Molly

I just wanted to post a picture of our furry family member, Molly. She doesn't get much mention here but she's a big part of our daily lives. We got her Easter weekend of 2007. She just turned 2 years old on Valentine's Day. Molly is a beautiful chocolate lab who loves to be loved on. She's finally grown out of those bad puppy behaviors like trying to eat everything in sight and chewing on things that don't belong to her. Just recently she graduated to sleeping outside of her crate at night. And even more recently, I've been leaving her out when the boys and I leave the house during the day. She always greets us at the door with her tail wagging.

Here's Molly taking a nap on our bed.

John's new watch

While in Paris, Brian saw a watch advertisement that really caught his eye. Once he got back he spent lots of time scouring the Internet and jewelry stores to find John the perfect watch. As it turns out, it's the same one he saw while in Paris. We picked it up a couple of weeks ago. Pardon the pajamas. We forgot to bring the camera to the Galleria with us.


Brian, James and John with their watches

Both watches

John looking at his watch.

Baby's First Year photo project

When James was a baby, we found this wonderful photo matte that highlighted his first year at The Picture People. Well when John came along, we found out they had stopped making the matte. Since then I've had the idea to make something myself using the same concept. While Brian was in Paris, I let my creative juices flow and below is what I came up with. James and John's are finished and I'll add Jude's photos as we go along. Right now all three are hanging up in the nursery. Oh, and I also FINALLY hung the crib quilt we bought back in 2004. I really love it but never had the wall space before now.

Crib quilt.

Jude's collage.

John's collage.

James' collage.

Paris trip

Just after we got back from our family camp out, Brian and his sister, Sally, took a trip to Paris. Sally had never been and Brian really wanted to take her to see all the sights and important artwork. While some of you may wonder why I didn't attend, it was hovering close to freezing and involved way too much walking for me. The boys and I relaxed at home while Brian and Sally braved the cold. They really had a wonderful time. Here are some photos from their trip.

On the plane ride over.



Sally in front of the gluten free restaurant they found.

I believe this is the old clock at the Musee d' Orsay.

This is actually one of my favorite views in the city. You can see all the way to the Arc de Triomphe.

Zoo fun

The weather has been so nice lately that we made a couple of trips to the Houston Zoo. The first was just the boys and I and the second was with the Weatherwax family. The kids had an absolute blast both times. It wasn't horribly crowded so they got to run around a lot. During our second trip we got to see the brand new baby giraffe. He was so cute and little in comparison to some of the other young giraffes they have there. We also got to see the new baby elephant that was brought to the zoo after Mac died a few months ago. Here are some photos from the trips.



John sitting on top of the buffalo statue.

Riding the carousel is always a favorite.

The new baby giraffe.

Playing on the playground.

James pretending to be a prairie dog.

First Family Campout

This past weekend was the first time all four of us have gone camping together. Brian and I have taken James twice before but John always stayed behind with family. To make a fun trip even more fun, we brought along the Crouch kids. It was their first time camping out as well. Two of our good friends also came so there was a nice child to adult ratio. We all had a wonderful weekend together. We left around 2 on Friday and spent the rest of the afternoon getting the tents all set up and cooking dinner. Saturday we hiked down to the Brazos River for some bank fishing. While we didn't catch anything the kids had a great time throwing sticks and rocks into the water and hiking along the river. We decided to call it quits and walked back to our site for lunch. The little kids napped while others played football and went hiking. The only downer of the trip was that it rained off and on most of the afternoon and evening the worst of it being right when we started roasting marshmallows. Everyone crashed early that night. Sunday we got up and started packing things up and headed home. While we came home with tons of laundry, everyone had a great time. We've already reserved campsites at another state park in March.




Here are some photos from the fishing portion of the weekend. My camera battery died shortly after that.



John playing with the worms.

James playing with the worms.

James and Cameron throwing sticks in the water.

Everyone on the riverbank getting ready to fish.

Super cute blog backgrounds

I found this link on a friend's blog. They have some really cute backgrounds!!! Check it out whenever you get a chance.

http://thecutestblogontheblock.com/