Alive and Well

We are. I promise. Just busy. And tired. And (some of us are) sick.

I'll be back as soon as I can muster up enough energy and creativity to write a paragraph or two of sentences consisting of more than 2 words. I may even add pictures :)

Merry (belated) Christmas!

Happy New Year, in case I'm not back before then!

no warm front

But I didn't have to walk Addi to school. If I would've watched the news last night, like any responsible parent, I would have known school was called off for today! Instead I decided to drive Addi to school this morning - if you knew how close we lived to her school, you would understand how ridiculous it is to drive her. I even had to wake Libby up. We piled in the van and drove the .001 miles to school only to find other irresponsible parents U-turning in the parking lot. I said a quick prayer that school was just delayed, therefore, allowing Libby's preschool to open today and U-turned myself. I had some major Christmas plans. Things that did not involve little eyes and big interruptions. Of course, school is closed today and that means Libby will not be going to preschool either. The girls both cried when I told them. What little nerds we are raising :) So, now they are doing their best to destroy the few areas of the house that looked decent an hour ago and I'm scrambling to re-plan my week since I have a half day instead of a day and a half to sew a puppet theater for Santa Claus. That guy is so unreasonable sometimes :)

Happy Snow Sleet Day, if you're fortunate enough to be experiencing one!

tidbits

1. We're having a "Texas Snowstorm" (otherwise known as SLEET). I was just about to walk out of the house to run some errands when I heard it on the patio. I would rather eat pork and beans straight out of a can than drive in sleet, so the grocery store will have to wait. Good news though! Now I have time to bore you with my random list :)
2. All these Christmas decorations made me long to decorate more, so I let the girls pull out their pink tree and go to town. We put it on a table, but Little Sticky Fingers can still reach the bottom quarter of the tree. I wonder if I should move it to the floor just so he doesn't pull the tree down on his head?
3. Many people have asked me if having a son has been any different so far. Except for the obvious, my answer has always been no. But, today while we decorated the pink tree, Levi crawled as fast as he could to the balls. Then he found a bat to chew on and then he bee-lined for the cars. Granted it was a Dora bat and Barbie cars, but he doesn't know any of that yet. I was amazed watching him crawl past other more girlie toys to explore the "boy" toys.
4. Addi has been pestering me the entire time I've been typing (and now she's reading this sentence...but can't figure out "pestering"). She wants to type a semicolon and keeps asking if she can do it now! I finally said, "Stop touching it! You can't type anything!" She replied, "Well, My Word!" Sometimes (many times) she is too big for her britches :)
5. I'm really hoping a warm front will hit before I have to bundle everyone up and walk Addi to school in the morning. It's not impossible...we do live in Texas!
   
   

searching for the perfect pose

These are the pictures that didn't make the cut for our Christmas card photo. For obvious reasons.

completely irrelevant because I waited so long

I figured since we're halfway between Thanksgiving and Christmas, about 2 weeks after Turkey Day and 2 weeks before Christmas, I'd talk a little about our Thanksgiving. It's just for memories sake, but we did have a wonderful holiday, so it's worth remembering.

Starting the Saturday before Thanksgiving, we were able to celebrate the 5th birthday of my college roommate's little boy. I still get tickled we are able to do things like that since moving to Texas! It was a super hero party. My girls were less than enthused about the theme, but they had fun anyway.

We left the party and headed to Rainforest Cafe to meet Holly. That was a first for me! I'd never thought I'd really meet someone I met online :) But, she was just as real in real life as she is on her blog. She has a precious family that includes 4 fun kids and her Chris. (I just love that she always calls him "My Chris" on her blog.) Thanks for the meeting, Smith family!

The girls didn't have school the week of Thanksgiving. We stayed busy on Monday, ate lunch with my parents and grandparents on Tuesday and celebrated Bryan's birthday on Wednesday. Thursday morning we got up and dressed the kids in their Aggie overalls (While we didn't really believe the Aggies would end up victorious, you won't catch us allowing our kids to be 2 Percenters (That's just Aggie lingo basically meaning Fair Weathered Fan (Appropriate as it would be for an Aggie joke, I must tell you I didn't learn to use paranthesis inside paranthesis inside parenthesis while earning my degree with an emphasis in English at A&M!))). We ate with my mom's side of the family at Black-Eyed Pea for lunch. The best part was seeing everyone. Levi got to meet some family for the first time and bonded with his great uncle.

