Adilyn's Fall Champs Meet

Adilyn had a fantastic Fall Champs meet this year! The first hurdle that she had to overcome was completing her first 500 freestyle. I am 100% sure that I was just as nervous as she was. It was so nerve-wracking! As she was waiting for her turn to go, she was getting so anxious. She was breathing super fast and tears were welling up in her eyes. Cory and I both tried to calm her down, but I could tell that she could tell that I was nervous for her! Cory was timing her, and I was counting her laps. That meant that every time she came down for a lap, I placed a plastic number in the water to let her know how many she had done. Every time she came down to flip turn, I would get butterflies in my stomach. I will never forget placing the 13 in the water, feeling like she had been swimming for an hour, and she still had 7 laps to go! Even though she struggled more than she wanted to - she did it in 8:21, which was a B time. Not too bad! When she was done, she was exhausted of course, but I was so proud of her for doing it! After that stressful race, the rest of the weekend went well. She dropped 3-4 seconds in all of her races, and she got 6th place overall in the 50 backstroke.

Christmas Tree Farm

For the last couple of years, we have been lazy and just gone to Home Depot or Lowe's to pick up a tree. This year we decided to head out to the Christmas tree farm. Even though it was a warm day, Kacy brought in the Christmas spirit with her Santa hat! We rode the hayride out to the tree area, and the minute we got off it started to look like rain. We quickly picked out a tree, and the girls ran over to the tree house to play inside for a little bit. Then, it started to pour on us! There was really no place to hide except for under the tree. We huddled under the tree for a bit until it let up, then they went and played in the covered barn in the hay for just a few minutes. It wasn't really a great day at the farm, but we ended up with some giggles and a great tree. I guess that's all that really matters!

Kacy's Fall Champs Meet

Kacy had a great Fall Champs meet this year! Last year, she was so sick, and we shouldn't even have had her swim. This year she was healthy, and she had a great time. It was a beautiful day, and we took her friend with us, so they hung out and were silly all day long. She ended up getting 6th in the 50 backstroke, 7th in the 25 backstroke, and 13th in both the 25 free and 50 free. She was also in both the medley and freestyle relay. Overall, it was a great day for everyone.

Sweetie!!!

The girls woke up on December 1 to a big surprise! Elfina wasn't there, but she sent her cousin, Sweetie. Elfina was apparently sent on a big mission, and she still wasn't done. Every year she comes to stay with us on December 1. Since she wasn't done with her mission from Santa, she sent her cousin. Sweetie, Elfina's cousin, is a Sugar Plum Fairy, and it was so fun to have her with us. She has an adorable little skirt and some colored stripes in her hair. We sure hope Elfina will get to come one day soon!

WOW Word Day!!!

We are almost running out of words to use for WOW word day after all these years :) But, we came up with Elegant for Brooke, Fluorescent for Adilyn (flashback from Kindergarten), and Kacy went with Dichotomy (luminous + monochromatic = dichotomy). Wow, that is a WOW Word day mouthful! They had a great time and Brooke was so excited to be Rapunzel all day!

An Afternoon at the Park

We rarely have a free afternoon on the weekends these days. We had an entire day with nothing to do, and the weather was great, so we headed out to the park! The kids made up gymnastics routines, worked on their handstands, made musically videos, and enjoyed the great weather. Kacy was a little grumpy because they got kicked off the sand volleyball court when people wanted to placy volleyball. The one picture show the girls trying to cheer her up - it didn't work immediately, but she eventually got over it! Ha! Ha!

Thanksgiving Fun

Chad and Kristen hosted our family Thanksgiving this year, and it was a fun afternoon. They had all of Kristen's family there and a lot from the Henderson clan. The girls loved seeing Ashley's boys, and they especially loved holding Clay. Cory and I were "watching" the kids outside and Colt and Cash decided to get soaking wet in the pool. We are great supervisors! :) It's always great to see the cousins hang out together and have fun.

Feasts!

I love the feast days at school, and this year was our only year to have three! Of course, the only picture that I could get with Adilyn was the one with her friend. I thought it was awesome that her teacher had them make turkey hats like the kindergarteners :) They all made turkey names for themselves, and Adilyn said "I'm a VB turkey!" Kacy and I ate with her friend, and we had Brooke all to ourselves! It was a great lunch!

Weirdos

It's kind of one of my favorite things to find all the weird pictures that the kids leave on my phones. 😁

A Deer Blind Full of Swimmers

There is always a lot of off and on down time during the swim meets, so it's always interesting to see what the kids do to entertain themselves. We decided to bring Cory's pop up deer blind for them to use as a clubhouse. They loved it! Almost every time I peeked inside, there were at least 4 or 5 chlorine smelling kids hanging out snacking and being silly. These crazy kids!

