Ballet Today

Emmylou told me that she wanted to start ballet so I signed her up to start today. She couldn't wait-- this morning she crawled into our bed and whispered in my ear, "Mommy, I'm so excited to go to ballet today!"

Here she is looking out the window in the changing room before her class.

There's no window in the studio so I couldn't watch her during the lesson, but at the end they did open the doors while each little girl bowed to the teacher. Here's E waiting for her turn:
And the bow...

Miller's first haircut!

Gary took Miller for his first haircut at Bird's Barbershop last Saturday while I was at Chuck E. Cheese's with Emmylou.

This is who Gary chooses to cut our precious son's hair for the very first time?

Seriously?

Eeks!

We still love our Horns!

We're still sad about last Thursday's game and even sadder for Colt not getting to play the game of his life, but we can't complain about being #2 this year. Although the kids and I watched the entire game at Grammie's, Gary headed home around halftime so he could scream and cuss in solitude as needed. He said our neighborhood was going crazy-- one house behind us was yelling "TEXAS!" and the one next door was yelling back "FIGHT!" Too bad it all fell apart once it got down to a 3 point game.

But we're pretty sure we'll be back playing for the national championship again in about 18 or 19 years. You know, when Miller's playing for Muschamp. Seriously, the first thing Gary said to me back when Texas extended the offer to Muschamp to follow Mack Brown was, "Oh good, that's who Miller will play for." Yes, I'm sure it'll be as easy as that. Hook 'em!

Bus trip!

Emmylou has been asking me for months (okay, maybe it's been a full year by now) to take a ride on a bus. I kept promising but it was Grammie who ended up making it really happen. She found a great destination for us-- a place where most people who are riding the bus are going, I'm sure-- The Four Seasons. Grammie and Carol found themselves there on New Year's Eve and saw that they had a fantastic village of gingerbread houses that they knew Emmylou would love.

Waiting at the bus stop...

There's our bus!

Emmylou got on and actually said, "Hmm, so this is what a bus looks like."
Then at every stop she'd ask, "Is this us?"
We drove past the Capitol
and finally reached our destination.
The gingerbread village!








After seeing the gingerbread houses we went to get some lunch at Le Cafe Crepe. It felt like we were in Paris!
An actual French woman was making crepes:
Emmylou was loving on Grammie lots.
Guess what we ate? Yep, crepes and more crepes.
Then we waited at the bus stop that was next to one of the big, painted Austin guitars that are spread around town.
Another successful adventure! Apparently when Emily and I were about Emmylou's age we also requested to take a bus ride so Carol and Grammie took us. Within the first few minutes of boarding the bus caught on fire so we were pleased to avoid a similar fate. Yay!

Christmas 2009

Here are the photos from Christmas Eve and Christmas day. I think it's safe to say it was a whopping success.


On Christmas Eve, Emmylou stayed up to put out cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for Rudolph. She and I had made Christmas cookies a few days before and I let her sneak a tiara cookie cutter in with the snowflakes and candy canes. She definitely wanted Santa to have one of those.
She also had to give Birdie a kiss goodbye since his work was finished and he'd be hitching a ride back to the North Pole on Santa's sleigh.
Christmas morning: Look at all that loot!
Miller was half-asleep but liked his little car more than it appears in this picture.
Princess Emmylou was thrilled with her castle.

Grammie, Emmy and Mimi came over bright and early to watch the kids open their presents.
Yes, this is Emmylou's, but if it's got wheels, Miller wants it.

We hope your Christmas was just as fun!

Miller is 16 months old

Miller, wearing Daddy's new BBQ gloves...


Dear Miller,

One word: FUN. You're there! You've reached the turning point! You laugh, you dance, you "talk," play games... you are, seriously, a great time. Yes, I believe you have a touch of your daddy's temper, but I also still think you are one of the sweetest things that ever existed. You love your Ugly Doll Jeero and you immediately cuddle with him or anything else soft you find (me, included!). You love to give kisses and hugs and you're always looking for Emmylou to play with you. You finally started saying "Dada" this month and your daddy is having a fantastic time with you as well. Today he took you to Home Depot and you got to pretend to drive the riding lawnmowers! You love anything with a wheel or anything you can throw. You seem to understand everything I say. You actually answer almost every yes/no question I ask you by nodding or shaking your head and I'd give you about a 90% reliability rating. Pretty remarkable, if you ask me. I'm amazed that when I ask you if you want to take your jacket off you nod "yes" and hand me your sleeve to help. Obviously you're not a little baby anymore. You're eager to be included in all the activities going on around our house and I couldn't be more excited to help you learn more and experience all kinds of fun, exciting things. There are so many things I can't wait to show you!

