Thanksgiving Holiday & Christmas Preparations

The girls this year each got a special part in the Christmas performance at Church, Katie sang a pretty long solo, and Kelsey recited passages from memory of Luke 2 and the account of Jesus' birth...

These last couple years we have taken a night to go and drive around Ft. Worth and see houses that were decorated with Christmas lights... can't wait to have our own home someday to be able to do this...
The weekend after Thanksgiving has always been tradition for us to put up our Christmas decorations and begin to prepare our home to celebrate the birth of our Savior!

We did some crazy travelling this Thanksgiving to both our families.. You can't see it but Robin is holding a nice plate of stuffed 1/2 jalepenos with cream cheese (doctored with cajun seasoning, garlic) and then a slice of chedder on top of that, then wrapped in bacon and grilled! Her uncle on the other hand is holding bowls of boiled peanuts, very different kind of peanut to say the least! A lot of the family is moving away at Christmas so this might be the last time that everyone got together for a pretty long time...Great visit with the White Family


Mom's house has turned into the Holiday Monopoly game, everyone trying to gang up on me and beat me since I win every year, to their disadvantage I was taught by one of the best players ever, my cousin Perry Price! He might as well be a Jew when he plays Monopoly so with my Arabness from dad, and Perry's Jew teaching, I make the best player ever!
Mom making her "Angel Eggs"... she can't stand to call them "Deviled Eggs" so I like her twist... in the right Spirit.

Benbrook Stables & Katie's Birthday Party

We ate some authentic Tex-Mex steak fajita quesidillas, homemade pico de gallo, and homemade guacamole! They were delicious...Our little boy, Cowboy'd Up! Zeth's first hay ride

Thank you Travis Ave, for the blessed afternoon at Benbrook Stables! Most kids had to be walked on trail by their parents, but our girls because of their horse back expierence from camp got to free ride the horses in the arena! They had a blast...

Our daughter, Katie, is now 8! One of her desires was to go to the RainForrest Cafe for their "Volcano" dessert... so we made it ourselves at home 3 large scoups of icecream on top of each other, and then brownie walls surrounding it making the volcano, with whip cream and choclate syrup as lava, with Sparklers on top... it was like 2000 calorie bites.

We went to Stock Yards for dinner on Katie's birthday, and we hid a present in this barrell they have outside, and told her to go take her picture in the barrell, for about 30 sec she really believed she found a present! :)

Robin has always done such a great job at making the girls birthday parties themed out, with great laughter and games, they have always brought wonderful memories for the girlies...

This year was Katie's choice and it was a "Minute to Win it" birthday partie. We got the projector and displayed the TV shows actual blueprints on the wall so kids could see how to play the games, and then we used the actual 60 sec countdown... FUN!

Bobble Head- pedometers are used attached to the top of the head, its their goal to get as many clicks as possible within the 60 secs.

Choclate Unicorn- Object is to stack 7 choclate donuts on your forehead within the 60 secs without them falling on the ground... Kelsey was the only kid that could pull it off!

Dizzy Mummy- Object was in 60 secs they had to unwind the toilet paper without using their hands, only by spinning their body until the roll was empty, if the paper got torn, they are out.

Kelsey our own cake artist, wanted to make Katie's cake all by her self this year... so she made a half vanilla with lemon frosting, and half chocolate with expresso frosting, covered in the foundant and she even made all the flowers, tree, and butterflies out of foundant.

Wonderful October...

So October has been filled with lots of joys and adventures... starting with the old age of Josh turning 31!~ Here's what I love doing, cooking! Made some home made pita bread, and grilled out some fresh veggies and Chicken Kufta!Well all things considering it could be our last year in Ft. Worth so we promised the girls we would take them to the Texas State Fair at least one time while we lived here, so here was the one time!

The Ferris wheel was amazing! Worth the $26 it cost for all of us to ride it, but the views were amazing and the facial expressions the girls were priceless...

Just to get an idea the Texas Ferriswheel is 212ft tall and said to be the largest ferris wheel in North America as of 2003.

The food was ridiculously expensive so we got few things and shared!!

Better than buying lame premade carmel apples we made our own!! They have this Herseys Carmel Dipping sauce at Wal-Mart in the produce section, it is amazing! Katie had her friend spend the night before they moved away from Seminary, so we got the pumkins out and carved away, Katie's & her friends are Bat shapes, and Kelsey's is of a tree...

The kids got to have some good fun, we hit a trunk or treat at a local church that sponsors the school newspaper that Kelsey writes for in her elementary school, they got to go ice skating at the mall for free, and we had some fun family home time...

Kelsey is a spy, Zeth is Zeth, and Katie is a ballet dancer

Of course our strapping young son, is ever so growing, trying and eating new foods!! Crawling away to all over the place...

Definately carrying the Gaines smile...

and his father's appitite...