November 30 - Space & Lights

After sleeping off our delicious Thanksgiving meal, it was time to get out of the house and do something fun. Since the Cook's have never been to Space Center Houston and Andrew happens to be obsessed with all things space right now, this was the perfect fit. While I was busy feeding Jillian, JD, Greg, Jill and the kids went through the indoor section. We then all took a tram tour around JSC that included the original mission control from the 60's. Victoria also sat in the same chair that Queen Elizabeth sat in many years ago, super fun! Next up was a trip to Rocket Park, which is home to four rockets including the Saturn V. Saturn V made 9 trips to space, including 6 moon landings, and carried 27 Apollo astronauts. It is enormous and definitely worth seeing if you are in town. Everyone had fun..well, everyone except Julia.

grumpy Julia, everyone else is happy :)

She was upset because I didn't let her sit on the outside of the tram and did not appreciate being 'treated like a baby.' I swear..she's 8 going on 16. I am not looking forward to the teen years. 

After coming home and eating lunch, the kids played outside until it was time for our next adventure-zoo lights! First, I have to mention that our drive to the zoo was the smoothest ever-there was literally zero traffic. This is simply unheard of when driving anywhere near the downtown area. Parking was also a relative breeze. For the lights themselves, it was fab as always. The Houston Zoo did an incredible job decorating the the trees. There were over 2 MILLION lights people-wowsa! Jill and I packed sandwiches for dinner and we had a picnic of sorts inside the zoo. Luke and Andrew really enjoyed the train display (Andrew liked it so much he wandered away from some play huts to see them some more. Luckily, his dad knew where to find him). 

Another fabulous day with the Cook's! 

Smooch

Hermann Park (waiting in line for zoo lights)

Uncle Jay at the zoo

He proudly wrote 'Luke made this' after a lesson with uncle Jay

November 28 - Thanksgiving Cheer

The Cook's meet baby Jillian

Okay dimpled munchkin fans (Jillian doesn't have cheek dimples like Jules and Luke, but she does have an ear dimple..so we'll keep going with the 'dimpled munchkin namesake hehe), I hope you all had an amazing Thanksgiving! We had an action packed week so I'll need to break it up into several posts, so be sure to check back in a few days for more pictures. 

The weekend before Thanksgiving, Becky and her family drove from Atlanta to the Woodlands (suburb of Houston in the southwest) to visit Scott's family. Becky was able to drive over to Clear Lake and spend Saturday with us, as well as Saturday night!! We went for a nice walk around the neighborhood, had a fun dinner out and then watched Bad Moms. It was so much fun!! We usually see each other when she's in town but this was our first 'sleepover.' I was sad to see her go on Sunday morning but happy we were able to spend the time together. 

On Tuesday, the Cook's flew in from Raleigh. Julia, Jillian and I picked them up from the airport and the kids were all very excited to see each other. The kids all slept in Julia's room that night (Julia and Victoria in the bed, Luke and Andrew) and the boys woke me up at 2.22am (yes, that exact time). They were wondering if it was time to wake up. I sent them back to bed and laid down...then promptly heard them talking. After multiple trips into the room telling them to go to sleep, I threatened to move Luke into our room and Andrew into his parents room...Andrew ended up in his parents room. The little dudes were just so excited and ready to play!

JD was in cooking mode Wednesday and spent the entire day in the kitchen. The kids played outside most of the day, with the electric scooter being a big hit. Andrew also loves to ride the bike around and was happy to do that for hours. Unfortunately, Luke was feeling a tad under the weather and spent most of the day laying on the couch. Uncle Jay also flew into town Wednesday and it was great to have three out of the four Cook siblings together again! Uncle Jay gave the girls and Luke some drawing lessons and they all had fun. Since Luke wasn't feeling 100%, he slept in my room and all the kids had a good night sleep. 

