'Tis the season to take pictures...

Would you like to send out one of those heart-warming family pictures to send out with your Christmas card? I sure would! I love getting those pictures, so I dress Andrew in his finest red pajamas and Christmas bib. He's picture perfect anyway, so this shoudl be fun and easy. Right? WRONG. Thank goodness for digital cameras, and being able to take COUNTLESS pictures that you can preview before printing (although we still printed a bunch to be sure).

Anyway, after approximately 30 charming pictures of Andrew and/or Lady in front of the freshly decorated tree, we gave up. Some of them weren't so bad; however, the crazy eyes and evil grins just didn't do our sweet babies justice. Maybe a Christmas photo is a pipedream? No! We can't give up this easily. Now, who's the poor schmuck that gets the honor of being our Christmas photgrapher? Grandma and Grandpa... haha Shacklett suckers!

So, here's the winner and a couple of close seconds.

Happy holidays!

:)

Anne

This Time Last Year

At this time last year, I was 7 months pregnant. On the right, is December 8th at a shower. I still had cheek bones and ankles.
























By December 15ththings started to "pop" as they say, and I was extremely fun to be around. I think it had to with my legs looking like tree trunks, hormones surging through my body, and Jason telling me it looked like I ate the girl in front of me at graduation. Anyway, as one could imagine, I had trouble choosing a picture for our Christmas card. I found something wrong with each and every shot. The shot to the left was taken after my graduation from TWu, where I waddled all the way across the stage.

The shot below was taken on Christmas morning. After a breif scare and an overnight stay in the hospital for observation, I was looking quite beautiful. Nothing says Merry Christmas like a shirt stretched to the farthest possible point. (I wore this shirt yesterday, and thankfully it was baggy.)

Wow. Here's to 35 pounds ago....

:)

Anne

Toddlers make great sitters.

It's true. Toddlers make good babysitters. Check out the sweetness below. After a riveting game of memory, it was time for pajamas and singing to get Andrew ready for bed. Jack and Macy helped with the singing. (By the way, I'm so sorry we judged, Great Uncle Al... Jack is a-maz-ing at memory. None of us had a chance.)

Another idea that seems to be lost on people over the age of 2 is naked eating. Naked eating is amazing. Andrew naked eats in the kitchen, in the living room, and sometimes on the changing table. He has no negative body issues about his baby boobies or his beautiful Buddha belly. He's Buddha-ful. The food goes on forever, and the cheeks, they never end.

I love Fat Baby. He's my favorite.

:)

Anne

PS: After several weeks at day care, the new sitter and I chat quite frequently. Finally feeling comfortable with me, she asked, "Do you always call him Fat Baby?". I laughed and replied, "Of course not, sometimes I call him Stinky Baby."

Where does the time go?

Has anyone seen November? It FLEW by. Holy smokes. It's damn near mid-December, and I'm finally posting about the glorious month of the Turkey.

Andrew spent the entire month doing two things: crawling and eating. Sometimes he did both at the same time. Sometimes he did one, so he could do the other.

And don't bother asking to share. He's definitely not down with that.

Oh yeah, he's been growing, too. He's been growing a few jacked up teeth and a baby mullet. It's mad trashy, but we love it. And it seems to make him happy. If only his tuxedo onesie still fit...

In November, we celebrated Thanksgiving, which is now Andrew's favorite holiday because the whole thing centers around his favorite past time: eating. Although offered a fabulous feast of holiday goodies, he stuck to the basics. He feasted on Ritz crackers, the occasional smear of mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie. He had at least a 2 year old's share of pumpkin pie. Attaboy! Way to make mommy proud.

Hmmm... What's my plan of attack with this Turkey fellow?
No mercy for the bird.... take him down.

See you later, turkey! I have crackers to eat.

I had all these plans for a cute picture with the turkey, but Andrew had different ideas. What do most 9 month olds do after stuffing their faces? Go riding on motorcycles with their super cool Daddies. Chris tried many different safety helmets; however, in order to protect the entire head, he had to settle for one from Dumb and Dumber. Way to go, Daddy!

After Andrew ate and rode the hog around Oklahoma City, he took a crawl threw his new fun house from Aunt Lisa.

Thanks for a fabulous Thanksgiving everyone! We can't wait for Christmas!

:)

Anne

It's the Great Uncle Al, Charlie Brown

As with his birth many years ago, we enjoyed our traditional Halloween festivities with the lovable, huggable Great Uncle Al. The kids all had a blast playing with The Great Uncle Al. He arrived on a Wednesday and was treated to a rousing night at the bowling alley, which Andrew, Chris and I missed. However, we all had some quality family time on Halloween night and Saturday night.

The Halloween night photos are marinating in Martha's camera, and I will add those to the Chubby Cub 2 someday....

Here are the events from Saturday night's excitement.

