Some of our Favorite Folks!

We got a great treat this past week as we got to spend it in Austin with one of my best friends from college, Erica and her beautiful family.  We fit right in with her three kids and Micah had a blast in a very child proofed house with TONS of toys!  We had planned to do lots of fun things and even though we still had lots of fun, we didn't get to do too much because Micah quickly came down with a Fever near 104 so we had to go to the ER and get all fixed up.  The verdict was ear infection and possible sinus infection and so we tried to let him take it easy the rest of the week.  He is doing better now, the fever is mostly gone but he is still fighting it.

Waiting miserably at the emergency room

Some fun the next day

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I have to wonder what goes on in that little mind!

The McDonald kiddos are just as sweet as can be.  They are all blessed to be beautiful inside and out.  Peyton is 4, Hayley is 2 and Tyler is 4 months.  Micah was thrilled to not be the baby and get to run around with the big kids.  We think Hayley had a little crush on Micah despite the age difference because when she got dressed one morning she picked out her outfit, put on her clothes, looked at her mom and said "Mom, Micah is going to love me in this skirt!"  Unbelieveable and too funny!

The perfect skirt Hayley picked out for Micah

The last day we were there we played with my new camera a bit and did a little photo shoot with Erica's kids.   I have been having lots of fun learning and even had a new lens to try out so it was really fun to take pics and it didn't hurt that her kids are absolute dolls!  Here are some of the best ones!

Bath Time Fun!

At the beginning of January Micah very suddenly decided that he hated, lothed, destested, or was scared of bath time.  I have no clue what brought on this change of disposition because he has always had a blast in the bath but let me tell you he changed his mind.  A brief synopsis would include clinging to me with the strength that no 10 mo old should possess when we approached the water and the screaming in agony the entire time he was in the water and constantly trying to push out of the bath.  It was totally opposite of how much he had always loved the bath.  It looks like after a few weeks of coaxing and some not quite as scary baths in the sink we lured him back to the tub with some new fun bath toys today, and for the first time all month we had a very fun bath time!

I'm not so sure about this!

Look Mom!  It's my name!

That is really exciting!

I guess all these toys do make bathtime fun...

New Years Eve!

Brad and I got a special treat on New Years Eve.  We got to spend it in Las Vegas with friends and even got to borrow a babysitter and go out on the town!  Nothing crazy, but we did get to go to dinner and go bowling.  Here are some pics from our fun evening!

Me and my Handsome Husband!

Me and the beautiful Kara- who was our wonderful hostess while we were in Vegas!

Hello 2011!  I got my kiss this year!

Our bowling group!

Watch out!  Brad's Bowling!

Look of satisfaction after what I am sure was a strike!

Is it midnight yet?  We are old and need to go to bed, ha!

Can you believe it?!  A post with no Micah pictures!  I know many of you are probably disappointed and I do admit that the post is not nearly as cute... Sorry John.  But rest assured, I am sure it will be a long while before it happens again!

Fun with Cousins!

Today we got to go to Denton to visit Jenny, Jorday, Taylor, and Karis.  Micah is really starting to enjoy the company of others more every day and he epecially loves visiting with his cousins.  We went to Chick-fil-a for lunch (yes we were guilty of going twice in one day!)  and the kiddos had a blast!



After a lenthy lunch and everyone over 3 months old getting to play on the playground we headed back to the Hipp house for more fun. We played in both Jordan and Taylor's rooms and had much fun chasing each other around the house.

Chick-Fil-A Pajama Day!

Today was Pajama Day at Chick-Fil-A if you went in your jammies you got a free chicken biscuit. So we went and got breakfast for dinner! Micah had the best time... minus meeting the cow again! He got balloons and a free mini cow (the mini cow he liked!). He loved bouncing the balloons, holding on to the cow and even ate his whole chicken patty for dinner. What a fun night!

The Matherne Great American Roadtrip- Part 2

We left Dallas after Christmas hopeful for a two day journey to Las Vegas.  We planned to drive from Dallas to Albuquerque on day 1 then from there to Vegas on day 2.  As best planned intentions seem to go that is not quite what happened.  We had beautiful driving weather for day one and really enjoyed our trip to New Mexico.  We got to meet up with some friends from there, the Strongin's that night to get a quick bite to eat.  Kyle told us that she heard snow was coming toward New Mexico so that night we had to check it out.  Sure enough Flagstaff, AZ which is right in the middle of our path to Las Vegas was expecting severe winter weather starting early the next morning.  We decided to play it by ear but when we got to the last town we could to divert from our course Brad made the call to head south to Phoenix.  We were hoping this would only add about 3 hours total to the trip and keep us from encountering winter weather but again we were not quite so lucky.  We should have taken this as a sign...



We entered another separate snowstorm on our way to Phoenix which was made worse by us being on a teeny tiny road leading from the middle of nowhere where we turned off to Phoenix.  We spent a long, long time slowly, and carefully getting through this storm.



Finally though we made it to Phoenix!  The one great perk about going to Phoenix was that we got to stay with our great friends the Hafez's.  As you may recall  Micah and Shaun were born only 9 days apart and have been friends for life!  They were visibly excited to see each other!



They kept doing this thing which was ridiculously cute where they would both crawl over to the push toy and stand up and push it around together, side by side!







Brads favorite saying of the night was "Somehow I woke up and we were 9 hours from Vegas, we drove 10 hours, and we are still 5.5 hours!"  It was a long day but seeing friends and Micheale's homemade chili and hospitality made it a great end to the day.  We took off the next morning and headed up to Vegas again.  This time with beautiful weather and even better views!  It was a gorgeous drive!  When we hit I-40 again (the road we got off of the day before to go south) It was completely closed in and out of Flagstaff!  It looks like we made a very good decision to go to Phoenix which was nice to know since we had to deal with another blizzard on the way!  We managed to get to Vegas early that afternoon and were happy to get to spend the weekend with more great friends from South Carolina, the Hales!  Kara is Micah's self proclaimed best friend so he was obviously very happy to see her and to get to show her everything he could get into at their house.  We had a great time there and look forward to another visit soon!

Guess who Micah misses?

Micah's FIrst Christmas

Oh what fun it is to have kids on Christmas Day!  I know it is a bit late but I am finally getting back up to date with the posting and I have to say, Micah was mighty cute Christmas morning.  We woke up at the Ross House and Micah got to see his first Christmas tree loaded with presents.  Lets just say yes, Santa definitely came! Since Micah is up early we headed over to the Matherne house for an early couple of hours visit.  Then back to the Ross house for some marathon present opening and a delicious late lunch then back to the Matherne's for the evening and more and more presents.  Micah was excited to see everything but really had no interest in opening gifts.  It was more fun to wade through the paper and play with all of his family!  We were all so blessed with so many wonderful gifts but most of all by being able to spend the holiday with all of our family members from both sides.  It doesn't happen often with the families always growning and many of Brad's siblings living the military lifestyle like us.  What a wonderful Christmas gift!