This year for Avery's birthday, she really wanted to have a slumber party.  I thought the girls were a little young but decided to give it a try.  We ended up having six girls spend the night, including Avery and Mia.  We decided to have family and friends over for pizza and cake prior to the slumber party.  It was such a fun celebration this year.  The girls made it well past midnight - I couldn't believe it!  We were all tired the next day....


Making this cake was so much fun.  The girls "ate" it up


Opening presents surrounded by friends.


Avery applying makeup to her friend Cady. 
After everyone had their makeup done, they did a Makeup Fashion Show for everyone. 
It was so cute!


Time to do each other's hair.  Everyone wanted braided pigtails.


Manicures and pedicures. 


Twister!!!  The girls loved this game and played this quite a bit that night.


Jenga was also a hit.


What's a slumber party without a pillow fight!?!


Mia and her buddy Sierra snuggled in for the night.


The whole crew.  (And yes, I recruited another mom to stay the night with me!)


Chris made the girls his Famous French Toast on the grill in the morning. 
(Avery was totally embarrassed by his hat, which is exactly why he wore it!).


French Toast with a whole lot of makeup on!

Happy Birthday, Sweet Avery!  You are growing up so fast!!!

On Saturday we celebrated our annual Troxel Christmas Fancy Dinner with the girls.  We started this tradition on accident (like most good traditions) three years ago  when we decided to head downtown so that Avery could see the lights on the Circle.  We got dressed up and decided to go out to dinner beforehand.  We had such a wonderful time, that we do it every year now. 

The girls were so excited to get all dressed up for our special night.  I even let them wear a little make-up and some perfume.  It was so fun getting ready together.  They looked so pretty! 

We headed out to The Old Spaghetti Factory for dinner.  It was a huge hit with everyone.  Then we headed toward the Circle to see the lights.  This year Chris and I had a little surprise up our sleeves for the girls.  We had rented a horse-drawn carriage to give us a ride through downtown.  The girls were so excited and loved every minute of it.  It was a little cold, but we snuggled under blankets and enjoyed the beautiful lights.  We ended our evening at Starbucks with warm drinks for everyone.

This tradition has become one of my most favorite things about the holidays.  I get excited about where we are going to go and what we are going to wear.  It's so fun to get all dressed up and create such special memories with our girls. 


Everyone is ready to eat!


Cheese!


This is really good, Mommy!


Rosy cheeks for Olivia.


Carriage ride snuggles.


Olivia loved watching the scenery.


Troxel Christmas Fancy Dinner 2009.


Cuteness.

The girls love Thanksgiving for two reasons:  homemade noodles and the green light on starting Christmas fun!  We got our tree on "Black Friday" and put it up that night.  (And it's a good thing we did because Chris was sick the rest of the weekend!)  The girls and I made our first batch of Christmas cookies while Chris got the tree inside and up in our tree stand.  I wanted us to have some sort of "fun" dinner before decorating the tree, so we did cheese fondue.  It was a huge hit!  Here is a start to the festivities around our house....


We started off the season by getting Christmas Build-A-Bears. 
The girls used their own money to purchase these fun, new additions to our family.
Avery's named hers Holiday (Holly) Moose, while Mia named hers Molly Christmas.

   
During our first Christmas trip to the mall, Livie found some new things to climb on,
while Mia spent time reading to her new friend, Molly Christmas.


That is one crazy Christmas baby.  She has already broke four ornaments!


Chris is helping Mia get the Santa on the top of the tree. 


Avery loves hanging all the ornaments on the tree.

This year Avery really wanted to try to string cranberries and popcorn after seeing it on a movie made by the American Girl Doll company.  It ended up being a fun project for both Avery and Mia.  The popcorn was a little tricky, and I later learned you are supposed to use stale popcorn (ours was still warm from me popping it!), but the girls really got into this, especially Avery.  This is definitely something we will do again.


My little crafter.


Mia got a little bored after awhile, so she entertained us with her cranberry mustache.


Ta-da!!

One of the things I loved about this project was how much of Avery and Mia's personality came out while doing this.  Avery was all about making it perfect, coming up with a pattern and completing her project.  She wanted to find a prominent place to display her cranberry string when she was done.  Mia, on the other hand, strung some cranberries, ate a lot of popcorn and then asked why we didn't just use marshmallows instead of popcorn.  Leave it to my little inventor to come up with a solution to our problem without really even caring about the problem.  She entertained herself with creative cranberry sculptures, giggling to herself.  God has blessed both of them with such amazing gifts!

With Thanksgiving tomorrow, and the chaos of Christmas on our heels (and in our faces in most places), I wanted to take the time to search my heart for true thanksgiving.  God has blessed me in so many ways that I cannot comprehend them all.  I pray that He will continue to open my eyes His goodness.

