Thanksgiving/ 2nd Thanksgiving

Like I said, I'm having phone camera issues. Hence I have exactly one picture of actual Thanksgiving. Here it is:

The Burwell women...checking out Black Friday ads after we've stuffed our faces!

2nd Thanksgiving

Because Tim and Samuel were at the Cowboys game on T-giving we did a 2nd one! Two delicious dinners on two different days? Yes, please!

Here's Isaac helping T with some dinner prep. Mr. I is loving being a kitchen helper lately!

We were so happy to have Nana over to share a Thanksgiving meal with us!

Getting down to some GoNoodle.com videos to make room for pie!

Here's Lillie with her 1st homemade apple pie. This girl is so good at whatever she tries! 

(And of course this pie was delicious!)

Dad and Grant at the Snake Farm

Next was Grant's turn for a day out with Dad. His one true love for the past few years has been snakes. All things snakes. So Tim took him up to New Braunfels for the day to the World Famous (c'mon it's been featured on the show Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe) Snake Farm and Zoo. Grant totally loved it and came home with all sorts of stories of the creepy crawlies that he got to see.

Dude - your hair totally rocks.

Dad and Samuel go to the Thanksgiving Day Cowboys game!

Samuel and Tim love the Cowboys. Tim wanted to take Samuel to experience a game in person so we got tickets to the Big Thanksgiving Day game and T surprised S. He was so stoked!

 Here they are ready to head out to Dallas:

Outside AT&T stadium

This is freaking awesome!!!

Of course they had a totally great time AND to top of the days excitement, the Cowboys won! 

They beat the Redskins 31-26

Happy 35th Mom!

I turned 35...yay! It was a great day!

However, no other pics of this day and sadly no pics of fall or pre-Christmas fun. My iphone camera had something funky happen and it wouldn't focus the camera. Sad days!  Rest assured though that even though we can't remember what they were, we had a fabulous November and December!

Here's one cutie I managed to capture though!

Surprise Hooky...

The 2016 Presidential Election (Clinton vs. Trump) has been.....contentious.....heated....nation dividing....and a ridiculous display of childishness to say the least. The early voting polls (while fine for the most part) made the news with stories of violence breaking out as voters in hours long lines broke out in fights. And my kiddos elementary school is a voting location. And the line to get in goes like, 2 centimeters from my kids walking in a line to the cafeteria. While I knew the odds were in my favor that nothing bad was going to happen I didn't want to take any chances. Thus I planned a day of hooky for the two boys (unbeknownst to them).
We got ready for the day - as normal. Dropped Lillie off first - which was not normal. (I made up some excuse about needing to go into the elem. school and not wanting to make her wait.) Once I dropped Lillie off I turned around to the boys and said: "guess what?! You're not going to school today! I'm letting you stay home and we're gonna have fun all day + go to Chuck E. Cheese!" In case you couldn't picture their reaction a photo is posted below:

They even got to play H-E-Buddy bucks on a trip to the grocery store!

Another bonus: turns out Tuesdays at Chuck E. Cheese are half price so they got to play twice as many games!

The day was a total blast and totally worth it! I love you guys!

Redland Oaks Bike Rodeo 2016-2017

     Well it's Grant's 3rd bike rodeo and Samuel's....pause to wipe a tear away...last. This is such a fun tradition that the elementary schools do around here. Grant went to school sure of himself as usual. He's won 1st in Kinder and 1st and was certain he'd win 1st again this year. Samuel on the other hand went to school excited and hopeful. He had one last chance to win that 1st place trophy and a chance to compete in the city-wide bike rodeo.

G with Mrs. Alyson Mulroy

Aaaaaand the results are in!
Samuel came barreling up the driveway, whipped out his trophy and screamed "I got 1st place! I got 1st place!" He told of how as they announced the places over the intercom at the end of the day the tension built as they announced 3rd, then 2nd place and his name hadn't been called. And then when they announced: "...and the 1st place winner for the 5th grade boys division is Samuel Doolittle!" Well I guess the entire class went crazy and were yelling and clapping and jumping all around Samuel. It sounds like it was awesome! I am so stinkin' excited for him! Way to go dude!

So G looks excited here but only because I told him to smile. He won 1st again! Yay! But he went to school totally expecting to win and when he did and his class was excited...well...apparently he said something along the lines of "yeah, I knew I would win. I win every year.".....WOW. Just wow. But I'm excited for him too. A dose of humility is sure to find you at some point in life Grant. 

I just love you to pieces kid!

And here's a random pic taken from upstairs to the foyer down below. The boys laid there and had Isaac throw all their dirty clothes onto them from the overlook. Too funny. Well, at least they were obeying when I told them I wanted them to take their clothes down to the laundry room ;)