Great Balls O' Fire!

Looking towards the cooler days and an alternative to standing in front of the swing set in 30 degree weather this is our answer to winter-time fun....



She loves her ball pit, especially throwing the balls out and watching mommy & daddy pick them up!


While Nana visited she assisted me in revamping a table & chairs set that gam & pop bought Kenyon for her bday. Here it is before, done up for a little girl named Emily. Poor Emily she outgrew her chair. Kenyon's gain.



Here is the after. Nana changed out the color of ribbon from lilac to yellow, added some yellow flowers and then Kenyon's monogram. When Kenyon woke up from her nap and saw it she promptly crawled on top of the table (her 5th favorite thing to do) and began to dance. Her dancing on the tables is a whole nother story that we don't like to think about.

It's a dog's life....until the little girl came along

Hank has fondly named our child "Little Miss Busy Body" and boy did she prove that last night. We all came home at the same time, and the first thing I have to do after letting the dogs out is get Miss K a sippee with some kind of liquid in it. She is not particular, just demanding. So I am in the kitchen doing her bidding, but not fast enough. She came in and reached up to get a sippee cup off the counter with no lid and promptly took it to the dog's water dish.

Not let me take a break from our regularly scheduled program to say her most FAVORITE thing to do besides watch Jack's Big Music Show and swing in her pajamas is to stick her hand in the dog's water and swish it around. Which is promptly rewarded with a hands washing in the kitchen sink.

Now, back to the story...she filled the cup with water from this bowl and began to drink it. Being the calm parents were are we yelled, "NNNNOOOOO!" Picture Hank sliding into home grabbing the cup before it made it to her lips. He took it and she stealth-like got another cup and proceeded to do the same thing. I finally got her juice ready and turned on Jack. She was happy as a clam.

The dogs not so much, they got a whack to the head with the book that they chewed up. Of course it had to be one of her favorites. Anyone know where we can get another copy of Snoozers by Boynton on the cheap?

Falling for you

I can't believe it is almost Halloween. Furthermore I cannot believe it has been since April the last time I posted. Sooooo much has happened. Kenyon is almost 15.5 months old, weighs 27lbs and is about 33+ inches tall, and has 8 teeth. Sara is approaching 11 in December. She spent Oct 6-10 with us. She got to go to King Tut and the DMA and the Alliance airshow.

Here are a few pictures of our pumkin excursion & Sara at the FT Worth Gardens.

Spring Has Sprung

I found this sweet little flower blooming in the front yard the other day. My irises have taken off this year they are almost as tall as the rosebush in the front flower bed. My pretty brown one finally bloomed along with the yellow, purple and white ones. I found some gladiola bulbs in the shed last weekend. I planted them in the rose garden in the back. My roses there are about to explode with blooms. I guess the gladiolas will bloom late summer. They always remind me of Grandma O'Bryan. She has so many of them planted around her trailer. Every time I see them or pansies I miss her even after all these years.


I was telling Hank that One of the things I learned from Grandma was to always give money to the American Legion when they were passing out paper poppies. She always had one in the lapel of her coat. It is hard to believe she has been gone 23 years this month. I remember a number of years ago I saw a bowl of those peanut butter logs. I almost began to cry. She had a small bowl of them sitting on the ledge in her kitchen of the Sycamore house. I find that there are several memories that are triggers, most are surrounding her gardens and flowers. I think she is the one who first taught me to appreciate a garden. She had a garden that I did not have to pick endless rows of green beans or wonder how much cooked, mushy squash I would have to eat before I could leave the table.

Sorry, Mom & Dad. I love your little baby carrots, just not the patty pan squash.

A Sweet Irish Lassie

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I know it has been a while so I won't bore you with a bunch of commentary on our life. I am fully aware that most of you look at this blog for pictures of the kids, especially if you are a gparent.

We are all holding up pretty well. The sleeping thing is getting better, but since the time change and the cold Kenyon is fighting it has digressed.

