Zoo fun

A few weeks ago Jason, Hannah, and I went to the zoo here in town. We went at 4pm, about an hour before it was to close. We quickly realized that it was feeding time for the animals and the lions did not disappoint. This female lion quickly walked over to us at the glass and was checking out whether or not we had any food for her. She was absolutely beautiful and HUGE! It was really cool to be about 8 inches from this HUGE lion. What an awesome sight!

She eventually jumped up on the glass and pawed at Jason. He found it funny and pawed right back at her. It was hilarious!

Look at this amazing lion! I think we will be going back to the zoo at feeding time from now on so we can have these type of encounters again.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

Wishing you a wonderful and blessed Christmas this year from our family to yours! May the joy of the Christ child permiate your celebrations this year. We are celebrating this year in Birmingham with Jason's family and are having a blast. The kids are enjoying playing with one another and Hannah is enjoying time with her Mimi and Pop. I am loving the fact that Hannah is understanding more of the Christmas season as we celebrate Jesus' birth.

Merry Christmas!

So much for that

I bought a large calendar a few months ago to keep up with all that is going on in our lives. It was a great attempt to stay organized and help me remember things. Have I mentioned that my memory went out window when Hannah was born? So, I *thought* this would help with remembering things. Well, it turns out, it really only helps as a drawing pad for Hannah....
I only wish she knew how to write and I could call her my personal assistant.

She certainly looks well intentioned enough.

Well, maybe not!

As long as I can look past all the markings (which are about triple this now) I can attempt to remember half of the things that I have written down.

Christmas Fun

We had our "Christmas Day" with Kelly, Crystal, and Joe a bit early this year since we are traveling. As always, we had a great time of fellowship, food, gifts, and a gingerbread house!
We got this wonderful gingerbread house from Gramma and the kids had a great time putting candy on it. The best part of this house was that it came all put together with candy included for the kids to put on it. So, we didn't have to put up the walls or anything, which was great.

The final product decorated by 2 year olds!

As always, I had a great time with Kelly and Crystal...I sure do love hanging out with these 2!

Kelly and Crystal - I want you both to know how thankful I am for both of you! Merry Christmas friends!

The tables have turned

Our sweet dog Molly has been a wonderful "big sister" to Hannah since the day she was born. Now, Hannah on the other hand, has been much more of a terror to Molly as a "little sister." Molly has been patient and kind though and has NEVER been mean to Hannah or tried to bite her or anyone else. However, Molly has begun playing "rough" with Hannah. I use that term loosly since she would still never hurt Hannah, but when Hannah instigates play (which she does often) Molly has started to play along.
Anyway, this is what I caught them doing the other night...

Hannah thought it was HILARIOUS and has tried to get Molly to bite her pj's ever since. Silly kids!

Old Fashioned Baking

So, we had a great time baking yesterday at my Grandmother's house. I think in all we made 14 different things!!! They ranged from chocolate covered pretzels to chocolate cranberry biscotti to white chocolate haystacks. It was all fantastic, however nobody wanted anymore sugar by the end of the night.

I was particularly proud of the biscotti which had chocolate chips, pecans, and dried cranberries in it. I had never made biscotti before, but I have to say that it turned out well...if I do say so myself.

Anyway, I look forward to the day when Hannah can join us for this annual baking day. But for now, she and her Daddy had a blast playing together in my absence.

What is even more fun is being able to bless others by giving these sweet treats away. We all walked away with plenty of goody bags to give to others. I sure do love advent season!

