Good to be Home!

Well, the Bahamas was amazing, but it is so good to be home and back with our punkin! She had an awesome time while we were on our "bus-i-ness trip" as she calls it. I don't have any pics of the slumber parties with Grammy and Nana and Pops, but we probably don't want to know everything that went on :). She was really glad to have us home - she spent most of last Sunday just loving on us and then Monday we met Daddy for lunch and she kept rubbing his arm and saying "Hi Daddy!".

The last week went by really fast. Kinsey and I ran a lot of errands, and I realized yet again what an amazing daughter we've been blessed with. She spent 4 hours with me on Thursday waiting at the DPS and the doctor's office and then the grocery store, and she never even fussed once. Friday was my birthday - the big 3-2!!! I celebrated by taking Kinsey to the doctor with me to check on the baby. She got to hear the heartbeat again, which is really awesome to her. He's doing great by the way. He is also incredibly active!! Way more so than Kinsey was at this stage. Douglas finally got to feel him kicking last week - we were up late working on our Atlantis report, and the baby's favorite time of the day is around 11pm, so he was performing for Daddy.

This last weekend, I got to go away for a scrapbooking weekend in Waco with some ladies we used to scrapbook with in Ovilla. It was awesome and so much fun!

So today we went to the Austin Children's Museum with Molly & Noah and Krista & Riley. It was really fun. They had a sing-a-long at the beginning, which of course the kids loved. Then we did some exploring and Kinsey found a popper...And then she found a piano.

Noah found his own piano in a special play area for little punkins.Then we went into the Little Explorers Lab. This was a huge hit - they had big tubs of dry pasta, shovels, and bowls. One of Kinsey's favorite things to do is move things from one place to another, so she was in HEAVEN!!!Riley had fun with it, too. Noah had to watch with Molly from the sidelines because he was likely to eat the pasta.Then we went to visit the fish tank. Kinsey has been obsessed with Finding Nemo lately, so she's fascinated with any and all fish.After all of that, Noah was pretty wiped out :-)We all went and had some lunch and then came home. Can't wait to go back!

So going back in time a little bit, before we went to the Bahamas, we had a fun day at Pops and Nana's house. We went for a walk along the golf course, which Kinsey always loves. She has favorite rocks and trees and we always have to take the soccer ball. And she of course always has to be fashionably dressed...Here's one of her favorite rocks. And here we are in the tree :)When Kinsey sees this picture, she says "Pops hiding from tree?"

Then we went to the park down the street. It's a really nice one. Here are a few shots of them playing around...This is what Kinsey calls "driving the boat"...Then we went back to the house, and Kinsey and Nana made some "alphabet soup". One of her favorite things these days is cooking, or pretending to cook. And she LOVES alphabet soup!

So Long Bahamas!

We have had a blast, but tomorrow it's time to head home. To be honest, we are absolutely desperately missing our little punkin and can't wait to smooch her squishy cheeks!!!

Hi from Bahamas

Hi everyone! Today is our last full day here at the Atlantis. It's cruise ship day - we woke up this morning and there were at least 6 of them at port that we could see from our balcony. A ton of people from them are on day tours here so it's packed out!


So this is Darin's new Happy Place. It's at the end of the beach near The Cove, which is the new fancy section of Atlantis.

Here we are this morning at breakfast...And this is our view of Michael Jordan's Celebrity Golf Tournament welcome party the other night. We are on the 19th floor, so it's blurry, but that's his party down below. It was pretty loud - our invitation must've gotten lost. And here's a new friend we made for Kinsey - the turtles here are really cool, you can get so close to them! And this next picture is part of Douglas' new quest. He is really into these backdrops for song lyrics on Sunday mornings and we are all about using God's creation captured on film when we can. So this is one he took here this morning - look for it soon on a Sunday morning at HCBC RRN!

Well, we are headed to the Fitness Center and then we need to spend some time on the beach. We'll be back home around midnight Saturday night. Later!!!

We're having a Bahama-vention

Well, we made it! We're having a great time here at the Atlantis in the Bahamas. We're excited about the time away and some relaxation. We really miss the little punkin though. She's in great hands with Grammy and Nana and Pops.


