Elf on the Shelf kick-off!

I love to kick off the Christmas season with Elf on the Shelf movie.  The kids love it and I do too!  I really like the "Extrvaganzalorious" song.  We got all the kids to dance to it.  So cute!

My sweet little elf.

Last Tech game of the season

#wearelatech

This is what rain does to my hair!!!

These little boys kept fake burping.

Here we are getting out of the rain!

MHU

You may know or you may not, but Neil and Jared have a pretty sweet trailer business.  People laugh and people make fun and we LOVE that!  Anyway, our little business took us on a fancy trip to Austin for Mobile Home University! Talk about some great info and some really hilarious CD listening.  We even took a detour to drive through a couple parks.

We were thankful that all the grandparents came together and kept the kids.  Jared and Katie's girls were well taken care of and our babies had Nana, Granddad, and Gammy.  They had some fun grandparent weekends for sure,

A few of my favorite highlights in no particular order were:

• Jared coming up with our e-book and every time we had a funny one-liner we'd say "Chapter 10: I don't want to be rich, I want to be wealthy" or "Chapter 3: Cash is the language everyone speaks" 
• Getting our hair done making it to where we didn't have to wash and dry our own hair
• Uber taking us all over Austin and talking to all the drivers and asking them all the same questions such as: "how long have you been driving for Uber?" Average time=1 month
• binge watching PBS
• shopping!
• food trucks! (Gourdough's was on fleek!)
• saying "on fleek" and still not knowing why
• hot tubbing
• Air BNB conversations with the owner
• trying to figure out the living situation of the Air BNB owners
• hearing about all the Trailer Talk at the conference and the one guy who asked 50 questions per day and seeing the tally of said questions
• lunch on 6th street
• walking to our neighborhood retail shops
• going to the original Whole Foods twice in 3 days
• looking up in a Thesaurus words for mogul, tycoon...to come up with Mobile Home Moguls or Trailer Park Tycoons.
• Blogging Marathon
• Basically doing what we wanted to do, when we wanted to do it.  It was AMAZING!

I love a blow-out.

sending Neil a little selfie of the blow-out.

Cocktails for lunch? YES, please!!  

We just thought this was cute...we didn't enjoy this food truck.

Gourdough's...Mama's Cake.  It was yellow cake batter filled with chocolate icing.  On fleek!

Josephine House.  

It got really cold!!!  I had to wear Neil's big wind breaker.  It was hot the day before.  Here we are on 6th street,

Neil and then there's Jared from Iowa.  That's what his tag said. He is really from Louisiana.

Harvest Festival and Thanksgiving Feast

Henry had his so much fun Harvest Festival today.  He had 8 different stations to rotate to and it was so cool!  Each K4 class was responsible for a station.  Our class was in charge of the Indian corn magnet station.  He got to make homemade butter, copper punching, bead the magnets, make a homemade candle, make a frame with a photo background, make a clay bowl (which accidentally fell in the trash), and paint a tee pee and totem pole!  What a fun morning!

Henry's Indian name was Roaring Lion.  I love it!

beading the Indian corn magnet

My little Roaring Lion

Not to impressed with this candle

Even Gammy game by to the festival!  It's not easy for Gammy to get off work so this was really special that she took the time to come.  Henry and I loved it!

All the boys

So glad Daddy stopped by for a minute

Candle Making

He really liked the copper punching using a hammer and a nail.  Just like a pilgrim!

This was one of his favorite parts..painting!

After Harvest festival we went to meet Bennett for his Thanksgiving feast.  He didn't want to eat the mystery Thanksgiving school food so we brought him Julianne's.  He ate the gigantic burger too!

Bennett chose his name to be Annoying Jaguar.  Why??  Because it's funny, Mom! OK.

These people make me so THANKFUL!

A little of this and a little of that

We had to put in a new A/C!  Happy Holidays to us.

Bennett had a play date with his new best buddy, Logan.

We had a baby shower for Sarah and Baby Shep.

Me, Claire, Sarah, and Regan...hostesses with the guest of honor

Amy is teacher of the year!!!!  I am so proud of her!  This is her 3rd time.  That is almost unheard of.  You have to be pretty darn amazing to be teacher of the year let alone 3 times!

I taught Sarah Kathryn's ECA (Early Christian Awareness) class and she was loving it!  She participates like a champ

Run for Funds...there's Bennett speeding by us.  He got 265th out of 315!

Souper Bowl

Bennett loves football...have I said that before?  HE LOVES IT!  They were able to reschedule the Souper Bowl to let the boys play their last game.  They were thrilled.  

Group shot after winning!

Here's the second place trophy that they were given after winning the game.  Oops..a mom handed the 1st place trophy to us after they realized we had the wrong one.

1st place!!  Out of 2 teams!

I love a family photo even if 3/5 aren't smiling.

Bennett's got fans! (Pops and Carolyn left before our photo)

Mr. Glenn is so sweet to come to all the games

Gammy!!

November Bulldog of the Month

Who are the proudest parents around???  Us!  When we received the Tuesday Talk this month it listed each teacher's bulldog of the month.  Guess who was the bulldog of the month in Bennett's class?  BENNETT!  Way to go, Brother!!!

He loves his student of the month medal!

Here he is in front of his picture!

Raines Gender Reveal

We had an exciting gender reveal for the Raines family.  I was thrilled to be the chosen one who knew the gender.  I felt so honored!  It was hard keeping it a secret for a week, though!

Lindsay and Katie helped by bringing pink and blue drinks and candy.  I brought mustaches and lips and had everyone wear pink or blue.  Leigh wanted to have it t her house and she did all the cooking!  

3/4 think it's a boy!  Leigh thought girl

It's a.......

BOY!!!!

Baby Luke is on his way in April!!

These 2 thought it was a girl!!!