On Christmas Eve I did not get to see these two, my niece and nephew, for very long, only a few hours in the evening. They were both sick and Zoe was dealing with a reaction to the medication she was on, so my ideas of visiting them at their house were sacked. But, I did get to see them for awhile and I got to see Grayson smile and laugh at me, and Zoe made me eat Christmas Eve dinner next to her at her kid table (me in the floor) while she watched ‘kid tv’—aka: Rio. I say ‘made’ me sit with her—but I really didn’t mind. I…

As someone who loves being home, wherever I am….since we were married in 2002 we’ve lived in two different apartments, a townhouse, a 70s ghetto house, a tent, two hotels, our parent’s houses, and most recently the small place we are renting now…the abode that we spend our time always forms memories. Every time we packed up a house I would walk room to room and remember the different things that happened in the room, the little memories that were made. This summer when my mom and I went to visit her cousin and and daughter Elizabeth we all got to talking about the old places the grandparents had lived…

Over the last weekend my brother and sister in law came down with my niece and nephew to visit as was seen in Monday’s post on meeting Cleetus, the neighborhood donkey. Before they came I Googled some places to check out. Despite having lived in the Houston area during college, I was mostly in Galveston and familiar with areas around Galveston county. Now I am on the north side of Houston and everything is new to me again. I came up with Dewbery Farm since my niece loves animals and outdoor activities. It turned out to be a great experience—expect to spend some dough if you have several kids! There’s…

Living in the country, we have a donkey and a few horses in our neighborhood. I’ve been talking up this donkey, Cleetus, to my niece Zoe for awhile. He’s a friendly fella and loves carrots! My brother and sister in law came down to visit this last weekend and so Zoe kept waiting to be able to go see Cleetus. He happened to be in his barn most of the time until yesterday. Then we ventured around the block to go see him. He sniffed out the bag of carrots pretty quickly and I know he would have scarfed them all down if we’d let him. Zoe loves animals and…

Went to DFW on Sunday and Monday to finish getting the rest of our stuff and to see the family. Here’s a small snapshot.. Zoe showing off her purse sent from Elizabeth’s mom. Really excited about the animal inside the purse, too! Goofing off with my dad, PawPaw, during his lunch break. Grayson tucked away in his sleeper, cozied up in the blanket I made him. He smells so good! Pumpkin vines are taking over the side yard at my parent’s house! Grayson and my brother scoping the pumpkins out. Oh, we found a little pumpkin! He definitely didn’t like that and was swooped out quickly. There’s the real pumpkin!

I finally got around to finishing the processing of the rest of the photos from our trip to DFW to see our new nephew. “What is going on here?” Chris with my parent’s dogs, Isabelle on the left and Daisy on the right giving that goofy face. Zoe looks like she’s got a brand new dolly to take care of! Blissed out with her new charge… Love the one eye open thing he’s got going! Zoe was enjoying a pear with caramel sauce and gave me a great face! Everyone had been trying to determine which chin Grayson had so that did a side by side comparison with my brother.…

My nephew was born on Thursday making me an aunt for the third time. Chris and I drove back to DFW for the weekend to spend time with the family and meet the latest member of the clan. He is *so* sweet! I was glad that Chris got to see him as an infant since he did not meet Zoe, our niece, until she was a year and a half. I took a zillion photos but I pulled these out quickly to post. I’ll be going through more of them this week. Low light conditions for the most part kept me at ISO 800 or 1600, though I was able…

I was digging through some old photo albums the other day looking for photos for the front of some houses (another blog series I’m contemplating) and found a few old photos of my parents that I loved. On their wedding day. Mom recently went through her clothes and was going to get rid of her wedding dress. At the last minute I pulled it out of the donation pile, though I ended up leaving dad’s leisure suit in. I should’ve gotten it too. I need to get rid of my wedding dress before I have a kid who wants to take it out of the donation pile. I love this…

I tried to find a photo of me holding a four day old Zoe but I think it is tucked away on a hard drive somewhere. I wanted to recreate it but Zoe was a bit fussy this morning so I opted out of that. Maybe on Saturday for her birthday party. Instead I took these after I’d painted some butterflies on her face. She was painting with my mom this afternoon and I convinced her to let me paint a couple butterflies while she kept telling me the paintbrush tickled on her cheeks. I love my little niece…she says some funny things! She’s in love with coins right now…