Llano and the Guys

On a whim last Friday Teri called and wanted to go visit Patty and Terry in Llano. It's about a 4 hour drive for us and a perfect getaway to the Texas Hill Country. When I called to let her know that we were coming she said she had 1 of her 5 spare beds available to us. My mother is a wonderful host to her company and therefore always has a house full of family and friends.

In this case she had a house full of cowboys which is not unusual. However, I must say that when they have cowboys around they aren't just any cowboys they are professional rodeo cowboys. This weekend we hung out with Steer Wrestlers Dane Hanna, Beau Franzen, and 2005 World Champion Steer Wrestler Lee Graves. I should also mention that their neighbor is 8 time world champion team roper Rich Skelton.

These guys also have a television show in the works called Rodeo Drive which is being produced by the same guys who do the Deadliest Catch. The film crew was there on Saturday - so cool!

Here's Vin hanging out with Dane and a roping dummy and on a horse with Mayme and Grumps in their new barn and ropin' arena.

They just built this house last year and we all got to spend Christmas here this past year. Patty is now hard a work getting it all set up, decorated and landscaped. It is a beautiful and comfortable house to stay in.

Check it out on my virtual home tour

Living Room

The Kitchen

Master Bedroom and Bath

Front and Back Patio

Miss Lilly and the Bunk House - The tree is named Miss Lilly Live Oak and she's just outside the kitchen patio. In the background is the Bunk House which has a bedroom, living room, full kitchen and laundry. The other cool thing about it is the cedar hitching posts which really get used by the guys. If you look close you can see Dane cleaning up before they got ready to head out to Arizona.

Baby Emma is here!

Our new cousin Emma arrived last Saturday at 2:21pm she weighed 8lbs 15 oz. and was 20.5 inches long.

Aja, Richard and Emma are all doing great!

Cheerios

For our baby shower last year the hosts gave us a video camera. I've used it quite a bit but I'm still trying to master the fine details of the computer software. The medical experts say that lack of sleep disrupts your cognitive abilities, your creative juices and in general makes life more difficult. This is defiantly true of my Window's Movie Maker skills or lack thereof. I'm considering hiring one of my students to teach me how to convert my files etc. etc. etc.

In the meantime I can always post small clips here like this one of Vin eating Cheerios. He loves these but he isn't that great at getting them in his mouth. In this clip he's laughing but my favorite part is the end when he has the cereal stuck to his arm while he yawns.

One more thing... the music was playing on the kitchen radio it was NOT added my me later!

Strawberries!

We let Vin go crazy with his strawberries last week.

He was a sticky sweet wonderful little mess!

Chubbo!

Look at those fat legs

(Vin's not mine!)

Who said global warming is all bad? It's been hovering between 55 and 75 degrees here for the past few weeks, all great temperatures to take Vin to the park. He loves to swing and I've walking off the baby weight, which by the way, I'm 1 lb under from the point of conception - Yea!

Anyway, I love going to the park! We walk, we talk and the day's stresses just melt away. It is so relaxing and by the time we go home Vin's usually napped and we're ready to wind down our day. Last week Teri got to go with us and we took Henry and Bella too!

We got Vin a Jeep Liberty 3-wheel stroller. It has a steering wheel with a horn and an ignition key that sounds very real. He loves it!

Teitze park has these great gnarly trees whose branches practically lay down on the ground. All the kids climb all over these.

Nap time!

Vin's 8.5 months old now and still has no teeth, however this does not stop him from being an active eater (I mean he is our child... what do you expect!)

Topless cookie eating. I'm making the cookies from scratch while Teri is making all his baby food. If you ever took a minute to read a baby food jar you'd see that it is virtually nutritionless and filled with preservatives etc. We've also made a commitment to feeding him as organic as possible. Hey - it won't be forever that we can control what goes into his body so while we can we want him to be as healthy as possible. Plus it is such an act of love to go to the store, pick the new foods we want him to try and then come home and prepare him wholesome foods for the week.

CHERRIES!!!!!!!! So far his favorite fruit are cherries but pears are a close second and he'll be having peaches later this week. I'll let you know what happens.

Here is his first try with an orange or any kind of citrus. He wasn't that impressed.

Mayme's cell phone. YUM! YUM!!