Christmas

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Wow, we have quite a bit to write about over the past two weeks.  Last week, we were eagerly awaiting our forthcoming trip to Amarillo.  We spent some time wrapping up our duties at the office.  We also had a brief Christmas celebration at the house before we left for Amarillo.  Rachel's Aunt Susan and Uncle John got Kennedy a pink fleece jacket.  She liked it so much that she had to put it on right away.  It was in the seventies in the house and we were worried that she'd get too hot, but she insisted on wearing it.  Afterward, we went to look at Christmas lights.  Kennedy seemed to enjoy it.

Last Saturday, we headed to Amarillo.  Kennedy seems to get progressively less patient with the car ride from DFW.  We left around 7:00 am and she did well for the first couple of hours, but we were in for a real treat after that.  Kennedy started with typical fussing, but she eventually exploded.  She was screaming so hard and so loud that it started to hurt our ears.  We eventually got to where we just ignored it, but we were sure happy to get out of the car.

Once we made it to town, we went by Rachel's parents house to visit with the family.  Tyler, Lynsey and Brody had also arrived in town around the same time as us.  They won the prize for longest car ride since they had to drive all the way from Nebraska.  Rachel's Aunt Carol, Uncle Roger, and Aunt Barb were passing through town on their way to Santa Fe.  Brody was a real trooper.  Everyone was playing "pass the baby" and he didn't didn't seem to mind a bit.

Kennedy also enjoyed sitting in Pops' lap and browsing the web in the mornings.  She also enjoyed tinkering with the keyboard.  It is a good thing that Pops has an extra keyboard that were were able to unplug.  Later that day, we all headed over to Meme and Grandpa's house to celebrate.  The Duhon family also made it up from Austin to join us.  Kennedy spent a few moments with Pops looking through the photographs from Whitney and Nate's wedding.  Whitney spent some time chasing Kennedy throughout the house.  We probably took 40 pictures of her, but we only got one that was in focus since she was running around so much.  Kennedy also had a great time playing with Bella!  They had a game called Elefun.  It is a game where a toy elephant blows tow butterflies through its trunk and the kids get to catch them with their nets.

You'll also see a Christmas train that spells out "leon" instead of "noel."  The story goes that once upon a time, Meme put out the Christmas decorations and then Grandpa gave her a hard time when he saw that the train spelled out "leon."  It seems that every year, the train winds up spelling out "leon."  We're not sure who changed it this year, but we had to snap a photo once we saw it.

On Christmas Eve, we headed to the 4:30 pm service.  Unfortunately, the kids didn't make it through the entire service.  Kennedy was the first to go, so Jason took her out into the hallway.  Fortunately, they had the audio and video of the service running in the hallway.  Tyler had to take Brody out shortly thereafter.  Once the service let out, we headed back to the Kime household where we had beef barley soup and some of Tyler's chili.  Kennedy didn't much care for the beef barley soup, but she sure enjoyed the chili.  After the main course, we had some chocolate cheesecake.  Kennedy absolutely enjoyed eating the cheesecake.  After dinner, we exchanged gifts.

On Christmas morning, we were greeted with a white Christmas for the second year in a row.  We exchanged gifts after breakfast with Jason's family.  We had a nice time and after the gift exchange, we played the Nintendo Wii.  Nate and Whitney brought their Wii over and we got to play some.  Keith even joined in on the action.  After lunch, the Kime's came by and we got to visit.  LuAnn brought an old antique rocking toy.  Kennedy was a bit apprehensive about it at first, but she eventually warmed up to it and started having a great time.  We even got the Wii back out and played some Mario that evening.

The day after Christmas, Nate took some pictures of the Kime side of the family.  We gathered around a bridge over in their neighborhood and they turned out pretty good.

On the 27th, we had a bit of a surprise in store for Dennis.  He celebrated his 60th birthday earlier this month and we weren't able to be in Amarillo, but wanted to do something special for him.  Rachel, Tyler, Lynsey and LuAnn started planning a surprise party a couple of months back.  They invited all of his friends and we ended up having a pretty good sized crowd for dinner.  He was pretty surprised and seemed to have a good time.

In general, Kennedy has been doing some fun new things.  When prompted, she will point to different people.  This was especially fun when we were back in Amarillo.  We could say "Where is your Auntie Whitney?" and she would point to Whitney.  We'd just go around the room and she'd point at all the different family members.  Even though she can't speak their names, it sure is fun to see that she knows all of our family members.

