Monday, November 30, 2009

Christmas Fun!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....We got back from our Thanksgiving travels late Saturday afternoon and decided to go up to a local shopping center called The Shops at Highland Village to enjoy a family dinner at Corner Bakery Cafe, a free horse-drawn carriage ride around the square, and lots of Christmas decor (including a huge Christmas tree)!

Katelyn in front of the Christmas tree

Katelyn doing the "one-finger touch" on the Christmas ornament hanging from the tree. She practices the "one-finger touch" on our tree at home A LOT!

Family pic

Horse-drawn carriage

A quick picture of Katelyn and Dave before "dismounting"

Happy Thanksgiving!

We had a great time in Waco for Thanksgiving! See the pictures below for just a taste of those gifts we have for which to be grateful...


Although Katelyn thoroughly enjoyed her Thanksgiving holiday in Waco, she couldn't help but get excited about Easter! We use this Easter basket at Granny's house to hold Katelyn's toys, but apparently, she thought it would be much more fun if the basket held her instead of her toys. She cracks me up!

Granny and Katelyn

Great Grandmother and Katelyn

Snuggle time with Daddy

Picnic lunch at Granny's house

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

A Quick Trip to Shreveport

Rest assured...gambling was not a part of this trip. Except for a harmless game of Bingo. My sister Brittany, Katelyn and I all went to see my Great Aunt Anne who lives in a nursing home in Shreveport, Louisiana. We usually see her once a year in the form of a day trip to Shreveport, and we have a great time! This year was no exception. We arrived in time to sit down with Anne for lunch and shortly after eating, we enjoyed a fun game of Bingo. I had this huge fear that Katelyn would randomly yell Bingo in the middle of the game and all those playing would unnecessarily clear their cards. Thankfully that never happened, and in fact, Katelyn was totally in her element talking and waving to each resident, nurse, visitor, and anyone else she saw!

One of our main objectives on this trip (other than visiting with Aunt Anne) was to help her sort through her new clothes that my mom sent her. She enjoyed looking at all of her cute new outfits and was glad to get rid of some old ones too. Brittany really scored big by taking home some of Aunt Anne's hand-me-downs (pictured below).

Another objective we had on this trip to Shreveport was to go by my grandmother's old house (only about five minutes from the nursing home). Since it is located right across the street from a park, we thought Katelyn would enjoy running around while we were there! As we got closer to her street, we saw lots of signs for "Event Parking." We didn't ever think that the event would be at the park across the street from my grandmother's old house and require police barricades at the each end of the street! We couldn't find parking ANYWHERE! I'm still not sure what kind of festival it was, but they should have consulted us before picking the day, or at the very least, reserved a parking place for us up front! Oh well. We drove to another park and played for a few minutes before heading back to the nursing home to bid farewell to Aunt Anne. Overall, it was a really fun trip, and we are already looking forward to doing it again next year!


Group pic after an intense game of Bingo!

My sweet Aunt Anne

Katelyn and her Great Great Aunt Anne

Brittany modeling her new hand-me-downs from Aunt Anne

Katelyn (and her bear pictured in the video below) enjoying some of the amenities in the room

Halloween 2009

Here is a picture of our family on Halloween! Katelyn was a Baylor cheerleader (we scored the costume for $2 at a resale shop after Halloween last year!), and although she didn't get a chance to do a lot of trick-or-treating, she did enjoy a bounce house at a little neighborhood party that some of our friends had! There was one older boy at the party who was dressed up as a football player, and Katelyn kept hanging on to him to keep her balance in the bounce house! He played it really cool and didn't get bent out of shape that a two-year-old was attached to his quad. It was so cute!