An Un-happening

I normally don't post about stuff like this (the blog is called Harris Happenings) but about super fun outings and parties, etc.  But this week since Monday morning, I have had strep throat and I got it good.  The first thing I realize about this is that sometimes it stinks to be human, the second thing is that the people around me are amazing.  Caleb has totally stepped up to the plate-making lunches, doing laundry, dishes, keeping the girls fed, clothes and ready for their next activity.  He even went in late on Tues and took Gloria to school, picked up her and brought her back to watch movies until later so I could rest.  My neighbor (I call her new but they have lived her since Aug) Marz is amazing, she has picked up Lydia every day from school and twice kept the girls from 3 until Caleb got home.  Gloria is amazing in that she can entertain herself for long periods of time and can even be a big helper grabbing stuff for me.  The first day before I knew what I had she got her own cereal and played by herself until 11 when I finally got out of bed.  On Tues Lydia watched a movie while I was in bed and made me a note that said, "I feel alone all by myself mommy..." but she never complained or fussed verbally :)  Instead of doing our normal Monday around the house day, visiting two friends while G was in school, an outing to the LBJ Wildflower Center (coordinating various cars and rides), then dinner at church and my group study, and picking up five people and then leading Friendship (and it was the church tour I was excited about) I laid around the house and went to the doctor (Caleb and my mom are amazing for strongly encouraging me to go instead of waiting).  Only on Wed afternoon did I do anything which was watch some tv.  It hurt to move and each swallow was excruicatingly painful, but Caleb suggested watching some Johnny Football highlight videos after the girls were in bed, so we did and it was at those moments that the tide turned and I finally started feeling a little better.  So the moral of the story is-Go watch Johnny Football with Dude Perfect and life will go on :)

New Braunsfels Children's Museum

 Our grand hurrah for Lydia's winter break week, we went to the NB children's museum with our DV neighborhood playgroup of girls (yay Kirinda is back from France)  They have a bat cave.

 Rocket ship

 horses to ride

 Laura and Audrey who live close by joined up.  Lydia snapped this of the grown ups :)

 and here are the kids at lunch.  bunch of silly girls!

 It was COLD but they hadn't been upside the days before so they played so long and hard outside.  This is the block building area, doesn't appear to be a single aspiring engineer among them as they jumped around in a mosh pit instead of building and had fun yelling no boys allowed!  we are okay with that for now.   Outside there was also this super cool climbing structure.  The moms wimped up and sat inside by the big window.

Gig em Aggies!  We wore them out.  L&K took us in their car and the kids were exhausted on the ride home.  Definitely a fun place to visit.

Cotton Bowl

 Caleb's uncle (and grandma) scored us some tickets to the Cotton Bowl in Cowboy stadium to watch the Aggies defeat OU.  This is Caleb's first sight of the amazing Johnny Football in person!

 We got to see the world's largest tv (or least a corner of it because it was blocked by just a super super super big tv from our spot in the end zone).  This is the national anthem, the Kilgore Rangerettes preformed with some high school dancers as well.  The game was great, close in the first half to keep us in suspense then a blow out in the end.  Some great plays to remember.

Our group-cousins Amanda, Annie & Loryn with two boyfriends and uncle Garry.  Bill was also there with some buddies from college.  We waved once during the game and then met at the exit to say hi.  Super fun time was had by all because TAMU beat the hell out of OU!  Whoop!  We remembered all the yells (this was my first game since graduating) and enjoyed the aggies around us including current students, old ags and the token drunk guy with his wife who loved everyone and everything and kept getting more drinks and then didn't return for the end of the game!

 Carrie graciously kept our kids and put them all to bed, then we had a short time of catching up before heading out.

Lydia & Luke (who enjoyed making books and forts) Claire & Gloria (who played dress up and dollhouses) and Cora who followed them around walking and looking like a doll.

Rockin' New Year's Eve

Its only 8:49pm, so how could I already be posting our New Year's celebration?  Well we parents are sneaky and because we can we decided to celebrate at 7!  We got dressed up (the girls say I look like I am going to have a baby, so yay for mommy tummies even 4 years later), lit candles, had sparkling apple cider, said something we liked about 2012, said a prayer for 2013, watched a ball drop from years gone by on youtube and listened to Auld Aunsaigne (or whatever it is), then put the kids to bed and since its raining here we don't except a lot of fireworks so we should be asleep before the new year too!!  Here's to this season of our lives and enjoying every minute of it.

Cousins!

 We had a nice surprise visit from Justin, Catherine, Gabriel and Abigail on his birthday.  They are finished with their time in Virginia and are heading to Russia (here we come Summer 2014!) and saw some of his family in San Antonio.  They came up for Gabriel's birthday and we had a nice visit.  The cousins even posed for pictures.

 Then in Salado we captured this cute one of Boyd cousins with Granddaddy.

 in Beaumont of Christmas eve, this was after putting out cookies for Santa...

and the whole gang on Christmas night (we missed Nathanael and McKenzie this year but are thankful we got to see them at Thanksgiving).  Thankful for fun times with lots of cousins!

Radical...again

(I get books for free from agreeing to review them on my wonderful blog from Multnomah’s Blogging For Books.)  I chose to get David’s Platt’s The Radical Question & A Radical Idea because my husband and I have read Radical and Radical Together and really enjoyed them.   They challenged us, made us think, and cause us to evaluate the way we live our lives as followers of Christ and the way we do church.  I thought I would be a good addition to get the new one in the series.  Well, this is not new.  The Radical Question takes material from Radical, The Radical Idea from Radical Together and puts them into a cute little hardback book.  So the material is great; but I have already read it all.  If you want a quick Radical refresher in a nice format, this is a great book for you.  If you want to get someone interested in the concepts but they aren’t big readers then this would be a great gift.  If you want to read something new, then skip this one.  Though I don’t blame Platt for doing this because I listened to one of his sermons today and he shared that all the proceeds from the Radical series goes to spreading the gospel and helping the poor around the world; so go buy a stack of them!

Christmas in Beaumont

 We arrived in Beaumont in time for bed and Abby jumped in with Lydia-which is fine with her because she is going through a phase where she doesn't like to sleep alone.

 The next day was Christmas eve and was full of more chalk, walks, Christmas sweets, Merida bow & arrows.  A small group of us went to the Christmas eve candle light service....

 then home for our own carols and Christmas story....

 and getting cookies ready for Santa!

 who came and brought Gloria a Ariel paint tail (she wanted a paint 'neck' but was still happy)

 and Lydia a unicorn pegisus!

 then tons of presents from all the family!

 then several walks (in the late morning a crazy storm came threw and blew everything around but then the sky cleared up but the rest of the day it got colder and colder) so after walking we had hot chocolate!  Heidi, Catherine, Linda and I went to see Les Mis and left the kids with the boys who did a great job of getting them to sit still and smile for a group photo!

We woke up early the next day and were off to Caleb's cousins!