Christmas 2009

We had a great Christmas around here and were so very blessed to have great family to share it with. Hope you are all enjoying 2010!

(These pics are in the wrong order but I am too lazy to move them.:)

Allie on Christmas Eve- 6 months. So sweet and kissable!

We went to have Christmas with the Hoelzle family on New Year's weekend and had a GREAT time as always. Here is how excited Allie was about opening her presents.....

Seriously, I was helping Mabry open presents surrounded by serious chaos and noise and looked down and realized this baby was fast asleep. I LOVE that she will do this because we all know this would have NEVER happened with miss Mabry!

And THIS is how excited Mabry was to be opening presesnts at Mimi and Pappy's house....

Sweet cousins. I love this pic! They are all such buddies and Mabry just loves playing with her cousins. And they ALWAYS play sweet.;)



The Hoelzle grandkids - all 10 of 'em

Mabry on Christmas morning at our house on her new ride from Santa.

Allie "opening" her presents from Santa. Mabry was a little concerned about the fact that she only had 3 presents. Allie didn't seem to mind.:)

Allie stoked it's Christmas Eve

My sweet girls on Christmas Eve

Christmas Morning with Mabry's loot from Santa

See ya next time!!

Happy Halloween!

Here are some pics from Halloween this year. We kept it simple and Mabry went as a black kitty cat just like two years ago. I wasn't going to dress Allie up but decided to put some bunny ears we had on her at the last minute. We went to Trunk or Treat at our church and then tried to get Mabry to go trick or treating in the neighborhood but she wasn't interested. She had lots of fun answering the door and handing out candy at home. We had a great family night!

Just for kicks.....Remember this kitty from 2 year ago?

So sweet.

And now this year.....

Family pic. Allie was a little tired.;)

Sweet kitty cat.

Mabry with her friend Ty from church. Does anybody else smell trouble?? Look at those goo-goo eyes on Mabry. Time for Daddy to get out the shotgun.

Me and my sweet girls.

What is on your head?

Lovin' me this bunny and kitty!

Hope you all had a great Halloween!

Pictures of the Day

"Practicing" rolling over as Mabry would say.:) I can tell Allie is ready to go any day now!

The sweet ones

Since I am so bad about posting because it always seems like such a daunting task, I figure the least I can do for the both of us is just give you a few pics of the sweet ones.:)

The beach in Port Aransas. Mabry got to enjoy a "special drink."

No, Mommy does NOT want to touch the fish. Thanks anyway. Just like her Daddy.

With my sweet girls on my b-day. I won't tell you how old I am now!

Sweet baby having some "belly time".

Looks like we lost a sock somewhere. Oops.

The girls got to spend Labor Day weekend with some of their cousins. Here are the ones that were there. I have counted and Mabry and Allie now have 12 cousins! WOW! They are so blessed!

3 Cousins the same age on the Hoelzle side. Chandler is 3 months older than Deacon and Allie who are just 2 days apart. Yes, Allie is a wee one.:)

Matching gals. The first of many. Poor things. Their mothers are crazy.

My sweet babies.

Some of these pics are a little old, but you get the idea. Our summer in a nutshell. My kind of post! Hope you enjoyed!

Our little sweetheart

Hey! So I still don't have many great pics of Allie but I figured I better post a few just so you know she really does exist....and to get a few people off my back!:)

Our little Allie is truly a sweetheart and we feel so very blessed to have her in our life. So far she seems more laid back than Mabry was as a baby and she sleeps much better too! For this I am SO thankful! Allie has really started giving us lots of smiles the past couple of weeks and she is starting to coo more also. So much fun! She is finally starting to get some rolls on her. I can't wait for her to get really big and fat.....I love me some baby rolls! She doesn't seem to be getting as big as Mabry did, but that is probably because she weighed less when she was born and doesn't wake up EVERY two hours to eat like Mabry did.:) Allie seems to have her Daddy's big blue eyes just like Mabry. I love those eyes! Hopefully they will stay blue.....we will have to wait and see. Anyway, here are a few pics of our sweet angel. Hope you enjoy!

Sweet smiles:)

Bath time - Allie seems to really like the water just like Mabry.