We also had a bit of an experience at the Amarillo mall.  Nate was looking for a new coat and we were browsing around at the Gap.  As usual, Kennedy was getting pretty impatient with the experience so we were walking up and down the dressing room hallway.  We'd also go look in the three-way mirror.  This helped to keep her under control while we browsed around.  At one point, she got away from her dad and she squirted under the doorway of an occupied dressing room.  Needless to say, we were pretty embarrassed.

She is also learning her animal sounds.  She does a fantastic "moo" when asked "What does a cow say?"  She has gotten a little mixed up along the way.  Roger and Barb got Kennedy a stuffed giraffe and we were keeping it in the backseat with her while we were in Amarillo.  When we would get in and out of the car, we tried to teach her what a giraffe says.  Unfortunately, she seems to have gotten her giraffe crossed with a lion because she would say "Rahr" when prompted about what a giraffe says.  We've been trying to get her corrected, but no luck yet.

There is surely more that has happened, but these were the highlights. We really enjoyed getting to spend so much time back in Amarillo. It is also nice being back and still having a few days off.

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and will have a tremendous New Year!

Getting Ready for Christmas

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On Thursday, Jason's office had a Christmas party at the Ranger's Ballpark in Arlington.  They were serving dinner and Santa even made a visit to the party.  We were hopeful to get Kennedy's photo with Santa.  She surprised us last year by sitting patiently in his lap.  This year, we weren't so lucky.  We weren't even able to get Kennedy in his lap before she started to scream and let the tears flow.  So no picture with Santa this year.  The best we were able to get is this photo of Santa and a portion of Kennedy.

On Friday evening, Kennedy had some fun with some of Sammy's toys.  We have a toy that is essentially a stick with a string and a fuzzy tail.  Kennedy has traditionally been scared of it, but she got brave and started to play with it.  She figured out that if she slung it around, she could get Sammy to play with her.  She was having a pretty good time, but accidentally slung the tail at herself and she didn't care for that much.

Kennedy's been so active lately that we've been having a hard time trimming her toenails.  She's so wiggly and elusive that we may need to start getting more creative.  The photo in the slideshow give just one example of her fighting the toenail trimming.  She's also been pretty funny with her shoes.  She's like her mom in the regards that she likes shoes.  She also doesn't like it when others touch her shoes.  Her teachers have made comments on more than one occasion that Kennedy doesn't like the other kiddos or the teachers touching her shoes.  She's also silly because she always takes her shoes off when she goes for a ride in the car.

On Sunday, we headed over to Matt and Courtney's house.  They made breakfast and we gave the girls and opportunity to play and exchange presents.  As always, the food was good and the girls had a great time.  That evening, Kennedy took an interest in Rachel painting her nails so we painted Kennedy's nails red.

Catching up yet again!

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Sorry folks, we didn't get a post in last week.  Kennedy had given us a little scare and we didn't have much time to dedicate to the blog.  She had woken up last Sunday with pretty labored breathing and she was breathing pretty rapidly.  We had given her a breathing treatment and she had some temporary relief, but we decided to have her looked at after a couple of treatments without much improvement.  We took her to a pediatric minor emergency center.  They kept a pretty close eye on her for a while and gave her several more breathing treatments.  After a couple of hours, they discharged her.  They had advises us to see her normal pediatrician.  After getting her looked at again, there is some speculation that she may be developing some asthma.

That wasn't too surprising.  We had spent quite a bit of time outside the day before.  We met the Jalberts at the park and that evening we went with our neighbors to a Christmas parade. Being outside that much seemed to trigger her breathing problems. So, until the weather decides to be more consistent, we will be spending most of our time indoors.

Last week, we also put up our Christmas tree.  When Kennedy woke up on Saturday morning and went downstairs, she was pretty fascinated with the tree and all the ornaments.

This week, we were lucky to have Jason's parents come in for the weekend.  They gave us a couple of date nights.  On Friday, we went to see a movie while Puma and Pops took Kennedy to go eat some pizza.  It was pretty funny when we left.  We were both waving to Kennedy and she was waving back with a puzzled, yet excited, look on her face.  On Saturday evening, we went to an art studio.  They had a special class for couples to paint a his an hers painting of cardinals in a winter forest.  We certainly enjoyed getting to spend a couple of evening focused on each other.

Thanksgiving

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We had the opportunity to head home to Amarillo for Thanksgiving.  As always, it was a real treat to head home and visit with our family.  We sure do have quite a bit to be thankful for.  We have each other and our bonds, our health, and stable jobs that help us to comfortably provide for our family.

