Christmas Bakers

Grandma and Cookie cut, baked, and decorated today.  All the imperfect M&Ms, stray crumbs of cookie dough, and unstuck sugar sprinkles were devoured by the aptly nicknamed Cookie.

Thanksgiving

We started our Thanksgiving with parade watching and breakfast at Grandma and Grandpa's house  The parade inspired K-T to do a show of her own.  Here's Aunt B clapping out a rhythm for the dancers.

Dancer #1 is Grandma!

Dancer #2 and Tambourinist is K-T.

The music never stops!  At my Aunt D's house the wee ones rocked out on the electric piano.  No, they aren't smiling for the photo, but they are both looking at the camera.  That's priceless.

A wildly competitive bingo game took place after dinner.

Is it weird that on this most food-centric of holidays I have no photos of our yummy meals?

Birthday Bash

Birthday Celebration for Jon, Angela, David, and Granddad!
Katie was having a great time! Granddad was making her laugh



Great Family Portrait - They were all excited for the new coffee maker as it makes hot chocolate as well.



First time ever - we had a birthday bash while watching the Rangers in the World Series. Not football season yet in Texas (especially since our teams stink)



Pumpkin Woopie Pies!



The night ended with a game of bingo after all the food, presents, and Rangers win!

Costume #1 - Fall Festival, and Pumpkin Carving

Ballerina fairy princess is CAUGHT!

Grandma came over to join us for the Fall Festival and to teach the ballerina fairy princess some moves. Grandma knows what she's doing. She and I took lessons.

If it smells bad, cup your hand over your mouth and gag. To clarify, it's the hay bales, not Granddad, that has an odor.

Katie finds her bliss.

Granddad thinks Katie learned "the claw" from her Daddy.

As I mentioned prior to this photo, if it is unpleasant in aroma, place hand over mouth and gag.

The Great Pumpkin by Daddy, Katie, and Granddad:

Lucky 7

Abbey is 7 years old. Her birthday was Thursday, but we celebrated on Friday. She chose to go to Double Dip for a poochie cone. Her she is waiting for her cone.
CrAzY eYeS!

Yes, I forced the dog to wear the party hat I made for K's birthday. It is nice to have one child that can't reject your handmade craftiness. And now the cone is gone!


Party guests included:

Granddad



Grandma


Daddy


Mommy (not pictured - which may be the best thing about being the photographer.)

and Katie


Love these pics. Grandma made a comment about how ladylike and careful Katie was while eating her cone.




Things did get a lil' bit unladylike at the end. It was a night I was glad I carry around a 200 lb. diaper bag with a spare outfit in it. Being prepared finally pays!

Party Girl

We celebrated K's 2 years with a party yesterday.

Before the guests arrived she practiced blowing out her candles.



I love the look on her face here. It is if she is daring anyone to take that cupcake away from her!



Grandma and Grandpa with the party girl.



Katie and Bryce (the only guest in the toddler stage) enjoyed playing with all the open gifts.



I think the thing Katie enjoyed most about the party was everyone sitting around watching her play.



How lucky is Meme?!

She was chosen, by Katie, to be in the dancing show.

Gobble, gobble (at least the male turkeys do seasonally when sleepy)

I made Katie some play food for Thanksgiving. She loves her roast turkey. She gives it hugs and kisses. I hope she isn't too traumatized when she finds out where turkey dinners come from.

Yes, the drumsticks detach.


Punkin' Pie


Thanksgiving morning we ran the Turkey Trot. Here's K and Daddy bundled up to race.


Mawhner/Grandma's favorite trotters.


Our racing team ready to run! Jon is not happy I used my whole neck to smile in this picture.


Can you tell what I am most thankful for? No, it's not the stroller! Guess again.


We had an early dinner at Grandma/Mawhner and Granddad's. Look Jon's "don't show the teeth smile" is possibly a family trait.


Here's Memaw T cookin' it up. You know it was good!


The feast!

Pumpkin Carving

Park and dinner (an awesome dinner of pot roast, carrots, mashed potatoes, salad, the best green beans. and brown sugar cake - sorry no pictures or leftovers) preceded the carving. At the park, Grandma and Granddad tried to teach Katie to pump her legs back and forth to make the swing go. She didn't quite understand how to do it as you can see in the pic.



Katie's monkey dress. She wore this even though she had bad dreams the other night after I told her big girls had to give their pacis to the baby monkeys at the zoo. The night I told the story she awoke crying "monkey - paci - monkey". So we are going to try another route, at a later date, to reduce paci dependancy.



While dinner cooked, K and Granddad kept on eye on the Dodger game - keeping in touch with their Cali roots.



Our pumpkin Picasso -



Katie didn't mind the gooey pumpkin guts on her hands. She pulled the seeds out for us.



We had a friendly girls versus boys pumpkin competition. Lauren is working on the girls' pumpkin. When she drew the mouth with all those teeth, I am not sure she knew we were going to make her carve it out. You can see Ryan working on the competition's pumpkin in the background.



Boys' pumpkin on left - Girls' on right
Katie selected the winner. I guess she didn't realize which team she was on! She chose the boys' scary faced pumpkin!



A family of pumpkin carvers!