Xmas at Mom's

Some pictures from christmas at Mom's house

Misc Dec Pictures

Mack getting lots of attention on sleep-over night

Clara loves her new hats & gloves!

James & Devlin - trying out the new camera!

Devlin & Clara -- See devlin... you can smile for pictures!

Christmas @ Aunt Frankie's

Not Santa's biggest fan

We visited Santa and well, at least the boys were happy. Aidan was very excited about telling Santa everything that was on his list. Clara wasn't quite as thrilled about the whole thing. She was fine with Santa and kept pointing to him, but was not at all interested in sitting with him.

At least mom got this gorgoues picture of her Pre-Santa though :)

Rocking around the christmas tree

We finally got around to decorating our tree tonight! The kids had it decorated in record time... they are getting to be pros.

Clara was a little under the weather, but still managed to hang a few ornaments on the tree. She liked the M&M ones best... is anybody surprised?

Saturday with the grandparents

The kids spent Saturday night w/ Dad & Jenny. They made adorable snowmen and these great christmas hats.

Clara had a blast dancing with a singing polar bear.

Apparently she cracked up everytime the bear started singing.

My Christmas-tree-in-a-box @ work :)

Aidan acting as Bolt (the dog)

My little lefty ???

Clara fed herself with a fork today...in her left hand. Looks like she might be a little lefty!

Today was the first time we've seen her "stab" the food and then get it into her mouth without any help from her fingers :)

She's growing up fast!

Clara's first pig-tails!

November in a nut shell...

The first week of November was so eventful, that the rest of it flew by.

Nov 12 - I went to St Louis for a few days for a finance conference. James managed to keep the kids out of the hospital while I was gone...I can't say the same for when he was gone earlier in the month.

Nov 19 - Dinner at our house for Dad's birthday (SPAGHETTI!)





Nov 21 - Clara got tubes in her ears. The surgery was easy and she has been great ever since.

Nov 27 - Turkey Trot that morning - I ran the whole 5 miles! WOO HOO!
Turkey at mom's later that day and we watched the UT/A&M football game.




Devlin's finished product -- the "shield" project -- the shield represents him and how he has changed in the last few years. This project was truly a family colaboration. I think everybody had some help in donating materials or helping prepare it. This side was his to decorate as he wanted. He chose to decorate with pictures of the family.








Clara bundled up for a run in the stroller

Hook Em!

Nov 8th

To add to an already busy weekend, Devlin and I got to go to the UT vs. Baylor football game.

This was Devlin's first UT game and we had a blast. It was HOT... I was completely sun-burnt becuase our seats were in full-sun for the entire game. We stayed till the very end and had a great time.

UT 45 -- Baylor 21

Halloween...a little out of order!

Halloween 2008

Aidan - Spiderman

Brandon - Grim Reaper

Clara - Fairy

Devlin - no costume ... chased girls/was chased by girls all night long

We trick or treated w/ the entire block; it was a blast. My friend from work (Chad & his wife Madison) brought their son Max over also. Max is a couple months older than Clara. He was a Shark.

Brandon .... scary!!!

Spiderman showing off his muscles

I'm pretty sure Devlin was "slinging" one of his new Halloween flying-toys in this picture.

It's all mine!!!!!

Excitement on the block - Nov 7th

Just like any other night in our neighborhood, we were hanging out in the front yard while the kids played. On this particular night they were playing football in our yard and Brandon had a run-in with a tree. Literally.. a run-in with a tree. He ran into a low-hanging branch on a tree and the limb pierced him in the eyelid. This launched a series of events that ended with him having surgery Friday morning at 6:30 AM.

To make a very long story short - the limb pierced his eyelid and "bruised" his eye-ball. The muscle was torn by the limb which required surgery to correct. They also had to check behind his eye to make sure that no debris or dirt was trapped behind his eye.