Little Bit is on the move and refuses to be contained for very long. here are some pictures of her in what we fondly call the Baby Jail

Kenyon is working on eating new foods every week. I introduced her to Mum Mums, rice crackers that disolve in your mouth. I was holding a piece while she ate them. Of course she got tired of that real quickly and she reached over and took it out of my hand and crammed it in hers. At daycare the other day she stole cut up waffles off another kid's tray and crammed them in her mouth. I guess she was telling us she was ready for solid finger foods. Two teeth and she thinks she can eat steak

February came along with visits from Nana, PaPa, and Sara. Here are a few pictures of their visit.

While Sara was visiting we she picked out the cutest blouse that she plans to wear today, St Pat's day. She looked so grown up in her shirt, new skirt, and new shoes. You could tell felt it too.

And finally, on March 7 we had snow, about 2-3 inches on top of about an inch of sleet. Needless to say it melted the next day in the 54 degree heat. Ahhhh, Texas weather.....

Once bitten....

Our little girl has her first tooth! I think she is working on cutting her second tooth. It was rough going and a few nights of endless whining, but with teething tablets and Tylenol we persevered.

February has been busy at the Hotel Johnson, we have had company every weekend this month. ALL the g-parents have been to visit in order to pay homage to our girl. She started crawling this month. Kenyon is a hoot. She is moving much faster and her goal is to get to the tile floor. The closer she gets the faster she goes. The first time she made it she looked around as if to say, "What now? I've never been this far before."

Kenyon has become quite the music protege. Hank came home from picking her up at daycare and found her sitting at the piano pounding out a tune and singing for all her peeps in Infant room 2. So we did what any good parent would do, we ran out and bought her a piano; a little tykes piano, not a baby grand.

Sara placed first in her group recitation. It is a regional competition where elementary school kids recite poems and plays. Her solo poem was Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Rold Dahl. I managed to get a couple of pictures off her school website

I'll post more this weekend. I have more from the g-parents, big sister, and Kenyon's new baby jail.

Happy Valentine's Day!

We had a milestone this week. Miss K began to crawl. She is still tentative, but she has figured out if she puts her hands out, picks them up, and moves her knees she just might get somewhere. Up until now she would get up on her hand and knees and rock back and forth all the while whining because she wasn't going anywhere.

This was promptly followed by collapsing face first on to the carpet in disgust. The dogs are not too sure about her new found independence. As you can see from these pictures they are in for a merry chase.







We are all still fighting the respiratory crud. Hank & I have reduced ourselves to hanging over Kenyon while we give her breathing treatments just to get a bit of steam. I swear we are all just passing it back and forth.

I lost the first weigh in for the Biggest Loser. Hank lost 3 pounds and I lost two. It isn't fair that he can finish off the last of a carton of Blue Bell Homemade Vanilla ice cream and still lose weight. Damn men and their fast metabolisms. It is wasted on a species whoe doesn't care how many months pregnant their beer gut makes them look. He is still trying to decide what my task is going to be, but if he doesn't hurry up time will run out. Our next weigh in is Monday.

Mom & Dad will be here on Saturday. They will not believe how big our little one has gotten. As of Monday she is 20 pounds and change. She will be walking before we know it.

We are very excited that Nana will be joining us in February for Sara's next visit. She hasn't seen Kenyon since she was three weeks old. I know it has been very difficult admiring Miss K from afar. Don't worry she had been saving some special kisses just for you, Nana.

On a serious note, please pray for my friend Gayle and her family. Her sister is going through a medical issue and could use a special thought or small prayer. Our friend Mike made it back from Iraq this month and will return in March, and last we hear Rob is scheduled to be deployed in February. Please keep the soliders that you know and those you don't in your thoughts and prayers. Pray for peace in the region and peace of mind for the families.

The baby count rises, Jess had her baby boy, Aiden. Julie is down to her last two weeks. Erin (not sister Erin, bookclub Erin) has a few weeks left as does Amy (cousin Amy, not bookclub Amy) That will leave Pam and Beth. By the time Pam delivers everyone in booklub will have had a baby since last January. We joke that we should write a book called, "The Bookclub Girl's Guide to Getting Knocked Up" We could have all kinds of literary references to getting PG, delivering, and parenting. I think we have something here.