Andrew, Macy, and Jack spent some quality one-on-one time with Al and took turns deciding if they trusted Uncle Great Al. I wouldn't say they welcomed immediately, but things began to look up for Al shortly thereafter.

Below: Macy has been caught on camera doing what she does best... looking for food.

Soon, Martha's kids were won over with food.

After the feeding, the love fest began with board games. Poor Great Unlce Al never had a chance. Jack may seem sweet, but he's a Spiderman Memory Shark. In the picture below, he is literally schooling Al in the ways of Spiderman Memory. Al lost 21 to 13 (I think...). Either way, Jack taunted him the rest of the night. There's nothing quite like the sting of losing to a four year old and his 2 year old sidekick.

After games, we all grabbed some of my mom's amazing brisket and settled in to watch football. We were so full throttle that Scott rigged another T.V. in the family. Everyone got to watch the game of their choosing. Although, we didn't all get the outcomes we would have chosen for our teams. Then we headed to the front room, so Great Uncle Al and the three Cheeseballs could have a photo op. Here are the shots worth sharing. Getting everyone to smile at the same time proved to be very tricky. In order to get Andrew to smile, I sang The Itsy Bitsy Spider. Great success!! Andrew smiled! Look at Macy... She was no match for the intoxicating rythym of The Itsy Bitsy Spider, so her hands had to sing along.

Now, if you didn't already notice, look closely at Great Uncle Al's eye color and Andrew. They are strikingly similar with those baby blues. We had lots of fun with Great Uncle Al, and maybe someday we'll make it up to visit him and Great Aunt Audrey in the frozen tundra.

:)

Anne

The Chubby Cub, Part 2

Pumpkin Carving. Even though all of us were battling some sort of respiratory junk, we spent a little time out in Wylie, so Andrew wouldn't miss his first Halloween. (Phew, he would never forgive us if we missed this.)

Anyway, the evening started with pumpkin carving. Shortly after seeing the disgusting mess that fills the pumpkins, all three kids were out on the pumpkins. So, the dads and Great Uncle Al (his visit will be a post of its own later) took to the dirty deed of scooping out the gunk. Apparently, Chris feels the same way about the pumpkin guts.

Look at that tail... seriously, I wanted to eat him up!

Trick-or-Treating. Ahh, yes... The wonderful Halloween tradition where parents teach their children it's ok to take candy from strangers. What about "stranger danger"? Let's just put that on the back burner for one night, so we can get loads of candy, calories, and cavities. Anyway, Andrew indulged in some more trick-or-treating by hitting the hot spots (hots spots like the five houses closest to Martha's).

Chris and I initially took Andrew out there to snap a few shots of the Chubby Cub with his cousins, Tinker Bell and The Ninja. After pictures, GREAT Uncle insisted that the Chubby Cub didn't get dressed up for nothin', and that he should go door to door. Who am I to deny Martha's neighbors the chance to see my super cute kid?

At the first house, the doorbell rings, and the neighbor opens the door to see an adorably confused Tinker Bell (cat ears, really?) , a very fierce Ninja, and an infant holding a pumpkin with 5 pieces of candy that he can't eat yet. Which one of these does not belong?

Where did those five pieces of candy come from if we hadn't started yet? Well, Uncle Jason gave everyone some "Starter" candy. In his words,"You don't want the neighbors to think this was our first house." Of course we wouldn't Jason. There's even a strategy to trick-or-treating. That's good to know. Andrew would have been the laughing stock.

I will be adding to this post as soon as Martha sends me the pumpkin carving pictures... They are hilarious. Until then, I must start a new post for the GREAT Uncle Al.

:) Happy Halloween (two weeks ago)

Anne

The Chubby Cub, Part 1

Andrew had his first Halloween, and he decided that he wanted to be a lion cub. After hours of searching, he decided to accentuate his fabulous, and relatively new, Buddha belly. Well, we will get to those fantastic pictures a little later. Let's take it chronologically for now.

The Pumpkin Patch. Andrew was feeling pretty sick that day, so the patch wasn't full of smiles. He's still a cute little booger though... He even has cute little boogers in all the pictures.
Remember, it's not the size of your pumpkin, Punkin'.

The Halloween Party. At Andrew's daycare, they have a Halloween party with trick-or-treating and everything! Trick-or-treating for an 8 month old?? That's what I thought. I almost took time off of work to watch the 6 babies being pushed in the giant stroller to go trick-or-treating around the nursery... I decided to tough it out and go to work. Andrew got to party hard without mom and dad there to embarrass him. In lieu of a costume, Andrew chose to sport a Halloween onesie. He really wanted to save the costume for "the real thing", or at least that's how he put it. Here's Andrew with his pumpkin wearing the Halloween ensemble for the cold morning of the Halloween shindig.



Stay tuned for The Chubby Cub, Part 2....

:)
Anne

PS: In the very near future: Pedialyte's for suckas and The Great Uncle Al.