Thanksgiving Day-one of my favorite days of the year! Once again, JD was in the kitchen cooking up a storm with Jill helping. The kids played outside most of the day, including a trip to our neighborhood park. We had an incredible dinner with smoked turkey (I'm not a big turkey fan but this was absolutely delicious), mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, baked carrots, crescent rolls, stuffing, mushrooms and ham. Everything was homemade-even the dough for the rolls-and it was fabulous on every level!! After stuffing ourselves, we had delicious apple and pumpkin pie from a local bakery. Mmmmm

Becky!!

Victoria loves the electric scooter

Park fun

morning video games

more games (it was all fun until cheating allegations were thrown around, lol)

The girl cousins

Uncle Jay & Little J

Art lessons with Uncle Jay

Best baby ever-she continues to sleep through the night!

November 18 - My Favorite Pilgrim

Okay folks-I'm sure you are wondering how Jillian slept last night. Drum roll please......another 9 hours!!!!!!!!!!! I'm hopeful (but not convinced) this is her new schedule so I'll keep everyone updated. 

Well, next week is Thanksgiving and I will surely have a million photos to post of the festivities. Luckily I'm almost up to date on this month so there shouldn't be a huge lag. Luke's in-class kinder feast was this week and it was delish. I went into the room on Tuesday morning and whipped up some pumpkin bread batter with the class. I then went home and baked for the actual feast later that day. Our class made pumpkin muffins, another made popcorn and the third, fruit cups. The kids all sampled each others foods and then our class also had apple cake, brownies, cookies and turkey and cheese kabobs. The kids were all dressed up as either pilgrims or Indians and it was beyond adorable. 

In other news this week, Julia finally saw a doctor regarding her heel issues. If you are wondering "What heel issues?" she's been experiencing right heel pain for about 6 weeks now. One of my good friends from Emory is an orthopedic surgeon and diagnosed her with severs disease (which is not really a disease in the traditional sense, it's a swollen growth plate that is common with girls ages 8-13 who are very active). We've restricted her soccer practice and iced her foot  and while it helped, she's still having some issues. They x-ray'd her today and confirmed there are no bone spurs or fractures. Her pain is at the very tip of the growth plate, which isn't how severs typically presents but that is what she has. She is now rocking gel inserts and while she's cleared for all sports activity, she is supposed to take it easy when it starts hurting. She has 2 more soccer tournaments in December and then will be taking a break until next August. 

Also in the news this week, the girl scout troop had a tour at a local firestation. The kids loved it! We learned about fire safety, things to do in the event of a fire and the kids were able to go into the trucks. 

November 17 - Nine and I'm Feeling Fine

Before I continue catching everyone up on last week and the weekend-Jillian slept NINE hours straight last night!! She was in bed from 10pm-7am and I woke her up at 7am (I'm trying to get her on more of a 9pm-7am schedule). Who knows how long she would have slept if I left her alone? I cannot tell if she is sucking her thumb or the pad just under her thumb, but whatever she is doing, it's working. I feel like a totally normal human for the first time in awhile, yay!!

Last weekend one of my best friends flew in from Florida, Jill! Oddly enough, the last time we saw each other was the same week a year ago (I was in Gainesville for work) so it was so awesome to catch up and spend time together. We had a very thrilling few days, filled with..soccer practice, errands, walking the dogs and wrangling children. We were able to have a really nice dinner together Friday night (well, the two of us plus little J) and we are going to plan a beach trip with our families this summer. 

For Veteran's Day, our elementary school does a celebration for our local Veterans and the girl scouts help out. Last year Julia was in charge of emptying trash cans. This year she gave out refreshments (other girls hand out ribbons) and said "it was a much better job." 

Jill & Jillian

Friends for over 8 years!

North Pointe Girl Scouts

November 14 - I Love this Blog

Kemah Boardwalk

Our little Jillian is already 2 months old, wow! Her check-up was last week and she is 9lbs 8oz. JD and I thought for sure that she was the biggest out of all three..but it turns out she is the smallest at this age. Julia was 10.5lbs and Luke was almost 11lbs at this age. I love that I've documented so much on this blog, it's so easy to go back and find out what the kids were doing (fun side note-Julia rolled over at 4 months, Luke rolled over a 2 months and Jillian looks very close). 

