Holidays in a Small Town

Sometimes I forget that we live in a small town, because it is surrounded by a really big suburb, but today we were reminded of why living somewhere with only 2,000 or so citizens is so much fun! All three of us were out putting up our Christmas lights, when we see policemen, the firetruck, and people in elf hats walking down the street during a little Christmas parade! And guess who was on the firetruck? Santa! And he had candy treats for all the kids! I was so excited we were out at just the right time. Meredith quickly came to see when we told her it was Santa, but then she got a little scared when he got a little too close. Even though she was crying and pretty scared, my polite little girl still managed to choke out a "thank you" to Santa for the treats. Santa was very patient with Meredith and tried to change her opinion of him, but I think we still have some work to do before we try to sit on his lap!

You would think candy might be a bribe to not be scared, but not for Meredith!
Progress- she actually let Santa reassure her!

After finishing up the lights (or as many as we could before we ran out!) we had a quick dinner and headed down to the park that is up the street from us for the Christmas tree lighting - a fun activity with popcorn, face painting, pictures with Santa (we didn't push two visits in one day), and of course the lighting of the tree!

All the kids get to hold a rope and pull to make the lights come on. You could tell that the kids that have done this for many years love this - they were lined up for a long time to get as close to the tree as possible! Meredith keeps talking about it too, so I know it is something she will be looking forward every year!
Showing Meredith the lights that she helped light up by pulling the rope.
The tree all lit up!

Christmas Cousins

We spent a wonderful Thanksgiving at Aunt Sandy's house complete with wonderful food and a huge table full of friends and family, including, of course, Landon on his first Thanksgiving! Sandy also got Landon and Meredith matching PJs so we of course decided we needed some cute pictures!

Sweet gingerbread men for sweet little kiddos

Oh wait, is this still being sweet? I think that was Meredith's intention, although I think Landon didn't quite see it that way...
Much better!

Go Stars!

Neal's good friend had some great seats to the Stars game that he wasn't able to use this weekend, so we were lucky enough to get to use them for him! We decided to take Meredith along to experience her first game, but we were very realistic in thinking we might not make it through an entire period before we had to head home. But Meredith surprised us by making it through not only the whole game, but overtime too!

She loved Daddy's shirt that had a star on it and then thought it was so strange that so many other people had on the same shirt! She spent a lot of time checking out the crowd, but loved the lights on the ice (especially the star shaped lights!), watched some of the action, got into the clapping, and even gave groans and "oh no's!" when things weren't going well for the Stars. Neal had jokingly said that he thought after 5 minutes of play she would declare the game "All done!" but it was actually all the way until 6 minutes that she asked "Mama's car, now?" Luckily we were able to distract her with junk food! After a bag of animal cookies, a trip for cotton candy, and helping Daddy with some popcorn, Neal was actually able to enjoy the whole game! I saw a little less of it than that, but I just had fun being there with my whole family together.

The best part was walking out to the car, Meredith was in Neal's arms and said "I had fun!" And she even woke up this morning talking about how fun the hockey game was, so we will call this outing a great success!

A rare moment of Meredith looking into the action on the ice - there was too much else fun going on around us!
Cheering with Daddy in overtime - sadly, the Stars still lost.

Aunt Katie's Dress

Meredith's Aunt Katie made her the cutest Tutu for her birthday this year - Meredith has an aversion to slightly funny feeling things being near her body, so since August, this beyond-cute dress-up item has just been hanging on her wall. Then on Saturday, she woke up from her nap to see it - and almost immediately insisted she wear "Aunt Katie's dress!" So we added it to her Longhorn t-shirt, jeans, and straight-from-nap hair, to give us this darn cute ballerina! I am so excited for Aunt Katie to see this and to know that the only reason it came off was because spaghetti was being served for dinner and there was no way we were going to get sauce on this!

Bathing Beuty

Here are some fun pics of Meredith at bath time - she loves playing with all of her letters, "hiding" her ducks under the water, splashing, and her new favorite is sliding on her tummy! This is the way we can bribe her out of almost any other fun activity to go hop in the bath!

Guess who was in charge of hair washing duty? Daddy always makes everything more fun!
Her post- getting clean treat - sliding on her tummy!

