Holiday wrap-up & new member of the Bain fam!

Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful celebration. We sure did. And also mini-Texas tour. We spent Christmas Eve at my parent's ranch west of Austin, then came home and on the 26th, David flew to DFW & back to pick up the newest addition to our family (scroll down if you can't stand the suspense). Then we packed up and headed to David's family farm east of Austin for a night. Now we are home. Pics of all of it below.
The tree at the ranch. How they find such a huge, gorgeous tree each year is beyond me.

Reese in front of the tree and presents. This year, she really understood Christmas (much discussion of Baby Jesus) and also Santa Claus, which made Christmas so much fun. Although she was not real keen on some guy coming into the house while we were sleeping. Can't say I blame her--it does defy logic. Also, all the discussion of naughty v. nice this season has had an effect on her. She calls this nighttime garb her "Cinderella naughty" instead of nightie. Many jokes can be made about getting in your "naughty," etc.

Reesie and her Papa, Christmas morning.

Trying on her new "tutu dress"

Just lounging in the Diva dress--on the new beloved pillow she got from Nanci.

Now, for the pics many of you skipped forward to see. Introducing Greta, our new mini labradoodle pup! Her is the big introduction between Reese and Greta. Love at first sight on both ends.

She's a precious and super soft little thing.

Reese was determined that although it was 78 degrees and dogs have fur, Greta desperately needed her blankie.

Goofing around with Greta. Before we left for the farm, they were out in the yard, running around together like two peas in a pod. The breeder told David Greta went everywhere with her 4-yr-old daughter, so she's used to the little ones.

Reese, on our way into the Union Hill Farm. She wanted to hold Greta and be the one to present her to the family.



Georgia, preparing canapes for the family. Yummy!

Bain & the pup--new buddies!

Blake can't move.

Because Greta has found a new favorite spot.

Mary Blake and Reese, chillin'. Reese pretty much follows any and all of her cousins around, in awe of them.

Greta and her pal, Bevo.

Greta is adorable and very sweet. The first night (at the farm), she went right into her crate and barely cried through the night. Last night (first night home), she went into her crate and shrieked like a wounded banshee spider monkey for 2 hours straight, until David insisted that I go get her and bring her into our room. Through my pounding headache and tears of stress, I agreed. I am going to try to just put her in the crate throughout the day today so it isn't so sudden--she pretty much napped on my lap all day yesterday. But she's supposed to be crate trained, and it's something that really needs to happen. Crate training advice, anyone? Lay it on! Please!

More playdate and Steph's graduation!

Yep, I was right--Shannon did get some better pics!
First, here is one of sweet Ainsley and myself--love, love her piggies! Tatum has such cute ones as well. It makes me want to stop trimming R's hair so she can have cute pigtails like her buddies.

And a much better one of the three gals. I wish I remember what we were saying to them because it was eliciting some bemused reactions...it's almost as if you can hear a collective, "Huh."

Last night, we attended a fun graduation party for my sweet cousin, Stephanie! She graduated from Texas State and already has a teaching job underway in the Eanes district. Way to go, Steph!
Here's a partial family shot--Steph and Bo, me and R, my folks and my aunt Janise and grandma Margaret.

Naturally, we are all quite proud of her. Reese likes to express her pride in affectionate ways.

Two lovely ladies!

We're so proud of you, Stephanie! xoxoxo

At long last...

I'm back! Did you miss me much?
"Well, I'm Shelly B, back from the dead, chillin' at the beach, down at Club Med" (not really, but beach pics are to follow) (bonus points to the first one to guess the lyric reference....Monique's got my money!)
So, I am giving up on the Handycam cord sitch until David can help me to really focus on it. Finding the cord is impossible, and really, that starts to irk me, because how stupid is that to have a different cord than every other camcorder currently known to man? C'mon, Sony--seriously!
So I am going to start blogging again, and will start with some catch up pics from our TG trip to FL. Because they were on the camera and are new downloads, not because I am anywhere remotely timely on these babies. So here they are...
I give you goofy beach pics! Yes, the water was very cold. That's why David got the duty of water patrol, and Mommy got the laying out on the sand duty. And of course there is such a duty, don't be silly.
Stylin' shades there, girlfriend

Digging away

Daddy, pre-freezing water

Serious digging bidness

Braving the chilly temps (water, not air, that is)

Loving on Gigi at Cafe Dada

Dressed to impress for the turkey day feast

Reese decided David's friend Matt was allowed to escort her down the stairs

C'mon, Matt!!!

Well, whaddaya know, Reese is wearing pink! Of all colors...

Eating at the delicious Shallot Thai restaurant in FL, where the waitstaff was one of the nicest I have experienced with a child. They doted on her and brought her all sorts of stuff, including these cool "chopstick training wheels," which she naturally loved.

And could also use!

Pretty well, even! Now she always asks to use chopsticks. Luckily, I just found where I had stashed these in one of my purses, so I foresee many future meals tackled with chopsticks. Fruit, waffles, mac and cheese....

Hello, most random blog post ever! Here's R last week, just being a princess at my parent's house.

And continuing with the randomness...Reese and I loaded up with Grandma Margaret and aunts Kathy and Janise a few nights ago and hit the road to go see the Johnson City Christmas lights. They are really amazing!

We stopped by the Pedernales Electric Co-op offices first. Despite being embroiled in controversy, they still did it up big time.

