{pretty, happy, funny, real} Botanical Gardens, Aggie Game, and Catch-ups!

 

~Capturing the context of contentment in everyday life~

Every Thursday at Like Mother, Like Daughter

Please excuse my long catch-up post!

{pretty} 

 A few weeks ago was our first St. Francis Nature Club at the local Botanical Gardens.  We hadn't visited since around April.  The bugs were bad and it was still really hot, but it was so nice to get out of the house that day.  I've had quite a bit of cabin fever the past few weeks.

 

By Mary Clare...

I love this one of her helping them down the stairs.  He's concentrating so hard with his tongue out!

Lunch time!  Why can't my kids sit on the benches?  They always want to be ON the table!

This poor tree is irresistible to the kids!

I think these were by Ellie

My cute crew!  Hopefully we'll get to make a couple more Nature Club visits before baby arrives!

{happy}

On October 19th, we took the kids to College Station on the Texas A&M/Auburn game day!  I'd been wanting to go for a game weekend, and our last game we attended was 5 years ago.  So we walked the campus, watched the Corps march-in, saw a few old students (my FIRST graders are now COLLEGE FRESHMEN!), and went to our church's big Tailgate party!  It was a great day, except Steven came down with food poisoning halfway through :(  Poor Daddy!

Here are the kids under the famous Century Tree

In front of the Academic Building by "Sully"

The Fightin' Texas Aggie Band!  Whoop!

The Corps of Cadets March On.  Steven was a member of the Corps, so he suggested going to watch this.  It was like a long parade! 

Reveille, our mascot

Steven and Steven :)  I can't believe we didn't get photos with my old students or our Aggie Catholic friends at the tailgate!

Checking out the horses of the Parson's Mounted Calvary, of which Steven was a member.  None of the same horses ~18 years later!

One more of our Aggie kids!

And of course the day wouldn't be complete without a trip to St. Mary's, where we met and were married :)

{funny}

This is how crazy our car rides are!  And this was before Daddy got sick and Mommy had to man the wheels.  Always an adventure!  We'll be maxed out in Daddy's car once baby arrives!

We sat down to watch the Corps and looked next to us to see a friend and fellow homeschooler from The Woodlands whose oldest son is a fish in the corps!  Small world!

Road trips almost always include a gas station stop.  Tommy picks out powdered donuts every time and eats the whole tray in a couple minutes!

 {real}

Here are some other little "real" moments of the past couple weeks, too.  iPhone pics...  

With the boys at Academy.  Lots of fun :-P

 Morning games...

Afternoon games...

I noticed MC had gone through all the newborn girl clothes and sorted and labeled them <3 br="">

The extent of our Fall/Halloween decorations.  Not really my favorite season, but maybe one day I'll get a few more things to please the kids!

Cole Park fun with the boys while the girls were at Nutcracker practice and Daddy was hunting.

Funny photos found on my phone...

And lastly, a real moment that makes me cry.  Some of our dearest friends here who were also transplants have moved back to Washington State.  I am so very sad to see them go, but happy for them that they're back home again.

We went to give some goodbye hugs yesterday at another friend's house where they were staying.  One of theirs was napping and another friend joined in the photo here.  The B family and our B family actually both have 2 girls and then 2 boys (but theirs are ages 6 and under), and they're also expecting #5.

Tommy and their little guy W are too funny.  They wanted to take the picture with their eyes closed.

And these two got into quite a bit of mischief.  They had quite a few "weddings" and lots of silly games!  We'll miss sweet little C and all her siblings.

Okay, that's enough before I start crying again.  I'm really homesick and emotional these days.  If you made it this far, thanks for tagging along while I caught up on photos.  Of course I'm still behind on the Disney recap, but I think I might have the rest of our September and October days covered.  Yay!

Hope you've had some pretty, happy, funny, and real moments in your lives this week!

Walt Disney World 2013, Day 2--Shrine and Hollywood Studios

Our vacation plan initially only included four days at the Disney parks.  Steven really only wanted to spend three days at the parks, but I convinced him to add just one more when we paid for our trip.  And then the week before we watched their promotional video, which made me start to think about adding just one more day to make five.  We were going to skip Hollywood Studios, but realizing that it would be a small cost and might have some attractions we'd really enjoy, I thought it would be worth it.  But we didn't tell the kids or decide anything until Sunday morning.  Sunday had been scheduled as our "rest" day, but we still took it slow with a very early mass, some time resting and swimming at the hotel, and then arriving around 3pm at Hollywood Studios.  Here are some photos!

The Basilica of the National Shrine of Our Lady Queen of the Universe.

It was a huge and gorgeous church!  

The 7:30am wasn't crowded, and a few of our kids even fell asleep.

