Our Fun Family

I have mentioned many times in this blog that my sisters, who have all boys, love to buy cute little outfits for Grace to make sure that she looks absolutely adorable. Here is one of the outfits that Missy bought for Grace for Christmas. Cupcakes galore from Gymboree, notice the cupcake tights, denim skirt, cupcake shirt and matching hair bow. It just happens that Grace is a big fan of cupcakes. Her favorite pajamas have a big cupcake on the shirt with a cherry on top. And when we went to Carson's Christmas program, Grace found a "cupcake" on Gram's sweater. Now, the cupcake on Gram's sweater was actually a crown, but it made sense to Gracie! Aunt Missy hit this one out of the park. Grace loves the outfit.

It was fantastic Christmas in our home. Grace was so much fun to watch this year. This year for the first time, I think she was starting to "get it". As usual it was a very busy holiday season. Somehow, every year Christmas manages to sneak up on us, even though we know that happens every December 25th. The days run together and before you know it, its here. We went to see Santa Claus a week before Christmas. We achieved a major milestone this year, no tears!! Grace was very excited about seeing Santa, and as we waited in line for our turn, she giggled and laughed and pointed, "there's Santa, there he is!". When it was our turn to go up to his sleigh, Grace started to get nervous and scared (as we have come to expect), but she was a big girl and climbed up in his sleigh. She wouldn't sit on his lap, and she wasn't interested in talking about what she wanted for Christmas... and there were no smiles, but there were no tears either! Afterwards, s

Brenda and I got a wonderful early Christmas gift this week. For those of you who haven't heard, we found out that we are having another girl! This is indeed a wonderful gift for us. Several people have asked me if I was disappointed that we aren't having a boy. And yes, I would absolutely delight in having a little boy, but it does nothing to dampen my enthusiasm and anxiousness to hold our newest family member. I think that most men will tell you that they hope for boys. To us, boys represent something we have confidence in. We know and understand the masculine psyche, thought process and anatomy. We hope for a boy that we can teach the intricate details of the spiral forward pass, and how to get well placed grill marks on steaks, not to mention all the joys of Tonka trucks, little green Army men, L egos and Lincoln Logs. When I told Mema that we were pregnant a couple of months ago, she shared a great perspective with me from my Pa. Long before the days of sonograms, Mema

Yes, yes, yes... I know! It has been way too long since I updated our blog. A lot has happened in the month of November since I last posted Halloween pictures. We went to Wichita Falls to celebrate Josh's birthday, we have had a couple of football games (and tailgate parties) and we just wrapped up Thanksgiving. We had a fantastic Thanksgiving. In my humble opinion, the world has been reset on its proper axis. See, back in the 90's, the cheaters from Texas A&M University got caught commiting various NCAA violations and as such, could not appear on TV for a number of years. Since the aggies could not appear on tv, the annual rivalry game between Texas and Texas A&M was replaced on Thanksgiving game. Up until this year, the game has been played on the Friday following Thanksgiving. For many families around the state, this was probably a welcomed change. For me, it created a void that could not be replaced with another NFL or college football game. It would not s

Grace wore her Texas cheerleader outfit for Halloween this year. Brenda and I looked all over for an Abby Cadabby costume in her size, but we didn't have any luck. That's okay, she loves to wear her cheerleader outfit. Trick or Treat was kind of a tough concept. See Grace never has had much in the way of candy, so there wasn't a tremendous appeal to the buckets of chocolaty, fruity, chewy, sugary goodness that people tried to tempt her with. For her, it was just a walk down the street. If we got her to say anything at all, it was usually a soft "trick or treat" while she looked at her shoes and swung her pumpkin bucket around. We went around to our neighbors and made sure she got the experience, then it was back to our house. We had Gram and Granddad over, they brought pizza for us to eat and they manned the candy at our house while we walked around with Grace. Once we got back home, we all just sat out in folding chairs at a card table to hand out candy and lo

Today is a rough day at our house. Some of you know that Maggie had been battling illness for the last several months. Convinced the root cause of her various symptoms was inoperable cancer, we have worked hard to keep Maggie comfortable and pain-free. She was scheduled to visit the vet tomorrow to have some of the fluid in her chest drained in what we figured would be our last option to help her continue a happy life. Instead, she died this morning. Brenda was cleaning the breakfast dishes, I was upstairs getting Grace and I dressed so that we could clean up the trailer after another tailgate weekend. When we came downstairs, Maggie had just collapsed on the kitchen floor near Brenda and she was gone. We are thankful that we were all here. Normally, we would have been at church this morning. Oddly enough, we had decided that we needed a morning to sleep in and cook breakfast and relax as a family. We didn't have any illusion that Maggie was going to get much better, but we were de

This week, Gram and Granddad took Grace to the pumpkin patch. She had a great time and Gram sent these pictures on to us. Grace is a big fan of pumpkins. She points them out when we drive through neighborhoods and she has to go kiss the pumpkins next door when we get home. This morning, on our way to Gram's house, she made sure to tell me that she was going to kiss Gracie's pumpkin when we got to Gram's house. I think this one is just adorable. This poor little pumpkin gets dragged around everywhere at Gram's. We may need to go through some counseling when it is time to get rid of it. Check out the album on the right to see a few more pictures.