Brandon handled it all very well. His least favorite part was the IV. He had a really hard time falling asleep in his hospital room that night, but once he did he felt a lot better. The surgery was very short - 1/2 hour total and he has recovered very well.

And the best part is that James was out of town.... WAY out of town (somewhere near El Paso). Mom came over and stayed with the kids while I stayed at the hospital with Brandon. His mom also came up to the hospital so I wasn't completely on my own.

Clara's 1st birthday!

Clara turned 1 on October 28th! We celebrated her birthday with a party on Saturday, Oct 25th. We rented an inflatable slide/jumper and had them set it up in the front yard! Our house is like a playground on most weekdays - with a jumper in front, we should have charged admission!

The kids had a great time and clara was ADORABLE. She was very cute opening presents and playing with her new toys & clothes.

Mom & Tom made a great cake for Clara -- multiple layers & hand-made polka dots & embellishments. It was very cute and extremely tasty!

Pumpkin carving/Tina's birthday

We had our annual pumpkin carving event on October 18th. This year the event had grown to include most of the neighborhood: Devlin, Brandon, Aidan, Clara, Nathan, Macy, Zachy, Nachite, Sunshearray, Colton & Aaron. We carved almost a dozen pumpkins within a couple hours.

It was loads of fun, like always. The kids all picked much simpler designs this year - I think they remembered how long the pumpkins took in the prior years.

It was a fun filled night of pumpkin guts, lasagna, & multiple birthday cakes! YUM!

Book fair wish list

I have to brag on aidan. He brought home his book fair wish list and had several book s(there are more on the back) written down that he wanted to buy. I thought someone in the older grades had helped him write his list out but it turns out that he did it himself J

I’ve got this on my desk right now and it makes me smile everytime I look at it. I can’t believe how big he has gotten!


Aidan Watkins – 5 years old – November 4th 2008

Olympics 2020 Swimming Champion :)

Tom's got a new toy and he got some great video of Aidan swimming.

Who else can swim and show off those cute dimples at the same time?

Steak anyone?

Clara's got two more teeth coming in on the bottom - that' s 8 teeth total.

Last night Clara took four consecutive steps -- not towards mommy, not towards daddy. She walked to the dirtbike in the driveway. I'm officially worried.

Labor Day

After taking it super-easy in the morning, we had an impromptu cookout in the front yard with the neighbors.



Good friends, good food and good music (TaiMok was re-living the 80s) - great way to end the holiday weekend.



Clara also started "dancing" - she shakes her head side to side and waves her arms up and down. It's adorable...

Sunday

Sunday we took it easy and finished remodeling our downstairs 1/2 bathroom. James finished installing the sink and medicine cabinet. We still need a new light fixture, but it's at least back in usable order now. It's still a little brighter than I expected it to be, but I think the color is a nice change from the khaki that was in there previously.

Aidan worked on his puzzles Sunday night and Monday morning - he takes them very seriously and asked me to turn off the music while he worked on them.









James and I went to a movie and left the kids with Pop-pop and Mimi who got some adorable pictures of Aidan and Clara.


Aidan's first ride in the convertible:







Clara making faces:

What a weekend!

Saturday was Devlin's 12th birthday party! What a blast.


This year was the 1st year I've ever attempted to bake a cake for the kids. I made two cakes (one yellow, one chocolate) and decorated them to look like a motoX "jump" complete with take-off ramp and landing ramp spread across the two cakes. We hung a motorcycle toy with rider in between the two cakes doing a "superman" trick across the jump.


We had about 20 kids there and lots of friends and family. We all had a great time and were very, very wiped out by the end of the evening.


Clara also took her first step on Saturday. She had her entire support crew present and encouraging every twitch of her leg ;)

Milestone check

Clara turned 10 months old yesterday as well.

