January fun

We spent New Years Day at the Dallas Zoo with Bart, Olivia, Anson and Evelyn thanks to the season passes Honey got us for Christmas.

riding the monorail in the sky

Love my sweet niece!

Feeding the giraffes

There was a small sprinkle of snow one day in January and we made the most of it!

More Six Flags fun before Holiday in the Park was over and it closed for the season.

Kinley's 2nd Girl Scout cookie season went great!

I got to go watch one of Kinley's piano lessons with Ms. Taylor. She is so sweet and patient with Kinley and I love watching her learn this new skill!

I hosted "Channel the Flannel" Bunco in January.

My kids loved playing with the photo booth early in the morning before school.

I love a theme and the girls went all out in their plaid.

Winners with their flannel blanket presents.

I did use Leslie's as wall decor but she got to take it with her.

Casey won with best theme dessert!

We stepped up our Bass Hall tickets for the 2017 season into a Box with our friends.

I have to say, it is such a blast. Being able to be all together and come and go when we need to during or after the show is awesome. Box L will be a great time this year.

We had a sleepover one night at Honey & Boss' with Olivia, Anson and Evelyn and it was so fun! Bath smiles and laughs are the best!

We went to the Stock Show one weekend with Honey and Boss and looked through all the animal barns, did the petting zoo, ate some lunch, and looked at tractors in the exhibit hall. It is so fun to go with Boss. He sees it all a little differently now that he is a farmer and rancher himself.

It's awesome.

We ran into this sweet barrel racing girl outside the rodeo hall just after she rode and she was so sweet to let us pet her horse and take a picture with her. She won the show that day!

Kinley's best acting job.

Western Day at preschool is one of my faves. Babes in big hats and boots are just delicious.

Ty also had "Community Helper" day at Preschool and decided to dress like a construction worker.

He is VERY into legos, lincoln logs, magnatiles, and anything you can build with, so this seemed to suit him well.

Cannon's baby dedication at church. Love this sweet boy more than words!

Daddy (Uncle) Daughter Dance

The daddy daughter dance at our church this year ended up being the same weekend that Ben and I had booked our anniversary ski trip.

To say that we were SO sad when we realized this was an understatement.

The DDD is by far Kinley's favorite night of the entire year.

It has been so, so special for them. I talked to Kinley multiple times about this and gave her many options of what she could do.

Ben promised her he would take her for a date night a different time since he couldn't take her to the dance.

In the end, she decided she still wanted to go dance the night away at our church with all her friends and she wanted Uncle Alex to take her. She asked him one evening when they were over for dinner if he would take her and he said he would love to!

Of course, Alex gave Ben a hard time about it and joked that he would walk her down the aisle one day too for him. :)

I am not sure we will ever be able to top this DDD now because, you see, when you ask Uncle Alex, you get Aunt Minnie too.

She pulled out all the stops making Kinley's night special and we were getting pictures all day of her fun day of preparation.

Mendy painted her nails and toes, washed and dried and styled her hair all while Kinley was drinking her own "bubbly" and wearing a robe.

Dream day!

Then Uncle Alex knocked on the door, brought her flowers and they had a little photo session.

Alex did a great job loving on our girl and even taking a couple pics at the dance.

We are SO thankful, for multiple reasons, that we do everyday life with Mendy and Alex and this was just one special, prime example of why.

Keystone Ski Trip

Ben and I went on a ski trip in January for our anniversary to Keystone, Colorado.

It was my first time to this adorable town and I just loved it!

It has a quaint little village, incredible skiing, and a huge mountain to explore.

We went with Ryan and Stacee who were also celebrating Stacee's birthday.

Ben and Ryan had just gone two weeks before with their Men's Group bible study to the same resort and were excited to bring us back.

The drive to Keystone is a couple hours but the views are incredible.

We arrived around dinner time on a Friday night and drove from Denver to Keystone, checked into our condo and had dinner in the village. It was a pretty normal evening and we went to bed excited for our first day of skiing Saturday morning.

This is where the beginning of our trip gets crazy.

Around 3am in the morning, Ben and I are snoozing when we hear a LOUD thud in the other room and then a blood-curling scream from Stacee yelling Ryan's name a few times and yelling for us to call 911. Ben jumped out of bed, not really remembering where we were, and tries to open the door to their room and is stopped by Ryan's body laying on the ground.

As we peak into the room all we can see are Ryan's feet laying on the ground.

Stacee tells us by this time that he has a pulse and he's breathing but to call 911. I call and tell them where we are located and they are there quick; within just a few minutes.

While I am on the phone, Ryan wakes up.

He has no idea what has happened.

All he remembered is sitting up in bed going to open the blinds on the window so he could see in the room to walk to the bathroom.

After the fact, we are pretty sure he just passed out from the altitude and bounced around from the bed to the wall a few times and then finally hit the ground.

It was such a shocking thing to happen. Ryan has never had problems in altitude before. He was JUST in this same exact location 2 weeks prior with no issues.

It just came out of no where.

The paramedics were great and checked his pulse, gave him oxygen, monitored him, did an EKG to ensure there was no heart event, and just stayed with him a while until he felt better.

They finally left our room around 5:45am and we all tried our best to get a little sleep before our first day of skiing. In the moment, it seemed crazy but I am so glad we got these pictures.

Ryan looked at them multiple times to see how pale he was during his episode and what all they hooked him up to. 

It's worth documenting, because it is definitely something we will never forget.

In the end, Ryan recovered well and took most of Saturday at a slow pace and kept Stacee company during her ski lesson. After about a day, he said the only thing that was still bothering him was his leg where Ben had whacked him with the door trying to open it to get inside the room to help. :)

I felt like Stacee's mom sending her off to ski school for the day and making sure she got to where she needed to go :)

It was my first time to ski with Ben without any family and just adults.

It has a whole different, relaxing dynamic to it.

There is nothing like skiing with my kids but not taking off and on 10 layers of clothes off of three children multiple times a day was kind of nice. We skied as long as we wanted, as fast as we wanted and just enjoyed the day!

It was so fun!!

Getting ready for a day of skiing in the condo.

Our condo fireplace and our matching souvenir shirts.

Evening hot tub time in some eskimo Stacee brought us for the trip.

We loved walking around the village just to look in the shops, sit by a fire or have a great meal.

We ate lunch most days on top of the mountain and where we could even warm our feet by the fire too.

The weather was perfect, sunny and not too cold the whole weekend.

So proud of this beginner skier.

She is picking it up so fast and was going down blues with us by day three!

There was so much cool stuff on this mountain!

At the bottom of one side of the mountain was this barbeque shed that you could eat and lounge and relax and watch people come down the slopes. It was so cool.

They had this huge kids area at the top of the mountain complete with sledding, snow tubing and even a giant snow fort with built in slides. I took a picture in it because I knew my kids would have LOVED it.

Even though it started a little crazy, it ended up being such a great trip!

I am so thankful for my time away with Ben with these sweet friends.