Christmas 2008!

Well we had a blast this Christmas. We had to do a lot of traveling, but it was all worth it. We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas morning at home with the kids and we left for Austin about 10:30 on Christmas day. We spent two nights there, seeing both sides of the family. Saturday morning we left about noon and headed out to take Bryan to Stephenville. We were very sad to have to take him back. We had such a good time with him. It was nice to get to spend a whole week with him, instead of just a weekend.

After we left Stephenville we headed up to Abilene to visit Jonathan's extended family. We got to see Kylee's 10 month old cousin, Jackson. He was super friendly and wanted to hug and love on Kylee. She thought that was for the birds and pushed him away. I guess we need to work on her manners :)

Here are a few pictures. It was hard to pick which ones to post.

Kylee and cousin Jackson, what a manly man!

Kylee running, probably after a dog-dog :)

Kylee and Papa

Kylee and Daddy reading her new book she got for Christmas

All the girls sporting their new winter gear.

Kylee got another purple blanket, hurray!

Bubba opening Kylee's present

Cousin Jama with her son, Jackson and Kylee (3 weeks apart)

Nonny with sleeping Kylee

Big Week

Bryan and I were up early on Monday so we said goodbye to Jonathan and started making breakfast. About 15 minutes later, Jonathan came back in the door. It turns out that John Deere had some sort of electrical problems and was going to be closed for the day. So we headed out to the mall to do some last minute shopping. Kylee and Bryan played in the new play area and had a blast. I didn't think Bryan would like it, but he really enjoyed it. In fact we ended up there yesterday again after we ate lunch. Here are some pictures. Sorry they are from my phone.

It has been a big week for Kylee. Last week she took her first steps and now she is walking everywhere. She said her first word and yesterday, I actually felt a tooth coming through. It is her first one at 11 1/2 months, but I'm not complaining. She hasn't even been fussy and not biting yet (knock on wood).

We went to see the lights at Blora last night. Unfortunately a lot of other people had the same idea and we were there for a little over 2 hours. Kylee did very well though. I think that she really enjoyed it. We are spending Christmas Eve and morning here and then we are heading down to Austin for lunch with Jonathan's family and dinner with mine. I probably won't have time to blog on Christmas so I wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas!!

Bubba is home

We went up to my sister's house on Friday night. She lives in Allen (north of Dallas). Then Saturday morning we got up and headed over to Ft. Worth to get Bryan (he was at a Christmas party there). It was so good to see him again. He was very excited to see Kylee and couldn't wait to see her walk.

We went back to Karen's house for the rest of the weekend. We had a great time relaxing the rest of the morning and then Jonathan's sister came to join us on her way down to Austin from St. Louis. Karen and Scott have a dog, Wallace, and Shara has a dog, Riley. So Kylee was in heaven. She absolutely loves dogs. We think that she said her first word, dog, pronounced in a high squeal, "da-da." She gets so excited when she sees a dog, even if it is just stuffed.

She continued to amaze her Aunts with her walking abilities. Here is a video that Aunt Shara shot.



Here is one of her playing with the dogs.



Here is one of her sleeping with Uncle Scott, go ahead and say, "Ahhhh."

8 Years

Today is our 8th Anniversary!! I am so thankful for my sweet Jonathan. He is a great husband, father and friend. It seems like I have always known him and I look forward to sharing many more years with him. I love you sweetie!!

I don't have any pictures from our wedding in my computer b/c it was before the digital age. But here is one in my dress and a couple of us over the years.

Big Girl!!

So my big girl took her first real steps yesterday. We tried to get it on video when Daddy came home, but of course she only wanted to crawl then. We will keep trying. Just wanted to share the big news :)

Good news!

My check engine light came on about 2 months ago. I figured I needed an oil change or something. But it kept coming on and then going off for quite some time. So I took it up to Jonathan's work where one of his mechanic friends has a computer to check and see what is wrong. He said that it was the catalytic converter. Immediately I thought, great how expensive is that. Then he told us that the government mandates an 80,000 mile warranty to cover those. When I checked my odometer it was at 78,300. Yeah. So I took it up to Waco at the Isuzu dealership. They told me it would take a couple of hours to check it and then a couple of months to get the part in. I thought great. But it turns out it only took about 3 minutes to check it and it will take a week to get it in since I have a V6 instead of a V4. Plus there is no deductible. I am thankful for the government guidelines. How often can you say that these days?

