Merry Christmas

Wow! What a week. We celebrated Katie's first birthday yesterday and enjoyed Christmas Eve as a family. What a different Christmas Eve than the one we had last year....ha! Thank you to all of our friends and family that helped to make Katie's 1st Birthday extra special. We are so thankful that our little one is surrounded by friends and family that love her.

Merry Christmas from our little family to yours. May you take some time this Christmas to kneel in thanks to our God for sending his only son to the world so that we can have a greater understanding of our God and accept the gift of salvation.

Here are a few photos....More to come of Katie's birthday and Christmas!

Christmas Eve at the Mission Inn. (Katie was super tired from her birthday yesterday and Christmas Eve service. )

10 Month Update

Ok....so Katie is 10 months for the next 10 days! She seems to learn somthing new everyday. She loves to play and get into everything. She is crawling all over the house very quickly and has taken 3 steps! She smiles and giggles very easily. I love that she has learned that when she smiles first she can get me to smile. She also will laugh if I tell her how funny she is. She loves to take walks and explore. She can say Mama, Dada, and all done. She's also starting to use the hand signals that we've been working on. She gets excited and kicks her feet when offered food that she loves. She also always wants a sip of what I'm drinking. It's usually water so I oblige her, but she doesn't get it when it's what I call an "adult beverage". Which usually means its hot tea or apple cider. Since I've posted last we've been to Apple Hill to pick pumpkins and Halloween has also passed. Dustin is now through with going to class on Fridays and Saturdays! Hallelujah! We're thrilled to have more time as a family, more time to work on projects around the house, and time to fellowship more frequently with our church family. We're beginning to realize Thanksgiving is just around the corner and so is Katie's 1st birthday and Christmas! Wow, Lots to plan! 1st Birthday Party plans are in the works!

We hope we have a chance to visit with each of you over the holidays dear friends and family. Isn't it wonderful to have a time of year set aside specifically to remember to thank our Lord for all of his abundant blessings? I know I so often am like the Israelites wandering in the desert and grumbling and complaining. I often forget to thank God for his provision for my family, or I forget the next day and am grumbling in my heart again. May we remember to thank our God for his care for us...and if you call him Lord, may we remember to thank him for his saving grace that He would save such a wretch like me even when I complain like a wandering Israelite.

Late September Fun!

Katie loves strawberries! We went out for Japanese Buffet and she ate them one after another. She wasn't interested in the little cut up pieces, but wanted a strawberry to hold.

Playtime with Aunty Mandy!

We celebrated Dustin's 29th birthday this week.

We baked lots of cookies for the church bake sale and Katie was very interested in what was going on. She kept peeking in the oven. It was fun to have her crawling around the floor and eating in her highchair while I worked. I can't wait until she's old enough to help bake cookies with me!

Playtime! She loves her leapfrog learning table!

Las Vegas

We've traveled a lot this summer. Katie has taken 3 airplane rides and 2 road trips. We've been to Laughlin, San Francisco, Las Vegas twice, Corona three times, and San Clemente twice. We just returned from Vegas...and now it's time to put away the suitcases for awhile and get settled back into our routine.

We are so blessed that we get to travel with Dustin while he works. He only has a couple months of school left, then we're looking forward to taking a graduation vacation as a family.





Katie playing with her evil twin in our hotel room.













Outside our hotel.







Playing at the pool. It was amazing to see the difference in Katie's development compared to pool time when we were in Vegas last month. She wasn't happy to just sit on the stairs and splash. She crawled all over the place. Crawled out of the pool, in the pool, jumped off the top stair and assumed that I'd always be there to catch her, and kicked and waved her arms as we swam around! Lots of fun, but very tiring for both of us.








Katie took some nice long naps. Swimming wore her out! Here she is all snuggled up on the bed right before I joined her!










Out in front of the hotel on our way to dinner.

State Fair

We headed to the State Fair tonight. It was the perfect night. Not too hot, Not too busy.

Katie petting the rabbit. We had a good laugh in the "Fur and Feathers" exhibit. Amanda and I were talking about how cute the bunnies were when one of the peed all over and got both Amanda and I. The look on her face was priceless. We were quite upset that we had to throw away the candy we were eating. We were thankful that we had Katie's wipes with us and hand sanatizer packed.

The animal nursery was once again my favorite. The piglets were just born yesterday and oh so cute!

Our Little Toddler...

Yes, our little one is toddling around. (sniff sniff) Tonight while bathing Katie, I asked Dustin, "Where did our baby go?" His response was, "I don't know, but it's gone."

