Girl Scout Cookie Season

Well, January was home to our first Girl Scout cookie season. 

 We started out with what are called "Zoo Cookies." 

 Moms can go starting at 10am one Friday in January to the Ft Worth Zoo and wait in a massive line and get an allotted amount of cookies for your Girl Scout.

   

You bring home 144 boxes of "Zoo Cookies."

 When Kinley got home and saw these, she was SO excited.

   

We loaded some in the wagon and right away she wanted to walk to Alex and Mendy's to sell some cookies. 

 We offered multiple times to drive her over with all the cookies and she refused. 

 She was adamant about walking and pulling the wagon the entire way. 

And she did it! 

    

Her first cookie sale.

 

 You have 2 weeks to sell as many Zoo Cookies as you can and then you turn in the money for the cookies you sold and any boxes you didn't sell. 

 Kinley's sold really easy and barely had to return any. 

 We spent one day walking the neighborhood with Jaymes and split the sale of all cookies we sold. It was so fun to do with a friend. 

 

We also made some cookie deliveries to friends and family who ordered some through text or instagram, etc. 

In addition to Zoo Cookie selling, our troop works 4 cookie booths. 

 Each girl has a 45 minute shift with 1 or 2 other girls at every booth. 

 The total number of cookies sold at each booth is divided among the number of girls that worked that booth.

Four booths was just the right number and it was so fun to spend time with different girls and moms of the troop during those booths.

   

The Nordells came to a booth one day to let the girls each buy a box from the cookie booth.

   

Boss took Kinley to this cookie booth.  Ben and I were out of town and it was a cold morning! Thankfully she and Savannah had warm jackets and hot chocolate.  

Ben took Kinley to this cookie booth.  Christy took this pic for me of Julia, Kinley and Jaymes.

 

Overall she ended up selling around 150 boxes. 

 It was really so much easier and so much more fun than I thought! 

 It was a great first Cookie Season!

#eatitorwearitchallenge

Kinley and AG had a sleepover the last night of Christmas break. 

 They played and crafted and movie watched. 

 It was so fun.

     

About a week later, AG called Kinley with an idea. 

She had been watching KidsTube and had discovered the #eatitorwearitchallenge. 

 She wanted Kinley to watch some videos of it and let her know if she wanted to do one too. 

 It took about 1 minute into the first video for Kinley to jump on board. It looked like so much fun to her.  

Basically, the premise of the challenge is this: A mom sets up about 20 misc food items and numbers them 1-20. 

 You draw a number from a hat and you can either EAT a large spoonful of that said item OR WEAR the entirety of that item on your head. 

 We followed a little different rules that we saw on another video. 

 In our challenge, IF you chose to EAT your item, you could pour the rest of the item on the OTHER person's head. 

 Basically just a way to get completely nasty head to toe. 

 I was so nervous for this. 

 I had no idea if Kinley would really enjoy it as much as she thought she would. 

 But, I really think it was what she dreamed of and more. 

 We did the challenge at Leslie's house. We decided to do it indoors because it was super cold outside. 

 We put down a trash sac to catch the nasty. 

 Her set up and choice of items was awesome. 

 

This is the girls before...in clothes we could THROW AWAY and all smiles. 

 

They insisted on videoing the whole thing. We aren't going to post it on YouTube or anything but, they can watch it themselves if they want to. 

 

A few action shots. 

 

All 4 little brothers were present, watching and laughing! 

 

 About mid-way through the challenge.  They were shivering they were so cold.  SO glad we didn't do it outside.

 

 After shots...Kinley said "How do you like my new look?" 

 

AG said the apple cider vinegar was the worst smell and the syrup tasted best. 

 The syrup poured on Kinley was pretty epic and she liked eating pudding best. 

 They both said the sour cream and tartar sauce looked like bird poop. 

 And they are so used to watching these on YouTube that they said "Thanks for watching us, just click to subscribe at the bottom of the video and leave a comment" 

 What???? Who are they? 

 The clean up....what we didn't expect was the smell. 

 All of that mixed together was just gross. 

 We kept smelling it on our hands. 

 

 Overall, it was a total, gross success! I am sure this is just the tip of the iceberg for their "challenges."

10 year Anniversary

Ben and I have been married TEN years!  

Wow. I really can't believe it. 

