Kegan's first Texan Birthday Party

Sunday Grammy and Grampy along with Aunt Nikki and the kids made it to Texas. Thanks to Aunt Sherry, we celebrated Kegan's birthday early for her first Texas birthday. All the France cousins were there and Paran Aaron too. We had a great time. Surprisingly Kegan has great manners and was more interested in the cards than the gifts at first. Aunt Sherry made Kegan a great cake and Aunt Nikki decorated it extra special. It was so pretty. Kegan got to wear her special birthday suit made by her Aunt Alex.

Cute birthday girl!

Hey! Somebody gonna read this thing?

Ring-around-the-rosie-ing, with Grammy

Wow, look at that cake!

Wait a minute, where are you taking the chocolaty goodness?

We moved Kegan to the kitchen and covered her in a dish towel, which ended up looking more like a poncho....perfect for Texas. Everyone watched waiting to see what Kegan would do. Once she got a taste of the sweet, she was digging in. Aunt Sherry also made birthday cupcakes, so we switched to that since Kegan could handle it easier, and boy did she! A few times Aunt Sherry thought we would have to give Kegan the Heimlich she was inhaling the cupcake so fast. We managed to slow her down for a little while with milk, then time for round two. After she was done, she didn't want to think about eating her dinner....I know, I know....stupid giving her dessert before dinner, but if you can't do it on your birthday, than when else can you!?

Aha! we meet again.

Ummmm! delectable! Do I taste a hint of Belgian chocolate?

No, wait, maybe German?

I really can't be sure

Nick is wondering why everyone is watching "that baby" eat the cake and he isn't getting any.

Wow, a Kegan size cake. Now, this I can handle!

See how well it all fits in my mouth at one time!

What? I'm fine, really Aunt Sherry! The gagging was just a little joke!

According to Pawpa......Aaaaaahhhhhh!

After that we moved on to the gifts. The card from Aunt Nikki was the coolest. It sang Jojo's Circus. Kegan really enjoyed her gifts.

Oooohhh, what's in there?

Wow, new pj's!

Kegan raising the roof, to her musical vacuum

Birthday parties are so much fun!

a busy few weeks

We have had a few busy weeks, so sorry no update. Last week, Kegan and I took a last minute trip to Raceland to be with her Pawpa during his liver biopsy. It was so good to visit, and Pawpa needed his spirits lifted since he's been feeling so crummy. We just got the results today of Dad's biopsy and it is liver cirrhosis, blah! Still more tests to be done to get together a plan for treatment so we are trying to stay positive that we can get him back to feeling somewhat normal soon. While we visited, Kegan got to spend some time with her cousins too. She and Ava are so cute together. They had the best time passing Ava's Marie cat around.

The next video is of Ava singing. To the trained ear, you can hear her singing Elmo's World. She is quite the singer just like her brother. Her favorite part of the song is the fanfare at the end which you can see as she performs it with dramatic flare (like her brother)!!

On the way home from our trip, Kegan officially turned me into the lady on the plane with the screaming baby. She has taken 5 or so plane trips and been a total angel....except for the return trip to Dallas. We sat next to a man in a nice buisness suit...of course. Kegan loved touching his computer screen, his nice shirt with cookie hands, his face while he tried to sleep.....how that man didn't get up and move I don't know. He acted like it didn't bother him, but I don't know. Kegan kicking him constantly had to have gotten on his nerves. It was an hour of hell. We were both exhausted when we arrived in Dallas from our in-flight "wrestling match".

Then one night at home, and off to San Antonio for the Rock and Roll Marathon. Madison along with one of his friends from work, Jodi, and his family, ran. Jodi's wife and sister-in-law ran the half marathon along with Madison while Jodi braved the marathon. Kegan and I were the running cheerleaders. It was a really cool race. Kegan and I armed with a spectator map, went to the start fo the race and ran to different parts of the course to cheer Madison on. We actually missed him at one point becuase he was so far ahead of his goal pace. At mile 2 Madison hooked up with three elite women in the marathon and ran with them through mile 10 when the two courses split. They were followed by a truck with a time clock that was taking live video of the women....and Madison. He went there hoping to run 1:18 and finished at 1:14:42. We were so excited.

The Marathon crew and their supporters

Mommy and Kegan after an awesome Cracker Barrell lunch

Today it was back to same old. After getting in at 10:30 last night, Madison and I had to go to work. Madison could barely walk by the end of the day as his post-race soreness set in. He went to get a massage after work. Paran Aaron came by to visit since he missed us all weekend. Kegan was so glad to see him

Kegan's First Halloween

Well, Kegan is sick again. I suppose she just never has gotten better, just waxes and wanes between bad and worse. She is now on breathing treatments and some oral steroids for her new wheezing cough. It is going along nicely with her ear infection which has had for 2 months. Albuterol is pretty funny stuff. It is like Kegan crack. She gets pretty hyper with it, but is happy for the most part.
So since Kegan isn't 100%, we tried to enjoy some of the Halloween festivities before she turned into a pumpkin. We lit our jack-o-lantern Kegan and her Daddy carved last weekend and Kegan and her Dad enjoyed some yummy candy. Her first piece of candy was a 100grand bar. As you can see she enjoyed it thoroughly.

