Tornado's in December???

It's awesome to know your neighborhood got hit by a tornado and you weren't there. We just had roof damage and abc's playhouse was torn up. If that's all that we had then we are blessed. This is the 2nd time in 3 months something like this has happened in our neighborhood. We were fortunate both times.

We are in College Station with my parents. It's driving me crazy that I can't see what our neighborhood looks like. All I can rely on are pictures from the Longview News Journal of our neighborhood. Russ has tried to give us a play by play of our neighborhood but it's a little hard to follow. I've almost cried several times looking at pictures of the tornado knowing that next to that big gray circling thing is my house... SCARY!

I'm so glad I wasn't there! I would have been home with Addison and scared to death. Christopher always tells me I'm crazy for being so scared in storms like I am but I think I would have had a panic attack or something if I had been there.

All I can say is Thank you God for protecting our home so much!

The Rest of November...

Here is what we've been up to...

Some days Addison really likes her tutu... This day she was loving it. I was taking pictures of her so she needed to get her camera too!

We've been finger painting. She loves it and loves squishing all the paint in her fingers.

This is her Thanksgiving Feast at school. She was very excited to go...

Not so excited about the food. I can't get mad at her for spitting out her food. I do it to. If I don't like what I'm eating I'll spit it out. At lease now she spits it out in her hand and puts it in her plate!

She likes to help Daddy clean up the leaves.

The true "kid" table at Thanksgiving. Addison and Maggie.

They love playing the piano together. I think this picture is so cute. Telling secrets!!

My little cheese ball when she wants to be!

Love this one too. It looks like ABC is reading music and playing what she is suppose to while Maggie is singing her heart out!!

Just a cute little monster isn't she!!

I look this one night while she was sleeping. Ever since we got back from the horse show in OKC she has to sleep with her Okie. She even takes naps with him!! I just wanted to take this picture as proof for Honey and Pappy.

A few weeks ago we went to the park after I got my new camera. Here are a few of my favorites from that day!

Love the way she's looking at her daddy in this picture!

Total trust...

We of course had swing on the bar.

Not sure what this face is but it's too funny not to put on here!

Pull ups... she always just counts "four" over and over!

She realized she can jump off the stairs. There was another little girl there that was jumping from the 3rd stair and ABC got mad when I told her she could only jump from the bottom one but she got over it.

Ummm... can you tell she didn't want to leave?

Something else with Okie... Christopher helped her set up his water and feed in her bed.

That afternoon after her nap Addison and I made Christmas cookies. She LOVES putting sprinkles on. The only problem is the red sprinkles I have come out WAY to fast. That night when Chris's family game over for pizza the people that got the sprinkle cookies said they were pretty sugary!!

Our finished products! She was so proud and LOVED handing them out to everyone that night!

I realize that I have to get better at blogging again or else this poor little man in my belly will never have anything about him on here! So how's the pregnancy going... less than 11 weeks... HOLY COW. We've done NOTHING for him yet... oh well. It will happen soon. I have to get started on his bedding. My first project is our stockings, I'm almost finished with those. Maybe the matching tree skirt will have to wait until next year!

As for names... I'm pretty sure we are going with Trent Russell Collier. No cool initials like Addison, but it does keep with our naming our kids after towns in Texas theme we have going... This wasn't intentional, just how it worked out really. Hopefully he will have a cool birthday though... March 2, 2010 is my scheduled c-section date. As long as he doesn't come early his birthday will be 3-2-1-0... YAY!

Stay tuned... I cut her hair tonight!

November, Part 1

Has it really been a month since I updated? Oops. Oh well. I've been tired. Our house is on the market so at night I have to make sure that everything is picked up and clean since I don't have time the mornings I work... Yeah, excuses. But I'm doing it now while watching the Biggest Loser Finale.

The 2nd weekend in November my brother, who now lives in Florida, was at a horse show in Oklahoma City. Since he was only 6 hours away instead of 24 we had to go up and see him! My parents went and my sisters went so it was a nice little family time.

Addison loves horses and this only made it more obvious! She'll tell you, "my favorite horse is Okie." (which is a horse at my parents house). The picture below is of her the first day we were there at the show. We were watching the cutting and she just liked to watch the horses chase the cows. She's so intense.

When she started to get restless Honey and Pappy took her to the trade show. She talked Pappy into buying her this pink stick horse (it didn't take much talking!) She now calls this her "big Okie!"

