Christmas Traditions!

This past weekend is one I look forward to all year. My mom, Natalie, Ella, and I were able to go downtown to the Nutcracker ballet and spend an afternoon together. This is the third year I have taken Ella and she just loves it. She loves to dance and watch all the dancers perform. Each year as Christmas music starts playing she always points out which songs are from the Nutcracker and how much she loves it. I am grateful that my mom started this fun tradition for her and that we are able to go. She even gave our seats a MAJOR upgrade so we were plenty close to see. It made for a much better show!

Here is Grandma Speers and Aunt Natalie with Ella at the Wortham Theater 

Then.....my mom and Natalie were kind enough to watch our kids that evening for my SECOND favorite part of Christmas! Our friends the Millers have thrown an ugly sweater party for three years in a row now, and I truly love it! This year my mom and I were out at good will and saw this hideous sweater, but it wasn't too Christmasy...which technically isn't a requirement, but I thought if I was going to win I had better come up with something to go with it. So...I decided to be brave and found some metallic gold pants to go with it! They were spandex and were definitely pretty tight! So I put my pride aside and it was TOTALLY worth it! I won! I bet no one expected me to put those on!! (HAHA...five years ago I never would have!) Anyway, totally worth winning. I had a fun night and it was full of some crazy competitive people. :) We have some really fun people we live around!

Here is the group shot! There are some good looking outfits if I do say so myself!

Here are all the lovely ladies!

Ragnar and I looking good!

Here are the winners! Reagan won best guy outfit, I won best girl, and the Monreals won best couple! Can't wait til next year!

Thanksgiving 2012

This past Thanksgiving we were grateful to have my little sister Marisa in Houston for a few weeks with her two children. We went over to my moms house for dinner and this year the boys were in Michigan at my brother Corey's house and my two sisters and I were in Houston with my parents. I am glad we all had somewhere to go and at least a couple of us were together! We had a nice dinner and evening and Ragnar was able to have 4 days off which we enjoyed!

Here is a sad (literally) attempt at getting our kids together for a photo. As you can tell Channing LOVES her picture taken right now! 

This was her literally right before....on her dads shoulder...she is happy until you are TRYING to get her picture! Sassy girl!

We went as a family the night after Thanksgiving to a Rockets game and got to stay in a suite which made it all worth it! 

Cavin wanted to wear this beard to the game because the Rockets have a new player James Hardin who has a long beard...so funny!

And we spent the rest of the holiday cleaning and decorating for Christmas.....Channing has a little bit of OCD and if you hand her a wipe or a rag....she wipes down everything! It can be pretty helpful at times :)

We had a nice Thanksgiving and are grateful for so many things, but especially living close to some of our family. We sure wish everyone were close!

11th Annual Rockets Run Weekend!

This past weekend was a fun one. Friday night Ragnar and I were able to go to dinner and see Les Miserables which was wonderful. Saturday our family participated in the Rockets Run which was the 3rd Rockets Run for our family to participate in. Ragnar as in usual tradition participated in Kids 1k run with all the kids and I ran the 5k. The kids did well...Channing just stayed in the stroller ;) Cavin has proved to be our little athlete. He was running pretty fast and left the others behind. He hates others to beat him. When I take him for a run/walk he won't even let me run next to him as he doesn't want me to win! Ellas comment was "I did good mom...I wasn't last" She is becoming our academic child! As for me, I finished in the time I was hoping for, and did well, but my time chip didn't register, so that was frustrating. I would have been in the top 5 of my group, but I am not sure where as I didn't know how far off the actual time I was. Anyway, it was fun and I am glad we are healthy enough to do it again. I anticipate we will do it as long as Ragnar is employed by the Rockets.

Here we are. Thank goodness this year the weather was wonderful and we weren't freezing!

Channing in her true fashion....sucking her thumb!

Here they are all ready!

Getting excited for their medals and wearing their silly headbands!

Cavin is off!

Making sure Cavin is still in sight ;) He only got lost once!

Here is the finish line. We had a fun time. The best part is my mom even joined us. She watched the kids while we went to Les Miserables then stayed the night and came to show her support. It was fun! Thanks and Go Rockets!

To Arkansas and Back

Last weekend I left Ragnar and the kids behind and headed with my parents and sister Natalie to witness my little niece Aubrey Elizabeth's baby blessing. It was a nice long ten hour drive, and according to my mom it was "beautiful" but to the rest of us....it was just a long drive! We left Saturday morning, stayed Sunday, and then left Monday morning. It was super quick, but I was grateful that I was able to see her new place and be there.

