29 and the painful week ahead

Toad is 29 and now begins the long week (my last week of being 29) where he complains daily of being so old... "How can you stand being so old?" and "it's hard to be this old" etc...

For Tom's b-day I drug him--against his will--to Oklahoma's state park, Beavers Bend (2 and a 1/2 hour drive), our closest set of "mountains". I think eventually he did have fun. We stayed at the Lakeview Lodge, hiked around the lake and ate some local catfish. Thanks again to my wonderful mother who watched and even fed our girls so we could get away.

here is the view from our room, those hills in the distance are our lofty peaks
the "little smokies"



the back roads of Oklahoma were like a foreign country

Feliz Navidad

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

We started our Christmas morning out early with Deli throwing up a few times. Tess re-woke us up at 8:00 with a "hey, there's a trampoline out my window" and so the unwrapping began. Boo remained completely uninterested in Christmas--despite Roo's efforts to involve her--until a Tinkerbelle lamp from Granda brought her back to consciousness. Here's a Christmas video to sum up our day as well as a glimpse back at last Christmas in Austin.

Once again, in yet another attempt to lure kindred food loving spirits to visit, I'm posting our Christmas Eve feast menu
Bourbon brown sugar pecan encrusted salmon
Brussel Sprouts with crisp proscuitto
Habenero roasted potatoes
Sparkling pomegranate juice
and lots of bread smeared with nutella (thanks to Dona, thank you, thank you, thank you)
This is one of my favorite photos of my mom. We added a little something extra to her wassail that made her an especially fun Christmas guest. Cheers!

Roo and the mullet

Roo is in this singing group that has performed over the holidays at various little Christmas venues. Here is video of one of our favorite Roo moments, see how she copes with a static hair attack.

At one of her performance we ran into this guy who proves that everything is bigger and better in Texas--even mullets

He has really got me thinking...what is the motivation behind a mullet? Of course there's the obvious sex appeal but what else?

texas snow

In contrast to my sister-in-law's blog about the blizzards in Denver I thought I would post a pic of snow storms Texas style. Since Tess spends all year asking when will it snow, and I spend all year explaining that it doesn't snow in Texas, she was elated for the 24 hours that I was wrong.

white rock lake

One reason we chose to live where we live in Dallas is the proximity to White Rock Lake and the jogging/bike trail that run the perimeter of the lake. Unfortnately until this past week we had failed to actually get on the trail. So last wednesday I put the girls in the bike trailer and we headed over to the lake to check things out. We found a beautiful escape from the city and a park with a delicate arch mini-replica to reminds us of home.
Here are some videos of that windy day

(warning these videos may only be interesting to grandmas and may induce motion sickness)
Roo doing her little mermaid impression

the girls playing and climbing around

Deli swinging

running by the lake

Deli refused to take her back pack off the entire 2 hours at the park

little mermaid wanna be (I hate disney)

Turkey Lurkey

Yeah visitors!

Nevy, Burke, Maya and Kaleb (our next door neighbors in Austin) drove up to have Thanksgiving with us. They would have been our first visitors from Austin had Katharine and Joesph and co. not stopped by on the way to visit family two days earlier. Anyway, it has been fun to see everybody and our girls couldn't be happier.

Here's the menu (in hopes to lure more food loving friends and family to come visit us next thanksgiving or sooner):
wild mushroom sherried soup
honey basil carrots
chipotle pecan green beans
parker rolls
venison pork and bison pork sausage with sweet peppers and purple onions
rustic potatoes
red pear, almond and wild rice stuffing
Herb-Rubbed Turkey
and for sweetness sake, all from scratch
NY cheesecake
Tom's apple love nut pie
and pumpkin pie

At the end of it all even my eye balls felt chubby, and I swore myself to an anorexic life--which ended this morning with nutella laden pancakes. Before falling asleep last night Tom's last remark was a question--"Why did you have to make the kids dress like pilgrims and indians for dinner?" Anyone who knows my mom knows I was just following my enduringly bizarre genetic impulses.

Who’s afraid of the big bad bar

Yes after weeks of much doubt and anticipation, it is official… Toad passed the bar. I was so excited when I found out I ate all of the girls Halloween Reese peanut butter cups.

As we commemorate the passing of the bar I must also mourn the passing of a less corporate Toad. Will there ever be a vacation long enough for him to grow such a mane?

Halloween

A few days before Halloween, the girls and I made a cake to donate for the cakewalk at our church's halloween party. Unfortunately neither of girls won a cake in the cakewalk and they decided to torment the family who won our cake until they invited us over the next day to have a slice with them (Boo Radley ran over to the 33 year old male winner and yelled "hhheeyyy that's MY cake").

Halloween night. I gave in and let Roo princessizes herself, even eyeshadow. Boo was suppose to be a witch (again) when she decided disco fit her mood better, the wig only lasted two houses before it was too scratchy. After 20 minutes of trick-r-treating Roo stated she had plenty of candy and was ready to go home (not her mother's daugther obviously).

pumpkin painting

We spent this last Sunday afternoon dancing around on the deck and painting pumpkins for Halloween. The weather is perfect right now (great time to visit Dallas, if anyone out there is planning a vacation destination).

sleepy head

Toad and I recently bought a king sized bed and gave the girls our old queen. Even with this new found space the girls end up sleeping like this ^

Here is a video of the girls singing the abcs in their new window-rific room
(click on the letters "abcs" above and the video will pop up)

Corny Dogs

These two photos pretty much sum up our Texas State Fair experience. We ate our way through the fair--corny dogs (a fair classic), fried cheese on a stick, turkey leg (what Boo is eating) fried cheesecake, funnel cake, fried coke, chalupas, ice cream bars, sausage on a stick and lots of Diet Coke. Roo was in the pee-wee stampede and even won a ribbon for her lively gallops during her designated event, barrel racing with a stick horse. More pics... oh and the 1200 lb pig

the big D

Our first full week in Dallas has been a busy one. The girls have been exploring their backyard and have a dozen or so mosquito bite battle wounds. My Mom has been here helping us with our move and has managed to call for some manner of daily celebration that involves ice cream or nutella iced cookies with sprinkles--the girls couldn't be happier. We discovered the Dallas Arboretum--that is just under a mile from our house (potential visitors could enjoy a brisk walk by the lake to the Arboretum or we would be happy to drive potential visitors there )--66 acres of gardens with; 13 tree houses, 8 pioneer kid-sized playhouse, hills to roll down, concerts, storytelling, ballet, kindermusik, etc... It is simply a beautiful place to be. We have a neighbor with 8 cats. At least 4 of the cats hangout on our front porch while the others sleep on top of our fence. The girls love waking up in the morning and seeing a cat snoozing outside their window. I've found meaning in cleaning, something about owning a house makes me want to clean, it is the oddest urge. I love...I mean really love my dishwasher and my garbage disposal.

Goodbye Austin

It’s been a week since we left Austin and our carefree life behind. Today I was talking to a new friend and when I mentioned how sad we were to leave student housing she started to laugh. I felt a wave of student housing snobbery come over me. We will miss all our dear friends the casual evenings sitting outside watching the kids play and talking about movies, politics and the superiority of Mexican Coca-Cola.