Thanksgiving 2011

Another year, another wonderful Thanksgiving spent with family and friends...

The beautiful table set for Thanksgiving dinner

My brother Charles opening the Champagne (I think we went through 5 magnums! :-))

Some of the hor d'oervres (we also had a delicious baked brie, but it was still in the oven at this time)

James playing on the big slide in my parents backyard

All of the kids playing (our friends the Hutchisons joined us this year)

James taking a ride with his buddy Logan

My beautiful Nieces' first Thanksgiving

Our array of desserts (4 pies, bread pudding with whiskey sauce and See's Candy)

Everyone enjoying the num nums (you can kinda see the baked brie here in front of James)

My bro and sis-in-law

Mike and I

Joey carving the Turkey he made

Delicious appetizer...Shrimp & Avacado Martini

All of the sides (cranberry relish, brussel sprouts with bacon, roasted sweet potatoes, cornbread & sausage dressing & mashed potatoes)

James and Logan having their Thanksgiving dinner (love James' face here)

James and Daddy (ofcourse James is without pants ;-))

Most everyone chilling the couch watching some Cowboys football after the huge meal
(notice my brother is completely passed out, LOL)

Hope everyone had a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Pansy Sale

This past weekend I was in charge of the TriDelta Alumnae Association 2011 Pansy Sale. This is a sale put on annually by the San Antonio chapter in order to raise money for the Santa Rosa Children's Hospital. I just recently joined the Alumnae chapter here in San Antonio in order to meet some new friends and in doing so I was asked to run the Pansy Sale. At first I was a little weary of taking on the role since I hadn't even been here to see how they were done, but decided it was something I could handle. It really was a great experience and I had an awesome time. We sold almost 200 flats of pansies for a rough profit of $3,000. Since I took over this role late in the year I didn't get to do a lot of promotion for the sale, so I am hoping to do much more promotion next year and hopefully we will sell much more. I'm really looking forward to getting involved in this Alumnae chapter and helping out my community.

James' 3rd Birthday

This past Saturday my baby boy turned three years old. Hard to believe three years have passed since he was born, but it's like they say, "Time flies, when you're having fun". For James' birthday party, he requested it be Superman themed, so I went to work on an invitation for the party. I had already decided we were having the party at a location away from home, so I didn't have to deal with the clean-up and hassle of having 15 three year olds at my house. I settled on having the party at Kiddie Park, which is an amusement park for children from 1-10. It's a landmark in San Antonio and has been open since the 50's. It is actually where I had many of my parties when I was James' age, so it was fun to be able to have his party there as well. Here's the final product of the invitation:

The only picture I had of James dressed as Superman at the point I was making the invitations was from Halloween last year and he looks so young there, but they turned out really cute. I then moved on to finding the party decorations. I thought for sure it would be easy to find Superman decorations, but I was wrong. It's all Spiderman, Captain American and Batman. No surprise since those are all of the Superhero movies out right now, but I figured they would have to have something. After scouring the internet, I was able to find some items. I also had the idea of making superhero capes for all of the kids attending the party. Since I don't have a sewing machine and probably couldn't sew even if I wanted to, I asked my friend Amy, who has a company called Sew Embellished and sews some of the cutest gift ideas, to make them for me. They turned out super cute and were a huge hit with all of the kids.

The day of the party was a bit hectic, as I assume it will usually be for future parties, but it ended up being a really fun party. The weather was perfect (sunny in the 70s) and all of the kids had a great time. Here are some photos from the day:

Superman cookies I had made (I'm not that talented) along with the personalized capes

The birthday banner I made

James in his cape

James couldn't wait to dig into the cookies

Superman cupcakes made with homemade butter cream icing

Some of the little superheros in their capes (the boys were Superman colors and girls were pink and black)

The kiddos chowing down

James riding one of the rides

Birthday boy loving his cupcake

After the party was over and we were thoroughly exhausted we headed home, where James demanded we open up his presents. We didn't have a chance to open them at the party since all of the kids were running around non-stop. Here are some photos from that:

Ready to open presents (James has decided he prefers not to wear pants)

"what's in this one?"

Once we were finished with all of the presents it was time for James to take a much-needed nap. When he woke up, we had one last present for James, a John Deere Power Wheels!

The reveal

My little man, happy as can be

I know James will be getting hours of entertainment out of this gift, which was actually a hand-me-down from our neighbors, so I am very thankful to them for it. All in all it was a wonderful third birthday for my little man, but I am definitely glad it is over :-)

Diaper free before three!

