Spending Time With Nanny and Granddaddy

Saturday, (October 4th), Bill's parents came for a visit. It had been quite awhile since we had seen them, with their travels and our school schedule, it's hard to find time to see each other. Since last weekend was our anniversary, they wanted to come and spend time with the kids and give us a chance to go out on a date to celebrate another year of marriage. They babysat by taking the kids to Mi Cocina, made pudding, and read lots of books. Before our big "date" we had an exciting day by going to Hallmark, Kroger, fixing lunch, and putting up a new ceiling fan in the kitchen. At Hallmark, Linda bought the kids new Webkins, Alex got a snake and Allison got a Gecko, which have been taken everywhere since they were purchased. After a stop at the Hallmark store and Kroger, we came back home and I fixed lunch, it's become a tradition when they come for a visit, I make a very delicious sandwich ring, a recipe from Pampered Chef. After lunch Bill and his Daddy put up a new ceiling fan in the kitchen. Thank goodness he had his help. I'm not a fan of putting up ceiling fans. The one we had was white and gold, a builders choice, cheap and ugly. We put up a more modern one, a iron oil rubbed bronze one.

Showing off our new Webkins.Playing outside with our new Webkins outsideThe old fan.The new fan.

Cousins

Sunday, September 28th, Pam, Lauren and Cameron came to College Station to celebrate Allison and Lauren's Birthday's. Allison and Lauren share the same date, Allison turned 9 and Lauren turned 6. The kids played for a little while right after they got here, we opened gifts and then we went to eat lunch. We had lunch at the Chicken Oil in Bryan, an authentic A&M restaurant. It was really good, the only place in town that has old fashioned juicy burgers and cheese fries with ranch. Yum! We came back to the house after lunch, the kids played a little bit more then they had to head back to Sugarland. It was fun.

Lauren opening her birthday gift.

Allison opening her birthday gift.
Allison and Cameron at Chicken Oil

Alex and Lauren

Slumber Party - Camping

Friday, September 26th, we celebrated Allison's birthday with her closest friends by having a slumber party. We ordered pizza, had decorated cookies instead of a cake, decorated pillow cases and made jewelry. It was so easy with 4 girls. I was all by myself with the girls, Bill took Alex camping at Tyler State Park. They love to go camping, but as Bill puts it, one night is enough without a shower, so they came home Saturday. While we were slumber partying, the power went out in the neighborhood for about 20 minutes, a little scary, 2 girls screaming and 2 girls thinking it was cool and no daddy here to make sure everything was ok. We had to call Amanda and have her husband Kealy, come over and check things out for us, thank goodness we had Kealy, (Morgan's daddy), he was a big help that night. After all the excitement was over, the girls still went to bed around 10:00 p.m. and fell asleep about 11:00 p.m., Allison being the last one, of course, my night owl. The next morning the girls started waking up around 7:30 a.m., Amanda showed up with Shipley Donuts, which were quickly devoured. Yummy! It was the easiest Birthday Party I have ever put together. Allison had a wonderful time.

Allison making a bracelet.
Morgan, Allison, Erin and Faith right before bed. They are so precious!

Bill and Alex's Camping Trip

Alex with his walking stick on the hiking trail.

Sitting by the campfire.

Bill and Alex went tent camping at Tyler State Park while Allison had her all girl slumber party. Since I wasn't there, I will repeat Bill's story of their camping trip. The very short version. Alex was hyped up about the hiking trails all week, so he proceeded to talk about going on a hike the entire way to Tyler. As they started out on their first hike, Alex had his binoculars, hiking stick and compass. Bill said as they were "hiking" items started to be transfered to Daddy. The binoculars got to heavy and the hiking stick was a little hard to handle. Bill said with a chuckle, "he slowly pealed off his supplies." After their hike, they returned to camp and fixed dinner, sausage and green beans, roasted some marshmallows and then went to bed. Bill called me once they were in the tent and settled in for bed, while on the phone, he heard a noise outside, they had raccoons visiting their campsite. The next morning they got up, fixed breakfast of eggs and bacon, went for another hike, packed up, and headed home.

Allison Turns 9.

Wednesday, September 24th, we celebrated Allison's 9th birthday. We can't believe we have a 9 year old. Bill was in Dallas and wouldn't be home until that afternoon, so I woke Allison up by singing "Happy Birthday" very loud, she loved it. Every year, I wake her up with a song. After 13 hours of labor, I get to do anything I want on her birthday. Hehehehe..... Allison wanted me to eat lunch with her and surprise her with a special meal, well, what do you get at 11:00 a.m. and that can be eaten in 30 minutes, Chicken Express!!! Yummy! I also surprised her with a little birthday cake from Kroger. She was so surprised. After picking up balloons and running a few last minute errands and wrapping the last of the gifts, it was time to get the kids. Bill got home about 30 minutes before I had to pick up the kids, so he was able to go along. Once we got back home, she was so excited to see all her gifts waiting for her in the living room with balloons and flowers. We let her open a couple of presents, but the rest had to be saved for after supper, what a bummer. Her only request for her birthday was to have a homemade yellow cake with chocolate icing made by her Mommy. How sweet. Dinner - every year we let the kids pick where they want to eat, Allison chose Luby's, her favorite, after trying to coax her in another direction for our meal, ha, enough said, it was Luby's. Chris, Christy, Kendall, and Mom all joined us for supper and gifts. She had a wonderful Birthday.

Allison posing in her Birthday shirt before school.

Allison holding her little cake at lunch.

Having lunch with AllisonAfter school Allison posing with all her gifts.Opening one of her gifts from Nanny.More WebkinsAnother Precious Moments for her collection.Nanny sent Alex a gift also, a Ben 10 toy, made his day!

After all the gifts were opened.

My masterpiece, Allison loved it! It was yummy!

Eating birthday cake.

The Tree That Wouldn't Give Up.

Saturday, September 20th, it was time for our hurricane Ike tree to become firewood for the winter. The only problem, the tree fell into another tree and all the top branches were now intertwined into the other tree branches, this tree was obviously not going anywhere. Trying to save the other tree, Bill enlisted Chris's help, well it took a little longer than expected and after the third try it was down. It was not as easy as it looked either. Bill had to pull it out of the other tree and it would not budge at all. It finally came down .

Aggie Soccer

Friday, September 19th, Allison and I went to our first Aggie Lady's soccer game. We went with some of our close friends, who are also Aggies. It was so much fun! I never realized a soccer game could be so exhilarating, Allison really got into the action, she yelled the entire game. (Of course we had to take 2 bathroom breaks, get snacks, which consisted of snow cones and Dippin' Dots, my favorite.) The Aggies played Cal and won, 1-0, it was a very interesting game to watch.

Warm-up

Morgan, Faith, Allison and Abby (down front)Talking to a Yell Leader

During the game.

The girls are Sawing Horns Off.

Mom's Birthday

Mom celebrated another birthday, not telling her age, because she would kill me, we weren't able to celebrate with her on her actual birthday, September 13th. Hurricane Ike put a little damper on the celebrations. Christy, Kendall and I took Mom out to lunch last Wednesday to celebrate. We took her to Johnny Carino's because they have the best Bread Pudding around. It's yummy!

So Sweet!