threesixfive, days 320 thru 326

i hope everyone had a pleasant thanksgiving with their families!
this week my mom and i got two days away in a town about two hours from us, called boerne. we ate and shopped and had "girl time". it was fabulous!
then we ate more on thursday. :-/ needless to say i'm looking forward to getting to the gym on monday. i have a bit of catching up to do.


sunday, day 320
our church held its annual thanksgiving dinner. it was packed. and delicious!

monday, day 321

this is our room at the bed and breakfast. each room had a theme. we were in the 'garden room.'

tuesday, day 322

this was a display at one of the shops we went in. i love the old doors as a headboard, and all the same color. i could never have that much white in my house. well, i could, but it wouldnt stay white for very long.

wednesday, day 323
i told colby to go get ready for bed and he came out in this getup. of course molly had to pose with him for a picture.






thursday, day 324
happy thanksgiving!! we went to allens aunts house in waco and celebrated with about 25 of his relatives. this is how most of the guys and kids passed the time.

friday, day 325

every year we decorate the house for christmas on friday after thanksgiving. the tall santa on the left of the mantle is a new addition. i love him.

saturday, day 326
every year the kids each pick a new ornament to add to the tree. colby picked batman (his latest obsession ) and molly picked some irish angel somethingerather. i dont know what it is, but its not the 'campus sweetheart' barbie ornament she picked first, so im good with the irish chick.

after a hectic routineless week, i will welcome monday with open arms. stay warm and dry (we've had lots of sporadic rain this week) if that applies to you. have a blessed week!!

threesixfive, days 313 thru 319

it was a very emotional week for us. if youre out of the loop you can go back two posts and read about our dog fiasco.

i'll get right to the pictures.

sunday, day 313

we got a puppy! a 6-week-old schnauzer. meet roxy.

monday, day 314

we had to get rid of the puppy. very sad. again, to get the full story, click here.

this is colby holding her and singing to her (she's passed out asleep from them playing with her for a solid two hours) right before her new family came to pick her up.

tuesday, day 315

our friends aaron and justine came over for dinner and games. they were welcome company after the monday we had!

wednesday, day 316

allen brought this home to cheer colby up. molly got a cinderella mask.

thursday, day 317
i worked all day making coasters to give to the moms at the homeschool co-op we're a part of for teacher appreciation. they turned out great!!

friday, day 318

my kids have perfectly nice, big rooms to play in, but they prefer dragging all their stuff into the living room!! i dont mind too much; its all put away before bed!

saturday, day 319

i had to laugh when i noticed allens dry cleaning pile-- three different shirts, all orange. can you tell he's getting on board with the "think orange" strategy our church is adopting?

allen preached again this morning. part two of the sermon he started last week. i posted a video of last weeks message here if youre interested. you can find out what all the gumballs were for. :-) i think they did a video of todays sermon too. i'll post it as soon as its ready.

tomorrow i leave for a two day getaway to boerne with my mom. we're staying at a little bed and breakfast, and shopping for a couple days. it was my gift to her for her 50th back in june, but we're just now getting around to going. i'm really looking forward to it. boerne is a cute little town and my mom is pretty awesome, so i figure i cant go wrong with the two in combination with each other.

i hope you have a fantastic thanksgiving! we're making a day trip to waco to spend it with all of allens extended family. stay safe and warm (if that applies to you. its 80 degrees and muggy here today. blah.)!!

allens sermon

here's allens sermon from Sunday morning. it was his first time to speak to the church as the family pastor and he shared a new strategy our church will be implementing. we're so excited about where the Lord is taking us. also, you kind find out what the gum balls are for. :-)

Why Orange? 11/13/11 from Central Round Rock on Vimeo.

epic fail

if there was a mother of the year award, I would definitely be out of the running.

