Week 2 - Boerne and Austin

Winter in Texas is so awesome. It's kind of the big payoff for suffering through the 100+ degree weather all summer (plus May and September, of course;). I'm sad to admit that we had been wavering on our desire to move back to Texas once we're done with the military, but we were totally won back over on this trip. HEB helped too, of course.

Anyway. After a week at 'Bayissa's' house we packed up again and headed to Boerne. The Smith's got there a few days after us, so it was definitely a party and Granny and Grandad's house.

Marc entertained the troops - unbeknownst to them, the littler ones were only pretending to play:

Nora practiced stair climbing some more:

One of my favorite moments - we had told all the Smith kids that if they saw Nora on the stairs they should stop her and let us know she was there. A little while after that warning, we heard screaming coming from the stair area. Little Aoife (she'll be 2 in Feb.) had taken our instructions to heart and had tried to stop Nora from climbing the stairs. The only way she could figure out how - with a foot placed firmly on Nora's back, holding her in place. It was pretty hilarious (and effective!), I'm just sad we didn't get a picture of it.

The city had recently completed a nice little walking path behind my parents house, so we took all the kiddos for a walk.

Nora and Aoife in the stroller:

T, Brigit, and Granny:

Colin and Aoife are so cute! I couldn't resist getting a picture of them. They were just walking along holding hands, both sucking their thumbs:

And then with their dad, although Rob did not participate in the thumb sucking...

T had to be just like the big kids and cross the rocks. That's her curly little head in the bottom corner.

After a few days in Boerne, we took another little trip up to Austin, to see some more cousins. Marc wasn't about to let us visit Austin without getting a Mighty Fine burger, so we braved taking all 12 of the kids there for lunch. I hate how much T looks like a 'big kid' in this picture :(.

They were actually all really well behaved for the meal. Pleasant surprise. There's brand new little Ryan in his car seat. He's such a cutie.

Brigit wasn't about to be intimidated by the size of her burger :)

In the same parking lot as Mighty Fine was a place called Gigi's Cupcakes. Marc's mom is 'Gigi' to her grandkids, and she calls T cupcake, so of course we had to snap a picture for Gigi. Just ignore T's burger residue all over her face...

And then it was time for bouncing! Auntie Aislinn has an awesome bounce house right near their house, and of course the kids all had a great time. Nora even got in on some of the action:

T was trying to be a big helper, but Nora was not super interested in being helped.

Let's see...top to bottom that is Declan, Teresa, Liam, Aoife, and Rowan.

After our short Austin trip, we were back at Granny and Grandad's for Christmas Eve caroling (and the stomach flu!). All the kids thought caroling to the neighbors was a total blast, here they are coming home from all the fun.

T had some trouble with her Santa hat:

But she figured it out after a bit.

T with cute little Aoife, and Aoife's pacifier that T totally snatched when we left, little rascal. Sorry Aoife!

Up next: Christmas!

Texas trip - week 1

We learned a lot of things on this trip. First, 30 days of vacation is overrated. And B, we're never traveling over Christmas again.

Besides that, we had a great time on our trip to Texas. The two and a half days in the car weren't as horrible as they could have been, and it was so fun to see so much family and friends over the course of our trip. It had been a whole two years since Marc was in Texas, so there were lots of things to do and people to see while we were there.

We spent the first week in Baytown and Houston, visiting with Marc's family. T and Nora had a blast with all the cousins! Nora took a while to warm up the first week, but then she got the hang of all the changes and new faces. Here are just a few of hundreds of pictures from the first week.

T had fun hanging out with Gigi. (And Poppie too, though he's not in this picture)

And with Aunt Melissa (or, Bayissa, as T called her). Aunt Melissa came up with these fun Santa hand print t-shirts. Teresa normally won't make handprints because it is too messy, but after watching her cousin do it, and since someone besides her mom was involved, she thought it was great. Nora was surprisingly cooperative as well.

Who doesn't love naked time?

T doing some tandem rocking with Uncle William.

I snapped her picture while she was saying "stop takin my picture!".

We went to see the Bass Pro Santa again with Melissa's family. Their Santa was much jollier, and T actually smiled this time around. I don't have the digital copy of it though, so just picture T sitting on Santa's lap, smiling.

Waiting in line:

I told T to go stand by the snowman, but I guess she decided the trashcan was photo worthy as well?

Nora loved seeing the fish again, she gets so excited every time, cute girl.

And all the kids loved the toy trains and coloring they had set up.

(had to blur their sweet little foster child's face)

I just really like this picture of Teresa in front of the tree:

While we were in Houston, Marc got to play around with his camera a lot, I think he is getting quite good at taking pictures. I couldn't narrow these down any more, so collages it is!

The Teresa:

The Nora:

Both girlies:

And some cute cousin shots. These two are only a month a part, they had such a fun time together.

We were lucky enough to be there for little M's adoption! He is such a special little guy, I'm so glad we were able to be there when he became an 'official' member of the family.

That's a good looking family, right there :)

T loved the water at the temple, of course:

Nora is standing and practicing her walking, but I think it will still be awhile before she takes any steps on her own.

Me and my girls:

Okay, and one more of the Nora, because she's so stinkin' cute:

And this concludes the posting for our first week of Texas vacation. Stay tuned for weeks two and three, featuring our trip to Boerne and Austin.

Santa picture

Here's the picture with Santa - I know you were all losing sleep waiting for it, so here ya go:

So, yeah, at least no one is screaming this year. Also, Nora is wearing the same boots T wore in her first picture with Santa.

Christmas-y stuff

We took the girls to see Santa this past week. T has been talking about him a ton, before we left to see him she made us sing the happy birthday song to him. She was really excited about going to sit on his lap and tell him what she wanted, so I was feeling good about the experience going better than last year. Santa was the same guy as last year (skinniest Santa ever...), but I'm sure he didn't remember the poopy diaper she leaked all over him last year. She got super shy once she actually saw him, but was still willing to go up and see him. He suggested that she lean against his knees for the picture instead of sitting on his lap, which she found to be an acceptable solution. Nora started to cry a little, but that might have been because I forced her to wear shoes. He asked her what she wanted for Christmas, and she whispered a barely audible answer. After a bit of prodding from us she finally made her request for a baby doll just slightly louder than a whisper.

Bass Pro is being lame, and still doesn't have the digital copy of the picture online, so if they ever put it up I'll get it on here. Neither of the girls are smiling for it, but nobody is screaming, either, so I'll call it a win.

Saturday we took T to two different Christmas celebrations here on base. Marc took her to the first one while N and I went to a baby shower, and they met up with Mina and her dad. (T has such a little crush on Mina's dad, when we were getting ready to leave she kept saying "lets go see Mina's dad!")

(Yes, that's a bandaid on T's eye, no she doesn't really have an injury there)

They ate some snacks and did some crafts and stuff. Miss Maryland and Miss Teen Maryland were both there and Marc said T was pretty excited to see some real princesses. She asked to take her picture with them, but then wouldn't smile when she got up there, silly girl.

Later that afternoon we went to another Christmas celebration, where T was thrilled to get to ride in a horse drawn carriage (much less scary than riding an actual horse!) and a train. Nora actually really, really loved the train, she loves having the wind in her face. (These pictures aren't the best, my camera died right when we got there, so we had to use the ipod)

Waiting for the train...

Mina loving on the Nora

Me and Nora, obviously ;)

And some randoms - Nora loves to eat, she was making us laugh one night with two big fistfuls of food and a bunch more spilling out of her mouth.

I stole these two from my friend's facebook - T and Mina having some fun a few weeks ago:

Silly girls.