Growing up

One of my faves!! Such a sweet little guy!


Just hangin with daddy!




Growing up so fast! Annalise loves to read to Bryce during "tummy time." He thinks it is pretty neat too. It is so sweet to see his "eyes" for his sissy. It's a different look than for anyone else!

This week Annalise has hit a few milestones herself. She began pre-ballet lessons at the YMCA. She absolutely LOVED them, listened so well and is beginning to have some organzied movement to her dance steps. We play music almost everyday and she dances and/or we watch some type of dancing movie or cartoon! She also started belting out the ABC's song! Wow! Her first song came 2 weeks ago...it goes like this "A Dream is a wish...your heart makes"...then she fast-forwards to to "DONG!! DONG!!...oh kill-a-joy...even he orders me around!"

Goodbye Parkwood

Yes, the house did finally sell December 4th 2009! Wow, that seemed like forever and it was only 6 months...:) In hindsite I see how much hard work, time, and money went into owning and restoring that house to a very lovely place to call home. At the time it just felt like a burden so often. Considering when we purchased the home we had anticipated both working full time for 4 more years and begining a family sometime this summer. :) SO thankful that the Lord plans our lives and not us in the end. I Love my two children more than any house or job or anything on this earth next to Brad. Also, in hindsite it was only the Lord's hand and favor that sustained us financially to live there. Brad's job promotions were always just in time and my two jobs while annalise was young were only from the Lord. They were each a gift, I learned so much in each of them. Brad had hoped to conitinue at Intrust if possible thru the summer of this year, but when he began pursuing a higher position he found out there was nothing available or becoming available. After accepting his position with CUA and leaving Intrust, they did not replace his position and all jobs were frozen with no raises and no openings even if short-staffed. (eek!) So, basically the Lord provided a new position for Brad at his branch at Intrust for just the amount of time we needed and then it was done away with just as he left. My heart is so thankful for our ever-watchful and providing Father. Well, this is becoming much less about Parkwood and much more a rambling of my heart... if you would like to see pics of our home before we sold it check out this link...http://www.1322parkwood.com/

Helping Daddy

Brad had to build one more privacy gate for our back yard fence before putting the house on the market, not to mention lay 4 truck-loads of sod, make some flower/bush beds, etc... So we had some amazing friends who actually traded our car with their pick-up for an entire week so we could get a lot of this work done. Here is Annalise proudly helping daddy unload the wood for the fence.

Trip #1

Trip #2

...still going

time for a refreshing drink!

Yay!! all done. LOVE it!

First Thing In the Morning

This is Annalise, first thing in the morning. She always comes crashing through our door to see if we are still in bed. Sometimes yes, sometimes no... Then she quickly comes to my side as she repeats "mama, mama, mama" over and over as many of you know! So she climbs up my side of the bed and wriggles inbetween daddy and mama. This morning I couldn't help but laugh! Where did she get this cottonball hair? not mama! We think it is from the Carley side of the family(brad's mom's side). It is so funny! Take a look.

Front view seems normal...




And then the CRAZY backside!!

First Flower Pots

For our 4-year Anniversary my mom took me to Helten Garden's a local greenhouse and bought enough flowers to fill these three whiskey barrels on my porch. I really wanted something to freshen up the front of our home for the selling season this summer. I have NO green thumb so my mom's knowledge on kinds of flowers and how to pot them was extremely helpful!

Here is Annalise helping. She picked up every flower and brought them to us to pot. She LOVED the dirt and especially liked watering the new flowers.

Here is the final product. We did so many different flowers I can't remember all the names. But I did do color themes. Pink and yellow in two of the pots and then a Red, purple, and white for the third. It's been a week and they are all still alive! Yay!

GRATEFUL

First of all, I really do not have the hang of this blogsite set up. These pics are in the wrong order, but anyway

back in january

I had a clever idea to take pics

of Annalise with all her fun Christmas gifts which we are grateful for. Then print the photos and mail them to the people who gave her the gifts. Needless to say, we only got through a few gifts before burn out tiredness hit as in the pic to your bottom right. And, who am I kidding? Time to print them and mail them? Crazy mommy idea I guess. SO all that follows are the pics I got. Annalise got into a CRAZY giggly mood that day over the "Thank You" paper thinking it was a game to step on or take down the sign before mommy could snap the pic. Thanks to everyone for brining a little joy to our family life!

"Love Gift"

The other day while visitng family for Thanksgiving I mentioned to a relative that I had a gift ready to give them and meant to bring it that day. However, since I had forgotten it and would be bringing it at Christmas time I wanted them to know that it was not a christmas gift but just a little "Love Gift". Love gift just rolled right off my tongue like I said it all the time, this is not something I mention a lot however...and then I remembered...GRANDMA Ruth! She brought "Love Gifts" all the time as we grew up. Anything from candy to donuts to socks to crossword puzzle books. Usually no special reason, just meant she was thinking about us before she came to say hello. It just made me smile and remember her. Isn't that what all gifts should be? ... even Christmas gifts..."Love Gifts" given from the heart to "treat" the other person. So this Christmas season I hope to give even the simplist of gifts as "Love gifts." I miss you Grandma Ruth!