After lunch, we hung out at my parents' house.

My kids were spoiled by grandparents and even got to spend a little time with my grandparents, Meme and Papa, aka Mean and Rotten.

My grandfather would have been perfect in the movie Grumpy, Old Men, except it's all an act. He likes to aggravate people and likes being aggravated even more. Addison is too sweet for this sort of game. She just smiles and doesn't usually retaliate. Libby is the perfect candidate. And, so Mean and Rotten and Libby Lu banter back and forth. He tells her she is mean and rotten, Meme always has to interject, "No she's not! She's sweet and precious!", and Libby claims that Papa is the original Mean and Rotten! This mean and rotten/sweet and precious talk has been going on since their first grandchild (me) was a little one. Libby has taken it to a new level, though, with actually nicknaming Papa "Mean and Rotten". On the way to her Christmas program yesterday, I told her Poppa wouldn't be able to make it because he had to go out of town for work. She asked, "Poppa or Mean and Rotten?" I clarified and she said, "Good! Don't let Mean and Rotten come to my preschool. My teachers will be scared of him and my friends will be scared of him and I will have to say, 'Don't be scared. It's just Mean and Rotten!'" The funny thing is, she always talks about him and tries to think of ways to aggravate him the next time she'll see him.

This is where the pictures end because I left my camera at my mom's house on Thanksgiving. I'm hoping I can get my hands on some pictures that were taken Friday. We drove to Tyler to spend the day with Bryan's mom's family. All of Meme's (Bryan's grandmother) daughters and their kids were there. Levi got to meet more people and tons of pictures were taken. We even got to meet Makenzie for the first time!

On Saturday, we were able to celebrate Gracie's 1st Birthday! Again, I was tickled that we could be there. The girls had a blast playing with Cade on the pool table. And Addi was in awe of the diamonds that lined the walkway to the house. They really were Christmas lights, but why ruin the magicical images a 6 year old has :)

It was a wonderful week and a great beginning to the holiday season for us. We are truly blessed to live so near many friends and family.

Hide and Seek

Levi is 9 months old today. I'm listening to him blow raspberries in his baby monitor right now. His well-child appointment was in the middle of his morning nap, so he's a little "off" today. I was so sure he'd have moved up the weight chart; he's starting to look chubby to me. Even when his weight of 16 pounds was announced it sounded heavy to me. I mean, not heavy-weight heavy. Maybe heavy for a light-weight division. However, he's still on the same, old, 1st percentile curve. His height's in the 8th percentile, but that's shorter than before. As always, his head is his shining glory. It came in on the 44th percentile curve! (I've read before the most attractive people have big heads :) And I would have to agree since my 3 all have good sized noggins!) He got the booster to his flu shot and had a finger prick to check for anemia. Not a tear was shed! Developmentally he's doing well and his doctor has predicted a tooth by Christmas.

(sidenote: I'm having a battle of wills with my 3 year old at the moment. I think I'm losing. Back to Levi...)

This morning I was packing Libby's lunch in the kitchen. Libby was playing with the nativity and Levi was crawling around the floor of the dining room (where the Christmas tree is supposed to be out of sight and out of mind). It took me all of 3 minutes, but I couldn't find Levi anywhere when I finished with her lunch. Libby couldn't find him either. That might be because all she did was follow me around copying me word for word. "Levi. Levi! Levi?! Come here, Baby!"

Have you ever tried playing Hide and Seek with a 9 month old? It's a challenge.

Finally, I looked behind the Christmas tree. There I saw his 2 little feet sticking out from under the branches. By the time I grabbed a camera, Libby was back there with him.

It really was against my better judgement to put the tree up this year. Do you think the older 2 would be scarred if I took it down 21 days early?!

ww

brave new world

Levi is pulling up on everything. He's also an official crawler and can even crawl up the stairs. Let the fun begin!

He blows strawberries when he's sleepy.

But, he wasn't too sleepy to smile.