Introducing Rebecca Clare... and Day 1 with Daddy

It's been a great year for us highlighted by the arrival of our beautiful daughter Rebecca Clare on March 11, 2013. Morgan was amazing throughout the labor and did it all natural, which many of the nurses remarked makes her a super-woman (of course I already knew that). I don't know if I realized just how much her arrival would change my life, but I feel so blessed to get to see this baby girl everyday.

We've already had a full 8 weeks since she was born as she has gotten to celebrate Easter with both of our families, was baptized in April and been introduced to many of our friends. Morgan headed back to work this week after her maternity leave, and I am taking about a month off from work to watch Rebecca until she goes to daycare.

During this time I had an idea to try to do something different with Rebecca everyday. It wouldn't necessarily be something big, but I would try to give a little explanation about its meaning. I don't know that she will ever read it or if I'll even think of enough things for every single day, but here goes nothing...

Day 1 - Write thank you notes
I've had a few thank you notes that I needed to finish for gifts that Rebecca had received from family and friends. She has received so many thoughtful and useful gifts that we are overwhelmed by the generosity of those we know. So while Rebecca was napping and content in her bouncer, I was able to complete a few. Morgan is very good at sending thank you notes, but I am not and before we met had only sent them for significant events like graduation gifts. I hope Rebecca has a good sense of appreciation and takes the short amount of time to acknowledge those who are special in her life.

Jumping back in

So it's been a while since the last post. Let's catch up:
- Played in a family golf tournament, celebrated Granny's birthday, and Ashley and Chase got engaged all in the same weekend in August
- Went down to Gruene to see Ward and Kristi get engaged in September
- Closed and moved (with the help of our wonderful parents) into our house in October
- Carved pumpkins for Halloween
- Kicked a field goal Thanksgiving evening
- Went to Vegas for a few days at the end of December (and didn't lose all our money)

And finally in January, we went to the animal shelter and added a couple of new members to the household. Introducing Shawn and Gus. As you can see by the pictures below, they are very energetic.

Shawn

Gus

One year later...

This post is a little long in coming, but it better late than never. This is one of my favorite wedding photos. I can't believe that it has already been a year (well over a year now). The first year of marriage was amazing and I hope that all of the years to come are just as good.

To celebrate our anniversary we decided to head out to Fredricksburg for the weekend. the weekend was such a nice break from our busy month.

Hayden pretending to be serious at our bed and breakfast. The B&B was apparently a getaway of LBJ and that was his favorite chair. So of course Hayden had to sit in the chair and do an impersonation.On our actual anniversary we broke out our wedding cake...err wedding cupcakes. Year old gluten-free cupcakes aren't great, but we had to keep with tradition. Hayden ended up eating most of mine.
One thing that we found out during our trip is that Hayden really likes German food. When you are in Fredericksburg you can eat a lot of it.

Sunday afternoon we drove up to Enchanted Rock and then had a late lunch at Coopers in Llano.
After treking up to the top we decided to find our own way down. Unfortunately, we may have picked the steepest way possible. I'm pretty sure it was about a 65 degree slope for a few hundred feet.
Finally we made it down and took a leisurely stroll around the main loop. After all of that hiking we were ready to dive in to some bbq and head home.

We're homeowners! At least we should be in a couple months...

So it has been a long time since we've posted anything, but we have a pretty good reason. The first part of the summer was full of weekend trips with family and friends. All of the rest of our free time has been spent looking for a place to settle down. It looks like we might have found it.

The future Migl's Nest on Wing Road

We started seriously looking with a realtor about a month ago thinking it would take a while to find a place, but she did a great job of narrowing down our search and showing us properties that matched what we're looking for. The place that we have under contract was on the market a day before we looked at it and was priced well for the neighborhood. She almost did too good of a job because the lease on our apartment goes through October. Luckily, the seller is still looking for a place so he is receptive to delaying the closing which works better for us.

It's in a nice looking neighborhood in southwest Austin so we should have a shorter commute which we both really wanted, and it is move-in ready. Although I'm sure there will still be some posts about some home improvement projects (Morgan is putting together her home binder with paint colors and decorating ideas :)

Birthday Madness

May is full of birthdays in my family- 4 birthdays on my side of the family alone, plus Hayden's birthday, Mother's Day, and our anniversary. So we have been a little busy over the past month.

Lucky Hayden has his birthday two days before our niece Avery's birthday, so he got to go to her Elmo party on his birthday. He even got to wear a party hat and we all sang happy birthday as he blew out the candles on his own cake.Avery wanted to have a Dora and Elmo party, but Elmo won out. Megan made all sorts of decorations for the big day.

All of the kids are getting so big and getting better at hitting the pinata. The girls are still dainty about trying to get the candy out so it took a few rounds of batters.

Gardening - Apartment Style

Since Christmas, Morgan and I have been working on our patio garden and as the weather heats up, we've begun harvesting some of our produce. Some of the smaller things like cilantro and parsley were started from seed and the rest we've been accumulating on trips to Home Depot. The banana peppers have really taken off and we've got a lot of jalapenos. Now if only the birds would stop eating our tomatoes as they turn ripe.

Seriously, if anyone has a good way of keeping birds off tomatoes, let us know. We haven't been able to pick a tomato yet because of the feathered fiends (I like alliteration :).

And since it seems like each of my posts includes some food pictures, here are a couple. The first is a breakfast frittata with bacon and onions based on a recipe from Kitchen Boss (and made with our own parsley :) Breakfast for me during the week is usually only a nutrigrain bar so I look forward to the weekends when there is time to make something more substantial. It was my first time to try it out and turned out really well. So good that I've tried a different variation made with chorizo.

The second featured meal is pretty simple but turned out great. Morgan's parents sent us back with some squash, so I made some chicken and rice to go along with a squash and onion side dish. I wasn't following any recipe, but it turned out really well for a meal I was making on the fly.

Easter Festivities

It's been a while since we put something up, so I'll pick up close to where we left off. Holidays are always busy trying to fit in both sides of our families. Its also busy when I try to bake tons desserts to take to both families. This year I made lemon meringue pie, gluten-free carrot cake cupcakes, and iced sugar cookies. I'm so glad Hayden helped me get everything together and keep some order in our kitchen. Between church, work, and baking, Thursday and Friday were pretty hectic.

Friday night we drove down to Yoakum so we could be there early for Easter. Saturday morning Hayden went off to play golf with his dad, uncle, and cousins. I spent the morning finishing up the icing on the sugar cookies. For once I got to decorate something without trying to meet a deadline. (It was awesome!) Saturday evening meant it was time for the Easter vigil service and then Easter dinner with Hayden's family.

Sunday morning we were treated to a yummy breakfast before we hit the road. Then it was off to New Braunfels for Easter with my family. Between Easter baskets, tons of candy, Easter eggs, and confetti eggs, I think it's safe to say our nieces and nephews like Easter.
Hayden & I helped hide all of the eggs. By hide, we mean throw them out in the grass. Once they get a little bit older we may have some real fun hiding eggs. Connor figured out real soon that some of the eggs had money in them and starting hunting only those eggs-smart kid. Too bad he ended up having to share with everyone else. I think Jake is getting the hang of this Easter egg thing. He definitely got the candy eating part afterwards. The only thing with being the youngest is that your an easier target for the confetti eggs.