A Dream Come True

After a very long wait, the day finally and unexpectedly came. I have wanted a Pontiac Grand Prix GT in the '97-'03 body style since they came out in 1996. Something about the way the car looked just lit me up. I have never been one to lust after a car. In fact, I'm not really a car person at all. But this car was the exception. Of course I've never been willing or really able to go into debt to get the car before now. So over the years I reconciled that I wouldn't ever be able to own the car of my dreams. However, my gracious mother had put together her own dream list of things she wants to do someday. One of those items was to buy me my dream car.

Well all that came to a head on the 28th, yes black Friday, when Mackenzie and I decided that we will get up early and experience my first shopping fiasco. We just wanted to get out and see all the wackos trampling people in the doorways of Walmart. Maybe we might even take advantage of some discounts at Lowe's for our home improvement ventures. There was add on the radio for Mel Hambleton Ford about cars for $500. We thought we should go check it out. So we get there at 8am and the $500 cars were pretty much gone, but there were other cars on sale with 'one day' specials. Low and behold there sits a perfect Grand Prix GT.

Before this day, I had decided that if I was ever going to buy one, it would have to be Red, have tinted windows, sedan, CD player, and cloth seats. Those were the unneggotiables. I also wanted the equalizer 8-speaker Bose system and a sunroof, but that would come in model '99-'03.

So, there sat a 1998 Grand Prix GT, red, with tinted windows, sedan, and cloth seats. It was very reasonably priced for a Grand Prix right now, but still more than we could afford right now. Especially considering that it has only had one owner, and was taken in to the dealership every 3 months for oil changes and required maintenance. It also has remote start and a Fram Air Hog air filter. This car is extremely clean and in immaculate condition. So as not to give up easily I immediately called my mom. We talked for a few minutes and figured out if it was possible. Well not really. Then I made some other calls. Turns out it's more possible than I thought. So I called mom again. She decided that it might be able to be done under strict rules and regulations (most of which involved the acquisition of a personalized license plate). So long story (sorry) made short, it's in my garage. My wonderful mother can put a check mark on her dream list and I don't have to wonder if I will ever drive my dream car. I love it, and it is a huge blessing. I'm really thankful and would love to show anyone more of it.

New Little Babies and Goat Cheese

We sure are getting a lot bigger lately. We just passed the 16 month marker and have finally grown out of our 12 month clothes. We have learned several baby signs and have started to articulate words a little more clearly. Communication is coming along quite nicely. But even though we are getting big fast, we still have a baby moments when it's milk time. In fact staying healthy, growing big, following rules, and learning everyday, keeps us quite busy, but it just seemed like there wasn't enough to do. Well needless to say, there has been some baby talk aroung the Williamson house lately. It seems like everyone else is making a new addtion to there family within the next year. So we decided that circumstances were working out quite nicely for us and it was time to grow our family a little bit more. So here is the first look at our newest addition!






















His name is Kasarli (pronounced Ku-shar-lee), which is Turkish for "goat cheese." We've always wanted an orange kitty and wanted to name it a word from our oversees trips. We came up with Kasarli a long time ago and liked it. So things are still changing quite a bit around here, but now we have a new baby too. He's so cute.

Generations

A short trip to Topeka to celebrate 50 years of barbering by Grandpa Williamson. Pictured here are four generations of Williamson family. It was quite the exciting time. We really like the cake and the baloons. In fact, we got to bring the baloons home and now we walk around the house with them. It was a good time to see family and share in the celebration.

Good Bye...COUCH

Today it is time to say goodbye to this lovely beast. It has been in our family for...hmmm I dunno...too long. Mom first purchased it sometime when I was in highschool then it moved with Resa and Eric to Tennessee and when they moved to Kansas I inherited it for my apartment. From there it came with me when I married Brad and moved to our home here on Parkwood Lane. Within the next week it, along with its now fashionable slip-cover, will be moving to a house with 3 single girls. It has served us well for many afternoon naps, a cozy spot to watch movies, lots of conversation with good friends, and its most recent use as a toddler jungle gym(well it may have been that when it was brand new too) Like I said it has been around too long. GOODBYE COUCH!

Little Things...

I learned how to play house today. Mommy put my baby doll to sleep in this box and I decided to get in instead. Boxes are so much fun!

Dolly came inside with me and I read her the tooth book by dr. seuss.

This is the first time I got to play in the water at the kitchen sink! I had so much fun I didn't move for 30 minutes! Thanks Mom!

I love watching daddy work outside!