Jordan's 1st dance recital!!

Hello all,
Here's videos and pictures from Jordan's 1st tap dance recital. She was so excited to perform on stage! Not nervous at all. Rob, Jacob and I loved watching her. Jacob was very impatient for his sisters turn! The file was to large to post it as one video so I broke it up into two. You'll notice Jordan's teacher, Miss Megan, suddenly appear. She was not supposed to be there. I guess that is to be expected with a bunch of 4 year old girls. She said it was her 4th class that she had to go on stage with. Jacob brought Jordan a dozen pink roses. If you listen carefully to the video you will hear him ask if he can give her the flowers now. I hope you all enjoy it as much as we did! We know this is just the first of many.





Jordan before her recital

Showing Mommy her Plié

I am dropping Jordan off in the "Big Girls" ballet room. She had to stay there with Miss Megan until it's time for her to perform. She thought that was great!

Jacob gracefully give Jordan her 1st bouquet of flowers.



Sitting together on stage. Jacob wants to know when he gets to go on stage! Jordan is always teaching him things that she learned in class. Rob just loves that!!


Jacob really was proud of his sister!

Doesn't she look so grown up??

Jordan's beautiful flowers

New car seats!!

Jacob and Jordan's new car seats just got here. We got them Britax Frontiers. They are great car seats. We are able to keep them in a 5 point harness up to 80 pounds and then it converts to a booster until 100+ pounds. Most car seats only have 5 point harness to 40 pounds, a few to 65. Rob and I were not ready to put the kids in a booster with just a seat belt. The kids are still way to squirmy to stay seated correctly in a regular seat belt. 5 point harness's are so much safer. For some reason I thought a booster seat was more than just a chair to raise the kids up to get the adult seat belt to sit correctly, it isn't. Kids have to stay still and seated perfectly for the adult seat belt to work correctly. My twins sure don't do that! Stay still, HAH!! I just wish that I had this information when the kids out grew their infant seats. I wouldn't have had to buy the 2nd one. Could have saved some money.
When I was doing research for this car seat I also realized how misleading car seat packaging is. You really have to read closely to see when the 5 point harnessing stops. I know that several of my girlfriends were under the impression that they could 5 point harness their kiddos in their car seats much longer than they actually could because of the way it was worded on the box.
I also believe that if more consumers would request extended 5 point harness feature on more car seats the price would become much lower. The one we bought was NOT cheap. I just think a lot of people think that when their kiddos get to 40 pounds you just move them to a booster. No options and it's just as safe as 5 point harness! Not true.

When used correctly, 5-point harness car seats provide significant safety advantages over securing your child in a booster seat using the adult seat belt.
* The crash forces are spread over the skeletal body
over five points rather than three.
* The crash forces are spread to the strongest parts
of the child's body.
* Forward head excursion (the distance the head is
thrown forward) are lessened.
* The child is secured in the correct seating position rather
than being able to wiggle around, lean forward etc.

OK, off my soap box!
This is the very last car seat that we will have to buy for them! YIPPEE!!

Check out this web site. Some of the videos will give you chills. http://www.kyledavidmiller.org

Thanksgiving Day Parade

Hi everyone,
Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! We were by ourselves this year so we decided to take the kids to the Houston Thanksgiving Day Parade. We bought tickets to make sure Jacob and Jordan could see the parade. It was very well worth it. We had to leave the house at 7:00 to make sure we were in our seats on time. As soon as we got to our seats we got presents! T-shirts for the kids from Children's Place. That was just the beginning of all the stuff the kids accumulated at the parade. Thank goodness the t-shirts came in big bags so we had a place to put all the stuff. Jacob and Jordan were magnets for everyone in the parade. Everyone stopped by to give them high five, say hello or to give them candy or a trinket. Jordan waved practically the entire parade. Both of them loved it. We will go back next year for sure, that is if we are still here!
I hope you enjoy the pictures.

This was the name of the section of seating we sat in. Appropriate huh?

Both kids loved the marching bands. The drums were their favorite

Sporting some of their gifts and eating more candy!!

Aren't these bicycles neat? No pedals. The arms do all the work.

Even pimped out cars in this parade! Notice that the car on the left is on 3 wheels!

A Texas Christmas tree

No Thanksgiving parade would be complete without the big guy himself!

Rob's Birthday and The Renaissance Festival

Jacob and Jordan helped make Rob breakfast in bed for his birthday. They were so excited to do this. They both ran into their play room to get their aprons. They even arranged Rob's plate so it looked like a smiley face.
Here are the kids giving Rob his birthday cards.