I am happy to announce that James is officially potty trained! It actually happened last week, but with all that has been going on, I haven't had a chance to write a post about it. As I mentioned in my previous post (Potty Training take 2), we had been putting "underoos" on James while at home and continuing to use pull ups for outings, school and bed time. Determined to get him potty trained, I decided to buy some mattress protectors (I got these) to allow him to sleep in underwear without the risk of damaging the mattress. I also purchased some light switch extension handles (found here ...and thank you Rachel Briggs for introducing us to these!) so that if he had to use the restroom in the middle of the night, he could do so himself. Amazingly, he didn't have an accident at all the first night, so I sent him to school in underwear...and viola, we have a potty trained boy. He has since only had one night where he had an accident in bed (thank you mattress protectors!) and that was most likely due to him being sick. And there actually was one morning I woke up around 6:30 and saw his bathroom light on. I checked on him and he was fast asleep. He had actually gotten up in the middle of the night all by himself, turned the light on and gone to the bathroom without bothering us. He didn't actually get his Pj's back on (we found him the next morning only sleeping in his underwear), but he never came to wake us up, so that is what I call MAJOR progress! I am so extremely proud of him.

Halloween Weekend

Another year, another Halloween. This year's Halloween was almost ruined by an illness called Croup, but luckily it was quickly overcame and James was able to enjoy Halloween in all its glory. James chose to be a Gladiator this year...not by personal choice but by picking it out of what was available at Costco (I mean, they seriously have everything). It turned out really cute so I'm glad he chose that one.

I think his favorite part was getting to have a sword...what can I say, he is his father's child :-). James got the Croup the Wednesday before Halloween, which was on the following Monday. We had planned on taking him to our church's Halloween carnival which was being held on the Friday before. Luckily he seemed to be feeling much better by then, so we headed to the carnival. James had a blast playing all of the games and eating his fair share of candy. Hopefully this carnival will be a yearly tradition because he really enjoyed it.

James playing the fishing game @ the carnival

The next day (Saturday) we lazed around and decided it was time to carve our pumpkins. James at first was excited about the prospect of taking the goop out of the pumpkin, but that quickly changed when he realized how gross it was. So he decided to paint his other smaller pumpkin instead.

Attempting to take goo out

On to painting!

The finished products

Finally Halloween was upon us and James was really excited because it meant he could dress up for school. Every year his school puts on a Halloween parade. And I use the term "parade" loosely since all they really do is walk around the school parking lot in a circle, while all the parents snap pictures and scream their child's name to get their attention. Regardless it is really cute to see all of the children dressed up and to see how excited they are about the whole affair.

Our little family ready for the parade 





James dressed up and enjoying the parade





After an eventful day at school, James came home with nothing on his mind except Trick-or-Treating. Unfortunately, it was only 3 pm and we still had a few hours to kill before we could venture out. Plus I got a wild hair up my ass and decided that I wanted to make a Halloween feast for dinner, which included homemade pumpkin soup, beef stew baked in a pumpkin and adorable little salads that were placed in jack-o-lantern oranges. Oh, and pumpkin pie for dessert. If you're interested in the recipes, they can be found on my other post, Fun Halloween Recipes.

By 6 pm, we couldn't hold our little trick-or-treater off any longer, so we headed out to do some trick-or-treating. First and foremost, we headed over to Papa and Gigi's, where the best candy always is. Here are the photos from trick-or-treating:

Hand over the candy now!

 Getting candy from Gigi

 James with Papa

On to the next house

After hitting some more houses (and after we decided James had MORE than enough candy) we headed home to have our Halloween Feast. My brother, his wife and new daughter were coming over to join us as well. The dinner turned out really well and I think I may make this a yearly tradition as long as we don't have any Halloween parties that interfere. The dinner wasn't that difficult to make and everyone really enjoyed it, even James. Although he was more than happy to finish the meal if it meant he could get some of his Halloween candy.

The pumpkin soup (I used cream to make the spider web) & the beef stew baked in a pumpkin

 The cute little salads (I used the juice from the oranges in the salad dressing)

 My sis-in-law with my niece Louisa (love the costume!)

 James holding Louisa

Our pumpkins all lit up (I made the ghost one and I was really proud of myself :-))

Hope everyone had a safe and happy Halloween! Until next year!