Cory & Rox's Wedding - Miami

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Random Kiddo Pix

Dylan's Official Big Boy Room

It's not quite done, but I love how it's lookin'!

The Mother of All Bows

Giving Thanks

There is so much to be thankful for this year. My two beautiful, healthy children. My wonderful husband. Ending another semester at SMU, and-in this economy-my job!

Cory & Roxana's Shower

While I brought my camera with the intention of taking lots and lots of pictures, I ended up taking only one!! At least it's with Kitty :-)

Fall Scenery

I love Fall. Its the time when the colors start to change, and the air gets colder and crisper. We went to the lakehouse over the weekend to enjoy the scenery and take in some much needed relaxation. Its such a wonderful change of pace, where all there is to do is fish, canoe, swing in the hammock, take long walks, and of course ride the tractor and Kawasaki mule! We went to a neighbor’s house for the annual lake fish fry, which were all caught from the lake. Dylan couldn’t get enough fish (and french fries, of course)! He was fixated on the boat docked the entire time, so there is where the majority of my time was spent, standing in the middle of the deck while Dylan stared and stared at the boat.

He got his chance at a boat ride when we got home and Papa drove him around the lake. He also fished with his own little pole--a ton of bites, but no catches! He was a patient little fisherman at first, but the mule seemed to be on his mind. So, Dylan spent the majority of time at the lake either riding the little John Deere tractor and riding passenger in the mule with Papa. I think that was his favorite thing to do out there!

Ava Grace was perfectly content wherever we went either in the stroller, on the hammock, or bundled up in the Baby Bjorn on mommy. You can tell she wants to do all the things she sees Dylan doing, and when she is crawling she certainly is trying to do what he does! In no time those two will be running around in the clearing with each other, and fighting over which one gets to sit next to Papa in the mule.

Big Boy Dreamin'

There were many milestones this weekend: Ava Grace's first Halloween, Dylan's first time trick-or-treating, Ava's first taste at "real food"-sweet peas. Then, there was Dylan's transition into a toddler bed. Since he has been crawling out of his crib for some time, we decided that on his 2nd birthday in January we get him his new bedroom set-bedding, furniture and all! In order to get him ready for the change, we decided to take out his crib and put his mattress on the floor. Dylan is a severe thrasher, and so for his safety we figure he should be close to the ground! So far, not so good. Hopefully I won't have to lay in his room for two hours tonight before he falls asleep again. I think I'm going to try the method of just walking him back into his room...over and over and over again. I tried that last night, but was so exhausted I gave up after 20 minutes of doing so and just laid next to him, while he made shadow puppets and tried waking me from my pretend sleep!

Weekend Randoms

Trick or Treat!

I love Halloween. I look forward to it every October 1st! Since this was Dylan’s first year to go trick or treating, I didn’t know what to expect, but knew he would have so much fun! We went with the Cheeks trick or treating down their street. Ella, Natalie and Dylan went to the houses together while I held Miss Ladybug Ava Grace. It surprised me how well Dylan did for his first time out. He would aggressively knock on doors and say trick or treat, then run off to the next house. The one thing we have to work on is not going into people’s houses…especially if he sees toys or kids inside! What surprised me even more is when we came home to hand out candy. When we drove up to the house, I forgot that I had turned on the lights outside, and we had about 20-30 people in front of our house! Michael jumped out of the car and ran and grabbed the candy, and from then on it was nonstop. We decided to hand out candy outside because the moment you closed the front door, the bell would ring. We bought 7 big bags of candy and were out in less than 45 minutes! Dylan would pick out one or two pieces of candy and drop it in the kids’ bags and then proceed to try and talk to them. It was a blast!!

Ava Grace's Smile

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Punkin Patch

On Saturday we went to the pumpkin patch. Peyton, Uncle Zero, Amber, Josilyn and Uncle Mark all met us there. It was a lot hotter than I thought it was going to be, and it got even hotter carrying/chasing two children under the age of two around! Dylan loved the bounce house—I had to carry him away crying from it! We went on a “choo-choo” ride, which consisted of a tractor pulling barrel seats. Dylan loved it and wanted to ride it more than once. I tried to get Dylan to pose with all of the cut-out characters like he did last year, but instead of posing he wanted to hug all of them! I was looking at the pictures from last year when we took Dylan to the same pumpkin patch. He was 10 ½ months and there was quite a difference between the years. The pictures from this year consisted of a 6 month old who was being blinded by the sun and a 21 month old starting his terrible two tantrums, so there were tongues sticking out in pictures, and pictures of him wiggling out of our laps. I tried to pick out some of the better pictures, but couldn’t resist some of the “real” ones!

Butterfly Flutterby

We went to a butterfly parade and festival in Grapevine last weekend. Josilyn was a little butterfly in the parade!

Pajama Party!

Why do I love winter pjs on little ones? :-)

GO COWBOYS!!

There Goes My Life

This past week has been as busy as ever. We had a fantastic time last weekend at Tripp and Chantelle’s wedding. The rehearsal dinner, ceremony and reception were all so beautiful and perfect! It was great to see all of our friends we don’t see too often, including the ones from Florida. The whole family ended up getting sick again pretty much the entire week, but by Sunday we all seem to be feeling much better thank goodness.

Dylan can now repeat the alphabet and say numbers 1-10. His vocabulary is growing every day. I just love how he still cannot put together “s” in words. So, stop becomes “top” and please becomes “plea”. It’s too cute! He is getting so big, so I cherish all of the little things that still keeps him my little boy :-)

Ava Grace is getting big as well. We put her in the exersaucer for the first time this weekend and she just plays and plays. She is army crawling now and is fast. So quick, in fact, that Dylan has to watch all of “HIS” toys so she doesn’t get to them! She has the prettiest blue eyes. Did I mention that I can't take a picture of her without a deer in headlights look when she sees the flash?? :-) I still don’t know how she got light hair and eyes since Michael and I are so dark! I guess she was lucky to get her peepaw and pop-pop’s eyes.

I played the ipod the other day, and Michael has a Kenny Chesney song called "There Goes My Life" downloaded. It’s weird, since neither one of us are in to country music! At first when I listened to it, I thought that it was such a negative song. Then I actually listened to the words, and my eyes began to tear. I think it is a good example of how God works in mysterious ways. You might wonder why certain things happen in your life, and sometimes there is no explanation…but everything happens for a reason. He has a plan for everyone! Some situations can be overwhelming and difficult, but those are the most memorable and rewarding experiences.



Off to stir my chili and get ready for the Cowboys game…and now I hear both kiddos waking from their naps!!