Wow!!

That was pretty much all I heard from both kids on the way home from HEB today.  HEB is pretty much their favorite place to go, since our local HEB hands out balloons, lollipops and stickers, but today they were in for a serious treat!  When we pulled in to the parking lot there was a fire truck parked there!

I parked next to it and Logan walked laps around it, pointing out all the numbers and letters and chanting, "Fire Truck!".  Myra pointed and grunted.  That's what she does.  I thought the excitement was over, but as we walked toward the store a second truck pulled into the parking lot, saw Logan staring and turned on the lights and sirens!!  I thought Logan was going to explode from the excitement!  When we got into the store, the firemen soon followed.  They stopped to chat with Logan and me and gave both kids pictures of the truck to take home.  Logan might sleep with his tonight.  How freaking cool is that?!?!?  Sometimes I like living in a small town.  But WHY didn't I have my camera?????

Christmas in Marshall

Every year my father's side of the family has a big Christmas party at my Aunt Mary Cay's home in Marshall.  It is always a lot of fun, and although we don't always make it, this year we got to go!!  It was the weekend of the 18th, which also was the day that our friend Brian defended his PhD in Houston.  Since Mitch was off that day, we went to that, too.  It was quite the whirlwind weekend!  Friday, we went to Houston for the PhD defense, then drove to Carthage for the party, which was Saturday night.  I sang in the choir Christmas program on Sunday, so we had to drive back to Temple Saturday night after the party.  Crazy times!
While we were in Houston, Mitch went to see Brian defend and I took the kids to Hermann park.  It was a little strange being so close to the hospital and never going in.  Strange in a good way, though!
Logan and Myra had a blast at the park!

Logan climbed.

We played Peekaboo.

And hung out in the toddler sized "house".

Myra loved Peekaboo.

Logan loves to climb.

And show off his mad gymnastics skills.  Ta-da!

Myra got in on the wall walking action, too.  How much do you love that "What, Mom!" look she's giving me?!

The highlight for Logan was definitely watching Life Flight land!
Then we headed out to East Texas for some family Christmas fun!

Mary Cay has a fun playroom!  Logan found this marble game that kept him entertained most of the night.

Of course, Myra is happy anywhere there is food...

But she did find this giant stuffed cat that she carted around much of the evening.  Cousin Maddie is helping her play with it.

Here are the four generations of Jones men!  Grandpa, Daddy, James and Brody.  We tried to get Logan and Mitch in there, too.  Logan would have none of that!

He did join in once presents were involved.
We had so much fun with family we don't get to see very often!  Thanks to Mary Cay for hosting this horde yet again.

Logan's first proposal

Our friends Mary and Lisa came over to play this morning.  We had so much fun!!  Mary is so great at finding every single girl toy around here (There actually aren't very many - Myra likes trucks.), but she was disappointed to find that we don't have a dress up box.  Until she found a long white satin dress hanging in Myra's closet...

Can you believe that a 3 year old fits into Myra's blessing dress??  The sleeve bands were a touch tight, but Mary is willing to suffer for beauty.  She is a real woman!

We found some scraps of tulle that did for a veil and an old tiara and she was overjoyed.  She asked Logan to marry her, but he declined.  Too bad - the VonBose's would have been great in-laws!!

I know my heart...

I know my mind...

I know I'm sticking up behind.

Christmas party fun!!

Our ward Christmas Party was this weekend, and I have to say - Hayley totally outdid herself planning this thing!  It was amazing.  The theme was "A night in Bethlehem".  We had the party outside, and the Activities Committee set up all of these amazing booths.

When we first got there, we paid "taxes" to the Emperor in the form of canned food for the food bank and had to sign our names on the census.

Here you could make a name badge in Hebrew characters.

This is the bakery.  How cool is that?!

Here is a "shop" where you can pick out a costume if you didn't wear your own.  This is what happened to the robes that I made last week, along with some others that some of the other sisters made.

There was a fire, which was totally essential, since it was freezing out - quite literally.

And we got to take our pictures in the manger.  I know, the kids aren't dressed up.  We decided that warm was more important.

Of course, their favorite part was the tractors that were scattered about the place.

Does Hayley look frazzled?  Nah - she's a pro!  I know a ton of work went into putting this together.  It was really awesome!

