Winter Wonderland

It is no secret that I have been on a blogging hiatus. Life has been busy, very busy. I think I might be able to breath again tomorrow. It has been a whirlwind since thanksgiving and we hope to catch up soon. We have packed lots of fun things into our days this month. There is no way I can catch up, so I will just begin again.

All 16 of us McHorses packed up and headed to Colorado for a quick pre-Christmas vacation in the snow. It was a blast! We skied, had snow ball fights, sledded, snow tubed, hot tubbed and more. All the kids did wonderfully and enjoyed all of their time together. It was a great break from all of the Christmas chaos that December brings. We just had fun and enjoyed being together. We are so thankful for our vacation to Steamboat and look forward to doing it again.

Jacob, the youngest cousin, gets in the game with a snowball.
Snowball fights with the fam.









Warming up after hours of playing in the snow.

Megan's Weekend with Charlie the Dog

A couple weeks ago, Megan got to bring home the school class pet, Charlie. Charlie is the class dog who gets to spend the weekends with the kids in her class. She has been eager to bring Charlie home and it just happened that she got to bring him home when Kevin was out of town a couple weeks ago, which was an added bonus for me. Charlie got to do so many fun things with Megan - dance class, playing with Lael and Kennedy before their gymnastics class, watching Tyler and Megan play football and being the "official" cheerleader for the game.

Megan loved entertaining Charlie for the weekend. We took pictures and wrote all about our fun in the book that Charlie takes back to class. Then, she got to share with her class about all that she and Charlie did. She gets to bring Charlie home one more time this year and is already looking forward to another adventure with him!

Halloween

We had a wonderful and surprisingly relaxing halloween this year. It was really nice that it fell on a Saturday. It made the pace of the day much calmer than normal. After all of our normal Saturday activities, we carved pumpkins, ate dinner and got ready to trick or treat. Anakin Skywalker and Thumbelina trick or treated down our street, then went by Mimi and G'Daddy's house and ended the evening at Clark and Meredith's for a night of fun with the cousins. We kept them up late to try and counteract the time change and it worked. No one woke up before 6 and that is great for our house on the week of the Fall time change.

Happy Pics

After two heavy posts in a row, I feel like it it time for some fun.

Megan got to dress up for halloween at school the Friday before halloween. For halloween, she was Thumbelina, but didn't want to mess it up by wearing it to school. So, she decided to wear Uniqua to school. She was Uniqua 2 years ago for halloween but the costume finally fits now. Her head was a little too big and the strap wouldn't quite fasten as it was supposed to so she improvised. It looked very uncomfortable to me, but she was happy with it so we went with it.

Reality

Like any parents, we try to shield our kids from certain things in the world. We know they will be exposed to the real world eventually, but we try to shelter them as much as we can. However, sometimes they see life as it is, in it's fairness and unfairness and we do our best to help them through. Monday was Tyler's first day at school without his dear friend Cole. We anticipated that it would be a difficult week for him. Monday after school, he gave me his backpack and said, "there's important news in there." He proceeded to tell me that the mom of one of his friends in his class died on Halloween from cancer. Whoa. I knew she was very sick but didn't know just how sick and I am so sad for this sweet boy and his dad. His teacher did a very good job of talking to the students about it and the counselor spoke to their class later in the week about it. Tyler is not a talker and I knew he wouldn't want to talk much about this. I also knew that his fear, anxiety and uncertainty regarding a friend's mom's death would come out at some point and we just needed to be ready. Wednesday was the day. After school, he was just angry and upset. Everything was "horrible" and he just kept bursting into tears. Finally, I just picked him up and held him for a very long time. On a normal day, if I tried to do this, he would likely run from me, but it was just what he needed that day. We just focused on one another and I just prayed that his fears would subside. He did acknowledge last night at bedtime that it has been a hard week and he is glad it is over. I imagine that is all he will express about this week verbally. And while this week was understandably hard on the kids in his class, I know all of the parents have struggled with it too and we are all the more thankful for every minute we have with our families.

