Vegas, Baby, Vegas!

What do these guys......

These people...

And these people have in common?

If you said, "Vegas, Baby, Vegas!"  You got it!  After an impromptu text from my husband on Monday night that said, "Wanna go to Vegas?"  Tickets are bought, sweet grandparents are booked and I am working on finding some clothes with glitter on them to head to this magical place very soon!  I have never been before! I am so excited!  Nick went with some friends for his bachelor party in 2004 before we were married, but that is it!  Oh and a little trivia fact about me, my great uncle Marvin wrote the song, "Viva Las Vegas," that Elvis performed.  So you know, I have roots with that town!  Just kidding! But really, how exciting!  Any tips?  Things we HAVE to see?  Let me know...
Happy New Year!  We are going to have a low key New Year's Celebration with sweet friends.  We will hopefully be celebrating a SOONER WIN!  I forgot what that feels like! I wish everyone blessings for 2010!

A Merry Christmas To All And To All A Good Night!

We had a wonderful, traditional Christmas this year.  It was just the three of us (well four if you count Margo).  That is the first time in our six Christmas' as a married couple that Nick and I have ever experienced that.  We love visiting our families, but it was so nice to not have to rush and hurry around through the holiday.  Santa came straight to our house and that was a treat.  Also, two Christmas miracles happened:  1.  We had a white Christmas! 2.  This very UN- domestic goddess cooked TWO meals!  Wow!  I mean that is impressive, right?!

We had a traditional Christmas Eve dinner of roast turkey, cornbread dressing, mashed potatoes, green beans and cranberry sauce.  Just in case you do not believe me, here is the photo evidence!

Even Allison enjoyed it!

The turkey did not catch on fire, the house did not burn down and nobody got sick; all in all, I would call that a successful cooking venture!  Even Nick said, "Wow, this was all actually really good, Kelly."   That's right, it was really good!

I woke up early the next morning to prepare breakfast.  I had to take a picture of what Santa left in our living room!

I also had to take some pictures of our "winter wonderland" outside!  Our light up bears, penguin and sea lion looked so cute in the snow!

What a wonderful thing...A WHITE CHRISTMAS!!!! This was my first one ever!  Once again to show that I can be a little domestic, I cooked.  I made a Baked Sunrise Frittata and Monkey Bread Rolls.  YUM!  That is all I have to say.  The Monkey Bread Rolls are probably the most unhealthy thing I have ever made, but they were really good!  They were addicting!  We couldn't stop eating them!  Once again here are pictures to prove this occurred.

After breakfast came the exciting part...PRESENTS!!!!!  Allison is a pro and had a great time opening her gifts!

Santa brought Allison a learning table, a baby doll, a stroller and a new book!  Boy, was he ever generous!  Santa thought Allison would love a baby doll since she goes nuts every time she walks down the baby doll aisle at Wal-Mart, well, she kind of has a love/hate relationship with the baby doll.  She was angry because the baby had a pacifier, she has been pacifier free for five months, but I guess the "want" for one never goes away!  She also wanted the baby's bottle. She also tried to get in the baby's stroller! I think she will learn to fully love her eventually, but for now, she drags her to me.  I guess I take care of babies.
We spent the rest of the day playing and eating...more monkey bread!  What a blessed day!  I hope you and your family had a wonderful Christmas too!

Big Girl Parties!

Caroline and Mary Claire were so sweet to invite Allison to their school Christmas parties!  Allison LOVED it!  Here are some pictures of Caroline's party.  She is in first grade....

Here are some pictures from Mary Claire's party.  She is in Kindergarten...

Thank you girls for letting Allison be your guest at the party! It was so fun!

Brunch With Santa

Allison and I flew back in time for Brunch with Santa at the Country Club.  This is an annual event and it is really fun.  Obviously, Allison was too little to notice much last year.  In fact, here she is at last year's Santa Brunch...so little! Of course I was nervous about brunch this year because, well, we met Santa and it did not go well, click here if you want to relive that experience, I know I don't!  This one was much better, I think mainly because I held her when she met Santa....

Of course she had LOTS of friends there.  She loved seeing all of them!

And it was so fun because she had her grandfather there too!  Nick's dad came out to Borger for the weekend, we had a great time!

Oh and they had biscuits too! Allison LOVED that...she ate TWO!  She is kind of like her mother, she likes CARBS!!

That night, Allison opened a Christmas gift!  She practiced before the big day came!  Nick's sweet grandparents sent her a singing dog!  Talk about something right up her alley!  She LOVES dogs!  In fact, she talks about dogs all the time!  What a great gift!

What a fun weekend!

Fort Worth Fun!

As I wrote earlier, Allison and I took a fun filled trip to Fort Worth for almost two weeks!  We had a lot of fun and it was great to see my parents, my grandmother, lots of other dear family and many friends!
We flew in on December 3.  Nick had some hunting trips planned, so he came up with the sweet idea to let us take a "girls" vacation down to Cowtown!  Of course we stayed with my sweet parents aka "Cici" and "Papa K."  Here are some cute shots with them!

