Polar Express

During our weekend of marathon holiday events we also got to ride the Polar express! We had a blast with our friends...things get a little crazy with 9 adults and 8 kids but we managed ok!

Our Fam!

They had a show before we boarded the train. I was trying to get a picture of the girls  with each of  us...but this was the best we got. They were just too excited!

Kinley and Mama!

 

Madelyn and Sav noticing they are wearing the same P.J's...yes we planned it!

Sav and Kinley

Madelyn was so excited!! They are really excited about trains right now.

 Just like the movie Santa walks around and gives each child a silver bell. Kinley wasn't sure about Santa but did better than last year. Madelyn was more excited about seeing Santa and they both LOVED their bells.

This was the best we could do with the picture though...sad!

Kinley

 

Ethan

Ashley and Sweet Sawyer

 

Benny Boy!

The Hoag Family

Ok, so this picture is of this elf asking the three younger kids (Carter, Kinley and Madelyn) what they want for Christmas. This entire Christmas ALL and I mean ALL the girls have asked for were towels and cake. Not lying that is it. That was exactly what they told her...she looked at us like we were crazy. Yes the girls have towels already, and I have NO idea where they came up with that.

trying to get one of all of them...at least Carter was paying attention.

About the time we took this picture the people behind me ask...so what kids go with what kids...I explain there were a set of quads and twins and Carter! (ashley and I have gotten asked before if our kids are triplets) She said looks like they are busy and you have your hands full (common response). She then tells me she found out this week that she was having twin girls and she had fun watching our kids play...ha, I think she looked more scared to see what her life would be...lol! I wished her luck and told her to enjoy the baby stage before you have to chase for a living!

Melts my heart...I love that our girls are Bff's!

Most of the time they are friends...we have to break up fights sometimes. Suz I think...err, KNOW we are raising three STRONG willed little girls...Lord help us all! 

Better attempt at the 7 kids...

 

Thank you SO much Hoags and Steeces for letting us tag along on your Christmas fun. We had a blast!

Holiday in the Park...Six flags!

We had a wonderful holiday season this year. The girls really got into everything and it was so much fun to see the magic through their eyes. I LOVED it.

One of my favorite things we did was go to Six flags for Holiday in the park! We have some AWESOME friends who work there and hooked all of us with tickets! We LOVE you Tom and Jill!!!! Thanks!

Our little fam! (thanks Suz for the pictures)

 

The Steece fam!

  We had a BLAST riding the rides and the train! If it looks like we are freezing it's because we were! It was COLD...hey, we are from Texas!

Madelyn and Mama!

The girls are fans of the rides, I am pretty sure! I love getting to see them be excited about them!!!

So do the quads!

Carter was however not always a fan! (He is the one on the left,wide eyed!) 

Carter, Drew, and Collin!

 

I LOVE these picture! Auntie Ashley and Drew!

Auntie Suz and I got away for a ride!!! It was a blast!

You might recognize Suz from The reality TV show Texas Multi Mamas! Tuesday night @7 on We TV! ha, sorry Suz had to throw that one in there!

 All the kids loved watching the light/music show on the way out!...Ethan, Drew, Ben and Sav! LOVE THOSE KIDS!

 My sweet girlies...Kinley and Madelyn...check out Maddie's cheese face!

 

We all had a wonderful time at the park with our friends!

Sorry for the delay!

To say things have been crazy it our lives, might be an understatement...In the grand scheme of things not a huge deal but it shook our world for a bit! It all started the week of Thanksgiving.

Chris's mom was going to be in Austin having Thanksgiving with his brother, so we had it the weekend before with her. We had dinner out. 

Kinley with Grandma.

Madelyn, not sure what this silly face is that she is making.

So Thanksgiving morning...Kinley started SCREAMING at 5:00 am. I went into their room and she told me she didn't feel good and needed to go to the doctor (not sure where she got this) I picked her up and she was BURNING up. Pretty soon Madelyn started waking up, I decided we might as well go ahead get up since I figured there wasn't a lot more sleep going to be going on.. So the girls and I made a pallet on the floor and watched Monsters Inc. Pretty sure Kinley after having medicine was the only one that went back to sleep.

After Kinley slept till almost 10 we watched the parade while everyone was getting dinner ready.

Kinley and Poppy

The girls LOVED watching the parade. The only thing that they didn't love was when the commercials or the announcers would come and talk.

Maddie sat like this the entire time.

