March 15, 2010

February 2010

For the few of you still reading, we're pretty much posting once a month here now, a half a month after the fact. Here is our "February post".

A local photographer lost his day job and started offering sessions at an awesome rate. We decided to get some family/maternity pictures taken.

It is becoming harder and harder to get a good picture of Violet. Her latest thing is smiling, but not looking directly at the camera. The poor guy spent forever trying to get her to look at him.

I was 34 weeks along at this point.

These two above are my favorites from the day!

In February we welcomed the Year of the Tiger. Once again, Violet stayed up later than her dad on New Years Eve night. There were either three or four straight weekends of Chinese New Year related activities (dragon dances, parties, special dinners, lantern festival). I was the only one in the family, again, who appreciated the tongyuan soup I made for Lantern Festival. It is really good stuff if I do say so myself!

February also brought more snow for Austin! I think we got 1-2 inches! Violet had a lot of fun playing in it until her hands started stinging from the cold. Too bad we don't have gear suitable for this weather! It was a great month!

Posted by ben at 09:38 PM

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February 14, 2010

January 2010

In keeping with tradition, we spent New Years with our good friends Jason and Kathryn and Heather and Daniel who were all visiting from Nashville. Violet especially enjoyed their stay, and watching Jason and Ben play Super Mario Brothers. She liked it so much she's taken on an alter-ego "Mario".

My cousin D.J. graduated from Air Force boot camp in San Antonio. We took a trip to see him and other family members in town for the event.

Ben had a birthday! He got a "raw denim" pair of jeans that he is very excited about. He is a big proponent of having an "honest wear" on jeans. He'd be happy to tell you all about it if you want more info.

Violet has been taking a dance class. I think gymnastics or Martial Arts are probably more her style, but she enjoys parts of the class. Particularly getting a princess wand towards the end of class for free dance. She likes to sneak in some sword moves when the teacher isn't looking.

Here she is sleeping in her new double bed. We needed her toddler bed to convert back into a crib. She's taken to the bigger bed with no problems. She calls this chicken "Mr. Hen".

I'm obviously getting more and more pregnant! Getting a lot of "any day now" comments, when really at this point I was 2-3 months away! The MOPS group I'm a part of had a little shower for me and Lisa (on the left). The picture on the right was taken at Ikea.

Ben and I traveled to Nashville in January for our friends Holly and Christian's wedding reception. Four inches of snow fell while we were there and the whole city pretty much shut down. Lots of fun! I wish Violet could have seen it. She was having fun here with Grammy and Poppy.

Our Nashville friends through us a little shower too! The last picture is of Ben and I at the reception. Can you believe I wore this little dress out in the snow? Things you do for good friends! Love you Holly!

Posted by ben at 04:47 PM

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January 27, 2010

2009 In Review

I've always wanted to do this. I know it is waaay overdue and maybe without pictures, not so interesting, but for the record here are the major things that happened in our family in 2009.

The year started off sadly with saying goodbye to my sweet Granddaddy. I've thought of him often since he passed away and I miss him a lot. I'll always remember the touching speech my dad gave at the funeral. Also how it was the only funeral I've been to that kind of had an open mike type thing going on, which was interesting. Lots of people loved him and it was hard to have him leave the world. Ben's Dad's Dad passed away in 2009. In a 12 month timespan we said goodbye to our last three grandparents.

In March a huge hailstorm hit Austin. Bigger-than-golfball sized ice pelting the earth was quite exhilarating to watch. Only later did I learn the kind of damage the stuff can do. We had to replace our roof, screens, playground pieces, and both of our cars were beat up pretty badly.

We collected insurance money on the cars and traded my aging Impala in for a CR-V! Love it!

Great visits from Maria, my mom, Ben's folks, Josué and Nicole, Jill, Aunt Becca, and two visits each from Kathryn and Jason AND Holly and Christian. Also had Daniel and Heather and a dear friend of mine from Tallahassee over to our house. Am I missing anyone?

Did not hold up our end of visiting our friends. Travelled all over Florida and to the Atlanta Georgia area. Ben went to Illinois for his grandpa's funeral. The three of us went to San Antonio to see Maria and go to Sea World. Later I took a little trip to San Antonio to see my cousin graduate boot camp.

We found out we are pregnant! A few months later we learned that it is a boy.

Violet started going to preschool two mornings a week. Soon after that she started wearing glasses.

Ben's parents moved to the area! We love having them around!

Ben managed his team for a little while and throughly hated it. He asked to go back to his old position as Web Developer. Landed an entirely new position, which he loves, as a quasi R&D guy.

We did not send out Christmas cards... Hopefully we'll get our act together next year and you can read about our 2010 that way.

Posted by ben at 09:21 PM

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