A Thankful Day

We opted to stay in Dallas this year due to Chris' new work schedule. But we still pulled out all the stops- Turkey, gravy, stuffing, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and a pretty yummy trifle.

We had Uncle Matt and Sarah over. I think the best pre Thanksgiving drink is an amaretto sour. We went through a whole bottle of sweet and sour! Anyways, Chris did a great job with the turkey. He did a paper bag turkey, and it was so moist and succulent. Here is a pic of the spread:

In true Rowles fashion, Elia had a chugging contest with Martinellis. The contest was between her and herself, and she won!

We tried to get a family Christmas photo before dinner, here is one that isn't going to be sent out to my list!

E was mad that she couldn't have her Martinellis!

After the picture, I changed out of my dress and into comfy jeans. We stripped Elia down so there would be less to clean up. That is the best part of doing a holiday at your own house- you follow your own rules! We did miss family though!

And here is my yummy trifle!

We have so much to be thankful for this year- love you all!

Room Progress

Let me remind you:

After painting the ceiling, walls, and trim; and laying about 1/4 of the floor, the room is starting to look like a million bucks. Pardon the lighting:

Thanks to Chris and of course, Uncle Tom

Leaves

I ditched the gym and the housework this morning to veg with the girls. After a bit of tv, we took a walk, which ended in the backyard. I decided to rake a few piles of leaves for the girls to play in. They had a blast. You could say I still got am arm workout.

My little helper.

Action shots.

Sister love.

Tired and thirsty after the morning!

Ms. Chatterbox

Elia has been VERY chatty lately. She is especially chatty after she sees Chris when he comes home from work. I got some of it on film tonight.

Marschner Visit

So as usual I didn't take that many pictures of our weekend with Aunt Shanny and Uncle Tom. Aunt Shanny is a relentless spoiler of the girls. We went to Target and insisted we buy a gingerbread house. So we had fun with that. Pretty much the whole weekend Shan and I played with the girls and cooked great food while Tom and Chis worked on the room. They made TONS of progress... but more on that later.

I constructed the house.

While Aunt Shanny and the girls decorated, and sampled. Shan and I look more alike with her hair so dark!

Elia really warmed up to Uncle Tom once she realized he is as fun as Daddy.

Gianna was busy all day yesterday coloring pictures for Shan and Tom. We miss them already. Can't wait till Christmas!

Home Depot Run

Lowes and Home Depot are our favorite places these days. They loved sitting in the car cart, as G calls it.

Weekend and Room update

Its starting to get cool here in Dallas, finally. That doesn't mean we have turned our heat on yet, oh no! We are trying to make it to December 1. Not sure if that is going to happen!Friday afternoon started out with a trip to Lumber Liquidators. Try to get a 3 or 4 year old to say Lumber Liquidators, its hilarious! They were having a sale and so we totally scored and got enough gorgeous dark chocolate brown engineered hard wood on sale to do our bedroom floor.

So Saturday was spent cleaning out the room. It is so dusty in there from the popcorn ceiling. We moved out the furniture, and then Sunday Chris sprayed texture on the ceiling. We are set to paint the ceiling and walls and then lay floors. Hoping it is all done by the end of the Thanksgiving weekend.

Saturday we said goodbye to Koda with a long walk and lots of hugs. We already miss her. Chris and I are entertaining getting a dog for the girl's birthdays. By entertaining, I mean Chris wants to really bad and I want to put it off as long as possible. But the whole dog-sitting experience was good for me. I am not scared of getting one anymore. Having a dog around is like I said, not that bad!

Here are some pics from the weekend.

Saturday. Writing in their

fave- journals.

We went on lots of walks.

And collected TONS of acorns.

Gianna painted hers black because that is the color of dirt. Duh. I tried to get crafty too!