When we went to eat one night my mom taught her the AWESOME trick of blowing into your straw to make bubbles. GREAT! Thanks mom!! She hasn't tried this too many more times, but she does LOVE to watch the video of herself doing this that I recorded on my phone!

This was the 2nd day at the show! We were watching working cow horse that day. (if anyone knows what I'm talking about it's sort of 1/2 reining and 1/2 cutting) She didn't really like the reining portion. When the horse would come out of the gate by itself she would point and say "that horse need cow." Then when it was finally time for the cow to come out (she new when it was time) she would say "horse get now now!" and get so excited! When I show her this picture of herself on my phone and ask her what she is doing she says "I standing, watching Horses chase cut cows."

She is still not too sure about Uncle Mark. She still wouldn't let him hold her but she LOVED it when he would let her pet his horses! At night when I ask her who she wants to pray for it use to just be "Honey, Pappy, Rachel (parents dog), Bessy (Mary Beth), Nonna, Grandad, Christmas and Sadie (Christopher parents dogs). However, since this weekend we spent in OKC she now asks to pray for Uncle Mark. Sometimes that's the only person she wants to pray for. I think it's sweet that she's finally figuring out that he is a good guy and that she wants to pray for him every night!

Seeing Uncle Marks horse with Pappy.

I'll update more later... Sorry all the pictures were just from my iphone. I didn't have a camera, YAY for the good camera on iphones.

I will say CANON is a GREAT company! THEY REPLACED MY CAMERA AND LENS... FREE! Christopher and Russ had been lying to me (I was hoping they were) and I got the new camera for my birthday. The camera that burned was a 20D, and they replaced it with a refurbished 50D!! I can now take good pictures again (even better than before!) and I'm so excited! Canon could not figure out what had happened and even sent the camera to Japan to have their people over there look at it.

That's all for now! I'll try to be better now about updating!!

Our October

We had a fairly busy October! One of the first things that happened was a big wind storm came through. It didn't effect a lot of people, but it took down SEVERAL trees in our neighborhood. There are still plenty of houses with blue tarps on them where their trees went on their house. We were blessed though, only small limbs none of our big trees fell. But... because of all the trees that fell in our neighborhood we didn't have electricity for 2 days, AWESOME. So, we went to Elysian Field to stay with Christophers parents.

Before we left for EF, Addison and I piddled around the house. I needed to change the batteries in her rain forrest soother, but she decided she needed to do it instead! I love this picture. 1) because her hair is so crazy and it looks so red, 2) this picture really doesn't even look like her to me and 3) her eyes!!

While we were in EF we played in the puddles! WE took her rain coat and got some rain boots from Maggie and had some fun in the water!

Love her eyes in this picture!

Playing in the water!

"SPLASH MOMMY!"

She always has to go and help Grandad check cows. It was cool outside (50's) so I felt like I needed to bundle her up!

While we were staying in EF with Christopher's parent the pumpkins arrived at church! The next Wednesday after I picked her up from school we went and I let her pick out some pumpkins! We started out with 3, and somehow ended up with 7!

Allow me to introduce them, and yes, she can tell you which pumpkin is which!

Front Row, left to right - Baby Pumpkin, Honey Pumpkin, Nonna Pumpkin, Pappy Pumpkin.

Back Row, Left to Right - Daddy Pumpkin, Mommy Pumpkin, Grandad Pumpkin

She was so happy to have all her pumpkins! She just kept hugging them!

And hugging them...

And hugging them!

The next day in the mail Addison got a package from Carol Strickland. She gets these about once a month and they always have a new fun pillow case and another surprise. October was a butterfly pillow case and Princess Stickers!! She loved the stickers and immediately decided they needed to go on her pumpkins and she had to sit on her new "blanket" to put them on!

Here are all her pumpkins with their Princess stickers! Notice Daddy Pumpkin is in the back by itself without a Princess sticker! I'm sure Christopher is proud that Addison knows that Daddy Pumpkins don't need princess stickers!

The only thing Addison wanted to be for Halloween was a Horse. I wasn't really sure how that was going to happen so we borrowed Maggies cowgirl outfit for ACA's Fall Fest. It was perfect. She loved it and loved being a cowgirl! Here she is with her rope and hat (these didn't last long!)

Getting last minute instructions from Daddy before going into Fall Fest! Can't you just see the excitement in those eye! OH, I love it!

