October

October is always a fun month, but also very busy! This October was no exception!! It is the start of the holiday season!! Here are the highlights from our month!!

With Preschool, comes holiday parties and treats for friends! For Halloween, Maggie and I made some "Halloween S'mores" to pass out to her friends. I wish I could take full credit for this cute treat, but I must admit I found the idea on Pinterest. I love when other people share their creative genius!! The treats were very easy to make and Maggie was a great helper!! I must admit, they were a hit with all the kids and parents!!!

 

Halloween means pumpkin carving! Boo!! I really do not enjoy carving pumpkins. It is messy, it is time comsuming and it is hard!! I am probably the world's worse pumpkin carver!!! But this year was different!!!! One of my friends gave the girls a "Pumpkin Head" witch set. The sets are made by the Potato Head people and are the easiest, cutest way to decorate a pumpkin with little kids. There are many characters available and look forward to adding to our collection!! The girl were big helpers on this too! Very easy for them to participate and they were so proud of the result!!

 

Every year around Halloween, IHOP has free scary face pancakes for kids. The pancakes come with candy corn and cookies for the kids to decorate with! And did I mention they are free? We took a family trip to IHOP for breakfast and had a good time. Sophie wasnt really into decorating her pancake, she just wanted to eat all the pieces of candy and cookies!! Maggie was a little more into it and had to concentrate very hard! She was very excited when her scary face pancake was complete!! This will definitely be a Gutierrez Halloween Tradition!!

 

 

Finally the month comes to an end and that means Halloween and Trick or Treating. We have the annual "Trunk or Treat" at church and then get to enjoy traveling through the neighborhood knocking on doors. Since we had 2 opportunites to dress up this year, the girls of course could not wear the same costume!!! They enjoyed Halloween so much this year and looked absolutely adorable in ALL of their costumes!!

 

 

Trike-a-thon

Maggie's Preschool hosted a Trike-a-Thon to support St. Jude's Children's hospital. The week leading up to the trike-a-thon, the teachers taught bike safety. Maggie was very upset one evening when we went to the park to ride her bike and her daddy forgot her helmet!!! She takes her bike safety seriously!!! The day of the trike-a-thon, each class had a time slot where the kids were able to ride their bikes around the parking lot. Maggie was little scared and wouldnt ride without help. She made it around 4 times, but then called it quits after that. It was cute to watch all the youngsters zooming around and having fun!

 

 

 

 

Maggie started PreSchool

My sweet little Mags got to start Preschool this year. We enrolled her in a private school right down the street from where I work. She goes 3 days a week and is loving it!!! I am so glad that we were able to get her in. Maggie's preschool started a week after the local public schools and that was the longest week ever!!!! She didn't understand why her friends couldn't come over to play, they were all at school (most of them started kindergarten this year). She has already learned so much and really enjoys the time she spends there. We are so blessed that she has this opportunity and it should make the transition to Kindergarten a breeze!

Singing in the rain...

The drought this summer really made it hard for us to get outside much. The girls absolutely love to be out doors!! We were blessed one September evening with a short spout of rain. It cooled down the temperature and provided a few minutes of good old fashioned fun! And the girls finally got to use their umbrellas for rain instead of as a sun shield!!!

 

July 2011

Next Stop Sea World! Can you think of a better place to go during the hottest summer ever? It was great to beable to jump into water whenever things started to get too uncomfortable. Sea World has a neat section just for kids with fun rides and the Sesame Street Characters are all there. While we couldnt convince Sophie to take any pictures, Maggie was thrilled to have her picture taken with Zoe.

 

We took the kids to the River Walk and enjoyed an evening of Latin Music at the ampitheater. We were able to sneak in a few cute photo opportunities!

 

For Independence Day we went to the Belton Parade, a tradition we started a few years ago. We made it through the whole parade without melting!. It was too hot to do much of anything so we spent the rest of the day at the city water park!