Now that Rob and the kids have been fed we were off on our adventure. We had decided to spend the day at the Texas Renaissance Festival. It's located in a town called Plantersville, about 45 minutes from us. The festival itself is on about a 500 acre piece of land. We were a little hesitant to go there with the kids because we had heard that some of the people that go there dress VERY provocatively. We shouldn't have worried. The place was so kid friendly. We got there about 9:30 and stayed until around 4:30. We all had such a good time. I hope you enjoy all the pictures and videos from our super fun day.


When we first walked in the festival the street was lined with people selling their wares. Jordan went right over to the hat booth. I thought this one was so cute.
The first thing that we did with the kids at the festival was face painting. They got to choose what they wanted from a sandwich board full of different designs. Jordan zeroed in right away on a pink and purple unicorn. She thought it was beautiful. This painter girl is making a killing! Both kids were so patient waiting in line for their turns.
Time for the sparkles. After all what's a unicorn with out sparkles?
What a gorgeous unicorn. Jordan couldn't stop looking at herself in the mirror.
As you can see, Jacob chose a snake. This is so he can be scary. He sat still so well. I thought he would be very fidgety.
Close your eyes Jacob, time for the glitter.
Now that is a good looking snake.
These swings were so much fun. There are 2 ropes that each of us got to hold. The harder you pull the ropes the higher you go. Jacob told Daddy that they were going to high and Jordan kept saying, higher, higher!



What festival would be complete with out a pony ride?

We just had to do this one. Both kids rang the bell, with a little help from Mom and Dad.



This was a big cage maze. The lady working it was saying "Put your kids in the cage where they belong!" All this for only $2. We tried to convince her to keep them for the day but she wasn't going for it. Jordan found a golden coin in there. She was really excited.

Next we were onto the arena to watch the Jousting match. The arena was huge. So we settled in with some meat on a stick and a huge dill pickle to watch the fun. No proper Jousting event can go on with out the Queen. So, here is her Lady in Waiting, in front, and the Queen!! It was pretty warm that day. Those women must have been roasting in those dresses.

Jacob was mesmerized.
The people working the Jousting event really did a great job getting the crowd into the spirit of things. Our section was rooting for England and Sir Thomas. The wench in the picture taught us cheers and interacted with us before the horse riders came out into the arena. When Jacob and Jordan found out that our guy was Sir Thomas they both said, "just like our Uncle Tommy!" So from then on he was Sir Uncle Thomas! There was another jouster that looked just like Sting. I told that to the kids and then he became Sir Sting. The twins really got into it. They were both cheering for our guy and booing the other riders.
This is the first round of jousting. Our guy has to knock him off to move on. He does.
Here's Sir Uncle Thomas getting ready to knock Sir Sting right on his kiester! Sir Uncle Thomas wins the Jousting!
Games, games everywhere. The festival had so many games for the kids to play. There were some that we decided not to let them play, knife and sword throwing and shooting bows and arrows were just a couple that we thought might be a little to dangerous. These were right up their alley.

We were in Sherwood Forest and saw that they had llama rides. I thought the kids would be to scared to ride one. Nope! Pay the man that had not combed his hair in years and we were good to go. Both kids thought it was fun to ride a llama. Rob and I just kept hoping we wouldn't get spit on.





I never in a million years thought that I would get to ride an elephant. This was so much fun! Did you know that elephant ears are very hard and bumpy. Jacob and Jordan were knocking on them and it sounded just like a piece of wood. They were not the least bit nervous. Just went right up the steps and got right on. On the other hand, I was a little nervous.



This castle was part of a great maze. The kids and I would have spent hours in there trying to find our way out. Lucky for us a 7 year old girl dressed as fairy helped us find our way out much quicker. Jacob and Jordan thought it was great that a fairy helped us out. She ranks right up there with the Passy Fairy and the Pom Pom Fairy.
There were tons of rides for the kids. Here they are riding the carousel. I guess it's to boring to just sit on the horses now.
This brought back memories of the Tea Cup ride at Disney World. Jordan was not thrilled with going Super Sonic fast spinning. She said we just needed to go medium Super Sonic!
Imagine that, Jerry Garcia alive and well at the Texas Renaissance Festival!!

Some of the characters we met at the festival.
This Jester had Jacob cracking up. They both really went our of their way to entertain the kids.


Yes, that's a half man half horse with his leather wearing slave girl!! (who happens to be pushing a wheel chair, did they have wheel chairs back then?)
These fairy wings were everywhere! I can't believe we managed to get through the entire festival with out Jordan having to have a pair of her own.
I'll leave you now with a bit of Celtic music from a band called the Taranics. There's even a dancing girl. I can tell you first hand that those boys don't wear anything under those kilts!!