Pumpkin Patch 2014!

While my sister was in town for Connor's baby shower, we squeezed in our annual trip to the pumpkin patch!

We couldn't resist taking a few cheesy pregnancy/pumpkin photos... :)

We rode the hayride and looked all over for the perfect pumpkins!

Aren't my parents the cutest?!

And my sister, Karoline, is pretty cute too. :)

Next year we'll have a little baby with us at the pumpkin patch! 

Here are our pumpkin patch trips from 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013!

Things I Never Blogged About - Part 2

I'm continuing on with my quest to catch up on all the things I never blogged about! Today's post is going to be a little Kristen-centric. Kristen is my little sister, and her life is WAY more exciting than mine. I keep telling her she should have a blog, but we'll just use her life events as blog content for Spirals & Spatulas instead. :)

Kristen's 23rd Birthday!
Kristen turned 23 the same night that Tim & Emily got engaged, and we celebrated with a big group of her friends with dinner at Gloria's and a night out at Howl at the Moon. Jeff and I decided we're officially too old to stay out until 2:00am with a bunch of 22-year-olds. Haha!

Kristen's Going-Away Cake
Kristen moved to New York in January (we miss her, but it's very exciting!). We were going to host a going away party for her, but she ended up leaving sooner than planned so she could attend a funeral in NYC, so we never had the party. I still made her cake though - a "yellow rose of Texas" cake!

I found these yellow sugar flowers on clearance at Hobby Lobby, and I immediately pictured the whole thing in my head. I was so excited when it actually worked!

This is one of my favorite cakes I've ever made ever. :)

Kristen's Departure
When it came time to take Kristen to the airport for her one-way flight (aaah!!), we all (except Jeff, who was on a business trip) went to say goodbye.

I clearly wasn't very ready to say goodbye. Haha. 

And just like that... she was off!

Now Kristen's all settled in NYC with a new job and a new apartment, and we can't wait to visit her!

Kristen's Graduation

My little sister, Kristen, graduated from college last August, but she had to wait until December to actually walk across the stage. We all went to Fort Worth for the graduation, and it was such a special time celebrating Kristen!

A few photos of my sweet sister, whom I am SO immensely proud of...

Here's one of Jeff and me with both of my sisters...

...and one of the whole family!

The graduation was really nice and not too long (a nice benefit of graduating from a private school rather than somewhere ginormous like A&M... haha). Kristen looked so happy through the whole thing, which was really fun to watch.

It was a bittersweet day for me because Kristen's moving to New York in just a few short weeks to pursue her dance career. We've never been anywhere close to that far apart (we both went to college in Texas), so it feels a bit like the end of an era and a bit like I'm sort of losing my best friend. I'm so excited for her to chase her dreams and do amazing things though! I guess I'll just have to take a few trips to NYC! ;o)

Christmas 2013

What a wonderful Christmas we had this year! It's always such a special thing to celebrate Jesus' birth surrounded by family and good food and gift-giving and carols and all sorts of fun.

We drove to Dallas early on Christmas Eve this year, and we made it in time to have lunch with my grandparents (dad's side). Then we went to Christmas Eve Mass at the church we went to when I was in elementary school, which was pretty special. I hadn't been back there in about ten years!

With my parents and sisters after Mass

We went to see my other grandparents (mom's side) for Christmas Eve dinner (we always do a delicious seafood boil with crab, shrimp, mussels, potatoes, and corn), and we got to see all my aunts/uncles/cousins on that side of the family.

With my mom, sister, and Gran-mom

The big Christmas tradition on that side of the family is a Christmas carol party on Christmas Eve, complete with songbooks and guitar music and lots of loud voices. So fun!

My mom buys our family matching pajamas every year, so we woke up on Christmas morning in our snazzy matching jammies and opened gifts and stockings at my grandparents' house.

Matching! 

Stockings!

My aunt/uncle/cousins on that side of the family came over later in the morning and we opened more gifts and had a lovely lunch.

Our fourth married Christmas!

After lunch, Jeff and I got in the car and drove back to Houston. It's always a bit weird to spend four hours in the car on Christmas Day, but it allows us to be with all the people we love most, so we can't seem to stop doing it! We made it to Houston with time to spare before dinner, and we got to celebrate with Jeff's parents, brothers, and grandparents (who travel to Houston for the holidays).

Dinner, complete with Christmas cracker hats!

We spent the night at Jeff's parents' house and had a nice leisurely morning and lunch yesterday. It's back to work for me today, but Jeff has a few more days off, which he plans to spend installing crown molding in our bedroom (!!!).

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. Glory to the newborn King!

South Padre Island 2013

Ok. So we went on the Alaskan cruise, and then we spent a few days in Seattle, and we arrived back home.

After that we enjoyed two days at home before going on our next trip – South Padre Island! We go to South Padre every year with my parents and sisters (Here's 2011 and 2012), and this year it had to wait until after the Bar exam, so we ended up with pretty much back-to-back vacations for the month of August. Crazy but SO, SO FUN!

South Padre is the perfect relaxing vacation. We spend a lot of time on the beach and we get plenty of quality family time. We go to the same restaurants (Wanna Wanna, Dirty Al's) and places (Sea Turtle Inc., Cactus Flower, Our Lady Star of the Sea, Paragraphs) year after year, so there’s very little planning involved and it just feels comfortable and fun.

Strawberry Picking!

A few weekends ago, Jeff had a guys' weekend with some friends and went camping, and my parents went to Fort Worth to pack up my middle sister's college stuff, so I got to have a girl's weekend at home with my littlest sister, Karoline!

Karoline's always up for joining me on a silly adventure, so when I got it into my head that we should go strawberry picking, she was equally excited and didn't mind the hour-long drive at all! 

We went to Froberg's Farm, about an hour away, and we had such a blast! 

Normally the strawberry season ends around Mother's Day here in Houston, but thanks to some unseasonably cool temperatures this spring, they were still going strong in the end of May! 

We got a cute little bucket, and we set out to pick some yummy strawberries!

We had read online that the smaller ones tend to have better flavor, so we avoided the ginormous ones and looked for the small, bright red, and firm ones!

The teeniest, tiniest strawberry! Karoline may or may not have eaten that one immediately. Haha!

It ended up being a beautiful day, so it was really nice to stroll through the rows and rows of strawberries!

We filled our bucket much more quickly than we expected. There were just so many red juicy strawberries! Haha! Some other people got a bit carried away...

So many strawberries!

Every time I do something like this (strawberry farm, Christmas tree farm, pumpkin patch, whatever), I convince myself that we should move to the country and open a strawberry farm (or Christmas tree farm, or whatever) and live a simpler life. It's just so pretty out there! Except I'm pretty sure it would not be a simpler life because we're not really that good at growing things. Revising contracts? I'm pretty good at that. Growing trees? Not so much. 

In the end, we took home a bunch of delicious strawberries!

And we made strawberry muffins! Mmmm!

We'll be back next year, Froberg's Farm!