the road goes on forever (much like the pictures in this post)...

I think I am just now recovering from our holiday road trip. The new toys are still not put away, but I've stopped trying because you can't fit an elephant into a mouse hole. We had a very successful trip. We kicked off Christmas on Sunday, Dec 21 with an early visit from Santa. He brought lots of good stuff, including every princess costume known to man. Seems like Santa thought ahead and bought them all half off right after Halloween...smart man. The girls were adorable opening their presents, and it didn't matter that I hadn't bought them matching pajamas because the stripped off their clothes to try on the new costumes....








We left town on Christmas Eve, and drove for about 14 hours. The girls were awesome in the car, and we were able to make it all the way to Hillsboro. We went ahead and stopped because we were going to meet up with our friends in Temple the next day. Addy woke up at three in the morning, and in her disoriented state, managed to walk off the bed and faceplant onto the floor. Makes for awesome Christmas pictures for the rest of the trip...

What it looked like as we were leaving Iowa:













The girls after about 12 hours in the car:































Christmas Day at the Hogg's was spent eating time-consuming Southern food, drinking red wine out of styrofoam "Ho, Ho, Hogg" cups, and watching the kids make mudpies in the backyard. In Aubrey's words, "it just felt so good to be back in Texas" For reference, Addy turned 2 on 11/22 and reaves turned 4 on 12/5...my kid is gigantic!










After the Hogg's, we headed to Nanny and GGDada's house, where the girls ended up talking Nanny into opening every one of their presents! Those girls know how to work those grandmas! hehe GGDada was busy helping Dave figure out his computer, so he didn't get to see them open any.























The next day we headed to Mimi and Pops' house for the annual Kohl Christmas photo shoot, which always produces some laughs. I will post outtakes another day:

















Attack of the unflattering green shirts....a gift from Clearance, I can only assume:














While we were down south, we also went to Gruene with Houston and Katy. We stayed in a really cute place, ate great food, and listened to Todd Snider at Gruene Hall. It was a blast! I didn't have my camera, but I managed to get some decent pics with my phone.



















In addition to all the fun stuff, we were productive too. I took the GRE, and Dave and I went looking for houses with our friend, Meridith who also doubles as our realtor. We found an awesome neighborhood, Grand Mesa at Crystal Falls, in Leander, and we can't wait to get back this summer to see if there are any houses that will work for us on the market. If not, we'll start building! It's a really exciting time in our lives right now! We weren't even that bummed about coming back to Iowa, knowing that we have less than 6 months left here. We left Austin last Saturday at 2pm and drove straight through. We parked in front of our apartment at 6 AM on Sunday morning, 16 hours later and about 70 degrees colder!!
And finally, the reason why my living room still looks like a storage unit. This was our car on the return trip:

my convo with the stylist...

Me: So, Aubrey...you know it's always good to tell the truth.
Aubrey: Yes, mommy.
Me: So, Aubrey...have you ever cut your hair?
Aubrey (eyes widening): What?
Me: Have you ever cut your hair?
Aubrey (eyes wider, slight hint of the n.... sound starting to slip from her mouth): Yes, mommy.
Me: Thank you so much for telling me the truth, Aubrey. I appreciate you telling me the truth. Now, why did you cut your hair?
Aubrey (smiling now knowing that mommy isn't totally mad): Because I wanted my hair to be shorter.
Me: You know that people go to school to learn how to cut hair, right? We pay people to do that, so the next time you want to get a haircut, just tell Mommy. We'll go somewhere, but you don't have to do it yourself.
Aubrey (lost in thought for several moments): But didn't it look AWESOME?
Me (unable to control my laughter at this moment): Well, it did look pretty good, I actually didn't even notice. However, it could've been really bad, so please don't do it again. How exactly did you cut it?
Aubrey: Well, I couldn't cut the back. I could only cut the sides. I didn't think you would find that hair under my bed.
Me: Mommy knows everything...you can't hide anything from me, so let's not try it again, ok?
Aubrey: Ok, mommy.

These moments are why my life is so awesome. Hair will grow back, and I know that I am raising a child who tells the truth, even when she thinks she might be in trouble. That feels good.

a hairy situation...

So, I thought I would be good and actually get things cleaned up around here before updating my blog with Christmas pics. I will get that post done sometime this week, but I have to share this quickly. Addy went down for a nap about 45 minutes ago, so I thought I would tackle Aubrey's room first. I was down on the floor trying to figure out what to do with all the new books since they weren't fitting on the bookshelf when I looked over and realized that Aubrey had placed some toys under her bed. I started pulling the stuff out and noticed something a little strange. There was a lock of hair that resembled the beautiful tresses on my own little princess...she does have beautiful hair...

I was like, that's weird...I don't think we have any dolls with hair like that...Barbies don't have that color hair....Whoa, here is some more....and more.....and more......there's no way....right? There is no way that MY kid cut her own hair...I was just watching Super Nanny the other night and totally talked crap about the mom who let her kid cut his hair at the dinner table....so no, not MY kid............................... right?







WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Even worse is that my kid cut her own hair, and possibly some of her sister's red locks as well, and then HID it from me under her bed!!!! The best part is that alongside her hair was her pretend vacuum..........



Upon discovering the vacuum, the memory of when this took place came flooding back. One day during Christmas break, while Addy was napping, I thought I would take a shower. I asked Aubrey if she wanted the craft box, thinking she might want to create a masterpiece while I was getting clean. I figured that was pretty safe. I have safety scissors in the craft box, but I knew she couldn't stab herself with those. When I got out of the shower, I went in her room to check on her and she was vacuuming. I thought it was so cute, and I was thrilled that she was interested in tidying up her room. Little did I know, she was just trying to cover her tracks!!!! I can't wait to see the look on her face when I ask her about it this afternoon. :)

Happy New Year!

I will get back to bloggin' when we return to Iowa. I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year! Dave and I are pumped about what we have in store for 2009, the best being our return to Austin! Stay tuned for pictures from our Christmas roadtrip. Love to all! jenn