Happy Thanksgiving

We have so much to be thankful for, and it's amazing how a conversation with a little 3 year old girl made me realize HOW much we have to be thankful for.  We've been talking about what we "need" to live, for the last month.  Most of my answers are "no we do not need that to live."  We've talked a lot about being thankful this last month as we were preparing for the Thanksgiving holiday.  We were especially thankful to have family here with us to celebrate.  Grandpa and Mimi have come out for Thanksgiving for the past three years now.  We did something new this year.  We decided to sign up for "Operation Thanksgiving," which is a program at the Air Force base here that allows the public to open up their home to the men and women who are going through basic training.  That was a really great experience for us, and the guys were so thankful for their time away.  We picked up Shane and Austin Thanksgiving morning at the Air Force base and brought them to our house.  The first thing we did was give them our cell phones so they could call their families.  They took turns emailing and then just relaxed on the couch while watching football.  We had a great lunch and got to know the guys pretty well.  My favorite moment was walking into the living room to see one of the guys taking a nap on the couch.  This kid felt comfortable enough in a strangers house to fall asleep...that made my day!  The day went by very fast and soon it was time to take the guys back to base.  We grabbed a fast food dinner on the way, and before we knew it we were hugging them goodbye and thanking them for joining us and making our experience so great.  As always, Cadynce and Donnie had so much fun with Grandpa and Mimi.

This was also the weekend of our 6th anniversary.  We decided to "not" dress up and go bowling.  After bowling we went to BJ's to hang out and have dessert.

We got our tree up on Sunday and Cadynce helped me put the ornaments on the tree.  She wanted to know where each ornament came from...I was in heaven!   View Album for more pictures.

Christmas at Sea World

Sea World is all ready for Christmas.  We went this weekend to check out all the decorations, and to see the Sesame Street Show.  We got there early, so the kids played for a long time on the new playground.  They had a lot of fun.  The Sesame Street show was great and the kids loved it.  They have never been into Sesame Street, but seeing them up on stage singing and dancing to Christmas songs was awesome.  The only character Donnie knows is Elmo, and we he came out on stage he started saying "Mo Mo."  View Album for more pictures.

School Performance

Cadynce had her Thanksgiving performance at school on Friday.  She did such a great job.  She sang, signed, and danced.  Their costumes were everything they had made at school while learning about Native Americans.  Each kid was asked to make up their own Native American name that describes what they like.  Cadynce chose the name "Chasin' Daddy" because that's her favorite thing to do.  During their performance the kids could get up and tell everyone their name and their Native American name if they wanted.  When Ms. Liz asked who wanted to go, Cadynce shot her hand up high in the air.  When it was her turn she got up there and did it.  It was too stinkin' cute to see her in front of a lot of people talking in a microphone.  We were so proud of her.  View Album for more pictures.

1/2 Marathon Weekend

This weekend Jeff and Julie came to visit.  Don and Jeff ran the half marathon together again this year.  The guys did great finishing the race in 1 hour 40 minutes and 27 seconds.  We had fun watching the guys at the race.  We saw them at mile 3 and mile 8.  After seeing them at mile 8 the kids took a bathroom break and got a little time to run around and get out of the stroller.  We headed to the finish line to meet up with the guys.

Cadynce and Donnie had so much fun playing with Uncle Jeff and Aunt Julie.  They got to watch Cadynce at gymnastics.  Cadynce would be in the middle of doing something and then yell over to us, "Aunt Julie, am I doing good?"  She loved having an audience.  We had such a fun weekend.  View Album for more pictures.

Cadynce & Donnie at the Zoo

I took Cadynce and Donnie to the zoo this week.  This was the first time they had been together since Donnie started walking.  They had so much fun looking at the animals together.  We spent most of our time watching the hippos.  Donnie was running from tank to tank yelling "fish" while Cadynce was watching after the eggs that were about to hatch (they weren't real).  They had so much fun exploring the zoo together, and I can't wait to take them back.  View Album fore more pictures.

Air Show

We went to the air show here in San Antonio yesterday.  All Cadynce talked about was touching an air plane, and she wanted to touch it while it was in the air.  Donnie got pretty excited when he saw them flying so low as we were parking.  We walked around and looked at the air planes they had displayed, and we got to walk through a C-5.  Both ends of the plane were open so we just walked from one end to the other.  Cadynce wasn't too impressed because I don't think she knew it was an air plane...at least not one she'd ever seen before.  We were able to get food and watch the Thunderbirds with the help of Don's work.  We were totally hooked up with great seats, great parking, and free food.  During the Thunderbirds show they had music playing so the kids were mostly dancing and playing with a balloon they found.  Cadynce really had fun wearing her ear plugs, and Donnie would run to me any time it got too loud so I could cover his ears.  We had a great time at the Air Show.  View Album for more pictures.

Halloween Fun

We carved our pumpkin just a few days before Halloween this year (we usually get a little too excited and our pumpkin is shriveled up by Halloween).  But, it really wouldn't have mattered this year because we forgot to put our pumpkin outside!!  Oops.  Cadynce had a great time this year getting all the "gooey" stuff out of the pumpkin.  She was not afraid to get her hands dirty and our big pumpkin had a lot of insides to remove.  Cadynce requested an angry pumpkin, and that's just what Daddy gave her.  This pumpkin also had ears and nostrils.  Donnie was not too interested in the pumpkin, and mostly he just wanted to climb up and down on the kitchen chairs.

On Halloween night we went to our neighborhood clubhouse where they were having kids games, crafts, and activities.  We played a few games and then headed back home to trick or treat.  In San Antonio, the weather is so nice that most people sit in front of their houses to hand out candy.  We sat at our neighbors house along with 4 other neighbors.  We all had dinner together in the driveway while we waited for the trick or treaters to come.  We took Cadynce and Donnie to visit the neighbors down the street.  Cadynce was Pinkalicious and Donnie was a lion.  Donnie did not like having his costume on so we gave him a sucker and he was quiet the rest of the night.  Cadynce and I ran from house to house, and we ended up going around the whole neighborhood while Daddy put Donnie in bed.  I felt like I was a kid again.  At almost every house the person would say "You are a beautiful princess."  And each time Cadynce would say, "I'm not a princess, I am Pinkalicious!"  And each time I had to explain who Pinkalicious was.  My favorite house was a woman who had two baskets sitting out.  She told Cadynce she could take one thing from each basket.  She picked candy out of one basket, and the other she looked in, then she looked at me with a perplexed look on her face.  She picked up something and showed it to the woman and said, "Is this play-doh?"  The woman said, "Yes it is.  Do you like play-doh?  Would you like to take it with you?"  Cadynce replied, "No thank you, I have some at home."  The woman and I couldn't help but laugh at her response.  We made it home with a full bucket of candy, and Cadynce informed me that we needed to look through all the candy and make sure it was ok to eat. We sat with the neighbors handing out our candy until trick or treating was over.  It was our best Halloween since we've lived here.   View Album for more pictures.