A Halloween Preview

Our princess and her dragon!

Good Times...

A montage of some of my recent favorite pictures... enjoy!

Playing... um, dress up?

At the Science Museum!

A corn dog bigger than his face - who could ask for more!

Watching his favorite balloon at the Plano Balloon Festival

Bye bye balloons!

Texas Rangers kids

She loved the stickers that came on her hat more than the actual hat!

Getting a tatoo... his face says "See, they really DO hurt no matter what people say!"

State Fair of Texas - two years in a row

Matching boys!

At his first T-ball class

Fans on the sidelines

At the Dallas Arboretum to see the pumpkins!!!

Wow.

Having fun!

My boy is all boy. And he is a jumper. I have many action shots similar to this one. This is our fall themed jumping action shot.

Gabriella's Birthday Party

We had a birthday party for Gabriella a few days before her actual birthday. We settled on a Mickey/Minnie Mouse theme because of her love of those two mice. She loved the decorations and was talking for weeks about her upcoming Mickey Mouse party. She was so thrilled when the day finally arrived. We were so blessed to have so many family members and dear friends join us for her special day. Here are some pictures from the celebration:

The cake I made and decorated for her!

Minnie Mouse herself!

Blowing out the candles

Brother being silly

She really enjoyed opening presents. I don't think she remembered about presents from Christmas or her last birthday... so this was a fun, new thing for her!

Fun times...

Happy Birthday to my darling girl!

Today my sweet baby turned 2... and is quickly approaching the end of being a baby. She is really blossoming into a little girl before our eyes. Between the rapidly expanding vocabulary and the sassy attitude, we have ourselves a toddler! But we couldn't love that sweet face more. She brightens our days and fills our lives with joy. We can't wait to watch her grow and to see what God has in store for her life. Whatever it is, I feel certain about one thing. We were definitely getting some divine guidance when we decided to name her Gabriella, er, Gabby. I'm not kidding that girl talked non-stop from 9am to noon today. Three straight hours. I almost did not make it through. Fortunately, they were mostly (not all) sweet conversations, er, monologues that would be enjoyable in their own right. But stringing three hours of them together was quite a feat. That girl is amazing in more ways than one!

We started the day with me, Matt and Oliver going into her room with two pieces of cinnamon toast with candles in them to start off her second year right! With breakfast and lots of sugar! We sang the birthday song which she never gets tired of and Oliver brought her a little present he helped wrap for her. He then proceeded to put his foot on top of her cinnamon toast when we told him those were for her and not him. Just trying to keep things real for y'all.

After dropping Oliver off at school, we headed to meet Matt's mom at Sprinkles to get that birthday girl some cake. Every birthday girl needs cake at 10 in the morning, right (wait... maybe THAT'S why she talked for 3 hours straight: a massive sugar rush). The cupcakes were very rich and yummy... so we should have split one between us instead of each getting one. Oh well. I'm sure they were calorie free.

We are very en vogue in the Dillard family only shopping at the chic-est cupcake boutiques.

Posing with Granna and showing off the cupcake shirt mommy made in celebration of her 2nd birthday! A cupcake shirt... how fitting!

On her own, with no prompting from anyone, when presented with the assortment of cupcakes on display, she chose the "Hook a Horns" cupcake. I think some family members (who shall remain nameless) are working overtime in the early indoctrination program. The Cottonbowl is coming up this weekend so they had their OU and UT cupcakes on proud display.

Digging in

Loving that icing!

Loving that girl!

Then after daddy got home, we headed to Chuck E Cheese to play the night away at one of the kids' favorite hang outs. I had a birthday coupon for 20 free tokens... which we split between the two kids. Gabriella decided to sit in this Photo Ride (which I'm sure all of you moms recognize) and continuously feed it tokens each time it stopped moving. I have at least 8 of these strikingly similar pictures for the scrapbook. She loved it... and since it WAS her birthday, I bit my tongue and let her spend all of her money in one place.

We also ran into a couple from our church and had a nice conversation with them... only to discover all 4 of us graduated from Trinity the same year! And Trinity is a small school... so it was interesting and surprising that we didn't really catch on to that at all. As we began to reflect we thought we might have remembered each other, but once you are approaching 30, memories begin to blend together. But it was a very fun and cool ending to our evening.

So happy birthday baby girl. We love you cupcake!

A serious case of mommy brain

I was taking Gabriella out for her birthday this morning (more on that later) and walked into our destination digging in my purse for my keys so I could lock my car. We were meeting my mother-in-law so I had been calling her on the phone and trying to find Gabby shoes as we were getting out of the car. So I figured in all of that commotion, I had left them sitting by her carseat or something. So I left Gabby inside with my mother-in-law and went out to the car and opened the side door thinking I would just scoop them up. Then I heard it... the sound of the ENGINE running! That's right! My keys were found in the ignition with the car still running! Who does that kind of thing!!! I guess a mom of two with a non-stop talker for a daughter that's who. I'm so sad. I never thought I would be THAT person. Never say never I guess!

Today's feature: My wonderful husband

Most of our blog is dedicated to the youngest members of our family. And truthfully, they are the most interesting ones to read about. They are always saying or doing noteworthy (or just plain hilarious) things that I want to document for the future. But today I want to focus on my awesome husband Matt. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, my hubby turned the big 3-0! In addition to a fun surprise party, I wanted to present him with another gift... a night away - just the two of us. We worked with the grandparent's calendar and last Friday was the big night. The kids had a blast and probably didn't even notice that we were gone. And we did the same. We spent a night at the Hotel Palomar in Dallas complete with shopping, a movie, breakfast and lunch at Central 214 (currently the location for a chef reality show - The Naughty Kitchen), a massage for Matt, a manicure for me, lots of great talking time, connecting, and relaxation. Just what we needed! Life was so easy without a house and kids around for the night. We got along perfectly :)

My man has done something else recently that I am very proud of. Recently, his Dad has been having a hard time at work... because the architecture firm he was working for was going out of business. He was faced with many tough decisions because he was the President of the company. After sorting through all of the options for the future, he settled upon starting a new architecture firm with many of the people in his Dallas office right now. So he enlisted the help of his very talented son to put together a website for his new company so they could have a presence on the web to show their customers and promote their new business. Working with a graphic designer for the firm, Matt put together an amazing website. He worked MANY, many hours on it last week putting in a lot of late nights. But when you see the results, it was well worth it. I am so proud of him on many levels. I am impressed (as usual) with his talent as a programmer - even doing web development which is not his main area of expertise. I am also so impressed with him as a son. When his Dad asked him for help, he didn't hesitate for a second about helping him. He stepped right up and gave it everything he had!

Here is a screen shot of the home page... but click through on the link to see the whole site!

www.d2-architecture.com

I love you honey and am so thankful for you!