All we need is a baby.....

We cut it kind of close to complete Luke's nursery....upon completion of his room, he was a scant 8 weeks from being born.




Here's how these blogs work. Kristie takes the pictures. They sit on our camera for 2-4 weeks. Kristie posts a quick sampling of the pictures on this blog. Kristie then tells me daily for 8-12 days that I need to update the blog with captions. I finally add captions after a glass or 3 of wine. Repeat. Every now and then she will get tired of me not adding text and she will post the pictures with her own words. I usually read it and get fed up so it motivates me.




But the problem is that I get to pictures like this and don't know what I can say. Okay, here is a dresser in Luke's room that doubles as a changing table. It looks good. I had nothing to do with color selection. The walls are light blue. Kristie actually made the liners for those baskets on the right....she's crafty. On the wall is a painted map thing of the U.S. I noticed the other day that only two states are true rectangles....neither of which rhyme with "Dakota".



The site of many future slumber parties involving a parent, a newborn, a bottle and possibly some vomit/poopie.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! Brought to you in part by a blog that seldom has pictures of people over the age of 2.

Not sure why this picture made the cut for our Easter blog. It is basically just Kyla facing off with a child proof gate at Mimi's house.


What's this??? A different toddler girl made the blog? Brooke, Abby and John joined us for Easter lunch. Friends and family mix; world's collide on Easter!


Our little girl has long fingers = She's going to be a pianist

Out little boy will have longer fingers = Um....yeah


You may ask what happened since the Valentine's cookie episode that made Kyla so calm and compliant during the Easter cookie making. I ask, "when did we start baking cookies for Valentine's Day and Easter"?

Another holiday, another grownup in a costume to frighten our daughter. I think we qualify for "Parent of the Year" award for actually putting her back on Mr. Bunny's lap so we could get a better picture of Kyla's joy.

Cute Picture #1 that I can't think of anything clever to describe it with

Cute Picture #2 that I can't think of anything clever to describe it with

Kyla and her two good friends, Celia and Brooke

Luke: 28 weeks gestation

Below are the first pictures of Luke. Dude was not very cooperative on our initial visit to the 3D ultrasound place, so he required a second non-invasive imaging procedure (free of charge).

Kyla is our "little princess"...that name just came naturally. Luke's nickname hasn't yet come to me yet. And the nominees are....

a) Slugger
b) Champ
c) Pimp
d) Dude
e) Sport
f) Tri-pod

The winner will be announced some time in June, 2009.

(note the backward "hook 'em" gesture in the first picture)

Kyla is 18 months old

Okay, so I am back on the blog wagon (or is it OFF the blog wagon?)....whichever one means that I am going to end my streak of not updating the blogs with cliche and often corny comments. I heard that a few of you that I may or may not know have been asking about me not adding my two cents to our blog posts....FINE, you win!


Anyhow, as you can see, Kyla is slowling growing a respectable amount of hair. We've had to trim her mullet a time or two to make it look a little more cute. She now officially has more hair than I do, but of course that doesn't mean she has reached the goal yet.


Here is the part of the blog where you can see Kyla's second visit to the zoo. Below is a picture of:

a) Kyla gazing in amazement at the Southern American Human exhibit
b) a view from inside the petting zoo which after 3 minutes lost Kyla's attention to playground equipment similar to what she plays on every other day.

(answer: b)

Another popular animal exhibit for Kyla, in fact her favorite, was a member of the strapus strollerius family.


Back to the petting zoo....Kyla was given a brush to groom the "tranquil" goats. If Kyla's treatment of the goat is any indication of how children interact with them every day, I am not convinced they are happy in this environment. This goat actually slipped me a note asking for me to notify the authorities of their intolarable conditions. I'm convinced they are better off in the hands of small children than they are in fields where they can fall prey to coyotes or stray dogs. I threw away the note.

Every Chick-Fil-A restaurant has ponies sitting outside for customers to ride right? The one near our house did which brought Kyla's interaction with animals count to 2 for the week. I was waiting for Kyla to reach up and squeeze the pony's ear so it would make fake hoof noises like the one in our living room does.

Kyla and her Mimi were posing with grown men in cow costumes inside Chick-Fil-A. Kyla is not fooled by people pretending to be animals and as you can see, she won't stand for it.


The video below falls into the "extremely funny, yet cruely traumatic in retrospect" category.

Kyla counting

Our wonderful babysitter, Melissa, has started teaching Kyla to count. Here's a preview. Hopefully, she'll add more numbers soon!

As most of you know, Michael took away my blogging rights. I have to admit that his blogs are much more entertaining than mine but I can't get him to keep up with it so this is what you get for now. At least you'll be informed.

