a kitty kat, books & suckers plus lottie leibovitz

here is our christmas card photo of the kids and santa claus.

poor santa

it didn't go that well, rowdy is planked out (AND wearing a bow tie, yes he is, indeedy!) starring straight up at the ceiling and lottie sue is trying to escape santa's lap. everything was fine with lottie sue but the little girl in front of us was going ballistic and we think it messed with the mood. he lured her back with a candy cane. funny photos are just as good as perfect ones anyway i say. when santa asked lottie sue what she wanted, she whispered "a kitty kat, books and suckers" - that is a major burn to ernie and kevin but kevin deserves it at least.

in other photos, this is lottie's photo they took at MDO in september. we didn't buy any of them because they came back the week rowdy was born and you just know something like that slipped our minds. her teachers made an ornament with the photo though and i scanned it in - it's so good!

lottie sue, 27 months old and adorable squared

and please let me share this photo with you...going with "school photos" i give you cera as a sister wife.

um, i simply cannot stop laughing

this one is great as well, the hair! the hair! the hair! plus i think that cera picked out the biggest glasses in the glass store. they cover 85% of her face.

nice perm

side note: cera is here with me and knows that these photos are going to be published. we had a very good laugh about it, mostly me laughing when she asked me not to post them.

a few weeks ago we went over to granbunny and granray's house to decorate for the holidays. i found the photos you just laughed at there, in the basement in a mason jar. anywho, here are one of the trees. i need to say that aunt judy has the MAGIC touch when it comes to decorating. she can make anything look gorgeous.

merry christmas

here is the mantle before as judy ponders how to make it glow with holiday cheer.

hmmm, what to do

and voila, gorgeousness for all to see

last friday we had our mowrer family christmas pajama party and it was awesome. we ate a lot and played games, we even skyped with other family members in arkansas and kentucky. good times.

lottie sue plays with the doll house and her "peoples" as she calls them

lottie gives matt a massage

grandmother enjoys her 6th great-grandchild

gramma/matt's momma and grandmother made a ton of chocolate goodies. we told lottie she could have whatever she wanted because it was a special occasion. she ate 12 cookies.

yummy yummy in my tummy

oh my gosh, this photo cracks me up. michelle looks happy to hold rowdy. rowdy isn't so sure...

hmmm, anyone else want to hold me?

we opened presents the next day - what fun! lottie sue received many goodies but the one thing she took to was her new camera.

as of right now she's taken 312 photos
(BLOG GOLD)

here are a few, she doesn't quite know how to take a good photo yet but she LOVES to snap shots. most are blurry because she is usually running somewhere.

here are a few photos for you, all of these were taken by lottie.

this is the nativity at gramma and pawpaw's house,
after she took it she said "good job, guys!"

presents under our tree

this is a photo of her laptop, this is where she works she tells us

rowdy crying in his swing

making funny faces with bb

this is me with rowdy during bottle time

her beloved (and i mean beloved) puppy

grandaddy and cera

during a diaper change

a photo of our fowl with pearls

some of her books

her boots (she was in the chair with her legs up on the side)

auntie cera

a self portrait

she is very busy with that thing, it's pretty awesome to see what she comes up with. she's a budding annie leibovitz.

today lottie sue and i made "nutty cracker delights" - this is a recipe from gramma. you have to sprinkle almonds on the crackers and i thought that would be a super fun thing for lottie sue to do. she was great at it, she made "mountains" and thought it was awesome.

lottie sue doing a super great job

here's the recipe for you, these are very easy to make and if you have little ones they can help!

