All I want for Christmas is a new computer...

Because our old laptop crashed!! What sad timing, I have so many cute pictures with Santa, his first homemade stocking (thanks Grandma!), pictures with Santa on a C-12, etc...not sure when I'll be able to get them up...bummer!

Merry Christmas!!!

Tree hunting in south Texas

Last Saturday we decided to get our tree, unfortunately there aren't any tree farms like the ones were used to going to in Oregon or Boston, so I decided to share with ya'all one way to get a tree down here...

Dress Tommy up in his cute new furry warm bear suit and have a little photo shoot...

Head outside only to realize it's not low 50's and windy, but mid 60's, so change him into the other new holiday outfit that's a little less furry...
Arrive at the local nursery less than a 5 minute drive...

Spend less than 10 minutes wandering down the four rows of neatly propped trees to find our "perfect" tree...

and then decorate Sunday night...

Done! Tommy enjoyed helping in the bjorn...
This is going to be a wonderful Christmas season, something about having a child helps you remember what it's really all about. Family. And I find myself thinking everyday how lucky we are.

We had a fun visit from my sister, Wyatt (3) and my parents over Thanksgiving week. Wyatt thinks every airplane flies to Texas and he was so excited to be here and so much fun to be around. Constant energy, always happy (except when Ali wants him to take a nap) and Tommy loved watching him!

Cute cousins

Spiderman, spiderman...

Wyatt, Grandma & Grandpa playing with the "basketball" men (they're really Red Sox/Yankee chess figures, but Wyatt is on a basketball team right now, so that's what he said they were. Endless fun for him, still finding them in random spots all over our house!)
All aboard! Wyatt was flying us to the beach! I'm not sure who enjoyed getting on the plane more, Wyatt or Wink (note hat backwards...someone felt like a kid again!)
CIVIL WAR GAME DAY...WHAT A GREAT DAY!
Camo DUCK boys!!
Here's a link to lots more pictures from Thanksgiving week! We were so thankful for their visit during a time when travel isn't so easy!!

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLanding.action?c=5cslxsd.53089dex&x=0&y=vbqvbs&localeid=en_US&cm_mmc=site_email-_-site_share-_-core-_-view_photos_button

Let us give thanks...

for first bites of rice cereal on Thanksgiving...

for little pilgrims...

and for little indians!!

Much much more to come, I just wanted to get a couple pictures up!! Having a great visit with Auntie Ali-cat, cousin Wyatt and Grandpa & Grandma! Hope everyone enjoyed Thanksgiving, we all have a lot to be thankful for :)

"Just Katie" and shhh..Grandpa Martin's suprise visit!!

This past weekend Aunt "Just Katie" flew down from Chicago to meet Tommy, get her Texas fix, (she used to live in Austin and loved it), and as a suprise to her, Grandpa Martin flew in too. Just Katie flew in first and it was tough trying to keep quiet for about 24 hours until Marty flew in, but we did it and Tommy didn't tell either....

Here's Just Katie and Tommy posing...Katie is so great with kids and we were really excited to see her and for Tommy to meet her.

Getting ready to head out for our first "big night" out...

Grandpa Marty hanging with Tommy watching football. You can see and feel the love/admiration Marty has for Tommy, he won't put him down or take his eyes off of him-they had so much fun reading and walking and just hanging out. It was really nice to have so much time with Marty, we all really enjoyed it.

Last shot before Katie flew home with a suitcase full of Texas salsa and tortilla chips!!

Here's a link to the rest of the pictures. We're so lucky to have such amazing people in our family and that are willing to come down to south Texas to see us :)

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Happy Halloween!!

A little piggy in a blanket...

Topped with moostard and brown (?) ketchup!!

Ketchup, Piggy,Hermione (Jill), Harry (Chadd), Magic Eight Ball (Marla), Cowboy-Sheriff- Jake (rounding up his guns to protect his little girl arriving sometime next month from all the little boys that wil be chasing after her).

Unfortunately those are all of the pictures I took...so fun to have friends who love dressing up! We had a fun time at the McLaughlin's house for a Halloween/Jack-Jack 2nd birthday party.

the little green monsta

HAPPY LITTLE GREEN MONSTA

CURIOUS
EXCITED

HE SPITS MILK, NOT FIRE
p.s. that isn't his Halloween costume, just for fun :)

Kevin's first post/Mary, John & Julia's visit :)

Last weekend we had a great visit from Aunt Mary and her two kids, John (7) and Julia (6), and Uncle Kevin. We're really hoping Uncle Kevin will finally visit our blog...he stays away from it and says he just doesn't get it...kinda like how I feel about Myspace (though I have been spying more on Facebook); but I think he's really missing out! So I had to start this post with him:


Here is is sitting on the toilet of a C-12, the plane Michael is flying/instructing on. Yes, that's right, the toilet-right at the top of the entrance...it doesn't get much use, thank goodness! Sick. These planes look a lot fancier from the outside.

Here's Michael in front of the C-12, there's plenty of seats for all of us, wish we could have gone somewhere!

John & Julia were given their first flight lesson and were ready to go!

Mary, J&J returning from their weekend jaunt to Nantucket (we all wish!), I mean flight lesson.

Michael and Kevin early the first morning enjoying coffee and costumes...I took out my "costume" box of Halloween bits and fun jewelry for everyone (Julia) to enjoy. Julia made sure we all had at least one item on.
Here's princess chef Julia and the hunchback of Notre Boston chef John with "Penguini" (one of the many toys they brought Tommy) cooking breakfast. We all learned that everything is more fun in costume!