I am the Walrus....

No teeth for Kenyon, yet, but she loves using her binky as a chew toy. She cracks me up with the different ways she finds to cram that thing in her mouth. She will stick her thumb all the way in the nipple part and carry it around that way. I don't mind because she doesn't drop it so much. The other day, she was playing on the floor with it stuck on her thumb and every once in a while she would stop and stick it in her mouth.

Hank & I did our first weigh in for the Biggest Loser. I have bookclub tonight so I told him he could have the rest of the ravioli for dinner, he accused me of trying to make him lose the contest. I told him whatever.

We were both off today so we went to the movies and saw P.S. I Love You. It was a very sweet movie. It was the first movie we went to see since the 8th month of my pregnancy. We went to childbirth class and then went to see Knocked Up. It was a baby themed day.

Kenyon is getting to be mobile, we need to babyproof the house. Jackson gave us a test over the weekend. She still can't sit up on her own, but she will lean on one hand and play with the other. It is funny. She has also discovered Hank's hat. She loves trying to grab it off his head.

Our girl has learned to stand on her own feet. Hank helped her stand and she hangs on to the edge of the Pack n Play. She is trying so hard to get moving and shaking well before we or the house is ready for her to be mobile. Our house is a death trap right now.

Uncle Omar and Aunt Emma gave Kenyon her A&M t-shirt for Christmas. I managed to get a snap shot of her wearing it for the first time, but then she had a blow-out and I had to change her.

Hank thought it was kind of funny that she pooped on A&M.

Happy New Year!

Better late than never. I can't seem to get ahead of the game this month, I can't believe January is inching to the end of the month. This year I am committed to kicking the blog up a notch, so I am going to try out a few new things. One of them is adding slide shows for certain groups of pictures. You are looking at my first slide show. This is Kenyon on Christmas day rolling around with some of her new toys that Santa brought her.

So much has happened since our Christmas post. Miss K has started cereal. She caught on quick to swallowing and spitting stuff out. We are adding a new fruit or veggie every Saturday. So far sweet potatoes and green beans are a hit. Bananas, not so much. I hope to reintroduce those later and fake her out.
Our little girl is not so little. She turned 6 months on January 8 and went to the pedi dr. to get h.er shots. She cried, but recovered quickly. She is 19 pounds and 27 in long. Both in the 95%. Her head is 17, and is in the 72%. We have got to transition her to her big girl car seat soon because I can barely lift her when she is in her infant carrier. We are debating price vs. safety ratings before we decide which ones to buy. We will buy two, one for each car. It is easier than hauling the car seat in and out of the vehicles everyday.
I started Weight Watchers at work on Dec 17th. I made it through Christmas with minimal damage. As of last week I have lost 7.2 pounds. I still have a ways to go, but I take it a week at a week at a time. I have begun working out (again) and am feeling better already. There is a group of us at work all doing WW in some variation, so we have started a support group. I told them I was able to lose the baby weight by the time I got back to work, so now I am moving on to the newlywed weight and then will have to tackle the fell in love weight.

Hank & I are launching our own rendition of the Biggest Loser. We got the idea form my friend, Holly. The winner for the week picks a task or chore for the other person to complete before the next weigh in. We both agreed NO SABOTAGING! No hauling B&J ice cream in the house.

This weekend Mike and Teresa Birmingham came to visit. Mike & Hank went to school together in New York. Mike is still in the service and will be deployed soon. Please keep him (and Teresa) in your prayers. We had a great visit with them along with their sweetie pie little boy, Jackson. He would come up to me and wrap his arms around my leg and smile up at me. Melt your heart. No wonder boys have their moms boonswaggled. As you can tell from the photo it is difficult to tell who is the kid and who is the 35 year old.

Well, you are now caught up on what the Johnson's are up to. Here is one more picture from Christmas. So, I know the new year has technically past, but you could look at it as I am early for the Chinese New Year!

Happy New Year!