Parade of Costumes

Today was the Costume Parade at Madison's Preschool. All of the children were so darling. The teachers were dressed as crayons and they led the children around the courtyard in front of all of the parents who were busy snapping pictures and video recording.

Kate had to dress for the parade too-how cute is that outfit??

The highlight of the day for Maddy was when she got to talk into a microphone in front of all the other children and said her name and what her costume was. I can only imagine!

Spooky

We are ready for Halloween. The girls have their costumes. The spiders have spun their webs on the lights and mantel. The pumpkins are carved. The candy is in the cauldron. The meat is ready to make into sloppy joes (A Gutierrez family tradition).

Weekend update: We were in Pearland over the weekend and stayed at the Benoit's. Madison had so much fun playing with Lexi. The girls have been friends since before birth and it is really neat to watch them grow up together (180 miles apart).

Kim's street had a li ttle festival for the kids on Saturday afternoon. They had pumpkin toss, pumpkin bobbing (with a net), face painting, bag walk, and much more. Maddy had so much fun that as soon as she took off her Jasmin costume, she fell fast asleep!

It is always great to visit friends back home to reconnect our friendships. I will never forget playing UNO (double cards Alex?) scatagories (ALEX) and cranium (smack-kiss-Kim). I can honestly say that I didn't know any cheating was going on!!! I am a retard!

On a different note:
My dear friend Becky decided on her wedding dress at Weddings by Debbie in Houston. I am so glad that I got to be a part of her special day. She also got her beautiful ring that day (she was waiting on it to be custom made from her mother's diamond). She will be the talk of Baytown in the dress she choose. It is stunning and I am so happy for her and her fiancee. I can't wait to meet him! HINT HINT BECKY.

Aggieland

Camaryn and Madison went to Midnight Yell together. They were so cute in their matching overalls. They even wore Eric's old bonfire pots during yell! So cute.


We took the kids to their FIRST AGGIE FOOTBALL GAME this weekend with Rob, Gwen, Camaryn and Landon. It was so much fun. The kids did so great. We had lots of snacks, toys, and drinks. Our seats were great (way high on the 3rd deck) with a great view. The people behind us ( the last row of Kyle Field) really understood having kids at the games because they had those seats since the 80's and raised grandkids on the back row (back when kids under 13 were free). I wish that was still the case because we would definitely make it to more games.

We tailgated after the game with our families, the Sawyer's, and the Daugherty's. We closed down Reed tailgating and we would have stayed longer if we had lights (note to self---get lights). Eric and I picked up Freebirds on the way back to the hotel and it was YUMMY!

Today we met up with Rob and Gwen and took photos on campus. So fun for us to walk around, unfortunately, not so fun for the kids. They wanted to play in the grass and mud and we wanted pictures. O well --we did get some great ones afterall.

We also took the girls to The Chicken (for the 1st time) for lunch. So fun.

update

I have been wanting to post, but not really because I enjoy looking at the photos of the girls modeling. And if I post, then they move down. So sad.

Maddy is at preschool today. She is doing great and loving every minute. She talks about the calendar and asks questions like "what month is this? what month is next? what month is my birthday? what month is christmas?" so on and so on. She is very curious to piece together preschool with reality. Her teacher is having parent conferences next week. I can't wait to see what she has to say. We ordered school pictures today. I can barely believe that I will be 30 this year and have a child old enough to be in preschool. Most of my childhood friends are barely married (except for Kim!).

Katelyn is getting sooooo big. She knows what a cow (moo), a dog (ruff ruff), a horse (whee) and a lion (raaa) say. She can do them on command. She says "uh oh", "whoa", "night night", and of course "mama" and "dada" and sometimes "mom". She also says something when she talks to Madison but I cannot make it out quite yet. She has 14 teeth, wears 12-18 month clothes, size 4 diaper2, size 5 shoes, and likes to wear lots of dress up clothes!

We are headed to College Station this weekend for the Tech Tard game. We have 4 tickets and will be sitting with the Sawyers... then tailgaiting with all of the family, the Sawyers, the Daughertys, and all of the thousands of people in Aggieland. It should be mucho fun.

Eric and I took the girls to Sea World on Sunday. The park was decorated so cool. There were skeletons everywhere with clowns hanging from the trees. We saw the Shamu and sea lion show, rode rides, visited the penguin house, ate lunch, and tried to feed the dolphins (they ran out of food).

The house is still for sale. We have had 8 showings most of them in the past few weeks. Hopefully something will come along soon because we are dying to move on base.

That is all for now. Bye!

say cheese!

Misc. photos

Fun times at Incredible Pizza.....

Ike....

My mom and great aunt are staying here until they are cleared to go home. My bro is in College Station and my dad is in Shreveport, La (our old stompin' grounds..well actually Bossier City..but still close). We had a great day here today. The weather was beautiful and sunny. My parents live in Anahuac and are waiting to here how their house made it in the winds and rain. Hopefully they were spared and the animals (donkeys and llamas) found shelter in the barns (if they are still standing). Best wishes to you and yours!

It is Tuesday and my mom left today for Houston. She has been on the road for nearly 3 hours and isn't even to Bucees yet (it is 45 miles from our house). She said that the traffic is traveling 30 miles per hour. SUCKS to be her! She has ice, groceries, gas, rakes, trash bags, gloves, masks, etc to help my dad with the clean up. Their house in Anahauc is pretty bad although still standing. The paint is peeling off of the walls, the carpet and flooring is soaking wet, the wood furniture is started to swell from the moisture in the house. The roof may collapse in one of the bedrooms. HHHHMMMMMMM so they have a lot of work ahead of them. They are going today to get the mattresses and clothes out of the house before they mold or mildew. I wish that I could help out but Madison and Kate don't need to be around that.

P.S. The animals are fine. They weathered the storm just fine. I can only imagine what they were thinking as they stood in the wind and rain!

The Artist

So Madison has a creative side to her...

This was her art from Thursday. They were talking about family and in the house, she got to paste cutouts of her family. When asked she says that the top one is Katelyn "how she is growing so big", the small pink cutout (where the date is) is Maddy, the blue one is mommy and the red one is daddy. The other two were painted with yellow and blue paint...and she learned that yellow and blue make green. Very cool!

Today, she brought this lovely self portrait home. The lace is her hair, 2 buttons for eyes and the pink with flower ribbon is her smile. The feathers and string are her clothes. Very cool! They also made PLAYDOH today with Koolaid (of all things...and some other ingredients)

We are in charge of snacks for Thursday. I had to get 14 bananas from H-E-B. I hope they are still good by then because there wasn't much to chose from.

First Day of Preschool and Aggie Fun

Today was the day. Madison was so excited and we were all happy for her to start her own, new adventure. While the cat is away, the mice will play. Gwen and I took the little kids to the gym and worked out.

We spent the weekend in College Station and had a blast. Madison asked to attend Midnight Yell so Eric, Mimi, Peepaw and Pops took her. I stayed at the hotel with Katelyn while she slept. On Saturday we tailgated all day and then spent some time chillin at the pool while Mimi, Peepaw and Eric went to the game.

Pick me pick me...

So Classy Chaos is giving away a fabulous pair of Crocs. Please visit her website because she is waaaaayyyyyy cool.


Oh Shucks! I didn't win! Maybe next time....