New Year's Eve Walk

Owen has started going to the mall to practice walking again.  This video shows the amazing progress he has made.

Our beautiful girl, on the job.

Fondant!

Building on yesterday's cupcake creation, Sammy moved up to a full fledged cake.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas Sammy!

Jigsaw likes to help open the presents

I don't remember what the skeleton was part of, but he became our Christmas mascot.

Sammy got fondant and gum paste and all kinds of stuff as presents.  This cupcake was her first creation.

Grandpa and Me

All is well in the world while I snuggle with my Grandpa.

Christmas Play

Sammy was a reindeer in the Christmas play at school.

Window Seat

Cuddly Christmas Present

Sparklers!

Who says sparklers are just for the 4th of July?  Laney joined us for some summertime fun in December.

Cake!

At my company you get cake on your birthday.  And it's not just any cake, it's a piece of confectionery perfection from "Our Daily Bread".  And it's not just one cake, it's two so that everyone can have a piece.  We take our cake very seriously in our office!

Keep Out!

A rite of passage?  I think every child does this to their bedroom door at some point.

Sammy on the phone, holding a present.

Christmas Tree

Our Christmas tree doing its best impression of a Christmas tree.

Christmas Tree Sammy

Sammy doing her best impression of a Christmas tree.

Beach Birthday

My birthday was our last day at the beach.

A bird has been this way...

Owen watching the waves

We started out with a sandcastle that we decided looked like a mouth, so we started drawing more....

...until we had a full body.

The view of our person from our room...

The view of our "man" from our room an hour later.  Apparently the other tourists felt we had made a "he".

A passing beachcomber was kind enough to take our picture.  It was a nice getaway.

More Beach

You may recognize this picture...just look at the top of the blog - the top half is the title picture!

If one is going to be at the beach, one must make a sand castle.

Stanley.

Surveying her domain

Waves!

We were headed toward that amusement park.  Owen made certain that he peed on Daddy every time we took a walk on this trip.

Owen was fascinated by the beach grass.

Beach Time!

I decided that what I wanted for my birthday was to go to the beach.  We headed south to Myrtle Beach, to the same hotel where we had had so much fun when Sammy was a toddler.

One of my more favorite pictures of Sammy

Sammy doing her best impression of an Egyptian Pharoah

Queen Nefertiti and her brother watching TV in their room

Of course, Sammy is at the highest point in the room...

The sea air has wiped out this little boy.

Lost Tooth and Birthday Time!

Owen lost his first tooth today!!!  

Most of our attempts to get a picture of the missing tooth were thwarted by his tongue

But, we got there in the end!

It was also time to celebrate Grandma Q's birthday.  Sammy, of course, baked and decorated a cake: