Dec. 4 Weekend

This past weekend was another busy one! Chris finished the floor in our room- PTL!! Next weekend we should be getting baseboards in and maybe turn our attention to the bathroom? Maybe. Anyways, Saturday started out with my church playgroup's Baby Jesus Birthday party. The girls had a BLAST seeing all their friends, eating cupcakes and juice, singing to baby Jesus, and watching a nativity movie. Our priest came and blessed all the baby Jesus(es?) from our home's nativity. Here was our party from last year.

Here the priest is blessing the baby Jesus(es)

Sunday Uncle Tim and Ashley came over. Tim and Chris raked MORE leaves and put up Christmas lights, and we put up the Christmas tree and other decorations. We trimmed the tree Monday morning before Chris went to work.

Elia keeps bringing me ornaments from the bottom of the tree. So slowly, all of the ornaments are creeping up the tree out of her reach. She is obsessed with the glass balls- she calls them apples. She also loves the baby Jesus from our Cresh. I found baby Jesus in her trash can in her room this morning! So now its hidden until Christmas day.

I'm going to post pics of the new floor soon!

Last Weekend of November

My blogging has been off lately. It is the busiest time of the year after all! The last weekend of November was spent raking leaves and working on the room.

Elia loves to 'help.'

Love this picture of Chris putting lotion on the girl's faces. Cold air=chapped skin. My poor girls inherited my sensitive skin.

Advent

We had a great Advent calendar growing up- it was made out of felt and had pockets with candy and little toys and little scripture notes. Well my mom gave it to Megan so I needed to make one myself. I found quite a few cute ideas online, but really liked this one I saw on a blog last year. So I went to Oriental Trading Company and bought 24 little stockings. Then I strung them together and used felt to make numbers. For each day, the girls get a chocolate and a little toy, and there is a slip of paper in each stocking with them name of a family member or friend to pray for. At prayer time we pray specifically for the name on the slip of paper. Gianna thought she was so cool the day we pulled her name out of the stocking.

Every morning has been really exciting for the girls to see what they get! So far they have gotten little trinkets, nail polish, etc.

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!