Big News X 2!!

In our month or so of blogging absence, a lot has happened!! We closed on a house on November 18 and have been busy moving things in, painting, organizing, and making things homey :o) My (Shannon's) family came in for a week at Thanksgiving (pictures to be posted, I promise) and they were a big help. They didn't have much of an option since we moved on a Saturday and they came that Tuesday! I will work on getting some good pictures up of the house soon.

Most of you who follow this probably already know but we are also expecting our second baby in May! We found out in the middle of September and have been widely spreading the news since week 8, but here we are past week 16 and just now announcing it on the blogging world! We are thrilled and Graham doesn't quite understand but does at least think that there is a baby "hiding" in mommy's "bay bun" (translation: "belly button"). Please join us in praying for this tiny life as it grows and our family as we look forward to welcoming him or her late this spring :o) We have an ultrasound scheduled at the beginning of January where we can (hopefully) find out if this is a little boy or little girl. Below is the picture that we sent to our families when we first found out!

Happy Halloween!

On the 31st, our church had a "Reformation Celebration" in lieu of Halloween.  They served chili dogs and delicious pie for dinner, had a puppet show interview for the kids explaining the Reformation, and lots of fun games with prizes and candy!  Graham was dressed as a lion (Aslan, perhaps?) and wasn't quite sure of what to think about everyone walking around with costumes on (including himself!).  He slowly warmed up though, and by the end of the night he was "Roar!!!"-ing all around!

Here he is getting a sweet hug from puppy-dog-Cloe!

Nat was the wacky interviewer of Martin Luther.

Graham's favorite station -- the bean bag toss!!  He made it through every time... although I suppose it's hard to miss when you're little enough to be allowed to walk right up to the board :o)

Learning how to bop frogs into the pool from one of Graham's favorite people here in Houston!

Lion Graham and Superman Grant!

Roar!! :o)

Fun at the Park and with Friends

After the short trip to the pumpkin patch, we headed over to a park that we learned of the week before off of Texas Ave.  It doesn't have the best play set, but it has TONS of field space for running around and even some "hills" to go up and down!  We've gone three times in a week if that tells you how much we're enjoying it.  

After we wore ourselves out, we came home and ran into some friends from church (the Fords who we camped out with during Hurricane Ike).  They didn't have any dinner plans so they came over to join us for some of Nat's homemade pizza - yum!

Way Down Yonder in the Pumpkin Patch

Last Monday we went to the Methodist Church down the street because we heard that they had a nice pumpkin patch.  Graham loved walking through - feeling and knocking on the pumpkins.  Unfortunately, they were all rotten - a woman who was there said that they all looked great a week ago but that they all started rotting - they found out that the pumpkins had frozen on the vine and that a trash collector was coming to pick all of the pumpkins up!  How sad!  So even though we didn't get a pumpkin, we still had fun walking around and snapping some pictures.  Maybe next year!

Love Despite Fleas

Poor Aslan has come down with a case of the fleas.  He tends to go a little crazy at times (streaking from one side of the apartment to the other and back again for example), but he has been constantly acting wild for a little while.  Upon inspection, we discovered that the poor kitty cat has fleas.  We tried using the stuff that you squirt on the back of his neck but it didn't seem to be doing the trick.  So, the past few weeks we have been washing him in Dawn once per week and vacuuming as much as possible!  Results from this have been good so far - we're still finding them on him here and there but he is becoming a much happier cat once again.   

Here he is after one of his latest baths...

Here's Graham...

And here is Graham loving on Aslan after he is dry, soft, and happy.  

Wings over Houston

Sorry it's been a while since the last post - we've had a busy few weeks and every chance I've had to be on the computer I've felt zapped!  Last weekend, an air show came to Houston and was going on only about 10 minutes away from us!  A family from church invited us to come to their house for a cookout and to be able to watch the show clearly just a few blocks from their home (the airfield is behind the gate we were sitting in front of).  We had a great time of fellowship - and a great time watching amazing airplanes fly right over our heads (amazing... crazy... probably a combination of those two words would be appropriate!). 

Graham loved watching them - the few days before, all of the planes were flying in and going over our apartment.  Every time he heard one, he would run to the window, point into the sky, and say "car-car!"  I took note that at least he didn't say "car" once like he does for a regular car... so maybe "car-car" means that he recognized that it's flying?  This week he's finally starting to call them planes - we've had a breakthrough!!  Needless to say, he enjoyed the show as well. 

A crazy red bi-plane that did all kinds of fun tricks... I was scared numerous times as the pilot plunged toward the earth, seeming to barely pull up before it reached the ground.  Amazing. 

A very large plane... I'll have to ask Nat again what kind it was (B-17?) I don't remember... they all had letters and numbers in their names.  It was big!

The highlight of the show was when the Thunderbirds did their show... 6 very fast planes and very skilled pilots put on a great show!!

These were some of the friends from church who watched the show with us!

We're Going to the Zoo Zoo Zoo...

How about you you you... Does anyone else remember that song?  Those really are the only words I can remember so that's all that I've been singing... over and over and over again!  Well, we took a trip to the Houston Zoo today (yes, TODAY -- can anyone believe that we're so caught up that we're giving an update of what we're currently up to?!) and had such a fun time!  We weren't sure whether or not Graham would like it or not but he enjoyed just about all of the animals he could spot.  Most of them were pretty close but some were too far away and too still for us to be able to show him.  The other challenge was trying to explain that most of the animals had names other than "kitty," "dog," and "bird."  He finally remembered monkey, cow, and fish but it took a little bit of prodding.  The animals don't tend to always look like the animals in the books we read and don't always make the same noises that we try to get him to imitate (I don't have much of a skill for imitating animals like elephants, for example).  Nonetheless, we had some great family time as we explored the zoo together!

Into the entrance!  Nat looks mad in this picture but he's not, I promise!

Seals... Graham wanted to go into the "pool."

Nat and Graham watching all of the fun birds!

Zebras...

Big fish!

One of the highlights of the zoo is the farm and petting zoo that they have in the children's section.  We all loved it, but Nat and Graham especially did!  Here they are with one of the cows.

Goats are one of Nat's favorite animals ever.  He didn't want to leave them!

Some bears...

The tigers were kind of hard to see.  They were sleeping in the back of their habitat.

So we got up close and personal with the tiger cutout!

Wild dogs... I know that there's a more specific name for them but this is all I can remember.

Big longhorn cattle!  We thought these might be Texas natives, but I think the sign said they were from Asia?

A BIG turtle!

Then we were off to the monkey/ape area.  They were so very loud which made it quite the experience!  These guys were leaping all around their area but came together for a second for some love!

This one was swinging all around and making the most noise.  He sounded like he was blowing into a jug for part of the time and yapping for the rest!

The orangutans (not sure how to spell that) were quite entertaining.  This one was doing somersaults for us, swinging back and forth, and flipping upside down!

Here we are in front of the giraffes!

This giraffe came almost to the very edge - he was so tall and wanted the leaves of the tree that were shading us!

Last stop: elephants.

We saw many many more animals than this but these were some of the favorites.  All of us were super tired by the time our trip was over, but Graham beat us all.  He was asleep within five minutes - the time it took for us to get somewhere for lunch!  We can't wait to go back!