Timbergrove Snow Days

Our neighborhood had a "Snow Days" event last weekend and the gray, cold weather was the perfect backdraft for a great kids event complete with snow, bouncy, train and face painting.

Mia's 1st School Project

We've wrapped up Mia's first school project. That's right, SCHOOL PROJECT. Mind you, she's only in pre-k and we had a week long project to do. Yep, mommy was definitely annoyed with it but we had a good time. The directions were to pick a country or culture and do a project on how they celebrate holidays in December. At first Mia chose Sweden - WHAT?! WHAT IN THE HECK DO I KNOW ABOUT SWEDEN?! Which I know is the point but seriously, with Mat out of town and the other two little ones under my care, doing research on a country we know nothing about was not too appealing. So I pitched her Spain or Mexico and she jumped on Mexico because of the pinatas and chocolate caliente (hot chocolate).

Below is a shot of Mia making the hot chocolate, real Mexican hot chocolate which is slightly different and BETTER than American hot chocolate because it has a hint of cinammon. NOTE: 4-year-olds do not know how to drink hot chocolate despite being told - blow on it and drink it slowly. just wait until it cools completely. Also pictured is Mia with pan dulce (sweet bread/pastries) that we got from a great Mexican bakery close to our house.

Special thanks to Rachel for bringing over the great Poinsettia book that we've read for the past two nights, and other fun Mexican Christmas info. It was a huge help and we both learned a lot about Christmas in Mexico....maybe we can do Sweden next year!

Let it Snow!

We couldn't believe the snow today!!!!!!!! What a great surprise and such fun for the girls!

Tis the Season!

We kicked the Christmas season off just 3 days after Thanksgiving this year at a brunch with Santa at our friend's house (see pics below). Santa, aka Mat!, made an appearance and the kiddos got a little gift from him plus an opportunity to tell him what they want. It was so fun and Mia had a great time running around the big kids. Morgan stayed right by our side the whole time which was very difficult particularly since we were trying to get Mat into costume. Sweet Sam just chilled and was passed from friend to friend - she's so easy! We have lots of fun things coming up and the girls love the house being decorated! More to come....

TX/OU Weekend

What a great TX/OU Weekend! Not only did we get to spend it with great friends but Texas won!!!!! We spent the weekend in Austin at the Tuckers house and it was filled with good times, lots of laughing and more so much fun for both the parents and kiddos. Below are just a few shots of the weekend - what a great way to spend Sam's first trip away from home!

A fall full of firsts

Now that Sam's here we're going through all sorts of great firsts all over again....and her sisters even have some firsts too!

First bath

First real hair cut - she's had a trim before but I took off almost two inches!

First time to take the whole family to the pumpkin patch - so fun!

We look forward to a busy but great fall season!

Mia's big first day

Mia is officially in elementary school. She started pre-kindergarten at a little school close to our house. Her good pal Quinn is in the same class and she couldn't be more excited - hence the big smiles above. The actual drop-off was absolutely chaotic with all the parents and kiddos trying to figure out where to go but Mia did awesome and jumped right in like it she had been going there for years. Some kids cry, some kids go sit nicely at their tables - Miss Mia ran straight to the play area and started cooking in the play kitchen and was playing dress up by the time I left.

Oh my goodness!

This is a funny little thing that Morgan does - if you say Morgan - oh my goodness! She'll immediately throw her hands to either side of her head. I believe Yurika taught her this one - it's pretty cute!

Pretty Princesses

Mia has roped Morgan into playing dress up with her. The other day I came home to find both girls dolled up in their princess best.

Our little terror

Morgan is giving us all a run for our money these days.  If she's not trying to push around her big sister, she's trying to bite her cousin....that's right, biting!  We've never experienced this before and its really interesting to see how she tries to take a chomp out of someone when she's not getting her way - so she's totally using it as a defense mechanism...scary!  Here's our sweet little biter in her blocks box.  Even though she has a huge smile on her face - not even two minutes before this shot was taken she was screaming because Mia was trying to play with the blocks that are in the box.  Why she wanted to get in the teeny box is beyond us!

Morgan has also started learning some funny things like learning where your belly button it. So if you ask her where's her belly button she'll immediately lift up your shirt and also expect you to show her yours...which is what Mia is doing in the below photo.  BTW - did you notice Morgan's little piggy tails below?  We're so excited she finally has enough hair to actually put a little up!  

Happy summer all - hope you're keeping cool.  Much love to you!

Beatin the heat

Here's how a typical weekend day starts off at the Thompsons house 

• girls wake us up by 7 - 7:30 if we're REALLY lucky
• first thing mia says, can i watch tv?  
• second thing she says, can we go swimming? 

