Chris and Carrie

Happy Birthday Chris!

Carrie — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 04:38:14 +0000

I just wanted to wish my husband Chris a very Happy Birthday today! I hope you have a wonderful day. I am so lucky to have you in my life.

It is also Chris’ aunt Kathy’s Birthday today. Happy Birthday Kathy! I think it is so neat how you two get to share this special day together! I hope you also have a wonderful birthday!

Love you both!

Love, Carrie

Pugapalooza

Chris — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 03:57:04 +0000

Smile, Coco! You’re at Pugapalooza! We went out to Euless today for “Pugapalooza,” benefitting the DFW Pug Rescue. First time we’ve been somewhere with so many pugs at once. There’s no mistaking a pug, but even then no two pugs seem to look alike. Coco was, of course, the cutest one.

Coco gave out a lot of kisses and sniffed a lot of rear ends at Pugapalooza.

When we pulled into the parking lot, we saw a couple mucking around with a couple strollers. As we drove pass, we saw that their babies indeed had wrinkled faces and curly tails. There were an abundance of pugs in strollers in the park. Hoo boy. Coco had to walk.

Some of the crowd favorites from the “Best Kisser” contest.

Lots of happy pugs and pug owners at Pugapalooza! Coco was completely worn out when we left, which we love. She’ll sleep well tonight.

Bachelorette Party Weekend

Carrie — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 17:19:01 +0000

It has taken me a week to post this but this past weekend I traveled to the coast for a girls weekend to celebrate my friend Brittany’s upcoming wedding at her bachelorette party! It was so much fun! Brittany will be getting married in Mexico so we are all so excited for her big day! Here are some of the tamer pictures from the weekend! Ha!

Miss Brittany the Bride to be!

Friday night most of us arrived and all traveled to Brittany’s parents house on the coast. My parents were sweet to pick me and a friend up at the airport and drive us out there. Brittany’s parents live in a beautiful home they recently built that makes you feel like you are at a Spanish Villa somewhere way far away, not on the Coast! ha! It felt like a vacation get-away!

We all live in different cities – Megan even came all the way from London – so when we arrived we had the best time just catching up and eating a yummy dinner together.

The next day the sun came out for a while so even though it was still a little chilly we hung out in the hot tub and got a little sun. Don’t you love this view?!

Girls sunbathing and catching up

Anne, Brittany, Muffy, and Beth hanging by the pool.

Another scenic picture of the beautiful porch looking out onto the bay. The best part about it for me was that it had electric screens that could be put down to keep the mosquitoes out! That was great for me as they adore me and for some reason even in February they were still out and bigger than I have ever seen!

My friend Muffy being silly but she, like all of us, is ready for Mexico!

The gift table before Brittany’s lingerie shower!

Lacey and Anne waiting for the shower to begin

The bride to be and Megan

My friend Beth and me

After the shower we all took the ferry over to the other island for a great dinner and then a night on the town! We ended up at a bar that has been there (according to my mom) since she was my age. It was tiny, but they had a super fun little band and I had to take a picture of the ceiling. It was covered with hats! In this picture it looks like people’s heads are hitting the hats but the ceiling was not that low. Either way, it was interesting!

Some more of the girls that night. I never got a full group shot which I was sad about, but there were 13 of us altogether so it was hard with such a big group.

Overall, the weekend was a blast! It had been way to long since I had seen many of my close friends so it was great to catch up with everyone. Chris and I can’t wait to get to go to the wedding!

Snow Day

Carrie — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 03:11:46 +0000

This past Thursday we woke up to snow falling but both of our schools were not canceled, so we headed to work. It then continued to snow for the entire day non-stop! At about 11:00 my school lost power and it never came back on! We were so cold and the kids just wanted to go outside and play in the snow. The kids were wild to say the least. At the end of day once school had dismissed I wish you could have seen the front of my school! It was like a full on snowball fight with every kid. We teachers attempted to stop it at first but then we just gave up. Later that evening it was announced that we did not have to go to school on Friday so Chris and I hunkered down and made a big pot of Chili! It was so fun! This is what we woke up to on Friday morning!

We got 12.5 inches of snow! It was so pretty and it didn’t even feel like I lived in Dallas, Texas! Maybe more like Colorado. A lot of trees were down in our neighborhood and around Dallas but we were lucky that we didn’t have any major damage. We had also lost power during the night, but thankfully got it back Friday morning. Some of our friends have not been so lucky and they still do not have power. Yuck!

We were all up early playing in the snow! Here Coco looks like she doesn’t like the snow but she really loved it! She was trying to eat most of it and I actually think it made her a little sick later. Does that happen to dogs when they eat snow?

