Smarty!!

Have to brag on my Emma for a minute. She has absolutely amazed me this fall with how mature she has become as I was really worried about what this year would entail. She has done an amazing job keeping up with her school work and all her activities: dance, soccer, girls scouts, and indian princesses. The end of the first quarter was a couple weeks ago and we had a parent/teacher conference to get her first real report card (first time with real number grades and not just S, S+,e tc..) I have to admit I was kind of nervous but Emma blew my socks off...all A's on her first report card, and for her school an A is 94-100, so pretty tough. And to top it off, she did a week of assessment testing at the begining of the school year and we got the results for that...my smarty pants scored in the 99% percentile (i.e. higher than 99% of the first graders in the nation who took the test)!! So proud of the concentration and diligence she puts into her school work and know without a doubt that her Nana is wearing the biggest smile in Heaven and bragging to all her friends about how smart her granddaughter is!!!

First Slumber Party!!!!

Emma had her first slumber party this weekend...since the guys were out of town she decided to invite her BFF Mary Grace over for a slumber party. The girls played hard all day at SMG's Kountry Karnival and then we had a "girls only" dinner at Mellow Mushroom followed by movies and popcorn! I thought the girls were exhausted and when they told me they were going to bed at 9:30pm I layed down myself. Well I guess I was the exhausted one because I was woken up at 12am by giggles and found the girls doing hair and "makeup" with their American Girl dolls!! But after I reminded them that they had another full day of Kountry Karnival they quickly went to sleep!! I am sure this is first of many slumber parties to come...in fact Emma asked me this evening if she could have five girls at one time when we move to the new house- ekk!!!

Camping we will go...

Okay, not "we" because I didn't go but Patrick and Bryan ventured out on their first camp out with their Indian Pappose tribe- The Moose Tribe- this weekend. Of course it was freezing cold and Bryan had out grown all of his winter clothes from last year...but he didn't seem to mind! The guys had a great time at Mineral Wells State Park and even though they didn't change clothes the entire time they were there they managed to stay pretty clean (probably because it didn't rain!)

GO ROCKSTARS!!

Emma is enjoying her 4th season of soccer. The dad of one of the girls she goes to school with is the coach of her team (The Rockstars) this year and there are three other girls from SMG 1st grade on the team. I have to admit that although it is super nice to get to sit back and watch, rather than coach, I did find myself yelling quite a bit at the game on Saturday :) Emma is having a blast and enjoying the time she gets to spend with her SMG friends as well as the other new friends on her team.

Updates...

Since my Mom's passing I have promised several of her friends that I would blog more to keep them up to date on the kids and family. So here I go trying my best to keep my promise! Us Shortalls have had a busy start to the school year- from dance, soccer, and tball to Girl Scouts, Indian Princesses, and Indian Papooses to homework, spelling tests, job promotions for both Patrick and I, and lots of trips out to visit "Nana's special box"- we have been busy!! We miss Mom terribly but know she would want us to pick up and keep on going. The kids talk a lot about what Nana might be doing in Heaven and it's been such a blessing to hear their perspective on things. We have also decided to not go forward with the renovation/expansion on the "tiny" house we bought in April. Instead we are going to keep it as rental property and purchase a new home that has the size we need/want without major construction! Patrick and I have had to continually remind ourselves to be patient in this process as we have a pretty particular list of "must haves" and there is very very little on the market in the zip code we want. We had been eyeing a property since early September and it finally went on the market last week and we currently have a contract on it. The inspection is scheduled for tomorrow so praying all goes well!! It needs new flooring and paint so we'll take our time getting that done and getting moved out of the "tiny" house...hope is that we'll be in to celebrate Christmas!! But if I have learned anything over the past several months it is that a majority of the time the timing is out of my hands and completely beyond my control. (needless to say there have been lots of serenity prayers said!) I've been bad about taking pics lately but here are a few recent ones...promise I will get better!!!

We are moving. . .

Kind of out of the blue, but we decided a few weeks ago that it would be nice to be closer to Emma's school (and eventually Bryan's school) and my work. We found a couple homes that peaked out interest and decided to put our house on the market and give it a go. Well, we had an awesome offer on the house within a day of it being on the market and very motivated buyer who wanted to close ASAP. So we've spent the past two weeks scrambling around for a house...after a dead end attempt to negotiate on one house we finally gave it up and started to discuss buying a lot to build on- only problem is there are maybe 4 open residential lots in the zip code we were looking in. So what's the next best thing...buy a tiny home built in 1926 on a half acre lot and add on! CRAZY, yes I know, but that's what we've decided to do. It's a charming, almost 100 year old home in the Oak Hill neighborhood (close to UTA) and it's TINY!! But the plan is the start the addition as soon as we move in so we will be doubling and eventually tripling the size in the next year. We've quickly become fans of the "This Old House" magazine and it will definitely be an adventure but we're pretty excited about the journey!! Pics to come!!

THE BIG BDAY SURPRISE!!!

Patrick's very first car was an old CJ5 Jeep...he still had it when we first started dating in college and at times I thought he liked the Jeep more than me (jk!) But I heard so many stories about how he spent weekends fixing it up and riding it around. Unfortunately the jeep eventually had to go as it wasn't the most reliable car for getting back and forth between Lubbock and Dallas. But for the past 10 years Patrick has talked about getting another one. So a few months ago I decided I would look for a jeep to buy Patrick for his 30th birthday...and never in a million years did I think I would find one that was the exact same colors as his old jeep. It isn't an old CJ5 but it looks pretty similar. I found it at a dealership while we were out of town over New Years Eve and thought I'd buy it and keep it at my sisters until his bday but I knew he would find out so I decided to just give it to him the night I bought it. He took Emma to dance and he thought Bryan and I were going to the grocery store...little did he know "grocery store" was code for "jeep dealership"! Needless to say he was shocked when he went to pull his car in and another was in it's spot!! He still has his Saab to drive back and forth to work but on those super nice days, which we've had more of this January then every before, he takes the jeep out!!

Catch up time...NY eve in Missouri

Two days after Christmas we loaded up the van for it's first road trip and headed up to Missouri. First we stopped in Columbia a spent a few days with Chelsey and Brandon. Then we headed on to Kansas City for one of my best friends from high school's, Sara, wedding. The weather was beautiful (considering if could have been below freezing and snowing this time of year) and the kids were great travelers!!

Catch up time...Christmas!

January has flown by...seems like Christmas was forever ago but I don't want to skip a Christmas post so here are some pics for our Christmas. The whole family came down with strep throat the Wednesday before Christmas so we did a lot of hanging around the house in the days before Christmas eve...thus the pic where we made a billion cookies!! We went to Christmas eve mass at SMG and then spent Christmas morning at Nana and Boompas and Christmas afternoon/evening at Grandma and Grandpas and then the Weeds house. Both kids really got into Santa this year and it was so fun to see their excitement!!