Here are just a few of God's rich blessings:

• An amazing husband, who listens with both ears, provides abundantly, wrestles with the girls, and loves me unconditionally.
• Three amazing daughters, who teach me patience, love and faith.  
• Beautiful friends who laugh with me, share life with me and remind me that God has made all of me, imperfect as I am.
• God's patience.  I need a lot of it.  Sigh.
• My beautiful family.  As I get older I realize more and more that it isn't about having a picture-perfect family, it's about loving them anyway  Each of my family members teach me different things about life, and I cherish each one of them for their uniqueness. 
• For the worldly possessions God has given us - a warm home, food on our table and cars that enable us to travel.  We live in the richest country in the world, and I don't want to take these things for granted for a minute.  God has placed us in this city, in this time for a reason.  I pray we will share our wealth with those around us.

Happy Thanksgiving!!  May your bellies be full, and your hearts comforted. 

And for those that has jumped the gun on Christmas decorating, may your lights explode and fall to the ground.  Ok, just kidding.

 

We recently purchased a new dishwasher, which came with a bonus gift for the girls.  Yep, a huge box to play with.  This wonderful toy kept them entertained for days!  I love their imagination!!

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Yes, it has been 32 days since my last blog.  O, how I have missed you, dear blog readers.  I cannot believe how fast time can fly.  I thought I would recap the last month so that you can see that life keeps on going (whether I blog about it or not!).

We celebrated Halloween with all the trimmings - cute costumes, silly girls, loads of candy, friends and family, and S'mores.  This year we had Pinkaclicious, a baby giraffe and the Tooth Fairy.

 

For almost two weeks we got to take care of my mom after her foot reconstructive surgery.  She was in quite a bit of pain and cannot bear any weight on her leg until after Christmas!  The girls loved waking up each morning and seeing Mamaw.  The girls were quite sad when she headed home, especially Olivia who loved to cuddle on the couch with Mamaw while I was cooking dinner each night.

  

At the beginning of November we celebrated my father-in-laws 60th birthday.  Pam had a wonderful party at a local nature center for him.  Jerry is a wonderful father, father-in-law and grandfather and we had a wonderful time celebrating him on this monumental birthday.



And viola - an entire month has slipped through our fingers! 

Today was Avery's last soccer game of the fall season.  Avery has truly loved playing again this year and is improving with each practice and game.  She is already looking forward to the spring season!  Here are some pictures from the game.  It was about 40 degrees and raining/misting for most of it, but we all had a great time celebrating her last game.

  


Team Bananas!!!  I love that the coach is sticking out his tongue in this one!

  
Brr, snuggle up girls!


Look at that shiny medal.

I have been debating on whether to put this on the blog or not.  Chris and I got a huge kick out of this, but Avery is getting to the age where she is starting to get embarrassed about various things.  So, coming soon is a discussion about what to do with this blog.  My main purpose in having this blog is to share stuff about our family, mostly the girls, but Avery is starting to need a bit more privacy from her mother telling all her stories on the Internet.  She has asked me on several occasions "Mom, are you going to put this on the blog?"  Please understand that as time progresses you may see a little less of Avery's business posted on here.

But before that.... here's to one last bit of embarrassment....

One morning Avery got up, grabbed a piece of paper and a marker and asked Chris how to spell a few funny words.  It turns out she was making this chart for herself.  We've been trying to break her of this nasty habit without much luck.  She has been using it since last week, monitoring herself and putting stickers up.  We can't help but giggle to ourselves about this. 

I cannot believe that Mia turned 4 last week!  When I look back over these last four years, I cannot help but be a bit sentimental about all that she has overcome and what an amazing little girl she is.  God has truly blessed Mia with a beautiful personality.  Happy Birthday, Little Bug!

As usual, the pictures tell a better story than I can with words.


Mia wanted me to make these horse cupcakes to take to school. 
They were a lot more work than I expected, but she loved them and that made it more than worth it!


On her birthday morning, I made her a "4" pancake. 
Doesn't she look grown-up in this picture?  *tears*


Her Polly Pocket birthday cake.  Yep, that's blue Jell-o


Avery and Mia with her friend from school, Madison.


Mia opening a birthday card.


Mia playing us a song on her new pink guitar.  Rock on Mimi!


All the girls playing Polly Pockets. 
I am pretty sure we now own every Polly Pocket item on the market!


Mia blowing out the candles on her cake.


Mia trying on her new cute new hat and gloves.

Olivia started taking a few steps a couple of weeks ago, but now she is walking everywhere!!  She rarely crawls now.  It is so funny to see her toddling around the house.  We've already reduced her physical therapy to twice a month, but it looks like even that might be too much.  She is doing great!  She is also starting to say a few words.  This week she waved at a neighbor and said "Hi."  She will be jabbering my ear off before I know it


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