Auction

Today my pta mom's group held a silent auction. It was held at a mothers day out/preschool building, so we could use their facilities for daycare. Elia screamed and cried when I left, and Gianna seemed fine. But then one of the teachers brought Gianna back to me halfway through becasue she had been sitting under a table refusing to let anyone touch her. (This does not bode well for when she goes to preschool next year. Or for when I go back to work. errggggg) But I didn't let that spoil my fun. G tagged along while I bid on different items. I probably bid on 20 items and ended up getting 5 things. These babies were valued at $250 and I was the only bidder to score them for $30! They are almost a perfect match to the blue I am planning to paint in the master bedroom.

I also got 2 free pizzas from i-frat, a speed zone pass for Chris, a baby girl scrap book, and a digital photo ornament (valued at $50 and I got it for $14!!!!!)

It was funny to see what people bid on like crazy. There was a $50 Lowes gift card that ended up going for $55. I almost re-bidded (is that a word?) for a $20 gift card to Cristina's but I wasn't going to pay $19 for it. Just didn't think it was THAT worth it.

After I got all my stuff, G and I picked up Elia and headed out to the car. I forgot Elia's backpack, so I had to take the girls back into the building. When we came close to the room Elia had been staying in, she started screaming and then ran away! I guess she thought I was going to leave her again. Too much drama for this mama! But all in all it was still a really fun morning!

Look at her cute ponytail! So grown up looking!

Preschool is Official

Gianna is going to preschool this spring! I officially enrolled her in St. Catherine of Siena. We toured it a few weeks ago and it looked really fun! All the kids were happy there and it seemed like they were learning a lot. Today I dropped off the paperwork that I had signed from the doctor and gave them my registration fee and first month of tuition, so it is for sure! She will start January 4th and go all the way through May. She will be doing the 3 yr old Tues/Thurs class. It is only 3 hours per day- 9-12. I've met a few moms through my pta playgroup that send their kids there too and they all had good things to say about it. Although it does not have a catholic curriculum, it is on the same campus as Catherine of Siena the catholic church. They go to chapel once a week, and we have been there many a time (when we can't make it to Mary Immaculate in Farmers Branch on time) so G will be familiar with that too.

After we dropped off the registration packet and were heading home, I asked G if she was excited about starting preschool after Christmas. She asked me if Elia was coming with her and I tried to explain that she is too little and that maybe when she is bigger like G she will go too. She started crying and said she didn't want to go without her and that she needs to keep Elia safe! That about BROKE my heart into a few thousand pieces. It makes me feel even better that we are not going with a conventional daycare where they would be split up. Instead, I have a friend (old college roommate, actually) who will come to our house and watch them and take G to preschool and such. So even though they will be apart while G is at school, they will spend the rest of the day together. Phew!

18 month check up and Koda

Today was Elia's 18 month checkup. She won't be18 months till next Saturday, but I still can't believe how big she is! She weighed in at 26 lbs. We also weighed Gianna, and she weighs 29.6 lbs. Elia is going to catch up with her! Her weight puts her at the 77%. She is 35.5 inches tall which puts her at the 100%. I can tell she is pretty tall anyway because a lot of her 18 month pants are too short. Such a sweetie girl though. The doctor counted 5 teeth coming in right now. So with the 8 she already has, that will make 13 pretty soon(fingers crossed). No shots this time around, so the visit was quick and painless. A couple of cute things she has been doing lately:

Chris taught her to stick her hands up in the air when you poke her stomach and say "stick em' up!"

When you ask her to be a gorilla, she beats her little fists on her chest and goes aahhhh-a-aaaahhh Tarzan style. So cute!

I took these pics the other day when the girls were playing with Koda. We finally had a successful walk this morning without Chris. She is really strong and has been knocking over Elia almost every time I get the leash out because she is so excited. Knocking down Elia= no walk for Koda. I tend to get a little mama bear on Koda when it involves one of the girls getting hurt. I know the more Koda exercises, the better she will behave for me, so I am trying!

Look how excited Elia is! So cute!

Too School for Cool

Today was my turn to teach preschool playdates. It was all about Thanksgiving and the letter T. So we talked about turkeys and triangles. Soooo much fun!