approximately 48 hours ago we picked up our cute, fluffy, adorable new schnauzer puppy, who we christened 'roxy'. we brought her home and played with her and quickly became attached. not long after her joyous arrival, I started itching. all over,but mostly my face and neck. I didn't really pay attention until later that night when I was still itching. suddenly it dawned on me that it might be the puppy.
'I'm not allergic to dogs!' I thought to myself. however, as a child I actually did test positive to dog and cat allergies among a myriad of other things. we had just always had animals around, and I was on allergy medicine pretty much all the time, so either that was doing the job well enough that I didn't notice any kind of adverse reaction, OR my body adjusted to having animals in the house (which I've read can most definitely happen).

we haven't had an animal (with hair) in the house for 7 years, though, so at this point I'm wondering if I really do have a mild allergy, and having a puppy right up in my face aggravated that allergy.
I sat there on my living room floor Sunday night, wondering what I should do. I decided to give it some time and hopefully it either wasn't actually the dog, or I would adjust like I did as a kid.
fast forward to Monday morning.
wait, let me back up first.....
7 years ago,when Colby was one,we had him allergy tested because he had a mild reaction to eggs, and was just generally a congested kid. we found out at that time that he was indeed allergic to eggs as well as cats and dogs. they cant test for seasonal allergies that young, but I figured he probably had a healthy dose of that as well, just like his momma.

we had a cat at the time; mine from when I was about 13 years old. I hated to get rid of her, but as soon as we did, Colby showed a marked difference. (my mom took her, and although very old, she's still alive so I get to see her often. yay!) as he's grown it's very obvious that he can't be around cats or dogs without benadryl coursing through his body.
over the years we've heard about different hypo-allergenic dogs, and have even 'test-driven' schnauzers at different pet stores, always with very mild but still clear reactions from Colby. a family in our church had a litter of schnauzer puppies 6 weeks ago and while Allen and I were in Maine, my mom took the kids over to visit and play with them. they were there for about 45 minutes, and Colby didnt have a reaction! I took them back last weekend (on Friday) to see for myself, with the intent to buy the last one left, a little girl. Colby once again came away hive free, so we happily made plans to come back and get her on Sunday when she was officially 6 weeks old, and clear to go to a new home.
now fast forward to Monday morning.

we wake up, have breakfast, and the kids play with the puppy for about an hour. then it happened. sneezing, eye rubbing, and it wasn't me like the night before (but I was still having some kind of reaction). it was Colby. my heart dropped. were we going to have to get rid of this puppy? the puppy my kids have been wanting since forever??
I very gently told Colby what I saw happening and that I was reacting as well, and that we might have to find her a new home. we all cried, then I made some phone calls. I thought about and talked through the options, namely if we should wait a week or two and see if we would in fact adjust. we decided that if there was any chance that we would have to pull the plug it was better to do it sooner rather than later. I would hate to have the kids get even more attached, the dog gets trained, learns her name, and the after all that we still have to find her another home. id probably rather stick nails in my eyeballs.
a family in our church that we know well and love was able to come pick her up last night and give her a new home. we'll be able to visit and take her on the occasional walk. they renamed her Zoe, which was our second name choice. it was a very long, very emotional couple of days here at our house. we took the kids the gattiland for pizza and games last night, and let them stay up past their bedtime. today we made a trip to target where they each bought two new toys with their birthday money from great-grandma. so I guess it's safe to say that we're getting through it with junk food and, well, junk. :-)
there's talk of a hamster, but I know allergies to those are possible, too, and not altogether uncommon. I'd hate to have to do this again. I think for the time being we're unfortunately going to have to stick to animals of the scaly variety.
they're just not very good cuddlers.

even though shes not ours anymore, here she is. cute little thing.

for those of you waiting for allens sermon, i'll have a link up tomorrow.

threesixfive, day 306 thru 312

we had a very full week, starting with a trip to great wolf lodge for colby and mollys birthdays. allens preaching tomorrow, so we brainstormed some ideas for that, and we made a pretty last minute decision to get a puppy. we dont pick her up till tomorrow, so no pictures yet. she'll get her own post this week i'm sure. :-)
heres what we did this week...