This is a better picture to show you how much she loved it.

It was so fun having the day off, but sadly now I think we have to make up our snow day in April. Oh well it was worth it!

I hope everyone is having a great weekend and has a great Valentines Day tomorrow!

Family Weekend

Carrie — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 04:10:19 +0000

This past weekend my family came in town to visit us but to also mainly celebrate the engagement of my cousin Michael and his fiancée Jen. It was so much fun but it seemed to go by way too fast.

Friday night we went to Ft. Worth where we went to my Aunt and Uncle’s temple for services and their Rabbi did a special blessing for Michael and Jen. It was really nice.

The cute couple!

Then Saturday night we celebrated some more at an engagement party for them at Jen’s mom’s house here in Dallas. It was so fun! For dinner they served mini sliders, yummy guacamole, and a really good broccoli salad, plus yummy desserts. Then the after dinner entertainment was all of the kids (from our family and theirs) danced around the living room for us. It was so cute! We all had so much fun meeting Jen’s family and are excited that they will be a part of ours soon.

Then of course Chris ended up being the kids entertainment for the night. My cousins all call him “Silly Chris” because he is always teasing them and just so silly with them. Everyone at the party was wearing name tags so that it would be easier to get to know each other, but later in the night the kids began drawing on them and writing different things on them so of course Chris started the game of, “lets put funny name tags on people without them knowing!”… Well, you can see how that backfired on him! hehe. They LOVE Chris and they were running around squealing with laughter.

You gotta love him!

Overall, it was a great weekend and we are so excited for Michael and Jen. We can’t wait for the wedding in June!

Happy First Birthday Harper!

Carrie — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 00:44:23 +0000

Today our niece Harper turns one year old! We never thought a baby could be so cute (outside of Coco), but you are adorable! We are so thankful to have you in our family, and can’t wait to see the wonderful young lady you will grow up to be!

Proud mama Kelly!

Uncle Chris scares Harper.

When Harper met Coco.

Holidays In Corpus

Carrie — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 22:06:32 +0000

Happy 2010 Everyone! I hope you all are having a great New Year’s day. Chris and I had a wonderful 2009 and are ready to take on the new year. We’ve spent the last few weeks zipping around the state seeing all our relatives for the holidays. Here are some pictures from Christmas with my family down in Corpus.

Coco is sent to her bed to think about her bad behavior.

Celebrating my dad’s birthday on Christmas night with my family.

Some of the important women in my life.

Behold, the Christmas ficus tree.

My dad surprised my mom with a huge painting by her favorite Corpus artist, Deborah Males.

Enjoying good food and friends at my dad’s birthday party.

Christmas Time Is Here

Carrie — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 03:03:00 +0000

It is official! Chris and I are on our winter breaks! Of course they actually started this past Friday, but not getting up at the crack of dawn this morning made it real for us. I wanted to share some things my class did on the last week of school and also some of the decorations we have up in our home.
Every year since I have taught third grade we have taken a day on the last week before the break to make a huge gingerbread house. It takes us the entire day, and the kids LOVE it. Then later in the week we donate it to a nursing home, hospital, or someplace where they can appreciate it over the holidays.

The kids all bring candy, I put them in groups, and then I assign them a part of the house to decorate. They then plan out what they are going to do. Here was the set up:

Lots and lots of candy, and yes it doesn’t all go on the house. The kids get to eat some too! Here are some of my kiddos planning and working together. I was doing the icing as the kids talked and decorated, and some of the conversations that were happening were hilarious! I was trying to get my video camera to work but couldn’t figure it out. Kids are so funny. Here was one conversation that tickled me. “Hey guys, let’s make sleds out of Laffy Taffy, and then use the gummy bears for people riding in the sled. ” “Oh, that is a great idea!” Let’s make a pond out of blue M&M’s and then we can have people ice skating on it!” Ha! Isn’t that creative? You gotta love them!

One side of the roof completed!

Other side of the roof done and one side yard completed! As you can see we don’t use real gingerbread, we just use cardboard. I think it makes it easier to decorate and for the candy to stick.

The completed house! It is so fun to see how it turns out each year. This year my class is a little rambunctious, so the house reflects that some. Oh well, the kids are always so proud of their creation and that is what it is all about!

In other decorations, here are some we have in our own home. We don’t have a lot this year, but here is what we do have:

Dining room centerpiece.

Garland on the dining room window. We decided not to get a tree this year but next year when we do we are going to put it in here in front of the window!

I know this is a bad picture but here are some lights on our front porch outside.

