One crazy fun week(last week!)

I'm finally getting to post about last week.  We've had great friends in town this past weekend and I can't believe I didn't take any pictures!  Even of their cute, adorable 3 month old here.  I'm terrible.  I will get better.  I keep saying that.
So anyway, last week started off with the final two days of the inline skating unit at the kids' school.  Our PE teacher rocks.  A company brings all of the skates and equipment and for 8 bucks every 3rd and fourth grader gets the opportunity to learn how to skate.  I would have never picked skating as an activity for Jman and I'm so glad he got the chance last year.  Santa brought him skates after the unit last year and now he is a pro.
The skating unit is my big volunteer boost of the year.  I'm not much of a "be at the school all of the time" mom but I go every afternoon
 for two weeks to help out the kids with their gear.  I also love getting to assist and encourage the kids that are having a hard time getting their rolling feet on.  It makes me feel like a young camp counselor again.

On the last day they are allowed to skate down the hallways!

Our boxes for the children of Operation Christmas Child was another activity for last week.  We shopped for all of the stuff over the weekend and one night assembled it all.  I'm not sure my kids got the idea that these children probably aren't going to get anything else but I will continue this on and they were happy to do good for someone their age.  I love Operation Christmas Child because it is something so easy to do with such a huge impact.  Go here to learn more! 

*Don't be fooled, it was not easy to go and buy a bunch of cool stuff and not get anything for yourselves.  I may have caved and bought everyone a pack of gum. 

And last but not least,  we were in full Thanksgiving swing with the 1st grade program and Friendship Feast.

{waiting for the big performance}

The Friendship Feast was really cute.  Every class brought their "bounty" to be shared with the whole grade and ours was orange slices.  They ate and ate and ate and then had to go to lunch?! 

So much for being a "not up at the school too much" kind of mom.  I was there everyday last week.  So now we are enjoying Thanksgiving break and hanging out.  

I hope that you all have a blessed Thanksgiving!

Our first cruise

I'm still getting over the cruise.  I've spent the last few days still feeling like I am on a boat.  I didn't take very many pictures because 80 percent of the time I was pretty queasy.  That and I didn't really want to hang on to a camera.

It was a beautiful crisp, cool day when we left the port in Galveston.  

Being that this was our first cruise, I was rather disappointed that we couldn't throw streamers off the boat like the Love Boat.

So the first night I was on a rush and didn't feel the boat rocking and rolling too much.  We had a great time at our first dinner with our friends from church.  I'm so glad that we got a table all to ourselves so we could chat and get to know each other better.  

{look at that decor!  I'm convinced that the designers had a challenge amongst themselves to see how many patterns and colors they could use on one boat!)

Here begins no more pictures because the next morning I absolutely felt the boat rocking and rolling. A lot more than I wanted to.  I was also jumping out of the bed every time I heard a noise thinking that we were going to go down like the Titanic.  So I napped while hubby read and I was refreshed and ready for formal night.  

What a treat that we got to dress up in our fancy new clothes that we had to buy just for the cruise! 

It was a memorable night.  Great food, awesome friends, funny comedians and dancing.  The dancing was my favorite part.

Excursion Day:

Hey, I have a tip for you.  When you are queasy on the big boat you will definitely be queasy on a little catamaran going up and down on very choppy waters taking you to a remote island in the middle of nowhere.  Just a warning.  We ate more than our share of guacamole and met a really cool couple that live in our city.  It was nice to relax and hang with new friends.

The water was the most beautiful shade of blue.

Some other fun friends that greeted us at night.

We finally enjoyed a traditional cruise drink on the last day.  

Why is it that I start to feel relaxed on the last day of any vacation?  Maybe the drink helped.

Until next time!  Maybe.  (-:

Catching up!

Wow!  I am behind.  But with good reason since hubby and I just got back from a sunny beautiful cruise to Cozumel, Mexico!  Before that, there was Halloween and a lot of prep work for my in-laws to stay at our house to watch the kids.  Therefore, bloggin' was put on the back burner.

First up, Halloween.  It was fun but crazy this year.  Last year I picked out a few costumes for them off of Amazon and had them choose.  One click later and I was done.  Not so much this year.

 J-man wanted to be a completely black ninja.  No red, no nothing, so I had to buy all the separate pieces and go to two different Wally worlds for the plastic swords.  I didn't mind since I was putting so much work into Roo's costume.  When will I learn to keep my mouth shut?  I just happened to mention it would be cute for her to be a Fireside girl from Phineas and Ferb.  After many tears and learning that you can't just buy one, I found myself painstakingly making little patches for a Fireside girls sash and searching our town for an orange tank top.  She had the I saw a bear patch, I climbed a mountain patch, and Waterfall patch to represent what she achieved during our Yosemite trip. 

 I love how both costumes turned out and had fun making them!

{she refused to wear the beret so we went with the large red bow instead}

{Fireside girls patch, Waterfall patch, Mommy loves me patch, I'm a star patch}

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I can't help it!  I had to post this.

 I'm really surprised that there was not one time that I didn't sing this on the cruise.  

I had been singing it daily.

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After getting dressed, we celebrated with a Halloween dinner down at the neighbor's house.  She went all out with eyeballs in the juice and mummy wrapped dogs!

crazy outtake but that's what he looked like going from house to house so quickly!

I'm hoping to get pictures of the cruise up soon but we are in holiday full swing here now.  I have two school Thanksgiving lunches this week on two different days!  Are you ready for the Holidays?!