Learning about the best part of baking....

Licking the batter off the mixer!

She was a quick learner

My new official taste tester

Next step of the process: bath time (for both Sheridan and the mixer)

Better late than never....

Seeing as how Christmas is in a few days, I thought I'd better post some pictures from Thanksgiving! Hopefully, since I'll have a several days off over the next two weeks I'll be able to post pictures from Christmas a lot faster. Let's all keep our fingers crossed.

Anyway, Thanksgiving works out really well between our two families because my family actually celebrates on Friday when Cal and Sarah come into town after being at the farm with his parents. So we head up to Temple to spend the day with Cameron's family on Thursday. I think this year was the biggest turnout we've had yet since both sides of different families were able to gather together. After we stuffed ourselves, everyone took to their usual activities. The kids went outside to play, the men went out to the garage/shop and talked cars, and the women cleaned the kitchen and chased the kids around.

Brenda's swing set is always a gathering spot for the kids

Once I borrowed Kelly's fancy Nikon camera, Sheridan must have thought I looked professional enough and worthy of her actually looking at the camera. Guess what I'll be adding to my Christmas list.....
Our cousin Kelly and Jason's sweet little girl, Natalie
GG to the rescueHere I come.....
Allen, Leah and Rebekah
Jeffrey, Leah, me and Cameron
I was so excited about getting to spend several days with this little sweetie...my niece Savannah
Sheridan gives sweet kisses to Savannah
Great Graminy Gillespie and Savannah

Lunch at the Round Rock Salt Lick

I got bloggin' behind....

As much as I would like to take credit for that clever little phrase. I cannot. I stole it from Shaunna. But I had to use it because it's absolutely appropriate since we just celebrated Thanksgiving (and that was even a week ago!) and I haven't even shared pictures from Halloween yet. Or anything from November. I think the hat fits! So pour yourself a glass of wine and enjoy it for me while you catch up on our most exciting life......

Even though Sheridan had a fever and an ear infection on Halloween she channeled her inner princess and let us still dress her up as Belle from Beauty and Beast and went trick-or-treating to two house. Even a sick princess has her limits.

Frank, Shelly, and Trevor came into town November 6th through the 10th for a wedding and we were so happy to have them stay with us! On Friday night we went to Z Tejas for dinner and took our late night party back to Sara and Kenny's house. I had to work some of the time they were here so I missed lunch at Hula Hut with them on Sunday. But I was able to spend lots of time with them on Monday before they left since I had the day off. As always we had the best time with them and am wondering how we're going to beat the three visits we had with them this year in 2009.

The guys

The girls (those lucky guys!)......

Me and Shaunna

Shelly and Sara

Sara and Kenny

Frank and Shelly

On November 21st Sheridan's preschool had their Thanksgiving feast and Cameron (yes, he actually left the office), my parents and I all went up there to join in the festivities. Surprisingly, Sheridan was not cooperative for pictures so this is all I got.....

On the 26th Mimi, Tara and I took advantage of Tara being in town for the holidays and got together for lunch at Mimi's cafe. Since we were all pregnant together (but not for long because Mimi had her baby boy, Grafton, on December 3rd) I had to get a picture of us together.

Me (due June 26th), Mimi (due any day in this picture), Tara (due March 16th)

Wow! What a month! I'm sure December is going to go by even faster!

A few observations....

Last night I watched the Victoria's Secret fashion show and a few things crossed my mind....

1. Am I really supposed to believe that that one girl calms her nerves by eating donuts before a runway show where she'll don scantily clad lingerie?

2. I want to be Heidi Klum. That bitch looks better after having THREE kids than I did BEFORE having just one! There's no telling what baby #2 is going to do to me so I better get the name of her plastic surgeon, er, I mean diet regimen. Because I'm sure that's how she did it.

3. Does anyone actually buy any of this lingerie?

4. Don't those angel and butterfly wings get in the way of the entire purpose for lingerie? I'm just saying...

5. Ribbon lace up heels must have replaced garter belts this season.

6. I'm not sure which I found more surprising. The combination of Martha Stewart and P Diddy sitting next to each other or the fact that Martha WAS EVEN THERE.

7. Was the girl getting sown into her "outfit" the same one shoveling donuts into her mouth before the show?

8. They never did answer the questions: who is Victoria and what's her secret? I bet her secret IS that she's a man!

Coming this summer to a household near you......