We made these turkey place mats. I got the idea from November's issue of Better Homes and Gardens. I hope we can make more to use at our table this Thanksgiving.

Look how well Gianna colored in that triangle! She can get uber-focused sometimes when she is doing arts and crafts. Of course, after I snapped this picture, there was some definite scribble action all over the page ;).

We had toast for snack. I cut them into triangles. We also had turkey cookies that got gobbled up before I could take a pic.

Then we made triangles on the floor. Even Boom got in on the action.

Can anyone guess what song my blog post title comes from?

The Great Dog Experiment

This week, we are dog-sitting for Weinpel. Her name is Koda, and she is a sweet dog. She is part Great Dane, so she is really tall, but otherwise she is mostly a black lab.

After a few days of having her around the house, I have come to a few realizations about having a dog.

1) Having a dog around is not that bad.

2) Dog poop is gross. So is dog breath. And doggie licks.

3) We will NOT get a puppy. We will adopt or do some sort of rescue program.

4) They provide great built-in exercise. Saturday we spent a few hours at the hiking park with her, and we are taking lots of walks. Here is a pic of the fam at the park.

Elia absolutely loves Koda. She laughs and squeals at her, lets her lick her and tries to feed her food that she doesn't like. Gianna is a little more apprehensive. The first day or so she would run away from her or get up on the couch away from her. Now she is still a little nervous but LOVES to boss her around. We have her until Saturday, so I will probably post again about any other doggie-related adventures.

The $233 Lamps

As you all know, we are renovating out master bedroom. I am getting antsy to get furniture and stuff for our new room. I am constantly on craigslist, looking for good deals. I have found a lot of great furniture, but can't really buy any of it since at this point we have no room for it. So accessories are ok. I came across this pair of really cute lamps for $30.

Well, I met the woman in downtown Dallas where she works at a hospital to get them. That was a feat in and of itself- trying to find her one hospital in a sea of hospitals, but! We finally made the trade and I went happily on my way home. I took 35E to get back home and got in the HOV lane, as the girls were with me. I had a million things to do that day, and I wanted to get home quickly. Did you know that the speed limit is 60mph on 35? I got pulled over and ticketed for $203!! I was going 77mph. I guess I am used to PGBT which is 70mph. I haven't gotten pulled over since before I got married! So sad. I think the hardest part was trying to explain it all to G. Well, that, and the fact that I have to shell out $200 right before Christmas. Those lamps better be worth it!

One of the Best Nights of His Life

I don't think Chris will have time to blog about his World Series experience, so I thought I would throw up some pictures for all to see and remember. Chris went to game 5, where he watched his hometeam, the Giants, win the World Series. Back in 2002, Chris and I had been dating for 6 months or so when the Giants went to the World Series and lost. That was a dark day in our life together, I guess you could say. These days, he is on cloud 9. Sooooo excited for him!

This has been up in our tv room for the past month or so.

Near the Fox booth.

After they won!

Halloween Fun Part 3

Oh Halloween. What a wonderful holiday. We started the festivities by painting our pumpkin and apples. I found super huge apples and the idea kinda hit me when I saw them to carve and paint them! I didn't get a pic of the finished projects but you can see most of it. We displayed them with our pumpkin for all of out trick or treaters to see. (we only got 1 this year!!): Gianna painted her cat mask from school and then together G and I painted the pumpkin's warts green. Awesome!

Gianna and Elia had the time of their life Halloween night. I was having flashbacks of Gianna trying to trick or treat 2 years ago. Elia did way better this year. And then G, well she did GREAT this year! Every time we were done with one house, Gianna would say "lets go to a couple more houses, ok mom?!" We went with the Mcbrides and Tim and Ashley. Soph and G kept each other going, but the littles got a little tuckered out after a while. They came home with some gooooood loot. Then we came home to watch the Giants kill the Rangers.

It was a great night!

I didn't really get good pictures of the 2 girls in their costumes. Here are a few just for you to get an idea of what they wore.