Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving 2009

We have a lot to be thankful for this year! The Lord has blessed us with a beautiful baby girl, Maggie. She was 5 weeks old the day after Thanksgiving. Hunter is also such a wonderful blessing! He is so much fun! Who ever said 2 year old were terrible didn't know Hunter! He is amazing! He makes us laugh everyday! I am so thankful for my loving husband who works so hard at his job and is such a wonderful daddy to our kids. We also have an amazing family! Hunter's grandparents and aunt and uncle are the best! We are truly blessed!

This year the we hosted thanksgiving at our house! It was really nice to not have to travel for a change. Grumpy, Nanna, Nie-Nie and Uncle David came to celebrate with us. We had a great time. We took a few pictures as you can see below with them. They also gave us an early Christmas gift...a new kitchen table! We love it!

Another big blessing is 2 of our dear friends had babies...on the same day!! The Etter's had baby Owen and the Hay's had baby Logan on Tuesday and were able to go home on Thanksgiving. They are both such sweet friends. We are so glad to have them in our lives.

Here is Maggie's boyfriend, Owen Lee Etter, with his Daddy, Mitchell! The Etter's are such sweet friends! We love them and are so excited to finally see Owen!!!

Here is Maggie in her tu-tu!

Hunter and his Nie-Nie

Hunter and Uncle David, sometimes called "Uncle Dabid"

ICE

ICE The Grinch at The Gaylord Texan

Honey took us to the Gaylord on our way back to Abilene to see ICE. It was a lot of fun. Hunter loved it! It was 9 degrees inside, but it really didn't feel that cold. Hunter looked so cute in his XL jacket! :) He wanted to get his hands out but we couldn't even reach them. When we walked in it was snowing! Hunter thought that was awesome! :) We have read him the Grinch and he has seen the movie, so he remembered who he was. He really liked Max the dog. Near the end there was a big ice slide. I didn't know if Hunter would do it or not, but he did! And he loved it! We had such a great time! Maggie slept in my jacket. I think she was warmer than all of us! We had a great time! Afterwards we watched the movie and Hunter got a rice crispy treat and then it was back to the road. Thanks Honey for taking us! We really enjoyed it! We have been reading the Grinch every night since then! :)

All this was ice!!

Here goes Hunter down the ice slide!

Here we all are...Honey, Hunter, Katie & Maggie (in the coat) :)

Hunter driving the train.

Mommy and Maggie

Trip to Honey and Coaches' house

Maggie watching her big brother play in the sand.

Waving Hi! :)

Hunter doing what he loves to do at Honey's throwing rocks!

Playing in the messy sand! He's such a boy!

So cute! :)

This past week Hunter, Maggie and I were in Gainesville with my mom. We had such a great time just relaxing at her house and playing in the sand. Hunter loves being at Coach and Honey's house. He loves playing at his sand table, going to see the goats next door, riding his tricycle, and throwing rocks. He and my Mom hunted bears, dragons and who knows what else outside. He has such a great imagination. Maggie had a good time, too. Thank you Mom for having us all week. And for taking us to get ice cream almost every night! :)

Halloween

I am so sorry this is so late, but I wanted to post a few Halloween pictures of the kids. We had a great day. Normally on Halloween we carve pumpkins and just hang out with friends, but this year since Maggie was only a week old we didn't carve any pumpkins :( We will have to do it next year! :) This was Hunter's first time trick or treating. He really enjoyed getting all the candy, but I think he liked passing out candy even more. He was so cute. He would run to the door and tell all the kids "Today is Halloween!" as we handed out candy. He was so excited! He was a Texas Football player this year. He even had the eye black under his eyes. Maggie wore a little candy corn onesie that was a little big on her and her Texas socks. So cute :) We took him to our friends houses and let him get a little candy. In the car he wouldn't let go of his candy bucket. :) We ended the night watching the Texas game with our great friends, Amanda and Mitchell. Hunter woke up the next morning asking if he got to go trick or treating again.

We are so Blessed!!!

Katie, Ben and Sweet Maggie :)

Here she is waving hi to everyone! Maggie Rose :)

Hunter holding his little sister :)

Hunter saying I want her to sit right here!

Ben right before surgery :)

Maggie Rose Jennings

Ben and Maggie right after she was born!

Maggie is here!! Yay! She was born on Friday, October 23rd at 7:51 a.m. She weighed 7 lbs 5 oz and is 19 inches long. She is beautiful and is tiny! We are so blessed.

Everything went so well with my surgery. It was better than Hunter's delivery. And we love Hendrick!! It is the BEST hospital with the best staff! We had such an awesome experience, just like last time. We are so thankful for my doctor, Maggie's doctor, and all the nurses, especially Julie!

