Our playdate with Ethan and Holden

Vicki came over with her boys while Clay (Vicki's husband) helped Joe setup his surround sound speakers. We took the boys to the park down the street to run off some energy.

Joey and his light saber!

Justin

Ethan and Joey

My cute Justin

Justin on the slide

Justin

Coming Down!

Joey and his light saber!

Thanksgiving

Joey hanging out in the morning.

My mom had taken photos of her kittens.

It's like they were posing for the camera.

Thanksgiving with the neighbors!

Our wonderful neighbors asked us if we'd like to have Thanksgiving dinner with them and we accepted. It's so nice to have dinner with someone instead of staying home by ourselves. This is the second year in a row we've had dinner with them and we have such a lovely time.

I think this year Joey was totally annoying Nicholas and Paige. He's just at that age where he's kinda a pest.

I brought the pumpkin roll this year and there was none leftover to take home it was THAT good! :)

Here are our neighbors. We love them dearly!

Joey or Justin tangled their slinky so they were fixing it.

Our family on Thanksgiving!

My mom's new kittens are soooo cute!

My mom had stray dropped off at her house that she adopted, not realizing it was pregnant. One cat because 5 cats because the mommy cat had 4 adorable kittens and my mother can not bring herself to get rid of any of them. So she kept them all! ;)

Kitten hanging out on my mom's chair.

Another on the foot rest.

All of them snuggled together. Awww!!

There they all are again. SO cute!! I wanted to take the black one home!

My new top

I was going to wear this top for our Christmas photos, but they were rescheduled multiple times this year due to rain delays and so I never wore them for photos but I did really like this new top I got!

My new top!

Me next to our formal tree.

Our knockout rose bush!

Last year when my mother came to Dallas to visit us she helped add some color to our backyard. We added three rose bushes and this knock out rose was one. It was small, maybe not even knee size. A year later it's as tall as me. I had to stand next to it for you to get the full effect. I can't believe how dang big this bush grew. It's gorgeous with many flowers on it. I think it's my favorite plant!

What amazed me even more is it was the 11th of NOVEMBER and my flowers were still in bloom! Amazing!

The knock out rose.

Some of the other flowers to the right of the rose, still in bloom.

Close up of the roses from the bush.

See how tall this is? I'm 5'9''. Coincidentally I also color coordinate with the roses. Ha!

Putting up our new large Christmas tree!

This is our new prelit Christmas tree we bought on clearance the week after Christmas last year and lugged home from Michigan. It turned out beautiful! It's a lovely 9 foot tree! We had fun decorating it right in front of our big windows in the front of the house.

Joey helping hang ornaments!

The boys and I.

Every year we go to Hallmark and the boys pick out their own ornament. It's our Christmas tradition. These are what the boys picked this year shown below. Joey got star wars and Justin got the cars movie characters. Justin would NOT leave the ornaments alone this year - particularly the speed racer ornament we had gotten in the past so we couldn't put that one on the tree this year!

Joey and his star wars ornament.

Justin and his cars ornament.

Putting up the tree - EARLY!

Every year I love to put up the tree at the beginning of November and this year was no exception! I like to do this because we leave town around Christmas so I like to at least be able to enjoy my Christmas decorations for a month or so!

The boys putting up the tree!