2010
January 23, 2010 2:59 pmHappy New Year! I wish I had some more progress on the land to report but at the moment we are at a standstill with the well. The weather has been the main thing delaying drilling. Hopefully, they will start towards the end of next week. Eric and I are also redesigning the house. After sitting on our old plans we realized there were a few things we weren’t happy with. Of course, to correct them the entire house had to be reworked. I’m ok with that, though. I think we’ll end up with a better product.
Eric has been busy working on his Jeep. He replaced the radiator and heater coil? himself. He had to take the entire dashboard off. Now he’s onto fixing up the house so it can be show-worthy once we do put it on the market.
I’m been busy with the kids (I know…surprising) 
.
Miles and Lyla have been playing VERY well together. I can actually get things done around the house now!
A few weeks ago we went to visit my brother and see his new cat, Kirin. Michael and I swear Lyla said “kitty”.
I think I can count that as one of her first words. She may have already said “hi” but it’s hard to tell. Miles is doing great with potty training. He enjoys showing us the fruits of his labor. He also likes to say “Mama and Dada are proud of me”. Here he is watching football with daddy. Anytime he sees a longhord he’ll say “hook em’ horns!”. He’s trying to make a longhorn with his hand but it looks more like a claw.
Here we are goofing around at the grocery store.
He loves helping us with anything we are doing, especially grocery shopping and cooking. Lyla is still such a sweet girl. She has us wrapped around her finger. Her Aunt Beth was kind enough to send her her very own pair of Uggs.
She can walk around now if she is holding onto something. We aren’t encouraging it too much.
People keep telling me she looks like me but she is 100% daddy’s side of the family.
Christmas and Land Update
December 31, 2009 2:21 pmDecember has been a very productive month. A few weeks ago we finally were able to have electric service run to our land. Since Eric did all of the tree clearing himself it took us awhile to be ready for Bluebonnet electric to do the installation. But thankfully he finally finished in the nick of time!
Hopefully next week they will begin drilling our well. Then our next goal will be to finalize the house plans (yes, we are changing them again). I’m not sure if we are still on track to start building in May but we are going to try.
Miles enjoyed playing in his first leaf pile a few days before Christmas. We managed to get a few good shots.
We started a new Christmas tradition by walking the trail of lights in Bastrop. It is far better than Austin’s since there is actually parking! Miles had a great time and ran from one end of the trail to the other.
This year we had our first Christmas at home. After driving back and forth between our family’s houses the past few years we finally decided we had enough lugging the kids and their stuff around. On Christmas Eve my dad and Eve came over for dinner and presents.
Miles got his first tricycle. When he saw it for the first time he yelled “A motorcycle!!”. He really loves wearing his Cars helmet too.
Christmas morning, we opened presents with my mom and Ray.
As you can probably guess, the kids (and daddy) had more fun playing in the box than with their new toys.
I hope everyone has a Happy New Year!
Thanksgiving and Early December
December 14, 2009 10:58 pmTime to backtrack a little to bring everyone up to date. We celebrated 2 thanksgivings this year. Our first one was with Eric’s side of the family on Thanksgiving day. Here’s Eric carving the turkey.
And then Miles trying very hard to stay awake.
At least we had the opportunity to get a good shot of me and Eric.
Lyla wasn’t too thrilled about the turkey but she had a lot of fun playing with the boys’ robot.
We managed to get a decent shot of the whole family!
Then on Friday, Eric and I stuck with tradition and cooked another full Thanksgiving meal and had my mom, brother and his girlfriend over. Eric fried our first turkey and it was delicious!
I even set the table all pretty-like
Miles had fun eating off daddy’s plate
And Lyla was just happy.
That brings us to our first attempt at Miles and Lyla sitting on Santa’s lap at the same time. It was a complete and utter failure. Miles fell and hit his head while trying to run from Santa. Lyla screamed. So we got a picture of Lyla crying on Santa’s lap. I didn’t buy it. But I did manage to get a few cute shots of them in their new Christmas outfits afterwards.
Onto December we go… Lyla celebrated her 10 month bday. She is pulling herself to standing easily now and has cut her 3rd tooth.
She’s been a bit fussy lately but I think that has everything to do with the teething. She’s been a great subject for me to practice my photography skills on.
Miles moves so much that it’s hard to get a good shot of him. Speaking of Miles, he has been so sweet with Lyla and is starting to talk to her, try and feed her and even share his toys! Miles has been talking up a storm lately. Here he is looking at the “spinny”
. He also loves reading books. One of his favorite books has a “ha-pa-tus” in it (octupus). For some reason he has named one of the fish in the book a “ho-ho”. We aren’t quite sure where that came from.