Sweet sleeping baby

That's all for now! Hopefully I'll post again soon;)

Mabry's 1st Haircut

Mabry FINALLY had her hair cut for the first time a couple of weeks ago. She had been insisting for some time that she did NOT want her hair cut so I held off as long as I could from taking her to get it done because I feared we would get to the salon and she would scream bloody murder. The girl doesn't tend to do things she doesn't want to.:) The hair eventually got to where I couldn't stand it any longer so off we went. I'm not sure if it was the bribe of ice cream that did the trick or what, but she did great! She was such a big girl and had a smile on her face the whole time. I love her haircut! It looks so much better and is so much healthier. You can't tell much from these pics but hopefully you can get the idea.......

Before the cut. Unfortunately, she has her mom's thin, stringy hair.:)

Looking down like such a pro!


All smiles with her new "bob". What a big girl!

As for life with 2 kids....we are making it.;) We are slowly but surely beginning to adjust and somewhat get the hang of things and I think Mabry is beginning to accept her new life with a sibling. She is still adjusting but getting better. I will try and post some one month pics of Allie as soon as we take some.:) Poor second child.

Gotta run....stay tuned!

Baby Venables is Here!

Allie Murlyne Venables was born this morning at 2:34 AM! She weighed 6.6 oz and was 19 inches long. After a quick labor and delivery, Mommy and baby are both home already and doing great.

Now Andy is going to attempt to post some pictures.

This is about 13 seconds after birth....i might get in trouble for posting this one.

Who is this little dark headed baby?

We will have to post some side by side pics of Mabry's baby pics. This child is a duplicate of Mabry, minus the dark hair of course.


Seriously, why is it so difficult posting pictures in this blogging business? I post a pic and it doesn't go where I want it, moves the text all around, and can not copy/paste text. I am just impatient and leave this kind of thing for Addie to do. I'm off my rant, enjoy the pics and I am going to go try and take a nap....right.

Where did May go??

So, here is our last month in a nutshell.....

We spent a wonderful Mother's Day weekend in the Hill Country.

We went to Pedernales Falls State Park for a few hours one day. Mabry LOVES being in the river and throwing rocks!

We have ripped our Master Bathroom apart and Andy is in the process of remodeling it. Did, I mention that our baby is due in less than 3 weeks??:) We are crazy, but figure if we don't get the bathroom done now it will be another year before anything productive gets done once the baby arrives. Let's just hope our baby doesn't decide to make an early appearance!

We spent a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend in Longview with lots of the Hoelzle clan. We had a great time being together and Mabry LOVED playing with her cousins.

Here are some pics from our Memorial Day Weekend

Mabry and Caden taking a walk together.:)

Mabry's first fishing experience.

Definitely Daddy's little outdoor gal.

The cousins singing songs and learning sign language from Uncle Braden. Later they went back into the entryway and just sat in their chairs laughing and screaming as loud as they could. So much fun!

Mabry and her Great-Grandmother Hoelzle. Priceless.

In other news.....

Here are a couple of belly pics around 35 weeks I think.....

This was a couple of weeks ago so I have probably had sufficient growth since then but we haven't done a good job of taking belly pics this time around. Hopefully, I'll get some new ones soon.;)

I saw the baby on ultrasound today because my midwives wanted to make sure she was head-down. So precious! I have never had an ultrasound this far along and it was like taking a sneak peak at our little angel. Wait, it wasn't "like" that, it WAS that! Anyway, her eyes were open looking right at me and she was smacking her sweet lips. So priceless. Getting excited about meeting our sweet baby girl!! Now, if only we could pick a name!

Mabry is starting to get excited about baby sister coming. She keeps saying that baby sister is going to come soon and go to the park with her.:) I love it when she puts her hand on my belly and talks to her little sis. So sweet. Mabry is getting to be so grown up and it makes me a little sad that she won't be our "baby" anymore but I am so excited for her to experience the joy in life that comes from having a sibling.

A couple of shots of Mabry that Andy took recently.....

The last interesting fact I have for now is that Mabry just fell asleep for her nap by herself for the first time ever! Wow! She must know she is about to get "de-throned" as Andy would say so she has to learn to be a big girl. Now I think I'll go snuggle with her while I still can.........