Santa Claus is coming...

We are getting in the Christmas spirit. Santa visited Austin's nursery on Friday and he got to sit on Santa's lap and chat for a bit. Austin has decided we will make chocolate cookies to leave out for Santa this year.

All Austin wants Santa to bring him is '5 big McQueens'. Austin has 2 or 3 Lightning McQueen cars, 1 big one that used to talk but doesn't anymore. Now he wants more. He tells us that Santa will bring 1 for mommy, 1 for daddy, and 1 for him. Not sure who gets the other 2.

We put our tree up yesterday. It made for quite a full day but we had a lot of fun. Austin loved decorating the tree, although, the needles did hurt his hands and he wanted mommy to help hang a lot of the ornaments but they had to go exactly where he wanted them. His favorite ornaments were the train ornaments and any red ornament. Red is now his favorite color. (I think it helps that Lightning McQueen is red.)

Trick-or-Treat

Here's our Spiderman all ready for Halloween. He has had 2 long days of trick-or-treating and Halloween fun. Thursday night was trick-or-treating in the park with his cousins. Friday was trick-or-treating in the morning at nursery. After nursery we were off to a friend's house to trick-or-treat in their neighborhood. They had a hayride through the neighborhood and everything. One of the houses was even set up as a haunted house. Austin just opted for the candy and didn't go through. We had a really good time. Austin's favorite candy so far seems to be Skittles and Smarties. Halloween seems to have lasted so long it's going to be difficult to understand why we won't get any more candy or light our jack-o-lantern for another year.

Austin with cousins Pirate and Batman.


Austin and his friend Jake at the start of the trick-or-treating hayride.

Pumpkin Carving

Faimon and Austin carving our pumpkin.


The finished product.


A few weeks ago we decorated some small pumpkins.

It's a Boy!

At first we weren't sure if the baby was going to cooperate but we did get a picture that shows us we're going to have another boy. Austin wasn't interested in seeing pictures of his little brother but he didn't seem upset when we told him it was a boy and not a girl. He was convinced it was a girl before today.

Here's the proof:



We have several other pictures but none that are easy to spot what you're looking at. She kept trying to get a good face shot but the baby kept moving and hiding his face. In this picture you can see the baby head to toe, with his head on the left and his feet on the right. His back is at the top of the picture.



No thoughts on names yet. Now that we can narrow it down to boy names hopefully it'll be a bit easier. Any suggestions?

Place your bets...

The time has come and, if the baby cooperates, we will hopefully find out if it is a boy or girl. The appointment is set for Monday morning.

What do you think? Pink or blue?

Fall in Louisiana

Fall in Louisiana brings football, the parish fair, and, for us, visits with family. We have had quite a busy few weeks. Austin has now been to his first parish fair, which opened with a parade through our downtown area. This may have also been Faimon's first parish fair parade. Austin enjoyed the parade, mostly the candy that he was able to catch or chase down. He did get a little bored with the actual parade. He liked watching the horses and 4-wheelers that were part of it.

Faimon managed to skip the fair as he was covering a couple of high school football games that week but Christa and Austin made an evening of it. Austin rode the merry-go-round, a truck ride, and a 4-wheeler ride. The 4-wheeler ride was his favorite. He cried after the first ride saying that he wanted to ride again on the other blue 4-wheeler. After 2 turns he seemed satisfied, though. He also took in some of the livestock (the chickens being the favorite) and a petting zoo. I can't forget to mention topping it off with his new favorite meal, corndogs.



Last week Austin and Christa also got to go to their first high school football game of the season. Faimon's parents were in town visiting so we all got to go to the game. Austin lasted through the first quarter and then was ready to go home. He said he liked the cheerleaders best of all. :)

Austin enjoyed having his grandparents around for the weekend. Faimon and Christa went through short bouts of the stomach flu that same weekend, so it was a good thing grandparents were around to keep Austin occupied.

We are enjoying the fall and are getting ready for Halloween. Austin loves the pumpkins and is all set to be Spiderman. Hopefully he won't change his mind before the big night!

Big News!

Expected 4 March, 2009. This picture was taken at about 8 weeks.

Summertime, summertime

We are enjoying the summer weather, although it is quite a change from an English summer. A little rain would help to cool us off and keep the grass in our yard from dying. We did get a little from Edouard but it might not be enough.

Christa and Austin spend their days off going to the library, playing in the park, and playing in the little red caboose. The caboose is near the museum in town and not red at all but that's what Austin calls it, so that's what it is. Sometimes we get to see real trains going by on the tracks behind the museum. Austin loves it but is still scared by the train's whistle as the engine passes.

A few of our summertime evenings have been spent going to some summer baseball games. Austin has really enjoyed them and even asked unbidden one Sunday night to go see one. Since summer baseball ended a few weeks ago, Austin and Faimon spend some of their evenings watching the Rangers on TV. Austin will get out of bed at night sometimes asking to watch racing cars on TV (he has taken a liking to NASCAR) but will settle for baseball if that's what Faimon is watching.

