Happy Birthday Brooklyn (on Thursday)

I can't believe that Brooklyn is 6 years old. Boy does time fly when you are having fun. I sure wish these nieces and nephews would stop getting older. I am so glad that I have had the chance, the last few years to live near by and watch this sweet little girl grow up. I love getting the chance to have her come over, especially on Sunday's, when I know she is just trying to avoid taking a nap...but still we have fun. I love when my phone rings and the voice on the other line says, "Aunt Emily are you busy?" I love the way she loves her cousins Kate and Clair - even though they live far away and don't get to see each other often. She's always planning and trying to figure out how to get together with them.

Although Thursday was Brooklyn's official birthday, she is having her party today. Already her mom and Grammy are getting ready for 6- 5/6 year old girls to come over for a spa party. (Clair had one of these and Brooklyn has wanted one ever since.) Mimi and I will be in charge of doing facials. Cucumbers were requested for their eyes by the b-day girl. Hair will be done and nails too. It will be a great time and I'll try to remember to take pictures and post them too.

Happy Birthday Brooklyn!

Bringing in 2011

This year I decided to do something different and new for New Years Eve and New Years. I went with a group of friends and made some new friends. Twelve people from the Austin and San Antonio area rented a house on the beach of Port Aransas. It was tons of fun. I didn't know everyone at first, but I had a great time. We toasted in the new year with NYC and then we went out on the beach, made a bonfire, had smores, played with sparklers, and watched fireworks.




New Year's Day we spent at the beach flying kites. Scott was very patient with me and let's just say that I can mark professional kite flying off my list of things to be when I grow up. I was terrible at it. I was pretty sure that I was going to break Scott's kite. I didn't break it, but I didn't exactly fly it every good either.


We also went to this shop and took a picture with this humongous shark. You walked through the mouth and out the tail into the shop. It was cool.


All in all it was a great weekend. I had a really nice time.

Visit with Mimi, Papa, and Aunt - What's-her-name?

My kiddos just love their Mimi and Papa!

So happy together - but not all happy to be taking pictures! :)

Handsome Papa - can't you just see the Call charm!

Bowen was basically Aunt Emily's shadow! However, he had some trouble remembering her name!

He still LOVES her - and has plans to live with her when she is old. He said they would live in a RV and park in movie theater parking lots every night and go see a movie. He will be a FOX news man during the day!

He really loves her, just doesn't know her name half the time!

Kate Kate chilling out!

Clair on her Papa's knee! They are practically twins! Call genes here for sure!

My wonderful parents! Thanks for coming mom and dad! We LOVED having you!

The day after they left Kate came downstairs and said, "Mom, I miss mimi and papa and Aunt Emily! My room smells just like mimi and makes me miss them more!"

Have to have the silly photo - of course!

Now it's just the five of us! I really miss you guys being here! It was fun! Thank you so much for coming! Love ya mucho mucho!

Christmas Morning

My sweet, sleepy but excited kiddos waiting to go downstairs to see what Santa brought them! It was a good Christmas and the kids must have made the nice list, because they got what they asked for!

Quilting @ Christmas

So I got this bright idea that the Young Women should come over and we should tie a quilt. How was Grandma ever so patient teaching me? We got the quilt done, but it wasn't easy and it didn't go as smoothly as I'd hoped. I have to say that I missed having Grandma guide me in getting the quilt ready. I don't think it was really up to par with the way Grandma did it.





I have to say that getting out that quilt frame made me a little teary...thinking about Grandma. I had lots of good times quilting with her.

Christmas Traditions

It's that time of year again. We did our annual Gingerbread construction night. The boys did a train and the girls did a house. As always it was great fun, but we've learned that papa is the best at putting the things together. I was in charge of putting the house together and it kept falling apart. At the end of the night, as I was taking pictures of the final products, I declared the girls as the "winners!" Jack completely melted down. Yes, he is that competitive. I had to then declare the boys the winner of the gingerbread trains. That made him happy. We've decided that next year we are using graham crackers and everyone is doing there own and we will make a real competition of it. :)

Tangled in 3D

The day after Thanksgiving we went to see the movie Tangled. It was such a cute movie. I really wanted to see it in 3D, because I had never done that before. It was pretty neat. The kids loved the glasses, well Jack got about 3/4 through the movie and decided that they kind of hurt his head and he took them off. They rest of us kept them on and enjoyed seeing the new Disney princess in 3D.



Here is the whole gang, except for me and Brit. We were there, just not in the picture. I especially liked Jack and Papa. They look really cool!


There was only 1 thing about the movies that was missing...the Brights! We sure wish they could have joined us.

More of Clair

Clair's Violin Photo Shoot

Friday Night Lights

Football is KING in Texas. Most Friday nights you can catch us all at a Judson football game. This has been a really great season and this weekend the district games come to a close. It will be PLAYOFF season! YAY!