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Showing posts from 2010

Happy New Year!!

I just love New Year's Day.  There is something refreshing about a clean slate that comes with the start of a new year.  Over the last week, the girls have been playing with new toys and wearing new clothes.  The house has been restored to a pre-holiday state, the decorations safely stored away for another year.  My scale breathes a slight sigh of relief since I am about 40 pounds lighter.  My closet has been thinned a bit as well, with my largest sizes in a bag ready for a trip to Goodwill.  I have also been fiddling with my new toy, a brand new Nook Color from Barnes and Noble, my hard-fought winnings from our family Biggest Loser challenge.  (A tip of the hat and a "thank you" to Tracy and Missy for pushing me all the way to victory!) I am excited to see what 2011 holds for us as a family.  I still have about 80-90 pounds to go to reach my goal weight.  To help along the way, we are planning on Season 2 of our Biggest Loser challenge.  I am also registered for a Warr

Dress Up Girls

Last Friday, after I returned from my business trip (the last of the year, yeah!), we loaded up the travel trailer and got the girls and headed over the river and through the woods to Gramma and Grampa’s house.  It made for a long day, but it was worth it.  After getting unloaded and settled in a bit, Gramma was ready to play Santa Claus.  The girls scored big.  Grace got a play grill that looks a lot like my little grill that I use at tailgate parties.  We put it together Saturday morning and she seems to really like it.  But the big hit was definitely the dress up clothes, shoes, jewelry and tutus.  The girls were adorable.  I think I might be in trouble with Hailey.  She already has a thing for shoes and jewels. More pictures have been loaded on our public album, but here a few favorites. Dressing up at Gramma's

A Clean Bill of Health for Grace

The week of Thanksgiving, we took Grace to a pediatric surgery center to have an umbilical hernia repaired.  She has had it since she was born, and early on our pediatrician pointed it out to us.  She told us that it may heal on its own, but cautioned us then that we may need to consider surgery if it didn't correct itself by age 4. It was a minor surgery, we were home with Grace resting on the couch by 9:30am afterwards, but it was still pretty scary to watch a couple of nurses wheel your baby girl into an operating room on a gurney.  She did great and rebounded very, very quickly.  The surgeon told us that we would likely have a hard time containing her after the first couple of days, and he was definitely right.  I can't tell you how many times Brenda or I had to remind her to take it easy, she had stitches in her belly! There is no keeping a 4 year old down.  I asked her teacher to try keep her from jumping off the top of the monkey bars on the playground. 

Halloween 2010

With several recent trips and weekends spent tailgating, we hadn’t gotten around to carving our pumpkin.  Since today was Halloween, I figured we better get on it.  This year, Brenda had found a great little ladybug costume for Hailey that she ordered online.  We had asked Grace what she wanted to go as and she had told us she wanted to be a tiger.  We hadn’t found the “right” costume for her yet and we are glad we didn’t.  As soon as Brenda had Hailey’s costume in hand, we tried it on her to make sure it fit well, and Grace decided she wanted to be a ladybug too.  Gram and Granddad came over to handle candy duty at the door, while Brenda and I took the girls on the walk.  Here are some pics from the day! Halloween 2010 VIEW SLIDE SHOW D

An Abrupt Reminder of Things Important

Cherish the people and opportunities that matter to you, because all too often, they can be taken from you.  I know we have all heard it time and time again.  After all, each of us have lives full of “wish I could have”, “know I should have”, and “could I have?”.  I am going through this exact type of moment right now.  About a year ago, somewhat out of the blue, I received a call from Terry Cornish.  Terry is my biological father, whom I had not spoken with in about 12 years, and hadn’t seen in about 30.  I have a family that is not too dissimilar to a lot of stories from our generation.  Terry was a veteran of the Vietnam War, who upon returning home continued to wage the same battles, this time within his own mind.  In today’s military, there are resources for our American heroes that return and struggle to adapt to civilian life.  We are aware of posttraumatic stress syndrome and its affect on military families.  In Terry’s day of returning to the civilian life, it just wasn’t so

Amnesty Posting

I am guilty!  Good grief, how in the world have I managed to let our family blog get so out of date.  I assure you it isn’t because nothing exciting has happened in the last month and a half.  So much is going on, it is hard to keep up. I have updated some photo albums, so go check that out if you haven’t already.  We have a 4 year old!  One of the many exciting things we have celebrated as a family since my last posting was Grace’s 4th birthday.  I keep reflecting back to see if I think the 4 years have flown by, but time has a funny way of staying relative.  I find it so hard to imagine our family without her, that it seems that she has been here “forever”.  I even have a hard time remembering when she wasn’t a toddler.  What a fantastic little girl she is growing into.  Just before Grace’s birthday it was “back to school”, or rather back to pre-school.  Going to school everyday has done so much for Grace’s development.  She has definitely opened up into a more outgoing, social

This is NOT a test!

