Dot Race(s)

Shortly after we went to the Ranger game with Austin in August, I knew what we were going to be for our family themed Halloween.  Emma watched the dot race and was just so excited- I knew we had to be the dots for Halloween.  My husband seriously just rolled with that idea and made us the most fabulous costumes I could ever dream up :). 

Take a closer look at that cutie green dot- I mean, could she be any happier wearing cardboard? I don't think so ;).

We knew our littlest babe would not tolerate the cardboard dot so we dressed her up as our number one Texas Ranger fan to go along with the family theme :).

I also knew that we would have a "real live dot race" and that Emma would get a kick out of it!  I am so happy my mom came over last night to capture the dots in action :).



And if you prefer the new slo mo feature on the iPhone :).



I hope you have the very best Halloween :).

Happy Halloween 2014

Out of the left field gates the Mitchell front door, here comes the Ozarka dots.

They are ready to race, with their littlest mascot leading the way :).

And their off!

The littlest green dot wins the race down the hill :).

Happy Halloween!  Come back later for a few other pictures and a video of our dot race!!

Church Picnic 2014

As I have mentioned the last two years, our church picnic is one of my very favorite activities all year.  It is close, affordable, there is lots of people that we know there and most importantly fun fun fun!  The parking is always very crowded so we decided to walk this year. On the way, Emma asked "where we were going?" and I told her to the church picnic, her response "this is going to be awesome!". It is like she knew how much fun she was going to have :).  We ate some yummy bar-b-que and then the first person that we ran into was our Bobbob.  We sat down to chat for a bit, although Emma was chomping at the bit to go on a pony ride.

This is the look she gave me when I told her we could ride the pony in five more minutes.

When the five minutes were up, she was all smiles and ready to go!

The last two years, she has been very timid and shy during her first pony ride and I was nervous the same thing would happen to her this year.  No way, she was all smiles :).

She seriously loved it and so did I :) and yes, that is Everly on my back!

After the pony ride, we moved over to the petting zoo.  Ev's was a little less than impressed with the bunny.

However, Emma was enamored with the turkey. In all the petting zoo's that we have been to in Emma's 2.5 years of life (no joke, probably 20), this is the first turkey that we encountered.

And it was love at first side.  I even think they look oddly alike in this picture (check out their legs!) :).

This was definitely her favorite part of the petting zoo.

Then, it was time for my favorite part of the picnic- cotton candy.  My girl shares a love of this stuff with me. We just wish that Papa George would have been there to share it with us too :).

This girl loves her some cotton candy!  Funny side story, her beloved 18 month old teacher, Ms. Debbie, was upstairs playing Bingo when we headed up there and Emma decided she wanted to share a piece of her cotton candy with her.  She tears off the tiniest piece and told me she was ready to share.  Really, you could barely see the piece of cotton candy. I made her tear off a large piece to share.  It was adorable when she asked Ms. Debbie if she would like a bite :).

Ev's does not have the same affinity for cotton candy that Emma and I do (she acts as though we are asking her to eat soap, makes the funniest face and then spits it out), but she does love bingo cards and crayons. 

Wes played a few rounds of bingo, ate our cotton candy and headed back outside for bounce houses and some Elvis :).  I was, again, so proud of my little girl jumping with all these big kids :). 

Emma wanted to go on another pony ride, so we made our way back there but the ponies were resting.  Try explaining that to a two year old.  Learning to wait in lines has been a whole new ballgame for Emma.  We did run into Bobbob again so we grabbed a family shot :).

And then a funnel cake :).

We headed back inside to eat the funnel cake, cool off and wait for the ponies to finish resting. We ran into Emma's sweet best friend from school on the way and she shared some of our funnel cake :). 

Then it was time for Everly's first pony ride of the day!  Emma insisted on riding a certain horse so Ev's was up first :). 

Such a happy little mocc-wearing cowgirl.

Then, Emma was up again :).  This girl was just so so happy all afternoon- as a parent, I just love seeing her so happy and trying new things :).

We wrapped up the day with some time of the obstacle course-ish bounce house.

This girl was worn out by the end of the day- no selfie smiles her her.

I am already looking forward to the church picnic next year :).