For those of you who don't know, we are expecting baby number 2 in early June. We recently found out that we are having a boy! It will be exciting to have things be a little different this time around. Michael is overjoyed at the thought of all the father/son things he will get to do with Luke.

This is one of Kyla's favorite Christmas presents. We bought her this hoping that it will help her get used to the idea of having a baby around. Well, she chooses not to push her babies around in the stroller, but Mickey Mouse. She is so obsessed with Mickey these days.

Kyla has two new obsessions....shoes and her cell phone (it's really my old cell phone but she sure thinks it is real). She loves all shoes (hers, mine, and her daddy's) even if she doesn't always choose to but them on her feet where they belong.

This is Kyla in the wagon that her Opa and Oma got for her to play with when she is at their house. She is so spoiled that she has a ton of toys at each grandparent's house even if they live a 4 hour drive or 4 hour flight away.

Trip to Kentucky

We went to Kentucky to visit Kyla's Great-Grandma Tackett, her Aunt Tammy, and cousins, Collin and Clay. She had a great time meeting her cousins for the first time.


Here is Kyla with her Aunt Tammy. The matching outfits were not planned, promise!


Here is Kyla with her cousin, Allison. She kept crawling over to her and laying her head on her chest wanting to snuggle with her.


Allison, Lexie, and Kyla (cousins)


Kyla with her Great Grandmother... Memaw went on and on about how smart all of her great-grandchildren are. I'm certain she isn't partial at all and they are all "above average".

Kyla is one!

This is Kyla's first birthday, based on RSVP's probably the most attended birthday party she will have for a long time. Below is the first of hundreds of gifts which she will tear into throughout the course of her life. This one came a bit early.


Mommy and Co. did a terrific job of decorating for the birthday bash. Everything is perfect....all we need is guests.


"Well shit, where the hell is everyone"?


"Wait a minute here, all of these people came to see ME? I get a cake all to myself? These gifts are mine too? We should do this birthday holiday more often".


Who needs hundreds of dollars worth of free gifts when there's trash?


OMG! Another baby makes an appearance on Kyla's....err...I mean, our blog? This is Erica and Gabe. They came all the way from Mobilehoma to attend the birthday celebration. Erica works for Starbucks as a regional big shot. The irony is that Erica is allergic to coffee of all things. That's like me working at a penicillin sampling lab....ha!


Erica and Gabe also gave Kyla this cute shirt to wear on her birthday!


"Yeah you booze hounds, just because you drunks are drinking from cute pink wine glasses doesn't mean I'll ever forgive you for getting drunk at my first birthday".


Welcome to the world of the bi-pedal! Our little princess is walking!

Kyla is 11 months old!

Honestly, I am really starting to run out of material with all of these baby pictures. One can only make humor out of cute baby pictures so much...

Yay! Another female trying to steer a 4 wheeled vehicle without hitting anything.



Let's play a little game with this picture. Can you find each of the following.

1) The $280 mural painted on Kyla's wall

2) The chair railing that Daddy slaved over and cursed while installing

3) A spoiled little princess

4) Waldo


Little does this little cowgirl know that she will be receiving THREE horses on her upcoming birthday. One on a spring, one on multiple springs, and one that rocks.



Peek-a-boo!


Look at the form of her pirouette! She's already preparing for those exciting 6 hour dance recitals. And yes, I did have to look up "pirouette" in an online dictionary.....you didn't know how to spell it either.

Kyla is 10 months old

"Now, I'm in a basket here. I thought this was the fireworks holiday...didn't the Easter bunny holiday happen a few months ago"?


"Eat your heart out John Lennon! I can play the piano without a crazy Japanese lady aimlessly walking around me".


Hello? Yeah <insert grandparent name here>, how are you coming along on that <insert name of toy or unnecessary apparatus to take up space in our home here> that you promised? <Mommy or Daddy> won't buy it for me....or at least Daddy won't.


Kyla gets a lot more out of her grandparents when she uses the real phone.


"Yeah Daddy, your electronics still suck. I don't know why we are posting a picture so similar to one from last month's blog entry....get with it! Go change my diaper genie! Run me a bath!"


"Watch the road! What are you doing? You will get us killed"!


Kyla has a collection of about 8 undersized pieces of furniture. So if any of you will be in the market for small furniture for a child or "little person" you know where we can be reached.


"I continue to exercise my dominance of this blog. I can sit in a swimming pool in the Hill Country and get ten times the attention and ten times the blog presence than Mommy and Daddy combined".


Kyla using sign language to get food....Daddy should take notes. I like how at the beginning of the scene you can see Kristie walking away from the camera that she set on the table. I dunno where Daddy was.