Oh give me a home....

Oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam, and the deer and the antelope play. Where seldom is heard a discouragin' word, and the skies are not cloudy all day! Our little cowboys got a special treat from Daddy! Their very own horse!
Austin and Daddy are putting it together.
Braeden even "helped." If you haven't noticed, Maggie always has her tongue out in pictures. Just look back at any of our pictures that she is in, and you will also be amazed that we are able to catch her tongue in our pictures. Crazy dog!
Here is our biggest cowboy throwin' that hat up in the air and saying "Yee haw!"

Visiting Great Grandparents!

This week, Mimi, Uncle Ben, Mom, and us two boys took a road trip to Louisiana to visit Mommy's grandparents. First we stopped in Lake Charles to see Mama Mickey, and then went on to Lafayette the next day to see Poppy. Here are the pictures below of our fun trip!

Austin and his Poppy. That is where he gets the cowboy from. Do you think Austin loves his Poppy, just look at that face?! It speaks volumes.

Braeden thought Poppy was wonderful too!

Mimi, Braeden, Poppy, and Aunt Judy.

Poppy has this horsey at his house that the grandkids and great grandkids get to ride. Well Austin had so much fun and rode that horse so long, his head was dripping with sweat. So fun!

Austin picked some flowers (they are small, but they are in her hands) from Mama Mickey's yard and brought them to her. She was so pleased.
Braeden loves his great grandmother, and she was so tickled to have him there.

Kisses for Mama Mickey!

Kisses for Aunt Alice too!

11 Months Old

It is hard to believe that Braeden is already 11 months old. Only 4 weeks from being a 1 year old toddler! My how time has flown by. He sat up in his crib for the first time yesterday. I walked in expecting to see him rolling around like normal, and he was just sitting there looking at me like, "Hi Mom, what's up?" grinning from ear to ear. His favorite food, if I had to choose one is macaroni and cheese, although he'll eat just about anything you give him. He has started to point at things and make sounds like he is trying to say words. His favorite thing is to watch Austin or Maggie and Jack....they all make him laugh. He is such a happy boy, we are so blessed.

Yummy!

We took a nice drive to the hill country to get some yummy BBQ at Kreuz Market in Lockhart. It was a beautiful day, and Braeden liked his first taste of one of the best barbeque places in Texas. The best part was that we got to meet Aunt Lisa and Grandma who were in Austin for a wedding.

Austin was left in the tub while I got Braeden dried off, and when I returned (don't worry I was still able to see him the whole time), I found that he wasn't just coloring the bathtub like he usually does.

Our own little commando!

All I had to do was post on the blog that Braeden wasn't crawling, and the very next day he began! It is a cute crawl...sort of commando style. He is our own little sniper the way he uses his elbows. This video is a couple of weeks old, and he really gets around quickly now. I imagine my blog posts might really be far between now that both kids are on the move...but we'll see!

How Braeden gets around

Braeden isn't crawling yet (at 10 1/2 months), but we are not worried. He can get around no problem. Just watch this video and see how he does it!

Look at what Braeden can do!

Braeden is getting so big! He loves to stand up around the furniture and is getting pretty good at taking some steps while holding our fingers. We have to put him up next to furniture to do this, but he can pull himself up if he can reach the top.

He has also given up the baby food, although mom still sneaks some fruits and veggies in when she can. He wants to eat whatever we are eating, and he does a pretty good job of eating everything you give him.

Check out Hardt's ride!

We went to Hardt's second birthday party, and he got a Harley Davidson bike to ride like his Daddy's...well a little smaller, and not as loud. It is so cool! Here is Mommy hugging the birthday boy!

Easter 2008

Easter weekend is always a fun filled family time around our house. The Saturday before Easter is always spent going to Louisiana to Mommy's great-grandmother's house for the Guthrey family reunion/crawfish boil. I am a natural cajun (even though I live in Texas and was born in NYC, Mommy's cajun blood got in me). Here I am showing off how well I can hold a live crawfish....with no fear whatsoever!

I got so good at holding those crawfish, I wasn't worried about reaching in the bucket to pick up more. After many warnings from Daddy, one of the biggest crawdaddys in the bucket pinched my finger and would not let go! That mean ole crawfish....I got my sweet revenge by eating him!

