December according to my phone

A few extra pictures from our December...

Looking all fancy at Neal's Christmas Party!

The Christmas season would not be complete without a trip to Campo Verde for all the decorations and the cheese sauce!

Celebrating Christmas at Aunt Sandy's (I swear Meredith was there, too, I just somehow only took these pics!)

Happy New Year!  We drove straight in from Missouri on New Year's Eve, so we had a very quiet celebration at home to ring in 2015!  Luckily the girls got a little fancy and made us a festive sign.

Remembering Grandpa Geurin

Just a few days after Christmas, I got a call from my parents letting me know that my sweet Grandpa had gone to heaven.  He was such a special guy to me.  Neil and I would go stay with my grandparents every summer when we were kids.  He would take us fishing and hunting for lightning bugs.  We climbed trees and shot a bow and arrow.  We picked blueberries and watched silly movies.  I had an inside joke with him where I would always steal his handkerchief from his pocket. It was always so fun.  They lived in Missouri, so I never got to see them as much as I would have liked, but we did take the girls up to see them several times and they each thought he was just as fantastic as I did and he thought they were pretty great, too!  Here are some sweet pictures of the girls with their Great Grandpa.

Early the following week, we all loaded up and drove to Missouri so that we could be there for the funeral.  And luckily even when you have to go to a sad funeral out of town, you do get to stay in a hotel, so the girls kept themselves busy with the indoor pool!

She is just the silliest!

And they shared a queen sized bed.  Or should I say that Meredith let Jillian have a fraction of an inch of the queen sized bed!

The service was very nice and after we got to spend some time with the rest of our family that we don't get to see enough!

Me, Neil and our cousins - Jason, Sarah and Seth.

We also let Grandma have some sweet bonding time with all of her Great Grands!  '

We love you Grandpa - I will miss you so much!

Christmas 2014

We woke up Christmas morning to another wonderful time with family and some fun things from Santa!  Jillian got her gymnastics mat and Meredith got Disney Infiniti - both were top priorities on their lists!  Plus, lots of fun things in their stockings!  

Jillian couldn't' wait to try out her mat!

 Our traditional family PJ pic!

I truthfully don't even remember what was in this box, but it obviously was just what she wanted! 

Same here - not sure which present this was, but another priceless expression

Jillian had been asking for this for months and was so exited to find it under the tree!

Another top request from Meredith was a Jamie Benn Stars jersey.  Neal and I ended up having to personalize it ourselves and we were super impressed with how well it turned out and she could not have been happier! It was made even better when we surprised Daddy with the Stars jersey he asked for, too!

After fun with our family of four, we headed to Bubbie and Grandad's for brunch and presents.  Then these four had a great time putting together a new puzzle! 

We finished off the day with another trip to Gigi's for a few more presents and fun with the family.  Another great Christmas for all of us in the Hanks family!

Merry Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve always kicks off with the Geurin family.  This year, we decided to get together as a family early in the day for lunch and family presents before heading to church. 

The girls with some of their presents.  Meredith was super excited about her new telescope

Oh my - isn't Carter the cutest?

Gotta love the progression of the group picture process!  Such cute cousins!

And my family!  Merry Christmas

Holiday in the Park

We love Holiday in the Park at Six Flags, so we were so excited to go use our Season Passes for a fun family day!

Jillian was super, super brave and went on the Shock Wave for the first time!  The Shock Wave has 2 loops in it but she was ready to go!

School Christmas Parties

Just before letting out for Christmas break, the girls each had fun-filled days of Christmas parties!

The Second Graders had a blast dressing each other up like snowmen with toilet paper, playing Minute to Win It games, playing Bingo, and more!

And Kindergarten loved their party - especially making (and eating) a powdered donut snowman!

November According to my iPhone

All of the other fun and random happenings from November!

One of Jillian's friends is adopting a service dog for her brother.  Their family hosted a dog party including a costume contest for the puppies, dog treats, a place to "adopt" a stuffed dog, a great face painter, and just lots of fun with friends.  The girls loved TRYING to get Piper to pose for a picture, but it worked out better when Jillian just talked her friend, Gunnar, into joining the picture with her!

Jillian had so much fun with the kids at her cupcake class table

The girls were super excited to have their first babysitting job (with all the responsibility falling on Mommy, of course) with Shelley's baby, Daniel.  They were so excited to show him Daniel Tiger on the computer!

Kindergarten won a popcorn party for having the most PTA sign-ups and apparently they also got ring pops.  I think Jillian might have enjoyed hers!

Every November we hit up Holiday Magic for a little Christmas shopping and this year, we also got to meet Mrs. Texas!  The girls thought this was awesome!

And Miss Jillian was Student of the Week! Yeah Jillian!