The fall trees were beautiful for the first couple hours!

Then when we got there, we got to meet my sister Marisa's cute little girl Aubrey!

Grandpa and Aubrey meeting! She isn't sure about that ;)

And we were glad to see Liam again. He is a good big brother!

Marisa and Aubrey. Marisa's mother in law Jenny made Aubrey a beautiful dress!

The Scharman family. Marisa, Ethan, Liam, and Aubrey

Our side of the family who was able to make it. My parents, and my sisters and me. Ethan's parents were also able to be there and we enjoyed visiting and playing games with them!

The sisters..Natalie, Marisa and I.

The blessing went well and it was a nice day. We were so glad were were able to be there to support Aubrey and even more glad she is now here in Texas for a few weeks to hang out!

Peter Pan

This year I wanted to try and do a "family" theme for Halloween since I knew we would be going to trick or treat at the Toyota Center with Ragnars co-workers. Since Ella wanted to be an Indian, we decided to try going as Peter Pan characters. So Ragnar was Mr. Smee, I was Wendy, Ella was Tiger Lily, Cavin was Peter Pan, and Channing was Tinkerbell. We had a fun time.

As you can tell it is next to impossible trying to get Channing in one place for a picture!

We got to dress up twice, once for our ward trunk or treat, and then on Halloween when we went to the Toyota Center. We got to trick or treat through the suites and play carnival games, and get their arms painted, and then we watched the season opener of the basketball game on the new big screen from the suite as they were playing in Detriot. It was a nice evening....once Clutch was gone....Cavin may have a slight or not so slight fear of our beloved mascot!

In my dreams I would get a lovely nice camera.....ours needs some help....but here is an idea of our evening!

The kids loved trick or treating, and even Channing would not let go of her bag, no matter how heavy it got because she wanted to cling tight to her candy!

Pumpkin Carving

It's Halloween again, and the kids love doing Fall crafts and decorating pumpkins. Usually we just color on the pumpkins because I hate the mess of carving, but we decided just to do two little pumpkins this year for family night and the kids loved it. Here are some pictures of our fun!

Ella always wants to do a boys against girls (she is our competitive child), so here is us working on the girls pumpkin....

And here is Ragnar working with Cavin on the boys.....Cavin was trying to hide ;)

I had to add a picture of Channing being her little silly self!

 And here is our little creations....just a simple remembrance of our fun evening.

A visit from Hellmut and Ursula

This past week we got a special visit from Ragnar's parents. They have been sweet enough to come from Germany for almost all of Ragnar's birthdays since we have been married. The kids were so excited to have them here and we had a wonderful visit. We truly wish they lived MUCH closer!

Here is Ella with her Oma Hartzheim. She loves to have her around and was so excited to give up her room for a week to have her stay.

 Cavin is going to be bigger than his Grandma before we know it!

 Cavin shares his love of planes and trains with his Opa Hartzheim.

His parents wanted to get us a house warming gift and were kind enough to buy us a trampoline. Although I was nervous about it, the kids are in love with it!

The kids helped for a while, then took at seat at the window. We surprised Ella when she got home from school it was finished!

Ragnar's 35th birthday was on Tuesday......and since he had to work, we went to IHOP and had a nice breakfast before he left.

Then....

Our awesome friend Jared who is a pilot got us a special opportunity to fly in the simulator on Ragnars birthday and that pretty much made Ragnar's birthday. Only Ragnar, Hellmut, and I went as it wasn't until 9 p.m. 

    I even attempted....Here is your pilot Ragnar and co-pilot Lisa. We didn't do too bad...Jared thankfully didn't let us crash :)

At continental airlines......before it's big change....

Here was the view as we were taking off....don't worry this picture is when Ragnar and his dad were flying! It was a neat experience in which we will remember!

 Also Ursula's sister surprised her and came from Dallas for a visit so that was nice.

  We went to Chuck-E- Cheese....which the kids love.

 Here is Ella going on a "rollercoaster" with Oma.

 Then we got to go to a temple session which was nice. Thankfully my mom and dad watched the kids as we went.

We had a nice time and it was a nice day!

Then we went to dinner with both of our parents at Cheeburger Cheeburger. YUM!

We did many more things, but as you can tell...there are already plenty of pictures to at least document the fun trip. We thank them so much for coming. We can't wait to see them again!

 Ella was so excited to get a matching dress with Channing

We love and miss you already!