Right now my life is revolving around our Texas Fallen Heroes Memorial Ride & Cook-Off.  I eat, sleep, and breath this fundraiser pretty much non-stop.  It’s getting pretty old around this house and with my friends and family.  I’m pretty sure John is ready to shove me into the hall closet and I get the evil eye from Catherine.  While I am loving the experience of planning the event, I am about ready to get this behind me.  I’m way too stressed about how it’s going to turn out and …

And it looks like this:

It has been freezing or near freezing temperatures in Houston for over a week now.  My birdbath is frozen solid.  We have a bucket on the back porch that is frozen.  This is just not right!  We live on the Gulf of Mexico where it’s warm most of the time and dang near too hot all of the other time.  It’s too cold to go outside to play, so Cat and I both have cabin fever.  Luckily school started back up for her, so at least …

We are babysitting John’s mother’s cat Rosie.  This cat about drives me insane because she talks non-stop (kind of like Catherine), amongst other things.  Anyway, John brought her to the house today in her crate and so she was not a happy camper.  Catherine however was only too happy to try and befriend Rosie.  I swear this child is going to be a vet when she grows up.  Anyway, here is one of her many exchanges she had while we let Rosie settle for awhile in her crate.  It’s hard …

Catherine turned 32 months today.  Will she really be 3 in 4 months??  When I was putting together the photo montage for last year, I could really see that Catherine made the big leap from babyhood to a full blown toddler.  She grew by leaps and bounds and her development has astounded me.  I wish more than anything I had taken a child development class while we were waiting for Catherine.  I felt like I would have been better prepared to handle the roller coaster ride of changes she went …

I hate to do this to you but right now life is just to hectic to write out a long post, so I am going to do the trusty bullet list to catch you up on life at the Norris household.

The last few weeks have seemed to feel a bit odd and a bit off to me.  Maybe it’s because we were hit with colder weather much sooner than normal and cold, wet weather always tends to throw me off even though I love it
We celebrated our family Christmas day …

A family member recently had a baby and as I looked through the photos of the happy parents with their little, tiny newborn either laying on their chests or swaddled in a sling, I couldn’t help but get a little choked up thinking about Catherine at that age.  I felt a bit envious of the new baby, all of the cuddles and snuggles he was getting.  I felt sad thinking that this baby’s cries were answered with a bottle, a coo, or a pat on the back while Catherine’s cries …

Thank you Simple Scrapper for the template and the ideas for putting together a holiday journal/digital scrapbook. Papers are from the Thankful for You kit.  These pages will be added to my December Daily album.  Look for more information about that tomorrow evening.

Thanksgiving came and went in a blur and already Black Friday is flying by.  Why does the time seem seemed to be sucked through a vacuum when there is fun to be had, or big meals to be readied?  It’s hard to believe that the chapter of November is almost through and that we are moving onto the holiday of Christmas.
As it always seems to be, John had to work on Thanksgiving.  That means he is gone for 24 hours.  So, since my parents are in town, I decided to …

I am so sorry for not blogging for nearly two weeks. I am telling you that life is just kind of flashing before my eyes. Of course my other problem is, that by the time we get the ‘Little Texas Tornado’ in bed, we are just exhausted and crash in front of the TV. So, no blogging for me because I have been both lazy and exhausted. However, I am excited to share in with the other fans Ali Edward’s December Daily challenge again this year.

You …

As first responders, emergency workers and chaplains, it is our first instinct to want to help when a tragedy or disaster occurs. Something stirs inside each of us and we can’t seem to calm ourselves until we have assisted in relief efforts. This reaction held true when Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast. With over 92,000 square miles of devastation, our hearts broke for those who were deeply impacted by the storm.

For many of us, our first instinct was to pick up and run to one of those …

Our dear, sweet, smiley daughter turned 30 months old yesterday.  She’s 2 1/2 and very much the typical toddler.  She is 35 inches tall and weighs 30 pounds, although I swear she weighs more than that!  Here are some of the things she is doing:

She is obsessed with Chinese lion/dragons and pretends that she is one by beating on a drum.  My parents entertain her on Skype by dangling a Chinese dragon that they bought in Chinatown.
There are three girls from her pre-preschool class that she loves to ‘talk’ about.  …