Our Fun Family

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...