Here's a picture of Katie after she climbed out of the tub on her own. I guess she was done with her bath.

She's getting so big. New teeth seem to be popping out every day and she's trying her hardest to learn to walk. Her crawl is more of a walk on all fours and she's eating finger foods like crazy. I should buy stock in Gerber puffs and yogurt melts! Thank goodness Target had a big sale on them last week.

I was excited to go to my grandparent's because I was curious to find out if Katie would notice the doggy in the corner...and she did! Rather quickly too!

In some of my earliest childhood memories I always remember the dog. It's sat in the same spot for as long as I can remember.

It was time for some big girl toys. We've acquired some new toys for our growing Katie bug recently. She started standing and playing with them, but thanks to Chelle she showed Katie that she can push it and walk with it. We now have a little one walking across the floor as she pushes her walker.



The newest addition to our family is Mr. Lion. Katie loves to ride him and play with his hair. She learning to get on and off of him.

Aunty Mandy has been wanting to paint Katie's toes all summer, so here she is getting her toe nails painted for the first time. I couldn't believe how still she stayed. If only I could get her to stay still when she gets her diaper changed.

Here's the family picture from Papa's birthday party! Happy 90th Paps! I love you and so appreciate all the ways you've shown me your love over the years.

Las Vegas...and more

Last week we had the priveledge of traveling with Dustin to Vegas while he worked! It was a wonderfully relaxing couple of days.





Katie flew on an airplane for the first time.

...and her first limo ride.

Katie played in the big bathtub at the hotel.















Ready for bed after my bath.

Lounging by the pool.

She loved the water! She would sit on the step and splash for over an hour at a time. I would then take her upstairs for a nap, then return to the pool for more splash time.

Now...on the home front.

Katie still has no interest in "baby" food, but she likes the baby cereal bits, and more traditional "people" food. Dustin sat down to eat a peach and she decided that she wanted some. I can't blame her. They were fresh from the farmer's market.

She now loves to sit in the grocery cart sometimes, but sometimes she still prefers to be in the sling. I'm such a germaphobe though. Carts have always grossed me out, and now Katie is at the age to sit in them. I always have my sanatizing wipes close at hand until I get a cart cover. =)

One day Katie started peeking over her bumper, and the next day she had pulled herself to standing in her crib.

...and today she can not only pull herself to standing, but climbed on top of the bumper.

Katie climbed all over our luggage before leaving. We're baby proofing the house tomorrow for our little crawler.

Hot Summer Days

It's been a busy few hot summer weeks packed full of family and traveling.




We took a quick weekend trip to So Cal and went to the Nixon Library. Katie visited her first Presidential Library. I voted that we stop at the Reagan Library again, but we'd never been to the Nixon Library before even though we used to live within 30 min. of it.










The tour included the Library, Nixon's birthplace, a tour of Marine One, and a visit to President and Mrs. Nixon's Burial place.

The next weekend brought 4th of July. I love celebrating the 4th! There's nothing better than BBQ and Fireworks to celebrate our Independence. We are so blessed to live in this country.

We started the morning with swimming. Katie shows off her new talent and love of drinking out of Mom's water bottles. She continues to show no interest in solid foods of any kind, but loves ice water. She can drink it out of a straw and her sippy cup as well.

It was great to have Uncle Casey here visiting. He got to spend the 4th of July with us and spend some time loving on Katherine. Remind me not to give the Hobbs boys fireworks and a lighter next year.








Our first 4th as a family!













Hanging out in my shades watching Daddy and my Uncles play wiffleball.














Being loved by my Aunts!

Hanging out in the hotel room in San Fransisco while Daddy worked. I loved playing on the really big bed with my new turtle from Uncle Casey!









After San Fransisco I traveled to Laughlin for the Muzquiz family reunion. We spent a couple of days feeling like we were staying on the surface of the sun. We did however get to eat All you Can Eat King Crab and visit with lots of family. Here I am with my Grandma and Great Great Aunt Bernice. I even had a matching onesie with the family tree on it.





I had a confetti egg broken on my head. It's a fiesta tradition in Texas and the Texas family thought I needed to be included.










We had a banquet on Saturday night. Here are the Muzquiz family babies. Aunt Sandy with the latest addition, River and my Cousin's wife Amanda with little Samantha. It was so much fun to watch Katie and Samantha interact all weekend.







After Laughlin we stopped in So Cal for a few days. It was great to see my cousin's David and Meleah while they were visiting. Here's a picture of our silly little Katherine with the Rubino Catherines.









Katie had her first trip to the beach. It was super hot and super busy.









All smiles and super playful.











She liked feeling the sand with her feet.