GeoTrax

Jack pointing out to Olivia the GeoTrax he owns and the ones he wants to own. Thanks to my good friend Annette who kicked off this obsession! :-) 

Last Leg of Our Travels

Our Peach Meadow New Year Celebration :-) 

This is actually around 8 PM...none of us had any real intention of staying up until midnight.

The morning of our 3rd Christmas gift exchange...Penny and Jack showing a little love

Jack and Penny excited about the cars blanket 

Penny's princess dress (Mimi sewed both the blanket and the dress!)

Luca Fox :-)

Pit Stop

Our Christmas travels allowed for us to stop over at my sister's house. We had a chance to visit and exchange gifts. My sister has two beautiful girls! 

Amalia=Precious

Our babes

Jack and Olivia trying to get the little ones to smile

"The older kids" 

More pictures of Olivia to come...she came to stay with us for a couple of days and so I got a few more pics of her.

Christmas in the Valley

Grandma-Thank you Mom for watching the boys so that Todd and I could have a lunch date!

Grandpa-Love watching my Dad be gentle

My Mom and Dad in Grandparent Heaven

Sweet Sydney

Tucker eagerly looking for more trains

My goofy son that requested dominoes from his grandparents

Jack helping Luca open gifts..and aunt Jennifer in the background. The only shot I got of her! I should have gotten a shot of her and my brother together. We don't get to see them very often. I wasn't thinking. 

Jeremiah pretending to buy and pop fireworks for the kids-When really we all know he just wanted an excuse to play with matches and to blow things up. :-) 

Jack at the airport right before leaving...always happy to sleep in my own bed again but terribly sad to leave my parents, my Mom's charismatic church, old friends, good food, and my childhood home. 

Random Cuteness

Random cuteness interrupting the Christmas Travel Narrative

First Flight

In the Austin airport, having Christmas Eve dinner and waiting on our DELAYED flight...See that big bottle of water...almost resulted in a bathroom accident during our descent. 

Finally on the plane where we had to wait another 30-40 minutes before taking off-It only takes about 30 minutes to fly from Austin to see my parents. Despite the delay and almost accident...still better than driving for 7-9 hours with the boys. 

Luca was totally fine with it all... And our flight back was much better. I didn't really mind being in the airport. I love the Austin Airport. It is so familiar and clean. I love being in our college town, knowing where everything is and best of all-people watching. I like being reminded of all the different people, families and lifestyles there are in our fine state. :-) 

Our Christmas

We have way too many Christmas photos not to post them. So maybe I will be done with them by Valentine's Day. Here is a glimpse into the first of 4 different Christmas gift exchanges we had this year. 

Jack's letter to Santa... no we don't have a dog and yes he requested tape (with a tape dispenser) And yes.. he really does use it. He loves it. 

Here Jack is opening up his "dog house." Had to order it off of ebay.

This is a bad shot but it captures his complete joy and excitement at seeing that his doggie house was in the box.

And here it is folks. The doggie house is indeed a pink dog house with little hearts. He saw it on TV and in a magazine and REALLY wanted to play with the little dogs it comes with. He traveled everywhere with it over the holidays. As parents we discussed the purchase and debated it over and over again. In the end we decided that this one pink gift would be fine. We balanced it out with a basketball hoop and ball. :-) 

Sweet Luca is totally unaware of Christmas. :-) 

Some Pre-Christmas Pics

Baking Cookies for Santa

Jack demonstrating his measuring skills

Carefully using cookie cutters on the raw dough which contains raw egg....an allergy risk

Eating and decorating cookies

Santa eating cookies... (shhh...Todd doesn't know I posted this picture of him.) 

6 Months

The guilty party

Destination-unknown

The scene of the crime

Our little Luca is on the move. As you can see from the pictures above, he cannot be left anywhere unsupervised for too long. This month has been a big month for development. By mid month Luca started rolling around and traveling from one end of the room to another, he began sitting up and got 2 teeth! 

The little man sitting up

At 6 months Luca:

1. has grown to enjoy cereal time. (not because he eats a whole lot of cereal but because it is fun to play with cereal and with the eating utensils)

2. rolls around 

3. is beginning to sit up with less support

4. has 2 bottom teeth and is definitely still teething

5. laughs and smiles

6. babbles and razzes 

7. had his first trip by plane to see Grandma and Grandpa

8. got his first cold over Christmas

9. shows interest in our food and beverages

10. continues to be a snacker

11. and has yet to sleep through the night! Let's just say that due to his cold, teething and traveling we have regressed tremendously in this area.

Still waiting on his official stats. Going to see the doctor later this week. 

Amalia

is out of the hospital and recuperating in her home now. She spent 4 nights in the hospital with pneumonia. Thank you Lord for sustaining her parents, making a way for Grandma to come up and for everyone being safe and in the comforts of their own home. 

Update

Thanks for hanging in there and checking back in with us. I know I haven't blogged in a while and we are WAY backlogged on photos. We have been super busy and traveling a lot. We are wiped out. We traveled to see my parents for Christmas and traveled to see Todd's parents for New Years. We currently have cousin Olivia staying with us for a few days. She has been great. Providing us with much entertainment and ratting out Jack whenever she gets the chance. Soooooo... the tree is still up, the gifts that we unwrapped prior to making our initial trip to my parent's house are still in our living room and dining room! I haven't completely unpacked my suitcase. Todd is working days and nights to record some music and I start school next week. So blogging has not been at the top of my priority list. It is my fun thing and well... without the extra time the fun thing gets eliminated. But I thought I would provide a few pics for our few loyal readers. :-) And if you get a chance, please say a prayer for my sweet little niece and her parents. She is very sick and has been in the hospital for 3 nights now. :-( She is younger than Luca so you can imagine the stress and worry that comes along with having a sick child that is so young. 

Jack the red nosed reindeer at his school party

Very focused on his craft

A random silly shot of Luca...This is after an early morning drive with Todd. We were desperate for a way to make him sleep. I am sorry but 4 and 5 am is not "wake up and start the day time!"