With white, red and green lights.

If Reese looks like she's standing in daylight, it's because she is basking in the glow of 1.5 million (meeellion, in the words of Dr. Evil--insert finger in mouth now) lights. And they re-hang these every year.

It is really breath-taking. We also visited the areas around the courthouse and took a ride on a horse-drawn carriage. I am deathly allergic to horses and apparently find it necessary to get near one every few years just to be reminded of this. Turns out, I am still deathly allergic.

We had a ton of fun at our holiday playdate today at the Shiflets. Tatum invited Reese and Ainsley over to play with her and Tinsley. Oh, and the mommies too. ;) Thank you, sweet Tatum!

Ainsley and Tinsley

Reese, pretty excited about the whole thing!

Giving a shout-out to Lulu, who was very good-natured about being uprooted by the gaggle of girls.

Reese gets to play with Tatum's pink kitchen! This is a very big deal, since she is asking one Mr. Nicholas Claus for a pink kitchen as well!

Ainsley rides the "neigh-neigh"

We really did try to get a good group pic of the three girls. These are some of the, um, better ones. Maybe Shannon got a good one...




Tinsley, such a precious, happy baby!

Shannon and Ainsley get some Tinsley-time

Which she seems to enjoy equally!

Anne had it all planned out perfectly: playtime, homemade Play-doh, and even cookie decorating. See how Ainsley and Tatum sat sweetly and decorated/ate the cookies?

Meanwhile, Reese is trying to ride the Bumbo sled-style down the stairs. Nice.

Before we left, they all lined up so sweetly to peer at the tree and decorations.

It was great to see our friends--thank you for a wonderful morning!

sigh

I am so technologically challenged, it's ridiculous. I cannot download the video from R's performance of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" because I cannot locate a cord that fits into my camera. Every time I leave to run errands, this dilemma completely evaporates from my brain. The brain drain is not indicative of my tech-deficiency, however--that's a whole other ball game.
Also, I have been instructed not to download the pics from D's fancy schmancy camera because there are over 1K pics, and he wants to delete some so there aren't so many. So, I give you....nada. I will get it up here within a few days though, I promise, because it is so very funny.
I did receive an email from our dear friend, Damian, featuring a clip from the documentary being made about his Texas Chair exhibit, currently showing at AMOA. I thought maybe throwing that in as video would be a good practice run for me, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to make a YouTube clip show up as playable video on the blog. After much teeth-gnashing and hair-tearing, I decided screw it, I am just going to link it the old-fashioned way. Which I only learned how to do two weeks ago. Seriously, I should not be allowed to own a computer, much less this fantastic Mac that I use to about .0004% of its potential.

Sour grapes!

Hi there! Anyone still out there?
I apologize for not updating the blog, but it's been busy blah blah blah and also David took most of the Thanksgiving vacation pics, and he gets in today so I can finally upload them blah blah blah. So here is a post, sans photos. That's exciting, right? I know it's not, but I also know a few of you have been regularly checking in and are probably getting, um, tired of looking at diced grapes. Even though they were diced so perfectly....
So our FL trip was great. Reese was behaved 8000 times more perfectly than the two hellions sitting behind us on the way out there. I shouldn't even expend any more energy talking/writing about them, so just suffice it to say they were rather unpleasant. We had a few great dinners with David's parents in Delray, at Dada and Trattoria, and of course the big meal itself. We ate Thanksgiving dinner at the famous Breakers hotel in Palm Beach. Schwanky! It was us, the Bains, D's Uncle Blaise and two of D's good buddies, Matt and Ryan. We had a wonderful time and a lovely meal in what was really an amazing setting.
Also, we put in some beach and pool time before it got "cold" (60s). We went down to Miami for a couple of nights, which was super fun. What a great city! We had delicious Cuban food at Havana Harry's and visited the Miami Zoo. We literally had the place to ourselves. We pulled up into the Wally-world-like parking lot and parked in the front row, alongside about 4 other cars. Literally, we only saw about 5 or 6 other families or people the whole time. We rented a dual bicycle jalopy-type vehicle, strapped R in, and pedaled around the place. It is a fantastic zoo; I highly recommend it, especially if you find yourself in Miami the Monday morning after TG weekend and it is overcast and 65 degrees (apparently everyone else needed to take cover during the cold snap).
We had a chance to see the Oswalds (well, two of the Oswalds, Leya and Glenn) for a quick breakfast. We had hoped to have dinner with them the night before but they were trapped in a hellish day of travel and all their plans got messed up...but it was so great to see them at least for a short while. They were there for Photo Miami, in conjunction (methinks) with the Art Basel extravaganza.
The final day we were there was spent in Delray and Palm Beach with my parents, who flew out for a day to see where David has been spending his time lately. Good timing, because he is pretty much finished up there and moving back to Austin very soon--yippee! Anyway, we had fun giving them the grand tour. I was also happy to pass on JetBlue and fly home with them....
Since we've been home, we've been on the go, spending the past two nights at the ranch, which included a fabulous shopping excursion to Wimberley, a charming little town outside of Austin. I guess if I can't post pics, then I really find a way to link as much as possible. Anyway, today we attended a fun surprise baby sprinkle for some friends and are now awaiting D's arrival and the funniness that is certain to be R's preschool performance tomorrow. Pics to follow, I promise!