Here's a quick picture of the clownfish so that Grammy and Nana and Pops can tell Kinsey that we're working with Nemo while we're away. The last we heard is that she's doing great without us there - asking about us periodically, but is doing great knowing that we're at "work."

Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas from us!! Ok, I know it's late, but stay with me, we've had a lot of pictures to post lately!

So our Christmas celebration actually began on the 23rd. Here we are that morning at church.And here's Kinsey in her Sunday Christmas outfit... When we got home from church, Nana and Pops had come over to hang out. Pops spent most of the day hanging shelves in the garage as an awesome Christmas present to Douglas and I. We were in need of serious organizational help there. So while he was doing that, Nana and Kinsey did a lot of walking around looking at yard art. Kinsey was fascinated with our neighbors reindeer and the blow-up Santa and Frosty in the yards down the street. Now she's very disappointed that they are gone and she's back to looking for pumpkins. Halloween is going to be a long wait for her :).

That evening, we went over to Jaime and Alex's house. Jaime is my cousin and is one of Kinsey's most favorite people. We got to see the whole family which was a fun treat. GG gave Kinsey a doll, which was quickly named Baby Sarah after a doll Jaime had when she was a little girl. Kinsey was kind of more interested in the gift bags than the actual gifts :).Here she is laughing with Aunt Linda...And here she is with Jaime and Linda and Nana playing a game of Fish. After a fun evening at Jaime's, we were ready for Christmas to get here already!!! Christmas Eve was pretty low-key. Of course she made time for reading :)So that night we all went to church. Douglas and our friends led some great music, and there was also a short drama. It was a beautiful service. We were so excited that the whole family could come! So front row is of course me, then GG (my grandmother), Pops, Nana, Kinsey. Then right behind me is Uncle Rodney, Aunt Linda, Jaime, Alex, Melissa, and Andy. And after church, even though we were all tired, we made them pose by the tree.After a night of holding Kinsey through most of the service, Nana really needed Kinsey's chiropractic skills to fix her back. And then it was off to bed. The next morning, we got up and started breakfast, which was a yummy onion and apple and sausage mixture with corn pancakes - a recipe Douglas got from a friend at work. We went in and had to wake up our little sleepy head at the crack of 9am! As you can see, she was kind of confused as to why we all ran into her room so excited to get her up. But then she figured out it was fun time! And once she started breakfast (her favorite thing next to sleeping), she was ready for the party. She calls these corn pancakes "Wittle cakes".And then it was time to start opening the presents. First was a shopping cart from Santa. Kinsey loves to shop, her favorite stores are WalMart and HEB. So she was really excited to get her own cart with groceries!!!And she quickly set off for WalMart...Another big hit was stacking blocks and a shapes bucket from Nana and Pops. I love the open-mouth expressions she kept doing! She is really good with the shapes. She knows how to pick them out in a book, but it didn't take her long to figure out how to match them with the holes in the bucket.

Nana and Pops also got her a really fun Elmo book with magnets in it. That was another really big hit!Santa brought Daddy a t-shirt from one of our favorite TV shows, "The Office".Then it was time to dive into the stockings. For weeks, Kinsey said she wanted Santa to bring her new playdoh, and he didn't let her down. The kid adores Playdoh!!!Another awesome present came from Emma and Jacob, two of her best friends. They got her this stroller, which was the perfect size for Baby Sarah. Baby Sarah has now been pushed all over the place in this toy!

Emma and Jacob's house is a really fun place to play. One of Kinsey's favorite things to do there is to dress-up with Emma. So Emma sent her a beautiful Princess Dress-Up dress for Christmas. Kinsey couldn't wait to get it on and then didn't want to take it off!!!

Even Princesses get tired I guess...And here she is enjoying another present from Grammy and Poppi, a Wiggles cup!

And of course we had to take a few pics by the tree

And then the rest of the day was playing with the presents! Kinsey's favorite thing was making shapes out of the Playdoh. Genius Nana got out the cookie cutters and a board so she could get lots of practice.
And Pops spent lots of time drawing on the "doodle"And of course we had a delicious big Christmas dinner courtesy of Daddy. Just check out this turkey!!!