Season's Greetings

So much happens this time of year that it's hard to keep up with the blog. This marathon blog tracks some of the highlights of our last few weeks in an effort to get them recorded before the big day on Friday.

Mommy & Baby Party...

We used to get together and relax and visit. Now we get together and chase kids around while we yell over them.

Pretty Mommies!

Squirmy Babies!

Pre-Christmas Family Get Together

Sallie Rose and Vin bathing together for the first time.

Big Time in Cowtown (Llano)

Vin and I came to Llano on Sunday for the pre-Christmas activities. By this afternoon Tara, Cassie, Mat, Kevin and Jaime will all be here. We've been enjoying the family and the local wildlife. We've all been taking walks to feed the horses and looking at the cows in the pasture, playing with Sallie and enjoying the Christmas lights.

Christmas Lights & Playtime

Misc.

*****Introducing the latest additions to our family:

Mavis (gray) and Olivia (gray & white)*****

Vin had his 18 month check up yesterday, one month late.

He's now 31 inches tall and 23 pounds. He's in about the 75th percentile for both categories and is doing fine otherwise.

He had a fun time exploring the Dr's office. I just love his little body.

Popcorn

I love this picture of Teri and Vin sharing a bowl of popcorn. It
was a cold Sunday and we were watching Elf with our friend Audrea. A perfect winter day.

Wordless Wednesday

Try and try again

I got an email earlier this week from my sister Cassie with a darling picture of her daughter and Santa. Her comment read, "this definitely could have been worse"

Well I'm here to show you worse!

Mayme and I took Vin to see Santa very early in the season. It was the week before Thanksgiving and Marble Falls had their holiday set up open for business. Vin screamed and grabbed on to me for dear life. Oh well, I knew I had plenty of time to get a better shot with Santa.

Last weekend we went to Candlelight at the Dallas Heritage Village with Rick and Yvette. We had a great time eating kettle corn, touring the historic homes and listening to carollers. They had a Father Christmas photo op. There was no line and so we thought we'd do a family shot to eliminate the screaming. All went well until we saw the printed picture.


I promise Vin had not been eating grape candy! I guess we'll try again next year and hope for the best.

Love/Hate

Oh how I love and hate this time of year. Christmas, hot chocolate, trees and lights are balanced out by final exams and utter nonsense by students.

The past few weeks have been especially rough around here. Vin's perfected his fit throwing by doing it everyday, sometimes for 45 minutes at a time. While work would normally be a reprieve from crying and whining, this year my students are equally as fussy. Seriously, some of the excuses are current deaths, past family deaths, bullets flying through apartments, homesick athletes who just must pass to play next spring, and one particularly crazy one who claims President Obama will come to her aid if I do not pass her.
Next week cannot come fast enough!

In the meantime I've tried to keep Vin and I busy as my theory is that fits are less likely to be thrown if we are active or with friends. Although Vin is proving me wrong on this.

I'm really not being Scrooge, I promise! And I really want to thank everyone who has listened to me and provided guidance, advice, play dates and wine recently. I could never survive without you!

Some photos of our distractions...


Lovely wine, cheese and olive dinner to celebrate the Finale of Top Chef.

Teri hanging lights in our front yard.

Science Place

Vin loved the water although we wasn't that jazzed about the smock. But nobody likes to wear a smock. Hell, I don't even like the way the word sounds for feels in my mouth!

Cafe Lago

On Friday morning we met Jessica and Katheryn for breakfast. Luckily there were no other diners and the kids got to run around and play. They even brought out a bucket of toys and a big box for them to climb in.

*** Would you believe that I just got a call from my dept. chair at collin county about a student who set up a meeting with him about his grades. Oy vey!