House of Holes

December 2011

Visiting a mini-train display at the North Park Mall in Dallas... umm, scary.... we were walking past stores like Gucci and Coach... "don't let the kids breathe on them". And I didn't realize how sheltered we've kept our kids, the younger ones had no idea how to maneuver an escalator :)

The week before Christmas we got an awesome rain storm on the cusp of a warm front so we rolled up our pant legs and played in the gutter... it was so much fun. I even got in, and the fact that I let them do it made me "the best mom in the world!"

The older kids helped me out with an enrichment activity by being a live nativity.

I broke down and we made ravioli to have for Christmas Eve dinner.

Dad practicing the balancing act with Emily who is now 4 months old!

Life in Dallas

It's so amazing living in/by such a large city... and I love it! This is 10 minutes from our house. It's also super weird not having any mountains around.

The Dallas Zoo

The kids lineup... Emily's already growing so much!

Tally's first awards ceremony at her Pre-K school with her new Bestie Afton.

Ben's new scout group. It's good to have such a great network already.

Halloween 2011

Pa drove down to drop Tori off to stay at our house while she goes to culinary school

Halloween... no new costumes this year, good thing we had a stock pile. Ryan's wearing an outfit handed down from Great Grandma and Grandpa de Hoyos (I think).

Our New House - Part II

The Dining Room... only 2 of the houses we looked at had eating areas big enough for our table... that helped narrow it down a bit :)

The Kitchen - At first it was hard getting used to such a small kitchen, but now I love it! It's so much easier to keep clean.

The kitchen didn't have any pantry and the garage was converted to our master bedroom so we put the deep freeze in the kitchen and made a make shift pantry out of our IKEA shelves and it works great.

Looking from the dining room into the kitchen.

The Boy's Room:

The boy's room and the girl's room closets were back to back, so going off what Pa did in Nick and Cassie's rooms we made a secret passageway between the rooms. They have a lot of fun with it. Ryan occasionally tries to sneak out it during nap time so we have to "lock" the closet door with a chair.... good times :)

The Girl's Room

Our New House - Part I

One of the biggest blessings with the new job came a very generous new boss. Ben's new boss made it possible for us to get into our own home, which we didn't think would be possible for us for another 10 years. To rent anything similar or even less would have been at least 50% more expensive. This home has been well loved and well taken care of and after 3 months I finally am unpacked and in order enough to get pics up. It's good enough for now with plenty of redecorating and remodeling projects in the future.