We had a slightly smaller crowd gather this year.  We, along with Jason's parents, headed over to Dennis and LuAnn's house where we also met up with Carol for Thanksgiving at lunch time.  We had quite a spread with turkey, ham, sweet potatoes, dressing, frog-eye salad, and more.  Jason's grandparents weren't able to join us for lunch.  Jason's grandfather recently started a round of treatment that compromises his immune system so he was advised to stay away from the big group.  Jason's mom made the dressing in their absence.  She used Meme and Grandpa's recipe and it was fantastic as usual.  After we all enjoyed our lunch, we took a serving over to Meme and Grandpa so that they could enjoy it as well.  Later that afternoon, Whitney and Nathan were able to swing by and we all got to enjoy the afternoon together.  We also went out front for a few minutes and Nathan snapped a few photos.  He was able to share some with us and we have them posted at the link above.

Beyond Thanksgiving day, were simply relaxed and enjoyed each other's company.  Not surprisingly, Kennedy was a big hit with all the grandparents.  We sure do enjoy getting to see her interact with her grandparents in person.  FaceTime sure is nice, but nothing beats the real thing.  We were also glad to see that she is also doing better at interacting with the dogs.  She isn't quite as scared as she once was. Before we headed home, we were also able to meet up with our good friends, Brice and Lindsey. We went to lunch with them on Saturday and had a nice visit catching up.

We really enjoyed our time back home. Having Kennedy around sure makes the holidays even more special. We are certainly looking forward to Christmas already!

Splash Pool in November?

You may recall that we had some professional portraits taken back on Sunday, November 11th.  We tried to upload them, but Google has has notified us that we have exceeded their 1GB limit for photos.  In the meantime, we're sharing a link to access them.
Crawley Family Professional Portraits

We also had a gathering a Jason's boss's house on Sunday.  We all ate lunch, enjoyed each other's company and watched the Cowboys game.  David also has a swimming pool.  It was covered up by a woven material that was stretched tight with strings around the perimeter.  Kennedy got the bright idea to dart out to the middle of the pool after her, but he quickly realized that it wouldn't be able to hold his weight.  So he spent the next couple of minutes trying the talk Kennedy into coming back to the edge.  She didn't have any reasons to.  She was enjoying the little splash pad that seemed to be following her around.  Jason's boss, David, took some pictures of the ordeal.  We hope to share them in the coming weeks.  We also took a couple of fun photos to share with you.
Crawley Family Photos

Halloween and More

A couple of weeks back, we were able to celebrate Kennedy's second Halloween.  After work, we gathered with several neighbors for some pizza before heading out to "Trick or Treat."  At first, Kennedy didn't really understand the concept, but she enjoyed running around the neighborhood with the other kids.  After several houses, Kennedy started to understand that if she went to the front porch, she would get a piece of candy.  She was pretty goofy though, because she wouldn't let go of the candy until she made it to the next house.  They would stick out their bowl and she would just swap what she had in her hand for whatever they had.

On Monday, Kennedy was making a mess as usual.  She was pulling every bow off of her rack on the wall.  Then she decided that she wanted to wear one.  To Rachel's delight, she put one in Kennedy's hair.  Then Kennedy held out her hand with another bow, so Rachel put a second bow in Kennedy's hair.  The cycle continued until we ran out of real estate to clip them to.  She wore them around the house for about fifteen minutes or so.  She probably would have worn them longer, but we had to get her ready for bed.

Kennedy continues to surprise us with new developments.  She has started to help us with laundry.  She first helped us to sort the laundry and then when we were folding the laundry, she would take from the master bedroom to her bedroom where Rachel would put it away.  We'll also have to be careful from now on because she's started to mimic us.

On Sunday, we headed over to the old railroad in Grapevine where we met the photographer to take some holiday portraits.  Afterwards, we stopped by the botanical garden and snapped a few of our own pictures.  Kennedy was all over the park, but we managed to get a few good ones.

Pumpkin Patch

Not mush new to report on this week.  Jason's Mom recently made Kennedy her halloween costume.  She will be a flower princess this year.  Since we will be busy on Trick or Treating and visiting with the neighbors on Halloween, we went out on Sunday to take some pictures in her costume.  She had a blast and we got some really good shots at the same time.  We also bumped into our neighbors at the pumpkin patch, so we even got a few pictures of Kennedy with Conrad.  Conrad is her buddy because he is also in her class at school.

