Christmas at Home and The Lake

In order to save the trouble of packing up all the presents and lugging them all over the state of Texas, we decided to have a little family Christmas before we headed out. Here are some of those pictures and some pictures from the Matthew's Christmas at the Carpenter's lake house in Belton. You will notice an increase in photo quality about half way through the intimate family Christmas pictures as Ashleigh received a new digital SLR camera during the process.












The following photos were taken with the SLR. Great job Ash!

Christmas Cookies & Morgan's Real Birthday

On Friday night, Morgan made his first Christmas cookies. Of course, he loved it (since he loves cooking and eating!). Here we are cutting out the shapes...

Here he is enjoying the fruits of his labor...

Here are a couple random shots of the kids with Matt this week. Morgan loves to stretch with his Daddy (and Emma loves to watch)...



On Saturday-Morgan's real birthday-we all went to the park to enjoy a pizza picnic and some playtime.

Morgan had so much fun on the big slide!

Here they both are on the swings...

Morgan and Emma are starting to play together. Morgan even shares his blocks...

Out with the Old and In with the New

We had the green theme on the blog for almost two year but we finally decided to make a change. Our family is growing, so our blog will too. Hope everyone enjoys the new design.

Emma Gives Us a Scare on Morgan's Birthday

As some of you already know, Emma gave us quite a scare last night. We were over at the Goodman's house for a Christmas party and the kids were sleeping in one of their back rooms. A little bit after 11PM, one of our friends noticed a strange noise coming from the kid's room. I went down that hall thinking it was probably just Morgan jabbering but it turned out to be Emma. She was having a difficult time breathing and the sound was her gasping for air.

We immediately called an ambulance but the minutes we had to wait were torture. Emma just couldn't get a breath. Finally, the ambulance arrived and drove Ashleigh and Emma up to the hospital with me following in the van. A couple of breathing treatments later Emma calmed down and started breathing easier.

She was diagnosed with croup—a virus that causes the wind pipe to swell. Most of the time it's not very serious but in Emma's case her throat was getting close to swelling completely shut. The doctor decided to admit her to the hospital. That's where Ashleigh and Emma are right now. I'm staying at the house with Morgan.

Emma is looking good now but we would still appreciate your prayers. We are thankful for God's mercy on our family and we are reminded that every breath we take is by his grace alone.

Here's a picture of Emma in her special breathing tent.

Morgan's 2nd Birthday/ Our night at the Symphony

Another combo post- it's all happening so fast, I can't keep up! First, we celebrated Morgan's birthday a little bit early this year with a party yesterday. It was great fun (for us at least). Both sets of grandparents and Aunt Shannon came to town, and we had lots of good friends too. And so many babies! The weather was beautiful which made for plenty of outdoor fun. I don't know what we would have done with all those kids if it hadn't been for the backyard! Of course we ate well...frito pie washed down by Elmo cake and ice cream.

Emma celebrated in her usual way- plenty of smiles.

Tickle fest or early jiu-jitsu lesson?

Some of our guests eating frito pie...

Morgan loved his cake!

Morgan and his buddies in all their shirtless glory (toddlers often eat shirtless for those of you who might be unaware).

Morgan is definitely figuring the whole present thing out!



Some of the kids on our swingset...

And tackling each other!

The "moms"

The kids!

Morgan fixes his tricycle, just like Pepaw.


And now for a change of direction, here we are dressed up for the Symphony "pops" concert.

We all ate at Carino's before the concert.

Morgan Spells His Name

Morgan actually accomplished this last week but we decided to wait until the Thanksgiving post was up. Here Morgan is, unprompted and unaided, spelling his name. Now we just have to get him to say it right.

Thanksgiving Photo Blowout!

First if all, let me just warn you that you are about to view a TON of photos- and this is actually just a selection from the many I took over the holiday. It was our family's first Thanksgiving gathering at my parents' house in Abilene. We had a great time cooking, eating, playing in the Texas snow, shopping, and relaxing.

Morgan played games with the big boys...

...while the women prepared the feast.



And, as you can see, Morgan did his fair share...



Emma got plenty of love and praise for being the cutest



She was pretty happy about her 1st Thanksgiving

After the meal, we played in the snow... Morgan wasn't too impressed







And, finally, we watched a little football



The Big Family shot (all except mom)