Austin is 2 1/2. We tried to get some good pictures of him to send out but, as you can see from the pictures below, he is much more interested in playing and making noise than in posing for pictures.

Slip-N-Slide

Austin enjoyed a day at BB and Gramp's house today. He got a chance to go on the slip-n-slide with his cousins and loved it.



We're getting ready for a trip down south this weekend for a short visit and a chance to celebrate with Antenna. Austin is most excited about possibly getting a chance to go to cousin Darby's house and go to the zoo (he has been asking about it for a couple of weeks). He keeps standing on his chair and telling us that the elephant is so very tall.

Austin seems to like his nursery. Sometimes he doesn't want to leave and he's always ready to go back. They have been having some fun summertime activities. Faimon and Christa are still getting used to the differences and really miss Austin's old nursery. There's not as much personal attention at the new nursery as we feel Austin deserves. :)

The World of Sports Writing

Faimon has been invited to join Bleacher Report, a sports fan website, as an author. He is still writing for his own blog, Pelican State Sports, and some of those articles are picked up and carried on Bleacher Report. He also writes some articles specifically for Bleacher Report. Right now, one of his articles is featured on the front page as one of the most popular articles. You can view his profile to see all of his articles.

You can always find links to Faimon's websites under "Links" on the left side of this page.

Faimon is settling in to his job as a sports writer and enjoying it so far, Christa is getting used to working more predictable hours at home, and Austin is adjusting well to his new nursery. We have 2 rooms that still have boxes in them but otherwise we are pretty much moved into our new home. We're all ready for a fun summer back in the US.

Big Boy Bed

Austin spent his first night in his big boy bed last night. It went really well. He was excited about it. We had been talking about it and it was up in his room the night before after Daddy, Uncle Mike, and Gramp put it together. Yesterday afternoon we made the bed with his new comforter that has trucks and cars all over it. He went to bed at 7:30 last night and stayed in bed until about 6:45 this morning. He was ready to take his nap this afternoon in the big boy bed again.

Austin and I went to visit his new nursery this morning. He was shy at first but seemed to settle down and enjoyed playing a bit with the other children. He will start going 3 days a week for the summer session on the 26th of May. It should be a fun time for him, although now he's really enjoying time playing with Mom and Dad and with his cousins.

The search is over...

Faimon has found a job as a Sports Editor for a small town newspaper about 30 minutes south of where Christa's parents live. It has all happened pretty fast. We are excited about the move and starting to look for a place to live. We will be staying with Faimon's parents until we do, probably around the end of this month.

We will probably be sending out our new contact details via email when we have them. In the meantime if you need to contact us feel free to email or leave a comment here.

Back In The US

Well, we are back in the US for good and enjoying it so far. Austin has had a great time with his friends and cousins. He thinks America is a land of trampolines, tractors, big trucks, and goldfish crackers. He has adjusted well and has only mentioned his nursery in Oxford once so far.

There has been some adjustment time for all of us. Christa has been feeling a bit homesick for Oxford. Getting used to driving in traffic again and just the speed of everything here has been a challenge.

We are having a good time visiting with our family and friends. We haven't decided where we're going to end up yet. Only time will tell...

One, two, buckle my shoe...

Austin is two years old. Hard to believe but it's true. We had a birthday party on the 26th with 3 of his friends. They had a good time playing with toys, old toys, new toys, and other people's toys that are left around the family area of our housing block.

We had the living room all decorated for his party when he woke up. He immediately noticed the balloons and played with the few that we had left on the ground. He helped to open all of his presents but kept getting distracted wanting to play with the new toys so one of his older friends helped out a bit. He did a good job trying to blow out the two candles on his cake. We had several different kinds, vanilla cake, chocolate cake, and cupcakes. Austin voted for a cupcake and enjoyed eating it in the messiest way possible. :-)

If you ask Austin how old he is now he will tell you, 'Two candles!'

Happy New Year!

We had a wonderful Christmas season and are ready to tackle another year. We enjoyed a visit from Grandma, Grandpa, and Antenna for Christmas. It was nice to have a full house during the holiday and Austin loved all the attention.

Austin enjoyed Christmas Day. In the picture above he is just getting in to his stocking, which was the first event of the morning (after breakfast, of course). The picture below shows him sitting in his chair with two new toys (Lightning McQueen and Mater) and watching his new DVD (Cars). He needed a little downtime to recover from all the excitement. Halfway through opening his presents we could tell that he was a little overwhelmed with everything but he continued to take it all in and have a lot of fun.

This year should see some exciting changes for us. We are planning a move back to the US at the end of March. That's about as far as we've gotten with the plan... no decisions yet as to where we will end up or what we will be doing. One step at a time. :-)