Obviously its hot as all get out - so we are in the pool almost every day when we don't go to work...if it were up to Mia she would go in no less than two times each day.  Here are latest pool shots - the girls just love having friends over for pool time!

Hot times at the Zoo

Here's our zoo troop. We joined the Ellis boys and Lawson at the San Antonio zoo over the weekend. Whew was it HOT! The kiddos were troopers and us girls couldn't keep up with the crazy boys!

Mia certainly tried but was dragged down a bit by some Benedryl I gave her in morning because of some kind of lil rash she had on her legs. What was I thinking?! We'd never used Benedryl before because a. we never had to and b. when people said we should use it on planes rides to help her sleep they also said it sometimes makes kids wired and there was no way I was going to try something that could possible make Mia even MORE active! So, now we know - Benedryl makes Mia sleepy.....niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiicce to know!

We had a great time in San Antonio with our dear friends and loved the zoo!!!

Gymnastics girl

Here's Mia on her way to gymnastics. She LOVES it! We're off to San Antonio this weekend to visit friends so hopefully will have more posts after this weekend.

Let's try this again

So yes, it's been a while since I've last updated this but now that I can log on from work - there's a good probability that I'll start updating our blog more often. Lord knows we have had so much going on since that last time I added an update that I'll just start with where we are now. First here's a recent picture of the girls hanging out after bath time...they're suppose to be winding down...fat chance!

It's summer which means lots of pool time! Just in the last two weeks a switch turned on with Mia and she's a swimming machine! She now jumps in the pool from anywhere possible, including the diving board, and then will swim to you. Very impressive considering she was literally kicking and screaming when we were off to swim class just 4 months ago. We're continuing on with swim class through the summer to help her with the actual mechanics of swimming. Mia's also now doing gymnastics while dance class is on summer break. Whew - she's always such the busy girl. Plus, she turned 4 in April so thinks she's quite the big girl now. Here's a shot of her/her friends at her Quinn's (girl to the left) birthday party.

Sweet Morgan is now 14 months and is trying her best to keep up with her big sister. It's funny how fast she can walk now - almost as if she's running from us many times. She, too, enjoys pool time and actually prefers that you hold her in a horitzontal position almost as if she's swimming. She just loves to be taken around the pool like that and keeps her mouth open most the time - we think she's looks like a little whale like that and we totally need to get a picture of her like that because it's pretty comical. She's most happy getting in to everything and is starting become quite the little bully. The other day Mia was standing on a step stool brushing her teeth and Morgan wanted on it to so she started pushing Mia and wouldn’t stop until Mia got off. Apparently, she’s also pushing her at other times during the day according to Yurika and is starting to walk up to her and grab whatever Mia or Olivia has/then will cry until she gets it. So basically - Morgan's hearing the word "NO!" a lot these days! Here's a shot of her at her little first birthday celebration - which we had at Lupe Tortilla's with just family...simple and nice!

Thompsons hit the slopes

We went on our first family ski trip since Morgan's arrival.  We headed to Steamboat, Colorado with my family and had a blast!  Mia even took her first ski lesson and had soooooooo much fun.  Morgan was great on the plane and Mia absolutely loves going on an airplane!  When we took Mia skiing at Morgan's age she hated the snow.  Morgan thought it was pretty neat and even tried walking in it.

Mia preferred sledding with daddy - even it was just for a bit on his snow board! 

Good times in 2009

The girls are doing great and Morgan is doing her best to keep up with Mia.  We're fortunate that Mia and her friends think Morgan is the coolest and take full advantage of treating Morgan like their own little doll.  The Baden girls came over one day and had to get Morgan into the full fun of playing princess.  Look closely and you'll see a tutu around Morgan's waste.  Such fun girl time!

Mat was busy in early January preparing for his first go at the full Houston Marathon.  The girls and I headed out to wait for him at Memorial Park and were so proud to cheer him on as his reached mile 20!  We were lucky to catch him as he crossed the finish line at 26.2 as well! Mia loved her daddy's metal and had a great time telling everyone my daddy won the race....Mat got a kick out of that as well!

We had a nice day recently so we opened up the back door and let the girls play on the jungle gym.  Of course Morgan can't climb up it yet and play pirate with Mia so we put Mia's easel at a level where Mia could play and Morgan could have fun watching her sister.  It's going to be so great when they're both old enough to climb around on it and have hours of fun...i.e.  hours of quiet time for mom and dad!

Also these days the girls have taken to playing "let's jump on daddy!"  Mat's a good sport and the girls just giggle away!