the big ONE!!

Here is our birthday girl just dropping in to say hello.
Here we have the set up for the dinner of...all American hot dogs and hamburgers.
Its my party and I will do what I want. Even if that means that she will go to bed in a short amount of time.
Can you believe that it has already been a whole year? I can't.

Here is the cake of choice, Strawberry cake with chocolate icing and some sprinkles.

Here is the loot. Lots of fun cards and books and even a little doll. So this is how we give a one year old birthday party. And we are looking forward to the number two.

a little vacation

I am sorry that it has been a little while since our last post, however James has sold my computer so that we could do an upgrade. That means that we will all be waiting just a little bit longer so that I can upload all of the stuff from the old one to the new one. I am sorry for the bad news, but I don't want anyone to worry I do have a lot of new pictures and some really fun and cute ones from Gwen's first birthday. So please stay tuned and I will try to get things up and running as soon as possible. I also wanted to thank everyone for all the support that we have recieved from our last post, it is really neat to have such great friends and family out there to let us know that they care. Thanks so much. We will be back in business before you know it.

Ta-Da!!

Well if you do not know what this is a picture of then I will basically spell it out for you. This is what a positive pregnancy test looks like. And this is the second time that I have seen one of these. James and I didn't know exactly how to go about this but we are in need of a doctor. So if anyone has a good one let us know. We are really excited and are so glad to be in such a great place. Thanks for everyones help and we will keep you posted.

a trip to the outlets

Here is Megan, Kim, Marci, and Gwen.
I was lucky enough to hitch a ride with Kim to see a little bit more of Texas. On Thursday she was heading down to San Marcos to meet with her sister-in-law Marci, who is here for a few days. So I was able to go along and see some great things. First of all we went to the outlet mall there which if I am not mistaken was rated in the top five for best places to shop in the country. So that was cool, and then for lunch we went to a little town called Gruene, although here it is pronounced Green. We ate at a place called the Gristmill and it was really neat. Aparently it used to be a real Mill of some kind and it was converted to a rather large eatery that sits right above the river. Now this river is a huge summer activity here. You rent tubes and float down it over and over, I have not been on it, but in my mind I associate it with the lazy river that they have at water theme parks. Well we had a great trip and a lot of fun meeting with Kim and her family. But we just barely scratched the surface of the shopping. I think that you could be there for days and still not see all the stores. It is a shoppers dream come true.

dream come true doll house

I thought that only girls that could play make believe would enjoy a doll house, boy was I wrong. Megan Frost has a little toy doll house and she was so kind to let us play with it. Well needless to say Gwen LOVED IT! Here she is playing with it and she is having the time of her life. She moves the little kitty from room to room and pushes the little button to make the phone ring. I tell you what, I was able to clean up the kitchen, and make dinner while she just sat in the dining room and played to her little hearts content. Thanks Megan for sharing your toys.

hokey pokey

Well you know how the song goes. You put your right foot in...you do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around, and that IS what its all about. At least it is for Gwen. Notice the large pile of toys in the background, that is what usually goes in the little storage cases she is standing in, however today she dumped out everything else and was trying to get into the case herself, only after the clever song and dance number though, naturally. And how do you like that stone face? It is a typical reaction to me trying to get her to smile, I usually have to catch her in the act of something so that she is already smiling, otherwise...yep ol' stone face comes out to play. Its not easy living with a "diva" as James calls her. But is sure is interesting, and we do dance a lot. I guess that is where she learned to hokey pokey. That is one point for the mom team.

reading rainbow

This morning was really fun because I had left the books out from the day before, and when Gwen woke up and arrived in the living room she was so excited to see her books out, just where she left them. So here she is reading the very quiet cricket, and she knows exactly what pager to turn to hear him chirp. When she turns to that page she always smiles and congratulates herself. What a smart girl. We love books around here and so beware if you visit us and you bring books...Gwen has a reading radar. She will find them and bring them to you, or at least she will bring them to me. Thank goodness for fun books.

the moment we have been waiting for

I know that I have been talking about a music video that James and Mike have been filming for awhile. So I am going to stop the waiting for it and tell you a bit about it. James finished the editing just the other day and it was uploaded to you tube, however I have to say that the quality was not so great, and there is a delay in the replay, so here is the best way to view the finished product. If you will go to http://www.jamesbdesign.com/asleepinarmor you will find a great quality video that was a lot of fun to make. The band is names Uzi and Ari and they are currently on tour in Europe. Thanks for joining us in the making of this video and please enjoy as many times as you like, I know that I have watched it a ton. Don't forget to turn up the volume! Oh I almost forgot, you will need a program such as quicktime to run this, because it is a video. If you do not have a program to view video on you can download one for free at apple.com/quicktime .

the turning point

Well we have reached a turning point in our travel, this month Gwen will turn one and so she needed an upgrade in the car seat department. I have to say that while I was driving Gwen was looking around and basically acting like the queen, but when we arrived she was asleep. I think that she looks much more comfortable in this seat. A little room to grow.

the dinner show

And the comedy routine tonight will be brought to you by Gwen Barlow. " What are you looking at? Do I have something in my teeth?" I love this picture because you can barely see her two front teeth.
This is the part where she is acting like a monkey. " Note the mac and cheese all over her.
"And for my final routine..." I have to say that I can't believe how much of a personality kids have even when they are this little. It really cracks me up. We love when it is time to eat, it may be messy, but it sure is fun.