Christmas Cards

We didn't send out Christmas cards last year. I've felt bad about this because last year at the time, I was very newly pregnant. Which means I felt like a heaping pile of poop. Which means I didn't take any pictures of myself, much less of a group shot of our family. Which means I didn't even send out one measly Christmas card. We didn't even take a family photo until Christmas morning. I had no make up on, Dez was way too interested in presents and we were all still in our pajamas.

 Yeahhh...

So this year I thought "This is the year! We will take wonderful pictures! We will look amazing! Everyone will love our Christmas card so much!!! We will suceed!!!"

So the day after Thanksgiving my only goal was to take cute and adorable pictures of our boys in matching, color coordinating outfits.

I told myself this every day. 27 days later I finally got around to it.

For those of you who didn't calculate that in your head, we took our pictures 4 days before Christmas.

Needless to say, we didn't send out Christmas cards.

So here it is! Our Christmas card to you!! 4 days AFTER Christmas!

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! Happy New Year!

Love, The Gross Family

Thanksgiving

Try as I might, I just couldn't get into the Thanksgiving spirit. (Neither could Desmond. He could care less about Thanksgiving right now!) So, we decided as a family that we would do something crazy, something unheard of. We would do something....untraditional!

We decided to go to the zoo!

Husband had been feeling a bit overwhelmed at school. I had been feeling the stress of feeling like a single mother because of all the hours Husband had been putting into his work. The best solution was to just get out of town, even if it was for one night.

So that's exactly what we did! Off to Houston we went! We stayed at the Galleria (the BIG mall, as Dez calls it) to get in a little shopping before the crazy Black Friday people. And the next day, Thanksgiving, was spent admiring all the animals at the zoo.

I forgot how big the Houston Zoo is! Dez had such a good time, and Gabe and I had an even better time watching his excitement. Dax, of course, was absolutely pleasant and tolerated our long day trip well.

Me and The Buster 

These boys quack me up. 

 Me and The Nugget

I consented to the petting zoo. You can bet the hand sanitizer came out pretty quick! 

My goofy boys

 Very thankful to have a wonderful husband and two healthy and happy boys!

It was exactly what everyone in our family needed. We even got home in time to make us a plate of leftover turkey, dressing, and pie!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Saturday Morning

I had this waiting for me when I woke up on Saturday.

My absolute favorite breakfast that I'm always too lazy to make. Complete with chocolate milk.

Thanks to you, Husband! You are so nice to me!

This past week

I haven't blogged in over a week!! Ahhh!!

I know you are all dying to know what I've been up to.

Well, I'll tell you.


1. I started (and finished) these books (which I recommend; they were very entertaining), then watched the movie (which I don't recommend; it was awful) :

2. I also changed about a million diapers and cleaned up spit up. Oh yes. Fun.

3. I made Dax laugh for the first time. :D

4. We made a fire in our chiminea and ate smores.  Yummmm. Then we did it again the next night, even though it was 70 degrees outside.

**Does anyone else want to live somewhere where there are actually four distinct seasons?? I'm kinda tired of turning on the air conditioning one day then turning on the heater the very next day.  It's very confusing. 

5. I made dinner almost EVERY night! I'm soooooo proud of myself. I think this is the first time in me and Gabe's marriage that I've actually done this. I feel so domestic and grown-up! 

6. Meals this week included: chimichangas, pizza and pasta, tilapia, green enchiladas, sour cream meatballs, and breakfast. I'm awesome. Just sayin'.  

7. Pintrest.  

8. A little more Pintrest.

9. Pintrest some more.

10. Went and saw Breaking Dawn last night at midnight. I don't know why I always think it's a good idea to stay up super late at night. I always regret it in the morning. I feel kinda like a zombie today. 

Turkeys

Desmond has been pretty bummed about Halloween being over. So I thought I'd lift his spirits and get him excited about the next holiday.

Except the only problem with that is that the next holiday is Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is just not as cool as Halloween. And Christmas is still way too far away to get all pumped up about.  .....Although all stores and retailers would completely disagree. Did I tell you I saw a Christmas commercial on Halloween?? That's just crazy! Let's take it one holiday at a time!

SO to get into the Thanksgiving spirit I managed to rack my brain for ideas and came up with this cool project (and by cool, I mean super easy and quick):

 

Dez enjoyed his project and did a great job too! The only thing I don't like is that you can't see his little handprint underneath the bits of construction paper. We'll have to do the traditional paint on hand then stamp on paper turkey later this week. (Lord, help me)

Do you have any other cute ideas for Thanksgiving??

Halloween Part 3

TRICK OR TREAT!!

I have so many fond memories of trick-or-treating. What's not to love about getting free candy AND dressing up?? As a kid, we never missed a single Halloween. We usually went with our cousins, who I was very close to. I always had a pretty costume thanks to the leftover dance recital costumes I accumulated through the years. And then at the end of the night me and Mikah would dump our buckets of candy on our beds in the room we shared. We would separate and group together all our candy and then the trading would begin! It was just awesome being a kid.

I wonder why our parents let us eat so much candy. I really don't think they had any idea exactly how much candy we got.   .....I also wonder why I never got sick eating so much.

