Polar Express

Tonight we went to the Polar Express!  Stephanie bought the whole family tickets for Sunday night.  We couldn't anticipate that the weather would make it impossible for the Hendricks, Nana, Papaw & Kelley couldn't make the dangerous drive back to DC because of the weather. 

Stephanie gave her tickets to my friend Kristen and her family. It meant the world to them & the kids had a blast!! 

We got there just in time to board. Caroline presented our tickets to the conductor. She looks very serious in this picture. "Here you go sir, I believe they are all accounted for...."

They brought us hot chocolate and cookies then Liam Neeson started reading the book The Polar Express.  When we read the book at home Caroline always wants to read the page with the wolves on it over and over.  Sadly no wolves showed up during the experience.

Kristen, Evyn and I enjoyed some hot chocolate! We finally made it to the North Pole and guess what?!? Santa and his Elves boarded the train!

Santa asked Caroline what she wanted for Christmas.  She wanted him to stay at a safe distance but took the bell from him and said "thank you" very quietly.

We sang Jingle Bells and Caroline got a chance to play her sleigh bell.  She rang that sucker out. We had such a fun time!  I know Caroline loved it.  I have a feeling she will love Santa after this Christmas.  She has been so good this year so I'm thinking Santa will bring that kitchen she has been asking for. 

 At the end of the night she took a lesson from Lolly and decided to leave the place cleaner then she found it by cleaning the windows....

Thank you so much Stephanie, we will  be doing this next year.

Thanksgiving in a Blizard

Thanksgiving at Nana and Papaw's house was this weekend.  The Hendricks made it in from California ....barely.  They were suppose to land at 7:00pm on Friday night and made it in at 1:00am. It started snowing on Friday morning and didn't stop until Sunday.

Caroline and I woke up Saturday morning and went to get donuts and Rudy's breakfast burritos.  It has been a few months since we made the trip to Rudy's but they still remember us!  and even said, "I added extra hot sauce for you."

The Hendricks and Prathers made it safe to Nana and Papaw's.  Leah said the first thing she wanted to do was play the piano and she did!  The two little kids also loved the piano too and played Thanksgiving tunes all afternoon.

The kids played so well together.  Lane introduced Caroline to Play Doh or pla-dough as Lane called it.  They colored and played all afternoon. Caroline looks up to Leah and wanted to do everything she was doing.  

The food was amazing!  Caroline loved the twice baked potatoes just like her daddy.  Mimi made these small little bite-size pies that were delicious. {Pumpkin, Pecan, & Chess}

Everyone in the Prather family can cook!  Everything was great.  

I am thankful for so many things this year!

So now we can start getting ready for Christmas!!! Pandora and Itunes radio both are on Christmas stations.  We even went to ride the Polar Express tonight... {Post to come!}

Santa Must Not be Trusted

Caroline's school did Santa pictures about 2 weeks ago.  The company taking the pictures said they would do their best to get a a smiling picture.  Her teachers told me Caroline took her picture first and apparently stirred the rest of the kids up.  She doesn't know that Santa is one of the good guys but maybe after this year she will feel better about him.  Her daddy agreed that Santa didn't look trustworthy..... I think it's his eyebrows....

Oh Christmas Tree

We put our Christmas tree up this evening.  Christmas is coming early this year as the Hendricks family will be here next week!  We are having Thanksgiving and Christmas all-in-one.  Caroline and Pip were both very excited. As we put the ornaments on the tree we went through where they all came from.  We added 3 new ones this year from different places we traveled to.

Caroline put ornaments on the bottom branches.  She was going along and then she found a snowman bell ornament and it was all over.  She walked around the house ringing the bell. She had a hard time letting the snowman bell go.  

1st Christmas ornament from last year

San Fran

 Yosemite 

Chicago

 We have already wrapped most of our gifts so we went ahead gave them home under the tree.

If I could read Caroline's mind right now she would be thinking.... "You want me to just look at these presents?!?"

We went though all the gifts and explained who they belong to.  She couldn't touch them but she would get as close as we would allow and point & say who it went to.

Pip the cat is so pumped to have tree up.  She has already found a comfortable spot towards the top.

Little Stinker

Caroline is precious but sometimes she can be a little stinker... On Friday we went to the park by our house.  There was a group of boys about the age of ten being really loud, swinging and jumping off the monkey bars.