If the meaning of Sheridan's shirt isn't registering (like it didn't with MY HUSBAND and my mother), let me help you out a little bit. I'm trading in my bottles of wine for gallons of ice cream for the next 7 months because we're having another baby!!! I went to the doctor today so we can finally let the cat out of the bag! Everything looks great and on June 26th we'll become a family of four!

I think I'm just teaching her the art of procrastination

The beginning of last week Sheridan's teacher sent home a piece of posterboard that was cut out to look like a turkey feather. Our assignment was to decorate it with materials we had around the house (it just couldn't be anything that would attract bugs) and bring it back to class by today. So in true Julie fashion, I waited until the night before to do this little art project with my daughter. However, I totally had my idea last week how we were going to decorate it so that's got to count for something. On Wednesday this week at drop off, I was talking to one of the other mom's about decorating these feathers as we admired the ones of all the over achievers that had already turned theirs in.

Other Mom: "How are you going to decorate your feather?"

Me: "I think we're going to glue pieces of tissue paper to it."

Other Mom: "Oh, you're going to make tissue roses."

Thinking to myself: Hmmm....I wasn't aware there was a fancy name for it but that does sound very Martha Stewart. So....

Me: "Uh huh, yes. We're going to make tissue roses."

And here we are....

The finished product

Her speech therapist will be so proud

Lately I've been driving Sheridan all over town for speech evaluations with ECI and Capital Area Speech. She has a very big single word vocabulary but she's not combining 2 and 3 words as much as she should be for her age. And she doesn't usually repeat everything we say like most toddlers do. But last night we crossed that threshold and not necessarily in a good way. Sheridan was sitting at the table eating dinner while I was cooking dinner for us and I accidentally spilled some rotel on the kitchen floor and my natural reaction was to say "Oh shit" out loud. So I did. Then we heard a sweet little voice say "oh shit" from the table. Honestly, I wasn't sure whether to hug her for repeating something I said, laugh, or say it again because OH SHIT, my kid just said her first cuss word. It was inevitably going to happen one of these days. I always thought it would be my father's fault though. After all, he is the one that won the "potty mouth" award in pilot training....the shoe fits. But I also can't deny that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree so I guess I'm just grateful she was asleep Tuesday night when I was watching the election results or she would have a very colorful vocabulary.

Going back a few weeks

As I mentioned in a previous post, my sister and Cal came into town several weekends ago with Savannah and minus my short disappearance to work on Saturday for a wedding, the weekend revolved around family. Friday night Sheridan and I had dinner at my parent's house with everyone while Cameron was at Buffalo Wings participating with his friends in some crazy "eat the hottest wings you can possibly imagine" challenge. It must be a boy thing and I suppose I should be proud (?) that Cameron completed the challenge and ate 12 hotter than hell wings in 6 minutes without any water or wiping his hands. For a t-shirt. Way to go honey. Now on with the rest of the weekend. Amy and Ryan and their clan came over after dinner on Friday to meet Miss Savannah for the first time. Taryn was so good with Savannah, very sweet and gentle. You can tell she's had lots of practice with her baby brother.

My sister and I always played in my father's flight suit and boots when we were little. So needless to say, I thought it was so cute when Sheridan found Grandpa's boots and didn't hesitate to do the same.

Before I left for work on Saturday we went to the fall festival at St. Richards Episcopal church with the Dantons. I hoped it would be the perfect opportunity to get some pictures of Sheridan in the pumpkin patch this year. Unfortunately, Sheridan was not on board with this plan of mine and I have a lot of pictures of my kid not looking at the camera. Maybe next year....

One of many attempts at a family photo

This picture pretty much sums up what Sheridan did while we were at the pumpkin patch. She ran around.

Too busy playing with the gourds to look at me

This is as good as it gets

On Sunday morning after our family pictures we took Savannah to the nursing home to meet her Great Graminy Sheridan. It was definitely the highlight of Graminy's day to see all of us and meet her newest great-granddaughter!

4 generations

I swear I could hold this sweet little girl all day long!
But Mimi wanted a turn
After lunch at Mimi's Cafe we went back to my parent's house for the afternoon. My mom wanted a picture of Sheridan in this rocking chair that they gave me when I was three years old. So I acted like a fool and it worked!

Sheridan found Aunt Sarah's shoes and loved walking around in them. Pushing her teddy bears in the stroller is her new favorite thing to do.