Thanksgiving is in less than 2 weeks and we are all getting excited. The school hosts a lunch for the entire school and it was last week. JD went to Luke's and I went to Julia's. For an elementary school lunch feeding hundreds of parents, it was surprisingly delicious. Luke's kindergarten class party is tomorrow. I baked 70 pumpkin muffins for the party and will be making turkey and cheese appetizers for the kids. I'll also be in the classroom first thing tomorrow to help the kids make some pumpkin batter, it should be fun!

In our school district, the kids don't have school on voting day. So the kids and I went to Kemah Boardwalk. It was an overcast, cool day and the area was almost completely empty. Julia and Luke had fun going on all the rides while Jillian took her first train ride (she ate through most of it hehe). 

Luke reading to his little sister

Love this little dude

She does not appear to have dimples, but she is rocking the #goldeneyebrows

Love these girls

November 7 - International Quilt Show

The world's largest quilt show takes place in...you guessed it-Houston! Grammie and a group of her friends drove out for the show and Jillian and I were able to meet them for lunch last week. It was my first time at a quilt show and it was incredible. A good portion of the convention center was set up with booths selling fabric, quilting supplies and quilters giving demonstrations. Another section was a display area. Before we met up with Grammie, Jillian and I walked around the display section for awhile. I was amazed by the works of art! They were gorgeous. 

Grammie is doing fabulous and it was great meeting her friends. We had a really nice lunch and then the baby and I had to head back to pick the kids up from school. It was awesome seeing you Grammie!!!

International Quilt Show 2016

November 1 - Nonstop Halloween

love my babies!

It's been a whirlwind of Halloween activities around here. This past weekend was chalk full of festivities. On Friday night, we attended the elementary school dance, themed "Night in Hollywood." Kids were encouraged to wear their Halloween costumes or dress 'fancy.' I took the kids and Luke was so excited he literally ran all the way to school in his vampire costume. I lost Julia the minute we walked in the door as she saw some friends and was quickly dancing in the middle of the gym. Luke was psyched to see his teacher there, as well as some friends from his class. Jillian was there too but slept pretty much the whole time. 

Happy Halloween

On Saturday, Julia went to the local rock climbing gym for Kendall's 9th birthday party. As Julia is part monkey, she had a fabulous time climbing all over the place! After the party, she had a small break before heading to yet another party. This time it was the local GS Halloween party. She decided to go as a soccer player and went with Hannah from our girl scout troop. They had pizza, dessert, played games and danced. Julia also won the limbo competition out of approx. 50 girls. Great job Julia! 

Sunday morning, the kids and I went to the local pumpkin patch. The kids each picked out a pumpkin to carve for Halloween and Luke picked one out for his classSchparty. We were able to cut off the top and scrape out the inside before soccer and then we headed out for the game. We are still experiencing extremely hot weather here, so it was a 90+ degree afternoon. Hot for the players and spectators. Autumn...where are you?!

School dance - Benjamin & Luke

Monday was actual Halloween, yay! I went to Luke's class in the morning to help out. The kids did pumpkin related projects all day and one of their activities was picking out a pumpkin face: happy, sad, sleepy or angry. The kids voted on their favorite (Luke voted for sleepy) but 'happy' won. I then carved the pumpkin in the happy face. I left the classroom for an hour or so (I needed to get my car inspected) and then came back to help out with the snack. We put Halloween table clothes on their tables and gave the kids sugar cookies. They frosted them and then decorated them with black and orange sprinkles. It was messy but they had fun decorating them and of course, eating them!

After school, Luke and I worked on cleaning up his room (it's been a bit of a disaster lately). I realized at 5.30pm that we never finished carving their pumpkins so we got that done (quickly). Evelynn, Laurel, Anna, Sophia and Henry came over at 6.15pm for pictures and then the crew headed out. I stayed home with Jillian to hand out candy and everyone was back around 8.15pm. 

I hope everyone had a wonderful Halloween!!

School Dance

Rock Climbing

Girl Scout Dance

Pumpkin Patch fun

Pumpkinology in Kinder

cutest little penguin