Halloween with the twins

The twins attended a Halloween party at Aunt Jamie's house, then to the neighborhood park for more Halloween fun. First came dinner, Jake got to sit in cousin Travis' little chair while Claire took the high chair. Jennifer had fixed them a very healthy meal of pasta with peas and broccoli, and other healthy looking stuff. JanMa brought them banana pudding. After their dinner, I got to feed them some banana pudding, both loved it. I tried giving Claire another spoonful of peas and pasta afterwards, and she made faces as she spit it out! Jake ate everything, before/after banana pudding, it made no difference to him.
The rest of the family, Claire in the highchair in the back.
Then they got dressed in their costumes. Claire was Dorothy, complete with red slippers and a small basket with Toto. Another cousin in the group was also Dorothy, and we saw several more Dorothys at the carnival.
Jake was the cowardly lion, complete with his badge of courage. The headpiece didn't stay on long. See video below of Jeremy getting him into costume.
Claire and Travis (Elmo costume) are discussing who gets to carry the pink pumpkin.
The twins are carried by Dad to the Halloween carnival at the park. Claire spent her time walking/running all over the playground, looking at all the other kids and commotion going on. She really seemed to love it!
Jake gets to practice his walking in the lion suit.
Jake and cousin Luke chat with each other at the carnival.
JanMa finds a new friend at the carnival.
The twins together, finally, for a brief second, before Claire takes off again.
The rest of the kids after the carnival, the twins had already gone home to bed.

Jake isn't sure he really wants to be a lion for Halloween!




Claire has the best time walking all over the playground.

Playing with the twins

Had a nice visit with the twins, Claire is expressing her fashion-ista side by sporting her Daddy's old Astros baseball cap. Note the casual swing of the bill to the side. She is becoming more independent, wanting to be held, then wanting down to go play. Click on any picture and it will enlarge.
Claire and JanMa sport their baseball caps. I had on mine because I was driving the Miata topless.
Jake is calm and cool, loves to sit on my knee and bounce like a horse. He goes through a funny series of facial expressions, I tried to catch them all.
Enlarge this picture to see his new tooth coming in from the top, and white along his upper gumline where 2 more seem to be ready to erupt.

Latest picture of Taylor

Latest picture I have of Taylor, she looks bigger here than I expected, but maybe because she is next to John and not Jason. Poindexter is such a good easy-going dog. Note they are wearing their gameday gear.

Breaker 19, an early social network

Lots of talk today about social networks, like facebook. I do have a facebook account, but it is not really my thing. But when I was younger, like nearly 40 years ago, I was into a social network, it was called CB Radio. If you know what "breaker 19" means, then you were there too! My handle was the Green Leprechaun, and the conversations I had on the CB made the hours on the road go by much faster.
To anyone who hasn't a clue what I'm talking about, or why this is significant, just imagine many looonnnngggg hhhhoooouuuuurrrrrssss in the car with only AM radio or the one or two other people with you as your sole means of interaction. The CB radio broke us out of our vehiclular isolation and opened up a whole world of other road travelers who also had CB radios. This network shared critically relevant information, like road and traffic conditions ahead, good places to eat and if there were any cops up ahead! Although the range was limited to less than 10 miles, there was a never-ending line of cars going in the other direction to provide variety. Remember, this was before radar detectors, gps systems, and cell phones!
So the whole concept of social networks that provide interaction other than the face-to-face kind is not new. Some of you may remember party telephone lines, not to be confused with tweeting the party location or whatever.... but CB radio was the social network that was available to me at the time of my life when I wanted to broaden my social connections. I'm not so interested in that anymore, hence no interest in facebook, and when I make a long car trip alone, I prefer to listen to audiobooks. But I do use an IPod for that!

Taylor comes home

John and I spent Tuesday afternoon and evening and Wednesday morning hanging out and waiting for Taylor to come home. John colored a picture for Taylor. And I was quite proud of him, when he was through, he put all the crayons and markers back into the zipper bag without me asking him, much less even expecting him to do it on his own!
Later on we played on the air mattress that I had been sleeping on. We bounced on it, sort of like the bounce house Jason had set up for Taylor's sprinkle. Then we played JanMa tickles John, and I swear he said JanMa, or his version of it. When I said "JanMa loves John", he said his version of "John loves JanMa". I certainly could understand him!

