We're Off to See the Wizard!

the dutton {& russky} cast of the wizard of oz!

 we spent halloween as we did last year...trick-or-treating with our good friends the dutton's.  sweet girlfriend blair turned 2, so they decided to have a big backyard halloween birthday party for her.  there were games, munchies, and crafts to keep all the kiddos busy, and everyone seemed to have a smashing good time!

wendy always wanted to have a full-family wizard of oz themed halloween, so we dressed the little russky as the cowardly lion.  he was so cute if i do say so myself!

lion's and tigers & blair's oh my!  hee hee hee!  here's the birthday girl with her boyfriend nick & big brother trevor.

kris was a bit tall to be one of the flying monkeys, and glenda the good witch was already being played by wendy's mom, so we decided to go out on our own and be a "pair of blue jeans/genes".  clever, no?  the other parents at the party didn't get the memo about dressing up, so we scored ourselves the funniest costume award!  woo hoo!

cowardly lion nick & tin man trevor

dorothy & the cowardly lion all set to fill their bags with trick-or-treat delights 

kris had to work at the fire station the night of halloween, so i decided to just dress up as  a SAHM! {stay-at-home-momma}

me & my sweet russky lion :) <3

we all had a blast at the birthday party, and scored a ton of yummy loot the next night trick-or-treating.  i remember going door-to-door with our neighbors growing up, and i feel so fortunate we have made such awesome friends, and have started our own traditions for the holidays!  can't wait to see how the kids all grow and compare the pictures of the years gone by!

xoxo...liese :o)

Happy New Year 2011 (um...like 11 months ago...)!

{nothin' like talking about the current new year celebration just before the next year begins!  what can i say?  i'm a slacker & just gettin' around to this!}

brenden, emily, & nick {aka "ben"...their crazy cousin club name}...all ready to ring in the new year...at 8pm :)
we headed down to nana & pop's house to ring in the new year with uncle brent & the kiddos last year.  it was the first year since we brought nicky home with us that kris & i actually went out to celebrate.  usually we sit in our neighbor's back yard by a toasty fire, and watch the ball drop on their big outdoor screen which is always a blast, but being able to get all dressed up and head out like adults was awesome!
we celebrated with the kids before we went out, complete with "hore dee vors" for dinner, dessert, party hats & noise makers. then it was game on as we scrambled to get them all snug in their beds while we prepped to get our adult party on! 

pretty girl emily flaunting her stuff...not sure where her other sock is!

whoo hoo!  happy new year!!!

shot of the mr & i...at the beginning of the night.  good thing we got a good one in this early, cuz they got pretty silly as the night went on!  this was shortly after we arrived...the second time.  i went out like a rookie partier and forgot my ID, got carded {woot woot!}, and had to swing back to the house!  you can really tell we don't get out much anymore...and if we do...we have a kid in tow & for some reason we don't get carded often :(

brother brent, "vivvy" {as nick says..."viv" is hard for him to say for some reason...plus it's a cute moniker i think!}, me & my hot hubby

hot party chicks 

the VIP crew...really...we had a "VIP" area, which was really just a small section roped off from the general public on the dance floor.  it was nice to actually maintain a place to sit and hang out and not have to worry {too much} about being bumped into all night.

aw...how sweet...get a room! 

get enough wodka in this guy & he'll strut his stuff!

these boys are hilarious.  no clue what was going on here...but it makes me giggle every time i look at it!

we had a blast ringing in 2011 like the party people we pretended to be, but...it all came with a price the next AM!  oh well...the best part of all was getting to spend time with the family, and nicky getting to hang out with his cousins :)

xoxo...liese :o)

The Return of Dobby

last year we broke down and joined the ranks of all the other parents who are trying to keep the "Santa-ness" alive and brought the "elf on the shelf" into our home {aka "dobby"...nick named him...very cool because as you may or may not know, nick has a really hard time remembering names, much less giving inanimate objects names...& oh yes..."dobby" is the house elf from harry potter...that kid loves him some HP!}.  dobby was pretty boring last year...showed up in random spots all over the house, but nothing fun like all the ideas i'm reading this year on pinterest.  {i.e. making snow angels?!  turning the milk green?!  oh you crazy elves!...totally copy-catting those ideas this year!}.  anyhoo...dobby started off this year much the same...in fact, he didn't even show up for duty on day one!  musta gotten lost in traffic?  yeah...that's it.

more to the point...keep getting distracted by the flushing of the toilet up in nicky's room...over & over & over & over...and hearing him jump from his bed to the floor...over & over & over...  oh yeah... where was i?  oh...so we watched the elf on the shelf show the other night, and read the book, and dobby joined us on day 2.  boring spot, can't be creative cuz i still don't have all our trees decorated...yadda yadda yadda.  anyhoo...nicky's behavior has been less than stellar lately.  pretty much every november since we brought him home has been a challenge {it's the month his birth mother abandoned him, and he subsequently had a seizure and stayed in the hospital for a bit, then moved to the orphanage...quite a lot to take in for a 7 month old!}...feel sorry for him now?  good...we do too.  but...he takes a lot out on us this time of year, and it's hard to get into the "buying of presents" and the "joy of Christmas" and all that when he's just constantly fighting, arguing, whining, lying, tantrum-ing, etc!  i mean seriously - how many times can one say "i don't want to..." in a short period of time?  well...i lost count at 375...ok maybe not that many, but pretty dang close!