As soon as we got there I heard a voice behind me say "oh, Jack has been looking for his cowgirl!" So we tried to get them to pose for a picture, this is all Stacy and I could get. But aren't they so cute! Yes, those are her boots from Pappy that we was throwing a fit about at her party. She LOVES them now even though they so super big and make her walk pigeon toed!

Bowling with Miss Amy.

This was the sucker game. We weren't real sure the point of it. You had to pull a sucker and if you pulled one with black on the end then you got candy (not the sucker but other candy???). All Addison really cared about was the sucker. She went back several times and just watched. Finally the last time she just went up, grabbed the green sucker and took the wrapper off before we were sure what she was doing!

Sharing her sucker with Daddy!

Sitting so lady like, adoring her sucker!

Oh those boots!

Random Update... LOTS of pictures!

Guess I should start with this for those out there in blog land that didn't already know...

The rest of these are random pictures that I wanted to be sure to post for my looking at later, they are funny to me!

Addison's 1st donut ever(that we know of). This was at the end August and we had been talking about how we were going to get donuts for breakfast. I thought I should make her first donut extra special and get one with sprinkles (my favorite growning up!). SHE LOVED THE SPRINKLES. She picked off all the sprinkles and ate them first, then went for the rest of the donut!

One night the Porters came over and they all enjoyed Whataburger at Addison's table! The only time she'll sit in her chair and eat is when there are others at her table with her. So, yes, that means I have eaten many many meals at that little table!

One morning she found this coffee cup in my bag from work. She took it out and got her purse and said she was "going working Mommy!"

She then went and got her computer and set up her "work" on her table. When she's typing on her little computer and you ask her what she's doing she'll say "I working, making money." I wonder who taught her that... thanks Christopher! But at least if there are other people around she's working for them! One day when Jaymie and Kanyon were over she said "working, making Kanyon money!"

It seemed to be a little hard for her to work at the table so she moved to the floor. Of course she has to be drinking her coffee!

First day of school in the 18-24 month class. She looks so big to me in this picture!

Russ, Kim and Mimi got Addison this little playhouse for her birthday. Before the mosquitos got bad, we ate breakfast in there a lot! This is a saturday morning after Christophers run. He would usually take his coffee and go sit with her in her house. I love how it looks like they are have a very deep discussion!

The 2nd weekend in September a few people from our class at church went out to Camp Fern in Marshall for the morning/afternoon. Becky got Caleb, Addison and Blake to march around and bang the bowling pins together, they had so much fun doing that!

Some people went for a little swim while we were there. The water was pretty cool, Addison didn't stay in long. Not because of the coolness of the water, but she didn't like the way the bottom felt on her toes.

Poor little Blakey, so cold!

It rained off and on that morning, while we were waiting for the guys to blob each other, Amy decided to entertain all the kids!

Here is Christopher blobbing Mark. Aaron is watching from the top of the dock and Chris P. is watching from the dock. After only a few blobbs all the boys realized they no longer had teenage bodies. Everyone was sore the next day and had stiff necks! It was funny to listen to!!

This is on here for Rebekah! See, I have proof that at least one time Addison liked you! Addison was somewhat scared of Rebekah when she was pregnant with Chandler. ABC is just now coming around to where she isn't running from her, so the fact that she held her hand and walked was HUGE! I kept my distance as to not interupt this moment! (and to get a picture of course!!)

Once we got inside for lunch Addison and Caleb had to play the piano! (this was also the first time that I noticed something funny with the camera. It wouldn't focus the first few shots after I turned it on. I would have to manually focus it for 2 or 3 shots and then it would be fine. Apparently this is a sign your battery it going bad. So, if this happens to you... take it out and replace it!)

One morning Addison had to have her coffee (water) in HER cup. My hospital coffee cup is HER coffee cup and her's only!
Addison LOVES horses. Genetic from my sister and dad I guess. One night her horse had to help her pick out which meal she wanted to eat.

One evening Natalie and Kason came over for dinner. The kids were a little messy after pizza and it was getting close to bed time so we thought we would just go ahead and stick them both in the bathtub... I took several pictures but this one is my favorite because of everything that is going on. You can see just how much water Kason was splasing AND how much Addison did not like it. Not to mention Natalies face and hands trying to stop him!

Addison decided we needed to take Chutch for a walk one night when Christopher got home from work early. She let him wonder in the neighbors yard and then realized that he was a little harder to control than when she walks little Sadie at Russ and Kim's house!

The End! Pumpkin pictures and Fall fest to come soon!