Last week when Grandad was cleaning up the boat in the driveway after a fishing trip, Grace had so much fun “play fishing” that Grandad decided that she might be ready for the real thing.  This morning, Grandad and Colton picked up Grace after breakfast for her first fishing trip.  Near Gram and Granddad's house is a nice little pond that the boys have pulled some nice catfish out of.  It was close enough to not ruin the day if Grace lost interest, but well stocked enough to allow Grandad and Colton to have a little fun.  Grace didn’t bring home any trophy catches, but she had fun, and she looked good doing it.  Here are a few pictures from the trip. View Full Album

Picture This

Brenda and I had decided long ago that we would have professional portraits taken of our kiddos every 3 months for their first year, and then annually thereafter.  We also decided to take those photo opportunities to get family portraits taken.  Today we went to Portrait Innovations for Grace’s 4 year old pictures.  If you have read this blog for long, you have heard us rave about Portrait Innovations, and they do take some good pictures.  I just think that we have gotten just about all that we can out of their studios.  We end up with very similar pics each time.  Today’s portraits didn’t knock our socks off, but I do think we got some good portraits. I have included a sampling below.  Being able to get the CD of all of the pics that were taken is one of the things we love the most about using Portrait Innovations. View Full Album

Gone Fishin’

Grace has a new fascination, fishing.  There is no doubt that all the grandkids love their Granddad, and so far, the boys have enjoyed a monopoly on Granddad’s fishing time.  But times are a changing here in Round Rock, and it doesn’t look like it will be long before Grace and Hailey are ready to stake their claim to some dedicated lake time with Granddad.  To celebrate Granddad’s birthday (Happy Birthday, Granddad!), he took Clancy and his buddy Colin fishing.  Grace and Hailey got to enjoy a little driveway “fishing”, while Granddad cleaned up the gear and got things put away.  The fish may not have been biting in Gram’s driveway, but the fishing bug may have gotten a hold of Grace! View Full Album

Love my chip off the ol’ block

“Does Grace like blueberry muffins?”  This was a question that Brenda asked me while she was on the phone with Gram.  I am sure she does, I can’t think of any reason she wouldn’t!  She always eats some of my muffin when we eat at Mimi’s Cafe, and I can remember making strawberry muffins with her before.  And we KNOW she loves fresh blueberries!  For breakfast the other day, Gram let Grace help her make the muffins.  And to put the question to rest in a decisive manner.  Yes, she likes blueberry muffins.  The only question left is, why didn’t Daddy get a muffin???  View Full Album

Re-purposing leftovers

If you know me well at all, you probably already know that I HATE eating leftovers. With the exception of soups and stews, leftovers never taste better the second time around. Either you don't have all the necessary components, or the breading gets soggy, or the sauce separates , or the meat gets dry, or any other number of potential pitfalls and maladies. So rather than putting things away to eat as leftovers, in our house we prefer to re-purpose. For example, a dinner of Pot Roast with roasted veggies will get re-purposed into 2 completely different dinners. First the leftover roast gets shredded and seasoned with Mexican spices so they can be made into beef enchiladas. The leftover mushroom gravy and roasted veggies will take a spin with the immersion blender and some beef broth to become a killer vegetable soup. Over the last 2 weekends, we have enjoyed some great meals courtesy of the grill or smoker. Last weekend, while camping with friends, we grilled up some quite l

East Texas Blueberries and Family

For the 4th of July weekend, we packed up the travel trailer and headed to Gramma’s house.  Aside from Independence Day, the 4th of July also is the time of the summer when blueberries in East Texas are at their peak.  If you have kept up with me on Facebook, you probably already know that I have a soft spot for blueberries, particularly a recipe for blueberry pie that I stole from America’s Test Kitchen.  Over the last couple of years, my family has made some fun and fantastic memories reviving the near lost art of canning.  It’s something that has been a big part of our family heritage, something my grandmother and mom have done for decades, but it quite nearly slipped right on by “our” generation.  Capturing fruits and vegetables at their peak of freshness and flavor and suspending that quality to be enjoyed offseason is truly a special treat.  If this is something you are considering, I would caution that it isn’t necessarily a cost saving measure.  With the investments we have mad

It’s Summertime!