Braids!

Holy freaking cutest thing ever.

Wee little baby braids.

Thanksgiving

Happy Turkey Day !

I hope everyone had a wonderful food and fun-filled day!  We had a great time.  Mitch was moonlighting at the VA, which sort of sucked, since it's Thanksgiving, but we'll really get some use out of the extra cash, so you take what you can get.  My parents and my brother, Dan and his wife, Kali came up to spend the day with us.  We ate a lot and watched a couple of Bill Engvall DVD's.  That guy is funny.

Myra got to enjoy her first Thanksgiving meal.  And by "enjoy", I mean devour as much as possible, then smear the rest over various parts of her head and hair.  Here she is shoveling Mac and Cheese in with the fork, while holding a strip of turkey in the other hand.  It's next...

Here she is with mashed potato hair gel.  Yum!

At least she helped clean up!  Where is Logan you ask?  Napping, actually.  He crashed out at noon, and still wasn't up when we ate at three.  Lest you think I am a mean mommy, he wouldn't touch Thanksgiving food with a 10 foot pole.  When he woke up, he ate some bread and three bowls of Cheerios.  Crazy kid.

I hope your day was full of things to be thankful for!

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Originally uploaded by andrewtaylorphotography

Seriously, I can't wait to see the rest of the wedding pictures, when this is the preview that Dan and Kali's photographer has on his Flickr. His work is amazing. And so is that sweet model!

Date night!

...but this time it was our turn to watch the kiddos. We had so much fun!! Our friends brought over their sweet ones, and had a few hours of couple time and we got to play. Logan and Myra were in heaven! All of the kids were really great and played well together. We had a dance party, inspired by Katelyn. She picked the music, so we rocked out to Jingle Bells.
Aren't they awesome?!? They all had such a great time. And so did we.

Free time...

in the Deshazer household.

Date night!

Tonight Mitch and I had the coolest date! He took me to the Dead Fish Grill. I know, appealing sounding, isn't it? But it was so fun!This was the view from our table. No zoom - that is really what we saw. Wow!!
Here I am enjoying the view.
I guess this guy wanted to enjoy it, too.
The coolest part - there was live music!! We had an amazing time. The food was great. The atmosphere was awesome. Did I mention that there was live music!! Seriously, you have to go.

Halloween

I guess you are supposed to take a bunch of pictures of your kids on Halloween... We took so many of them in their costumes at the Renaissance Faire that I guess we were a little lazy for the actual holiday. But there are a few.

Here are the kids at the Music Makers Halloween party.Myra quickly figured out what Halloween is all about.Candy, candy and more candy... Anyone have any good tips for getting Reece's Pieces drool out of a white tee shirt?

Zzzzz

We used to sleep. Really, we did.

Look, there is even pictorial evidence!

Then we acquired a couple of these.

See the little smirk? She knows.

Yoghurt

Yum!

Renaissance Festival

We had so much fun!! This weekend was pirate weekend. Here's a scurvy bunch! Our own merry little band. Those pirate hats stayed on approximately long enough to take two pictures.
Check out this guys costume!
We were watching a show called "Birds of Prey". Falcons, owls and vultures kept flying out over us! Myra LOVED it.
Logan wanted to ride on this cool spinning ride. He liked it at first, but it got a little fast for him. Good thing Daddy was close by.
We spotted this sweet little faery and her Dad while we were having lunch.
Then we wandered through the enchanted gardens, where the kids got to make friends with a mermaid...
see the Tree of Life...
some cool dragons...
and an Asian temple.

Myra loved that. too!
These benches were pretty awesome.
Anna and Logan stop for a kiss.
And again in the wedding chapel. Should I worry about this??
While we were hanging out in the wedding chapel, we saw this beautiful butterfly.
And a real wedding, Renaissance Festival style!
But the coolest part was the faeries!! They came in and played Hide and Seek with the kids!!
Here is one faery counting to ten. Logan helped her when she got stuck.
Here they are hiding.
Our last ride was the carousel. Logan had fun on this one.

The coolest show was one that we totally didn't get any pictures of! We saw a troupe of belly dancers perform. It was awesome! The kids really loved it. Both Logan and Myra were dancing and clapping along.Here is a shot from the troupe's website. They were amazing!

I love the Renaissance Festival!