christmas in chicago

As you all know, my sister has a kid now which makes traveling more interesting. Because they had just come down for Thanksgiving, and had an amazing time, we thought we would spare them from traveling back to Texas, so we went to them. I was so excited about snow on Christmas just like last year, but sadly the weather was just cold with no snow. It was a great trip! Lots of food, and family time. It couldn't have been better!

Let's start with the sleeping arrangements. Before Miles, his room was the guest room, and their office could be turned into another guest room if needed. That's what we did last Christmas. Well, Miles is here and things have changed. There is one less guest room, so I got the air mattress in the closet. That first night was awful because it was freezing, uncomfortable, and kind of scary. It didn't help that Rebecca and Michael were telling me Santa was going to chop my head off and centipedes were going to crawl all over my body. After that first night I got a total of 4 blankets, and a heating pad. It was much nicer in the closet after that.

Yes, that is my picture on his toy. It's my school picture from this year, and apparently one of Miles' favorite new toys. I think when I first got there he was a little confused because he hit my face a few times like he does to the picture.

Lions fan already!

We started our usual photo shoot. He wasn't having it and I realized why during this picture. I heard a huge fart, and then a blowout happened.

Bath time because of the blowout. I think Miles needs a haircut.

Party hair.

9 to 5 hair.

Miles' first Christmas! I know he doesn't get it, but we were all super excited for him!

Miles trying pickled okra like his mom. He hated it, but started laughing because we were laughing at his faces.

Amazing dinner once again made by Rebecca.

The best present I got for Miles (In my opinion at least. His favorite were the caterpillar drumsticks above. But come one, a coonskin cap? Amazing.)

I had built an awesome tower using almost all of the blocks earlier in the day, so we had a competition to see who could use the most before it fell over. Dad did a respectable job.

However, I am a master builder. They shouldn't have messed with me. Rebecca was mad I was able to use all the blocks though because that meant that the game was over. Sorry. I'm just too awesome.

Photo shoot #2.

He was going through my bag while I got my charger and found this hat. Of course I put it on him. He looks so guilty in this picture!

While we were there he even took his first steps! Living so far away I never thought I'd actually get to see one of his firsts. But I did, yay!


Here are a few other fun videos I took while I was there. Enjoy!




I hope everyone had a fabulous Christmas!

tacky christmas sweater party

Katie and her boyfriend Derrick had a tacky Christmas sweater party at their place last night. I was on a search for an awesome sweater the past few weeks. I tried several Goodwills, other thrift stores, and finally found something at Walmart. I even got these fabulous jingle bell earrings. The earrings helped make the outfit, but the jingling drove me a little crazy. 

The party was a lot of fun! Lots of cool school peeps were there, and so much amazing food! I didn't get to eat it, but it looked awesome. I would have pigged out if I could have! I did try to make some champagne jello shots, classy I know, but one kind I made didn't taste good and the other kind didn't make enough to even bother bringing them. They weren't that great anyway. Oh well. I tried. 

some of the girls

twins!

the awesome hostess, Katie

the awesome host, Derrick

Merry Tacky Christmas!

merry christmas...suckers

I don't think I have ever posted a video I saw on my blog, and I think this is the best way to start. Let me just say, I can't wait until I have kids old enough to do this to them! Or, I can't wait until my friends kids, and nephew, are old enough to do this! I didn't know how to embed it, so go to this link for an awesome video.

I love the kid who got a hot dog, and the sandwich girl. Ok, I need to go watch it again. Enjoy!

lights of love

2 Friday nights ago I ran in the Lights of Love 5k with two friends from school, Katie and Chloe. It had been raining all day and it had luckily stopped an hour or two before the run. I was super excited because we were going to be running around a neighborhood with all of their Christmas lights out. I love running in the dark, and looking at Christmas lights while I run is even better! I even put a Christmas playlist on my iPod to get me into the mood. 

Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas" was the first song on my playlist which totally pumped me up! It was a great run, but I was bummed at the people living in the neighborhood. There weren't many lights out, so the run was a little more boring that I had expected. But it was still a great run for 2 reasons. The first is that I ran my fastest 5k to date! Not only did I run it in 30:24, but I ran my first mile in 8:46. 8:46! I have never run that fast in my life! The second reason why the race was great was there was a Jingle Beer stand and several very jolly men were passing out beer on their lawn. Of course I couldn't say no to these jolly men, so I stopped to grab a drink before finishing the race. This is probably the last race I will run until my half  marathon at the end of January, and it was a great one to end on.

Katie is in front in purple, and Chloe next to me in black.

