Madison's 5th Birthday and Party

January 19th Madison turned 5. She wanted her party at Pump It Up where you move from one bouncy room to the next and then get to sit in the bouncy throne. Done! She invited all the kids in her Canyon Creek Preschool class and all the girls in her dance class. She had lots of friends come and celebrate with her: Addy Fort, Linley Pittman, Jazzy Davis, Emma Johnson, Sadie Cannon, Eden McCall, triplets Aiden, Kylie, and Ashby, Sophia Standerfer, Samantha Genzer and more...

Baby Scarlett Arrives

The day after Charity flew out i got THE call at 2:20 am. Jessica Brough was officially in labor and I was the middle-of-the-night contact. I raced over to their house to watch Ezra as they zoomed to the hospital. She arrived 5 days late but it was a quick labor. The next morning Ezra and I played trains, had breakfast, and blew bubbles. Then we went to the hospital to see Chris, Jessica, and brand new sister Scarlett. She is beautiful! Thank you for letting me be part of it all, Brough Family. Love you guys!!!

Charity visits Austin

Charity is my best friend from college. She flew in right after Dave and the girls flew out to Utah. I had to stay in Austin to oversee the septic clean up mess at the new house and Charity's kids were at their Dad's, so the stars aligned and she got to come for a visit! We stayed up late, talked, went running, went boot shopping, visited the uber-posh Gold Class Cinemas (where your seat reclines and they serve you food - too fun!), and caught up on years of each others lives. What a fabulous 5 days. Love you Charity!!!

Christmas 2010

Presents, lights, food, giddy excitement, too little sleep... Aaaah, Christmas!

Madison's last Preschool Christmas Pageant

Canyon Creek Preschool does a really cute Christmas pageant with the kids each year. This will be Madison's last one since she starts kindergarten next year. She's in the back row, fifth from the right. She is good little singer and enjoyed all the hand movements along with the song. Such a sweet, fun age.

ICE, ICE, Baby

We booked a hotel in Grapevine, Texas, talked our friends the Andertons into coming with us and took off for our northern adventure. Between Fort Worth and Dallas is a little town called Grapevine. The town is very fond of Christmas and goes all out. It also happens to have a resort called the Gaylord Texan where Christmas is taken to new heights. We all went to see the ICE show there - a Charlie Brown Christmas this year. It was beautiful - and COLD!!!

Big Trouble with New House

The last day of our Thanksgiving/Birthday blowout we discovered a huge sewer backup that flooded the new house from both sides of the first floor. It. was. disgusting. It started a huge ordeal of emergency clean-up crews, mold-testing and Standard Pacific's head of warranty dept overseeing everthing. It was a big, messy deal. They had to rip out all the carpet, tile, and some of the wood, baseboards, doors, moldings. They cleaned and then tested the house 3 times before it got a green light from the mold guy for the rebuild. Fortunately for us, they let us re-do the master bath at the same time. It was the only ugly part of the house when we bought it. Apparently every dark cloud has a silver lining.