Lots of people have asked us if we take Grace to the football games. And the answer is OF COURSE! Usually when the question comes up they kind of marvel at the thought keeping such a young toddler's attention for an entire football game. We are usually in our seats when the band marches on the field and it takes an act of God to get us out of the stadium before the "Eyes of Texas" at the end (we did leave at halftime of last year's KSU game because it was POURING rain). Here are a few pictures from the Rice game last weekend. She loves to look for Hook'em, and she loves the band. She doesn't even get scared when Smoky (the cannon) fires after Texas scores. At the FAU game to start the season she did fall asleep for about 20 minutes on Mommy, but at the Rice game, she was content to curl up next to Daddy, but there would be no closing of the eyes (that how you miss stuff!). In the last pic, this is her version of getting her "horns up". She can'

We took some cute pictures of Grace that we thought we would share. Brenda had her doctor's appointment today, and we are excited to share the news! Brenda is pregnant! The nurse said she is 8 weeks and 3 along making her due date April 24th. We have known for awhile but wanted to wait until her first visit before we shared our news. Please celebrate with us and pray for a happy and healthy pregnancy. The irony of the shirt is that we haven't told Grace yet, although she has been talking about a baby brother or baby sister for months now. It's kind of funny, we would ask her, "would you like a baby brother or a baby sister?" To which she always relied "Yes!". So we would ask her, "Which one?" "I hold baby brother, you hold baby sister!" Brenda is feeling fine. She has had more nausea this time around, but no actual morning sickness, so we are counting our blessings. Its been hard to keep it a secret, Brenda has been very tired, so our

So we waited all week, monitored the weather, and tracked the hurricane. Ike was ripping up Cuba and appeared to be on a beeline to Corpus Christi and then headed up 35 to Austin. So a couple of days ago, the powers that be in Austin put their heads together and cancelled the UT football game. We prepared for evacuees and stocked the shelves. And then Ike decided to check out Galveston and the sites and sounds of Houston. So rather than a category 1 hurricane with 60 mile per hour winds it looks like we will have about an inch of rain and some stiff breezes. I am very thankful that we will miss the worst of the weather, and our prayers are with our family and friends in Houston. And hey, I got the yard mowed and put away everything in the backyard that wasn't tied down. That can't hurt, right? No stray projectiles here. But all in all... I would rather be tailgating with my friends and watching the horns beat up on the hogs! Be safe Houston! The piggies from bubbavill

Can I just tell you that I love college football??? There is something about the atmosphere, the sights and smells and of course, the tailgate party! We have grown our little endeavor from 2007 into a really fun, high class event for the 2008 season. The Texas Facilities Commission did make things a lot easier for us this year by allowing us to reserve our tailgate spots for the entire season. That dramatically cuts down on the preparations required to get ready each home game. We secured a great spot with a huge oak tree, space for the travel trailer and plenty of space to set up our canopies, satellite, TVs and tables for food and beverages. I added some pics on our photo gallery from our first game.

Count Brenda and I into the category of fans of Portrait Innovations! Leading up to Grace's first birthday we took her to have her picture taken at Sears every 3 months so that we could watch her grow. Each time it was a difficult experience. Nobody at Sears seemed to be able to get Grace to interact at all. It usually came down to Brenda and I deciding on 1 decent picture out of the set to use. For Grace's 2 year old picture, we decided to try someplace different. We went to Portrait Innovations. Talk about a great experience. Just like in the previous times, Grace was fussy and not at all interested in having her picture taken. The difference was that this time, the photographer took her time to draw Grace in and make her feel more comfortable. We took some family shots and used lots of different props to keep Grace engaged. It also helped that they took a ton of pictures! Not only did they take lots of pictures, we used 2 different studio rooms and several diffe