Tommy smiling and talking with his Auntie early morningUncle Kevin talking to Tommy about the Red Sox and Tommy begging Uncle Kevin to visit his blog.
The cousins...I've heard a lot of people say there's a lot of similarities between Johnny & Tommy
Here's everyone at the end of a frisbee golf round..a little windy and hot, but it was still a lot of fun!
We're so happy that they made the trip down. It was great for all of them to meet Tommy, see our house and just hang out. We cooked a lot of great meals, decorated glitter pumpkins (we're still finding glitter all over, even Tommy!), made caramel apples, went to the aquarium, and of course went to the beach and checked out all of the debris from Ike. Here's a link to see more pics from their visit:

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Best Birthday present ever...

Nothing like a smiling Tommy!! Maybe getting older isn't so bad....
The blueberry pancakes Michael made and the walk on the beach helped too!!

Life is pretty good, even as I get further into my thirties :)

Where do I even begin...first trip!!

I've been delaying this post trying to figure out how I was going to squeeze it all on here...so many "big" moments, so many important people that saw Tommy for the first time, so much fun packed into the week!! But I had to get it going, so here are some highlights and I'm including a link at the end with the rest of the pictures.

Wednesday we flew into Portland and we were there for just one night before heading into WA for my friend Allyssa's wedding. Tommy, of course, is a natural at air travel-slept pretty much the whole time. Some passengers around us commented on what a good traveler he was...luckily we had our own row on both legs-we flew Southwest and who wants to sit near an infant?!

We stayed Thursday night in Tacoma with my cousin Janet, her husband Drew and their two daughters, Olivia and Claire. It was the greatest-we had pizza with my Aunt Nancy and Uncle Ben, then as is customary to the Lowen household, we had smores in the backyard!! It's their second home,and their second home with a fire pit or wood burning stove in the back for smores-their little girls are going to be very suprised when they figure out that not everyone has it this good. Then we woke up to the biggest breakfast I've ever seen and we were treated to a show by the girls. They're such a close nit family with good values it's refreshing...here's a picture of them at their house with Tommy. (Oh and they're all georgeous too)!!

The next morning we drove over the Tacoma narrows bridge onto Bainbridge Island-wish I would have taken pictures of the bridge...huge!! I was glad we had Friday to help Allyssa set up for the reception at her parent's house-it's a beautiful home on beautiful land, unfortunately it rained...but the dancing went on. We were so grateful to have my parents there, for their company and help with Tommy (the music was a little too loud for him in the tent, so Grandpa Wink decided they better head back to the hotel). Here's a picture of us at the reception-check out my eye lashes-fake!! All the girls in the wedding had them put on by the makeup artist-it was my first time wearing them, we only had two on each corner, but wow are they effective!! Funny stuff!
We left Sunday morning, to head back to Portland to meet Grandpa Martin, Tommy's namesake and Marla (Michael says Marla is Tommy's Nene???). What a moment that was...Tommy just started talking to him right away, it was so sweet. Grandpa Martin held him almost the entire time...here they are below when Tommy was talking to him:
Monday, we hung out at my parents almost the whole day and the cousins came over to visit. Wyatt, on the right and Jackson on the left are both three (separated by one month) and love hanging out together. They were both excited to meet "baby cousin Tommy," but Jackson was much more into Tommy-he wanted to hold him the whole time and was so interested in what he was all about (he's going to be a great big brother to his brother or sister arriving in October). Wyatt on the other hand was very busy asking "why" about everything over and over-hilarious!! Tommy pretty much slept through it all...
I love this shot at dinner Monday, Grandma with her grandsons....blue eyed beauties!!Three generations of Callaghans
And finally, at the airport (very early) waiting to head home...with T in his favorite hat!

Please check out the rest of the pictures....great trip, but kinda glad to be done traveling for a little bit. Really wish we didn't have to travel to see family and friends :)

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If you put lipstick on Ike...it's still Ike

The "locals" say that part of living in this southern Texas paradise is dealing with hurricanes...I'm still waiting on the paradise part. So Wednesday, for the first time since we've lived here, we had our first real hurricane scare. I knew it was serious when our realtor (also neighbor) and our neighbors on both sides (who all have lived here their entire lives), let us know that they were boarding up and planning on evacuating-some for the first time ever! Luckily Dolly had pushed us to do some of the preparations, so we were a little ahead of the game. But we had never looked at the boards for our windows, didn't know what order they went in and weren't sure how this was all going to play out. So...many many hours later and with the help of several friends, our boards were up at around 9:30 pm Wednesday night. Thanks Jake, Chadd & Jill for all your help!! Here's what it looks like :

A lot of people have the metal kind that the screws are in place and you slide the pieces in...
Also on Wednesday, Michael made a run to the store for us while I got Tommy his last vaccination. I told him that we needed food for the car for our drive to San Antonio where we were going to evacuate. It's usually a two hour drive, but I've heard horror stories of it taking 6-8 hours when everyone is evacuating. I suggested pb&j, granola bars, fruit, things that didn't need to be refrigerated...below is what he found...so funny! He forgot fruit but picked up sour patch kids and also one of my favorite cookies instead! I guess next time we'll make a list.
Tommy was not scared at all...or maybe he was and just deals with adversity by sleeping. Note the headlines..."Seek high ground or leave!"
Luckily, we were not affected by Ike at all and didn't end up leaving. We didn't see a drop of rain and there was barely any winds. Saturday morning I went for a walk and the weather was so nice, Michael took the boards down, which was much easier and the Ducks won! We were also very lucky that Michael didn't have to fly a plane out, as they evacuated all of their aircraft and once again he was on "standby" when everyone else flew out.

Is it November yet?? Ready for hurricane season to be over!!

Weighing in at 13.7 lbs......!!!!!