Christmas 2017

Christmas morning at home:

Christmas with the Stanley’s:

Christmas with the Marlowe’s:

Getting Ready for Christmas

Charlotte singing Christmas carols with her classmates on a school field trip to a nursing home. 

Charlotte singing in her school Christmas program. She’s the leftmost angel in the picture. 

James in costume for his class’s performance of Las Posadas at 8am Mass. He was part of Mary and Joseph’s entourage as they searched for a place to stay in Bethlehem. 

School Christmas party for James. 

School Christmas party for Charlotte. 

Decorating gingerbread houses with cousins and friends. 

Attending Christmas Eve Mass in the CTK Community Center. Charlotte sang in the choir. 

November 2017

Brannon chaperoned Madeleine's School field trip to NASA

Our Aquarium

Due to a cleaning mishap (the technician scratched the sides of the aquarium when cleaning it), we've had to redo everything inside the aquarium. Here are a few pics of what's swimming around. We have two angelfish, ten glow tetras, nine gourami in different varieties, five mollies, three cory cats, six rainbowfish, two catfish and two plecos. Two of the mollies are about to have babies so the kids are going to get a lesson in survival of the fittest and how big fish eat little fish.

Life in the Church

The kids are continuing to grow in their faith and increase their participation at church. Charlotte recently was a cantor for part of the Mass at the school's Friday Mass and James served at Mass this weekend for the first time. Both kids did great and we are so proud of them!

After School Activities

 The fall semester is in full swing now...  the kids are busy with homework and after school activities. Here are a few pics of what they've been up to.

Madeleine has started riding her bike to school

James is playing lacrosse for Highland Park

Charlotte is still taking riding lessons

Madeleine is riding too

Madeleine is attending Cotillion with friends

Madeleine and Charlotte are in Girl Scouts

Charlotte was part of the Lil' Rangerettes before-game show at Friday's Jesuit football game

School Pictures

School pictures for 2017-2018. The kids are in 6th, 4th and 2nd grades. I know I am a little biased, but I think they are some pretty good-looking kids. ;-) 

Labor Day Weekend - Part 2

So while the boys were out hunting, the girls and I packed the travel trailer and headed west to Abilene State Park. We arrived on Friday evening in time to set up camp and have a little dinner. Saturday morning we explored the park on our bikes and found the playground. We also found the swimming pool, but much to Charlotte's dismay, they had drained the pool of water. After lunch we decided to head into Buffalo Gap (the closest town) for some supplies and we met Brannon and James there after their hunt.  We returned to the campsite for lunch and a bit of playing around and then headed back to Buffalo Gap to the chili cookoff they were having for dinner. We spent the rest of our time at the park on Sunday and Monday playing, hiking, and riding our bikes. We had a huge thunderstorm on Saturday evening, but other than that, the weather was great all weekend.

"I mustache you a question..."

The kids spent lots of time riding around the campsites.

We saw lots of deer!

Fun fact: Charlotte couldn't think of the word "armadillo" so she called them "skeleton turtles"

I'm not sure why sitting on top of my car is so much fun...

the "Buffalo Wallow"