Our Fun Family

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...