Settling In

We've continued to settle back in to our routine this week.  Kennedy has especially done well at her new daycare.  At the beginning of the week, she still had a bit of a tough time when we dropped her off.  By Thursday, she was running to school and walking into the classroom on her own.  The classroom mostly consists of toddlers that are older than her and it has been more stimulating for Kennedy to have all those kids around.  We're definitely feeling better about pulling the trigger on the transition.

On Saturday, we took Kennedy to a playground in Coppell.  They recently opened a new playground just a couple of miles from our house.  Kennedy loved every minute of it.  We even snapped a couple of photos.

Catching up

It's been a couple of weeks, so we've got some catching up to do.

The last week of September was Kennedy's last week at the Sundance Montessori in downtown Fort Worth.  That's the daycare that had helped to take care of Kennedy since she was 8 weeks old.  Her last week was a good one.  It was sad to leave her teachers.  There was one teacher in particular that was hard to leave.

That Saturday, we headed back to Amarillo for a week long list of activities to celebrate Whitney's wedding.  The first activity was Whitney's bachelorette/lingerie party on Saturday evening.  Dennis and LuAnn we out of town for the Ryder Cup, but they offered to have the party at their house.  Rachel took the lead in planning the party.  They showered Whitney and Nate with some nice lingerie, played some games, and had some really good "girl time."

On Sunday, Jason headed out to New Orleans for a conference.  He was pretty busy while he was there, but he was able to sneak away for a bit to have a beignets and some coffee.  He also browsed around Jackson Square and snapped a quick photo of the Saint Luis Cathedral.  Although New Orleans has some great dining, there are some strange people in that town.  He headed back to Amarillo on Wednesday.

The first part of the weekend/week Kennedy was a little bit sick. The only real "symptom" she had was that she had a fairly high fever for a few days. It also seemed to make her grouchy. She was as busy as ever though. It finally broke Monday. Being out of her routine was also quite challenging since she didn't want to miss anything. We didn't really get in our naps like we are used to.

On Thursday, we had a couple of wedding events to participate in. Jason's grandma, Meme, hosted a bridal luncheon at Macaroni Joe's. It was a wonderful lunch and a great time to hang out with the ladies of both families. Later in the day, we were able to participate in Whitney/Nate's wedding rehearsal.  We met with Nate's family out at Moonwater Weddings, which is the outdoor venue where they got married.  Rachel served as Whitney's attendant and Kennedy served as the flower girl.  Jason's uncle Lindy performed the marriage ceremony.  After the rehearsal, we all headed over to Nate's grandmother's house for dinner.  After we ate, we all had the opportunity to share some nice memories and encouraging words for the new couple.

Friday, October 5th was the big day.  That morning, Jason snapped a photo of Keith and Whitney as they practiced their dance.  The girls headed out around noon to get pampered for the day. They got their finger and toe nails done as well as their hair styled and make up applied. Our friends Matt and Courtney decided to head up to Amarillo for the wedding, so Jason and Kennedy greeted them upon their arrival.  They hadn't spent much time in Amarillo before this trip so Dennis and LuAnn took them to see the Cadillac Ranch before the wedding.  The ceremony took place that evening and the bride was absolutely stunning.  Jason filmed the service.  Kennedy got a little restless and even headed out into the aisle to play with the pumpkins during the ceremony, but she was well behaved for the most-part. A cool front decided to blow in right at the time of the wedding but it was still perfect regardless.

The reception was a blast.  Sharky's Burrito Company catered the food, which was a tasty treat.  The DJ was also fantastic.  He had a really good crowd out dancing and letting loose.  At one point the bride and groom even led a train of people all around the reception tent.  Everyone participated with the exception of two people.

On Sunday, we headed back to DFW for the upcoming week.  Kennedy was about to transfer to her new daycare.  Jason got the opportunity to start helping more and also got the opportunity to drop her off.  Unfortunately, drop-off duty was not the best role this week.  It was a difficult transition because Kennedy cried quite a bit when Jason dropped her off.  She also had a hard time sleeping last week.  The good news is that by Thursday, Kennedy started to do better.  We hope that she continues to do well in the upcoming week.

This weekend, it was nice having the opportunity settle back in with house chores and laundry.  On Saturday, we enjoyed watching the Red Raiders in a surprising victory over West Virginia.  Kennedy was having a good time with her pasta after the game.  She was so silly because she wouldn't even chew them before swallowing them.

We certainly left out quite a bit, but hopefully that catches everyone up for the most part! Have a wonderful week!

Kennedy's Last Day

At the Bachelorette Party/Lingerie Shower

The Rehersal

The morning of the wedding

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Fun with our pasta!