Christmas Tree Farm 2010

(If you want to revisit our last 2 years at the Walls Family Tree Farm click here for 2008 and here for 2009)

I think this is the 8th year I've gone Christmas tree hunting with the Louis Family and I was excited to take Margaret Gray on her 1st hunt.

PawPaw, PatPat, the Wood Family, and Link the dog were all there, too.

PatPat and PawPaw were quick with their search and found their tree in record time.

MG got a handful of Tom's hair

This year PatPat did a little online research and bumped up our post-tree hunting dining experience.

This Mexican restaurant was a step up from our usual American cheese-serving restaurant.

Out with El Nogalito... in with Taqueria Dos Aces.

Plus, we celebrated Brent's birthday- only Terrell's finest for him!

Kids behaved, food was good... it was a great day!

11 months

Whoa little sister! This has gone by fast!

(these pics were pre- Rudolph nose, but post hitting eye on crib= purple right eye)

1st word- "up".
Uses it all the time.
Margaret's definitely has her days where she wants to be "up" most of the day... especially while I'm cooking dinner... pretty challenging.

Tries to make animal sounds, but most of them sound the same- kinda like a cat clearing a hairball. We say this is her lion sound.


Sweet girl will snuggle with me in bed in the morning.

Getting down from her chair all by herself.... a little daredevil.

Walking around like crazy.

Likes to greet Henry when he wakes up... sometimes she goes in his room while he's still asleep... sneaky little thing.

Gives open mouth/ tongue out kisses.

Into everything... can empty a drawer in seconds flat.

Knows where her belly is... We're working on nose and head.

Likes to bring books to you and plop right down in your lap.



Likes to play "Where's Margaret?" She'll cover her face with her hands and also likes to duck behind objects.



Happy 11 months, little sunshine!

Our very own Rudolph

Margaret's face met the concrete yesterday.

It was about time...

Has only fallen out one time.

Christmas Tree

Last weekend we went to Lowe's to purchase our tree.

Henry got a little sidetracked.

MG loved walking around in the trees.

Tom found the perfect tree.

Henry "helped" decorate this year.

Margaret's already broken some ornaments. She's quite determined to touch as many as she can before we catch her.

Thanksgiving

With our camera on hiatus, these are the only pics I got from our Thanksgiving.

We spent a relaxing day at PatPat and PawPaw's with sweet family and great food.

Well, most of the day was relaxing... there was an incident where a napkin caught on fire and then Grandmother Herndon's sleeve started to flame... that was a bit stressful.

Margaret's 1st Thanksgiving- she loved it!

See? My camera is sick (80% of our pics come out underexposed... I have to "fix" using Picasa) -- camera shop told me it would take 4-6 weeks to get fixed, so I'm better off keeping it through the holidays and take a million pics... some come out normal.

Normal like this pic:

I found Margaret in the Louis' bathroom, sucking her toilet water soaked fingers.

Eww.

The Friday after Thanksgiving, we headed over to Tom's uncle's for a post-Thanksgiving-throw all of the leftovers into one yummy dish- meal.

Henry always enjoys time spent with family.

We have so much to be thankful for.

All glory to God.

I would blog more...

... if Blogger and my internet connection got along.

and my camera is broken... just in time for the Christmas season.

I'm ready to throw in the towel.

Uploaded Some Videos

Here are some of Henry.

He's quite the singer.


"Trust and Obey" and "Holy Holy Holy"




Good Morning God. This is your day. I am your child. Show me your way.

So I found this stuffed animal dog I gave to Tom when we were in college (ah, young love) and gave it to Henry. Named it George. It's evolved into Georgie Porgie.

Thanking Jesus for his New Orleans family

Margaret the "walker"

Some shenanigans

10 months

Lots of new developments this month!

"Stepping"... I won't say walking, cause she's really not a walker yet. But Margaret will definitely take several steps and then sit down and crawl.

(Videos coming in a future post... I'm working on that)

Waving bye. Clapping.

Babbling more. For a while there she had become pretty mute, but now is back to chit chatting :)

She loves to climb.

I don't think that this is great at all.

I looked over one day and she was standing in one of the kid's chairs, holding on to the back... at least she was holding on, right?