sunday, day 306
molly got a haul of squinkies for her birthday. what are squinkies you ask? teenie tiny little toys that will inevitably get sucked up in my vaccum cleaner. allen and i are taking bets on how long it will be before they've all disappeared. but i have to admit, they are kinda cute.

monday, day 307

we spent the morning in the car and the afternoon swimming and riding water slides at the resort (no pictures of it, though. sorry.). it was a great trip because colby was big enough to ride everything on his own, and there were only two slides molly couldnt go on, although she certainly would have if they'd let her. i definitely have two thrill seekers on my hands. we went to dinner at the rainforest cafe (one of the kids favorite places to go if theres one where we are) and ordered the volcano for dessert. that thing didnt stand a chance.

tuesday, day 308 (HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOLLY!!!)

theres a game at the GWL called magiquest. the kids begged and begged to play last time, but its pricey, so we didnt. this time since we were celebrating birthdays, we splurged. it was really really cool. they each got a magic wand and you have to go all over the 8 floors of the building to find clues and get points to free the pixies and fight the dragon. the wands are synched up to everything so you just wave it at something and it will come to life and give you your next "task" or whatever. allen and i had just as much fun with it as they did.

wednesday, day 309

my big 5-year-old girl at lunch with my family. i love when she wears her hair down, which is pretty much never (she lives in a headband).

thursday, day 310

i made this hair clip!! between the spray adhesive, hot glue, and felt backing, im not sure my fingers will ever be the same, but im pleased with how it turned out.

friday, day 311

we went to a coffee house to hear the band that leads our youth worship on wednesday nights. this is the drummers wife, mandy, and colby, wearing his new and somewhat obnoxious but adorable hat over bright pink earphones (they belong to mandys daughter ramona who typically wears them at the concerts, unless a handsome 7 year old wants to try them out).

saturday, day 312

we went up to the church this morning to set the stage up for allens sermon tomorrow. 3,000 red gumballs and 40 yellow. i'll post a link to his sermon this week so you can go find out what they're for if you want to. ;-) hows that for incentive?

as i said earlier, tomorrow we will be the proud new owners of a schnauzer puppy. i'll share pictures of her later this week. looks like between that and posting the sermon, i'll be on here at least twice between now and saturday...between potty training our new addition of course. i thought i was past those days.

have a blessed week!!

threesixfive, days 299 thru 305

just another week here. mimi and papa visited from houston mid-week to deliver birthday presents, so it was great to see them. other than that, everything was pretty standard.
heres what we did...

sunday, day 299
i'm working on a wreath for my memaws birthday coming up in another week and a half. these are the fabrics i chose. her house is mostly blue with little splashes of pinks and purples.

monday, day 300

day 300?!? that means only 65 days left this year. crazy.

heres my little candy corn and pizza slice all dressed up to go trick or treating.

tuesday, day 301
we had a playdate at a friends house, and colby found this headband that i guess is supposed to be pumpkin-esque in nature. he put his head on the coffee table next to the other pumpkin and tried to blend in.

wednesday, day 302
im in the process of unpackaging and hanging up all the costumes i purchased for the co-op christmas skit. colby and molly wanted to test a couple of them out for me.

thursday, day 303

new haircuts!!

friday, day 304

this was colbys main bday gift from mimi and papa. he hasnt stopped playing with it since thursday.

saturday, day 305

this is the barner family. theyre the ones whos baby girl passed away last week. if you didnt watch the video last week check it out on the previous post. their story is touching. the celebration service in honor of caroline was saturday morning, and to wrap up the service, they did a dove release. such a cool thing to see and be a part of.

mollys birthday is tuesday (she'll be 5), and we're heading out tomorrow morning for a dual birthday celebration trip. each year we've had one party for colby and molly together, since their birthdays are only 10 days apart. this year they werent as keen on that idea, so instead of having a party (or parties as it were...or wouldve been), we talked them into taking a trip. the four of us are spending 2 days and a night at the great wolf lodge in grapevine. its an indoor waterpark, plus some other pretty cool things. we went a couple years ago, but theyre taller now, so they'll be able to do more this time. it should be a lot of fun!

have a blessed week!