An unintentional hiatus

I had not intended to take a week's hiatus from blogging, but this week has been full of Christmas parties, church services, and other family responsiblities. It has been a good, but full week.
I have much to share about Hannah but for now that will have to wait. I am on my way to my Grandmother's house for our annual baking day. Last year, we had a blast (see post here) and I know that this year will not disappoint either. So, I will wait until I get back tomorrow night and post about our recent adventures. For now, here is a funny story....
Jason injured his leg this morning during a run. This afternoon Hannah was playing with a frosty bear from the freezer (the ones you put on a booboo) and she insisted that Jason allow her to put it on his leg. She kept telling him "pull your pants down and let me put the frosty bear on your leg" and as he refused she persisted, "no Daddy, right now!" Needless to say, he did not oblige her request although it was pretty funny at the time!
Off to bake....

Just some fun

Here are some recent fun times with Hannah that I caught on video. We have a great little DVD that plays songs for every letter of the alphabet. Hannah loves singing them and has learned quite a few already. Here she is singing the first 2 -Apple Annie and Benjamin Bunny.

This is her attempt at reading, or just blabbering is more like it.

First Snow

Hannah experienced her first snow fall today...in Waco...on Dec. 3rd! It was beautiful and we both enjoyed it thoroughly. I took a video of her running around outside in it, and I was unashamedly so very excited about it with her. We rarely get snow here, so it is a joy when it does come.

Christmas on 5th Street

Every year Baylor has a Christmas tradition of hosting "Christmas on 5th Street." They have carriage rides, a petting zoo, a live nativity scene, cookies, a tree lighting, and concerts, among other things. Even though I wanted to take Hannah last year, this was our first year to venture there with her. She loved it! Although, this year was probably the coldest in the past few years...it was about 38 degrees when we got there at 6pm tonight! It was great fun though. Hannah is enthralled with horses right now, so the fact that we got to ride in a carriage was a delight to her. It was a bonus that we rode in a lit up princess one too!

Her night only got better when she was able to ride a pony after the carriage ride. She was delighted beyond belief when we told her she could ride her very own pony.

She made sure to say "good job" to the pony at the end.

She found a lone baby goat to pet in the petting zoo.

There were gingerbread cookies to frost and decorate in the WARM Student Union Building on campus (can you tell why we went there next?!?!).

Hannah frosted hers and was NOT excited to share with Daddy at all!!!

But who am I kidding, the frosting was the most wonderful part to her.

We ended the night seeing the camels at the live nativity scene.

There was a choir playing handbells on the street, and although very cold, it was a great night together as a family. This is just one small reason why I love Baylor and Waco!

Some more fun pics

Here are a few more fun pictures from our time in California during Thanksgiving. One of the benefits of flying into San Francisco at 9am is being able to go enjoy Pier 39 in downtown without a bunch of people around. Here we are in front of the big Christmas tree.

Hannah had her first ride on a merry-go-round and really enjoyed it. She kept asking to go ride on another horse though....I guess it was a hit.

We visited Monteray Bay Aquarium on Friday, which was great, except that there were 12,000 others who decided to go too. Here are Hannah and Jason checking out the jelly fish. They were SO cool!

They had a whole sea horse exhibit which was pretty interesting too. I have a new found love for sea horses after seeing how cool they are. Plus, the males are the ones that birth the babies! I was especially fond of that part and the video that went along with it...SERIOUSLY!

Thankfulness

We have been talking to Hannah a lot lately about Thankfulness. We try and ask her each day what she is thankful for and then we spend time thanking God for those things. Some days she is serious like being thankful for family, mommy, daddy, her blanket, and her sunglasses. Other days she is kind of silly about it and mumbles off randomness. But, we are working on teaching her to be thankful to God for all things, and it seems we are making progress.
We just returned from a great trip to California to see Gramma and Grandpa and other family for Thanksgiving. It was a nice, low key holiday with much laughter and great food. I truly am thankful for my little family and for our time with others this Thanksgiving.
We were able to see my step-brothers and their families for a little while on Thanksgiving Day and it was great to get everyone together and enjoy the kids playing.
We had this great family shot which I love (minus the thumb in the mouth, which is standard when a camera comes out)!

Our Hannah Banana playing on a little car.

Man I love these big brown eyes!