Sunday morning we woke up and got to enjoy our Easter basket goodies before heading off to church.
Marshmallow chicks for breakfast should be an everyday thing in my opinion.
The Easter bunny even brought Braeden some goodies in his basket.
After church we went to lunch with Grandma and Grandpa to eat Mexican food, and you would not believe it!!! The Easter bunny showed up wearing a pancho and a sombrero. The restaurant took great pictures of both of us with the Easter bunny, it was so much fun. After our naps, we headed over to Mimi and Pops' house for an egg hunt and time with our cousins Hope and Hardt. Here is Braeden with Aunt Tina and Uncle Chris.

Uncle Chris brought these really fun confetti filled eggs and Hope, Hardt, and I got confettied in the back yard.

After confetti eggs we used the Easter bunny bags we made with Mimi to hunt for even more Easter eggs. I have a stash of about 30 Easter eggs, and Mommy keeps finding them all over the house. Somehow an onion from Mimi's kitchen ended up in Austin's Easter bag, hmmm? Kinda strange how that got in there, Austin must have thought it was the mother of all Easter eggs.

Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo

Howdy Partners, it's me ... the Lone Braeden. My cowpoke brother and I got to visit the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo this weekend, and let me tell ya, it was a blast. Especially since we had been cooped up in the house for a week with a stomach bug, it made it really nice to get out for a few hours and do something special. Here are the highlights of our roundup.

Austin made friends with a cute baby bison. He followed Austin around and got rid of any other animals that tried to eat from his hand by head butting them away.

The baby zebras could nip your fingers while they ate, so we couldn't go in and feed them, but it was really neat to see them close up.

Here is the bison again, but notice we did feed a goat and sheep who are near by.

Daddy kept calling this a jackass, but I thought it was a donkey. Hee haw, hee haw!

Here is Braeden checking out the chicks (the chickens in the coop).

It is a cute bunny rabbit, but it isn't the Easter bunny. I am so excited about the Easter bunny coming to see me!

Ok, mom had to get a picture of this so that people would believe her. This is an event called Mutton Bustin' and it was so exciting. See these little girls and boys (anyone who is between 4 and 6 years old and less than 40 pounds could go) got to strap on helmets and protective vests and ride the sheep out of the chutes like a bull! Can you see the kid's leg on top of the sheep? He was falling off the other side. Capturing a picture with the kids actually not falling off the sides was next to impossible. The sheep were going so fast! Austin kept saying that he wanted to do it! Daddy said in a couple of years he could go....Mom's going to have to think about that one!

Pony rides! Getty up little horsey! Yee haw!



Oh yeah, I look good driving this tractor!

Dum Ditty Dum Ditty Dum Dum Dum

Austin loves to make music, and here he is playing with Uncle Ben's cool drum toy. One of his favorite books is about some monkeys who play drums. Dum ditty dum ditty dum dum dum.

Kindermusik Class

I LOVE my Kindermusik class. I have four real buddies in there. Two twins Jenna and Brody are just a couple of weeks younger than me, Celia is a couple of months older, and Finnley is a month older than me. We have so much fun together! Ms. Sandy is the best teacher ever!

Ok, so the bags had instruments in them, but our moms thought they looked great on our heads. To be honest, we kind of enjoyed seeing ourselves this way in the mirror too.

Here I am going on a hayride (figuratively). It was pretty fun to be dragged around the room on this towel.

Drums are my favorite! I am pretty good at banging to the beat. Of course music tastes as good as it sounds too!

From left to right...Jenna, Brody, Celia, Me, and Finnley. Aren't we a bunch of cuties??
And here we are with our mommies.
Finnley and I like to play instruments together.

Mimi's birthday

The party began at my cousin's house. I love playing with Hope and Hardt. They are my most favorite cousins (ok, they are my only cousins).

Hardt did the sit n spin so well, he spun himself right off!
Again, good luck trying to get all us kids in a picture where everyone is happy and looking at the camera. Anyway, we love our Mimi, that is all that matters.
Going out to eat is so much fun when you can sit in a booth all together.
Eskimo kisses with extra silliness for Aunt Tina! Boy do I love her!!