The sweetest day

I am so far behind on blogging, and it is hard to pick it back up when there is so much I haven't written about!  Frank and I took a quick trip to NYC in December, and it was GREAT to get away for a few nights without the kids.  Kiersten watched them for us, and it was wonderful.  Speaking of Kiersten, she has been out of town for the last few days, and we have missed her so much.  She does so much more than just watch our kids.  She is really a positive influence in their lives, and she does so much to help out around the house.  As I was folding 5 loads of laundry over the weekend, I quickly realized how blessed we are to have her help!

December came and went with tons of Christmas-related activities including a trip on the Polar Express with Rylie and Allison, a night at the famous Arlington neighborhood Christmas lights (never again!), and hosting my family for Christmas.  We had a wonderful holiday season!

We have just completed three really big home improvement projects, and we are thrilled with the results.  We replaced all of our windows, painted the exterior of the house, and replaced all of the plantation shutters.  The windows were an enormous headache, but we are so happy they are done!  We are planning several more projects for this year including painting the upstairs interior, new doors, updating the wood room fireplace, new drapes for the master bedroom, replacing part of our fence, fixing our drainage issue, and doing some major landscaping projects in the back yard.  I love our house, but it is so nice to feel like we are updating it and making it ours.

January flew by with trips to the zoo, the Kimball art museum in Fort Worth, and the McKinney Heard conservatory to see the dinosaurs!  We enjoyed a lot of time outside in the unseasonably warm weather and spent a lot of quality time together as a family.  I have been very slow at work the last couple of months, so it has been nice to relax and work less and play more.

Yesterday I took off work because Kiersten was out of town and my mom was not able to come watch the kids (she came up last week to help out on Thursday and Friday but was not able to stay all weekend).  I dropped Frankie off to school at 9:00 and then got to spend a wonderful day with my sweet girl.  We played Candy Land approximately 20 times, and she loved it.  She doesn't care if she wins or I win, she just loves to play - so different from her brother, who has a hissy fit if he does not win.  Then we read about 10 books up in her room and played with her stuffed friends.  I took her to her gym class, and she did so great!  She is really fearless, and she was always the first one to volunteer to work on new skills.  After gym we went to Central Market for a mommy daughter lunch date, play time on the play ground, and a little grocery shopping.  By the time we got home, it was time to head up to White's chapel to pick Frankie up.  During our day together, Lily did not cry, whine, or yell.  She did not complain.  She gave tons of hugs and kisses.  It was THE sweetest day.