Our Fun Family

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 f...

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...

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. ...

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

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...

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 pict...

We don’t get much winter here in central Texas, which is just the way I like it.  This week brings temperatures in the upper 60’s and 70’s before it cools off for Christmas.  My in-laws took the beautiful autumn day (on the first official day of winter) to do some yard work.  Here are some great pictures from their day.  View Full Album