Taylor arrived home about noon. Jason shows her off to John, and he was fascinated by her.

I welcomed them home, and prepared to leave for the drive back home. I gave John a big hug and told him bye-bye. He said bye to me and had a big smile on his face. He was curled up next to his Mom and seemed to be happy she and Dad and Taylor were all home. I then got Taylor from Ashley for a quick hold and kiss, and John teared up, got a very worried look on his face. I think he thought I was taking Taylor! I sat back down next to John and assured him I was only giving Taylor a hug and I was not taking her away. He was all smiles again. He sure can understand a lot, and makes his own inferences from the actions of others.
I was always careful to tell him what I was doing and where I was going. Like, "John, JanMa's going to the bathroom, and I'll be back in here in a few minutes". He would nod at me, keep on watching TV, and everything was OK. But if I left the living room to another part of the house without telling him, he would quickly follow me. His daddy was the same way when he was a little boy!

First Visit with Taylor

I had my first visit with Taylor this morning, Jason picked John and I up early and drove us to the hospital for a two hour visit, then back to the house. John was very good with Taylor.

John gives Taylor a kiss.

Taylor doesn't seem to like being changed and dressed. Or maybe it's dinner time.

Jason helps John hold Taylor

JanMa gets a turn holding Taylor.

Taylor is here!

On Sunday, I loaded my casseroles and presents and luggage in the car for the trip to Dallas to hang out with John while waiting the arrival of Taylor.
I'm using Taylor's room and an air mattress, at least til Taylor comes home.
The night before Taylor's arrival, Jason reads John a new book from Lillie, the Little Blue Truck.
Jason and Ashley left early in the morning for the hospital. John and I spent the day reading books, eating lunch and snacks, and playing outside. He was very good, even took a 2 hour nap after lunch.


Finally, about 3:30, I got a text that Taylor had arrived at 3:02. An hour or so later, I got another text that she weighs 8lbs, 1 oz, and is 20" long. Jason will take John and I to the hospital tomorrow to visit with her and Mom Ashley. But for now, here is a picture that came to my phone, just after Taylor was born. Welcome, Taylor.

Here is a video of John kicking the ball around the back yard, a great way to burn off a lot of his energy.



John also exerted a lot of energy trying to climb up the slide. He made a lot of attempts, and finally made it to the top, I caught the second successful climb on the camera.

Quick visit with twins

After spending a LOT of time scanning slides for JanMa's Digital Memories, I prepared for my time to watch John. Casseroles ready in the freezer, laundry done, packing started, and presents for John and Taylor in the car. I wanted to squeeze in a quick visit with the twins before leaving, so Saturday, the Miata and I drove to the twins' house, spent some serious playtime while Mom Jennifer fought off a cold and Dad Jeremy ran an errand.

Claire shows off her baby stroller

Claire was fascinated by my painted toenails.
Jake shows off his delightful laugh.

Later I rooted for the Longhorns over Nebraska at Karen's house ( it worked, the Horns won!). Then we went to Seven Leguas for dinner, a Mexican restaurant in Montgomery I had never been to. Pretty good. Notice I was still sporting my game day shirt!

Caught the kitties napping together, I thought it made a cute picture.

Video of Claire rubbing her cheek on Chloe kitty. She doesn't try to pet her, just rubs her cheek on the kitty.




Video of Jake pushing the walker around. He really leans into it, pushing it as if it were a blocking dummy and he was on the offensive line.




The twins love to sit on my legs and be bounced up and down. And when I do it on the floor, and stop, Claire starts standing and squatting herself to make me start again, and Jake wiggles like he does when he wants to bounce. So I tried to capture some video while bouncing them on my thighs while sitting on the floor. I guess you had to be there, cause they really like it a lot more than they seem to in the video. Daddy Bob used to do this to me when I was a little girl, and to Jeremy and Jason when they were little boys.




