Merry, Merry, Happy, Happy!

 (Lexi loves babies.)

 What I have to say about Christmas right now is a big bah humbug.  Mostly, that would be Christmas cards.  Just ordered another inferior card (at least last year I had a good excuse).  And then...(as if it isn't lame enough to have a lame picture), if I somehow kept record of this stuff, I'm sure I could confirm that the printer dies once a year at Christmas time when I'm trying to print out address labels.  I only use the printer approximately twice a year, and for the random times I print out recipes or whatever else I might use it for, I don't care if it works then, I would like it to work today.

 So I'm starting another post in an irate mood.  Maybe I should quit while I'm ahead.

(Pretty thrilled with their new stickers.) 

Or should I tell about how my new sewing machine quit working, so I unthreaded it all (including the bobbin), packed it all up, took it to Jo-Ann's, they plugged it in, rethreaded it all, and it worked perfectly.  That also would have been lame enough except the lady proceeded to go on about "user error" and "usually threading problems".  (Lady, I just did the exact thing you did six times at home.)

 So the babysitter couldn't come one day, and they were kinda slow at Scott's work, so he took the day off and stayed home with the babies went on great adventures with the babies.

 They went out to Brummitt's to watch the pecan harvest.

(If I had used this for a Christmas picture, it would have been a lot more realistic, and probably even cuter, especially with Lexi scowling like that.)

 When I got home from work, Summer met me at the door.  "Dabid...Dabid....Dabid...(she was very excited) Dabid shake the tree!!!"  (Summer doesn't say "v's")

 Watching pecan harvest is pretty cool.  I went out to watch a year or so ago.  They have this tree-shaker machine that you hook up to a tractor, attach to the tree, shake the tree, then drive around under the tree with the pecan-picker-upper, and all the able bodied people around help rake the stray pecans toward the picker-upper, and then do it all over again under the next tree. 

 Sitting in a pile of pecans.

(Packed away some of Summer's clothes to save for Lexi, together the babies got my boxes out, and Lexi piece by piece threw everything downstairs.  Thought it was kinda funny that it all got caught on top of the door there.)



Speaking of the babysitter, somehow she braided Summer's hair.  Usually just to comb Summer's hair is a huge accomplishment. 

 

Lexi has a great fascination with shoes.  On the one hand, she always tried to put shoes on people whenever anyone is walking around barefoot, but she also knows to use shoes to get bugs/spiders/etc., so anyway on this day, she brought me a shoe to get a bug that was in the kitchen.  (Please note - I made that sound really mild ("a bug in the kitchen".)    I've made a new goal to not talk about evil scorpions, spiders, snakes, etc, so I'm saving all the following stories inside my head:  oh, hi there snake on the front sidewalk trying covertly to hide in the hose, I wouldn't have noticed you except that you're 2 feet from me, and your evil head is standing up - unlike a hose, that kind of gave you away.  And then there was the snake that the neighbor just killed that was long enough that I could have made a belt for Scott, Summer, Lexi, and giantly pregnant me with it.  Ahm, I thought snake season was over, and I wasn't supposed to be worrying about them lately.  (I'm sparing the details on these stories.  Gold star for me.)

In other wildlife and such stories...there was a dead coyote on the road the other day.  When I drove by, there was a buck standing victoriously beside it.  (Get over it, Buck, I know you didn't kill the coyote, clearly hit by a car.)  Also saw the biggest buck I've ever seen in my life while driving one day.  This is news because most deer around here are dog-sized.  (They're not white tails.  Have no idea what they are, but it's not an exaggeration to say that they are the size of dogs.)

Ah, there's the 98.  Drove the Honda to work on the day that Scott stayed home.  My main goal was to park next to Tim's Lexus.  (Random fact:  Tim's car still has "that new car smell" even though he occasionally drives his poodle to the park in it.)  Alas, hopes were dashed - he wasn't there, and ironically, there was another rather unfortunate car that I parked next to.  So my hopes also were dashed that someone might look out the window and say "Who's driving that dreadful car?  Someone give that woman a raise!"

Neighbor's longhorns.  Recently found out these guys are famous.  Neighbor raises them to be props in movies.  I'm not making this up.  Heard that they were in the latest remake of "True Grit".  Was feeling famous by association, but then I got suspicious.  Are there any cows in True Grit?  I mean, isn't the plot of the story that the girl is chasing down her dad's killer?  (That sounds harsh....  Confirmed: we read too many Westerns around here.)  Scott assured me that all Westerns have some cows hanging around in the background.  (Come on, I wanted these guys to be in a movie where the main theme is a cattle drive, or maybe, at least, a family moving west on the Oregon trail with plenty of zooming in on the cows as they're travelling slowly along.)  

I keep thinking that every nice day we get is going to be the last nice day of the year.  The babies were playing in the rain the other night.  It was warm enough.  On Thanksgiving Day, we were at Rassi's and there were kids swimming in their pool.  (Not our kids.)  Today and yesterday were really nice too - in the 80's.  Air conditioner still running.

 (Lexi = loves to climb.  This door hasn't flung open on her yet, but one of these days it will.  Does this on the oven too.)

 More of the pecan harvest.  Not sure how these got out of order.

