Catherine being cute

August - Just a few pictures of Catherine being cute: falling asleep in her car seat while "talking" (backwards) on the phone. And then one night when she saw me filling a pot with water to cook pasta she decided she needed to do that too and went into the cabinet, got a pot, pulled the stool over to the sink, and turned on the water! A little chef in the making - so sweet to copy Mama. : )

New bath towels

August 21st - I had been looking for some new bath towels for the kids when I stumbled across these two at the Marshall's Home Store. The baby towels were just not cutting it anymore, but I was reluctant to just use boring old grown-up towels. : ) And then I struck gold with a blue shark and purple kitty! They liked them so much the first night that they didn't want to take them off.

Cousin Brodie and Jennie's Sedona, Arizona Wedding

June 11th-13th - In early June, my generous father treated us all to a trip to Sedona, Arizona, where my Cousin Brodie and his new bride Jennie were married in a spectacularly beautiful setting. We had a wonderful time - Jacob and Catherine were great travelers both in the airplane to Phoenix and in the car to Sedona (another 2 hours.) We were excited to see "Bumpa" (Grandpa Eric), Shane, Jenny, and Cousin Lily, and E.T. too plus all the other relatives on my dad's side we hadn't seen in a long while.

We flew in Friday evening and got to attend the "Rehearsal Fiesta" at Poco Diablo (golf) Resort. And then the next evening of course was the wedding at the Tlaquepaque - a beautiful shopping village that had a very Southwestern feel. It was obvious the bride and groom were a good fit. Aunt Jenny thought to bring a portable DVD player and so the grown-ups actually got to eat their meal and enjoy it! I wish I could say that I included more pictures of the wedding setting or bride and groom, however, my youngest brother E.T. was instructed to take good pictures with our camera while we did baby crowd control to make sure we did not interrupt the wedding, etc. Instead, I got pictures of my other brother "Dr. Shane" in random poses being silly. I love my two brothers. : )

I think the cutest part of the weekend was the delight with which the three cousins received each other, particularly Jacob and Lily. It is easy to forgot that small children are just as happy playing in the hotel pool together (or rather pushing in the dads!) than seeing the local sights. Also, for some reason Jacob kept taking his clothes off in Shane and Jenny's room (I guess to put his swimsuit on) and that was just funny. It was a really fun family trip and I loved seeing everyone.

Jacob and t-ball

Summer 2010 - As parents, Greg and I (and obviously little Jacob too) found t-ball to be an entirely new experience, heightened I believe by the fact that we live in the state of Texas where sports are somewhat of a religion. Which can be a good and bad thing at once: we did have very nice uniforms (even with the kid's names on their backs) and facilities, but the parents are serious about success! Jacob was probably the youngest on his team at age just-turned-3 (team members ranging from 3 to 5) and it definitely took a while for him to become engaged. (We also missed half the season for vacation which we know didn't help.) At any rate it ended well with several funny stories we now have to share. Here are a few of my favorites: first, it took a while for the coaches to remember he was a lefty - to the point that I nearly put masking tape on his back saying so. : ) Also, he was forever shuffling his shoes around in the red dirt, whereby he would remove them and then needed poor Greg to put them back on. He also got to the tee at one game and was looking all around and ended up pointing at something out in the field, which completely looked like he was calling his shot! : ) His final game was our favorite - he fell asleep on the way there, but once awake actually fielded a ball to first base, hit twice well off the tee (hitting never seemed to be an issue - more just paying attention!), and then actually ran the bases! Every game he would solemnly tell us he was going to walk the bases "slowly and carefully." : ) He loved the trophy he got and insisted on sleeping with it that night. Catherine of course was a great fan and really wanted to be out there playing with him. She is just naturally coordinated anyhow and already pretty good at playing catch. Since then we have signed ourselves up for soccer with the same coach "Coach Paul" and Jacob likes to practice running imaginary bases in the yard or park and we take turns being "Coach Paul. He even played a little catch with me last night. One final note, completely by coincidence he was assigned Greg's lifelong sports number: #14. : )