Right now she can:

• Go from squatting to standing and back to squatting


• Stand for longer periods of time


• Go from sitting to standing without holding on to anything


• She can walk while holding on to things or pushing her walker (or anything else that slides)


• She has two bottom teeth & four top teeth


• Pick up small objects with a pincher grasp (index finger and thumb)


• Sleeping through the night (mostly)


• Eats real food & loves everything


• Can make raspberry noises with her mouth


• Will wave bye-bye most of the time


• Picks things up and transfers between hands - doesn't seem to have a preference for left or right hand yet, she eats cheerios two fisted :)


• She says "Ma-ma" and "Da-da" regularly. She likes to babble and "talks" a lot in the morning when she first wakes up.

Devlin turns 12!

Devlin turned 12 yesterday! I can't believe he's almost a teenager.

Party this Saturday -- woo hoo!

Ready to Roll

Aidan's on two wheels! Woo Hoo!!!!!!

Kindergarten so far...

We are three days into the school year and Aidan got his first "yellow" at school.

His class operates on a behavior scale of green, yellow, red. They are moved to yellow after getting two warnings. He and another little boy were playing & giggling during rest time.

I ran into his teacher while helping stuff Wednesday folders during my lunch hour so I got the first hand account of it. Of course I'm upset that he wasn't listening, but I'm secretly glad that he has a friend at school!

The crew heads to school...

The boys started school this morning - Devlin starts 7th grade @ Henry Middle School, Brandon starts 3rd grade & Aidan starts Kindergarten at Rutledge.

The boys were all up early and ready to go on time this morning - i hope we can keep that going all year. I'd just be happy with all week, actually. Dad, Jenny, Mom, James & I all were all here for the big event.

We dropped Brandon and Aidan at Rutledge first. Brandon wanted to walk to his class by himself. James watched him walk all the way down until he was out of sight. The rest of us took Aidan to class and James met us there. Aidan went straight to his locker to put his things away. He found his seat (with Mimi's help) and sat down. He gave me a quick kiss and a hug and was ready to start.

I made it out the door before I started crying. I can't believe my little boy is starting school!

Devlin wanted to ride the bus. We got back to our street just in time for him to get out at the bus stop and wait for the Middle School bus. We parked and waited until they pulled away.

We are so happy to have the boys here for school. It's going to be a great year.

One more thing from Kinder Camp

I need to write this one down while I remember it!

This morning during Kinder camp, the teacher read the story The Kissing Hand. The story was about a raccoon who is going to school for the first time. During the story the mother kisses the palm of his hand and tells him:

Now, whenever you feel lonely and need a little loving from home, just press your hand to your cheek and think, "Mommy loves you. Mommy loves you." And that very kiss will jump to your face and fill you with toasty warm thoughts.

When they read this line, Aidan looked around the room until he found me and smiled & waved at me. I nearly cried ... again.

Kinder Camp

Today was Kindergarten camp for Aidan. He got to meet his teacher (Mrs Sandobal) and see his classroom. There is another Aidan in his class (Aidan T) so he will forever be known as "Aidan W". By the end of the hour in the class he was already starting to write his name as "Aidan W" :)

The kids did centers while parents filled out paperwork. The kids and parents got to do a craft based on the book The Kissing Hand. The parents painted their hands and made a hand print on the paper, then the kids did the same and put their hand print on top. Aidan refused to paint his hand. So, I painted my hand and Aidan will trace & color his on top of mine in class on Monday.

Several times this morning I fought back tears. When we came in they gave us cards with the teacher's name on it - when Aidan heard his teacher's name he made a funny face and said "That's a funny name." For whatever reason, this made me want to bawl. I can't believe he's got a kindergarten teacher!

For the last half hour the kids played on the playground and the parents were given some information by the principal. The school seems really nice and all the teachers seem very good.

Stay tuned for the total breakdown that is coming on Monday...

Cutest baby ever

Does it get any cuter than this?

Just keep swimming..

Aidan has become a little fish. He is doing great in the water and can swim very well all by himself.

He's even comfortable enough now to do tricks in the water.

Aidan says "about" instead of "without" so he calls this swimming "about" his lifejacket :)