Poor Madelyn didn't want to stay up for lunch she was so tired due to her sister's wake up call!

she decided to lay on the couch instead.

Good family and good food!

Later that night, I went BLACK FRIDAY SHOPPING!!! I went with several of my friends that I have gone with before and took Suz, Ashley, Elayna and my mom shopping for the first time! We had fun and didn't come home till around 8 AM.

Our loot! (sorry picture is from my phone)

And this is where the story takes another turn...The girls and I decided to go visit my family in Oklahoma with my parents. We took my van because it's just easier with the carseats. My family has land/ranch and several members of my family were there for the Thanksgiving. My camera died the first day we were there...the girls LOVED getting to play with cousins and I really wish I would have gotten pictures of that.

On Sunday my dad and I went off to look around, when we came back we were greeted with some bad news. My cousin had hit my van with his BIG truck...

This was the text I sent Chris saying "look at our van, we weren't in it and are fine!"

Basically in about 10 minutes we had changed everything about that day. The girls and I were packed in my aunt's car and riding back with her...my poor parents decided that they could drive it home. After putting tarp and lots of Duct tape they drove (very slowly) home. It took a while to get things figured out with insurance but we learned we weren't going to be keeping our van...To say I took the news badly probably would be a under statement. We didn't want to start all over with payments on a new car especially when we weren't planning on it. Plus we brought our babies home in that van. I know probably silly, ok it is silly!!! I know it is. But it was the truth. After the whole sticky situation was settled and we had money for our car and new carseats. Within one day we had found a GREAT GREAT deal on another car and went looked at it and brought it along with carseats! (post about the new car later)

For several weeks we still had our van in our driveway before the wrecker came to get it.The girls called it our boo boo car. At first they kept saying the dog did it. (my cousins dog) and then they changed their story saying that someone kicked it. They are getting pretty good at telling stories.

BYE BYE Swagger wagon! we will miss you!

 

Hope I didn't bore you to much with our Thanksgiving adventure (more like November adventure) We are hoping for a less drama filled new year! Tons of Christmas posts...along with learning new letters! However we have taken a few weeks off, hoping to get back to "school" next week.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from The Tarrants!!!!

Tiny Prints!

The more I look at the Christmas Cards at Tiny prints the more I LOVE them. It is so hard to decide, I love that they aren't the same cards you see everywhere else!

Here are a few of my favs! I had a hard time narrowing it down...

Seriously I would LOVE picking any of these!!!!

We took the girls pictures for our card...so now I have to pick out the card to go with them. I know we are doing this a little late. ugh. We have been sick, had our van totaled all in the last two weeks. We are hanging in there! I have already gotten three Christmas cards in the mail...Our first one to receive was actually a Tiny prints card (thanks Gerwers!) The quality is fantastic and I was very impressed!


So c'mon go check Tiny Prints out for your Christmas card needs!!!!



PS-You will have to wait to see if I pick one of these cards!!!

Fabulous! (F week)

You know what is fun, walking out of Walmart and realize you just told your 2 year old..."We are going to go home and learn some more F words" And looking over and seeing the older greeter look at me like I was a horrible mom!!! Totally happened! It was pretty bad but funny I have to admit!

Showing our FINGERS!

Painting our letter F's with our FINGER prints...the girls liked this way more than I thought!

FISHING for FISHES...Celery, with peanut butter and goldfish. 

This kept them busy, a great rainy day thing!

I have been trying harder to get them to learn what the letters look like instead of just what words start with the letter. I had them jump from F to F.

 Making FOOTPRINTS!

On another day we headed to Wal=Mart to look at all the flowers. 

Each girl picked out  flowers to take home for our porch. 

Madelyn and her Flowers. 

Kinley! The girls loved their flowers and would just sit on the porch with them!

We also went to look at all the FISHES! They loved this so much we.... 

brought one home!!!!

Getting the FISH bowl ready. 

We had to give the FISH a F name....

Meet FREDDIE the FISH!!!

Freddie the fish now lives in the girls bathroom. They will just go watch him sometimes. The first couple of days they would spend over 30 mins just watching him swim around. One of the best 5 dollar toys ever!

We also made FRENCH toast for lunch that day!

They are really getting into cooking lately. Especially Madelyn. 

Our family has had a ROUGH week...I am sure I will blog about it later but that is one reason I am behind. We did the Letter G and H but then have taken a few weeks off from letters. Really hoping next week we start again!