Heartbroken

Today has been a rough day for our boy. This year at school, none of Tyler's closest friends from kindergarten are in his class. As usual, he was not phased by this at the beginning of the year. I was a little more phased by it, which is pretty typical. Thankfully, within the first two weeks of school, Tyler came home talking about a new friend in his class. He and Cole hit it off immediately and became very fast friends. He talked about him often and always wanted to have him over to play. We found out about a month ago that Cole was moving to Chicago sometime this year, then it became this semester. You see where this is going - today was his last day at school as they move to Chicago tomorrow. Cole's birthday is Monday, so they had a party for him after school today. Tyler was one of just a few friends who was invited. It was so cute to watch them together; they really just enjoy each other's company. After an afternoon and evening of games, laser tag, mini golf and more, it was time to say goodbye. The boys said goodbye without emotion. By the time he got to the car, Tyler was near tears and my child who rarely shows emotion broke down. He cried the entire way home (which was 20 minutes) and continued once he got home. My heart breaks for him. It is so hard to say goodbye to your best friend. While he has other friends in his class and gets along with everyone, there isn't another Cole in his class and it won't be the same for him when he goes back to school on Monday. If you think about it, please say a prayer for him this week.

Our Budding Cartographer

Tyler has developed a keen interest in maps over the past year. He likes to create them, study them, even memorize them sometimes. What amazes Kevin and I is his ability to draw a map from memory. This summer, when we were in the Panhandle, he decided to create a map of the ranch. In reality, he has only been there a handful of times at this point, definitely less than 10. However, he proceeded to draw an incredibly accurate map with almost every rode at the ranch included straight from memory. So, yesterday, it was raining (again) and they couldn't go outside for recess so they had inside time to draw or read. He drew a map of Texas (freehand and from memory). Then he put all of the places we have been recently on the map. Unbelievable! Have a look. It will be interesting to see what career path he takes because he certainly seems gifted in geography. It is difficult to tell from the photo but all of his cities and towns are in their correct locations.

Sleepy Girl

Megan stopped napping a while ago, but some days she just can't push through the day without sneaking in a little snooze. Last week, between picking Megan up from school and picking Tyler up from school, she crawled up on the couch and fell asleep. Kanga seized the opportunity for a little snuggle time.

First Day Pics

School has been in full swing for a while now. Tyler is thoroughly enjoying first grade and Megan loves pre-k. Every year seems to get busier with the increasing activities, but we are having a great time (now that we have adjusted to the added busy-ness).



Tyler on his first day of first grade, ready to go.

Megan is not excited about getting her picture taken but entertains me for just a bit.
Megan eager to get to her very first dance class.

How Can It Be?

The title to this post just about sums up how I have felt about Megan turning 4. While I have had a while to get used to the idea (her birthday is the beginning of August), I am still shocked that my baby is already so grown up. She continues to embrace life fully and has an opinion about many things. She began planning her birthday parties (yes plural) back in January. Much to Kevin and my surprise, her plans actually panned out for the most part. We were at the Palo Duro Club for her actual birthday. She wanted a water balloon and water gun party with her immediate and extended family cousins. It is the first time we have been out of town for one of the kids birthdays. Megan loved every minute of her special day and was glowing at her party. After returning home from the PDC, we celebrated with the Weatherbys at my parents house (party #2 to Megan). Finally, we ended the celebrations with her party with all of her friends at Pump It Up. She had a blast and managed to string her birthday along for quite awhile, which gave me a little more time to get used to the idea of her being a 4 year old.








Megan has grown up so much in the past year. Some notable things about her right now:

She has hair.... finally, and got her first haircut last month!




She loves to write her name and her friends' names.

She started sleeping through the night this past year - Woohoo (I know it is totally pathetic that it takes our kids over 3 years to figure it out, but it has held true for both Tyler and Megan)!!!!