CG Games

My bestie, Sonja, loves Camp Gladiator. I tried to give it a go here in Houston, but it was not my kind of thing. Anyway, her and three of her friends got a team together to compete in the CG Games. I love seeing people do their thing, so we decided to head to Austin and cheer her on. The weather was pretty nice that day, and we had a lot of fun watching all the crazy things they were doing. It was a lot of fun to be there to support her. They made the finals, so it was quite a long day. We were camping nearby, so we stopped for a hamburger and headed to the campground. Luckily, we got to hang out a little more the next day before we all headed home. I was so proud of her! #momboss

Chopped - Brooke Style

When the kids get home from school, it's usually a pretty crazy time. I am trying to finish up work stuff, they are all hungry, and they usually need me immediately. Well, one day I noticed that Brooke was not around, so I called for her. She came out of our bathroom, and I noticed something different, but I couldn't put my finger on it. I shrugged it off for a bit, and then I noticed the difference - her hair! She chopped off a couple chunks off each side. The first picture shows her original cut, and the bottom picture is after I evened it up a bit. It could most definitely have been worse, but I still couldn't believe that she did that. I asked her why she cut her hair, and she said, "I saw a girl on a show, and I wanted my hair just like hers." We had some talks about how we need to tell an adult when you want a haircut, and how 5 year olds never cut their own hair. We'll see if she learned her lesson. I kinda wish she hadn't done such a good job because I can't say that she really learned the dangers of choosing to cut your own hair!

Friday Night Lights

The local high school was so amazing during the hurricane stuff. They held fundraisers for us, they bought all the students and staff shirts, they decorated the hallways and windows for the first day of school, and they had a school supply drive. It was just one thing on the long list of people who were so gracious and helpful during all of that mess. They invited all the students to come visit one of their home football games, and they even took some kids out on the field. All the kids that wanted to go were put in a drawing, and the principal picked 20 kids. Out of everyone 2 of the girls got picked. It was Kacy and Brooke. I knew that there was no way that Brooke was going to go out there, so I sent Adilyn instead. It was a little glimpse into the “Friday Night Lights” of our future. The older girls ran around with all their friends, and I watched a little bit of the game while Brooke and I hung out. It’s only going to be a couple years before they are there!

It's Time for Some Serious Camping!!!

Cory and I had been looking at "driving campers" for a while, but we decided that they were just too much money for what we wanted. But, I am stubborn, so I would randomly look on the website to see if there were ever any out there that we could afford. Well, one day the camper gods smiled down on us, and we found the deal of the century! This camper is a 2015 Coachman, the same exact model that we liked, and it was pretty cheap. I figured since the price was so low, that it had to be crazy high miles! I called the salesman and asked him how many miles there were. He put me on hold, and then he came back and said, "2600." I couldn't believe it! I was sure that he meant at least 26,000, which would have still been low for a three year old camper. He wasn't wrong. It truly was 2600! The camper was for sale up near Fort Worth, so then it became a mad dash to figure everything out. About a week later, we brought home a camper! We didn't tell the girls what was happening. They knew that Cory was going up to Fort Worth, but they had no idea why. The camper was sitting in the street when they got off the bus. It took them a while to figure out that it was ours. They were so excited! Maybe as excited as me...maybe. We were able to take it out right away to Austin, and it was so much fun to just hang out in there all together. I absolutely can't wait to see what adventures we will get to have in this thing!

Astros Win!!!!

Cory turned me into an Astros fan pretty early after I moved to Houston. We have been going to games for years, even when they were seriously awful. I love so many of the players on the team, and I was so happy that they won the World Series this year! They have been recruiting players and rebuilding the team and way back in 2014 an issue of Sports Illustrated came out, and it said that the Astros would be champions in 2017. So much fun that it was right! They played the Dodgers and it was an up and down series for sure. We won, they won, there was a crazy 10 inning game (that we won), and all kinds of fun stuff in between. Mom was in town for game 7, and she loves October baseball. It was so much fun to all be together for it. The only bad thing was trying not to wake the girls up while we were celebrating! The next day we decided to be a little crazy and try to go get t-shirts. We went to Academy, and the line was out the door. We went to Dick’s next, and it didn’t seem too busy. Well, we got in there and picked out our shirts, then we tried to find the line. That when we realized that it was wrapped around the entire store! We started waiting, and they we realized that we were going to miss lunch with the girls because it was taking forever. Cory came up and rescued Mom and made it to lunch. I waited in line for over an hour and finally paid for my shirts. Madness! The cool thing was though, everyone was so happy and excited. Nobody minded waiting forever, and everyone was just chatting it up in line. It was refreshing to see so much excitement by everyone in the whole city.

Two of my favorites! Correa and Altuve 💛💙

Soggy Halloween

In 10 years of trick or treating with kids we have never once been rained on…until this year. We might as well have more rain because clearly we didn’t get enough during Harvey. After the amazing Halloween themed meal, the Hrobars came over, and we powered through the rain. We all got umbrellas and got soaked. I am glad we did it because it will definitely be a Halloween we will never forget! We only had to sacrifice a few candies that got too wet. It was also good because the kids were over the rain much faster than normal, so we didn’t have to stay out too long. I enjoy trick or treating, but usually a couple of the kids get whiny and bored if we stay too long. Nobody needs a whining witch or ballerina! So, a soggy 80's girl, zombie ballerina, and cupcake all had a wet, but successful night!