October

Has it really been over a month since my last post?? Where do I begin?

We celebrated Addie's 3rd birthday the first weekend of October, which was a blast because there was a lot of family who came in town to share the day with us.

I made Addie's birthday cake

my mom reading her new book
Aunt Becky read to Joe and Annalee
Brady taught Uncle Dave a few things on the piano
Addie is in LOVE with her Minnie Mouse doll

Then the following weekend, Annalee and I flew to Dallas to see the traveling Broadway production of Mary Poppins. We met Terri, Becky, and Mary Kathryn there too. The show was really good, and we had so much fun hanging out. Another highlight of that weekend was getting to go to the Texas State Fair. While we were there, we saw a large crowd gathering and soon caught wind that Oprah was about to show up. We didn't have time to stick around and wait, but as we were walking away, we saw a caravan of blacked-out suburbans being led by several police motorcycle units. Guess who? So we got a pretty close view of her.
The next weekend we all traveled to Waco for the TAPPS State Cross Country meet. (I help coach at MCA.) All of my runners performed well, and my boys placed 3rd as a team, and I also had one boy and one girl get All-State honors.

That brings us to this past weekend. I was able to get away for a few days and go to Prude Ranch for our church's women's retreat. It was great, but wouldn't you know that Brady decided to take his first steps while I was there!! I haven't had a chance to take any pics or videos yet, but He has progressed quite a bit since then, and can now take 8 steps at a time.

Yesterday I took the kids to a local pumpkin patch:

Brady loved playing in the sand

a bunch of my mom friends met us there

And this is how I sent the girls to school this morning. They are having their Pumpkin Parties today, and let me just say, I love that their school calls it that rather than a Halloween Party, since we aren't fans of the holiday.

And that pretty much sums up our month.

more of Brady

This is Brady's new favorite thing to do:

a year in pictures

Today is Brady's real birthday, and although we didn't do any real celebrating like we did on Sunday (see previous post), I want to take a trip down memory lane. In this post, Lee and I chose our favorite picture from each month of Brady's first year. Enjoy...

just a few days old
October
November
first Christmas
January
February
first foods in March
April
We chose this one for May because he rarely cries, and this is the only time aside from his birth that it was caught on film. He HATED tummy time!!
June
July: Aunt Mary Kathryn did a photo shoot, and happened to capture what we call his "poop face"
August
1 year old! This picture pretty much sums up his personality...joyful.

Brady's 1st birthday party

We celebrated Brady's first birthday tonight over pizza and cake with our Midland family, and will do the same next Friday with our Lubbock family. Brady really enjoyed his first birthday party, but just as any 1-year-old would, he was happy to be there but totally clueless about what was going on. However, he was a HUGE fan of the teddy bear cake I made him...here's what happened when I gave him his piece:

Funny story: Annalee watched me ice the cake, and when I began the dark "fur" I began in between the bear's legs, and after I put the first of about 5000 dark brown icing stars on, she asked, "Is that his pee-pee?"

I had to take him straight to the sink to get hosed off!

Then he got to open his presents...actually, the girls and Joe opened them for him.

Where has the time gone?? I can't believe my baby will be 1 on Tuesday!

In other recent news, I'm about halfway through my 9th season of coaching Cross Country at MCA. I am still really enjoying it, and am thankful that Lee supports me doing it. Here's a picture taken by one of my runner's moms at the Midland meet this past Saturday. I loved that Lee brought the kids to see the races!

sleeping habits

One of my favorite things to do is peek at my kids while they sleep. I love to watch them be at such perfect peace, as well as see the various positions they wind up in. And yes, I take lots of sleeping pictures. Here are a few recent ones that I believe to be good representatives of how they often look when I check on them before I go to bed.

Brady is usually holding his puppy. (this pic was taken during a recent nap)
Annalee always has Minnie by her side. This night she also had a toy dolphin, see left hand.
Addie...well, she's usually all over the place; very fitting! I can't tell you how many times I find her like this. I always wind up swinging her legs around so she's all the way on the bed.

We have a climber!

So apparently Brady can climb now. I was cooking at the stove and turned around to head towards the sink...this is what I saw. He was so stealthy about it!

I decided to let him help me unload a few dishes.

He was happy to help!

Long Post Ahead!

So, I've been a slacker and am making up for it in this post. So much has been happening this month. Soon after the post on 7/29 about Brady's unique crawling ability, he figured it out and can now "real" crawl:

Once he figured it out, he realized how much he loves his new-found freedom and can now move very quickly from one room to another, usually to chase Annalee, who loves playing chase with him.

Also at the beginning of the month, Lee went on his annual fishing trip with his friends Cameron and Travis. This year they went to a beautiful river in southern Colorado that took a 10-hour drive and an 11-mile hike to get to, but apparently to them it was worth it. Here are some pictures from his trip:

The day after he returned, I left for my annual Dunn Sisters Weekend...it was so much fun. The main exciting part was having a new member...Micah is now an official Dunn, and we were so glad to have her this year! Mary Kathryn also got married since our last trip, so we talked a whole lot about weddings and marriage. Now Becky is our lone single of the group...We spent our first evening at Bass Concert Hall seeing "Wicked" performed by a traveling Broadway group; it was spectacular! We also ate at lots of yummy restaurants, and even had cookies and milkshakes for dinner at the Cookie Lounge one night. We had a whole day of shopping at the Round Rock outlet mall, and saw the movie "Julie & Julia", which we all agreed was very good. After stuffing our faces with popcorn and candy, we went for a walk downtown to build up our appetite for dinner. We topped off our weekend by having MORE cookies from Tiff's Treats, a place where you call and order cookies, and pick them up 20 minutes later hot and fresh. Delicious!

Since we've all been home, we've been trying our best to swim as much as possible before summer ends. I don't have pictures, but here are some of the things the kids can do: Brady likes to "swim" (be pushed back and forth under the water) from me to Terri. Addie can dive in the shallow end to pick up objects on the bottom, swim and come up for air and keep going, and jump off the board and swim to the side. Annalee can swim the length of the pool, dive for objects in the deep end, do flips in the water, and dive off the side of the pool. I'll try to get pics and videos soon.

The girls start pre-school next week, which is the nail in the coffin for summer 2009 in my mind. I am also in my 9th season of coaching Cross Country for MCA, and we have our first meet this Saturday.

I'll end with a few cute pics from the other day:

The kids love to play together, and these photos capture what we get to see a lot of around here. I am so grateful for my beautiful family!!

cute conversation

I think one of my favorite things about being a mom is getting to overhear conversations between Annalee and Addie, often when they don't know I'm listening. Today in the car on the way to Mimi's house for our daily swim time, this is what I heard:

(Side note--they often talk about which princess they would like to be when they grow up.)

Addie: I want to be Aurora (Sleeping Beauty) when I grow up.
Annalee: Well that means you have to prick your finger on a spindle. But you won't die, you'll just fall asleep.
Addie: No, I don't want to touch the spindle!
Annalee: But Addie, you have to, the movie says so!
Addie: (after several moments of thoughtful silence) I don't want to be Aurora anymore.