A Very Merry Maizie-Filled Christmas

My parents were begging for pictures, so here is a photo-journal of our Christmas weekend. It was our first Christmas to be away from family, but we were able to be with the Georges for Thanksgiving and we are going on a cruise (!) next week with my family. Besides missing family, it was a nice long weekend just to relax and do a whole lot of nothing.

We started it off by planting a tree Saturday. Our duplex neighbor got a free one through the city of Austin, so we helped her plant it and dubbed it our own Charlie Brown Christmas Tree.


On Sunday, Maizie wore this dress I made for her. I still can't believe I made a dress all by myself! It's a bit big, but I couldn't wait another minute to see her in it.


We went out for a Christmas Eve dinner with friends and we put Maizie in her Santa hat. I'm glad she puts up with the things we make her do. We had a great time hanging out with all the other at-home holidayers.


Maizie got to open one gift on Christmas Eve. I think you can tell that she loved her present from PawPaw and Grandmama George.


Santa brought Maizie a cup of reindeer milk and some special Christmas cookies. They were a big hit.


The Christmas dance. Pardon my singing.


Maizie's new "Airplane" from Nana and Papa. She loves it--no shirt and all.


I decided to make Christmas dinner at the last minute. It was pretty much a feast for 8 consumed by 2. Roasted chicken, stuffing, mashed cauliflower and Italian green beans. Yum, yum! And I have no idea what face Jason is making. He kind of looks like Ebeneezer Scrooge. I guess he wanted all the food to himself.

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas, too!

14 Months Going on 14 Years

Today Maizie turned 14 months. Pretty unbelievable. I read a book about Michelangelo awhile back that said that each time he worked on a piece of stone, a living image inside the rock revealed itself to him little by little. It's been amazing to watch our little girl reveal herself to us bit by bit. And this tiny glimpse of the person she will become is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. OK, sap is over. Here's some shots of her being all grown up...

Her first "color". And the last time she actually drew on paper. Her new table is covered with crayon marks. Not to worry--we plan on painting it a glossy chocolate brown.

This is not a pose (since it's pretty impossible to pose a 14 month old). She just really loves her new table and chairs.

Crazy Maizie with the 12 teeth.

Playing at the big kid playground.

And, finally, our piece de resistance (or however you spell that in french). Here is Maizie's new dance. Her hip-shaking ways may be reminiscent to those of you who were there for the "Love Shack Dancing Debacle of 2003". Let's just say we know where she got her moves from. We may have to keep a tight reign on this one...

What is the Gestation Period for a house, again?

So, yeah, about that house thing. We met with the mortgage people on Wednesday and come to find out you can't keep a rent house and buy an affordable home at Mueller. So our masterplan is a no go. We could buy a house and sell it when our number comes up (but that seems risky and complicated to me) or give up on the idea of Mueller all together (but that sounds sad to me) or just find a new (cheaper and bigger and dishwasher-laden) place to rent for the next couple of years. There are a lot of variables to consider, so we will be looking at everything over the next couple of months and praying for some guidance.

So I guess we are house-pregnant, we just have NO idea when this enormous baby will be born. We feel blessed that we're in a situation that we have options at all, it's just hard choosing between them right now. Thanks for all your well-wishes!

32 Big Ones

No fancy pictures or clever words, just a big happy birthday to my sweet Jason.

His birthday began with a run to the pharmacy at 1 a.m. to get eye drops for Maizie.

That pretty much is the picture of why I love him.

Can't wait to spend 32 more years with him.

Another Laffy Taffy Joke

What do you call a chicken crossing the road?

Poultry in motion.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA.

We're Expecting....a House!

So, lots of you have asked about the Mueller development that we signed up for last spring. We're still on the list (#66), but as we learn more about it, we are realizing that it may be 2-3 years before our name is called up yonder. We would have to qualify again at that time, so we're worried we may not be so poor by then....:-)

So, we've talked about it alot and prayed about it, and we've decided to find a place to call home in Austin in the meantime. We love fixing things up and can't wait to tear into an old home around here. If we are still meant to live in Mueller, we will be in a position when the time comes to move there. If not, we'll know that we are where we are supposed to be.

I've been amazed at how much house hunting seems to parallel pregnancy--excitement and anxiety are rolled up all together. I've even gotten morning sickness over the thought of this huge commitment! We've been carrying around the dream of owning a house for 6 years, since we were married. But moving every year and a half doesn't really lend itself to home ownership.

Anyway, just thought I'd update my blogging friends on our latest venture. We meet with the mortgage people tomorrow, go house-hunting Thursday and Saturday, and then who knows what happens next? We'll have to throw Christmas in there somewhere! Pray that we make a good decision for our family in the coming years.

It's Beginning to Look Alot Like Christmas

Another post of random pics...but these are good ones, I promise.


Sweet close up. Too bad I didn't pick this shot!

Or this one! I'm the worst on-the-spot decider ever!

Stockings hung from the IKEA shelf with care.

