My Familia: November 2011

11/30/11

Pre-turkey warm-up.

On the day before Thanksgiving our good friends Clyde and Twila invited us out for their Thanksgiving dinner. You see Twila had to work on Thanksgiving so they had their big dinner a day early. So we got to enjoy two wonderful homemade Thanksgiving dinners! Yum!

It was so beautiful that day and the kiddos were itching to get outside and play.

Elena {3}, CJ {2} and Estela {1}

There is something pretty awesome about running around and playing at an old farm. The kids did not want to come in, even when it started to get cold!

We are very blessed and thankful to have wonderful friends that we consider family.

11/29/11

Fake tree.

First let me clarify. I have never EVER had a fake Christmas tree, ever. My entire 30 years of my life there has been a real tree in my home. This year will be no exception, except there will be a fake tree there also. You see, Robert and I spend a lot of time in our basement and as we were sitting there the other night he said - "You know, a tree would look really good down here." Now he created a tree monster because of course we still have to have a tree upstairs, so now we are a two tree household! :)

I have always loved the trees that have a theme - blue and sliver, green and red, etc... I would never do that on our tree because of all the special colorful ornaments that I have collected over the years. But this extra tree gave me the opportunity to indulge a little with decorating and Robert and I decided on a white and silver theme.

I really, really love it! It looks beautiful and brightens up our basement so much! Of course Elena thinks it is wonderful too! As you can see below, she was quite the ornament hanger! (I think she got a record 6 ornaments on one branch-lol!)

What do you think? (my poor photography skills don't do it justice!) Now I can't wait to get our real tree and decorate it!!

11/28/11

Cold Football.

We had some friends over for bbq and football watching a couple weekends ago. Robert got the meat all ready and started on the grill but then...it stopped working. :( Oh no! So after an hour or so working on it, he finally gave up and bought a grill to cover our fire pit and cook it that way! It actually turned out really yummy, but what a bummer! Hopefully he will be able to fix the grill!

Elena was being a goober as usual and made silly faces at Robert while he was cooking. :)

It was actually really nice outside so Robert decided to take down our tv, and mount it on the outside of the house! Yes, seriously! It was pretty awesome, until a cold front came through and suddenly it was freezing outside!! Elena decided she would rather be inside in the warm instead! She did this with her pillows to watch a movie. Funny.

After everyone got there we rooted on the Longhorns! (How cute is Elena's shirt? My friend Mandy made it - she has a ton of styles - check her out here!) The kids stayed warm inside...

While the guys stayed close to the heater and fire outside! Lol!

They finally gave up and watched the 4th quarter downstairs, but we made sure to make some smores before the fire died down!

It was a fun night, too bad it ended up being so cold!!

11/18/11

Emerald Ball.

Last Saturday night Robert and I got to go to a charity event called the Emerald Ball. It was a fundraiser for Via Christi and my company gave a donation so we got to go. There was dinner, drinks, auctions and a live band. We had a great time!

It was a fun event and it is always fun to get dressed up! (It doesn't happen too often anymore!) I looked at Via Chisti's website and just happened to find some pictures from the event - you can see them here. If you look closely you just might see me shaking it with the VP of Human Resources - nice!

After the ball, we met up with some friends that had been at a wedding reception to have a couple drinks. It was a fun dressed-up evening! :)

11/17/11

Bachelorette and Bridal Shower fun!

In honor of my BFF Lynette's impending nuptials, my other BFF Lindsay and I headed up to KC for some bridal shower and bachelorette fun! We started the festivities off at Polished Nail Salon where we, and the bride's sisters and mom got our nails done!

Check out this bottle of wine her 3 sisters got her!! Too adorable! The funniest part is there are really only 3 girls on the label so they added the 4th stick figure sister! Hilariously cute!!

We had mimosas, girl talk, wine, snacks, mani's and pedi's. It was perfect!

Perfection? I think so!

After our hands and feet were all dolled up we headed to dinner at a place called the Blue Grotto. A pizzeria and wine bar - hello? Talk about combining my two favorite things!!!

The sistas ~ Laura, Stephanie, Lynette and Rachel ~

with their lovely mom, Juanita~

and the two adopted sisters, Linds and I ;)

Then we ate and Nettie opened some fabulous gifts!

Lynette had to answer questions that Dave (her future hubby) had answered earlier in the week. (how many kids does he think she wants, favorite vacation spot, favorite thing she cooks, etc...) Lynette only got 3 out of 10. :( That's ok though, room to grow! :)

A group pic of all the ladies before we headed to the next stop. Note to self - don't let the giant stand on the side of a group picture - go for back middle next time! Lol!

Our last stop was the bar the Brooksider, which just happened to be next door. Nice! It was more of a sports bar atmosphere but that was fine because we got to chill and watch some football. Then we found out the downstairs area turned into the "Boom Boom Room" after 10 so we got to shake it all night! ;)