Almost Christmas :)

How time has flown! It seems that we have had a super busy fall... much busier than I would like but Christmas is already here! We had a wonderful time with my entire family in St. Louis over Thanksgiving and now we are excited about our first Christmas here in Austin in our house. With the Christmas tunes playing all the time, Mimi coming to visit and Pierce now out of school for the holiday, it certainly should be a great Christmas for all of us.

I am still in the process of getting cards out which means they will probably arrive after Christmas. If they do, we want to wish all our dear friends and family a Merry Christmas and many good times together in the New Year! Much love to you all-

Part 2 - Breakfast Tacos for beignets

From Lafayette, we headed to New Orleans to visit Monica and Al. We were so happy to make it for the Steeple Illumination Ceremony at Rayne UMC. After three years in the making, we were thrilled to be present at the ceremony, to be able to contribute by designing the landscape plan and seeing everything come together for such a special place.

We made sure to get to most of our favorite spots. We had our fill of gumbo, croissants from La Boulangerie, poboys with friends at Parkway Tavern, and much more. Of course, we loved spending time with Aunt Mocha, Al and Mimi and getting beignets at Cafe du Monde (which we traded for breakfast tacos when we moved to Austin :)

Whirlwind new baby and friends tour, part 1

We have been home almost a week now so I have begun to go through my photos from our Labor Day trip. It makes me so happy that we were able to fit so much into a week. We were able to visit with our closest friends, see the two new babies that have come into our lives and visit our old church in New Orleans. I will post these photos in groups of postings.

On the first leg of our trip, we stopped in Lafayette to visit the Blakeman's. We had a great time visiting with Haley and Shannon, holding baby Hayes and letting Pierce and Ava run wild. How I wish I could see these guys everyday :( I was also super excited to get some great photos of little Ava...

A great visit with

the lovely Lori Thomas. We were so happy that Lori came to visit us here in Austin. She stayed for over a week, played with P continuously and we were so lucky to spend so much time with her. We miss her already but we are excited that we have already planned our next trip to St. Louis to visit my dad's family at Thanksgiving! Yay!

henry and baby joseph

C and the donkey

buried by p at the beach in galveston

p

in galveston with MawMaw and Mimi

finally...

We have photos that have been edited, sized and ready for posting. It has been a long time coming but I finally have photoshop CS2 on my home computer! Yay! Enjoy the photos from our last few months!

June- July

In many ways, time has not flown by this summer but here I am posting for the first time in a while and looking back much has happened so far. We came back from visiting family over Memorial Day and we have had so many reasons to celebrate. Pierce turned four, yes 4! My first ever God child named William Hayes Blakeman was born it our dear friends Haley and Shannon. Next, our family welcomed Joseph Thomas Ellison to the world, whom we are so excited to meet in late August. Curtis had a birthday over the 4th of July, with a big party to boot. Our beloved Aunt Mocha came to visit us in Austin and now we are back from a quick beach trip to Galveston with both Mimi and Mama Elaine.

And I am hoping we will have some photos posted soon. I had a glitch in my computer and while solving the primary problem, we accidentally removed my photo editing software. I am hoping to reload it in the next couple of days while Pierce is in Louisiana visiting family. The next few posts will not have any text but they will include Pierce, his new bike and a random assortment of photos from the previously mentioned events of the summer. We hope you are all doing well. Much love to you all-
kt

a few more...

Memorial Day

A little late on the posting but here are some from our visit with family and friends (in no particular order)-

Summer cut-

He's back!

Actually, they are both back. However, Griff is the cat with the most impact. Mimi came last weekend and along with her came our two cats- one with this lovely haircut. Fun, fun! Have I told you how much we missed them... probably not because we were hoping Mimi would adopt them for good :)

Pierce has really enjoyed having Lucy around and of course, she is making friends with all the neighbors. Griff seems pretty confused still with the new house and is busy being mistaken as a really mean squirrel throughout the neighborhood.