Maizie's first pigtails on Sunday--and proof that she is my child. This is ME when I was a kid.




An Affair with our Living Room Chair. Her favorite place right now.



Swing time.



I wish all boxes were full of gifts like this.

Thankful Photos

I have a feeling that Maizie's not going to understand the concept of a "Naughty Chair" for awhile now. They are her favorite places to be.

Climbing Granny George's stairs with Cecily.

Bundling up with Dad on the chilly farm.

Bundling up with Mommy.















Snow, er, Leaf Bunny.




















Like Grandpa Like Grandson. Travis and PawPaw catch some zzzzz's.











Maizie's first ponytail (look close). Too cute. Only possible with aid of a bottle full of milk, we discovered.

Thinking Inside the Box

Happy Thanksgiving. Here's the latest from Maizie.

"Do not simply play with the toy. Become the toy."

We have a WEENER!

It's official. Maizie George is now fully weened! Woohoo. In other news, she calls me Dad and says Mama when she's hungry. Her favorite word, "Dog" has transformed into "Dojjie" and she walks when we ask her to, but never on her own. Crawling is quicker. So quick, in fact, I'm considering a leash. Almost lost her yesterday at Kinko's.

Oh, and here is her 1 year picture we took a few weeks ago. Turned out really cute. I was pretty adament about no props, but at the end we threw this in there and it ended up being the best shot. A girl and her horse.

In other news, I've been creating an online store on Etsy.com to sell the things I make. I'll share more back-story and future-story about it later, but if you can't wait another second, you can visit my store at bygeorgecreative.etsy.com. Only selling one thing right now, but I will add more later.

Daylight Wastings Time

Me no like-y the time change. I'm currently considering a move to Indiana, if only I had a hankerin' for fields of frozen corn, and if only I didn't use words like "hankerin'".

Can somebody older and wiser explain this to me? It's the dawn of winter. Days are already getting shorter and we short them by an hour?

I went for a walk last night at 6:30 and it was PITCH black out. I normally point out the trees and the birds and the other walking babies and dogs to Maizie. Last night, it was more like, "This color is called black." and "Here's a creepy van that could abduct us."

When we were in Chicago, we visited the site where some really dumb people in the 1950s (?) created Daylight Savings Time. I want to return and spit. Maybe people in the 1950s woke up at 5 a.m. to enjoy the extra hour of sun, and then came inside at 4 p.m. to cozy up by their radios, but this is the 21st Century. The Office doesn't come on until 8, and we want to be outside until 7:55.

P.S. Jason (aka. The All-Correcting One, or the Great Corrector) did some research this morning and let me know I am pitifully mis-informed. Daylight Savings Time is in the Summer and now we're on regular time. So I guess I hate regular time. And the whole clock-changing thing still makes no sense to me at all. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it. Or moving to Indiana. Either one.

Speaking of Cars

1. No one was hurt except the Silver Bullet.
2. It's drivable.
3. So thankful Maizie and I weren't in the car.
4. Jason was NOT wearing a helmet. But his head is perfectly ok.

Helmets ARE Required

Well, mosquita season is over here in Texas and so Festiva season has begun. Jason has spent that last few weekends covered in the grease of his dream car--a tri-colored '88 Ford Festiva. He's at the point where he has taken the engine apart, fixed the root problem (something about a gasket? I dunno) and needs to put it all back together. He even found a buddy in Austin with a fully working Festiva who will let him come look at his car so he can figure out this last (huge) step. Godspeed, Jason.



So, that leads us to a more pressing question. Will our child(ren) ever be allowed to ride in this contraption when it's up and running? We have a car seat for it, but I'm proposing helmets as well. It's a tiny box (I call it a motorcycle-built-for-four) on roads which are filled with trucks and SUVs ten times its size.

In fact, we were driving along the highway today and spotted a Festiva pulled off on the side of the road (where else?). We're in the habit of commenting on every Festiva we see, so we took a good long look. And you'll never guess what we found on the head of the man who was driving that little piece of Jason's heaven. That's right! It was a priceless moment and confirmation that crazy men and my babies CAN and SHOULD wear helmets while Festiving.

Cheering on the Maiz(ie) and Blue

The next Mozart? Well, at least she knows who to ROOT for! And for those naysayers out there, when you can see both her hands, she was playing with her toes! Double genius! Go Big Blue!

M-M-M-M

Happy Halloween from the M-n-M-n-M's. Myra posted the cute studio pics here.

Here are some from this weekend and tonight. Enjoy.

3 little girls (Maizie, Morgandy, Mia). So sweet you could just eat them.


The orange one.


The bag (aka Dad) is holding the M-n-M.


The Yellow (aka Maize) M-n-M loves the orange one.

Thankful for Armpits

Yesterday, as we were getting ready to go to the Fall Festival, Jason picked Maizie up and said "I'm so glad God gave you armpits. It makes it easy to pick you up." I can't say I've ever been thankful for armpits, but it was a reminder that even the stinky things in life are blessings.

