happy birthday jesus

merry christmas at the fuquay house.  brooks woke up and was thrilled that santa had come to our house and ate his cookies and carrotts.  what a wonderful thing to watch! 

santa came via atlanta to bring brooks a brand new strider bike like his buddy xander has.  what a thrill!  we haven't been able to get him off of it for 3 days.  it's too snowy and icy to ride it outside, but there are ruts in our hardwoods from riding around the house!

santa didn't forget our sweet kate and brought her a new walker that she loves.  she isn't pushing it around on her own yet, but we know it's coming soon.

we loved having nana and papa in town to celebrate christmas.  we opened presents all morning with lots of breaks for yummy treats and finished the day with a big turkey dinner and all the trimmings. 

we had a wonderful christmas and hope that all you reading did too. we are so blessed by our family and friends and thank you all for making our christmas special with your gifts, cards, calls and thoughts.

christmas eve

a wonderful christmas eve celebration with early family church service, driving to see christmas lights and a wonderful yummy dinner after the kids went to bed. 

kate wore her beautiful christmas dress from richard's aunt dorothy.  what a special gift - kate looked like a little present.

couldn't get big brother to pose for too many pictures so this is the best we have of the two.  at what age do they start sitting still together!?!

getting ready for church with nana

about to go to bed - brooks left out 4 cookies for santa, carrotts for rudolph and dancer (he said) and soy milk in case santa liked the same milk as brooks.  this was so cute and the first year brooks got into the santa thing.  gotta soak it in before the years fly by.

11 months

a little behind and unorganized but here are our 11 month pictures.  we have a had a few germ bugs take over our house in the last couple of weeks, and brooks, kate and mommy just keep passing them around.   

at 11 months we want to remember:

• kate seems like so much more of a big girl now.  she is so spirited and sometimes a little high maintenence! that red hair is starting to show a little more somedays
• she weighs almost 20 pounds but still prefers all the baby food jars to anything she has to eat herself.  (other than puffs which she would eat all day if we let her)
• she has 6 full teeth and two more breaking through
• she is pulling up on furniture but not really cruising yet.  her crawling is getting faster and faster. 
• she likes playing with the little people and zoo animals and picking up any crumbs off the floor.  kate also likes books all of a sudden and points at the ones she wants.
• she does not like having her diaper changed or having any toy taken away from her. she also screams when we try to wipe her nose - poor baby has had a runny nose for a week now.
• she has started playing at a stand up table with music and lights and seems to like the loud noises.  she also dances when she hears music.

at almost 3 brooks is a total big boy.  we have had a few tastes of what the 3 year old attitude might be, but on most days he is still a sweet guy.  we are definitely entering the time when i need to have a notepad with me all the time to write down the hilarious and sweet things he says.  lately he has enjoyed his christmas parties at school, sledding in the front yard and with friends, "camping" in the basement with daddy, and having a "sleepover" with mom when daddy was out of town.  (that was more fun for him as mommy got kicked repeatedly in the head throughout the night!)

I didn't know that a stationary car could slide down a driveway and into the street.

catching up before christmas

front yard sledding in an early december snowstorm

tebow mania at the fuquay house

decorating the christmas tree

playing with brother's toys all the time

boompa and moompa came to visit

pulling up on everything!

denver zoo lights tour - brrrrr! 

showing off her new standing up skills

kate also turned 11months but has been under the weather and we haven't taken our official pictures yet.  we promise not to miss a month though - check back soon!

so thankful for thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  We had a great turkey day weekend with the Fuquays in town. We ate tons of good food and enjoyed leftovers for three days, watched more football than one would think possible, played a little mexican train, took walks to the park, and just enjoyed having family in town. 

Brooks & Richard prepping the turkey

Kate's first thanksgiving!  they even make turkey and vegetable baby food.

so much fun getting out all the china and crystal for a beautiful feast

Brooks made this turkey hat at church last week.  we all took a silly picture in the hat.  not too flattering, but funny!

