Lately: Getting Ready for Christmas and Cub Scout Adventures

Our days have been packed lately, with mostly fun activities and outings. We are getting ready for Christmas around here!  

Backtracking to Thanksgiving weekend, we picked out our tree from the Kroger lot, just like we do every year. 

It's a big decision, but Henry found the perfect tree -- not too tall or too crooked!

Henry also helped put up the outside decorations

and of course helped decorate the tree. 

We attended the annual West U tree lighting on a chilly day in early December. 

We enjoyed hot cocoa,

snow,

and books, because the library is open late on Mondays!

Someone is always reading at our house.

Both boys are learning holiday songs and the house is filled with the tinkling sounds of the piano. It's beautiful!

Last weekend, Gene's old firm invited us to a holiday party. 

There was a huge brunch buffet, a snow slide and snow area, Santa, and gingerbread-house decorating.

From the holiday party, we headed straight to a Cub Scout campout at Stephen F. Austin State Park. It's one of our favorite parks and we enjoyed spending time with our favorite Scout friends. We played tug-of-war

and attended a special program at San Felipe de Austin State Historic Site. The kids learned about land grants and becoming Mexican citizens in the 1820s.    

This week, our Scouts were invited to help out at the Jingle Bell Express, packaging bags of food for those less fortunate. It was a fantastic service project and one we look forward to helping with in the future.

I'll leave you with one last picture of Will, who is losing teeth like crazy!

Will insists his two front teeth are not on his Christmas wish list this year, despite the fact that they are still missing and eating is hard work!

A Saturday Adventure: Sheldon Lake State Park

On Saturday morning, we set off on an adventure to a new-to-us state park. Sheldon Lake State Park is actually the closest park to us, located just outside the beltway on the northeast side of town, but we'd never been there before! It's a small park in what was once a fish hatchery, but it was beautiful and the perfect morning outing.

Will snapped this picture out the car window.

Our hikers were ready to go with cameras and binoculars and snacks!

Will has been using my small digital camera and he loves taking photos on our adventures. I'm captioning his photos in this post to give credit where credit is due!

The park is emphasizes green building and alternative energy.  

Will's photo of solar panels.

Will's photo of a water tank.

 Gene is always prepared with water, snacks, equipment and a first aid kit.

It was such a pretty day to spend outside!

Will took this picture of Henry and his leaf collection.

Will's photo of the John Jacob Observation Tower.

Views from the tower:

Will's photo

Here's some of what we saw on our hike:  a great egret,

one lone alligator,

lots of butterflies,

and beautiful holly. 

We finished off our morning adventure with a picnic lunch and plans to return to Sheldon Lake State Park soon!

Celebrating Mary

We got together with Nana and Pop the day after Thanksgiving for more family time and Mary's early birthday celebration!

It was a pretty day so we spent a lot of time playing in the backyard. Mary collected lots and lots of leaves. 

The boys played Frisbee 

and foursquare.

Aren't these pictures sweet of Pop brushing Mary's hair?

 Nana had some fun party games planned for the cousins.  

All the kids had cups tied to their shoes; Nana filled the cups with popcorn and then the kids had to walk across the grass to the finish line and dump the popcorn into coffee tins.  They repeated this several times and it was a lot of fun!

The prize was eating the popcorn at the end!

Next up was Hot Potato.

For the next game, the kids had balloons strapped to their legs and the goal was to not let your balloon pop!

Henry stomped on Michael's balloon right away.

Will was the winner and his balloon proved nearly indestructible.

The final game was a version of twister. Everyone got tangled up and had to untwist the knot.

Michael just thought the cones were the best toys ever.

And little David just relaxed and watched the fun! 

We all enjoyed Jess's famous turkey soup for dinner followed by lemon cake for Mary's 6th birthday! 

I love this picture because Mary is telling Nana how big to cut her slice of cake.

It was a huge slice! 

Happy birthday, Mary! We love watching you grow!