This year, Desmond really understood the basics of trick-or-treating. Last year he was only two and didn't fully grasp the concept. It was so fun to see the excitement in his little eyes. He knew just what to do and did it all on his own.  It's always so weird to see him exploring his world on his own because I'm with him all the time and he doesn't always get the chance. Oh he was so fun to watch!! He was even polite to every house we went to. Every person at the door got a cute "Gank you!!" after a piece of candy was deposited into his bucket.

Well, like an idiot, I left my camera when we did all of our trick-or-treating so I only got these few pictures:

As a side note-- I would just like to say thank you to my wonderful husband who has ALWAYS agreed to wearing a costume. He never says no to anything I pick out no matter how ridiculous. Thanks, Gabe! Love you :)

Hope everyone had a great Halloween this year!

On to Thanksgiving!

Oh, Boy

This sums up a normal day for me.

Can you please give me some of your energy, Dez?

'Cause I kinda feel like a zombie.

And watching you makes me tired.

Is it naptime yet??

Rockin' the Mini

As most of you know, my dad is a mechanic. A pretty darn good one, too. (I might be a little biased though.) One of the perks of his job is that occasionally people come in wanting to sell their cars. Being the awesome mechanic that he is, my dad is able to tell the good cars from the lemons.

*Side note: Dad has never let us get anything other than a Honda. He got pretty mad at us when we decided to buy our Suburu. He said, "Oh. Well that's good. Who's gonna work on it?"

Anyway, he called me one day last week.

Pops: I found a car for you! It's in good condition, it was well taken care of, super clean. It's had blah blah blah done to it recently and had blah blah blah too and the blah blah just got changed (I dont' speak car, but I think he thinks that I do) and it's perfect for your family.

Me: Sweet! I'll take it! Um... what it is?

Pops: A 1997 minivan.



Awesome.

I'm the proud new owner of one sweet ride!! Jealous, are you??!

Halloween Part 2

And the Halloween festivities continue!!

Our family usually has an annual costume party. A big thanks to all our close friends who shared in our silly enthusiasm to dress up and look completely ridiculous!! We had a great night!

Desmond has been super excited to be a vampire this year for Halloween. 

Dax, of course, just chillin' and being extremely cute.

Doggies had to dress up too! Mushu the skeleton with her best friend Rigby as Yoshi.

Buster practiced his scary face for days!

Mikah and Mark, Squirrel and Hunter

I'm sorry to say I missed a member of this family. (I think she was sleeping)

Looking good anyway!

Can you guess who Yoshi-dog belongs to? Also, can you guess Mario's surpise?!?

Congrats to the new parents!!

I don't think this is what Cinderella had in mind for her Prince Charming.

(Also missing from this picture are two cute little miniature princesses)

The best looking witch and vampire I've ever seen!

All the boys who so willingly participated in a messy game

What costume party is complete without bobbing for apples??

Desmond thought he was pretty clever. He gave up sticking his head in the water so he just grabbed his apple with his hand. Duh!

Getting prepped for hard task ahead!

...And success!

Oh, we had a blast enjoying good food and visiting friends! We were tuckered out by the end of the night!  ....Even Mushu!

 

Halloween Part 1

Ahhhh, Halloween! Absolutely my favorite holiday (Besides Christmas, of course.... it's hard to beat that one!).  I love decorating the house in bats, skeletons, and spiders and I have just as many decorations for Halloween as I do for Christmas. I've had my decorations up for at least a month now. This past weekend we decided to add to our collection and carve out pumpkins! What Halloween isn't complete without pumpkins??

This takes very serious thought.

Hard at work.

Desmond was just a little bit grossed out by pumpkin innards.  

Apparently Mikah was too.

Dax was dressed to show off his holiday spirit.

Me and Dax got to chill out while pumpkin seeds were being taken out. He conveniently needed to be held so I didn't have to get my hands dirty :)

This was Gabe's creation.

The finished products!

I think we all enjoyed our Halloween festivities that night!

** I would have posted my pumpkin, but it was lame. 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Outside

You can make fun of me all you want about where I live (I know I would) but I think I happen to live in one of the prettiest areas in Southeast Texas.

Here's some of the pictures I took outside while me and Buster were enjoying the weather. We found some pretty interesting things.
**I am by no means an artistic photographer. I hope you'll appreciate them anyway. :)

Love it when the leaves start to change color. That means Autumn is just around the corner! Finally!

This little guy is living in our birdhouse. 

Never really seen a lizard this close up before. Mushu and Buster usually scare them off pretty quickly.

Mmmmmm. These should be ripe soon.

Desmond, of course, can't help playing in the fountain.

This is the view from my front porch. And there's Mushu too.

My gorgeous fountain I recently acquired.

Weird awesome mushroom.

The lone flower.

My sweet boy.

Dez stuck his finger in this ant pile. No ants were harmed in the process.

And this is usually what I find Desmond doing when I turn back to check on him. Ah, to be a boy.

I am so grateful that I am able to view the beauty of nature right from my living room window.  SO grateful the weather is starting to be pleasant enough to enjoy the life outdoors!