Artie Zimmerman turns 5!

Artie turned 5 years old and we celebrated with him at the professor John's house with dinner, cake, pie, and ice cream. Artie is really into skateboarding, so the boys all took their turns trying to ride the board down the ramp. Truett of course is fearless and I was certain he broke his tailbone on one of his falls, but since we didn't actually get any xrays, I guess we will never know.

John has a really cool zipline in his backyard. Here is a small video of Truett playing on it.

Oklahoma City Trip

Here I am in sooner land-- the shirt I thought was fitting for me, as I love B.O.B.-- NOT Bob Stoops.



Here is the whole gang staring left to right: Courtney, David, Owen, Bob, Suzy, Truett, Mike, and Pat. And surprisingly, everyone is facing forward with their eyes open, so what more could you ask for from a picture, right?
This was the first visit for David's girlfriend Courtney to OKC. I'm afraid she might have gotten more than she bargained for with Truett. Truett spent 3 days trying to date Courtney, or as he referred to her as David's sister, also uncle Courtney, and mostly he just kept calling her "my friend". It's a good thing that Courtney knows quite a bit about kids, otherwise, she might not have been able to handle the wild bull in Truett.



Here they are... the WestMoore jaguar stars of yesteryear showing off their names on the school records board. We-- Bob, Suzy, David, and Courtney-- took a small tour of OKC, their high school, and even their elementary reliving the "good old days". Bob informed us he was paddled as a kid in elementary, and David apparently had a personalized license plate that said "super Dave" in high school. All this only scares me for what my children might endure or remember from their childhood!
Anyway, I also suffered thru a tour of the University of Oklahoma. Good thing I had a couple of beer at lunch, or I don't think I would have survived. That much red and white is nauseating. Not to mention all the other covered wagon, boomer sooner BS everywhere. But those sooners sure seem proud of their football stadium-- but if you ask me-- it isn't much bigger than the stadium for the Hutto Hippos. Perhaps those sooners can check out the UT football stadium to see what a real college football stadium should look like! ;-)


The boys having fun with their new bioncles.

Pat with her dirty santa present.

Well, we survived a trip to OKC for Bob's family Christmas and what they call "Dirty Santa". This dirty santa business is still a bit of a mystery to me, but the key seems to be who gets the concrete statue Pedro (which is a sleeping dude with a sombrero that weighs like 50 pounds). This year, it was unlucky David who unwrapped him-- or should I say unlucky Pat and Mike, because due to weight limits on airplanes, the statue was repainted and left in their flower bed before the day was over! The statue was with their cousin in Austin, that is why he is painted orange and wearing a BEVO costume.

Here we are attempting a family photo. Truett was beyond tired, and not cooperating very well, but this is what we ended up with. At least the photo is true to our real life-- which is just plain messy.

Ju Ju Bee gets fixed

Truett with his kitty in his jacket too.




So our little girl kitty Ju Ju Bee went into heat, and she had to go to the vet to get fixed. (If we were to have kittens, I'm pretty sure BOB would kill me-- I think we already have 3 more cats than he would ever like to have) Anyway, we were waiting for her to hit the 6 month mark, but nature took over! Poor Peterson, our little boy kitty, didn't know what the heck she was doing sticking her butt up in the air and grunting. He just kept trying to play tackle--I guess all men are alike! ha ha. Here are a couple of pictures of Owen holding Ju Ju Bee on their way to the vet before drop off at school.
The funny part of this story is that when I explained to Owen that Ju Ju was going to the doctor to have surgery to not have babies, he said "just like Daddy?" (Since Bob got "snipped" last month, I guess Owen is putting it all together).

NO MORE TRAINING WHEELS!!!

Well, Truett is an offiical bike rider now--without training wheels!
He rides a bike that was Owen's, but the original owner was my nephew Grayson, who is now 17 years old. So needless to say-- we have gotten a lot of use out of this bicycle!
Anyway, Truett has had several crashes on the bike-- because he is a FEARLESS. So the horn is smashed, and he finally smashed one of the training wheels too, so it was time to give it a try without them. Truett was so funny, as he was riding down Mimi's driveway, he was yelling "I need help... someone help me stop". But he figured it all out pretty quick and now is pedaling all over our street in Hutto too.

Here is a small video of Truett riding his bike. (Sorry about the yelling-- proud mom is holding the camera and screaming for Truett all at the same time.)

Easy Bake Oven

We have been stuck inside today because it is raining and only 40 degrees outside-- which I know is like summer weather for Minnesota folks-- but for us, it is very cold. Anyway, we decided to use Owen's Easy Bake Oven.
Truett is showing off his finished product. As you can tell, it is not quite as pretty as the picture on the package.
He wanted the yellow cake with "banilla" frosting. And Truett did mention that his cake was "dewishish".

Owen with his devil's food cake. Funny that the little devil picked that type of cake.


Notice the concentration while putting the frosting on the cake.

Owen wanted the pink frosting for his cake.

Owen asked for an Easy Bake Oven for Christmas. Here he is baking with it. The concept of cooking with a light bulb I'm sure goes against anything "green" and energy conserving-- especially since it is a 100 watt bulb. But I suppose for the few minutes it takes to cook these mice sized cakes, his carbon footprint won't increase by too much. I'm glad we have evolved to bigger and better ways to cook.

Christmas Morning!

All the Legos put together and displayed by Owen.


Hutto's version of "white" Christmas.

Robert and Papa cooking Christmas breakfast. And I must brag... Robert did the dishes twice on Christmas because there were so many dirty dishes. Thanks BOB!

Christmas morning started early, around 6:30. In fact, Owen was up first, and couldn't wait to check it all out, so he woke Truett up. Truett seemed confused for about the first 10 minutes of looking through all his new toys and gifts. Papa and Carolyn came over--at the crack of dawn-- to celebrate the Santa gifts and eat a little breakfast.

Owen wished for a skateboard and legos, and Truett wished for a nerf gun and a new scooter. Everyone else is into the Wii or Xbox-- but I am trying to keep those out of the house until the boys just "have" to have one. I figure soon enough, video games will be all they ever want to do, so until then, it's games, legos, and anything else hands-on you can imagine.
Owen also got an Easy Bake oven from his friends Mazzy and Artie. Owen and Robert tried to bake the first cake with it, but forgot the nonstick spray. Needless to say, they were not able to get the cake out of the pan. All of it is funny to imagine anyway, since the little cakes are like mouse food, and with Robert--the gigantor-- practically cooking for mice, with a light bulb, it is all quite comical.
Oh well, there are more cake mixes, so they will have to try again.

Owen asked Santa for the Lego camper set, so he could "put it together with mom".


Truett got a head light in his stocking, and here he is after some M&M's, with a bit of a chocolate mustache. Or I guess I should say chocolate goatee?


Truett riding his new Hot Wheels scooter.


The boys digging in their stockings.

Our Christmas tree, before all the chaos...


Small bit of video from first thing Christmas morning.

Christmas Cookies and Lakehouse Fun

The kids enjoyed some painting craft before cookie decorating.

Truett playing in a puddle after swimming in the lake.

Only in Texas is it 70 degrees, clear, and sunny on Christmas Eve!

Here we are rolling out dough for sugar cookies. We took a bunch to the lakehouse for decorating, only the boys weren't too interested in doing the decorating. I think both of them decorated one a piece, and they were off to bigger and better things.