She's learned to climb up into her rocking chair, too.

Loves to sit a look at books.

Hugs her stuffed animals.

Loves her pig that she sleeps with, but loves her cousin Alice's stuffed horse even more.

Margaret snatches is right out of Alice's hands.

Here is Margaret playing peek-a-boo.


6 teeth, working on 2 more on top.




Is a good eater... will pretty much eat anything we give her.
But I'm bad about offering her a variety on a day to day basis.




The time change rocked Margaret's sleep and we're still recovering :)




Oh, and her eye is so much better!
Thanks to Dr. Rocky's advice, I should have been massaging, then pressing down, not up.
The next day, it was all better and has continued to stay clear.

She and Henry are working on sharing :)


I can NOT believe that our sweet sunshine is almost one!

Zoo

Tom took off a Friday since he was going to have to work Saturday and Sunday.

We took the opportunity to go to the zoo as a family.

Henry is usually pretty anxious about the lions.

Before we went that day, we told Henry that the lion might want to say "hi" to him and not to be scared.

I asked Henry what the lion's name was and he said, "Big Lion Louis".

Well, Big Lion Louis did have a hearty hello for us.

With fear in his eyes, Henry held it together and then said, "Go see elephants."

"If I can't see Big Lion Louis, BLL can't see me."

(BLL isn't even in the pic)

By the time we got to the elephants (or as Henry called it, Big Elephant Louis),

Margaret was pretty sleepy. Such a sweet tired look, though.

(HERE we are in the same spot when MG was 3 months)


We enjoyed our day as a family.

It was a good run...

Whoa. The Texas Rangers made it to the postseason.

Because of Jack and Leigh's wedding, we were unable to use our tickets against Tampa Bay.

Fortunately, the Rangers won that series and we were able to get tickets to the 1st game of the American League Champion Series game against the Yankees.

Nolan Ryan threw the 1st pitch.


Happy to be there!

PatPat and PawPaw shared the evening with us.

Unfortunately, it was one of the worse games I've ever been to... we totally blew it.

Lucky for us, the Rangers won the series (Tom got to go to the last game against the Yankees) and we moved onto the World Series.

I threw this picture in from PawPaw's birthday.

He truly believed that this was the Rangers' year from the beginning.


Finally, we got to go to Game 4 of the World Series against San Francisco.

The first pitch was thrown by Bush #43.

Here is G.W. accompanied by Bush #41, riding a golf cart to the pitching mound.

This pic is for Ross... lil' Ron.

Wow- it was a blow out, and unfortunately the Rangers were not the ones to dominate.

We lost to the Giants, but were happy that we went to the World Series.

Next year, Rangers.... next year.

Opening Day- April 1, 2011!

HA! Halloween.

Sweet Margaret. My original plan was for her to wear Alice's costume from last year... a precious flower costume. Kate told me that she couldn't find it. Bummer. So instead of going out and buying a picked-over costume, I remembered she had personalized scrubs (thanks, Jenny!). Too bad they were super wrinkled- another bummer.

I do think she was a pretty cute doctor- an opthamologist... so she can make her eye better.

Now Henry.
"Yes, Henry, if you put on this outfit you will get candy."
His 1st year to go trick or treating and because his mom and dad were going to a very important (although pretty sad) baseball game, he really didn't get the full experience.


My big boy dinosaur
(costume was really a dragon, but Henry didn't know that)



We had a little under 20 mins allotted for trick or treating, so we needed to book it.

We did pick the right 2 houses to go to... it was good to catch up with our neighbors and they were very thoughtful... gave the neighborhood kids special treats.

Like Henry's treat bag??... left over from his birthday party... I tied an orange ribbon to it.

After the 2nd house, Henry was ready for more candy!

Too bad for him, we needed to get the kids home and fed before our babysitters showed up.

Margaret Gray and Henry showing us their "loot".

Ha!

Emma Katharine

Yay!

My niece Emma Katharine arrived yesterday.

Baby and momma, Elizabeth, are doing well.

Elizabeth sent me this pic of Emma rocking Margaret Gray's Baby Legs.

I think she's pretty adorable :)