I couldn't love you more, Miller! Happy 16 months to you, Monkey.
Love,
Mama

Wanna be Grinch-a-licious? There's an app for that!

If you know me pretty well, you know I LOVE How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Not the Jim Carrey trainwreck-of-a-movie version, but the old, classic, Boris Karloff-narrated cartoon by Dr. Seuss. Well, we've been calling Emmylou "Emmy-Lou-Who" for ages but now our entire family can be made into the awesome Grinch characters! Yep, there's an app for that! The other day I stumbled upon it, gasped, and downloaded it as fast as my little iPhone could. Had I found it early enough it would've been our Christmas card. At least I can post our photos here for all to behold. Enjoy... (isn't Gary's great?!)






Hours of fun, people. Hours.

Lions, Otters and Mice Kings (oh, my!)

In the days leading up to Christmas, Emmylou kept busy by going to lots of theatrical events. First, Grammie, Emily and Lizzie took her to Ballet Austin's Nutcracker performance where she talked for days about "all those kids who kept coming out of that lady's skirt." She was also really into the Mouse King, having watched the episode where the Wonder Pets save the nutcracker from the crazy mouse king... oh, about a thousand times. Also, she's recently just decided that she wants to ditch swimming lessons this semester in favor of starting a ballet class so I think this made quite an impression on her.

Next up was a showing of one of Emily's and my childhood faves, Emmet Otter's Jugband Christmas at the Alamo Drafthouse. Emily, Tripp and his mom joined us and we all thoroughly enjoyed the jug band that played some songs from the movie beforehand. Emmylou's favorite part was when they handed out free candy. Emily and I could hardly contain ourselves and kept squealing over the cuteness of all those varmints who've fallen on hard times in the holler.

The next day we were treated to an amazing performance of The Lion King by Pawpaw and Nana in San Antonio. I've wanted to see the musical since its inception and even after years of hearing how incredible it is, it still surpassed my expectations. Emmylou was captivated by it all, and she still talks about the elephants that walked right past us down the aisle and up onto the stage. Wow. Just wow.


And fun!! Thanks, everyone, for Emmylou's crash course in theater arts! She just might thank you one day when she wins an Academy Award.

Wondering where our Christmas card is?

If you typically receive a Christmas card from us, don't worry, we haven't decided we don't like you! I'm just a little behind, but I promise they're in the works and will get to you in the next week.

In the meantime, know that we all wish you a very Merry Christmas!!

xoxo, Becca, Gary, Emmylou + Miller

Longhorn on wheels

Birdie's return

As I'm always on the hunt for new ways to bribe Emmylou into behaving, it's nice that with the joyous Christmas season comes the return of Birdie, our Elf on the Shelf. If you don't know, Birdie works for Santa and is specifically assigned to watch Emmylou and Miller each day. He reports on their naughty-or-nice-ness each night when he flies back to the North Pole and then returns to hide in a new spot in our house each morning. Emmylou absolutely loves looking for him when she wakes up (he's the first thing she asks about) and it's pretty easy to get her to do/stop doing something if I threaten to tell Birdie about it. He even takes cell phone calls from HEB, if you can believe it.

Although she's asking a lot of logistical questions this year such as, "Mommy, how does Birdie fly all the way to the North Pole every night?" and, "How does Birdie talk to tell Santa I've been good?" (yes, she's realized he's clearly an inanimate object) she seems mildly satisfied when I answer by saying "it's magic!" (I try to put lots of enthusiasm behind it so it's more convincing.)

The other day she decided to draw Birdie a picture, which sounds really sweet but I think it was really an attempt to make up for some earlier misbehaving. Birdie happened to be watching her and Miller from the Christmas tree that day and when I came into the room later I saw that she had rolled up her picture and put it right next to him so he could take it back with him to the North Pole that night.

Last day

Hello, out there!

Due to technical difficulties (those being that we've broken every picture-taking device in our house except for my iPhone), I haven't had much to post lately. But, that doesn't mean we don't have big news! In case you haven't heard, Gary has started his new job with a certain large software company which, 48 hours into, he absolutely loves. Yes, it's early, but I'm hoping that continues. :)

So while they're rolling out the red carpet for him in San Francisco this week, I'm trying not to lose my mind having the kids on my own for 6 days. Emmylou must be at the apex (it couldn't possibly get any worse) of boundary-testing and trying out new ways of expressing her anger. Fun stuff. I'm also on-guard every second she and Miller are near each other because I'm seriously afraid for his life. I love her but I'm pretty sure that kid is 98% responsible for the stress that led to me getting shingles. *repeating mantra "it's only a phase... it's only a phase...*

Anyway... here's a photo (of awful quality) of G and E on his last day after 11 years at Dell!