My biggest worry was for Hunter and the Lord has just taken care of him and me. I was just so worried about how he would handle everything. He has done amazing!!! He stayed at home with one of my very best friends, Amanda, while i was in surgery. She, who is also very pregnant, came to keep him at 7 in the morning on her day off! She is so sweet! They had a blast! He came to the hospital shortly after I was out of recovery. He was sooo sweet. He just couldn't wait to see Maggie. He wanted to hold her! He wanted to sit with me in bed. He ran over and kissed her on the head over and over again. He was so sweet!! And he is still so sweet around her. He tells people that she is his sister. He really does love her. Thank you, Lord! He truly is the best big brother!!!

Pumpkin Patch 2009

We made our traditional trip to the Pumpkin Patch on Friday. We all had so much fun! Hunter loved it! He ran and ran and ran! Here are some pictures from Friday! This 1st one is Hunter and Parker sitting on a swing. Parker is Stephanie's son who works with Ben. They had a lot of fun together.

Here is Hunter with this stuffed dog. He kept giving it high fives and a few hugs.

Hunter running...

and running some more. We don't walk anywhere! We run!

Hunter picked a "tiny little pumpkin" for Maggie and a bigger one for him. He also helped us pick out a Daddy and Mommy size pumpkin. After running through the pumpkins for a while we went on a hay ride. What a great afternoon!!!

Coach and Sword Fights

I have the best Daddy in the world, both earthly and heavenly. Yesterday my Dad had to go out to west Texas with his job and check some rigs. He works for an oil company in G-ville and every once in a while he has to take a trip to west tx to check some the rigs out there. I'm not really sure exactly what he does...something with the parts on the rigs and keeping track of which parts are where, anyway he got to stop by yesterday morning and just say hello. It was good to see him, but it was such a short visit. So on his way back through last night he came and spend the night. Hunter was so excited! He has been wanting to sword fight with Coach and he finally got to! It was so funny to watch them play! My Daddy is so much fun! They had a great time. He also took us out to eat and then watched Toy Story until bedtime with Hunter. Unfortunately he left very, very early this morning. He needed to get back to work. :( Hunter's first words this morning were "Where's Coach? I want to go with Coach!" I am so thankful that Hunter gets to play and have fun with my Dad. Thank you Dad for staying with us last night!! We love you! :)

Sword Fighting

So lately Hunter has really been into sword fighting. He is so funny! We watched Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The 3 Musketeers last Monday and after that all he wanted was a sword. He just so happened to get a gift card to Target from his Nanna the other day so we took him to pick something out. He didn't want anything except for a sword. We passed by the Cars and he even picked one up that normally I know he would have wanted, but all he could say was "No, I don't want this! I want a sword!" :) So funny! So what did we get...Nerf Swords. We had to get 2 so that Daddy and Hunter could fight. It has been so fun watching the 2 boys fight. They fight each other as well as bad guys. When we asked Hunter checking out at target who he was going to fight with his sword he said..."Pete (the bad guy from the movie) and all the bad guys!" Hunter loves his sword and I think Ben likes his just as much as Hunter! So funny! "All for One...and One For All!!"

Flu Shot

Hunter got his flu shot this morning and let's just say it didn't go very well. Poor thing! After having such a hard time falling asleep and then waking up in the middle of the night, I hated to wake him up so early, but we had to be at Dr. Wiley's by 8 a.m. Hunter normally sleeps until at least 8:30 sometimes 9 if it was a rough night. Anyway...we got to the doctors office and waited for a little bit, not too long until he was called in. Then the crying began. I hate taking him to get shots without Ben, but he had to work this morning :( So I had to be the one to hold him down and then try to calm him down afterward. I felt awful!!! He finally stopped crying for a second while I paid, but quickly started back up about not getting a sticker. After I paid I went through the whole basket of stickers trying to let him decide which sticker he wanted. He didn't want any of them until we were out the door!!! He started kicking and streaming while I was carrying him across the parking lot and trying to get him in the car seat. Remember I'm 35 weeks pregnant...not as easy as it used to be. He decided to cry all the way home. (Note to self...next time get a hand full of stickers and take them home even if he "don't want one"!) We picked up Daddy at home and went to United for a much needed donut! Here comes the funny part...we couldn't tell which sprinkled donut Hunter wanted so we got all 3. I was thinking he would pick one at the table and that would be it...he wanted them all. He ate off each donut and decided he liked the pink one with sprinkles the best. :) It was so cute!! He really only ate about 1 whole donut, but looked really cute with all 3 big donuts with 3 tiny bites taken out of each of them. Wish I had a picture! After the donuts everything was good! Praise the Lord!!! He was back to his happy self! For his next shot...Ben is going! :)

Fall

Thank you Lord for Fall!!! Yay! It has been sooo nice today! I have had the windows open all day and the temp in the house is 73 degrees! Hunter looks too cute in long sleeves and jeans! :) Now we just need pumpkins!