There were beautiful statues and stained glass windows throughout.

I believe this is a replica of the St. Peter statue in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.  The one in Rome has been touched so many times that the foot is worn down, but this one, not so much!

You can't see the perspective so well, but this Madonna and Child was huge!

Outside was a lovely rosary garden and a beautiful statue of Blessed Pope John Paul II.

The kids refused to pose, but here is the entrance to the basilica.

And this was their huge gift shop!  I could have spent all day in there!

We took a taxi back to our hotel and had some breakfast.  Here is the crazy food court area!

There was a seating area with movies and coloring for the kids.

Then, another long walk back to the room for some rest time.

Later, we suited up for some time at the pool!
Daddy did the laundry while we were swimming :)

Thomas played for nearly an hour with a leaf there on the steps of the pool.  He was pretending it was a surfboard.

After cleaning up, we were ready for the bus ride over to Hollywood Studios!

We arrived around 3pm and had a nice afternoon and evening there.

We'd skipped lunch, so we found a little spot to eat.  With the meal plan, we got a dessert with every meal.  Here's MC eating a giant cupcake!

  

It was starting to rain a bit, and the girls went on the Rockin' Roller Coaster with Daddy.  The boys and I stayed in the gift shop area, which was Aerosmith/Rock 'n Roll themed.  It was apparently a very scary coaster, and Ellie kept her eyes closed the whole time!  Steven really liked it though.  Here's SJ in a crazy hat...

 

We headed over to the Disney Junior Show next.  Tommy loved this!

They had things falling from the ceiling, this was paper coins, but they also had bubbles and later confetti.

What a Daddy!  Singing along!

Then it was time for the Beauty and the Beast show.  I loved it!

The Toy Story Mania ride was a favorite with all the kids, especially Thomas.

We went on the Great Movie Ride (okay), and walked around a bit.  We were looking forward to the Honey, I Shrunk the Kids playground, but it was closed.  The big kids went on the Star Tours simulator ride, and then we decided to cancel our dinner reservations at the 50s Prime Time Cafe since we weren't very hungry.  We walked to the back of the park to grab some pizza for a couple hungry kids, but it had just closed!  Bummer!  So we found another place (Backlot Express) and then headed over towards the night show.

 

The night show at Hollywood Studios is called Fantasmic.  We got Fast Passes and sat in the middle front reserved section, but it probably wasn't necessary.  But during busy times, this show apparently fills up.  It started with some cast members getting the audience riled up.

We had brought some glow swords and glow sticks from the Dollar Tree.  I'm glad I bought a bunch of those, because the glowing items sold at Disney are pricey!

Fantasmic is a laser, light, water, and firework production including music and the Disney characters.  It was impressive, but a little scary for the littlest ones.

In the end, I was glad we paid the little bit extra (I think it was $50 for our whole family) to add another day of park tickets and spend the afternoon and evening at Hollywood Studios.  I really enjoyed the Beauty and the Beast and Fantasmic shows, Tommy loved Disney Jr, and the other kids and Steven had fun on Star Tours and the Rockin' Roller Coaster.  I'm also glad we took it slow with an early mass, time at the pool, and then arriving in the afternoon at the park.  It was another great day at Disney!  Next up: Animal Kingdom!

What I Wore Sunday

Happy Sunday! Happy November! Happy Fall! It's finally cooling off a bit here in south Texas. We've had a busy weekend, and getting to mass was no different!

Steven was on a hunting trip for work, so I was flying solo for a soccer game, Nutcracker rehearsal, grocery shopping at 8pm, and cleaning the whole house in preparation for some guests who probably won't be staying here after all!  I'm so glad we gained an extra hour this morning. I needed it!

We were planning to attend mass this evening after Steven got back, but around 9:30am while cleaning up our pancake breakfast I realized that the girls probably wouldn't be back from their 4-H Food Challenge in time for mass. I jumped in the shower and somehow got all four kids to church just as Father was entering the church! Mass started about seven minutes late...thank you, Jesus!

Here's what I wore: maternity shirt from Ross, old black peasant skirt with holes, my black clogs, and my hair soaking wet in a clip! This might be my first belly shot on the blog? 22 weeks today!

I didn't hear any of Father's homily since I was dealing with both the boys and bathroom issues, but I always love the Zacchaeus gospel. May we do whatever it takes to get a glimpse of Our Lord and invite him into our hearts and homes!

So the girls are off with some friends for their contest, somehow we located their contest clothes, they didn't eat lunch (oops), but Daddy is home and it's a quiet house. Now it's time to take a deep breath and get some rest to prepare myself for another busy week. Hope you've all had a lovely weekend!

See more Sunday outfits over at Fine Linen and Purple:

http://www.finelinenandpurple.com