Granny & Matt at the Ranch

My Mom took Matt to Laredo not too long ago and spent the day at the ranch with Granny & Matt. Apparently from the looks of it they had an amazing time. Please take a peek at the slideshow. I normally melt when I see my kid's smile but my Granny's smile in some of these pictures is priceless. What I love about her is that even though she's over 90 years old she takes care of Matt as if she's my age. She picks him up and laughs with him...it's so great!

It brings back memories of my childhood. We loved opening the gates at the ranch and rummaging around in the old ranch house. Granny would show us all of her old gadgets. And of course we'd go fishing at the tanks or just have fun throwing rocks in! Seems Matt enjoyed it all as well!

Here are a few of my favorite pics!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JESUS!

My Mom was headed out of town for vacation so we celebrated Christmas a little early. After a wonderful meal (thank you Doug) and a birthday cake for Jesus we opened gifts. Matt couldn't wait but I think I was even more excited. Matt did pretty good giving gifts out. Of course he kept asking where his were but I tried my best to teach him it was about "giving". Marlie did pretty good too. She kept saying "open, open" and was SO excited about everything she got. Here's Marlie with her baby that she fed and put to sleep all night. How strange that a 1 1/2 year old girl is playing the "momma" role. I'm amazed. Also notice she's sporting her new Nikes that Daddy bought her. Dad is addicted to shoes and it's rubbing off on Matt. Now he's working on Marlie! Here's Matt opening a Texans helmet and uniform from Dad and I. He loved it! He's been wearing it all weekend. Notice the Tom Brady jersey he's wearing. That was his first gift that Daddy bought him. He wore it the next day and told the ladies at the store "but I'm not as handsome as Tom Brady". They all laughed and of course told him he was!

And here is Matt opening up his BIG TRUCK from Nene. He loved it!

We all had fun! Uncle Jay and Lynette were with us and bought the kids some wonderful presents! Thank you! Nene gave us some money so we can finally put gas logs in our fireplace and I got my new Jason Mraz CD so I'm happy as a lark. We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and get to spend it with children!! The looks on their faces are as if God is smiling right at us!

Life is so PRECIOUS!

We have a sad story to tell in our blog today. Our dog Precious is no longer with us. She was having trouble breathing last night so I stayed up with her until about 2am when I thought she had fallen asleep. Doug found her this morning. She was 15 so she lived a long and happy life.

We are all very sad but as we told Matt, she is in doggie heaven now and having all the treats she wants. When I told Matt that Precious left this morning to live in heaven with God he said, "but you and Dad bought Precious and Hannah to live here in our house". It was really cute. I told him we had to share with God too. So he said he would take good care of Hannah since she doesn't have her sister around. Please love your pets tonight!

Here is an old picture I found of Precious. It's from Christmas 2004! She is the one on the left. Hannah is one on the right.

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

I packed the kids in the car to head to Nene's house for dinner and as I was backing out of the garage the darn trash can was in my way so I had to get out to get it (was hoping I could just wait for Doug to bring it in). I thought it was raining but as I looked up I realized it was snowing!! I jumped back in the car screaming "It's snowing!" and Matt didn't really understand at first but was just smiling because he could see the excitement on my face. To say it was beautiful is an understatement. It came down pretty hard for about 4 hours. Here's a picture of our house WITH SNOW and Matt playing outside in his PJs!!! Yes you'll also notice we are on our way to having a Griswald yard. To be honest I hate those blow up things. They are nice up but during the day the whole neighborhood has deflated Santas and Snowmen in the yards. The first day Marlie saw it down she said "uh-oh Santa". Our new neighbors have 2 year old twins and apparently one of them freaked out too when she saw Santa head down in the dirt. BUT Matt really wanted one so Santa will stay.

Matt had a Christmas program at school and it was fantastic. I'd pay more to see him on stage than I would a great Broadway show, no offense to all the amazing men and women who have those talents that I'd dream of having, but this is my baby on stage!!! The PreK-3 kids sang about 4 really short songs but it was really neat. And Matt did great. He was a ham and had the biggest smile on his face the entire time.

Speaking of singing...Marlie will be the smallest Christmas caroller I've ever seen. She sings "Jingle Bells, jingle all the way" and then joins in on the "Hey" part at the perfect time. We were singing "Santa Claus is coming" and she blurted out with "to town"! I didn't even know she knew that song. And she sings bit and pieces of Rudolph of course. We like to play Christmas music and drive around and look at Christmas lights so I guess she's caught on.

Marlie has continued to amaze us all with how fast she seems to be catching on to the world. I suppose she's trying to keep up with Matt. My friend bought the kids Advent calendars (thank you, thank you) and the other day Marlie had hers and was saying something. I was busy but after about the 5th time I turned to see she was pointing to the Baby Jesus saying "Jesus" but sounded more like "e-suh". It was great. We're trying real hard to make sure that the kids understand the true meaning of Christmas. It's so easy to get wrapped up with gift giving, parties, etc. So I will make a cake and we'll sing Happy Birthday to Jesus. Matt is already excited about the party!

Uh-oh Santa

Well we had a great Thanksgiving in San Antonio with everyone! Of course we forgot the camera so we don't have any pictures. Matt went to Laredo and then to McAllen with Nene and had a wonderful time at the ranch and with all the family. Meantime, Marlie tried to keep up with her girl cousins and had a blast! Doug's Mom makes a fabulous Thanksgiving meal (although Doug and his sister will insist they made most of it).

Doug and I went with some friends to the Monday night football Texans game and had SUCH a good time. We don't get out much and this was just fabulous. They won and we ate before at the best tailgate ever. We had this bacon, jalapeno and cheese wrapped shrimp that was to die for. Thank you Larry and Heather for inviting us!!! I'm sure they realized how much fun we had considering Doug could barely stand upright by the end of the game...okay I'm exaggerating but as much fun as we had, I had to drive us home and was so tired that I almost fell asleep. Yes it was only about midnight but this Momma is tired!!!

Well along with the rest of the world we are getting ready for Christmas. Okay well I guess the Jewish people are getting ready for Hanukkah and others are getting ready for Kwanza but you know what I mean. We had snow day in the neighborhood and it was a blast. Matt and his friends threw snowballs at each other, I had hot chocolate and Marlie screamed at Santa! When I asked her afterwards about Santa she would say "uh-oh Santa". Not sure exactly what that means except that she doesn't like him one bit.

We took pictures this morning for our Christmas card and I won't ruin the surprise by posting the one we picked, but I have to post some others. And although I wasn't really up for being in the picture this year it was necessary to keep the kids in place. I was thinking...and then Doug said it...that we feel like we've aged 10 years in this last year. These were some of the better pictures we got of Matt and Marlie together...you'll see why they didn't make the card.

This was our test picture. Maybe Mom and Dad should ask Santa for some gas logs!

Here's an "okay we have to smile but are tired of this...cheese".

Here are few with us and Matt. Marlie would not cooperate so we don't even have any blog-worthy pictures of her to post.