Georgia and her new BFF!

Georgia has been blessed with a BFF... Tiffany! Tiffany has recently joined our team here and is helping out as an office assistant with our cattle business. She is going to work her part time while she takes classes in Aggieland and we are soooo excited to have her on board. As is Georgia because she thinks Tiffany hung the moon! They hit it off instantly and she just lights up every time she sees Tiffany. Last week I needed to run some errands so Tiffany was able to stay with Georgia for me. I think they had a blast and Tiffany claims Georgia was really good (Ha, sure Tiffany!) but I think they spent most of the time taking pictures. All of these pictures were taken by Tiffany which I did steal from her (by the way - thanks!).

I think this one is just priceless. It is hard to get a picture of Georgia because she is typically on the move and you can't get her to sit still for the camera. Love Love this one!
Here are Georgia and Tiffany...

Georgia loves any type of cell phone, telephone or remote. We typically give in and let her play with our cell phones (only if the keys are locked!) and she particularly likes Tiffany's phone with all the bling!

Jacob stopped in and apparently helped take care of Georgia's baby. Georgia is really into babies right now and hauls all of her babies everywhere. It is amusing to watch her and she gets pretty possesive and protective of them. We are amazed how she naturally knew to take them in their stroller, feed them and give them the pacifier. Plus she even took one of them to the diaper changing table to change its diaper the other day. Too funny. It is amazing that she is already old enough to know all of this and it makes me realize she is growing up too fast. And she's very clever - too smart for her own good!

Prayers for Gemma

As many of you know, our dear special friend, Dana, also known as "Gemma" was air lifted to a San Antonio hospital on Christmas Eve. Doctors said she had been having a heart attack for likely three days and she had a large amount of blockage in three arteries. Because her heart was so weak she had to stay in the hospital throughout Christmas and had open heart surgery the following Monday. She did get to go home FINALLY this Friday and we are so thankful to God that the surgery went well and things are going better. We did go visit her over the New Year's holiday once she was released from ICU into a private room and she seemed to be doing ok, just pretty tired and still shocked that she had to go through this, as we all were!

Please continue to pray for her and ask that God can continue to give her the strength she needs to get better. Hopefully she can be blessed with less stress because we know she deserves it so much with everything she and her family have been through over the past two years! We love her dearly and she is so special to us. Get well soon GEMMA! We love you!

Back to Reality!

The house looks a little sad now that I have put up our Christmas decorations and its back to reality. The month of January is always kinda yucky because it is cold and Christmas is over and its back to work! January is always a hectic month for us with our business so I was pretty bummed to put up the Christmas because I knew what was to come!

We have had some really pretty days and the Sunday we took these pictures it was a gorgeous day (although pretty cold). Georgia looked so cute in her plaid that I dressed her in for church so I had to chase her around to get some pictures.

Watch out - She will scare you!

At Christmas, Uncle Brian kept playing with Georgia and trying to pop around the couch and scare her or chase her down the hallway and scare her. She thought it was so funny and I think she was so exhausted and dilirious that she learned how to do it her self. Here is a video of her making the "RAAAA!" sound and then instantly laughing. It was pretty funny and we were all laughing so hard you can hardly hear her doing it. Maybe you just had to be there to see it...

Christmas with Jacob's Family

We spent Christmas Day evening with Jacob's parents, grandparents, and Aunts, Uncles and cousins. This year, instead of doing the traditional Christmas meal of turkey and ham with all the trimmings, we decided to have Fajitas. Jared offered to cook the fajita meat and everyone else helped with the sides and desserts. Afterwards we opened gifts and let Georgia and her cousin Sam provide us with the entertainment for the evening.

Jared is a big help in the kitchen and enjoys to cook. Jacob, on the other hand, not so much. They happened to both be in the kitchen at the same time (shocker) so I had to get this picture for proof! No really, Jacob can help too but doesn't really enjoy being in the kitchen as much as the rest of us.

Jo brought her Christmas dishes (so pretty) and the tables were all set so nice!

Georgia loved this toy telephone of Sam's.

I always enjoy watching Jack and Jo open up gifts. This year Jared gave Jack a hat that says something about to remember to give him his Senior Discount (too funny!) and everyone went in together to get Jo some Fiesta dishes which she is just starting to collect. Like she needs more dishes, right? I guess I married into the right family on this because me and most of my sisters enjoy dishes just as much as Jo!

When we arrived that afternoon, we had forgot that we were going to do cream cheese with pepper jelly and crackers. I offered to go pick it up at my house but Aunt Dru insisted we really really didn't need it. Then there was another thing I needed to go get but she acted really funny and insisted that I DID NOT need to go to get it. I couldn't figure out what was going on but I just said ok and went with it. Little did I know that the reason I couldn't leave is because my Christmas present from her was in the garage! HA HA! She took me out there when we were opening gifts and had it all lit up. I have wanted one of these for years and have never gotten one so I was sooooo excited! The funny part is that it was a major pain for them to travel with it and I think Uncle Mark was ready to chunk it on the side of the road on the way here. I Love it and I'm so excited!

We gave Sam this adorable Cow backpack. He loved it and as soon as he got it he put it on and wouldn't take it off for quite some time. It was hilarious.

Uncle Jared gave Georgia this puppy finger puppet book. They bark at her with it and she doesn't know what to think!

Here's one of Georgia's infamous faces. She is just little Miss Personality!

Do you know how hard it is to get a 15 mo. and 16 mo. old child to pose at the Christmas tree? IMPOSSIBLE! So this is as good as it gets....