 

 

June: Children's Museum

As part of our family vacation this summer, we made a trip to the Children's Museum in San Antonio. It was a fun experience and the girls got to explore many things. Their favorite part was the Mini HEB Store. There were kid sized carts, grocery and produce items, and even cash registers to check each other out. We really spent the majority of the time there.

 

 

They also got to learn how to milk a cow, a worthy skill to learn. I doubt that they would have been so good if it were actually a live cow!

 

The museum stop was definitely the best part of the trip

Happy Birthday Sophie!

My little Sophie turns two years old today. Its hard to believe that my baby is now 2. She is such a joy and I have enjoyed watching her grow the last 2 years. From a sweet little baby...


To an independent 2 year old...



We had a nice family get together and Sophie wanted her friend Owen to come. She had so much fun opening her presents! She loves wearing her sunglasses and keeps asking to take the fish that Mimi & Poppy gave her out of the water.



She seemed a little unsure when we started singing to her,but really enjoyed eating the cupcake!





And of course we cant forget the pinata-that would be like Easter with no eggs or 4th of July with no fireworks!! Always a big HIT!!



It was a fun time and I am glad that the people we love most were able to be there to share it with us.

Old friends and new friends

When I was in college, I went through roommates pretty quickly. I think I may have been a little difficult to live with at times, but in my defense, there was also lots of fun times as well. I have 2 good friends, who were also my roommates at one time, that I still keep in touch with and am so blessed to still have their friendship. Miranda lives way too far away in Arizona, and Exsa lives up in the Ft Worth area. Miranda and Exsa came to visit in April. It was so nice to get to see them and spend time together.



I finally got to meet Miranda's husband and little boy. Miranda's little boy, Donovan is just about a month older than Maggie. They got along so well and played together so nicely and really were just the cutest little things ever!!




It was a great visit and I look forward to many more to come!!

A new front door

One of the items on my list for the year was to get a new front door. The door that came with the house was ok, but not really my taste. The wood trim on the outside was all rotten and I was not a fan of the dark wood. Actually I think it was pretty darn ugly! Dont you agree?


I ordered exactly what I wanted- a solid 6 paneled door with 2 full sidelights-nothing over the top fancy, but classic and nice. I really wanted a red door, but was not willing to pay an extra $800 for the door company to paint it. I have a beautiful red color picked out-its just finding the time to get it painted! Yikes that is a challenge! Here is the before again:


Here is the during:




And the after (minus the red paint):

Soccer

My husband has 2 passions-dancing and soccer. He was thrilled that Maggie finally got to play soccer this year. And was even more thrilled that he got to coach her soccer team. The city had a 5 week long indoor little tikes soccer league for 3 and 4 year olds. I was a little worried that Maggie was going to crush Gerson's dreams when she came to me during the first game and said "Mommy, I dont want to be a soccer player, I want to be a ballerina." Gerson was persistent and Maggie ended up having a really good time. It was so fun and cute to watch! Maggie and "Coach Daddy" are both looking forward to next year!!

Easter Celebrations!

Easter this year was super fun and super busy!! It all started with an Easter Egg Hunt at my work. I had promised Maggie we could go and she was really looking forward to playing on the new playground that was just put in. There was a ton of kids, so we didnt stay for long, but it was fun and got the weekend rolling.




Friday evening was our church Easter Social. Hamburgers, hotdogs and Easter eggs! Yum yum. My Relief Society activities comitee and I put together Resurrection Eggs, aka 12 Eggs of Easter for all the families in the ward. They are a great way to teach/learn the Easter Story. Unfortunately I didnt get any pictures of them-maybe next year :)

Saturday we went to a friends for brunch and yet another egg hunt!! The girls dont ever seem to get tired of hunting for eggs!!!




Sunday was nice a quiet. We didnt make any plans for a family dinner or anything and I didnt mind too much, espiecially since we have been so busy all weekend. I made the girls some new dresses for Easter and I have to say they sure did turn out super cute!!! I got the girls dressed a little early to try and take some pictures. I got a few good ones, but I am no photographer and they are not very good at listening to me! That's ok cause they sure are adorable!!!