Dec 23rd

Here are some pictures from Christmas at our house with Dad & Jenny

Clara's first (and only) mini-dress

Dec 25th at our house

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