NUTTY CRACKER DELIGHTS

42-44 club crackers
1-1/2 sticks of butter
2/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup of slivered almonds (or more if you like)

cover a cookie sheet with aluminum foil. place crackers in a single layer. in a saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter then add the sugar - stirring constantly. boil for two minutes. remove from the heat and add vanilla.

pour evenly over the crackers then sprinkle with almonds. bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes or until lightly browned. immediately remover from the pan, cutting between them if necessary and cool on wire racks.

go ahead and make some more because these won't last.

oh yeah, and i know i need to take a photo of her in her boots but this photo shows them pretty well. she wants to wear them all of the time. she also wants me to wear my boots and now auntie cera purchased a pair so we must all be twinkies. or triplets. auntie b better bring hers down when they come for christmas! that would make us quadruplets!

a stylish chef

i found this photo in my phone, i think matt took it during a trip to the mall with lottie recently. i remember him telling me that she went ballistic when the ride was over and he told her to get down. i am sure jimmy ray did not enjoy that news...

outta my way, buddy

alrighty, christmas is almost here! i hope everyone is planning on a fabulous holiday!

ketchup

Yes yes, I know it's been a while. I'm sorry but here are photos to catch you up a bit. The following are photos taken from the past month, June was busy busy busy! We just spent a week at the beach with the Venable clan (AWESOME TIME - and gazillion photos) and are pooped from traveling. Stick a fork in us. So forgive me for my lack of my usual rapier-like wit in this post, I am totally mailing it in. Later this week I'll post from the trip, Matt took the BEST photo of Lottie Sue on the beach. It is great! We've never seen her happier, she absolutely LOVES to run on the beach and kick in the water - she was giddy. It was awesome...

These were taken one afternoon when Harlan was in town, he and Lottie Sue had some major pool time that week.

uh yeah, she's cute

mr. harlan filled up the pitcher and emptied it about 100 times

lottie sue taking a moment

shoving match

happy kids

Here we are after dinner, Daddy/Uncle Matt read a few books to the kiddos.

books r good

Here is a photo of Lottie Sue taken one day on our way to MDO at church. She loves her backpacks (she has two that she uses) and will tell me she has one like Dora all the time.

puppy/babbit in buggy with backpack ready for school

Here is a photo of Lottie putting raisins up her nose one morning.

what class

For Papaw's birthday we took a stroll through the UT trail gardens and then went down to the river walk. Here are lots of photos, you'll feel like you were there.

happy birthday, papaw

If it is quiet then you know Lottie Sue is into something, this is a RULE. During a silent moment I found her in the study with Matt's drawings, notice the pencil mark on her nose. Caught red-handed or black-nosed, if you will (hahahahaha).

busted

The Carsons also stopped by for dinner a few weeks ago. They were traveling to Michigan to visit family and made a pit stop here. The kids are GROWING (eek, so fast - please stop). We didn't take many photos but I hope to steal some from Lara or Josh.

lottie sue pushes claire around while tommy pushes max

a hug that we made them do for a photo

mr. max, he is now a little boy

I will end with photos from lunch with Patterson, Cassady and Carrie a few weeks ago. I have to steal some photos from Carrie's page. She has a photo of me and you need to see my nose, it has grown with this pregnancy again. It happened with LS but after she was here it went back to normal size. I think it's funny, but I'll post a photo later. Anywho...

lottie sue tends to cassady, she is giving him his pacifier here

and she's ready to take him to the car

lottie shares a laugh with carrie and cassady

carrie (having a very good hair day) with cassady

And one last photo of hubby extraordinaire driving the boat around Norris one weekend.

captain mowmow

And a few headlines for your reading pleasure:

• Blink Twice If You Like Me, I had no idea I had a meat market going on in my backyard.
• I now have the evidence I need to cut down on exercising, think of the extra time I'll have: The NY Times did a story on getting fit in just minutes a day. Sounds good to me! But all kidding aside, there really is a science to working out getting results. I read a lot about it. The more I read lately reinforces the idea that an hour of cardio just isn't that great. I spend wayyyyy more time working with weights that I do cardio. If you want to change your body (trim up, lose weight) it seems it's all in strength training. Here's another article on it: Iron Maiden, Weight Training Secrets.
  
• Here's a list of the The Best Kids' Books Ever from a columnist from the NY Times.
• Food and Water, and article on how to refuel your body after a workout.

OK, have a great Sunday! We are going to settle back into life at home today. We made a pit stop at Ikea on our way to the beach and bought furniture for Lottie Sue's new bedroom. She's getting kicked out of the nursery very soon for baby brother's arrival. We are very excited for her to move into her new cool room. I'm making the curtains and we almost have everything put together. I see a "before & after" post coming up...

Over and OUT.