Christmas in Dallas

Looking at her stocking that her great-grandmother made
Sitting in great-grandpa's big blue chair
Pointing to her new cozy coupe car
Sitting in her car and brushing her cabbage patch kid's hair


We had a great Christmas with my family in Dallas. We got to visit with lots of family, eat lots of good food and watch Aubrey run around non-stop for the whole visit. She is definitely not a laid back, calm child. She has tons of energy and never stops running, jumping, playing, performing or singing for the group around her. She really remembers all of her family members now and enjoys all the time she gets to spend with them. Robert and I enjoyed seeing everyone, as well!

Merry Christmas!

We didn't get our Christmas cards out this year for the first time since we've been married. We hope everyone has a safe and Merry Christmas and enjoy celebrating the birth of our Savior!

Aubrey's 2!!!

We celebrated Aubrey's birthday last Saturday and had a record tying temperature of 80!
Last year Aubrey tasted one bite of her birthday cake and was all done. This year was a different story. She wanted to taste all of them. She ate a few bites of one and then grabbed another one and tasted it. She did this a couple more times to end up with 4 or 5 cupcakes on her plate.
What a big girl! 

Happy 2nd Birthday to Aubrey!

Our new baby girl!
A year ago today on her first birthday!

Today at 2:38 pm, Aubrey will officially be 2 years old, which I can't believe! These past couple years have flown by, but are filled with so many wonderful memories. Aubrey has been an absolute joy and blessing to our family and we love her so much!

It's a ...

BOY... we think! We had our 20 week ultrasound today and got to see our cute little baby kicking and moving around. The baby's legs were together and folded, so our Dr. couldn't get a great view, but he said he was pretty sure we are having a boy! I am going to have another ultrasound in 4 weeks anyway, so they will confirm the gender then. I'm not going to rush out right away to start buying everything in blue, but I think we will go ahead and start brainstorming boy names. Any ideas? Anyway, we are thankful that the baby looked healthy and on track and thrilled to add a boy to our family this spring!

Here are a couple pictures of Aubrey playing dress up in her Christmas dress this afternoon. Her hair has gotten so long, we may get her first haircut next week right before her 2nd birthday! We are staying busy Christmas shopping, getting ready for Aubrey's birthday and vacuuming up pine needles at least twice a day! Aubrey is really enjoying the tree and all the Christmas decorations around the neighborhood and we have had lots of cold weather and freezing temps at night, so it actually feels like Christmas! The only other news is that we have our 20 week ultrsound on Tuesday, so hopefully we'll know the baby's gender in just a few days! 

A year ago...

This is one of my all time favorite pictures of Aubrey. It was taken exactly a year ago, which I can't believe!!! We used it as her "1 year old" picture and in our Christmas cards. She looks so different now -- bigger, taller, lots more hair & teeth and not like a baby! 

When Aubrey tried on her new coat she kept saying, "Aubrey's a lion!"
Even though the weather wasn't that cold, we made our first fire in our fireplace
Rocking away 

A Happy Birthday

Aubrey liked helping me blow out my birthday candles & practicing for her turn next month
We had a combined birthday party for me, Susan, Isaac & Aubrey the night before Thanksgiving.
Aubrey decorated the cake with sprinkles, strawberries and lots of candles.
 

As you can see, Aubrey is very entertained with turning her lamp off and on! As soon as I took the second picture, I had to run and catch the lamp before it fell on Aubrey and the fun was over. 

Tea Time

Aubrey and I thuroughly enjoyed her first tea party this evening! We were playing with a box of toys that were mine when I was little (My Little Ponies & Strawberry Shortcakes) and we came across this little tea set. We drank "tea" (water) out of these tiny cups and Aubrey had about 10 refills! We also had some yummy cookies on our little plates. It's so fun to interact with Aubrey in so many new ways now that she's a big girl! 

 

Pretty Ballerina

Aubrey enjoyed her first Trick or Treat outing last night as a ballerina. She wore her tiara around the house all afternoon and liked twirling around in her tutu. Robert had actually given me the tutu to ask me on one of our first dates in 2000. The tutu was around a vase of flowers with tickets to the Houston Nutcracker. Neither of us knew at the time that our future child would be wearing it on Halloween! Anyway, Aubrey rode around in the wagon with our neighbor, Ryan, and they both enjoyed running up to the doors, ringing the doorbells and saying, "trick-or-treat". 

Pumpkin Patch

More beach pics

Laughing with Daddy
Smiling with Mommy

First trip to the beach

We all enjoyed our mini-vacation to the beach last week. We had a great view of the ocean from our room and Aubrey liked to look out the window and say, "biggest water ever seen". We had a little rain on our way down and more rain as we were packing to leave our hotel, but we had 2 nice days of clear skies to spend outside. Aubrey loved running along the beach, chasing seagulls, finding "she sells" and hermit crabs, jumping the waves and building sand castles with Daddy. We also spent a lot of time at our hotel's pool going down the slide and playing in the waterfall. Another highlight for Aubrey was riding in the "alligator" (elevator) and going to see the talking bird in the hotel lobby. It would either say, "hi, hello, or bye bye" every time we waked by and Aubrey thought it was hilarious. On our way back we stopped in Houston and got to have dinner with some good friends and then saw Aubrey's Gigi and Aunt Shannon the next day for lunch before we came back to Austin. We had a relaxing time and really enjoyed Robert's time off.

Kemah

We made a stop at the Kemah boardwalk on our way to the beach last week. We ate lunch and were able to ride a few rides in between the rain showers. Aubrey rode in a little air plane with Daddy and especially liked her first carousel ride.

Playtime

Playing with Noah and the animals in the "big boat"
Drawing with markers & chalk on the easel

Surprise visitor

We found this huge fuzzy spider as we were packing up the car to leave town last week! At first we thought it was a neighbor's Halloween decoration that blew into our garage, until it started moving. Growing up in the city, we had never seen a real spider this size before. I guess we'll add it to our list of scorpions, snakes and several other unidentifiable bugs that we have sighted in and around our new home.

Rocking with Mallory

Here are a couple pictures from the park last week and one of Aubrey doing a puzzle (which you can't see) at home. She has been really funny lately -- she has become quite the music & sports fan. Every time we ride in the car she requests songs by name, like "Lucky One" or "Restless" by Alison Krauss. She also ask for Norah Jones, Patti Griffin and several others. She tries to sing along and usually just sings the last word of each line.

Aubrey has liked baseball and tennis for a while, but she has gotten really into golf lately. She asks to watch golf on TV and if it is not on, she starts to cry. She has a basket of golf balls that she plays with every day and she thinks she spots Tiger Woods on a daily basis when we're out and about. She even thought a picture of Matt Damon on the cover of a DVD was Tiger Woods. I'll hear her talking in her car seat and she says over and over, "favorite golf player, Tiger Woods". It's pretty amusing...

I haven't been as good about taking pictures or posting anything in these last several weeks. I'm hoping that I'll be feeling better and have more energy in the near future. Lately we have just been going to parks, playing with friends and running errands. Robert is taking next week off though, so we are going to the beach for a couple days which should be fun for us all.