Grace LOVES to play in the kitchen. If she isn't busy in her play kitchen at our house, or her play kitchen or Gram's, or standing on her stool with me in my kitchen, then its a safe bet she is standing on her stool at Gram's house helping Gram. And looking the part is extremely important, so she has aprons and chef hats at both houses. This one, at Gram's is a little on the big size, but to be fair, it is meant for all the grandkids to be able to wear. It probably fits Colton or Carson far better than Grace! When you work in a kitchen, "mis en place" is very, very important. This is the process of assembling the ingedients before you start cooking so that you don't miss anything. Translated it means "In its place". At home, I rarely take it to the extent that Gram does. Look behind Grace and you can see all her pinch bowls lined up with eggs and vanilla, and measuring cups with sugar and oatmeal. To me, that's just more clean up, but it do

Oh, we have a sick baby girl! Don't let the silly smile in this picture fool you. She does not feel very good these days. Over the last 24 hours both car seats have needed to be stripped down and cleaned, the crib has been stripped down, the changing table stripped down, the carpets cleaned... oh goodness... She wasn't even able to keep Pedialyte down this morning. We took her to see the doctor this morning and the doctor suspected that she picked up a virus, probably from the nursery at church since thats the only group of kiddos she has been around recently. Fortunately, the virus seems to be winding down. She hasn't been sick since this morning, but she has only eaten cheerios and small doses of juice today. I felt so bad for her. She really has been very good though. She isn't overly fussy when she gets sick. She goes through phases of being a clingy little Mommy's Girl (or Daddy's girl or Gram's girl or Granddad's girl, etc...) and then sh

A big part of my job involves traveling to other cities where to provide user training for the software we build for credit unions and banks. And while I really enjoy seeing new places, there usually isn't time to hit the tourist spots just for fun. For example, this week I was in "The Sunshine State", at the home of the "Most Wonderful Place on Earth" and home to Shamu and Universal Studios! Yep... Florida. Now just to make sure nobody gets the wrong idea, it rained the entire time we were there. And while there was no time for a day at any of the attractions, there was no way I was coming home without a small momento for Grace. There is not shortage of Disney characters for sale in Orlando, and I knew that Pooh was the right choice for Grace. When I got home on Thursday evening, Brenda and Grace were out to dinner with Gram and friends. I had time to unpack and leave Pooh on the counter top so Grace would see him when she walked in the door. It wor

Now Richard will probably tell you that he was doing this for the kids... I ain't buyin' that stuff! I am sure that Richard had as much fun as any of the other kiddos on Saturday zooming down the slide and splashing in the pool. It was a wet and muddy start to the party, but in the end, the sun was bright and shining, the kiddos had a blast and so did the parents. I did love this picture. There was no way that I was going to be able to make it up the "ladder" on this water slide. But Uncle Richard did his "uncle duty" and took Grace down. If you look closely through the water drops and splashes, Grace has her eyes closed, but she is smilin'. That didn't last long. The full splashdown scared her pretty good. She spent the rest of the day in the baby "Whale" pool. She did muster up the courage to climb up again, but she fell backwards down the "ladder" and that pretty much ended our day. A little sunburn, late dinner and

When your Gram is Canadian, it is important to celebrate your heritage on important days, like Canada Day. This is especially true when Gram goes to Canada and brings you back a present, like a red t-shirt celebrating the Canadian Olympics in 2010. Brenda and I both tried hard to teach Grace to say "Happy Canada Day Gram" on Tuesday morning before I dropped her off at Gram's for the day. She has the "Happy" part down, and I think she has the "Day" part. So what Gram got on Tuesday morning was "Happy Day!" I think Grace makes a pretty good Canadian ambassador lounging on Gram's maple leaf pillow. I included this pic, not because it celebrates Canada Day, but because it displays one of Grace's new favorite expressions. She doesn't like to hear the word "No", much like other kiddos, but she sure likes to use it a lot. I imagine this was Grace telling Gram "No smile" or "No picture" or something s

This was a great way to spend a couple of days in the middle of the week. Twenty-two years ago I got to go to Fort Leonard Wood with my dad to see my brother graduate from basic training. On Tuesday this week, I headed up to Tyler to pick up my dad so we could attend Craig's retirement ceremony and reception. It was a tremendous honor to make this trip and made for another special memory that I share with my dad and my brother. This picture shows my brother, First Sergeant Clark (right) with Colonel Sage, who presented the awards and was the guest speaker for the retirement ceremony. During the reception, following the retirement ceremony, Craig was presented with the Quartermasters Corps Order of Saint Martin medal. Chief Sanchez (presenting the medal) singled out Craig's community service with Habitat for Humanity and charity work with kids while serving in Bosnia as meritous achievement for this award. Here is a link to the story of this award and levels of presedence. ht