Maggie's Shower

This past Saturday was Maggie's shower and we had such a wonderful time! Missy, one of Ben's co-workers, threw us a shower and it everything was so nice! She is such a sweet lady. I can't believe she wanted to throw us a shower. I was just so thankful.

We really had a great time! My best friends from Gainesville came in, Kelly and Aimee. I was so excited to see them. I haven't seen them in so long. We had so much fun the night before catching up. It is so awesome how with those 2 we can not see each other for months and just pick right up where we left off. I love those girls!

My mom brought my grandmother, Grammie, to the shower. I was so glad she got to come! We had fun showing her our house and taking her to lunch at Bonzia. Some of my sweet friends from life group came, too. We are so thankful for the people in our life group. We love meeting with them! Amanda and Cyntha also were there. Amanda and I are both pregnant and it has been really cool to have someone who is going through the same thing with me. I have really enjoyed hanging out with her! Cyntha is such a sweet friend. She has been there for both Ben and I since before we were married. She is amazing!

Hunter was at the shower and had a blast!! I think he ate a few to many cookies, but had a blast on the trampoline! Yay!! Can we get a trampoline for Christmas!! You know I will be on it just as much as Hunter! :)

I am blown away by the love of our friends and family. God is so good! He know exactly what we need and who need to support us! Thank you everyone for such a wonderful shower!

Hunter jumping!

Hunter's school

Thank you Lord for such a great week at school! Hunter had a great week! Last Thursday he had such a hard time on the way to school. He kept saying, "No wanna go, Momma". It broke my heart, but I knew once he got there he would have a blast, which he did. :) This week he started crying on Tuesday on the way there, but I remembered that his imaginary friend, Buzz Buzz the bee, had been over all day on Monday and thought maybe he would be going to school too. Monday Hunter had a friend over, Buzz Buzz. Buzz Buzz ate dinner with us and he even had a spot in Hunter's bed both at nap time and at bed time. Hunter was so cute carrying around his little friend. Anyway...I mentioned Buzz Buzz on the way and told Hunter he needed to be brave for him. He walked right into class after that! :) I was so excited! His teachers on Tuesday said he did great all day and he was one of the easiest kids to take care of that day. Today there were no tears at all. In fact he was excited to go! Thank you, Lord for blessing us with such a sweet boy and for having such a great school for Hunter. We are so blessed! :)

And thank you for such sweet neighbors. This picture is Hunter and his friend Brady. He lives next door. We feed their dogs last weekend and so they brought Hunter back a Ranger t-shirt. He loves it and had to wear it to school today! :)

The Texas Helmet

We finally found it!! Hunter has decided he wants to be a Texas football player for halloween this year, but he needed a helmet. He kept telling us "I need a helmet so I can be a football player and run fast like Dash." (Dash is the little boy in Disney's The Incredibles) Well Ben and I have been looking all over Abilene. I even had my dad looking around the metroplex and we haven't had any luck until Saturday. After watching the first half of the Texas game I decided I better go get a new Longhorn shirt so that hopefully they would play better. (I always wear a Texas shirt on game day and I couldn't fit into mine from last year this time.) So we headed to Academy and on our way out there it was...Hunter's Texas helmet!!! It was the last small! We were so excited, but not as excited as Hunter when we got home. He loves it! He wears it all the time and says, "I'm a real football player now!"

Our First Post...

Hunter's 1st day of school was yesterday and can I just tell you I almost cried dropping him off. He looked so cute in his little red polo and navy shorts. This is the first time he is doing school without me down the hall. He had a wonderful day, but he did cry at drop off. His little bottom lip was trembling when I put him down. I felt so bad, but knew he would have a great time once I left. When I came to pick him up at 2:30 he ran right to me, Pluto in hand. That big smile could melt anyone's heart. Such a sweet boy! Once home he quickly showed Kiddo, our cat, the Apple Stamp art he made and then showed it to his rocking horse. He was so proud. I love this little boy! We ended the afternoon by making cookies, a new tradition I'm going to try and always do when the kids get done with their first day of school, and waiting for Daddy to come home! What a wonderful day! Thank you Lord for such a wonderful little boy and a great school.