I was scratching my head trying to figure out a good post to close out the year 2009.  I could say all of the usual stuff like, ‘I can’t believe the year has gone by so fast,’ or ‘my resolutions for 2010 are,’ and on and on but I don’t want to bore you with stuff like that, so I am going to post my Top 10 Photos of 2009.  Thanks Tonggumomma for the great idea!

1) We were taking photos for the first day of 2009.  Catherine is such a …

So, we were pretty excited here in Houston when we found out about four days ago that it would be snowing here in Houston.  Snow in and around the Gulf of Mexico is like some sort of miracle.  The whole phrase, ‘when hell freezes over’ really means something to us when it gets below 60 degrees.  When they forecast snow, we start wondering if we should find a way to rework that phrase.  None-the-less, when I woke up this morning I was excited like it was Christmas morning.  I was …

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.  …

I am just wondering why my daughter wanted to pose like this with her Pa-Pa.  She insisted…she’s two though, so who knows.  The photo is pretty funny though, I will giver her that!

Catherine is 25 months old today.  One month in her second year of life and she’s already accomplished so much.  She’s a smart girl with a love for life and a deep love for her family and friends.  I didn’t get a chance last month to make a list of all that she is doing now, so I figured I would do it today.  So here it is in bulleted form:

The biggest thing she has going on right now is that she is nearly potty trained!  We started getting her …

We have a winner!  There were 21 entries.  The first comment at the top is number one and the last comment is twenty one.  Entering those numbers into Random Generator, number three came out as the winner!  So Pam in Missouri, email me at fnffm @ yahoo.com so I can get the book sent out to you.
Thank you everyone for playing and thanks so much for sharing your parenting tips!  They were wonderful and inspiring!
I will be hosting another giveaway in about 2 weeks, so keep checking back!
I want to …

I have been begging and begging to have a garden for a couple of years now.  I finally brow beat John into makeing three boxes for me so that we could have raised beds to grow vegetables.  We had some old fencing left over from the Hurricane Ike, and so they made for perfect materials to build the boxes.  John managed to whip out three pretty darn quickly.  I was amazed and felt a little gushy inside over his ability to work a saw.
Anyway, we have filled two boxes …

This was such a phenominal parenting book that I have decided to give a copy away to one of my readers.  If you would like to try and win a copy, leave me a comment that shares the best parenting tip you have ever heard.  I will have the random generator pick a winner on Monday, May 25th.  You may enter multiple times as long as your parenting tip is differant.

I am here in the beautiful Bay Area!  I just love breathing in the ocean air and feel the cool air flowing off the bay.  Even thought John has my heart, I left part of it here in San Francisco when I moved to Houston 12 years ago.  Whenever I come back ‘home’ or to my old stomping grounds, I just enjoy every minute of it.
I am here for a conference that starts tomorrow, so we figured we could cram some site seeing in this afternoon.  We ended up visiting …

We are having a great time here in Omaha.  It’s a bit chilly for this Texan but like I said in a previous post, I need to get one more bout of cold weather in before I settle into the routine of hot summer days.  It’s supposed to snow quite a bit tomorrow.  Today it has already hailed a bit and the weather has been gloomy but it’s perfect for lounging.
We have mostly been playing at a nearby park, visiting the zoo (which is rated one of the top 10 …

Just some views of the flowers I have spotted around Houston & Austin over the past couple of weeks.  Gotta love spring!  Catherine and I are heading out to Omaha tomorrow to visit family.  Apparently we are heading back into winter like weather.  I am actually looking forward to one more round of winter weather before we start experiencing the Texas heat.