The Kathryns

kate looks cuter in the turkey hat - hilarious!

10 months

kate is just as surprised as we are that she is already 10 months old!  it's been another great month, very busy and full of exciting things for the kids and our family. 

At 10 months...



• kate is crawling - mostly army crawling on her forearms, but even gets up on all fours and moves a bit. 
• another big tooth entered the picture (5 total) and we started brushing kate's teeth - really kate just started eating her toothbrush, but it counts!  teeth have been a much rougher road for baby kate than i remember with brooks.  poor baby seems so sad and has trouble sleeping when they are coming in.
• we took a trip to florida for aunt kathleen's wedding at the beach.  kate was the honorary "flower girl," and i carried her down the aisle with me.  brooks was a super ring bearer and walked down all by himself. 
• Kate is eating everything in sight - richard calls her a hamster because she has a special affinity for paper products and wood chips.  we are constantly pulling things out of her mouth and i'm going to have to start keeping a cleaner house!
• as kate's hair gets longer we have started putting more bows on her head - she is just getting prettier all the time (not biased we know).
• kate's first halloween - she was a monkey and stayed warm and cuddly in her costume. 

Brooks continues to be a cute big brother and seems older everyday.  his vocabulary is increasing all the time and he is so much easier to understand.  he also seems to be coming out of his shell more - dancing to music, saying hi to strangers, and being the center of attention at kathleen's wedding.  He is constantly singing his songs he learns at school and puts on quite a show for everyone when he performs.  he loves playing with zoo animal figures, tennis rackets (sometimes as guitars), dump trucks and loaders, and anything airplanes. 

On the parent front, it has also been an eventful month.  Richard wrapped up all of his interviews and has a  job lined up following fellowship next summer.  After a long search and much deliberation, weighing all the factors and prayer, we have decided to take a job with a great practice in dallas starting next september.  it is going to be a great professional fit and we are looking forward to being closer to some of our family.  the decision is of course bittersweet as we love being in colorado and the friends (new and old) we have here.  everyone in colorado thinks we must be crazy to think of leaving (we might be) but we are already looking forward to many future ski trips back. 

happy thanksgiving everyone - we are so thankful for our sweet kiddos and each other this year.

getaway

Last week we took a trip to florida for Aunt Kathleen's wedding in Palm Beach and added on a few days in Fort Lauderdale with just our family.  The kids loved seeing Boompa & Moompa, swimming in the pool, and being a part of all of the wedding festivities. 

Brooks was such a cute ring bearer.  He proudly wore his tuxedo and commented that he looked "handsome."  There will hopefully be some more pictures of the whole tux and kate too but I was a little too busy to take any!  B-man was also the hit of the reception dancing and running around the dancefloor chasing all of the colored lights from the DJ.  we almost didn't recognize him because his usual shy personality was totally gone!

In Fort Lauderdale, we stayed right on the beach and took the town trolley bus for a tour.  The kids were such good travellers and adapted well to sleeping in different places and missing some of their quality naptime. 

1

Congraulations to Aunt Kathleen & Uncle Steven on a great wedding weekend! 

We are so happy for you!

welcome winter

with our second snowstorm in a week, this one dropping 9 inches at our house, i'd say winter is officially here.  darn!

but it sure makes for a lot of fun when the sun comes out again. brooks and i built two quick snowmen today while kate was napping.  so cute!

trick or treat

such a fun halloween weekend here in denver!  we had beautiful weather and a great time with family and friends.  with nana and papa in town we hit the pumpkin patch for a few extra pumpkins on saturday morning, went to a pumpkin carving party at our neighbors house saturday night and had xander, elliott and families over for dinner and trick or treating on monday. 

our little monkey - kate was so cute and warm in her costume.

finally a family shot - too bad the kids never look at the camera.  isn't brooks the cutest giraffe you've ever seen?!?

trick or treating with friends - kolby, elliott & xander.

happy halloween everyone!