Missing Penelope

(Summer and Bryanna - the summer babysitter)

I'm not sure if the title should be "Missing Penelope" as in, we are missing her, or "Missing: Penelope" as in, we are looking for her.  Or we are thinking about looking for her.  :)  

She hasn't been spotted for quite a while.  

(The unfortunate bang haircut.) 

Disclaimer:  Just heard election results, so I am not in a hopeful or exceptionally cheerful mood.

Penelope (insert snarly remarks about Scott and moving into new house) was moved outside.  This was working out for a while.  Then, shortly after we moved in, the garage door quit working, so Penelope lived mostly in the garage for quite a while.  (We just left the door open all the time.)  Anyway, the day we fixed the garage door was the last time I saw her.  

(Photography by Summer - one of her new favorite and most annoying habits.)

Anyway, hoping to go look at the duplex and ask the neighbor to look out for Penelope, in case she decided to go back there.  Thought I'd check with the shelter in town too, to see if someone took her there.  In the back of my head.....I'm not overly hopeful.  I've heard wild packs of coyotes howling at night.



(Lexi - favorite place to play - on top of the counter.)



(Notice Lexi standing on the counter....and Summer, for the first time in her life, I think, wearing something that I knitted for her.)  Anyway, so I didn't finish this post on election night, so now I should be in a better mood.  (Hopefully.) 

(The point of this picture was the kitchen table that Scott made....we have a little clutter problem too.)  Scott seems to be recovering from the house project.  He's moved on to some new projects -  lately he's been putting up some fences.  Maybe we'll have some animals sometime.  But pretty sure it won't be buffalos.  Read an article in Texas Monthly about cattle ranching in Texas.  Some old codger said the reason that it's not so lucrative is that people are using the wrong animals.  Hello, use native animals.  Like buffalos.  I thought he was pretty clever.  Scott did not agree.  So I presented my case to David Brummitt and Bill Z at church, who both laughed so hard.  Let me see if I can remember some of their comments......there were remarks about "meatless wanderers" (that may have been about another long horned native animal) and "buffalo can run like a deer" and good luck with the buffalo round up after they get out.  I did have a brief vision of Gil (aforementioned neighbor - not the commando one, the normal one) calling...."Say, I have a buffalo in my yard, I was thinking maybe it was yours." 

Today a serious cold front moved in.  I think it was in the 50s when we went to town this morning.  

(Lexi - being sweet.)

These pictures are from our trip to Ohio.  Lexi loved this water buffalo.

 This evil thing pecked me in the ear.  Who does that?  Some other crazy animal stole my whole bucket of food that I was hording for the right animals to feed.

I made a whole list of things that have happened since the last time I updated here.  Now I'm not sure where to start. 

Summer has started talking all the time.  One of her favorite things to say is "What's that?"  Every once in a while she says something funny.  Just today she was doing somersaults, and Lexi was watching her, and she said "Lexi wants to do Lexi-saults."

(These are more of Summer's photo shoot with Lexi in their car seats.  They face each other in their car seats, since Summer faces forward, and Lexi, at 15 months still isn't 20 pounds.  She's still in a rear-facing seat.)

(Lexi was an angel on the airplane and slept most of the way.)

Summer loves her cousins.  :)

My new favorite thing is a clear cannister vaccuum.  Our old vaccuum died.  The new one shows how much stuff you're picking up as you go.  Which is really interesting, and frightening, especially around here.  At least, it makes vaccuuming all the time seem worthwhile.

We went to Chick-Fil-A on Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day, if anyone was aware of this....it was way back in August.  Even in the very liberal town of Austin, the restaurant was packed the entire time we were there.  We must have looked especially pathetic, because some nice old cowboy asked us if we wanted to sit at his table.  (There were none available, and I was holding both babies.)  I could tell he was a good guy because he was wearing a white Stetson.  (I've always heard the rule of thumb if you're watching an old Western....the good guys wear white hats, the bad guys wear black hats.  Maybe this isn't true....)  He was nice and asked about the girls, as they climbed on the table and dumped out salt and did all the things they usually do.  It wasn't until he got up to leave that I noticed he was wearing a gun.

Lexi turned one since I've updated last.  And now she's past 15-months.  Oh dear, how time flies.  She's a happy kid. 

 

Loves to ride her horse.

 

It was also one year since the fire.  Unfortunately I can't find my favorite picture from the fire.  Maybe next time.

This is what happens whenever Summer takes a shower.  She covers up all her babies (shampoo/soap/conditioner bottles) and put them to sleep.

That's all for now.  Don't have any funny stories to tell because we got the Jeep back (after 8 months, lots more money, and check engine light still on - nothing funny about that situation), crazy neighbor has been boring - nothing new out of him, and in general, life has been pretty tame.  (Thankful for that.)  Oh, I almost forgot - suicidal deer jumped out in front of Scott.  I think it was pretty alarming for him....mostly because his airbag popped out, sent out lots of powder, couldn't see for a minute, and all that drama.  Truck is taped back together.  (True story.)  Also, traded the bike for an impressive 14-year old car.  No paint on the roof, some dents, and one door doesn't open.  I was telling Mom about it, and her first question was...."is it 2 door or 4 door?"  which made me laugh.  That would be even more annoying if it was only a 2 door car.  As it is, it's the back right door that doesn't open.  Anyway.....