Christmas at Pop & MorMor's

We had a white Christmas in West Texas at Pop & MorMor's house. It was absolutely breathtaking (and very cold). We got there the night of the 23rd and spent time with my parents and my sister, Johnna, her husband Sutton and their precious newborn baby girl, Quincy. This was our first time to meet Quincy so we were so excited. Georgia didn't know what to think about her - she laughed alot and I reminded her that this baby was REAL, not for pretend like her play babies. Here's our first look at Quincy... isn't she just precious? She is a sweet sweet baby and we love her so much!

The next day, Christmas Eve, we woke up to snow already on the ground. It kept falling and falling and by lunchtime it was really starting to accumulate. It was crazy to see it just snowing away. Unfortunately, this made it difficult on our other three sisters to make it to my parents easily. They all made it safe and sound, but not without alot of stress, extra time on the road and countless phone calls from all of us!

Georgia got to spend lots of time following MorMor around and digging in everything. This made for an interesting stay but MorMor can be pretty patient thank goodness! Georgia loves her MorMor.

Baby Quincy on Christmas Eve...

Isn't this beautiful... Christmas Eve afternoon the weather cleared up, the sun came out, the temperature was COLD but it was absolutely gorgeous!

Jacob went and picked up Grandma & Papaw since the roads were so bad. They had a few bits of drama, but they made it out there safely thank goodness!

Georgia was so excited with the Grotegut family got there. They were the next ones to arrive and they all got the toys out right away.

Here's Baby Quincy again... aren't those shoes too darn cute!

Judith had the twins' booster seats out and Georgia loved to sit on them and move them around. Here she is with her buddy Avery.

Christmas Day morning... Georgia with her Pop and cousin Laurel

John Thomas and Georgia goofing around. He is so sweet to Georgia - it is fun to watch them together.

Santa came to visit and left all the grandkids something in their stockings!

Judith & Quincy

Jessica & Sam checking out the stocking

The Oman Grandkids - Just the Girls... (I didn't get to take the boys picture because as you can see Georgia wasn't wanting to cooperate!)

I made Jacob skid to a stop on the ice so we could get this one... isn't this just awesome!?! The church I grew up attending church at, the church my parents were married in and that Jacob and I were married in... love love this picture!

Georgia was wiped out. Here she is on the way home - the first few miles on the road. You can see the snow in the background - her first snow!

Christmas with Nani, Popi, & Uncle Jared

This Christmas we had our Christmas dinner and presents with Jacob's parents and brother prior to Christmas Day. This is the first time we have done this early, but it always seems like after his extended family leaves on Christmas Day evening, we don't start doing our immediate family CHristmas until after 10 p.m. We decided this year since Georgia isn't too much fun after 9 p.m. that perhaps we should have our Christmas together early. So Frank cooked Italian Sausage - yummy! - and we had a fancy dinner and opened presents after. The highlight of Georgia's night of presents was her baby and its stroller from her Nani & Popi, as well as a table and chairs from Jacob & I. She made this silly face when she first saw the baby and the stroller and she has been making that face off and on ever since. It is pretty comical and I am not sure where she picked this face up or why she does it, but it always makes us laugh and shake our heads when she does it.

Georgia posing in her new mud boots for the barn from Popi and Nani, along with her beautiful gold "Georgia" necklace from her Gemma Georgia started getting a big overwhelmed from all the present opening. She had to take a rest for a bit with her Daddy.

The baby she got cries and makes these sweet cooing sounds and says Mamma. It came with a pacifer and bottle which Georgia thinks should be her own at times.

Georgia loves her new table and chairs. Unfortunately she thinks she needs to stand in the chairs so we are having to slowly work with her on this and she doesn't get to play with these without supervision just yet. She loves to sit in any chair and has learned to crawl up in our leather chair and couch all on her own and has figured out her own method to get down - safely of course!

Georgia seeing her stroller and doll for the first time. There's that face!!!

She knew just what to do with it...

December 2009

The month of December just flew by for us. Luckily I was able to get the house decorated before we left for Vegas so once we got home it was time to get Christmas shopping finished. It was a busy month and we had lots of activities and things to do. Georgia did great with the tree. There were a few ornaments she particularly liked and I would let her look at it and if she took it off we went together to put it back on the tree. Some days were better than others but she loved to stare at the tree. It was funny to watch her with everything.

I spent one day baking with Jacob's mom, Sandy. I had wanted to help her make fig cookies for years and finally this year we planned ahead where I could help out and we could do it together. We made fig cookies together and then another day I made chocolate and vanilla coated pretzels, peppermint patties, peppermint bark, and raspberry thumbprint cookies.

We also went to celebrate our friends' daughter's graduation from Texas A&M. Kenny & Julie Herzog's daughter graduated and they invited us down to a party. We were late (as usual) but it was great to see all of them and for them to see Georgia (most of which haven't seen her seen she was a small baby).

Also in December we hired Tiffany Sizemore, a student at Texas A&M, to help us in the office at the show barn. This required me to train her for a couple of days before Christmas where she could learn the ropes and meet everyone. She has been a tremendous help and is great with Georgia when we are all together. She has a great personality and everyone here loves her - this combined with the fact that she is doing a great job makes it where we are glad to have her here. She has been working almost every day during the week and when school starts back she'll work a few days a week. This is a big help keeping us caught up on thank you notes, feed schedules, and appointments which is something me, Jacob and Jared have been doing, but not doing all that great.

Here are some snapshots from the month prior to all of our family gatherings...

Graduation party at the Herzogs... Georgia wanted to get into EVERYTHING!

Georgia loves our cat "Goldmember".

This is the first time she really wanted to pet him and he didn't mind it!

Getting into the gifts...