Fall in Texas

It's time to catch up on the blog. As promised, I didn't have a chance to blog for a while. After we moved into our house in Texas, my projects were my priorities, namely unpacking and setting up the house, preparing for baby Maddie, and preparing for Christmas. It has been a wonderful few months, and I'm looking forward to catching you up.

We had a glorious fall here and love the weather. We finally enjoyed some summer weather that we sorely missed in Monterey. I worked hard to unpack our house since Chris was at work all day. We love our home here. My mom always said that it's nice to rent a few places before buying a house to figure out what you like and what you don't like. Considering that this is the 7th house Chris and I have lived in (and the 4th state) in the 6 years of our marriage, we have learned a lot of what we like. Our favorite things about this house are that it's a ranch, we have a master bathroom, we have a huge 17x22 living room, we have a separate music/ sitting room, lots of storage, the kitchen opens up to the living room, and we have an awesome covered patio in the back and covered porch in the front. There are other things to be desired, but overall, we LOVE living in this house. Too bad it won't be for too long.

Claire wanted to practice with daddy. She played the piano and sang while Chris played his horn. He NEVER would have been able to do that 3 years ago. My how kids change you. As you can tell, we were still in the process of unpacking.

Fall of course brings Halloween! Claire originally wanted to be a lion, but since we couldn't find an affordable lion costume, she decided she really liked an elephant costume we found. She enjoyed wearing it at the most awesome church trunk or treat extravaganza I have ever witnessed, as well as on Halloween night. The trunk or treat was huge! Everyone was there with decorated trunks and tons of candy. There were also lots of games and prizes, cotton candy, hot dogs, lemonade, and cupcakes for the cupcake parade. It was so much fun for Claire.

Claire tasting cotton candy for the first time. She didn't really like it.

Carving our pumpkin. :)

Claire had her own little pumpkin. She drew a face on it with a permanent marker, all by herself.

On Halloween, Chris's parents came to visit for a week. That night we went to the mall to go trick or treating. After realizing it was kind of lame with really long lines, we went to Claire's friend's neighborhood nearby and went trick or treating. She got in the pattern of going up to a door and saying "trick-or-treat!" followed by a loud "thank you!" (she used to say it so quietly so they couldn't hear it so we had to tell her to say it louder.) After every house, she'd say, "mommy, let's do MORE trick-or-treating?" One time this pattern changed. In one man's house, he had two puppies. She asked if she could pet them and walked into his house to do so. She LOVED the puppies. At the next house, instead of saying "trick or treat", she said, "do you have a puppy?" It was pretty darn cute. As a side note, I have to work at teaching her some candy rules like when they tell you to take a lot, do it. Also, you ALWAYS take real chocolate over tootsie rolls.)

Our little elephant

We enjoyed a lovely week with Chris's parents while they were here. The following weekend, Chris's Aunt Shirley and Uncle Danny drove down from Dallas to visit while his parents where here. We had a great time with them, and Claire particularly LOVED Uncle Danny. They played so well together. :)



This fall, we also decided to upgrade Claire from a toddler bed to a twin size bed. We got a mattress and she picked a head board. Her grammy got her a princess bed set to go with her new "bigger girl bed." (The toddler bed was already a big girl bed.) Claire LOVES her new bed.



This year, we had our first Thanksgiving with just our little family. It was kind of relaxing that way to have no set time we had to get everything on the table. We of course made way too much, but loved it all. Here are some of the Thanksgiving goodies. (Yes, there was much more.) The main thing we learned this year, was that if you lay some bacon on top of your turkey while you cook it, it makes tasty, crisp bacon, adds amazing flavor to the gravy, and adds yumminess to the turkey too. I don't think Chris will ever roast a turkey without bacon on it again. YUM.

Also, apple, caramel cheesecake is amazing, especially when Chris makes it. :)

Have I mentioned that Claire adores her daddy?

Claire's dressing up obsession is not limited to princesses and fairies. That is a toy snake wrapped around her head. I guess it's supposed to be hair like Rapunzel. She also likes to pretend she's a mouse, puppy, kitty, kangaroo, elephant, etc. What an imagination!