Reading Report

Last night we received a report home about Ashley's reading. The last few years Ash has had to take these tests to see where she is on reading, writing and comprehension. They take one the beginning, the middle and the end of the year. Ashley is almost off the charts for her age!! We are so proud of her! Her teacher was very complementary!!

Enjoying the weather

The weather was so beautiful on Sunday ( in the 70s) and Paul took the kids out front to play while I made lunch. Corey has taken a shining to baseball lately from watching the movie, The Sandlot, so he's been practicing his swing! :) Ashley walked Kitty up and down the sidewalk and eventually Tater joined them. After Coreys nap, we took a walk with the scooters. 

Our little lefty

Daddy's Hot Toddy

Since Corey's been fighting a cough with his allergies, Paul's been making the kids a "virgin" hot toddy. :) They love it!! 

Breakfast at Magnolia Pancake Haus

I woke up craving pancakes. And the only pancakes that could fill that void were from Magnolia. We had some money left in the budget this month so we went to breakfast.

The only catch to not having a long wait Magnolia Pancake Haus is to get there before 8:30am.... otherwise you are looking at about a 30min-1 hour wait. No problem here! We were up by 7:15am and were seated by 8:20am!! Yay!

The kids split the stack of pancakes and Paul ordered the Denver omelette.. his fav. I also had my own stack but could only eat half! I brought the rest home for lunch. Yum! Ashley and Corey ate it all... which means they ate just as much as me and I was absolutely stuffed! Can we say, growth spurt?! As Ashley would say... they "Haus'd" it! HaHa! (get it.. Magnolia Pancake Haus...Haus'd it) She's a genius. 

Doing some activities in her Highlights magazine 

Oh and by the way... their coffee is da bomb! Paul and I are in heaven when we drink it.

Juicing with Daddy

Paul has become a master juicer the last several months and last night Ashley helped him press the celery, apples, lemon, spinach and ginger. So cute!

Trains

Corey playing with his trains! Paul helped him make the track. It turned out super neat. Corey just LOVES these tracks!

Morning

The kids were playing " party " yesterday, and they took apart a birthday sign and hung it up. This morning they were sitting at the bar, and I just had to snap this photo. 

**** I posted this on Sunday but I guess it never went through. :(

Super Saturday

We started the day by going to get Ashley a leotard for gymnastics class! She was super excited!  Then we headed to Pei Wei for lunch. Afterward, we went to visit a new kennel called Home Away From Home. We have had a good run with our previous kennel but lately the girls have been showing signs that they are getting older and we wanted to send them to a place that specializes in boarding and not grooming. This place is more expensive but reasonable and we had a great feeling while we were there. They are good with Pit Bulls too so that made us feel better! In fact while we were there, they were caring for two pit bull strays! After that, we headed to UTSA to play outside in the big field there. Corey has been wanting to play baseball, so we hit around some balls, played frisbee and rode the scooters from Christmas. It was a lovely afternoon. The weather was perfect after the recent cold front. 70 degrees in January.... I'll take it!

Kids Cafe

Ashley was invited to Kids Cafe again! Kids Cafe is an incentive program at her school to get kids to behave more. The kids get invited by the lunch room monitor if they've been well behaved for a long period of time. The kids get to eat on the stage and its private and sectioned off. They also get to invite a date. You can pick anyone you'd like- a classmate, teacher, family member, etc. Ashley has been invited to go at least once every year! This time she picked Paul to be her date! She has been so excited to have her Daddy come sit with her at lunch all week and today was the day!

I love these two sooo much!

Below are the photos from last year when I was her date. She could've picked ANY kid, yet she picked her parents last year and this year. We are lucky to have such a sweet and kind little girl.

Homemade Minestrone Soup

I tried making homemade minestrone soup this week and boy did it taste YUMMY. I tweaked a recipe I found on the Food network website. It was super easy and the smells reminded me of home when my Mom used to make me "the red soup" :) That was my favorite soup that she made growing up.  This was healthy, low on cost overall and gave us leftovers. Definitely is a repeat. I have no idea why I hadn't made it before!

