 
On Christmas Day we made our way to El Paso so join the Phillips side for the big Christmas celebration. Now, when I say big, I mean BIG. For our dinner and gift opening there were 13 adults and 9 kids...and there were even family members missing. As big and chaotic as Christmas with the Phillips' is, it has really become one of my favorite parts of Christmastime. Everyone piles into the living room and we each take turns opening gifts one by one and everyone usually has about 10 gifts. Sometimes the gifts are jokes, sometimes they tell stories of something that happened in the year, and sometimes they bring tears of joy. You never know what to expect but you can for sure expect a good time. This year Santa came for a visit! It was so funny to listen to the older kids discuss how it was that Santa would make an extra trip back down from the North Pole just for them (since he came mid-afternoon Christmas Day) and then constantly question the adults about whether or not that was the "real" Santa. When I heard that Santa was coming I was a little afraid Kate was going to react like she did before with Santa (see the picture before) but she actually did fine...as long as her daddy was there and she kept her distance from Santa. The next morning we went to church and Kate got to wear her final holiday dress of the season. Thanks to a typical warm El Paso Christmas weather she was able to show off her little dress without a coat! Haha. We had to make our way back home after church, it was a short trip but it was fun. I love the other half of my family and am so blessed to have each and every one of them.

 

One last discovery Kate made this holiday season is that she loves pie...pumpkin pie to be specific! She must get that from me because I could easily eat a whole pumpkin pie by myself if I was allowed. Kate became a little obsessive over her love of pie. She would walk around saying, "Eat pie. Eat pie" over and over. And, of course, since we were visiting Grammy her request was always granted.

Well, that concludes our Christmas season! The post is almost 2 months late but, oh well, we just get to re-live Christmas all over again!

My Life is Perfect

Its been a while since my last post; partially because life has been hectic and partially because I've been in a bit of a personal slump. I won't get in to all of the details but I'll just say my life has been crazy the past few months (well, really longer than that, but more so in the past few months!) and it is all starting to pile up. I'm trying my best to get out of this slump and while checking my favorite blogs today I came across a guest blogger who was sharing her personal story. She wrote something that spoke volumes to me so I wanted to remember it and remind myself of this when life gets tough.  
Even when you are going through a hard time in your life just know that its PERFECT.  Its perfect, because it is in a series of events that will take you where you eventually need to go.  Its perfect, because You have a loving Heavenly Father that loves you enough to let you learn and grow.  We are here to become the best Children Of God that we can be through trial and error and mistakes and heartbreak.  Its how we learn to trust Him, who knows all.
So, my title says "My Life is Perfect" but it doesn't necessarily mean what you think it does. I'm having struggles, my family is having struggles, and life is just plain tough sometimes. However, all of this is for a reason. God is in control and will get us past this. My life is perfect in His eyes because He has a purpose and reason to everything. My life is far from perfect in my eyes but I'm trying to get myself to see more through His eyes.

I'll post about our holiday season so far and share some pictures soon.