Jake likes to crawl into the tent, sit against the side, and lean back and let it collapse on top of him. This was a new game for me, and I had fun watching him.

Trip to Matagorda Beach

Last Friday and Saturday Lillie and I made a quick trip to Matagorda Beach. I wanted to walk the beach, look for beach glass, drive the jeep in the sand, and since Bill was gone for the weekend and the weather was nice, and Taylor probably won't arrive for another week, it was a good time to go.

The jeep was fun to drive on the sand, I had NO fears about getting stuck.

We drove down the entire 22 mile length of beach, stopping where the shells and waves looked right for beach glass.

Here is what a pale blue piece of beach glass looks like on the sand.

We also were able to find the exact spot shown on the Matagorda Beach webcam. I called Bill in New York, he found the spot on the internet, and saw us on the beach cam. Pretty cool.

Lillie always keeps an eye out for birds, and there are a lot of them at the beach. These are sitting about 30 feet offshore on a sand bar that is exposed at low tide.
Here is the collection of beach glass from this trip to Matagorda, along with a perfect shell that I found. The glass included the usual browns and greens, 2 light blue pieces and a clear/white piece, along with some black pieces, the first ones I have ever found.

Earlier in the week Bill and I had dinner at Jeff and Jaime's house, and visited with baby William.

I also had lunch with long-time friend Belynda. We ate outside overlooking the lake.
Today I grocery shopped and made casseroles for the freezer to take to McKinney when Taylor arrives. The laundry is done, a bag is ready to pack, now the waiting begins.....

Grandpa Bill update

Some of my latest pictures of Bill and Grandson William, but these are over a week old. I'm sure William has teeth now to go with his full head of hair!

3 generations, Bill, Jeff and William

The guys show their feminine side...
Grandpa Bill, William and Jeff, and Grandpa Andrew

Flight to McKinney

Last weekend Bill and I flew to McKinney for a sprinkle (think baby shower for second child) for Taylor, who will arrive sometime in October. The weather was gorgeous, I got to fly some and used the auto-pilot a lot, that left Bill to navigate, which is good. For some reason he doesn't want to just fly up I-45!!

Google map of Lake Ray Hubbard. The red area is shown closer in the next picture.

And here is the actual picture taken from the plane, crossing to the east of Lake Ray Hubbard, about 3000 feet.
Here is Lake Corsicana from Google maps. Note the little peninsula the red arrow points to.

Here is that peninsula, different angle, taken from about 4500 feet.

It took about 2 1/2 hours to fly to McKinney, there was a strong headwind and we were only making about 100 knots groundspeed. We landed at McKinney and left the plane in the care of Cutter Aviation FBO. Jason picked us up there and took us to the sprinkle at his house. Afterwards, he let us drive his car to the hotel in Dallas where we stayed and visited with Bill's son Brent, before heading back to McKinney and flying home on Sunday.

Hanging out at the hotel, enjoying the late afternoon.

The return trip only took about 1 1/2 hours, since we now had a tailwind and made much faster groundspeed, up to 145 knots. Bill navigating and reading a map.

There is no place to stop and ask directions, so I had to help!

Actually, on the trip up, the Houston area control center kept trying to call an unidentified aircraft. We got involved because it was heading straight for us, head-on, at an unknown altitude, according to the controller. Once it passed us, the ground controller asked Bill to try to contact it. Bill did and told the pilot to contact Houston at a particular radio frequency. The pilot was asking for help getting to the closest airport, he was at 2500 ft (well below us). Houston guided him into Madisonville, I hope everything was OK, the pilot did sound a little out of it.

View of Lake Conroe from about 1500 feet. The 1097 bridge is visible across the upper left arm of the lake, and Walden Road bridge is visible in the lower right.
As we descended into Houston airspace headed towards Hooks, it got VERY bumpy and there were a lot of planes in the air and chatter on the radio. I was trying my best, but Hooks was busy and the controller asked us to make a short approach landing cause there were 2 planes behind us. Bill took over and did a great job, video below. There was a plane landing on the parallel runway to our right, but he was over and above us, but you can hear some discussion of "do you see him?" "yes, I got him"