More fascinating artwork...

I'm not sure at what age I need to be worried.

First, the whole gallery of onlookers reminds me of a kind of royal version of Joseph's dreams and we all know how well those dreams were received...

Secondly, Shelby explained to me that the large girl was her with a crown on.

She draws herself with a crown. every. single. time.

She also told me that she is a REAL princess. Maybe the whole Kate & William wedding made a bigger impression than I thought. She asked who Kate was in the supermarket and I told her she was a real princess. Commence unhealthy staring of a magazine cover by the four year old as I finish checking out.


The other day at lunch she asked me who she was going to marry. Sheesh! Already?! I said I didn't know but I was praying for him and that God knew and that I prayed he would be a man that loved the Lord, etc.

Her response: I bet he's handsome.

How to you come back from that?

Behold, an Angel of the Lord...

What you see before you is a young girl fulfilling one of her greatest dreams: playing an angel in the Christmas pageant.

"Ha! That's your dream, Mom!" you might say.

Though I am not a completely objective outsider I encourage you to look deeper and notice

1. the ample application of sparkly gold through out the costume.

2. the golden crown. (You say halo. Shelby disagrees. You will NEVER win that argument. Move on for your own sanity.)

3. the giant wings strapped to her back. (She's in a little bit of a Tinkerbell phase and has been "waking up" from "nap time" with wings on. Heels optional.)

Yep. Girl was pretty pumped about her big night.

If you look in the background you will notice some spinning wise men who seemed pretty jazzed as well when I dropped her off at her classroom.

What you may notice in this picture which Mommy did not is the giant ring on her finger. I am constantly de-blinging my daughter before entering the public eye ("Less is more honey.")

Guess I missed that one, well, until I noticed it on stage. I thought I had held the preparations to a tasteful coating of body glitter and some clear nail polish. Can't win them all I guess.

The Curse of Benny Bear

I was sitting calmly in the pickup line waiting for Shelby when it happened.

I didn't see it coming.



"Mom! Benny Bear is mine for the weekend and we get to record all our adventures and take pictures and do lots of fun stuff!"

Stupid bear.

I mean, I hate to be a killjoy but shouldn't there have been some sort of written warning so I could shift around our Disneyland vacation or something? I had a giant Sunday school party at my house that night and Seth ended up getting caught in surgery for a chunk of the weekend.

Fascinating adventures right there.

To make matters worse I almost forgot about the bear until the night before hence only two pictures. THANK YOU NINI!!! for taking pictures while you watched Shelby and made gingerbread men otherwise it would have been the lamest entry in the notebook.



Is it sad that I had to stage a game of Candyland the night before?

As I typed up the "amazing adventures" of Benny Bear (while muttering under my breath), I flipped through previous entries. Of course there were a few mom's who felt the need to make us all look bad, but, overall, the entries were filled with "I (Benny Bear) got to go with Sarah to her brother's soccer game all day on Saturday" or "I got to swing on the swing in the backyard! How fun!." I began to feel much better about Benny's adventures or lack thereof. Apparently, all the other moms lead a somewhat similar life that does not include:

a. jetting away to tropical destinations on the weekends
b. mingling with the rich and famous
c. leaving the house much unless is is to attend another child's function or go to the store

I got Benny's letter typed up and he managed to make it back w/o a dog gnawing on him or getting dropped in a puddle.

I'll just go ahead and mark this one in my motherhood "victory column."

It's running low.

Sleeeeepy

"See everyone in the morning" (he means this b/c he sleeps through the night like a champ!)




Walker reminds me of a little inchworm in his green swaddle me as he ooches around his crib. Love this little sweet guy so much!

Scary.

scary good.

Wyatt approves of Williams Sonoma hot chocolate while imitating The Joker. Not sure how he will utilize this talent later...

Picture session

Girl got really into decorating the tree this year.




Love me some sister time!




Seth (aka the most helpful partner ever) holds his newest progeny

Mighty Fishermen

Just found a slew of old pictures. How cute is this?

What a great daddy!

Kid's table at Thanksgiving

Pumped about the carrot soufflé


Has taken to gnawing on his fingers


We are pro-Aggie today!

Meeting the new cousin

Shelby is thrilled to have another girl in the family! Can you tell?

Wyatt's pretty pumped himself.



Heartbreakingly sweet.

Well, the time had come for us to take our position amongst the faithful in Kyle Field. A special shout out the the benevolent ticket donators and my mom who watched Walker for me. While waiting in line for the elevator, I saw former President Bush and Barbara Bush. I got so excited I contemplated throwing one of my children at him but the wheelchair stopped me. I thought that injuring a former president and getting taken down by a bodyguard might overshadow the rest of the day. That to say, I didn't get a picture at all. The kids had a great time at the game and there was plenty of scoring (much to Seth's delight). We stayed almost the entire game, leaving only a little early to grab some lunch and prep for our guests.


Fun, fun day!!!



It's important to start the brainwashing early.




Shelby looking smug as the Aggies pull ahead. That or she is really pleased about the kettle corn purchase.



Wyatt discovers the dark side to kettle corn.



The block "T" with all the core. It hasn't been done in like a hundred million years or something...so I took a picture.



Wyatt after the excitement of the game with LOTS of cannon fire:).




Shelby's face upon realizing that lunch would be from Layne's. (Please note: this was after we tried and failed to convince her that kettle corn was indeed lunch).


Uh oh. Bad case of Aggie thumb occurring.


Victory party afterwards. Please do not report us to John Deere for improper use of equipment. Seth drove really slow and we put the ones who held on tightest on the outside. Safety first, right?


Ahhh...we finally got her. This was Shelby before we even pulled out of the gate that night.

Mommy and daddy were not far behind.

I got a new computer!!!

Merry Christmas to me! I got a new iMac computer (yeah!) which meant I had to take in my old computer to transfer the data over. Well, on day three, the Apple store computer people told me as nice as possible that my ancient computer built by Seth's brother was...err...taking a little longer than expected. Long story short-we are in business again and as soon as I can find where all the pictures went I will catch back up on blogging. Yeah Apple! I drank the Kool-Aid and I LIKED it!