Allison had the awesome opportunity to visit The Little Gym one day.  I am pretty sure she had the most fun she has ever had in her whole life! She loved it!  The teacher even commented on how proud she was that Allison was laughing and having a great time with it!  She said there are usually some tears on the first day, not our little daredevil!  She did a somersault, which she wants to do constantly now!  She puts her head down on the ground, puts her bottom in the air and waits for us to push her over in her roll!  It is so cute!  I was always too scared to do gymnastics. Here are some pictures of this neat place!  If you live near one...GO!!! I would definitely have Allison in classes if it were an option for us!

While in Fort Worth, we were fortunate enough to see many sweet friends!  Thank you Lindsay and Desiree for meeting Allison and me for dinner!  Also, Michelle, it breaks my heart we could not see each other, but next time... definitely!   And Sarah, we will certainly see you and Will next time! We were also EXTREMELY fortunate to see Zach and Tiffany Blazek!  The Blazeks are our dear friends from Borger.  They moved to Houston last spring.  Zach is four months older than Allison and a lady killer!  He is precious!  He is tall, blonde, blue eyed and super cute....what more could a girl want?!  Allison loves him (and so do I)!  Tiffany, Zach, her sweet mother and precious grandmother came to Fort Worth for some girl (and one boy!) time with her sister, Kristen, who lives in Fort Worth.  They were kind enough to meet us for lunch at Yogi's.  Tiffany is also expecting their second baby, a girl, in February!  What an exciting time!  Here are some shots of our lunch, notice the kiddos, this is AFTER they ate lunch...

I'm pretty sure Allison wanted to eat Zach up!  He was not too sure of her!  He is more of the strong, silent type and Allison is well...Allison...remember this Allison moment? While we were at Yogi's, a sweet lady who worked there saw Allison and Zach...she thought they would enjoy suckers.  Well surprise, surprise...they LOVED them!!!

Thank you so much Tiff!  What a blessing to see you all! We miss you tons!

Along with friends, we saw family!  We saw GranMimi (my Mimi) A LOT!  Allison loved her!  She loved playing in her beautiful home!  We were also able to see my cousins and their children.  I did not bring my camera so I did not get pictures!  I hate that, but we had a great time with all of the cousins and their cute kiddos!  Here are a few shots with GranMimi...

While in Fort Worth, Allison went with my mom, dad and me to get Nick's Christmas gift.  This is always an ordeal and I always end up getting Nick something boring and UN-exciting...clothes!  Well, not this year, my dad came to the rescue.  He suggested a Golf Buddy Pro GPS golf range finder.  We made the trip to Golf Smith in Arlington (they were so helpful!) to make the purchase.  Here are a few pictures of sassy Allison before we left....

Nick has always said he wants his little girl to be a golfer, while I really want her to be my running buddy.  We will just have to see which way she leans! I know he will be glad to see these pictures of her at Golf Smith.  Normally, I would say, "Watch out, Tiger Woods," but I think he already is watching out for petite blonde girls!

Of course the GPS golf range finder was a big hit on Christmas morning!  Thanks Daddy for the awesome suggestion!

Speaking of GPS things, Nick gave me my Christmas gift a little early.  He gave me a Garmin Forerunner 405 GPS watch to use for running.  I LOVE IT! He gave it to me early so I could use it during the White Rock Half Marathon in Dallas. Brett, Alesha and Brett's brother Kyle came down to Dallas for the weekend of December 13.  They picked me up in Fort Worth and we spent Saturday, December 12 in Dallas.  Geniuses that Alesha and I are, we went to North Park Mall and shopped (with every other person in Dallas!). It was so crowded, but we had a GREAT time!  We both had on our coats and thought we looked like a Christmas tree!  Here are some photos of that...

On Sunday, we got up early to run the White Rock Half.  We had a great time!  It was so much fun running 13.1 miles versus the 26.2 miles of a full marathon.  I might be ruined!  I might only do halves from now on!  It is all the fun and atmosphere of the full marathon, but without the ridiculous training and recovery. It has been about 4 years since my last half marathon.  I was concentrating on completing the full 26.2 miles in the last two races I ran. Here are Brett and Kyle before the run!  They finished with a great time.  Their finish time was one hour and 48 minutes.

Here is a picture of Alesha and I before the race!  We are ready to go!  The weather was amazing and the course was great.  Alesha and I finished our 13.1 miles in two hours and nine minutes.  We were thrilled with our time. Our average pace per mile was nine minutes 38 seconds.  We had a great time!

A big thanks to Brett, Alesha and Kyle for coming to Fort Worth to get me!  It was so fun! I just learned that our sweet Leemaster friends will not be participating in the Oklahoma City marathon because they will be in...PARIS AND LONDON!!! Wow, what a Christmas gift!  I am so excited for both of you!

As our trip came to a close, we had to fit in a few more fun activities with Cici and Papa K.  We went to Chuck E. Cheese. I was curious to see how this would go.  As a child, I was TERRIFIED and I mean TERRIFIED of Chuck E. Cheese and with Allison's Santa experience, I kind of expected the same reaction. But she did great!  She LOVED it!

The weather was beautiful in Fort Worth for our last few days there.  My parents have a great park in their neighborhood, of course we had to go swing!

Luckily, the plane trip home was as smooth as it was getting there. Allison just flirted with ALL of the people around her.  Thank you to Nick for letting us go for such a great long trip!  And thank you to my sweet parents...Love y'all!  We had a great time and thank you  for everything!