Today I'm thankful for all of the days that Maizie has given me good, long naps. She went on strike today and was wide-eyed and bushy-tailed from 9:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Who slipped her the uppers?

Just some thoughts for today.

Rock the Vote 2007

I need your help! I have a frame in my house with candid 5 x 7 pics of Maizie at birth, 3 mos, 6 mos, 9 mos, and a spot for one at 12 mos. She's just so darned cute, I can't decide between these three. I know she's not smiling in any of them but her 9 month shot has a huge cheesy grin, so these will work just fine. Let me know what you think!


Option 1 (aka Little Orphan Maizie)

Option 2 (aka cute as a pumpkin)

Option 3 (aka Treehugger)

The Big One

It was a happy day for my sweet little girl.

It was a day filled with....

Festivities...

Friends... (Maizie and Morgandy started hugging each other today!)

Food... (she wasn't as dramatic a cake-eater as I had hoped, but the cake wasn't around for long.)

And bed-head.

What a difference a year makes. Our lives have been completely turned upside-down (in a good way, I promise) by the gift we received from God last year. She amazes us each and every day and I can't wait to see what else is in store for us in the coming years as we watch her grow.

It's the thoughts that count

Jason will be disappointed, but Oprah taught me something last week. She had someone on who wrote this book and the whole thing was very new age-y and "i am my own god"-ish and so I was only half listening. But one thing stuck out to me. This auther said that whether we like it our not, we all have our own mantras--things we repeat to ourselves over and over--and that the majority of the time our mantras are negative and how much better we would live if we could repeat positive things to ourselves.

The next morning, I woke up to the cries of my daughter and I was exhausted. I stayed in bed for a good 10 minutes before getting up and I thought to myself, "I am a horrible mom." Then I got her up, changed her, plopped her in the high chair with some banana chunks and returned to my bedroom to check email. While checking email, I thought, "I am a horrible mom." DING DING. Holy cow! That is my "mantra" lately! Not good. I prayed right then about something that I could replace it with and I decided on "Thank you, God, for this moment." So far, I'm finding it much more peaceful to live in a thankful state of mind than a self-critical state of mind.

It has gotten me thinking about how important it is to control my thoughts. To further drive the point home, this week in Care Group we were studying Phil. 4--you know the part about "whatever is good, praiseworthy, etc, think about such things" and the book I'm reading (Having a Mary Spirit) just got to a chapter about the war within our minds. Here's a tidbit from that: "When we speak normally, we speak at a rate of about 120 words a minute....but when we self-talk we talk at a rate of about 1,300 a minute...and roughly 70 percent of that talk is negative." I love it when God sends "themes" into my life and it's clear what He wants me to focus on. Just thought I'd share my latest thoughts about thoughts...

The Latest

Some cute pictures from our latest adventures.


Maizie and Grandmamma at the George family reunion. I think she would want me to let you know that that walker is not hers.


Not too sure about bows yet. That's my girl.


Meeting Baby Olivia. She's a BEAUTIFUL baby and Koby and Irma seem like pros already.


Our eldest daughter in a straight-jacket. She's got a war wound on her head from a run-in with an off-leash dog. We were trying to keep it clean and let it heal, but she kept scratching it. So, it's on with the big plastic collar until it's healed. Poor baby girl.

The girls before their photo shoot. It was quite a challenge getting three nearly-1-year-olds to sit still and smile all at once. I think we may have convinced the photographer never to have children, but we got a really cute shot of them in their Halloween costumes (those pics to come at a later date).

Walking Therapy

My family was all together again this weekend to honor the life of my MawMaw, Jane Bass. Before we knew whether we were having a boy or a girl, I would ask family members which they preferred and, without fail, they all said that it didn't matter, just have a healthy baby, yada yada....except for MawMaw. She told me that I had better give her a great-granddaughter and that she wasn't sure she could really be happy with a great-grandson. I'm sure she was (half) joking, but I was most excited to call her and tell her she had gotten her wish.

To mark the day of MawMaw's memorial service, A-maize-ing Jane, as MawMaw called her, did something truly amazing....check it out.

Home Again, Home Again

Our trip to Maryland to be with my family was sad but sweet. The service for my uncle was filled with funny stories, a lot of laughter and some tears. It inspired me to not take anyone I love for granted, to care more for the Lord and care less about what people think about me.

God blessed us with a smooth trip (Maizie's 6th plane trip in a year!) She did so well, she even earned her wings. Here's my little flying ace.


The ultimate multi-tasker. I picture her attaching this to her resume someday...."I've been multi-tasking since I was 11 months old..."


This should make her Papa proud.

Uncle Tim

We received word last night that my favorite Uncle Tim passed away after a 2-year struggle with bladder cancer. He was a big man (6 foot 9) with an even bigger heart. Him and his wife, Anne, have been an incredible example to me of what a loving, Christian marriage looks like.

Maizie and I will be traveling to Maryland sometime this weekend to be with my family. Please pray for my Aunt Anne, my cousins, Brian and Stephen, and for safe travel for everyone.