LOTS O' UPDATES

If you haven't already figured it out, there are several new updates that I posted over the last few days. Just keep scrolling down through the blog to catch up! :)

CELEBRATING 4 YEARS WITH ELIZABETH!

November 4th marked our 4 year anniversary of holding Miss Elizabeth Hui Ling in our arms for the first time!


We always celebrate Elizabeth Day by going out to dinner at a local Chinese restaurant.

This year grandma and grandpa joined us for the fun!

I brought "cheater chopsticks" for the kids to use. :)

our little beauty

HALLOWEEN BALLOON FESTIVAL

right after the neighborhood Halloween Carnival, we headed up to a Halloween Balloon Festival.

Our neighbors had gone the night before and had extra tickets for us...for FREE!

we don't pass up FREE very often. :)

I don't even know how many hot air balloons there were....maybe 50?!

we arrived just in time to watch them inflate this balloon


doesn't it look like the lady on the left is on fire?! She was so close to the flames ~but she was fine!

the festival was held at the practice fields of our major league baseball team....there was even a little kid-sized practice field for the kids

it was a LONG Saturday between football in the morning, the carnival in the afternoon and the balloon festival in the evening....but we had a great time ~and slept well that night! :)

HALLOWEEN CARNIVAL

every year our neighborhood has a giant Halloween Carnival in the park
it's always so much fun that I hated for the kids to miss it this year ~we only had about 2 hours in the middle of our day to go....but we made it and had a great time!

the sorta normal picture above


then of course Andrew had to be a pestering big brother and "shoot" Becca

and Becca retaliates

if you look closely -Elizabeth and Biruk are trying so hard to be good and "keep looking at the camera!"

one of the many bouncy play structures

waiting in line

I'm biased -but I really do think we have 2 of the most beautiful little girls EVER!

the kids had a blast on this "wrecking ball" bouncy!

LOOK WHO CAME FOR A VISIT!

the family's newest 1 year old came for a 1 night visit!

boy is he alot of work now that he's curious AND mobile!!!


watching the bath water :)

this little guy LOVES baths...and splashing! I have to put multiple towels down around the tub to catch all the splash!

OCTOBER BIRTHDAY PARTY

Andrew and Joshua are our October birthday boys so we just had 1 big party for the 2 of them!

me and my sweet boy!

it works out well to have all the kids eat outside at my parents' house!

lookin' a little chaotic before present time!

this is how we try to do birthdays now with so many kids!

the birthday kiddo front and center and everyone else sitting nicely...this lasts for about 5 minutes. :)

he's actually getting quite good at putting!

yep-still obsess with St*ar W*ars and L*egos!

Joshy's turn to "open" present ~but daddy and Jordan had to help

basket!

cake time!

St*ar W*ars of course

he's not so sure about this cake thing

judging by his face, I guess cake is alright.

no family gathering is complete without a football game in grandma & grandpa's back yard!

Janae would have caught this if she'd kept her eyes open! :)

Becca's game face

if you want to slow down the other team, just sit on their feet like Joanna is sitting on grandpa!

MY SWEET ANDREW

oh how I love this boy!

I can't believe he's 8!

FAMILY TRIP TO AUSTIN, TEXAS

October 11-14th, we took the kids on a surprise trip to Texas!

Andrew's 8th birthday was on the 14th and he has always wanted to go back to Austin to see where he was born.

Between my flight benefits at Southwest and lots of frequent flier miles turned into hotel points ~we were able to to take the whole family on a little mini-vacation for super cheap! :)

As soon as we landed, we headed straight to the campus of UT to walk around

we hit the stadium store and the girls found exactly what they were looking for. :)

after UT and lunch, we headed to the TX State Capitol to walk around.

the grounds as well as the capitol itself is just beautiful!

John went all the way up to the top of the rotunda to take a picture.

It made me SO nervous just seeing him up there!

do you see us?

After seeing the sights in downtown Austin, we headed to our hotel for some rest and then off to dinner at our all-time favorite BBQ joint.

us at The Salt Lick in Driftwood, TX!

DAY 2

day 2 had us heading up north to Round Rock, the suburb of Austin that we used to live in.We took Andrew by the hospital he was born in and by our old house. Seeing our old house was quite disappointing....the new owners have trashed the yard and clearly not maintained the home. :(

In the afternoon we headed to the Inner Space Caverns ~under ground caves!

the caves have pipistrelle bats in them.

we were lucky enough to get to see 2 of them!

They're SO tiny!!!

the obligatory family photo in the cave

at night we headed back into downtown Austin to watch the Congress Bridge bats take off at dusk!

millions of Mexican free-tail bats make Austin their home in the warmer months -and many of them hang under the Congress Bridge....and at dusk, they take off in a huge cloud of bats searching for bugs to eat!

waiting for dusk

c'mon bats!

hard to see -we were on the wrong side of the lake/river...but you can see the long stream of bats in the distance

after the bats, we HAD to take the kids to our favorite ice cream joint ~Amy's Ice Cream!


Day 3

we left Austin on Day 3 and headed up to Dallas/Ft.Worth to visit with one of John's sisters, Donna.

Since it was the night before Andrew's birthday, Donna and her boyfriend took us out to a fabulous fried chicken restaurant that does birthdays up right!

They brought a cake out to Andrew and had him dres up like a chicken!

Then when we started to sing, he had to "flap his wings" and "cluck" like a chicken.

OH.MY.HECK!

it all happened so fast Andrew didn't have a chance to back out or throw a fit. I think he was more stunned than anything!

But Becca sure did get a good laugh out of the whole ordeal!

this is the most priceless photo I have of the 2 of them!!!

after dinner the kids all found "beaks" and ran around like crazy chickens

our family at Donna's house right before leaving for the airport on Andrew's 8th birthday


We are SO glad we finally made it back out to TX for Andrew.
We packed alot into our 3 days ~but had a ton of fun as a family!