Monday, November 22, 2010

Parade of Lights

The parade was so much fun this year! We missed having Randy there with us - he got a last minute ticket to the very exciting A&M v. Nebraska game - but we had fun and I did great with both girls! We got there early because we wanted to make sure we had a place to park and a place to sit and watch the parade, and at the last minute I thought to bring Randy's ITouch. Kendall has several games on there that she loves to play, so I thought that might keep her entertained while we were waiting. We hung out next to the Beams, and when Lawson saw Kendall playing on the touch, he grabbed his mom's phone. I love this picture!!
They were comparing games - they both have "the monkey game" - and at one point they even switched so they could play some games that they thought looked like fun on the other one's phone!
Sweet friends! Lawson is exactly one year (minus three days) older than Kendall, but she's just so big that I think they look the same age! I did not have high hopes for how Kendall would do with the parade. It goes right in front of us and I knew it would be loud. She did awesome, though! A few times she covered her ears, but she never got upset and she really loved it. Here she is waving at the floats - she loved waving and saying "Merry Christmas!" It was so much fun to watch her.
When we were leaving, she said, "Mom, that parade was fun!" I asked her which one was her favorite, and she said, "The truck." I said, "Which truck? There were a lot!" And she said, "The one with the Grinch!" We watched How The Grinch Stole Christmas on Friday night while we put up our Christmas tree, and since then we've watched it probably half a dozen times - she loves it! She says, "Mom, he don't like him's heart." (Talking about how the Grinch's heart is two sizes too small). So of course that float was her favorite!
The Chick-a-lay float!! That was one of our favorites, too, because we go there quite a lot!
It was such a great parade! It lasted about an hour and there were so many entries! Here's a shot of the Corvette club for Pops!!
Here we are after the parade, ready to head back to the car. And yes, Kendall IS chewing on one of those light sticks that has liquid in it. I promise I was watching her the whole time, Randy - except for when I was looking at the camera!! Cooper stayed in the wrap on me the whole time and never woke up, even when the fire truck was honking it's horn! Maybe next year she will actually SEE some of the parade!!
It feels a lot like Christmas here, but we are getting packed and ready for a week in Ft. Worth for Thanksgiving! We're excited about a long vacation!

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Festival of Lights

This afternoon was the start of my most favorite Lake Jackson tradition: The Festival of Lights! Every year they put up all these Christmas trees made of lights all over downtown and have a festival during the day and then a parade at night. It's so much fun! We went to the festival part today and in just a little while we will head to the parade. Kendall was pretty excited about the festival...until we got there! Then she got a little overwhelmed and everything was just too loud and too scary. We ran into some friends and asked them to take a family picture - here's how that went:
Oh well. So then we headed over to the carnival part of the festival and bought tickets so Kendall could ride the carousel like she had been talking about wanting to do. They ride one in Mary Poppins, so she thought that would be fun. Well, she changed her mind (after Randy bought the tickets) so we moved on to the games. She thought it sounded like fun to pick a duck and get a prize, but then, not so much. Can you tell?
After that it was time to go watch Aubrey Beams dance on the main stage! Kendall was really excited about that and she could just sit in the stroller, so that worked out great!! Here we are ready to see Aubrey:
She did such a good job! She's so sweet and cute! (on the right - our friends Jason and Stephanie adopted her from Russia - but she just looks like she's their biological child!!)

Before we left, we walked over to the snow hill so Kendall could just see it. It looked like fun! I wore Cooper the whole time - and she slept the whole time! We'll see how they both do for the parade tonight; it's going to be loud!!

Just too sweet...


...not to share!

Turkey Cookies!

On Wednesday our friends Rachael and Charlotte had us over to make turkey cookies! Mary had seen this picture and wanted to try making them with the kids...needless to say, our cookies didn't look quite this good!
Spreading the icing on her cookie. Before it was over, I actually saw her sticking the spreader into the icing and eating it right off!!
Mary and Sarah were there, and Ethan, Ella and Holly.


