Christmas Celebrations Continue ...

Saturday after Christmas we visited with Ed & Hope ... no photos but great burgers! On Sunday, the Dallas Brewers came over to celebrate with us, Norma & Bob and the Pearland Brewers. Fun was had by all!

Norma & Bob ...

Brady building tower after tower with cousin Zach and (engineer) Uncle Jason

Zach and Jason creating a new design ...

Luke and Uncle Jeff taking a Nintendo DS break from the action.

Nerf-darts are a BIG hit with this crowd! Luke and Zach are dueling it out.

Melissa and Zach in hand-to-hand combat.

Two against one with Luke & Zach pelting an un-armed Jason.

Zach's birthday is December 30th and we gave him his present early. You can see that it was taken over by the adults (if you could call us that). Here's Jason under fire from Melissa while trying to escape on the PlasmaCar.

Zach trying to get his birthday present back!

Christmas Day - Part Two

Brady had a blast on Christmas Day and we had fun watching him. At 2+ years old, he "gets it" this year. Here's a photo of some little house shoes we got him ... love the aligators!

Modeling his new shoes and opening his next present from Grandpa and Grandma Nan. Disregard that gash on his head ... it was just a little rough play with his cousins. Never a good idea to try to catch books being thrown down a staircase - they're not as easy to catch as a ball.

Two words ... choo-choo!

Playing with his present from the Cains & Wallers

Helping Daddy open his presents. Jeff gets boring stuff - like CLOTHES!

Showing Grandpa his new tool bench.

Christmas Day - Part One

Jerry and I had a nice, Christmas morning and evening - seen here. Spend the middle of the day at Jeff & Kim's house with Brady and Christmas is a BIG DEAL to a 2 year old!

Here's Ike snoozing by the fire. New fireplace being enjoyed by ALL!

Little hanging out by the fire while Jerry was opening his presents on Christmas Eve. I think the fact that he's still here is our own Christmas miracle!

Christmas Eve

Spent Christmas Eve with Mary, Kent, Toni, Ray & Little Memphis. It was fun to watch him experience his first Christmas & we had delicious baked ham and everything to go with it.

Here's Mom opening a present ...



Ray helping Memphis with a gift.



He's getting the hang of it!



Here's Dad opening one of his presents ...

They Only Made One ...

The Sunday before Christmas, Jerry and I headed out to celebrate what would have been our friend Dennis' 67th Birthday. It's hard to believe he has been gone over 7 years - he was an original, that's for sure!

First stop was breakfast at the Tel-Wink Grill ... possibly the best hash-browns in the city.

Next stop was a visit to Forest Park - Lawndale to place poinsettias on his grave. Didn't think you'd want to see photos of that, so here are a few lovely shots of angels. We miss Dennis!

Merry Christmas to Us!

Our pretty tree ...

Our gift to ourselves was a remote controlled "barbie fireplace". We're probably the last people on earth to get gas logs installed, but these things ROCK! We've used our fireplace more in the last 2.5 weeks than we have in 9 years. Bring on the cold weather!!

Ike continues to integrate into our household & is so well behaved. The other boys are curious about him, but since he doesn't make any moves towards them they're OK with him hanging around with us while we're watching TV.

Let it Snow!

History was made on Friday, December 4th, when the earliest snowfall was recorded in Houston and across southeast Texas. Not only was it the earliest snow ever, it was the 2nd year in a row that Houston saw flakes fly!

Can't see it in this photo, but there ARE snowflakes falling ...

Little - who has been around to have seen just about everything - took it all in stride. He took a nice walk and then came in to dry off and nap in his heated bed.

Elvis couldn't figure out what was getting on his fur coat.

Denny was very excited ... looking around with the wind whipping his tail in the air!

Ike thought it was strange and was pretty happy to return to his warm and safe room. No photo of Ike since he wasn't on a leash.

Very little snow accumulated, but it was great fun to see it fall!

Another short clip:

Babysitting Brady

Saturday night, Jerry & I went to Pearland to spend the evening with Brady while Jeff & Kim had "date night". It was loads of fun.

Here's Brady (& Jeff) waiting in the cold for Grandpa's arrival

"Outside" is a BIG DEAL for Brady. We played with the dogs and on the swing.

After thawing out a bit, we needed to go back outside ... this time to the front yard. Grandpa introduced a new game called "throw the ball over the tree".

Hmmm ... that didn't work out as planned. What should we do?

Good idea Brady ... let's throw the other ball into the tree to knock the first one out.

Uh oh ... that didn't work out too well either.

Let's comb Grandpa's hair ...

Now that's we've had "pizza pizza" for dinner, let's climb on Grandpa ...

More wrestling ...

Sweet Brady giving hugs.

Then up for more climbing and sliding on Grandpa. (click the play button to see the video clip) It was fun and Jeff & Kim enjoyed their movie.