Woo hoo! (The time is slower than mine because I didn't get out right at 0)

i'm a good teacher, i swear

I started reading centers this week, and in one of the centers they have a book they read together. Before they start reading I have them explore the book, and ask questions they may have. These questions are usually something like, "Who is the main character? Where does the story take place?" Well...I got 2 questions that made me laugh out loud, and then wonder if I needed to throw their sheet away or send it home and hope their parents don't question the book choice. Before you see their questions, let me say they are reading different books, and they are both great kid books.

Question 5

 Question 4

I'm just helping my students to become more well rounded and learn about life. 

oh christmas tree

I have a tree skirt that does its purpose. It's red, felt, and ugly. Of course that meant I needed to look on Pinterest to find a craft I could do that would make this ugly tree skirt amazing. I found it and immediately got to work. Jo-Ann's had an amazing sale going on over Thanksgiving weekend so I got this cute red and white snowflake fabric for only $10 for 4 yards. (I used almost all of those 4 yards for those of you that will be copying....I mean for those of you that will be inspired by me.)

I cut the fabric into long strips, about 3 inches wide, until I had a big pile. It only took me about an hour, and that was with me stopping periodically to watch tv. After that I spread out my skirt and got all of my supplies ready to glue and ruffle the fabric.

Stupid hot glue gun glue dries quickly so for the first few strips I had to put only a little glue, ruffle, more glue, ruffle, you get the idea. I was video chatting with Rebecca and Miles during most of the gluing and she was very supportive. "So how long did the first circle take? Man this is going to take a long time. It's looking fluffy."

In the end it took me about 3 hours to do the entire skirt. The first few rows I was starting to get nervous that I would hate it. But it is AWESOME!! My fingers were covered in hot glue gun glue, a little burnt, and the floor was a mess with stringy glue stuff. When I picked it up to put around my Christmas tree it was glued to the ground! Luckily I was able to pull it off and nothing got messed up.

On a side note, as I was decorating my tree I pulled out a cat ornament my mom gave me in 2007. She even wrote Luna's name on the side so no one would forget who that cat was supposed to be. She even has wings and a halo. I think my mom is psychic and knew she would ran away/get lost/get killed by some wild Greenbelt animal. RIP Luna.

Merry Christmas y'all!

family thanksgiving part 3

So in part 1 of this saga, I said I would come back to some of my Aunt's toys that are upstairs. I'm starting with a picture that I am well aware is not a toy, but it needed to be addressed and this felt like the best time to do that. This was in the room I was staying in. I started laughing when I saw them. Who needs so many Styrofoam Ho Ho Ho cups? I asked her why she had so many and she said she was giving them to her girls for Christmas. At that point she got pulled away and never finished explaining. Since I am still unclear, I'm assuming for Christmas my cousins are getting Styrofoam cups that are only good to use once a year. Merry Christmas y'all!

The amazing discovery was that my Aunt has tons of new, but also awesome old toys. A lot of them I remember playing with, or remember having one of my own. There were also a bunch of dolls and stuffed animals. Now I am all for keeping your kid's toys because they will be totally awesome when they get older. However, there are times when it's ok to get rid of things.

Exhibit A

1. What is wrong with his...her hair?
2. Why are, let's go with its, its eyes painted on looking sideways? With eyes like that I'm already thinking this doll is totally going to wake up and kill me in the middle of the night.
3. Why is it making that face? That is just creepy.

 Exhibit B, Exhibit A's BFF

1. WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR FACE?
2. I bet your BFF over there ripped it off because it couldn't get to me. That's right. I locked the door knowing what was coming. Good thing too, because that could be me. 

Exhibit C

1. Holy crap. The lighting didn't help the situation either.
2. What is going on with her hair?
3. This one totally would have killed me. But I put that monkey on top of her so she would rip the rest of his face off instead.

And with that, Thanksgiving has been recapped. I feel that leaving you with that terrifying image is probably for the best. Good luck sleeping tonight, and Happy Thanksgiving!

family thanksgiving part 2

I left off as we were heading downstairs to watch the last Texas vs. A&M game. I am a HUGE Longhorn and was excited as always but also sad for this years game. A&M is leaving the Big 12 so this was going to be the last game (in the foreseeable future) against these two teams. We have a winning record over them, W75-L37-T5, and I was hoping to add another win to that category. 

As the game started my stomach started feeling weird. I wasn't sure if I had eaten something that I shouldn't have (not on the Courtney food plan), or if I had caught some left over germs from my sister, Michael, or Miles. (The 3 of them had been sick over the previous weekend with a nasty case of the stomach flu.) I figured I had eaten something I shouldn't since I had been around them a few days and I hadn't felt badly yet. 