Miles reached another milestone. He used the potty for #2 for the first time a few days ago. He is very motivated to get those M & M’s!
We decorated the house for Christmas. Eric got an amazing shot of our tree using the new camera.
Amazingly enough, both children are doing great not messing with the tree. Lyla actually listens when you tell her “no”. Here they are again after our second trip to see Santa at Barton Creek Country Club. It was only successful because both kids sat in mine and eric’s lap.
Insanity
November 14, 2009 4:36 pmBetween Eric having the swine flu (thankfully a mild version), Miles and I taking our turns being sick, and all of my grandparents having major health issues…the last 4 weeks have not been fun. I think all of the cuteness oozing from Miles and Lyla have kept me sane. I’ll try and backtrack from what little I can remember. Late last month, Miles and Lyla really started playing together. They like to crawl after each other around the couch. It warms my little heart to see Miles enjoying his sister so much. Lyla also started to pull herself onto her knees. I’m sure by Christmas she’ll be cruising around holding onto furniture.
Halloween was a blast. Miles loved carving pumpkins with daddy.
We trick or treated over at my dad and eve’s house. In hindsight we should have gone trick or treating when it was still light outside. Miles was a little overwhelmed by all of the big kids rushing people’s front doors and running around. He definitely understood the name of the game was getting as much candy as possible.
Lyla stayed home with Eve and didn’t get dressed up this year. We did put her in Miles’ old skunk costume the next day for giggles but she wasn’t too thrilled about it.
My mom and I took the kids to a safari park in johnson city a few weeks ago. Miles liked feeding the animals and I loved feeding the camel, Goober.
Lyla was true to form and nursed while we were riding around on the tractor. It was funny that none of the animals distracted her from her mission.
Lyla is now 9 months old.
I can’t believe how fast she is growing. She follows us around the house and still loves to be held and cuddled. I can already tell that I’m going to have a hard time weening her on her first birthday. This girl loves to nurse! The downside to that is she refuses to take a bottle. I’m not thrilled about it but there’s only so much we can do. At least she can eat food off the table now. Just yesterday my mom and I took the kids out for Thai food and she was shoveling fried rice into her mouth. In the last few days she has gotten very good at feeding herself.
Miles continues to be hysterical. Some of his newest mispronunciations: Computer = Peter/ Mr. Potatoe Head = Tubar head/ Bananas = Me-mas. When he wants me to pick him up he’ll say “carry you?”. He is definitely all boy. Anything having to do with bodily sounds, functions or fluids make him crack up. He loves playing with toy animals. It’s really neat watching his imagination develop.
Overscheduled!!!
October 15, 2009 3:11 pmI don’t know why I do this to myself. Even without scheduling fun activities we are busy just dealing with day to day life. But I guess I couldn’t resist the fun 
So last Friday my mom and I took Miles to ride a real Thomas the Train. The day got off to a rocky start and my mom missed the train because she went to the wrong train station in the wrong city. Miles, Lyla and I were able to ride it with some help from some friends we made in line. Nana made it in time to help us off the train.
Saturday, Miles, Lyla, and I joined my dad, Michael and his girlfriend, Kristina for a drive to Richland Springs, TX for a family reunion at our “Big Uncle” Cemetery. I am now officially on the “board” for the people who watch over and control the cemetery. They were in desperate need of new blood so I figured, why not? Michael was a huge help keeping Miles entertained. We didn’t have a big turnout but it was still fun to see the cemetery where my ancestors are buried.
Sunday, we met Elaine, Dale and Nathan at Sea World in San Antonio. Unfortunately, since it was raining and cold we left the camera in the car but Miles didn’t care one bit.
Monday my grandparents came into town from Dallas and we spent the afternoon and evening playing with the kiddos at our house. Michael and Miles were (as usual) hilarious together.
Miles is now officially IN his toddler bed. He hasn’t given us any problems crawling out of it…thank goodness! Lyla has mastered crawling and is on a mission to get any toy in her mouth that shouldn’t belong there. For some reason she loves to crawl under and between furniture. This has resulted in bonking her head multiple times but I’m sure she’ll learn. Eric is looking forward to getting work done at our land. Next weekend he gets to play with a bobcat and is going to work on making our driveway less steep. Hopefully we will be drilling the well in the next month. Progress is slow but at least we are making it!