Saturday Mornings

Family Traditions.  Ahhhh, I adore family traditions.  My family has a lot of family traditions (Thanksgiving in Port Aransas, special day plate on birthdays, cross country camping road trip in the summers, new Christmas ornaments each year, just to name a few).  Now that I have a family of mine own, I definitely want to make sure that we have our fair share of traditions.  Even simple ones. Like cinnamon roles (with a side of snuggles) on Saturday mornings.

Saturday mornings seem to be our slowest time of the weekend now that swim lessons are over.  We get up, snuggle and then Emma insists on helping "cook" the cinnamon roles :).  She even ices them "by myself".

Then, while eating our cinnamon roles, we snuggle, watch and episode of Mickey Mouse and talk about what we have going on during the weekend.

I look forward to Saturday morning all week :).

First Popsicle: Everly Edition

You may remember that time that I talked about giving Emma her first Popsicle (maybe, if I was a good blogger- I would be able to link for you, but alas that is another topic for another day) when she was about a year old.  The time finally came for Everly to have her very own Popsicle.

We have given her a taste of ice cream every now and then, but this girl definitely does not have the same affinity for sweets like Emma does :).

As a side note, why do kiddo's hold their Popsicle like this (flashback to Emma's first Popsicle!).

Emma broke her Popsicle (which of course would not do for her anymore), but it made it the perfect size for Ev's.

We worked on saying 'ahhhhhhh' while opening our mouth following big sister's lead :).

As Emma liked to squeal; "he is a hot mess!".

Hot, sticky, red dripping mess- she definitely was!

But oh so happy she finally got to participate sharing a treat with Emma :).

Happy Birthday Wes!!

This year, I was determined to make Wes's birthday special.  If you can remember, last year I did nothing for Wes's birthday- I had just had my second surgery to remove my lymph nodes plus a two month old to care for and I just didn't have it in me.  This year, I planned a birthday week, a surprise golf date and we were going to watch his dad play in his band.  Then, the Friday before all of this was going to happen, Wes got pneumonia.  Womp womp womp.  We had to cancel his golf date and ended up having his birthday dinner at our house.  All of the pneumonia junk aside, I still think he had a pretty good birthday dinner and birthday week :).

Family picture with Emma's new "cheese" face :).  Everly was sleeping and missed out on the family picture.

Still rocking it in her picture with me :).

Emma and her grandma- these two just adore each other!

We kept it really low key- I made a couple of soups for dinner and Wes's sister brought an apple pie.  My sweet husband was a good sport wearing his party hat!  Side note, Wes had already cut the apple pie when I insisted on singing happy birthday and blowing out the candle which is why there is only half a pie in the pictures :).

I never tire of the pictures where Emma is blowing out candles.

Go time!

Everyone being a sport and wearing their party hats!

Then, we redid it because it all went to fast and I didn't feel like I got enough pictures :).

Yay Daddy!  Love that Ev's is peeking around the chair to see what all of the crazy is about.

Wes and his sister, Celeste :).

Then, for some unknown reason, Emma insisted on changing into her bathing suit :). 

These two and Emma's bag of frozen corn. This girl is obsessed with frozen corn.

Onto the actual birthday!!  Even though Wes was recovering from pneumonia, I was determined to make this day special for him!  We dropped Emma off at school and headed to Chick-fil-a for a light breakfast :).

I was obsessed with Everly's outfit so I tried to get a good picture :).

Even though Wes was not feeling 100%, I convinced him that we should go to the driving range so he could get some practice in :).  Everly and I had fun taking a bunch of selfies while we cheered him on!

My favorite :).

Start them young!

As you can imagine, Everly was obsessed with the amount of golf balls that were at her disposal- I think she must have said the word ball at least 100 times.

We like chambray.  We also liked picking up Wes's free hamburger at Chophouse Burgers.

After lunch, we picked Emma up from school and it was time to put Everly down for a nap.  I swear these two are the absolute sweetest to each other when it is naptime/bedtime.  Emma kept saying, "I lobe you so much Everleah, I lobe you.".

After Ev's nap- we went to get frozen yogurt.  Wes even let me bring the party hats along- he was being a sport!  Nothing says happy birthday like, here, let me have some of that ice cream!  From both of his girls!

This girl loved her some frozen yogurt.

Family selfie that the girls were clearly not into :).

Happy Birthday Babe!  We love you so much :).