Santa Claus visited our neighborhood!

Every year, the Saturday evening before Christmas, our local fire department comes through our neighborhood with Santa Claus up high on a fire truck! Sirens wailing and the sides of the truck all lit up, he throws candy for the kids and with a "Ho Ho Ho" wishes everyone a Merry Christmas!

We joined most of our neighbors to watch for his yearly visit!

This is our neighbor's Christmas decorations! They have more, too, that are all over their house. This is just a photo of their yard. They make their pine trees look like candy canes, with red and white lights. Every year, they seem to add something else new and interesting!

Here comes Santa Claus! He's turning onto our street!

You can barely see him in this photo! It was dark and those flashing lights were so bright!

Isaac enjoyed watching the flashing lights! He never cried, although it was close to his bed time, so he was getting a little sleepy. After chit chatting with our neighbors a little, we headed back inside to give Isaac his bath and put him to bed.

Sleepy cats

Fluffy is one of Romeo's kittens (now 3+ years old), and she's my favorite...shhhhh...don't tell the others. Really, they're all my favorites in their own special ways! Tommy's my favorite boy kitty (and the only one..heee heee)... and Romeo is "the best kitty ever". Callie is really Princess Callie, so that's very special too! They're all such good little kitties, and we're so happy they're part of our family.

This spot under the dining room table is Tommy's favorite nap spot. He likes to brace himself up against a corner and curl up! He moves away pretty quick, however, if Isaac comes crawling under there!

The sun was pouring in our back window, and Romeo (grey/white) was getting comfortable for a nap. Her kitten, Callie (3+ years old) is still pretty attached to her Mommy, so she decided to cuddle up with her on the back of the loveseat. Romeo does not always put up with her "loving" ways, but this time she allowed Callie to share her spot, and even gave her a little licking--reminescent of her days as a tiny little kitten getting washed by Romeo.

Romeo looks a little annoyed, and Callie looks like a spoiled child--happy she got her way.

Isaac and Mommy

Isaac found the cat's jingle ball, and so I cleaned it and gave it to him to play with. The cats have several more that they can play with. Plus, at this stage, his toys end up scooted around all over the floor, which couldn't be much worse than him playing with a cat toy. That sounds terrible, but thankfully God put an anti-bacterial agent in babies mouths that helps prevent them from getting sick from every little germ they ingest ---especially during the crawling stage!! He doesn't really put "everything" in his mouth yet, like little pieces from the ground, but he does like to put objects in his mouth. He also likes to chew on the arms of our wooden rocking chair in the living room.

Here's Mommy playing around with the color setting on my camera!

I really like this one! Sepia tone reminds me of historic photographs! Maybe a long time from now this one will be seen by many more future generations, and they'll comment about how "old" it is!! I love to look at old photos from my great grandparents and grandparents.

My crafty Christmas wreath

I made a Christmas wreath for our front door! It was really fun!

For the past couple of years we had a berry wreath, but the berries started cracking and falling apart badly. We threw it away last year! So, this year I decided to make one!

Isaac is 10 months old!

Seeds sprouting in our garden!

The seeds have sprouted! Jason made such nice rows, and soon we'll have to thin out the little sprouts so they can become strong, mature plants!

Collard greens sprouting! They almost seem to lift the dirt up in flat sheets as they poke through!

Those are some strong little sprouts! Plants growing from seeds . . . what a miracle!!

My basil finally came back on its own! We had a really, really cold, freezing snow one day last winter, and it caused most of our plants to die. Fortunately, most of them came back, but I hadn't seen any of my basil coming back until this one started growing! It's at the perfect size for harvesting to make some pasta with fresh pesto sauce! Yummy!

Spearmint! It is finally growing really well. I had tried to grow spearmint several times in years past, but now we have finally gotten it to "take off"! Our neighbor has so much spearmint that it has become a nuisance . . . I wonder if that will happen in our garden. We'll see.

This is my one rosemary plant. It is doing really great, although it is kind of small and seems to grow pretty slowly. It smell sooo good!

Our Cosmos are so tall and bushy that when we have a storm they tend to bend over. Bending doesn't cause them to die at all, I think it actually makes them grow even more blooms.

Women's Retreat & Debbie's Birthday

We went to a park on my birthday! It was a beautiful day and Isaac really enjoyed swinging and riding down the slides.

He was giggling and smiling so much on the swings! He was soo cute!

Isaac and Daddy exploring what the playground has to offer!

Isaac wants to drive already!

I'm 31 years old now! It was a great birthday--time spent with my husband and son! What could be better?!!

Women's Retreat!!

I attended the Texas Conference of Seventh-day Adventists Women's Retreat in October! It was a really wonderful weekend. Jason and Isaac had a Daddy & Son weekend, and I had a spiritually refreshing, fun time with hundreds of other ladies! We had some special speakers, seminars, and delicious food. The hotel was AMAZING! My roommate, Debra P., and I really enjoyed the retreat and are already looking forward to next year!

Song service at the beginning of each meeting was such a beautiful worship experience! The ladies who lead out with praise and worship time during these annual retreats have a very special gift for choosing music and scripture readings. What a blessing!

The hotel had a glass elevator, and the rooms all overlooked the open atrium area! It was really beautiful!

Me and my roommate, Debra P. We had a great time together during the weekend! She is from my church here in Houston!

Here is a photo of some of the ladies from my church.

We were missing a few of our group in the last photo, so we took another group shot of those who came to the retreat from our church.

Here is the view from our room's door, looking down into the lobby area.

Every year it seems like I drag my feet about going to the retreat, because I like to spend weekends with my husband and son, and know that I will miss them! But, this is my third year to go to the Texas Conference Women's Retreat, and every single time I am SOOO glad I decided to attend!! It is such a wonderful blessing to listen to the speakers and meet other ladies from Texas. I come back home feeling inspired, spiritually recharged, and excited to share the love of Jesus with others around me. I am already looking forward to next year's retreat. It will be at the same location and will be at the beginning of October.

Isaac is 9 months old!

Isaac turned 9 months on October 25! He is 23 lbs 5 oz. and 31.5 inches long! He is at the top of all the growth charts, especially for height! His Mommy and Daddy are both 6 feet tall, so he's destined to be tall! We keep saying that we hope he's not in the SUPER tall category, you know the ones who have to have specially made beds and don't fit into shoes you can buy at a department store. Special ordering stuff for him would be a pain and probably expensive. We'll have to wait and see what growth spurts he'll have.

As he gets older, he is a little more challenging to photograph. He is constantly moving around and wanting to be somewhere other than in front of the camera! Plus, he doesn't smile when we ask. Well, sometimes he smiles back at us when we are trying to get his attention for the picture . . . BUT then he immediately turns away or looks at something else. My digital camera doesn't always click at the exact moment I want it to. I do still get some smile photos, so it's not all lost, but it seems like it was easier a couple of months ago.

Hey, Mom! Get the camera away from me, I'm trying to play! Don't you have enough photos already?! Crash, crash . . . vroooom, vroooom!!