Showing me her cookie!

Sweet friends!
Here's the hostess: Rachael with her daughter Charlie. Rachael is having her second in just a few weeks!
Megan and Clark were there too - and Megan let me help Kendall by holding Cooper for awhile. Cooper enjoyed watching. :)
Check out that messy face!!
We had a great time making (turkey) cookies!! Thanks girls!

Monday, November 15, 2010

Fun Weekend!

We had a great weekend! When Randy got home from Cambodia last weekend, we decided to tear out our carpet and put down new floors in the living room and hall. It has been a lot of work! We worked all day Friday, and then Gigi and Peeps came down for a quick visit Saturday and Sunday. They helped us work on Saturday, but of course we had to take a break for the Aggie game Saturday night! It was so fun to watch the Ags BTHO Baylor!! We didn't have the game on our tv, but Kevin and Jan did and they invited us over to watch it, even though they were out of town!
Holly and Ella stopped by for a little while and Kendall had a good time playing with them. It's so fun watching her and Ella play more together now that Ella is older.

Kendall wore her A&M stickers again for the game - so cute!
Love it!
Kendall loves her Gigi and Peeps! It was great to see them.
Sunday morning we all went to church and got to hear Randy preach. He is doing such a great job - we love listening to him!! Cooper wore one of Kendall's old dresses to church and looked just like her! Beautiful!
We had a great weekend, but we are worn out and all of us are starting to get a little sick! We're ready to rest up and get over this before we make a long trip to Ft. Worth next week! Cooper has lots of friends and family to meet!

Bumbo!

Look who is sitting in her Bumbo chair? Well, kind of. Her head still bobs around a little and she can't go for too long without getting tired. But she's so cute!

Big sister wanted to come be in the pictures, too.
And check out our new floors! We pulled up our carpet and layed vinyl planks. So. much. work.

I love this! Cooper, I hope you always know how much your big sister loves you and loves to take care of you!

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Vitamins and Smiles

We started giving Cooper her vitamins last night. Before we made her taste them though, we got a few shots of her smiling at her Daddy. :)

Look at that belly!!


Such a pretty smile!
And then we gave her the vitamins...
She made faces, but she ate them all!! What a good girl!

Daddy is Home!

Randy went to Cambodia last week and we were so excited to go pick him up from the airport Saturday! The girls really missed him so much...and their mom did, too. Cooper just kept looking and looking at him. So sweet!


Love those big eyes!

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Cooper's First Halloween

Cooper pretty much slept through her first trick-or-treating experience. :) We made several stops and she either rode on me in the Baby Bjorn or stayed in the car while we ran to the door. The first place we went was to Willow Drive for their fall festival. Kendall had a lot of fun! And Cooper had a great nap. :)
After that we went to Kathy and Jerry Peters' house. Cooper stayed in the car.
Then we trick-or-treated around Kim and Jeff Johnson's street. Cooper rode on me and had another good nap. Next we stopped by Patrick's house. Cooper had already met him, so she stayed in the car, but Kendall was super excited to meet him for the first time!

Our last stop was K-Pops and Janny's house. Cooper got to come in there and even got to get out of her seat! She was still the cutest little mouse and was a lot of fun to take trick-or-treating!

First Sunday in the nursery!

Sunday, Halloween, was Cooper's first Sunday in the nursery at church. She has been coming to church with me since she was 12 days old, but I have kept her with me in the worship room because she hadn't had her shots yet. She got them Friday though, so she got to go play with her friends during the service this week!

My friends Jennifer Fort and Holly were her teachers this week! They took good care of her. She slept most of the time and didn't cry until they changed her diaper right before the service was over!
Both the girls were dressed in their Halloween clothes from Gigi. So cute!

We love our sweet church family and are so thankful for how well they take care of BOTH our girls!