Sorry it has been so long...

I know I know..It has been a month since my last blog. It has been a very very long month. This will be VERY long with LOTS of pictures to get you all up to speed. Not sure where to begin. So we will start from where I left off on the last one.
I went to St Louis for Jason's funeral. I got to hold his little girl...she is so tiny and cute. I had put together a notebook of all the prayers and thoughts from the motocross community for his mom and his wife. That was an ordeal, but well worth it. Kind of healing for me as well. I met a lot of his other friends..some I had met before. We all vowed to make sure his daughter knew what a great friend her father was. After all she is only 4 months old. I had some fun flight issues going and coming home, but I made it home in one piece and that is all that mattered in the end. It was so good to get home and give everyone a big hug!

Austin had his Ben Franklin presentation and he did so good! I was so proud. He remembered all of his lines. He also gave each child a giant $100 bill. They were a hit. Here he is as Ben!


Later that night they had the 70's school dance. It was a lot of fun. I didn't have time to find the kids costumes, since I had been gone. So a pair of glasses is all they got. Here is Austin rockin the Lennon look! They had so much fun....

even though Caitlin had a sit on the stage by herself moment...



We had a Valentine Fairy tale ball for the 1st graders at Austin's school. I didn't do too much with it. It was so cute to see the kids come out by class. They walked in pairs. Austin was dressed in his suit and escorted a sweet girl named Hannah. Here is a picture of them:

They had also practiced a couples dance.

He was very popular with the ladies at the dance. When they were allowed to cut in. He had 3 girls come looking for him. :-) Here he is with a girl that was in his class last year, Natalie


And here is Austin and his best friend, Taylor. They had lots of fun. She basically kept putting him in a headlock. They were all grins the whole time dancing together.



And even Caitlin got dressed up for the Ball...for about 2 minutes until she had to get the "itchy" dress off hahaha.


I have been busy working on the Blue and Gold Cub Scout banquet. I was volunteered for it and still not sure how that happened. :-) I was in charge of all the decor and our theme was The History of Scouting.(this is my 1st year in scouting..so I am not up on all the history of it) It began with a very small budget of $75 and that included all the table decor and the room decors. I ended up getting an extra $100 a week before the banquet. This type of banquet is usually planned and done over several months, but we had a change of power in Jan and no one had taken on this. So we had our Tiger den (a bunch of 1st timers) putting it all together. I had about 3 weeks to get everything together on my part. 3 days before the banquet they had a lot higher number then I was told we were having. A total of 120 people coming. So had to do a lot of extra last minute stuff and adding 4 more tables. So most of the table decor was hand made from things I found in nature that I could use. I made napkin rings to look like neckerchiefs. They took a lot of time since it required lots of cutting of paper and I cut each one individually, since I had no other way. Here are a few pictures


One of mom and son!

Here is our center piece in the room....a campfire that I made and put a strobe light in the middle with metallic tissue paper to look like flames. When the strobe was going it looked very cool. Dan did the final assembly for me. He was a big help for me as usual.



Austin all dressed in his uniform! He is so handsome


Of course while I was in my final week of prep for this Blue and Gold banquet. I got sick...it started as a sinus infection and then I got the stomach bug everyone seemed to be getting around here. So all week I was exhausted and tired. So it made it hard to get everything done, but with Dan's help..we finished everything. My friend Susan (her son is in our Den) she helped a lot with the banquet too and her and her husband helped us with set up. It took us about 4 hours to set up the gym for the banquet. We were told by some scout parents that this was the best one they had been to in the last 4 years...so it made all our work worth it. But I tell you this. I WILL NOT BE DOING IT NEXT YEAR!!!

Both kids are also playing soccer this spring. They had their 1st practice last week. Both are very excited about playing and it makes us excited too.
Caitlin and her new Coach

And Austin loves hanging out at the goal



Caitlin has a birthday in less then 3 weeks and she is very exciting. She is turning 5!!! I can't believe it myself. She is growing up so fast. Turning 5 is such a big day and she has sooo many plans. Too bad mom and dad have to approve! haha On her actual birthday Austin has a field trip to the Dallas aquarium, so we are also taking her and she will get to hang out with daddy all day. It will be a day for the birthday pair. Dan will turn 32 the next day(yes, that is hard for us to believe too..can we really be 32 already!) So we will have a whole 2 day celebration! :-) Her party will probably not be until the April 6th since I have had no time to get anything put together for it. She wants to go roller skating..so I am going to work on that. So we will see. We might try for the 29th, but that is coming fast! :-)

Well then today the 6th of March we got 4 inches of snow. YES you read right SNOW!!! It was our 1st snow of the year and of last year. haha Snow is rare in Texas. Don't laugh or grimace all you WI people :-) It rained all morning and then turned to sleet and then on came the snow. Here are some pictures
This is our backyard as it started to finally snow

and an hour later of blizzard like conditions

Last weekend all of our trees started budding and had white blossoms on them and now the ground is covered with snow. So it gave a nice touch to our SPRING SNOW (that is what I am calling it!

Of course then it was time for us all to make a snow man and go sledding. We used the same sled's that Dan used as a kid. Sadly he doesn't fit the same on them anymore....Here is a big man on a little sled

The kids building a snowman with dad..of course it is giant!


Striking a pose with the snowmen!

We then walked over to the park and begun the fun of sledding down the hill


a little push from daddy



They were having sooooooooo much fun and smiled the whole time!



Then Austin decided to try rolling down the hill. He thought it was lots of fun and didn't seem to mind getting all wet and cold!

Caitlin had a blast making snow angels. She laughed the whole time and then would look at them.

Austin had to bring home a little snowman that he made while they were sledding. So he loaded it on the sled and him and dad dragged it home to put next to the giant one. :-)


OK, I think I have covered most of the things we did last month..I am exhausted now. :-) This month will be just as busy with Easter and 2 birthdays in one week. So much to plan with my Sunday school class and the birthday's. I hope you all are well and please stay in touch. We love hearing from you. Lots of love!