Yummy chocolate!

Uh, Oh! Too much dancing with slippery candy.

Splat!

That's ok. I have more!

Kegan enjoying her candy!

You can see the sugar high begin to flicker and fade....going, going, gone!!

Let the post-candy meltdown begin!

So we decided to quickly put Kegan in her costume and send her on her way to score some more candy. Not like we didn't have plenty here, but we had to let her experience the Halloween magic of neighbors handing out goodies just because you are cute.

Yeah, this is what we started with. Guess how long the trick-or-treating lasted?

Kegan quickly came home with her big score! She made it to one house and was done.

Kegan quickly took to the tootsie pop, and whoever said taking candy from a baby was easy, didn't meet my baby! We had to strip her down and let her have at it. She ate almost the whole thing. Even tried out some of the wrapper. She gave that part back later....fun!

Kegan is Big Stuff

Kegan is officially a big girl. She got to ride forward facing on her way to school. She was super excited to see everything up front. Guess now we can actually use the video system in the car. Hope it works since we have used it maybe 3 times in the two years we have had my car. Little miss hot stuff!!

Sunday Kegan cheered the Cowboys on to a win while wearing her shirt bought for her by Aunt Sherry.

Go Cowboys!

In the background of this picture you can see Kegan's favorite toy....not the baby doll, the medicine bottle. I put some candy corns in it and it makes the best shaker. Kegan loves it almost as much as the rattle she stole from Ava.

Trying to help mama take pictures

Kegan's Nanny Jennifer will be so proud to see Kegan loving her baby....sort of. She does it so good, but I can't seem to get her to perform well for the camera. She really is so cute whenever she comes across her doll, she stops to sit and ah, ah, ah and pat her baby. She even will give it a kiss every now and then.

The Texas Country Reporter Festival

Since it was a beautiful Saturday and we had nothing planned to do, we ended up at the Texas Country Reporter festival in Waxahachie, TX. It is about a 40 minute drive from us. Madison and I attended 2 years ago and there were some pretty neat vendors there. The town is pretty neat too. Some really nice old homes. So we called up Uncle Aaron and we were off shortly after lunch. One of the first things we came to was a horse to pet. Kegan wasn't very thrilled about it at all to my disappointment. I thought she would think it was a really big dog or something....because she really likes to pet dogs and cats.

Reluctant to pet the horse

Do I really have to touch this thing?

Ooooh, that's really soft, like a really good pillow!

On this one we learned that it is true that when you lean on a horse, it leans back.

Next, we were off to find the kettle corn. The kettle corn here is possibly some of the best in the world. We ate some of that and washed it down with a huge glass of sweet tea. Both of these Kegan enjoyed thoroughly. Then we moved on the the New York hotdog guy. This guy came today with 1,000 dogs and at 4:00, we were buying 2 of the last 5. I would never eat a hotdog with onions or sauerkraut, but for some reason it all goes beautifully on his dogs. He runs a little stand off some random highway and people come for miles to get his dogs...for good reason too. As Kegan's first hotdog....she absolutely loved it. What is it with kids and hotdogs? I got 2 bits of mine and she ate the rest.

Shoveling it in

Impatience!!

Little Miss Piggy!!

Finally slowing down, really, how much can that tummy hold?

She even enjoyed chewing on the foil wrapper, that was good and all until we realized she was gnawing little bits off with her piranha chompers.

Protesting that I took her foil away for the picture.

Fall Festival Fun

Friday night was Fall Festival at Kegan's daycare. We were a little concerned because it started at 6:30 which is Kegan's bedtime. We couldn't miss it though because it was her first opportunity to wear her Halloween costume.....which is really cute. To help combat the screaming meanies, we headed to Chili's for a great supper. Kegan loves the mushroom jack fajitas. She ate three strips of chicken and a bunch of mushrooms. She also downed a cup of squash I brought from home. And of course, no Chili's meal is complete without chocolate molten cake......yummy!!! We all helped devour it.....I think Kegan ate the most. By the time we got back to school, Kegan was getting pretty tired, so it took a lot of effort to get her interested in anything.....especially posing for pictures.

Refusing to look at the camera....too much other stuff to look at!

I promise Kegan did eat a bunch, but the belly is part of the costume.

Finally a few smiles!

Again, not looking at the camera.

Kegan finally looks at the camera, but Daddy isn't....can't win.

Fall Fun!!

Today Madison and I finally m et with a lawyer to have our last will and testament done.....It was suprisingly easy. We were referred to a great lawyer by our financial advisior. We were in and out in about 30 minutes....whew! Since it went by so fast, we had the rest of the afternoon to spend with our "cutie pie". The weather was gorgeous, so we headed to the park down our street. Kegan enjoyed the swing first. There was a rogue neighborhood dog chasing a rabbit in the woods, so we figured it safer to keep her off the ground. Swinging was fun until she started trying to escape.

Wheeeeee!

This is fun!

Planning her escape!

What, I'm not doing anything?

Sitting in the rocks.

Oooooh, pretty!

Tasty!

Want some?

Why can't I eat them? They look so good.

Time to go! Tired baby.