Tiny Dancer

Our family is extremely blessed for so many reasons, and a big one of those reasons is Aunt Sandy. For those of you who don't know about wonderful Aunt Sandy, she takes care of Meredith while I am at work even with hundreds of other things going on in her busy schedule. And she does it wonderfully - Meredith has learned so many things from her in all of the days she has spent with her and Sandy tries to introduce her to new things all the time. The entire Sook family has a love of music, theater and dancing and she has worked to instill this in Meredith, too. That includes a dance class one time a week when Meredith goes to Southlake. Today was parent observation day at dance, and I was able to make it just in time. I loved seeing Meredith in her adorable leotard and tutu and getting to see where she dances and watching the other girls, too. Meredith is a creature of habit, so having me there was maybe a hinderance to her progress in dance, but she is a smart girl, and I think she will pick back up what she might have missed soon!

Aunt Sandy helping Meredith put on her shoes.
A proud mama with her little ballerina.

The whole tap class - oh yeah, and me. Like I said, it took awhile for her to warm up while I was there, so I decided to participate too.

Trying out a move with a little help.

Meredith was actually more excited to move on to ballet - I got to stay by the wall!
The girls think this part is so funny - to get them to reach to their toes the teacher told them to sniff their stinky feet. Too cute that instead of taking her head to her toes, Meredith decided to bring her toes up!
At the end of class, the girls get to tumble - Meredith was definitely fine leaving me to do this one!

Fall Fun

The weather has been a bit cooler (some days, anyway) so Meredith has been spending more and more time outside. She has a tricycle that she loves - she mostly just pushes along with her feet for now, but she starts off pedaling for a bit and loves to move around saying "Pedal, pedal, pedal!"

Enjoying a cooler morning - such a cutie!

We had a big first this week - Meredith saw my old softball glove in the garage and wanted to wear it. She watches Daddy play softball with our church and loves to cheer him on, so she knew just what to do. But then I remembered that Neal's best friend, "Uncle Mike", supplied Meredith with tiny girly sports equipment when she was born. So, I quickly found her little black and pink glove (which is still a bit too big, but much easier for her to handle than the one made for my hand!) and we were set. I told her that Uncle Mike got her the glove and she kept saying "Thank you, Mike, soooo much!" I wished so much that I had Mike's number to call him so she could tell him in person, but I'll just have to make sure he sees this post to know how much fun she had. Daddy got home soon, so I decided to let him teach her a little more about softball since he has been waiting for his chance to teach her his love of sports. She mostly just loved watching him throw the ball "High in the sky, Daddy!" and catching it in his glove, all while she wore hers.

This picture is a little dark, but I think she looks so grown up and like she knows just what she is doing in this picture!

Having a chat about the basics of softball...

I'm a Tiger!

We have a very sweet friend, Katie, who brings Meredith all of her clothes when she has grown out of them. The other night, I had finished putting the winter stash that she sent to us into piles, at the top was this faux fur vest. Right after bathtime, Meredith came in without a single other thing on and guess what she wanted to put on immediately? As soon as it was on, she told us "I a tiger - rooaar!" We struggled to get her to let us put anything else on her, but finally she agreed to add PJ's UNDER the vest. These picture are actually from the next night when she needed to be a tiger again. She slept with it on all night (both nights)- it gave me a good laugh the next morning when I had forgotten all about my tiger girl until she came toddling in my room telling me "I be hungry, Mama!"

Meredith, modeling last season's faux tiger vest over pink polka-dot PJs.

And then here is her best tiger impression, complete with realistic roars.

Trick or Treat

After a week of practicing, we finally got to go Trick or Treating for real! Meredith was very excited to be Minnie Mouse all day on Friday and even convinced me she needed to go to the grocery store in costume. We went to my parent's neighborhood since so many of their neighbors have lived there since I went trick or treating and those that don't, we still know pretty well. Landon, Aunt Katie, and Uncle Neil came to which was of course a treat for Meredith. And we also got to see Meredith's friend Katie who is about a year and half older than Meredith, but they love playing together!

Landon, the Giraffe and Meredith ready to Trick or Treat! We must have some pretty good genes to get 2 kids this cute, huh?

Meredith and Gigi coming back with lots of loot. By the end, Meredith was inviting herself into the houses - we will have to work on that if we start going places where we don't know the people! Luckily she was very polite, telling everyone "Thank you SOOO much!"

Meredith trick or treating Bubbie - we convinced her to put on her ears for the first time of the night.
Resting after a long night of trick or treating.