Since the beginning of the summer, she has been sleeping in our playroom. I am pretty sure she is bargaining for squatter's rights to the room. Little does she know that her mom and dad are on to her ideas.

She is a complete social butterfly and would be happy to have playdates all day every day.

She has been saying for at least 6 months now that she is not ever going to drive (her main reason being that it is so boring).

She loves school and was so excited to start this year to be the big kid on campus. In spite of this, she likes to try and convince me many mornings that she really doesn't like school because the day is so long (she has been going the same number of hours since her first year of school but has overheard a number of kinder parents saying how long the day is. apparently, she has been listening intently). Thankfully, by the time we get to school, she jumps out of the car so quickly that I barely get to say goodbye and when I pick her up she is excited to tell me about her day.

She is such a big helper around the house. She always helps me cook dinner and is more than willing to pick up when asked.

Megan is such a joy. She keeps us on our toes and keeps us laughing with her commentary on life. We are so blessed to have our precious little girl. We love you so much, Megs!

Our trip to the Palo Duro Club

While I would love to give details of our trip, I am desperately trying to catch up on posts. Therefore, my descriptions will be limited.

We had another great summer trip to the Palo Duro Club with Kevin's extended family. So many great kids, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins to spend time with. It is always a great time. We swam and swam, played tennis (I actually got official lessons from Kevin and for the first time in our life together, I did not get so frustrated that we had to abort the mission), went on pasture rides, ate and ate and ate, celebrated the 4th birthday of a very precocious curly headed girl, and so many other things. The PDC is one of the few places where, even with young children, the pace is slower, and life is just more relaxing, even while keeping pace with the kids (and there are LOTS of kids).

Pre-retirement Party Pics

Kevin's dad retired from private practice July 31st. Before heading out to the party, we managed to snap a few family pics.

Paradise

On our honeymoon, which was a comedy of errors to say the least (multiple travel delays, lost luggage, unexpected storms to name a few) we started talking about our 10th anniversary trip. It is hard to believe how quickly 10 years came upon us. So much has changed since we were married, we have grown up a lot, changed jobs, had two wonderful children, owned two houses and many other things. While there are times when we have faced life's challenges, we are so blessed to have faced them together.

AND, we actually took the 10 year anniversary vacation that we have been talking about all these years. We debated where to go for a while. Not surprisingly, we went through a very organized process of deciding on our final destination. While there were a number of exotic locations that made it to our final list, we both kept coming back to the idea of Montana. We have been there before and have found it amazingly picturesque and relaxing. So, Montana it was. The moment we began driving out of the airport, we were even more certain we made the right choice. We spent an entire week being in charge of our own time and nothing else! Imagine that! It has been so long that it took us a couple days to remember how to relax, but we did remember soon enough. Kevin took hundreds of pictures on the trip. I will spare you the 100 or so of just me with scenery in the background.

We had a great time together and were so glad to be able to go. A great shout out and thank you to Mimi and G'Daddy and Gran Allie and Pops for making it possible for us to get away. While we enjoyed a different pace of life for a few days, we missed the kids a lot and were eager to return home to them.


This is Lava Lake, which is a lake that was formed by a crater volcano years and years ago. We decided that it would be a great morning hike after reading about it in one of the local papers. Most hikes in that area are loops so the distance listed is the total distance. This was a 3.5 mile hike. It sounded perfect. Well, the end result was beautiful but it was not 3.5 miles round trip, it was 3.5 miles up a mountain one way! Had we known, we would have planned accordingly and packed lunch. Since we thought it would be a relatively quick hike, we packed water and granola bars and were off. So, we get to the top and this is the view - unbelievable and worth it even though we were exhausted. Unfortunately, we knew we had quite a hike back down and if we didn't get started it would not be good. We enjoyed the views for about 15 minutes and then began our trek back down the mountain. We got down about 2:30 and were famished. While it was not what we planned for our day, we ended up glad that we did it because it was truly beautiful.