A Yummy Lunch on a Beautiful Saturday

Before we headed to the Stock Show we stopped to eat at Mi Cocina in Fort Worth.

Ella Cate eating a yummy blue mint!

my favorite part of my lunch...my Mambo Taxi!!


The mirrors behind us kept the little ones entertained throughout our entire lunch! They were sparkling before we arrived! Oops!

Carson

Ella

Emma

Silly Car

Silly Em

The Fort Worth Stock Show 2011

Today we headed to Fort Worth to the annual stock show. None of us have ever been, so we were excited to get to go! Thanks to our friends' Aimee and Chad we were able to go for free! The weather was absolutely gorgeous. When it's mid-70s and sunny in late January, I'm super thankful!


Heading to the cattle barns


Ellie and I were watching the Angus cattle do their thing.



I've never seen cows that were so well groomed!

Ellie found this piece of hay on the ground, and she told me that bread comes from this! Smart girlie!

Sitting on a little wagon in the horse barn

football throw


They loved getting inside the horse trailers that had the mini living quarters in them!

Their favorite part of the whole stock show was getting to "ride" on the farm equipment. Here is Miss Ella Cate on a bright blue piece of machinery.




Their favorite ones to ride were the ones that they could close the doors on!

When Sam was taking this pic of Carson and I, Ellie wondered a few feet away...she was missing for all of a minute, and a kind lady brought her to us....still...that is the scariest feeling for her and us. She was extra careful the rest of the day in the MASSIVE crowds!

Hot tub display...ha!

Ella Cate and the calf in the Borden milk display.

Enjoying some yummy chocolate and strawberry milk! Fun times at the Stock Show!!

My sweet baby girls are going to be a whole 1/2 DECADE!

I was digging through the file cabinet a couple of days ago looking for a receipt, and I came across the file labeled "twins 2006". As I glanced through the file I found this picture taken during the girls first hour on February 14, 2006. How could my babies have ever been this tiny?! The picture made me long to go back, because truthfully I can't remember what it felt like to hold these little baby girls. I know the feeling of holding a nearly 50 pound girl (I did it today in Tom Thumb...and La Madeline :)....but an infant, that feeling is gone. :( They were so tiny 5lbs 8oz and 6 lbs 2 oz. They were definitely smaller than the boys were at birth, but they were great weights for twins.
I get a lump in my throat when I come to the realization that they aren't babies anymore. I didn't really listen when people would tell me to soak it all in while they're tiny. I guess life was a bit wild...when we brought them home from the hospital at 4 days of age. One of their brothers was 16 months old, the other was 7 years old, I was facing going back to teaching when they were 5 weeks old, and their daddy was in the big middle of tax season at the accounting firm. Those early months are a definite blur, but I would totally do it all over if I could. I'm better at soaking in the moments now, I try not to let anything slip by. In 23 days they will be 5 years old! How has 5 years gone by? Time has truly flown.
This year the girls want to go and get a mani/pedi with me, and then they want to get their ears pierced the day before their party. I've imagined doing those things with a daughter since I was a little girl, and now I'm living my dream x2!

Our First Stars Game

We went to our first Stars game on January 17, 2011. We all had a great time!

The fun festivities before the game began.

Daddy and his Ellie Belle

Carson and Emmy with Mommy

Daddy and Ella again

We left the game a bit early since it was a school night, and we got a great view of the newsroom in Victory Park.

Miss Emmy

Ella Cate

Why they love a trip to the mall!

Our mall has reinstated the interactive stomp pad! They had one when the girls were babies, took it out for a couple of years, and now it's back! The stomp pad is my form of bribery in the mall, and the best part is that it doesn't cost a penny!

On this particular trip the kids played forever while I talked on the phone!

Loving a Long Weekend!

Today is the first day of a 4 day weekend for the kiddos and a 3 day weekend for me. We get Monday off for Martin Luther King Day, and Tuesday is a teacher workday. Even though I have to go to school Tuesday, teacher workdays are a treat because I get a whole day to get caught up in my classroom, and I get to eat lunch out with my team.
Our Saturday started off with everyone sleeping late. The girls were supposed to have a soccer game at 8:30 this morning, but we decided to keep the girls out of this game. El was diagnosed with strep Thursday afternoon, and is still recovering. Emmy has been hacking and coughing, so I figured all of the running they'd do in the game would only make them worse.
Around 9:45 Sam took Cade to his basketball game, and I kept the little ones home with me. They played while I cleaned and did laundry. I love starting the weekend with that stuff behind me, and lately that hasn't been happening!
When Sam and Cade got home we decided that we were going to take the kids to see a movie and to eat at Chik fil A in the mall. Chik fil A cost us a whopping $8.00 for all 6 of us to eat because I used calendar coupons. Then all 3 of the little ones rode the carousel in the mall for free because I had coupons for that too. I am so happy when I save us some money. However, Sam usually doesn't give me much credit for all of my coupon business. He says that I spend way more than I save. This might be true, but the times I save money make me feel less guilty for the times I spend too much. Since "Gulliver's Travels" was the only kiddish movie that the kids haven't seen, we decided that's what we would see. Sadly when we got to the window to purchase tickets we were told that they were only showing "Gulliver's Travels" in 3-D. That was a real bummer because 3-d equals an additional $4.00 added to each movie ticket, making a child's ticket $10.50 and an adult ticket $13.50. There was noooo way that we were going to spend $69.50 plus tax to see a movie that I'm not even sure about! So we left the movie counter with 2 kids crying and one kid having to be dragged away. We were going to try to go to another theatre, but we couldn't find one in the area showing that movie.
Instead we decided to go to Michael's to let the girls pick out some fun stuff to do their "snowman craft" homework for school.

Here is Emmy's snowgirl princess

and a $1 necklace craft that she got with her snowgirl supplies

and ellie's princess holding ice cream cones...so random yet so original

After I took pictures of craft time the girls played with my camera and captured some pictures that made me laugh! Here is Sam conked out in front of Carson's original artwork that he taped on the wall this morning.


and Emmy posing for her sissy!