Today's Mama Holiday Wish List 2010!!

Wowzers!!! Well...it's been a while since I've posted to my blog. With adding a part-time job, emergency knee surgery, and just the craziness of school and three kids, I've slacked on my blogging. However, Today's Mama (who's site I follow closely) has inspired me to start it up again! Below is my entry wish list for their contest...anyone reading should enter too!!! Just click on the links!


Mama's Holiday Wish List Meme:

TodaysMama and GameStop are giving away a sleighful of gifts this holiday season and to enter I'm sharing this meme with you.

1. What is your holiday wish for your family?
A: The last couple of holiday's have been financially tight, so it's been a great way to teach them the important things of the season...giving, family time, and so much more. This year we're hoping to get them more on their wish list...winning the goods from GameStop would make it all happen!

2. What is your Christmas morning tradition?
A: Our family wakes up to Santa presents under the tree on Christmas morning. After all the excitement of the new toys, the kids play for a while with them while I'll make a special breakfast. Yum!

3. If you could ask Santa for one, completely decadent wish for yourself, what would it be?
A: I would wish for plane tickets to go see my parents. They live so far away and we get to see them a few times a year when they come visit. How fun to be able to go see them!!

4. How do you make the holidays special without spending any money?
A: We have several family traditions that we love! The advent calendar is fun and each day on the calendar has a special treat (usually little candies) up until Christmas. We also keep all of the Christmas cards we got from previous years. It's always so fun to sit down and go through them all and enjoy the pictures and messages. The last tradition is driving around and looking at Christmas lights the week before Christmas while listening to Christmas music...my favorite!

5. What games did you play with your family growing up?
A: We LOVED to play UNO, Scrabble, Operation (which I recently bought for my girls as a reward for a good report card...what a flash back) and dominos. I love family game night!

6. What holiday tradition have you carried on from your own childhood?
A: We always had a BIG family get-together on Christmas Eve and enjoyed a delicious meal and had fun with a white elephant gift exchange. It really made it fun while taking the emphasis off of getting, getting, getting.

7. Where would you go for a Christmas-away-from-home trip?
A: I think a fun trip to Colorado would be a great trip...enjoy some snow and introduce the kids to skiing!

8. Check out GameStop and tell us what are the three top items on your GameStop Wish List this year?
A: Definitely the XBOX 360 Kinect (my kids LOVE those commercials), a Nintendo DSi for each of my 3 kids (that would be sweet!) and the Red Wii (for me so I can get in shape AND have fun.) So the Grand prize from Today's Mama would be perfect!!!!

Officially Registered

Lauren and Mallory are officially registered for kindergarten, and they are really excited! They even got their picture taken with Sparky, their school mascot. I'm now starting to think of all the fun things that Owen and I can do together...I'm not sure he'll know what to do without his sisters around.

We've also really been enjoying spring. It's been so gorgeous and we've been playing in the back yard every day. We've done our fair share of gardening too. We are sharing a plot at a community garden with the Nicolato family, and we're hoping that the vegetables we planted make a great salad down the road. We also landscaped the flower beds in the back yard and can't wait for them to grow more.

That's it for now. I'll add more spring pics soon!

2008 in Photos

Looking Back at 2008

Now that we've welcomed in the new year, I thought it might be fun to look back at 2008 mostly through pictures. But first I asked the kids what their favorite part of the year was. Lauren didn't hesitate and announced that Halloween was by far her favorite...she felt like a real princess! Mallory liked going to the beach in Hawaii the best. We all had a great time visiting Gran and Popie on O'ahu so there will be more pictures of that later. And being that Owen still doesn't talk very much, I can tell that getting his picture taken was his least favorite part. But really, I think he liked anything to do with playing outside.

New Year

Although it's already the end of January, this is the beginning of a wonderful new year! Mallory and Lauren will start kindergarten this year and are very excited. Owen isn't going to know what to do with so much one-on-one time. I'm sure we'll make the best of it...and I have a feeling he'll start talking more when his sisters are out of the house. :-)

Alan has already been at his new position with American Heart for over a year...how time flies! He quickly got involved with the Dallas Football Officials here and even got an award. We love Dallas and are active in so many things. We frequently visit the Dallas World Aquarium, the Arboretum and even the Nature and Science Museum. And we have a lot of old friends and now new ones too.

We are looking forward to a great 2009 with many new things to be thankful for!