Just Dance

Our family LOVES to dance... especially me and the kids. The Wii Just Dance games are a blast and we just got the kids the most recent game for Christmas. The other night we were bustin' a move to Becky G's "Built for This". The video below is a snippet from the first night we did this song and I am so impressed with the kids on how quickly they retain choreography!

***If you are receiving blog updates via email, please click on the link below in your email to get on the blog website. You'll be able to view the video there.

I love my husband

Paul was texting me while I was in the kitchen baking and he was in the living room watching Football. I had no idea he was even texting me! I love him and how he always makes me feel special. Newlyweds forever. :) he's the best.

Happy

This mug and what's inside of it make me happy! (It's hot chocolate in case you wanted to know) :)

Ashley "the gymnast" :)

Ashley had her first gymnastics class of the new semester last night. She's in level 2 now and it's in the bigger gym. She was a little nervous at first but once she got there she did great! We were surrounded by all different level gymnasts who were practicing for their competition this weekend. Man these kids are talented! Ashley was super impressed and even clapped when she saw someone master their floor exercise. :) She was definitely inspired and said that "they must have practiced really hard to do that!" She's so sweet and I'm so happy that she has found something that she enjoys!

Girls Day

On Saturday Ashley and I had a Girls Day. Ashley and I have been planning a day for just us girls for awhile and it finally was here! She has been requesting some time alone with me and I am realizing that now she is at the age where our relationship can grow from me not just being her mother but her friend. :)

It wasn't a super eventful day, but still fun! A stop at Starbucks, a picnic lunch in the car, getting some EOS lip balms at Target, walking the mall and going to Barnes and Noble to browse some books. It really was one of the best days! Ash even got to use her Christmas money to get an Animal Jam book! :) She is growing up so fast and becoming such a lovely young lady.

Homemade Ornaments

The kids made ornaments this year in school. These are one of those things that you look forward to when you become a parent. I'm so excited to have these to enjoy year after year.

Corey Preschool Age 4

His sweet little handprint.

Ashley 2nd Grade Age 8

Happy New Year

We stayed home again this year for NYE which is what we love to do. Earlier in the day we played some of the games that we got for the kids - like Sorry, Trouble and Jenga! We hung some fun New Years decorations that we had and I made some appetizers and we watched the movie the Sandlot (Corey got it for Christmas) and the ball drop. We always celebrate east coast time but the kids actually stayed up until midnight our time as well! Although we were all asleep by about 12:30am.  Paul organized a sleep over party in the living room and we had the air mattress and couches all made up. This morning I got up and made breakfast sandwiches on bagels and we watched a bit of the Rose Parade.

Later today we plan to snuggle and watch Back to the Future Part 2 since the movie takes place in 2015 believe it or not!! We are ACTUALLY in the future now. 

Ashely is mastering her Jenga skills!

I made homemade hot chocolate

Cheers with Sparking Apple Cider!

Out and About

On Tuesday, we did a little shopping and lunching. We had some Christmas gift money/gift cards and thought we would take a day out to spend with the kids. We first went to renew our Costco membership and stock up for the upcoming month, then we went out to lunch at Pei Wei! The kids love using chopsticks! After that we looked a bit in Half Price books and then headed to Bed, Bath and Beyond since I had some money left on our gift card and got some new cooking tongs and hair dryer. After that we headed to the La Cantera mall so that Ashley could use her Barnes and Noble gift card from Bimmie and Pepaw. We had a blast looking through all of the books and after much deliberation, Ashley finally decided on two Thea Stilton books. She has a tad leftover a plans to use it on another trip with some of her allowance.  We also got a Starbucks gift card so we walked ( and it was cold) to the Starbucks at the other end of the mall. I got a Peppermint Mocha and Paul got a Gingerbread Latte. YUM! The kids loved looking at the pretty windows at Tiffany's nearby. Then we went to Trader Joe's for some groceries to get through the week.  It was a lovely day and we enjoyed coming home to a light dinner of "cereal" and cuddled up to watch E.T. since Corey got it for Christmas from Aunt Cathy.

Hanging with Daddy and playing the drums with his "chopsticks"

Silly Ashley! She was FREEZING!

Bundled up with Daddy's hat and gloves in Starbucks. It got colder later in the day.

Checking out the windows at Tiffany's