this past week has been so rough that at bedtime, nick exclaims "i don't want to go to bed!  i want to stay up all night and watch movies!", etc {basically says any & everything to avoid going to bed & to get our attention}.  once in his room, he plays in his bed, jumps up and down, peeks out of his room, etc, until he finally puts himself to bed and falls asleep.  last night he jumped up and down on the top few steps outside his room and tried to get our attention for over an hour before he finally went to bed...and that's only because we turned off the tv at 9:35pm and "went to bed" ourselves!  sheesh...stubborn much?!  i even told him he didn't have to go to bed if he didn't want to...he could play all night for all i cared, but...he had to stay in his room.

well..."dobby" must have finally had enough and told "santa" all about it.  and "santa" wrote a letter to nick telling him that all his crazy behaviors had better stop or there will be no presents in his sack for him...basically, nicky can stuff his sorries in a sack unless he shapes up!

we'll see how it goes...nick's been up for about 30 minutes now playing in his room...and it's 7:45am.  seriously...can't a momma enjoy a quiet cup of joe before reporting to "work"?  i have a feeling it's going to be a long day...your prayers are much welcomed!!!

xoxo...liese :o)

Christmas 2010...better late than never!

last christmas we celebrated with granny & poppa {kris' parents}.  it was the first year nick truly understood what all the fuss was about and he was actually excited for the big red man to come.  we were also fortunate enough to spend time with our good friends the dutton's (andrew, wendy, trevor and blair bear).  we walked the lights in our neighborhood with mugs of hot chocolate and had yummy desserts.  we also attended the candlelight service at our church.  it was a great christmas and each one is better than the last as nicky learns all about the true meaning of christmas...

here are a few shots of nick helping make and decorate our christmas cookies.  i bought some fun beach inspired ones to go with our home decor, but the cookies themselves turned out really flat...and huge!  we did our best with what we had, and they tasted good none-the-less!

trevor & nicky dancing to the light show at one of the houses in our neighborhood

our hot cocoa light tour crew

blair bear all cozy

nick & trev struttin' their stuff

marshmallows...yum!

nick ready to meet santa

ho ho ho...how cute is this?!

leaving cookies for santa

loved his trampoline so much he had to open all his gifts while sitting on it! 

best.  present.  ever.

                    nicky thanking granny & poppa for his gifts

nicky & daddy making granny's birthday cake

the whole family out to dinner to celebrate granny's birthday...

turkey day 2010...a tad overdue...

the end of 2010 was quite the blur.  we busily prepared for my parents, brother, his kids, and my cousins and their families to join us for thanksgiving.  that meant prepping the inside and outside of the house - which for kris, meant spending countless hours outside trimming, planting, mowing, hanging decor, etc.  he's such a good boy! :)  anyhoo...at this point, our pictures are gonna speak a 1000 words...because i don't have any super stories to go along with them other than the fact that spending time with family can be both rewarding and stressful at the same time.  at the end of the day, i'm so thankful to have such a wonderful, loving, awesome family that i get to spend time with and i cherish every moment!

kris, brent, viv & pop all got to go to the Cowboy's game on thanksgiving day itself, so our feast was the day after.  here's kris & brent testing out some Cowboy's apparel for the game.  {notice i capitalized Cowboy's & yet nothing else...yeah...i live in texas...football always comes 1st!}

the kiddos hung out playing, making crafts while nana & i prepped our thanksgiving feast

we took our stir crazy bunch to look at christmas lights in our neighborhood while we waited for the football bunch to return

after lights, we came home for dessert and cozy-ing up in our comfy jammies

over the weekend we took the kids to the mckinney dickens' of a christmas for some food and activities.  2010 was our 3rd annual visit and we must like it because we already have plans to attend this year!

the beautiful miss emily with her face painted

brenden & nicky with their faces painted...this was nicky's 1st time to actually allow it to be done!  he's not the biggest fan of paint on the face...i don't think he likes the way it feels.

other than that we pretty much just hung out at the house, ate a TON and enjoyed spending time together!  

xoxo...liese :o)

Happy Halloween!

da dum.  da dum.  da dum.

...ok...ok...i know this is a little late...but...here it is anyway!


This year we decided to ditch the Dallas Arboretum (which last year we vowed to make our "annual Halloween trick-or-treat adventure since it was so beautiful).  After working in the yard all day, and me re-injuring my poor aching back, I just couldn't deal with all the crowds.  So instead, we joined our friends the Dutton's and their extended family.  Nicky was super-excited to get to see his friend Trevor, as it had been about two weeks-ish since they last ran around like crazy fools spent time together.


We arrived at their house around 6pm, snacked on some yummy chips and queso, then rounded everyone up for a quick photo...

...then around their neighborhood we trekked...in search of all things sugar!


I was surprised to see a few things:

1. Most people trick-or-treating in the Dutton's neighborhood, did not in fact live in their neighborhood.
2. There were really no two costumes alike - yes, there were several witches, etc, however, they were all decorated differently, so I thought that was kinda nice.
3. The age of which most trick-or-treaters has definitely increased since the last time I went house-to-house begging for candy.  And I don't mean there were 17 year olds instead of 14, although there were those as well.  I mean there were grown ADULTS, toting Wal-Mart bags with which to carry their free loot.  Really?  Ya can't just hop on down to the local gas station and buy yourself a Kit-Kat?!

Anywho...we had fun nonetheless, and it looks like our new tradition will be spent with good friends engaging in good ol' fashioned house-to-house hunting candy family fun!