Happy Halloween Ya'll

Our Family at the Ward Halloween Carnival. Mom always dresses up to suit with Warren for Halloween. Dad lost his Halloween spirit after his first year of law school.


A cowboy worth kissing...wouldn't you agree?





Warren Fishing at the Carnival.
Warren and his fairy princess Charlotte. Charlotte will be the first to agree that Warren IS a cowboy worth kissing!! He obviously agrees that she is a princess worth kissing because he laid his first kiss on her earlier this spring.

My Litt'l Pumpkin

It is beginning to feel like fall here in Texas. A couple of weeks ago the leaves and acorns started to fall out of the oak trees in our yard. This morning we woke up to very cool temperatures (about 60 degrees). We headed out to a great pumpkin patch at The Good Shepard (a local christian church). They had lots of pumpkins to choose from and some fun stuff for the kids to do. Warren had a great time playing with his friend Zoe...oh, and mommy too.



























After the pumpkin patch my friend Kari and I took Warren and Zoe to lunch at Panera. As you can see the chocolate chip cookies are the best thing on the menu! Honesty at its finest.

"If you build it, they will come."

I still need to be pinched myself... but yes, it is official! We are building a house! We are so excited! It should be finished somewhere around the end of April or May. We kept thinking about how few visitors we have had since we moved to Texas. Not that we can blame anyone...our accommodations have been a pretty meager, at best. So, we followed the inspiration which came from the movie Field of Dreams... "If you build it, they will come."

Kickin my can

September was back to school time for me and for some reason this semester is kickin my can! I have been going to school part time for years now. The last year and a half I have been taking between 10-12 credits each semester and have been able to manage it ok. This semester, not so graceful.

Currently, I am taking Biology, Biopsychology, Computer Science and a Library Info Systems Class. My CS and LIS classes are fine...the other two are pretty study intensive and eat up most of my time. I have always loved science and done pretty well at it. I am finding, however, that it is more difficult teaching myself science than I anticipated. (I am taking these classes online). I find myself wishing that I had the professor/classmates to interact with and cell models to play with in class, etc.

It has made life around the house a little more interesting and a bit cluttered. My kitchen has become a scientist lab. Everynight Weston comes home to test tubes, chemicals and experiments all over the place. I haven't blown anything up yet but I did suffer a mild burn a few days ago. No worries, nothing a little ice and solarcaine can't fix.

Da Stuff

Weston's first day at Sutherland... and you wondered how law firms get away with charging such high billing rates!!

Angels Landing

As most of you know, Weston received a job offer to work with Sutherland, Asbill & Brennan yesterday. We are so excited for this opportunity. We haven't had our official celebration yet but apparently that didn't stop the angels from getting it started for us! Apparently, there was a serious party going on in our front yard as we slept Monday night. We don't need a confession to know who was responsible for this. Aren't we special?? A job and angels all in the same day!

The perfect touch (notice the "s" in Halls).... nice!

On the Bayou

One of our regular family outings is hopping on our bikes and exploring the greenbelt trails in Kingwood. We fill up a ziplock baggie of cheerios and find the nearest bayou. They are stocked with wild turtles and Warren loves to feed them. On a good day there are sometimes hundreds. One time we even saw a huge cottonmouth snake! Warren pointed it out and with wide eyes and the most serious face, he exclaimed..."mamma, I never saw such a He-ooo-ge snake before!" You have to hear him say it to get the full effect. He is so animated. Anyways, I was just glad that we were on the bridge and the snake was swimming upstream. Cree-py.

Fat Cat-Feesh

For Labor Day we decided to head down to a little town near the gulf named Kemah. It has a great boardwalk that is lined with rides, restaraunts, boats, etc. They had a live band playing some classic rock (my personal favorite) which was an added bonus. It is such a fun atmosphere and we enjoyed walking around checking it all out. It was a beautiful day until about 3:00 and it started pouring on us. Warren loved watching all the sailboats floating by.













There was a section off the boarwalk where people go to feed the catfish, apparently on a regular basis. I have never seen fish hang out like this. There were thousands of them! As soon as someone would throw the smallest thing into the water they would all go for it. The water shivered. Warren thought it was cool but I think we were more entertained than he was.

When the house gets quiet...

Every mom knows that when the house gets quiet you need to do a quick inventory of what your kids are doing because it is usually not a good thing. In our house when the house gets quiet this is usually what we find our 2 year old doing. I know it seems ridiculous but its not. Its wonderful! Sometimes blessings come in the strangest ways. We are thankful for them nonetheless.

Milk and the morning paper

Toddler brain candy is what this moment is all about!This is one of my very favorite "Warren" moments of all time. As you probably know, Warren LOVES Thomas the Train. Every time you buy a new character, it comes with a little fold out catalog that has all the Thomas characters on it (There is probably around 75-100 on it). We keep one in the car for longer car trips. Once we give it to Warren he is good to go for the entire ride. He will sit there and study every character ever so carefully! Just like a business man reading his morning paper. Occasionally he will pause and tell us about one of them and then continue with his studies. It always gives us a good chuckle. Love that boy.

Chillin at the Beach

We love going to Galveston. Warren loves gathering sea shells and building sand castles. He usually also loves crashing waves with us. We couldnt figure out why he was so scared this time. Especially since it had been a good 5 minutes before that Weston told him their were sharks in the water. ...hmmm....it was so odd. Dads are good for that kind of stuff. Maybe next time. lol

Camp Takula

The girls: The first night at camp we suprised the girls matching PJ'S with their names going down each leg and the intitials PJS on the hip. PJS was an acronym for Prayer Journal Scriptures and was to be a reminder for the girls to do these things each night. They loved them.

Push Jumps: My little sister Rach came up to camp with us and was continually amazing everyone with her athletic ability. This particular time she was jump roping in a military pushup position. That girl is an animal. The 10 other little girls that tried to follow her lead injured themselves in their attempts...wonder why.

Boating: We had a blast boating and swimming in the lake. We only got thrown off the tube once!

Camp was awesome. I was a little worried at first about the heat but it ended up not being so bad since we had air conditioned cabins, showers and a cafeteria. I know it sounds easy but it wasn't. The food in the cafeteria was horrible. :)

Do not try this at home

Another perk of having Rach around (for Warren) is that he gets free boarding lessons. Now he can do a sweet kick jump and is almost ready for the half pipe!

Warren at Work

While visiting Weston's office Warren made himself at home at the nearest empty desk. He told us he was checking his email and kept shooshing us saying, "Excuse me, I am doing my work." Once we were quiet he would get back to his important phone call saying "yes...I understand." He is such a little man.

Downtown Houston

From time to time Warren and I go downtown and meet up with Weston for lunch. This picture was taken in front of the Penzoil Tower, which is right next to the Shell Tower.