 We had plans to go on a trip but with Ben starting a brand new job that week, we decided to wait a little while. I mean, the entire year is our 10th year, so what's the rush, right? 

 We did go to a nice dinner out in Ft Worth at Del Friscos. 

 I wanted to try to do something to make dinner a little different than any other date night. So, I had in my mind that I wanted to wear the dress I wore to our rehearsal dinner 10 years earlier. 

 I have no idea why I still have it. 

 I don't think I have ever worn it other than that night. 

 I just think it must be sentimental and I can't get rid of it. 

 I had no idea if I would fit into it or not. 

 Thankfully, it has a little give.

   

 Thanks mom for taking our pic...next to my gorgeous anniversary flowers. 

 4 dozen roses makes a girl feel good. 

 

 10 years brings a lot of changes...

   

Wouldn't change one second of our life together. 

 I love this man so much. 

He is my best friend and the only one I want to do life beside. 

 He is for me. 

 He leads and loves us well. 

 His kids adore him and he invests in them. 

 I am beyond thankful. 

 Can't wait for the next 10, 20...50...years.

Harrison family Christmas

We had Harrison family Christmas in January. 

 But, it was better late than never! 

 We spent the majority of the day on Saturday being together. 

 We ate and ate, watched football, opened presents and played games. 

 

Cannot wait for baby Cannon to be here!

 

Oh Aunt Minnie knows the key to this girl's heart. 

 

Twister was a big hit. Pretty sure I won this game. 

 

We ended the night with pinochle at our house after the kids went to bed. 

 Never gets old. 

New Year's Eve

We spent a few nights over New Years at the lake. 

 We were trying to decide last minute what was something we could do fun as a family before Ben started his new job right after the new year. 

 We finally just decided it would be fun to just get away at the lake for a few nights. 

 We spent one day and night just the five of us. 

 We grocery shopped, rested, watched movies and just relaxed by the fire. 

It was so fun. 

 Ty even fell asleep on me and I didn't want to move a muscle. 

 

Then over the next two days a few friends decided to join also. I brought a few decorations from our house to liven up the lakehouse a little but, thankfully Stacee and Lindsey they brought the fun this NYE. 

 Stacee had blown up balloons that had the time written on them in 30 minute increments for each of the kids to pop. 

 Inside each one was a fun activity for them to do to pass the time before "midnight." 

 I say it like that because our 9:00 balloon we started at 6:00 so midnight was really 9:00pm for the kids. 

 But, that was plenty late. 

 The activities were things like, play glow stick simon says, write your name with sparklers, take a selfie with all your best NYE accessories, have a silly string fight and things like that.  

Silly string fight wasn't Dylan's favorite.

 

A pudding treat while watching daddies do fireworks!

 

Some group pics with all our NYE flare  

Dylan's mustache selfie is just too much.    

Kinley's name was drawn to pop the 12:00 balloon and they all yelled "Happy New Year" and drank sparkling cider. 

 Then it was off to bed. 

 

The adults played a little catchphrase and took a midnight selfie with our favorite 2016 glasses.

   

The next day brought more friends and more indoor and outside fun. 

 We played in leaves, cooked good food, played games and roasted marshmallows.

   

I didn't quite realize Ross's dedication to catchphrase until this weekend despite any and all distractions.

 

Little babes.

 

Never too young to learn to prep a fried turkey 

 

There were dance parties, log climbing and ipad watching. 

 

And some mom selfies.

 

Oh my word..this kid in his Aggie jumpsuit!

   

It was low-key but lots of fun. 

 I love having getaways at the lakehouse. 

 It gets hard to do because it is small and there isn't a ton of space or unlimited beds. If we could, we would have every friend we know come every time. 

 We wish we could. 

We are just most of all thankful for the blessing of time we do get there away from the normal fast pace of life and technology. 

 So thankful the Harrison's decided to put roots down for our family in a small town on a lake outside of town. Where we can just be. 

 Thankful God has blessed us with friends who love quality time and don't need lots of space or fancy things. It's not even ours, just a place we have the opportunity to be sometimes, and it is hard to manage and balance, but we never lose sight of the fact that we are thankful. 

We are appreciative. 

 It is a blessing and one we want to bless others with too. 

 A great way to celebrate the end of one year and the start of the next.