Caroline turned to where they were playing and shook her finger at them and said "hush!" ( see picture below) a little bossy and fearless.  

She probably gets it from her aunt Dacee. When Jacee was about 3 or 4 at her day care she told on a lady that was interviewing for a job there. The women told a child to "shut up". Jacee told that adult that she shouldn't say that and she was telling on her. She did and the lady wasn't hired ....  

This picture is hilarious to me.  Caroline is crying because she had to put her toy down to get on the tike....

Then she kept crying but looked at me through one eye to see if I was paying attention to her. Even though I was taking her picture I wasn't looking directly at her so she decided she was fine and could continue on her tike ride.

Little stinker.

The Adventures with the Smoke Detector

Chris had to replace all the batteries in the smoke detectors Sunday. Every single one alerted us at some point in September/October that the battery was low in the middle of the night.  

  The one in Caroline's room was the worst: It started chirping when the Falco's were here. Around 4 am Chris woke me up so we could figure out where it was coming from.  When we realized it was coming from the baby monitor in Caroline's room I was a little concerned because the ceiling is so high and we didn't want to wake our guests. Our latter was being borrowed {of course}. Chris and his ninja skills rigged a latter out of a kids table, a laundry basket & a blue step stool..... All I could here in the monitor was a few faint sounds and then the detector coming lose.  It continued to chirp so Chris put the possessed smoke detector in my car were it proceeded to make nose until morning.

The one in our room was a couple of nights ago. Again 3 am it starting chirping & the dogs went crazy in their kennels.  I could hear Lexi trying to dig through the plastic in the other room.  Chris again had to take care of the smoke detector.

Sunday he replaced all the batteries which means we should be good for another 4 to 5 years!

Caroline helped daddy check all the detectors by pushing the test buttons.  Such a good helper.

Speaking of Smoke Detectors..... Dondi David was making bacon in the oven and accidentally lit the inside on fire.  Don't worry she kept her cool by running around the house trying to figure out what she was going to save while dialing 911.  The firefighters came to her rescue.  When the fire was completely out one of the firefighters ate one of the pieces of bacon and said it was almost perfect.

Above is the picture she sent to the family with the message:

Dondi David : Here is a new story to add to my cooking stories haha

My dad replied back: Done when the fire alarm goes off!

Caroline at the Little Gym tonight

13.1

Christian and I completed our first half marathon since having our babies.  We have been talking about it for months now.  We both started training in August and decided to use the Hal Higdon intermediate training guide. 

http://www.halhigdon.com

It is so motiving to know that someone is training at the same time your are and a lot harder to skip out on workouts....

 At first Caroline could do most of the workouts with me.  I would put her in the BOB after school and she would read and talk to me the entire run.  After week four I was on my own & ran in the early mornings so I wouldn't skip out on time with her and Chris in the afternoons. Chris was so awesome and encouraging during the whole training process.

The race was in Abilene on Saturday, November 2nd at 7:30am.  Because Christian and I both went to college in Abilene we saw some of our friends from McMurry and Hardin Simmons running too.  We didn't set any records but had a great time.  

After the race I jumped in the car and drove back to Lubbock for the Tech VS OSU game.  Lolly and Granddad invited us to a tailgate.  Their tailgate is located in front of the colosseum so there was lots of room for Caroline to run around.

My parent's really good friends are in charge of the food and Saturday's menu was a shrimp boil.  The ingredients were simple but good!

• Shrimp
• Corn
• Sausage
• Garlic

then it was thrown into a pot of boiling water.  Caroline helped herself to the cherry tomatoes on the vegetable tray.  She normally stays away from that particular fruit but she seemed to really like the baby cherry tomatoes.

We also saw my cousin Nick Carter there.  His wife Elizabeth is pregnant with their 2nd boy.  It was really good to see him! We left the tailgate so my parents could go inside and went home to cheer on the Red Raiders.

I walked in to get Caroline ready for bed and found her reading a book! 

Sunday Morning:

Because toddlers don't believe in Daylight savings time we decided to enjoy our extra hour by taking Caroline to Cracker Barrel.  It was Chris's idea and I thought it was a great one!

She colored on the color page until they brought her oatmeal.  This is a big moment with the Prathers because Caroline ate all by herself!

What a fun weekend!