I truly am thankful for my family and for the time we got to spend together. It was nice to get home yesterday to our house and to our sweet Molly girl too. Poor Jason had been in New Orleans at a conference from last Friday until Tuesday night. He got in late Tues and we proceeded to get up at 3:30am on Wed moring to drive to Austin to catch our flight to California. The poor guy wasn't even home for 12 hours before we left again, so he was ready to be back in his own bed for awhile. Needless to say, we had a great trip.

There certainly is much to be thankful to God for in these days!!!

I have been in need of a good laugh lately (it has been a LONG 4 days with Hannah!!!) and it came tonight in 2 forms. One, was when Hannah asked to play with her necklace beads and string tonight. I made sure to tell her that she was not allowed to give them to Molly to eat (which she did earlier today). I told her that she could play with them but if she gave them to Molly to eat I would take them away immediately. She thought for a minute and replied "perfect!" I busted out laughing which caused her to begin giggling uncontrollably.
The second time was also tonight. As Hannah, Molly, and I were on Hannah's bed playing with the beads I noticed a fly buzzing around the room. I wasn't all that motivated to go downstairs to get the fly swatter so I just left him alone. Well, evidently Molly was tracking him and before we knew it she lunged for Hannah's face and tried to catch the fly in her mouth. Well, Hannah thought this was absolutly HILARIOUS and I am sure she thought Molly was trying to play with her too. We both busted out laughing for a good bit about this too.
After a long few days with Daddy out of town it was good for us to have some good laughs together. I sure will be glad when Jason returns tomorrow though!!!

Looking back and looking forward

I wanted to go back and look at pictures from this time last year and 2 years ago. I kind of think it is fun to compare Hannah at various stages in her development (which I gauge by her hair growth!). Here she was 2 years ago this month...with NO hair.
Here she was last year at this time with a bit more hair. I think this is one of the cutest pictures of her...such a sweet little smile.

So, on days like today it is good for me to go back and reflect on our parenting journey thus far. It has been a great one with ups and downs. However, today was definately a down day for me. I can't say exactly why this has bothered me so much, but today was a BAD day at Mother's Day Out for Hannah. When I showed up to pick her up all the other kids were quiet and playing and our Hannah was sitting in time out. Lovely! The teacher sat me down to have "the talk." This consisted of telling me how hard of a day they had with Hannah. She sat in time out multiple times for not listening and obeying and during nap time became disruptive enough that they had to send her to sit with the lady at the front desk. REALLY!?!?! My 2.5 year old had to go to the office? I guess this sent me over the edge. I know she is only 2, but I was just not prepared to have these issues this early (or at all for that matter!). I know how frustrating it is as a teacher to have a child act up, and I guess selfishly I just don't want that child to be mine. To be honest, I think this issue is more of my issue than Hannah's (although we work on listening and obeying ALL day long). I need to not be so concerned with other's perception of me and my parenting abilities. Really, I am just in a place of needing the grace of God more than ever before. I need to know that God is equipping me to raise Hannah to be a child of His and not of this world. Obviously this is hard when I am still struggling with worldly and sinful things like people's perception of me. So, days like today are hard all around! I pray that God would fill me with trust and hope in Him as I endeaver to be a mother who points Hannah to Christ in all I say and do.

Thankfully, tomorrow is a new day.

I was so excited about my great deal on these games the other day. Toys-r-us was selling these Hasbro games (and a few others) for $3.99 each with a $1.99 rebate...so they cost a whole $2 each in the end. AND, if you spend $25 in games, you get a $10 gift card. So, I ended up with $35 worth of merchandise for $12!!! I certainly liked that deal and so did Hannah.
There is nothing like showing your child how to play Don't Break the Ice for the first time.

She made up her own versions of Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders, which was fine with me.

Don't Spill the Beans is by far her favorite at this point.

But watching her delight in seeing these new games was certainly priceless!