Then I got a call from my old school where I used to teach. They need tutors for math and reading. It is part time and they are going to let me teach Mondays/Wednesdays, 8-3. I will still be able to teach at the preschool on Tuesdays/Thursdays and I will have Fridays to spend all day with Kylee. I found someone to keep her already and she has a 9 month old for Kylee to play with. I will make enough money so that Jonathan won't have to get a second job! God is blessing us.

Here is the long awaited picture with Santa.
UPDATE: I HAVE MISPLACED THE PICTURE WITH SANTA. DON'T WORRY I WILL FIND IT BEFORE CHRISTMAS.

Dancing Queen

As you might expect, we are a very musical household and we encourage that in Kylee. We leave the keyboard on all the time so she can crawl in there and jam. After we took her to get her picture taken with Santa yesterday she wanted to show off some of her dancing moves. Sorry about the quality, this was on my digital camera.

The Mom Song

This is what a Mom would say in a twenty-four hour period. As she says, "Strap on your seat belt, 'cause here we go!" Take a second to listen and have a laugh!

Random

This is my favorite time of year!! Every night I play Christmas music while we eat dinner. Kylee loves to dance to it. I found some new stockings for all of us at the Cracker Barrell. They always have such a great selection and I got all of them for 40% off! We all had stockings, but these are much cuter. I have done most of my shopping already. I decided to wrap the gifts as soon as I get home and that way I don't have to find a place to hide them. It has worked out very well so far.

We were very worried about Kylee getting into the tree, but so far so good. We ordered a fireplace screen/gate and we placed it around the tree. So far when we do make a fire we just have to tell her, "No," with our stern voice and she leaves it alone. Hopefully she keeps this up as she gets bigger :)

Kylee got her second round of the flu vaccine today. She recognized the nurse and held on to me tightly when she came in the door. Then as soon as I put her on the table she started fussing. Poor baby she actually remembered. There were only a few tears and then she was back to her happy self.

I have some very exciting news...I found 3 more of Kylee's favorite purple blankets! I know that is probably not exciting to you. We started out with one blanket, then my sister found 3 more for me, so that made 4. Now we have lost one and we are down to three. But with the additional ones that I found at Ross, we have 6!! Its pretty sad when that is the most exciting thing that you have to blog about huh?

So Kylee is definitely "healthy." I have had the hardest time finding jeans to fit her. We have one pair that someone gave to me and it says that it is Rider brand. I have looked everywhere for that and I can't find it. I have tried jeans from Target, JCPenney and Walmart. All are too small. I was about to drive to Killeen to check out Old Navy when I decided to head over to a local consignment shop. I found two pairs and got them both for $12.99!! I refuse to pay more for Kylee's jeans than I do for mine so I was very pleased. Has anyone else had this problem? What did you do?

I hope all of you are enjoying the holiday season. Sorry i haven't taken any pictures lately. I need to get back to my daily picture taking!

Family!!

We had a great Turkey day and we hope all of you did too. Here is a recap from last week:

Tuesday:
I dropped Kylee off with Grandma and headed out to pick up Bryan from Stephenville. We got home around dinner time and enjoyed some pizza with Jonathan. Then we set to work decorating the garage for dinner and Bryan's party the following day.

Wednesday:
We did a lot of housecleaning in preparation for the people coming up. We cleaned out our garage and made a huge table out there. It was really fun to all sit together for once! After we ate our huge meal, we had Bryan's belated birthday party, complete with a pinata!






Thursday night Karen and Scott spent the night and we watched "The Hulk" with them. We really like it :)

Friday morning Karen took our family pictures at UMHB. Here are a few, didn't she do such a great job?







Thursday afternoon we left for East Texas and spent two nights with Jonathan's side of the family. There were lots of cousins there and both of the kids had a great time. We also celebrated Mimi and Papo's 60th Wedding Anniversary! Congratulations to them. Here are some pictures.

Bryan with Sam and Ginger. Kylee adored these dogs and would try to get outside any chance that she could to see them!

Kylee and all of her little cousins.

The three babies with Uncle Herschel.