so, we had a wonderful week, and now we're all alone again and much less skinny. not that we were skinny before, but you know what i mean! grandma jan almost didn't get to come, but we are so glad that she made it. she is looking wonderful, now all done with her radiation!


Hannah "helped" me decorate and set the table. i kept fighting back tears thinking of when she wouldn't come home for thanksgiving.


me and my precious baby girl, proud of the table

this is the closest we came to a group picture. i made half of the food ahead of time, and Gma Jan did the turkey, so the day wasn't even stressful. we had turkey, cornbread dressing, sweet potato casserole, mashed potatoes, horseradish carrots, baked mac'n'cheese, and rolls. Then we had mulled cider, and Patrick made a pumpkin-pecan pie for dessert. I was somewhat nervous about hosting my first big holiday, my mom having set such high standards, but it turned out great i think. paper plates and all!

patrick and hannah digging in. really all she liked was macncheese and rolls.

charlie charmed everyone! nana got all kinds of smiles and laughs out of him.

daddy has big shoes to fill

we went to the dallas arboretum, and had a wonderful time. all kinds of pictures. it was such a gorgeous day, and my children were so sweet and beautiful.

a little blurry, but still one of my favourites

nana practiced silly smile/sweet smile with hannah, so she'd be ready for pictures

hannah and i have enjoyed playing in the leaves this fall. i love to see her face light up and hear her laugh, just enjoying life. i know this is cliche, but i will treasure those moments forever.

we are so thankful to God for our family. My children teach me so much, and I am blessed beyond what I could ever deserve to call my husband and children my own.

we're back!

i'm just going to do basic captions here, and you all can fill in the blanks with the details of our lives. it's taken me too long just to upload these things! this is hannah and brody, who we babysit. they love playing together and i love watching them. i think they could be twins.


painting a pumpkin (with a sharpie. i guess you can't call that painting). she scribbled "hair" on one side, and patrick did the face.

our pumpkin family. patrick did everybody's faces, being the artistic one in the family. he did me a glamour shots one :-)

we are so in love with this boy. he is the absolute sweetest thing. he is so mellow, i worry about neglecting him. he does spend a significant amount of time in the snugli with me, so i guess he's ok. only waking up once at night! he loves interacting with you, and sometimes he just sits there and talks to himself. i could just eat him! he's started focusing on things really well, like his bunny or the rings i put on his carseat. he is the baby everybody wants and i didn't think existed.

now this is true love, for hannah to give charlie her babou. on R, you can see how she's dying to have someone to play with! i think it'll be a few years, though.

i know it looks like he lives in the swing, but i can't very well take pictures of him when i'm holding him, so this is the only time i do it. and i'm the only one who does it :-)

so we went to our church's fall festival, which was a big outing for me by myself with them. she was too scared to do any of the little bounce house things, and i wouldn't let her eat the candy, so it was kind of pointless to go. but she did, however, have a blast taking these ducks in and out of the baby pool. not sure what the game was supposed to be, but i have to confess i was somewhat worried about her intelligence as i watched her do that over and over again. good thing i know she's a genius ;-)

yes, this is the same strawberry from last year. and charlie spent the whole time in the snugli, so nobody saw how cute he was. my niece kennedy went through this smile stage that Hannah is in now. when you tell her to smile for pictures, it's kind of scary!

we went to a huge airshow a few weeks ago that had, among many other things, that blue angels. i would never have believed it if i hadn't seen it myself. unbelievable what these guys do. crazy, in my opinion. Hannah loved it until she got too tired.

F 18s are loud! I hadn't even thought about ear protection, never having been to an airshow before. I was so worried about their ears, but they seem to be doing ok since.

the scary smile again. and thanks grandma jan, for the stickers!

good lookin' boy, all ready for church!!! (then he peed through his snazzy outfit and i put him back in pjs :-).

so there are good things and bad things about hannah being potty trained. she can go by herself but you never know what you're going to find. later in the day patrick yelled that she'd done it all again. i was confused how she'd done that when i'd never put it back. then i had to tell patrick that actually i just never cleaned it up. i guess i'm out of the running for america's next top homemaker :-). i never did, either. it stayed in a big pile until it was gone. those kind of things are just not priorities right now!

he's such a big boy. here he's smiling at daddy. i do think they look alike.

so we went to beavers bend state park in broken bow, oklahoma this weekend. stayed in a beautiful cabin with a porch swing. we had a great time mostly, except i woke up with a horrific case of pink eye on saturday. oh, i was so angry at the timing. i was hoping i could wait, but by saturday afternoon i was begging patrick to take me to the doctor. it was 30 min away, and meant we had to waste our precious time there and miss our scheduled hayride. but it was terrible. i never thought pinkeye was that bad, but i wanted to claw it out. it swelled nearly shut. and i was trying to hike, with charlie in the snugli. i was actually in tears it hurt so bad. i looked like a bad halloween leftover. the antibiotics kicked in about 12 hrs after i started, and it's definitely improved. I remember how many kids had conjunctivitis in senegal, and now i want to send over cases of medicine. we take so much for granted, that we just run to the doctor, pick up our prescription, and get better within a few days. most of the world just suffers through it.

the folk festival and craft show was this weekend, which was really neat. i love that kind of thing! they had all kind of period demonstrations (candles, soap, woodworking, etc), all kinds of different musical groups, food of course. and a petting zoo. we've been reading "is your mama a llama?", and then hannah got to see one.

yes, she's trying to smile.

sometimes i get so frustrated with her 2yr old ness that i don't notice her cuteness that also comes from being two. she loved these bears, and was standing in front of them saying "daddy bear, baby bear." i wasn't really paying attention until i heard someone else saying something to her about how sweet she was. and she is. she really is. we just have to remind ourselves sometimes!

he's such an albino. i guess that's what happens when you spend the summer months in utero :-)

it is so beautiful there. we would often just stop and look around, or listen to the water.

i felt so bad for making us miss the hayride, but we caught a trainride the next day. i love this picture. i think she had a fun weekend. patrick mentioned that she's going to start remembering things now. that's scary and exciting at the same time.

patrick went fishing once by himself, and then we all went together. mellowman just hung out in his carseat for a while by himself, and i tried unsuccessfully to keep hannah out of the water. she was having a blast, getting dirty and finding bugs.

i want to print out this picture and put it on patrick's desk so he can look at it when he gets really stressed!

so we survived our first time away with both of them. hannah slept in a big bed, and she did fine except waking up super super early. like 6. not cool. especially on vacation! charlie slept in a little travel bed and did great. he always does great :-)

peace and privacy. it was wonderful (other than the eye thing) and too short. next time we want to stay a whole week. and not be on a diet!