Mother-Daughter Date

I got a Cheesecake Factory gift card for my birthday! Heidi and I went today for a lunch date:

(Isn't Heidi a ham?) :)

Preschool Fire Station Visit

One of the kids was out sick. The tall kid is actually a kindergartener; he just tagged along with his little brother.

Misc

These two pics were taken earlier this month at Heidi's after-school GEMS club:

The picture quality on this one is really poor, but I got a kick out of the fact that they were carrying William around the house in a litter.

No caption needed.

These two pictures are from this month's staff appreciation event. Every month our PTO committee does something to show our appreciation to the school staff. This month it was a s'mores bar. Did you know you can make s'mores with Ritz crackers? And Reese's? (Google it. You're welcome.) The other committee member is not pictured because her daughter was sick:

Heidi's class Valentine's party.

Random Pics

Feeding the goats at the park. This was last week's playgroup.

Getting ready for church. William dressed himself.

At the park. We've been taking advantage of the warmer weather by visiting the park most days after school.

Art work in the school hall.

We hosted a groundhog-themed preschool this week. Spoiler alert: Phil says 6 more weeks of winter. :( 

P.F. Chang's. We joined Daddy there for lunch one day this week.

I turned my back for one minute, and this kid climbed into the bath with all his clothes on!

Science Fair

Heidi had a friend over and we did some fun science experiments to prep for the science fair. 

This was my favorite. We dissolved M&Ms in water, and the M floated to the top. (Can you see it?)

Heidi's final project. She got a "WINNER" ribbon. (She was the only submission from her class.)

Lizzie's final project. She typed it up and did all the work herself. She got a "2nd Place" ribbon.
(There were only two submissions in her class, and the other one was pretty elaborate.)

Grandma and Grandpa

My camera broke back in August, and my phone doesn't take the best pictures, so I've been really slacking about taking pictures lately. But here are the few pictures that I took from Grandma and Grandpa Ellsworth's visit:

We went to Menchie's to celebrate the girls' good report cards

We joined the girls at school for lunch

We went to Chuy's for some Tex Mex

Grandma and Grandpa read books and played games with the kiddos

San Antonio and New Braunfels

We spent one night of our trip in Fredericksburg and one night in San Antonio. In San Antonio we drove around the Riverwalk, Alamo Plaza, and Main Plaza to see the Christmas lights. (It's become an annual tradition for us. Normally we would have walked it, but it was super cold!) Then we saw an awesome light show.

We spent the next day in New Braunfels: at Landa Park, Historic Gruene, and with a pit stop at Rudy's on the way home to Austin:

Trying to sneak up on the squirrels

Gruene (pronounced Green) was also a German settlement, but now it has a bunch of antique and specialty shops. Some of the fun ones were Gruene with Envy, Gruene Eggs & Ham, Fickle Pickles, and Pookie Jane's. 

We stopped in at this old dance hall with live music. Liz and Owen hated it (Owen wouldn't take his fingers out of his ears, and Liz actually started crying!?!), but Emily and Heidi had fun.

Rudy's BBQ

Stonehenge II

Moai replica

Fredericksburg

Fredericksburg was founded in the mid-1800s by Germans. We did a driving tour of the historic district. The kids were pretty bored out of their minds, but they had fun playing at the Marketplatz for a few minutes:

There was a skating rink set up. They stole some of the ice to have a snowball fight...

...William wasn't a fan.

We bought some fancy European chocolates:

And a sausage roll from the Old German Bakery:

And we checked out the historic library, where we read a few books and played with some toys: