12/27/09

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year


Well Christmas is over and the presents have all been unwrapped.

Christmas was so much fun this year. TJ would yell "wow" with every preasent he opened. He was just too cute and had so much fun.

And to mark history in my book. This was my very first white Christmas. Since Tim's family moved to Arkansas we knew eventually we might have one. Well DFW had a White Christmas, it snowed all day on Christmas eve and stayed all night to make for a beautiful Christmas day. This was the first white Christmas in DFW since 1926. Crazy huh? It snowed in Arkansas too and made it an interesting day of traveling to Arkansas.

TJ loved watching it snowed and didn't want go inside. Here it is:




Christmas is always busy. We have Christmas on Christmas eve with my parents and then Christmas morning we wake up and have Christmas as a family with just the 3 of us. Once we finish we load up the car and head to Ihop with my parents and sister. We drive up to Arkansas and have "Christmas eve" that night and then wake up and have Christmas morning. It works out great and it makes it as much like traditional Christmas as possible.

TJ and Piper have been playing like crazy. They "talk" to eachother all the time and play nicely for the most part. There is constant laughing and movement.

This by far was completely different from last year and I know next year will be even more crazy.


Here are some pictures of Christmas:
TJ's ATV from Papa and Kaykay
 
TJ's keyboard from Papaw Hughes


 TJ and Piper

 The kids


 Before: from G-Paw and Sweetie


 After: he loved it

I think thats about it. I put a bunch of pictures on facebook if you'd like to see them on there.


Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 



12/15/09

Holidays

Wow, sorry for such a long silence.

I meant to write a thanksgiving blog to let you all know how it went as the first Thanksgiving in our house. It went great, the food was excellent, it was great to see family and it was very relaxing.

We even did a little Black Friday shopping. It led to a tired day on Friday but we survived.

Now we are closing in on Christmas, my favorite time of year. I love the lights, the tree, the decorations, the carols, Christmas eve service, spending time with the family and celebrating the whole meaning of Christmas...CHRIST!

Looks like this Christmas will be just as good as years past. We will be seeing all of our family and the time will be filled with Church, Christmas events, eating, baby shower and a wedding. CAN'T WAIT!

Update on TJ:
I know I say this every time but he is talking more and more each day. One of a funny things that he says is "woants Fid" which is "wants Sid". This took me a bit of time to figure out what he was saying. Then tonight he started saying something else...we can't figure it out. Sounds like a combination of "all done" and "right there'. He kept saying it over and over again while he was cleaning up his toys in the living room. I guess we'll figure it out in time.

and here are some pictures of the little guy:





11/16/09

Am I Ever So Excited


Thanksgiving is at my house this year.

Tim and I hosted thanksgiving our first year married. The only problem with this was that we were in an apartment hosting 7 people. My dining room fit 4 maybe 5 comfortably, then adding all the food and extra chairs and people. Needless to say we were very close at that table.

This will e the first year in our house and my first year hosting Tim's family. We'll have Bill and Debra (Tim's Parents), Rik, Sarah, and Piper (Tim's Sister, her husband and daughter) and then the three of us. I only have a table that seats 4 so we'll be borrowing a table from the church so that we can all fit at the table.

I decided I wanted to do this because of the remodel we did in the kitchen and I knew Rik and Sarah would be making a trip down here to see his family.

Bring on the turkey and yummy food!

It's Not My First Rodeo

But it was TJ's!

When Tim's parents were here last weekend, Tim's dad needed some pants from Shepler's. They were offering a special if you bought so much you got free tickets to the Texas Stampede. Since they are no longer living in the area they gladly handed them over to us.

The rodeo was this last Saturday. So we headed up to the train station and headed to the American Airlines Center for the rodeo. The train is the way to go. It cost us $8 vs. $30 for parking plus the gas to get there.

I had no idea that TJ would ahve so much fun. From the moment we walked in he was cheering and clapping. We sat with my Uncle Terry and Aunt Lizzie, so TJ got to play with them and switch laps every few minutes. He loved the bull riding and the horses. There was a concert after the rodeo and TJ could care less about that. Probably because it was late and they turned all the lights down, he had enough of that.

Off to the train station and home. We almost sat there at the station for a while. They had a train parked there to leave once the concert was over but the regular scheduled train was running on the track behind it. Luckily Tim went and asked if that (train sitting there) was the one leaving at 10:25. We would have been sitting there till about midnight.

Such fun memory!
  
My Timothys

  
Me and My 2nd Timothy

 
Me and Uncle Terry

 
rodeo
  
Uncle Terry and TJ

  
My Family

 
Eating raisins and waiting on the train

11/8/09

Nice Getting a Bargain

Tim and I have been thinking of some gift ideas that we wanted to get TJ for Christmas. Yeah I know, kinda early. Anyways, we were pretty sure that we wanted to get him a yard toy and were narrowing down to a slide after the past few weeks. He has discovered slides and always screeches with excitement as he goes down.

The Little Tikes slide at Toys R' Us is about $80 and we hadn't really looked anywhere else knowing we still had time.

Well as we pull into our neighborhood someone has a little tikes slide out by the street so we continue home and Tim jumps into his truck and heads down there to get it. I got it all cleaned up and TJ wouldn't eat because he wanted to play on the slide. He was out there forever playing and learned how to climb the ladder himself. Tim also taught him how his car can roll down the slide. It was so fun sitting out there watching him play.

The only thing wrong with the slide is the steps on the ladder are cracked on the bottom two steps. 

We didn't have to pay for the slide and now we are back to square one with deciding what we'll get him for Christmas.

11/5/09

Croup



UGH! Monday TJ was acting like he was getting sick. He had a little runny nose and his cheeks were a little red. Tuesday his nose wasn’t really running but you could tell he wasn’t feeling well. His breathing was more like wheezing, his cheeks were red and you could tell in his eyes that he wasn’t doing well. We thought it was allergies since he went on a walk that morning and got worst after the walk and then when we went on a bike ride that night it flared up again. He had been sleeping with a  humidifier and I was putting baby vapor rub on him to help with his breathing.

Yesterday morning when I went and got him up his breathing was so bad it was really scaring me. Then when we were in the car he started coughing real bad. So I set him an appointment with the doctor. My main concern was his breathing. It’s only been that bad when he is having trouble with a  cold but he had no signs of a cold.

Well the diagnosis is croup. He was prescribed two medicines, one to take as needed and the other to take for the next five days. The one he needs to take as needed is albuteral. The albuteral is to help with the breathing. It’s basically a liquid inhaler. We have given him that once and he is already doing so much better.

**oh...don't worry this picture is a happy TJ picture. This is him smiling really big and winking**

10/31/09

Halloween 2009

We had so much fun with TJ this year.

Mike and Heather invited us to a neighbor hood fall festival that afternoon so we went up to that with them and Lex. TJ, Lex and I went and got in a bounce house. They loved it. It was TJ first time to be in one. He kept jumping around and slamming face first into the floor but was laughing the whole time.

That night we decided to go to one house since he was so young so we headed over to Pat and Patty's house. (our next door neighbors) They were so excited to see them and just kept offering him the bowl of candy. He was so hesitant until he realized he could take some then he was grabbing hand fulls.

We then headed up to Six Flags. It was so packed so we mainly just walked around. It was fun to be out and about with my family. I love those guys and they bring so much joy to my life.

Oh and TJ decided he wanted to try the candy so he ate half of a tootsie roll...wrapper and all. He thought it was good.


 bounce house fun
 
happy boy
 
swinging
 
Half eaten tootsie roll

After six flags. Fun day!

10/29/09

Our Little Cowboy

I know I know, I was suppose to post this picture a month ago but I figured better late than never. Here is our little cowboy at 18 months.

He is so handsome and I am proud to call him my son!

Change


Change....

I love change, most of the time that is. I love how relationships change and evolve.

TJ changes so much. He honestly learns something new everyday. Our relationship is building all the time. He learns about me and I learn about him and I love what its becoming. He is talking more and more each day. The talking is turning into conversation and sentences. I may not understand the sentences but he is saying them. We probably only understand a third of what he is saying but thats more than we were before.

Last week during vacation was a big learning time for him. We were able to spend constant time with him and work on some words and sounds.

Here are words we actually understand:
Mum
Dada
Papa
KayKay
Josh
Mamy
Up
Help
Please (prease)
Thank you (tank ah)
Dre (Dddrraaa)
Crackers (cra ers)
Drink (dink)
More

He is becoming a kid and he's not my baby. I love him so much!!

10/27/09

New York Vacation


This was the first year since 2006 that we took at least a week off work together to go somewhere and enjoy ourselves. This year we went to New York.  We have been wanting to go and visit my brother and Andrea in upstate New York. We had so much fun.

We left here first thing on Saturday morning. Headed off to DFW for our first flight together since we've been married and of course the first flight with TJ. Needless to say I was so nervous. I would say I was pretty prepared for the flight because I was given some great advise for flying with a toddler. We had a long day of flying but I would say it was successful. TJ slept a little on the second flight.


Sunday was going to be the only full day we were going to have with him since he was going to be working all week. We headed off to brunch at this amazing place...sorry I can't remember the name of it. Josh called into work for a few hours so he ended up getting Monday off too. After Josh got back from work we headed out to Alexandria Bay to see Thousand Islands. Pretty cool place. Its a bunch of islands with houses and castles on them. We took a boat tour and got to see all around.



Monday we headed off to the Cider Mill to try the cider and to get some cider cake donuts. YUMO! they were amazing. I even requested to go back later in the week. Then off to Old Mcdonalds Farm for the hay ride, corn maze and pumpkin patch. We spent the evening carving pumpkins and resting.

Tuesday Josh was headed off to work so Dre, Tim, TJ and I went to Thompson park so TJ could play. It was so beautiful out there the trees take your breathe away.

playing on the playground



Tuesday night Josh took us up to Post to see where he works and to show us the motor pool. I got a bunch of pictures of Josh showing TJ everything. I lost them all when I was trying to fix my phone. Tim got the best one:
 
Josh taught him a mean face. lol

Wednesday was a casual day. EXCEPT I got to go with Dre to a sonogram appointment and I got to see my little nephew, Jesse Nathaniel. I can't wait to meet him and I've already gone through totes of clothes to send them. After we got back we took Josh and his guys burgers and went on a few errands. We needed a rest day before we hit Thrusday.

Thursday we headed to Niagara Falls early and got there around 11am. I can't even describe it. So I'm just going to post a few pictures:

 
 

 
Friday was another chill day and we were able to get all our bags packed for our trip home on Saturday. We headed out Saturday mind morning. Tim and I were starving and not wanting to spend a ton on airport food or have snacks all day. SOOO we stopped at McDonalds and got some lunch. HA we were only a few minutes late and missed our flight check in deadline. oops but these really nice ladies got us on a flight an hour later, they didn't charge us the missed flight fees, and they didn't charge us the baggage fees either. AWESOME!!

We ended up making it home and hour earlier than what our original itinerary had planned. Only problem was we had only a 30 minute layover and had to basically run to our departure gate.

We made it home and we had such a great time and miss them so much already.

10/21/09

Pumpkin Patch


Man I thought last year was fun looking through all the pumpkins and picking out the perfect one....Oh how I was wrong. I knew nothing about real pumpkin patches.

We've known for a while that we were going to be in Upstate New York this year. We had been talking that we were just going to one in New York and not in DFW. It was so much fun!!

This was not a small pumpkin patch this was Old McDonald's Farm's pumpkin patch. There were hayrides, mini-golf, corn maze, shops, annimals, and actual pumpkin patches where you cut your pumpkin off the vine.

We got to feed some pigs and cows. TJ had so much fun and was smiles the whole time until we got too close to the huge animals. He took almost a 4 hour nap.

on the hayride:

 
 
 
 
 
 

Looking at the farm animals:
 
 
 

 
Tractor
 
Uncle Josh, Aunt Dre and TJ

Mommy, Daddy and TJ







threw the cornmaze
 
picking our pumpkins


TJ's Pumpkin

TJ's first pumpkin carving
 
the boys' pumpkins

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