I keep thinking that things will slow down as soon as the “next” season gets here, and so far, I have been wrong.  During the fall its about tailgating and football, then its the holidays, then its birthdays and anniversaries in the spring, then its summertime.  I imagine lazy days in and around the pool, weekend cookouts and camping trips.  Thankfully, we do find time to fit some of those things in, but it seems we are having to work harder and harder at squeezing in these little jewels into our busy, hectic schedules. We have just returned from our vacation and as usual are exhausted and ready for a vacation from our vacation!  We packed up our travel trailer for 5 nights in Sam Houston National Forest on Lake Conroe (near Houston, for those unfamiliar with the area).  We swam in the lake and hiked and biked around the trails.  We also spent a day in Houston, taking the girls to the zoo and to the Children's Museum.  It was a great week with the family, even though it was pret

Hailey’s First Birthday

This was a fantastic weekend in our home.  On Friday, Brenda and I started our weekend a little early.  While we weren’t taking the day off for rest and relaxation, we did get kick-off Hailey’s birthday celebration.  We didn’t have to wake up at 4am as we did a year ago, instead we slept in, to a leisurely 7am!  After dropping Grace off at Gram’s for breakfast with Grandad and Gram, we took Hailey for her 1 year check up.  After 4 shots and declaration of a clean bill of health, we were off for a full morning of errands and house cleaning.  Later in the afternoon we took the girls to Portrait Innovations for pictures.  On Saturday we filled our home with family and friends for Hailey’s party.  We are blessed to have family and friends that made Hailey’s birthday such a big priority.  Tracy and Josh arrived before the party, something made remarkable considering that Tracy had been on a plane returning from Iowa the day before and managed to make it to our home despite a brief 9 hours

A Dance with Daddy

Tonight was our big Daddy/Daughter date night.  What a fun night it was.  I made sure that we went all out.  She wore her beautiful Easter dress, Daddy wore a tie, she had a pretty fresh flower corsage, candle-lit dinner and a dance.  It was quite a night.  We ate dinner at Main Street Grill in Round Rock.  We caught quite a bit of attention as we walked in.  I know I had one of the most beautiful dates in the restaurant.  Lots of very nice people stopped by to tell me how precious and beautiful my date was.  Grace’s behavior was fantastic and we made it to the dance mostly unscathed.  Grace had chicken fingers with steamed broccoli and fresh strawberries.  She was really cute cutting up her chicken fingers with her knife. At the dance we got to make Grace a little jeweled crown, have a tea party, see a magic show and do the chicken dance and the “YMCA”.  They also had carriage rides, though we never made it out there.   But most importantly, we were reminded that dances with preciou

The Photo Album has been updated!

Check out our Photo Album from the right hand navigation area.  I have uploaded several photo albums going back to Christmas.  There are some great ones also from yesterday that Gram sent us.  Spring has definitely sprung in central Texas! View Full Album

An Amnesty Blog Post

Yes, yes, I know.  I did it again.  It has been brought to my attention, on more than one occasion, that I have been woefully neglectful of our family blog.  So, I am declaring an amnesty blog, a catch-up of sorts in a single blog post.  Our last blog post came back in January when we posted Hailey’s 9-month pictures.  Since then, we celebrated my 35th birthday, our 5th wedding anniversary, Valentine’s Day, both mothers-in-law’s birthdays and a sister-in-law's birthday.  This month we will celebrate Hailey’s first birthday and Brenda’s birthday.  I have stayed very busy with work, including lots of travel.  So far this year, I have traveled to Iowa, Arizona, Louisiana and Oregon.   I am tentatively scheduled to add trips to Virginia, Minnesota and return trips to Iowa and Oregon before the summer.  It is very hard to be away from my girls, but I do really enjoy my job, including the travel. Grace just finished her first Spring  Break, a definite taste of things to come.  Brenda

Hailey is 9 months old today

Yes, it is rather cliché, but where does the time go?  Today, Hailey is 9 months old!  I can hardly believe it.  It won’t be long until she is walking, talking and giving her sister fits!  Of course as a parent, we want to let our kiddos develop into their own unique best.  And while we certainly don’t want to always compare Hailey to Grace, it is hard not to look for the similarities and marvel at the differences.  For each of the girls, we have had studio pictures taken every 3 months for the first year of their lives.  This has given us a great chance to see at least physically how much they have in common.  Here for your enjoyment are 2 albums from today’s sitting.  The first are some wonderful pictures, many of which we had prints made.  The second album is well… expressive.  I figure by the time the girls reach “marrying” age (you know, 30 something, or long after I am dead and gone), I should have a huge stockpile of pictures to use as bribery and fodder for a great slidesho