And this is our solution for how to display our Christmas cards this year. Next year I plan to get a small metal tomato tree to put them on, but we thought it was a fun and different way to display them. Now, we can look at them everyday this way!

Lastly, I had to share this! This year Chris doesn’t have an actual class so he didn’t get any gifts. Yes, that is right, no super funny ones to write about this year. Boo! But, a teacher at his school did give him this and I laughed out loud when he showed me. It even has little plastic pieces of coal in it. I think this will be in Coco’s stocking this year! I hope you all have a wonderful holiday!
Love, Carrie

Lights In The Heights

admin — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 04:07:00 +0000

Well, once again we seem to have fallen off the blog wagon. We had some issues with our site, but I think Chris has worked them all out. So, I wanted to update you on some fun things we have been up to. This past weekend we headed to Houston to visit my sister and brother in law. They live in an area called the Heights and every year their neighborhood has a big holiday festival called Lights in the Heights. They have begged us to come for years, but with the all of the other things going on this time of the year we have never been able to make it. However, this year we made a point to be there and so did my parents! In addition, our cousin Karen was in the states visiting from the UK so she got to celebrate with us as well. It was so fun! Friday night we went to my uncle’s house to celebrate the first night of Hanukkah. We had a wonderful dinner and played the traditional Dreidel game. We had a great time!

Our good family friend Barbara, my sister Claire, mom, and me.

Cousin Karen and I playing the dreidel game.

The next day we helped my sister Claire and her husband William get ready for the big neighborhood party. Everyone in the neighborhood decorates and hosts parties, but the main event is on two of the neighborhood streets. Almost every house has spectacular lights, and many porches and front yards had bands or performers that do shows all night. They also have a parade and food stands. This year the mayor was even in the parade! So hundreds of people from all over came to walk the streets and see the homes and shows. Claire and William’s house was not one of the homes on the main drag, but they still have a large party every year where everyone comes and hangs out, and then everyone goes walking the neighborhood streets!

Here was the set up for our party guests. Claire had a ton of funny reindeer antlers, elf hats, or as we called them, “Christmakuh” accessories for people to wear. We made two huge pots of chili using 13 pounds of meat, and also some latkes (potato pancakes). The theme of the party was to wear a funny sweater or outfit with a lot of holiday cheer … Chris and I dressed up, and so did Claire and William, but not many other people did. Oh well, it was still fun!

My lovely holiday vest and my mistletoe headband!

William’s elf costume. He was also setting up a fire pit in the driveway.

The house, before the guests arrived.

When the party started, William’s sister and mom arrived with the newest additions to our family, Emily’s 4-month-old twin girls! They are precious and were decked out in their Christmas outfits. Everyone was smitten!

The guests enjoying the fire.

Claire kept telling us that the event was kind of like Mardi Gras. She kept stressing the importance of taking a map with us when we walked the route because we could easily get lost in the crowd. It was so hard to believe her until we saw it with our own eyes. There were hundreds and hundreds of people in the streets. It was so crazy! She also kept saying their party was going to be fairly small this year compared to other years, but by the end of the night we figured at least 100 people had come and gone from their home. Every drop of food, including the two huge pots of chili, were gone! We later found out that William had invited a lot of people and forgot to mention that little tidbit to Claire. Ha! Oh well! The more the merrier!

Here are some of the homes on the tour. Chris took a million pictures, so these are just a few. However, you can get a good idea of what the homes looked like and the fun events every house had.

One house had this on their lawn! We took a pretend prom picture in our funny sweaters! In the second pic is my good friend Muffy and her husband, Chris, who also live in Houston. We invited them along as well and it was so fun hanging out with them at the party.

I hope you get the idea of all the festivities. We had a super time and if you ever are in Houston when Lights in the Heights is happening, you should go! Now Chris and I are wondering how we could get something like this started in our own neighborhood … maybe next year!

Love, Carrie

Happy Thanksgiving!

admin — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 19:14:00 +0000

Happy Thanksgiving week everyone! Chris and I have been so busy lately so we are so thankful for a few days off. We have had such crazy schedules and our master's programs to blame for not updating more often, so sorry about that! We are super excited to head to Arkansas to be with Chris' family this year for Thanksgiving. I just know it is going to be gorgeous there with the trees changing colors and the cooler weather, it will great. Chris, Coco, and I hope you all have a wonderful Turkey Day! I will leave you all with a pic of Coco giving you her Elvis lip (It's her newest thing). And this Thanksgiving if anyone drops any food under the table I think you know what Coco will be saying, " Thank you, Thank you very much!!"