Mississippi trip

This past weekend, we went to see our friends John and Robin, who moved to Mississippi at the end of the summer. The Bynums were able to come and meet us there as well. We got to hang out at John and Robin's new house and enjoy time with them and all of their animals (1 dog, 5 cats, and 3 horses).

John and Robin in front of their new house.


Annabel and Bransen "playing" together.



Madison and Brayden playing in the front yard. Can you believe that they get to see sunsets like this from their front porch? Love it.


Fun with the horses. Robin let the big kids feed the horses a whole bag of carrots.


Annabel really liked the horses too.


Madison and Brayden got to sit on Brooke's back.


John introducing Maddie to Brooke.


Robin was so nice to let Maddie and Brayden play in her room for hours on end with the cats (and in their beds).



The guy got to spend some time hunting.




The girls even traveled well (which really suprised me, great surprise). I am feeling inspired to start traveling again.

Also, thanks to Katie for taking pictures. I stole some of these from you.

Two weeks ago, the OSU basketball team was in town playing the Aggies. Since it was still Christmas break for the students, they has some discount tickets available. We took the girls and quite a few people from my work joined us. We made a night of it. First, pizza at Double Daves with coworkers. Here is Maddie just before we headed to the game. Isn't she the cutest cheerleader? Oh, and yes, we were all obnoxiously in our orange with all our Aggie friends.


Both of the girls were in my lap and sleepy by the end of the game, but we still had a great time!

Aunt Rachel and Uncle Jared

Last week Jared's sister Rachel and her husband Jared (or as Maddie calls him, Rachel's Jared) came to visit us from Virginia. We haven't seen them in a while and were really excited for them to come. Here are some pics from us exchanging Christmas presents.

Some boots for baby Levi who will be making his arrival in a couple of months. We can't wait! The girls' first cousin.

We ate some mexican food (even drove to Conroe for Taco Bueno, yum!), went to the Blue Bell factory in Brenham, and has lots of fun just hanging out. The guys went hunting twice and Rachel and I got to go get pedicures.

Thanks so much for coming to visit us! Can't wait to see you again soon.

Moving and Teething

It is so much fun when a baby hits this stage and new milestones are happening all the time.

After mastering the crawl, Annabel is on to new positions.

About a week ago, I was getting ready for work and Annabel was crawling around the bathroom. I turned around for a second and she was standing at the tub. Now, she is pulling up on everything. She is also a very speedy crawler and into everything.

This week, her two bottom teeth broke through her gums. They aren't far enough in to get much of a picture of them, but she officially has teeth now.

Christmas Day

We had a great Christmas. We stayed home this year because we weren't sure how well Annabel would be able to travel. My parents came down to celebrate Christmas with us.

Christmas morning we got up and opened presents. Well, Maddie unloaded her stocking and then unloaded everyone else's for them. Then she opened her presents ... and everyone else's.

Later, we ate Jared's delicious prime rib. After naps, we made a birthday cake for Jesus and sang Happy Birthday.

Here are some (ok, a lot) of pics from Christmas morning.

Madison getting ready to dig into her stocking



Annabel checking out her stocking

Annabel and Grandpa

Mommy and the girls

Modelling her new princess house shoes

Maddie unloaded Daddy's stocking for him

Now, on to Grandpa's stocking. He got two helpers.

Maddie got a new digital camera. She has been sleeping with it.

Her new dress.

Annabel's favorite: tissue paper

Annabel's stash of new clothes

More playing with tissue paper

Who needs presents? She just needs a box tall enough to try to pull up on.

Daddy was just fast enough to open one of his presents by himself.

Grammy was not so fast

What a great Christmas!

Annabel is crawling

Annabel started crawling about a week ago. I took this video on my regular camera. It is not great, but you can see her crawling.

Now, she is a lot more steady and a lot faster.

When I got home from work this evening, her pants were wet because she had found the dogs water bowl. In the first hour after I got home, she darted across the living room for daddy's cup, pulled Wrigley's tail, and tugged on the Christmas tree skirt. We are going to have to keep a close eye on her now. I don't remember Maddie being so determined to get into everything.

More Christmas Fun

This Christmas season has already been our busiest by far. I have missed taking pictures of much of it. In the last two weeks, we have had a Sunday School class party, one with a few family friends, and Jared and I got to go to my work Christmas party (thanks mom and dad for coming to watch the girls).

Today was also very busy. This morning was Madison's preschool Christmas party. She brought home many of the Christmas projects she has been working on. They have been working hard to help them learn the true meaning of Christmas. Their memory verse for this month has been

Unto you is born this day a Savior, which is Christ the Lord. Luke 2:11

Here is a picture that they made and laminated.

and so many other Christmas crafts




Modeling the elf had she made


After the school Christmas party, the girls also got to come to the kids Christmas party at my work. First, they colored and made a cute little mouse. Annabel was lots of help. She kept putting all of the felt pieces in her mouth.




We managed to get it together (except for the eyes).

Then Santa showed up to hand out presents to all the kids.

and take pictures

We had to be quick because Annabel was trying her best to pull his beard off.