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!

introducing rowdy mowrer

We welcomed our newest member into the family last Thursday - Mr. William Rowdy Mowrer, we call him Rowdy. He was born at 9:07 am on September 24, 2009 and came in at 6 lbs 15 oz - and as pink as a little piggy! And while I would love to write a lot here for you, you will have to get by with mostly photos. We are TIRED, but happy and doing well.

here we are with baby boy right after
we got into the room after surgery

The following photos are sort of like a photo essay of the day. This first one is me in the hospital before the c-section, I look so puffy and tired - it was around 6am - yawn!

prepped and ready to go

welcome no name (we didn't settle on a name until he was a
few days old) baby boy mowrer - this is his first
photo matt took in the nursery

Then we had many visitors brave the rain and come out to meet Mr. Man...

here's rowdy with his gramma, all snuggled in

here he is with aunt michelle

and here he is with auntie megan

We were all curious to see what Lottie Sue would do when she met Rowdy, but she was nothing but SWEET. Lots of teary eyes in the room, her first words to him were "hold you" and she was so excited.

hold you

lottie sue kissing on rowdy

her signature smirk smile

daddy, rowdy and lottie sue - my favorites

she kept kissing him and petting his head

more kisses

and now we make four

On the advice of our doctor (and all of our friends with more than one kid) we had a gift ready for Lottie Sue from Rowdy. She was very excited to open it to find her own baby boy, but after a minute she only wanted to play with Rowdy.

lottie sue with her baby boy and bb with her rowdy

grandaddy and rowdy chill

rowdy mowrer, hello world!

cousin sydney came over as well to hold her next babysitting client

granbunny with rowdy, adorable

UT played Ohio State on Saturday so after Rowdy and I were fed and napping away Matt went down to visit our friends who were tailgating. But you KNOW that we had to dress him in his UT gear (thanks Tommy for the cool shirt!).

my boys

beth sent this photo from the tailgate, i miss
our tailgating fun but will be back soon

I leave you with a few random photos, one of JP and then a few of the adorable Lottie Sue.

we were up at the lake watching the ut/ucla
game and saw jp on tv - matt has eagle eyes
(jp is right above the words "live tv")

Matt snapped these photos of Miss Thang a few days ago. She such an awesome little girl.

could she be any happier? we think not...

OK, hope you enjoy the photos of our newest family member. We are so excited to be home and love being together and getting to know Rowdy. More to come!