About halfway through the first quarter I went upstairs because it was getting worse. That's when it happened. Vomit city. Unfortunately there were no tv's upstairs and I didn't think I would make it downstairs to watch the game near one of those tv's, and near a bathroom. I could hear everyone downstairs cheering, and seconds later would get an update from my ESPN app telling me what had happened. I made many trips to the bathroom during one of the most exciting games ever! (Because of what was at stake, and because of what happened.) The only upside was we won! We are officially more awesome and way cooler than A&M. I already knew that, but now everyone else knows too.

I was sick all night long. I tried sleeping but that didn't work. I tried rolling over to my other side because my hips were sore, and that just led to me having to run to the bathroom. It was a sad, long, disgusting night. Being sick, even at a relatives house, is awful. All I wanted was to be home, Houston, Austin, either would have been better. The next morning my mom called checking in on me, and asked if I felt up to being in a car. I told her I just wanted to go home. (Insert pathetic, whiny voice here.) We decided to drive to Houston instead of Austin for a few reasons. 1. It was a shorter drive, 2. Miles wouldn't have to be in the car as long or have to get used to another new place to sleep, and 3. Then Rebecca, Michael, and I would drive Saturday morning to Austin to finish our awesomely planned weekend. (We were going to watch the Michigan vs. Ohio State game at a Michigan bar, hang out, and then go to a Master Pancake show at the Alamo Drafthouse called A Very Hanksgiving. It featured a mashup of all of Tom Hanks' movies and tv shows.)

After a long morning, well for someone who  hadn't slept all night, we left for Houston. My mom was nice enough to let me have the front seat, and my awesome giant brother in law was nice enough to let me lean my chair back some. He's a giant, he has giant legs that need to go somewhere, and he let me crunch those giant legs up. It was very nice of him. When we got home we all ate dinner and went to bed pretty early with the plan of the 3 of us waking up to head to Austin at 7 to make it in time for the game, and my parents would wake up just as early to take care of Miles. I woke up around 6 and checked my phone like I usually do and saw I had a text message from my sister. "Not going to Austin. Sleep in." Wait, what? She came in not much longer after I saw that text and I asked what happened. Apparently soon after I went to bed my parents came in and told my sister they were both sick. Ok, well at least I now knew it wasn't something I ate and possibly left over germs I had caught from the Chicago crew.

So we were Houston bound since the babysitters were officially sick.* No hotel room, no football game at a fun bar, and no Master Pancake Theater. Oh, and no official ride back to Austin at this point. I guess Greyhound could take me home. 

My poor parents kept their door shut all day, and would call us if they needed anything. My mom even told me to leave it at the door and knock. I didn't do that of course, but I thought it was funny she offered that. I did however totally hold my breath every time I went in there. Around 10 we got a call from my Aunt. My Uncle was sick too and felt like death. Not long after we got another call from her telling us my Grandpa was sick. Not longer after that, Zachary only made it halfway back to Dallas before having Jennifer pull over at a gas station to puke his guts out.

I'm sure my family probably hates me now and totally blames me. However, I think it is way more impressive if we blame this on Miles because his reign of terror is way better. Because he got sick earlier and in Michigan, he terrorized 4 states (Michigan, Illinois, Texas, Louisiana), and infected 3 cousins, 1 aunt, 1 grandpa and grandma, 1 great aunt and great uncle, 1 great grandfather, and 2 friends. That's a pretty impressive record for a 9 month old. Those stats are way cooler than mine, so I'm just putting all of the blame on him.

I was feeling better, but still tired on Saturday. We watched the Michigan game, Go Blue!, and tried to make it exciting for Michael. I don't think it was the same though.

After the game there was a great pianist that played for us. He is very talented.

We then went to the park. We tried to convince Rebecca we didn't need to add the car seat to the stroller because the basket thing underneath would totally work. She didn't go for it.

This was the best picture I could take of the ridiculousness that is his hair. It is amazing.

That night we rented some movies and Rebecca and Michael decided to have some wine. Rebecca broke the cork and so Michael found a medieval poking device to try to fix the problem.

It didn't really work so they had to shove it all the way down and then use my mom's loose tea leaf holder thing to strain the wine before drinking it.

Sunday everyone seemed to be on the mend and feeling better. Mom and dad actually emerged from their room. I was lucky enough to have a friend drive me back to Austin so I wouldn't have to take the Greyhound. Before leaving, Miles and I had to keep up with traditions and have a photo shoot. He wasn't having it that day, so there aren't many photos to show for it.

I think his face sums up this trip and Thanksgiving pretty well. Over. It.

*For those of you in Houston, I did want to see you. However, I was terrified I would start to infect the entire city of Houston so you should just be thanking me. Plus I'll be back in a few weeks for Christmas.