November updates

11/27-11/30 - This was a crazy week at work.  I had 40 engineers in town from all over the world for training that I was organizing, in addition I had all day partner meeting and dinner, event with the training engineer, and then 2 days of leadership training.  In the middle of all that TI laid off 500 people from my organization on Wednesday.  I feel very fortunate to still have a job, but very sad to see many friends I've worked with for years leave TI.

11/28 - Kasey's birthday.  I went to work out at boot camp at 5:15am.  Then I went to get donuts because I knew I would be gone most of the day and evening.  I guess someone new took ownership of the donut place we sometimes go to.  They now had cute stars, bears, football donuts. I got Kasey a pink star and Landon a football.  They both liked them.

I was in an all day meeting as 500 people got laid off.  It was pretty tough.  I left that meeting to go back to training. I stopped off at the park for a little bit where Greg had to kids to say hi.  I was about in tears from the day, but glad to see the kids and hug Greg.

Then I went to my training to close up the day.  Brilliant mother of the year I planned the summit even on Kasey's birthday.   We closed up and I headed home for a few minutes since it was Kasey's Birthday.  Then had just gotten home from Torchy Tacos and so we opened a few presents with Kasey before I had to head to my event.  

We had a good event.  A few people showed up that had been around for a while or were laid off that day.  Tough times.

On Landon's 4th birthday we took away his blanket.  More with him because he was still sucking his thumb.  We decided to do the same with Kasey.  She willingly gave up her blanket to Greg. She has MANY pets and kids that she can sleep with.

11/23-25 - We left in the morning to drive to Conroe to see family.  I decided to drive to help Greg out, and the kids were great.  Didn't really hear much from them, they watched movies the whole way down.

We had good visits with family and kids played outside a lot.  Also played Wii bowling and baseball alot.  Landon is getting pretty good at it.

Saturday morning Cousins Haley and Ashlyn came over to play.  They also brought nice birthday and Christmas gifts for the kids.  The kids had a great time seeing them.   We left about 11am to go meet friends in College Station, and Mom and Dad took Landon and Kasey home with them.
We spent the day in College Station, Aggies won.   Sunday we headed back home

11/22 - We had a good family breakfast that Greg made us, had an afternoon snack and then Big Thanksgiving dinner.   We had 18 people at our house for Thanksgiving from Greg's family.   Kids got to play with their cousin Masey who's about 20 months old so that was fun.  We had great food and enjoyed catching up with everyone.  I decided not to do big family birthday for Kasey this year, but we did sing to her and let her blow out candles.  Few aunts and uncles and cousins brought her fun presents as well.


11/21 - Landon went to a friends for a few hours.  Kasey and I watched a little dancing with the stars (her first time).  She likes when they got scores and wanted to know right away who won.
We went to lunch at Elkas (really good sandwiches and , and then went to dinner at Bavarian Grill (yummy German food and beer).

11/20 - We took the kids to the zoo today.  Had a fun morning seeing the Lion experience and the African area.  Then we headed to lunch and the other side of the zoo.  We got to see a chameleon eating crickets which was pretty cool.  We also got to see several albino animals like snake, alligator, python.  We got to see koala bears.  When we got there the Lemurs were going crazy making many noises. We were there from about 10-2:30, but Greg and I were quite tired.  Kids were too.  Landon went to a friends who just had his tonsils out to "rest" and watch a movie.  I went a  did a little shopping during that time and Kasey watched a movie at home.


11/19 - I took the day off.  I had to work some in the morning.  Then Greg, Landon and I went up to Kasey's school so that Landon could read to her class.  He read Green Eggs and Ham and a funny Zoomer book.  They both enjoyed it.  At the end they sang the song everyone everyone jump up and down - Landon did it as well.  He got to see his old teachers and the directors.

Then we all went to lunch together.  Greg went to work and the kids and I went to run a few errands.  We walked around the Villages some doing a little shopping, said hi to Santa, had hot chocolate.  We had fun.  We got back home for kids to play some outside.  Then I took Landon to gymnastics.   I don't get to go often, but he seems to be doing well.  I can tell that a lot of the muscle he has is from gymnastics which is good.  His coach came up afterwards and said he was listening really well and they would probably get him moved up to next level soon.

That night we had Greg's office Christmas dinner.  It was at Maggianos.   They had xbox set up so Landon got to play that for a while - he totally missed appetizers and then got upset that he missed it.  He got plenty to eat for sure.  They had multiple dishes. I convinced Kasey that she should try at least a bite of everything.  That's what I learned growing up and am trying to do the same although difficult.  She did - she tried eggplant Parmesan, lasagna, spegetti and salmon.  She only liked the lasagna, but she tried all of them.  She was going into detail about what was happening in her pretend life.  He husband was in the hospital with sprained ankle from playing baseball, grandparents had the kids at home.  She takes things from things that happen with us, but then puts them together in different ways.  It's very interesting to see the way she thinks.  Anyway, I think we all had fun.


11/17 - Of course kids got up before 7am.  We tried to get them to sleep in further but that didn't happen.   We all got showers and headed out to the Chicken for an early lunch.  We played dominoes and kids built stuff with them as well.  Then we headed to the MSC for a little shopping before the game.  Aggies won, kids got to play on the field after the game.  We then had dinner on Northgate and brought the kids to the house for bed.  I left my purse at Freebirds but Greg was able to get it with everything still in it.

11/16 - Greg, Doug and kids picked me up from work and head headed down to College Station.  We had fast dinner at Freebirds and got kids to bed before 8:30 (which is late for them).   I hung out at the house and the boys went to Duddleys.

11/14 - TI announced today that they will lay off 1700 people from the wireless group which of course I'm in.   This is very scary and huge impact to our organization.  I won't know for a few weeks if I will be affected by this.

I worked from home today because we had a few things going on.  I got to have lunch with Landon at his Thanksgiving Feast which was fun.  We went to the book fair for a few books afterwards.

Then Kasey and I went to pick out her party gifts and invitations for her birthday party coming up. She was excited.  We're having a Princess and Knights Theme where kids get to dress up, play games and then have cake in a fun princess filled room.

I worked in the morning and afternoon and got done just in time to go to Kasey's dance.  I am so proud of her.  She really pays attention and tries to do the moves well.  I told her I was a dancer for many years and she just smiled

Then we went to pick Landon up at a friends and went to Mi Cocina to use some of our Knights Thank you money for the baseball team - very sweet of the team to get us gift certificates.

11/8 - tonight Kasey told me a story while I was brushing her hair.  It was about a girl named Cinderella and a girl named Kasey who both liked to serve breakfast.  Kasey was wearing a beautiful nightgown (she said but it wasn't blue like Cinderellas).  She didn't much more after that but it was cute to see her mind work.   Then we read a Rapunzel book.

I got to read Landon the Grasshopper and the ANT story which he liked.

11/7 - I was wearing my hair mostly down, and Kasey told me as I was telling her goodnight that I needed to put my hair in a pony tail before I brushed my teeth so that I didn't get it all in my hair.
11/4 - We hung out in the morning and the kids wanted to play duck duck goose.  Somehow there was a fox involved.  Running around the living room playing duck duck goose with 3 people was amusing.  That afternoon Greg and Landon went to cub scouts meeting and Kasey and I listened to music and painted our toenails.  

11/3 - We had another busy day.  Football, 2 soccer games and a baseball game.  Landon had a good run and pulled a flag in football, and he scored a goal in soccer.  Kasey scored 2 goals in her game.   Then we came home and all watched part of the A&M game until the kids had to go to bed.