White Christmas in Oklahoma (Lane's and Clint's First)

Merry Christmas 2009. We began in Longview with my parents (by the way this is Clint). Following our Christmas lunch, we hit the road to Bartlesville to spend time with Steph's family. On Christmas Eve, part of Oklahoma received nearly two feet of snow. Fortunately the eastern side of the state did not receive near as much, only 5-6 inches. This was Lane's and my first ever White Christmas. He only had to wait one year, I had to wait 34. On Saturday, we spent some time outdoors. Steph, unfortunately, was in bed with a stomach virus, which now have all been affected with.
"Dad, this will work much better if you get the sled on the snow"

It's safe to say that Lane enjoyed the snow. At one point, his Grammy brought him in and he went right back over to his coat and scarf ready to return outdoors.

I now have a microphone to I can be like dad, only more intelligible.

Big...

For the past few weeks Lane has been feeding himself his breakfast all by himself. He has become quite independent and does not want any help what-so-ever!
Probably because he knows before too long he's going to be a big brother. In fact, I'm sure that's it.This morning we had our twelve week ultrasound. The baby looks great, we could not be more excited!

L.D.O.S.

Today was officially Grammy's last day of work... EVER! She is officially a retiree, if that's a word, with my Dad. While we were in Bville last week they had her retirement party at school. Lane ran right to Grammy in the hallway at school.
Grammy and Grampy got to show Lane off at the party. And Lane got to eat cake and drink punch. He drank all of my Mom's, most of mine, and some of my Dad's. He couldn't get enough of it!

Congratulations Mom! We're so excited for you and your new found freedom!

Rylee & OKC

While we were in OK Lane got to see his big sis Rylee. He got to play with her blocks.

And sit by her on the couch. And most importantly, he got to go see her dance in her big dance recital. He thought she was the best dancer up there!

Before we left to come back to Round Rock, we made a quick trip to Oklahoma City to check out the tubing slides at the Bricktown Ballpark. It was the perfect day! The temperature was about 68, finally a day we didn't have to wear coats and multiple layers!

The P's with their tubes about to go up.

A guy offered to take a picture of me and Lane while we waited for everyone to come down. I was ready to smile for him and then someone told me Clint was about to come down. So much

for a cute picture with my dude. Yes, he's the wierdo with the big camera on the left.

And right behind Clint were G & L. For some reason when people would come down the slope they were very quite. My Mom had a great time going down and showed it by yelling. I can't say much, I made a lot of noise when I went down too. Too bad, that wasn't caught on film!

To wrap up our fun day, we stopped in Tulsa to have dinner one more time with Auntie and Uncle T. Lane got to sit by them at their end of the table. He had so much fun keeping them busy!

We hated to leave OK, but we are back home and looking forward to more family fun before Christmas!

Woolaroc

We bundled Lane up again Friday night for another outdoor evening. We went to Frank Phillip's country house, just outside Bartlesville. I grew up going to Woolaroc for all kinds of things. Now, they open up at night and decorate the trees with Christmas lights and it turns into a Christmas wonderland. We went last year and Clint couldn't wait to take Lane again this year.

Our first stop of the evening was a visit with Santa. Once we got in the doors Lane made a beeline to the giant bear. He gave him a big kiss on his big black nose.

Then, we hopefully took Lane to see Santa. Grampy went with Lane, hoping that would keep Lane from being afraid. But no such luck. This was the closest Lane would get to Santa, to get a candy cane.

We took our second annual pictures in front of the big Christmas tree.

Then, we went to the petting barn. It was so fun watching Lane with the animals last year, so I was really looking forward to see how he would do this year.
He peeked in to see the animals and then discovered he could climb up on the ledge in front of the stalls to try to reach the animals.
He wasn't able to lure many animals over, but he had so much fun reaching out and waving to them.
He got to see and pet a week old baby goat.
And, he finally was able to pet something! A calf was sweet enough to let Lane pet her for a little bit.We left the barn to get on the wagon to ride around to the lodge to warm up.

While we were on the wagon ride Lane unwrapped his candy cane from Santa. I think eating it was the highlight of his night!

Dry Gulch

Thursday night, when Clint got back to Oklahoma from Winter Meetings, the Willis family went on a Christmas family outing! We all bundled up to spend a cold, wintry evening outside. When I say it was cold, I mean it was COLD! I don't remember the last time I wore so many layers. Lane looked like a little marshmallow thanks to wearing a pair of footed fleece pajamas under his pants and shirt. The main attraction of Dry Gulch is the steam train. We were all packed on and they didn't allow flash photography on the train so this was the best picture we got. Lane had a great time watching out the windows with Grampy.
We got to walk around "town". There were several restaurants to choose from and a few shops to shop in. Everything was lit up and decorated for Christmas.

Lane usually prefers to ride in his stroller or be held, but even he got into the spirit and enjoyed walking with his Grandparents.
Before our evening was over, went inside to get some hot chocolate and warm up. While we were inside Lane and his Uncle T did some bonding.

We all went home happy and cold!

Everything's OK

Hey Everybody! Guess what... I'm in Oklahoma for the week! I'm sitting at my Grammy and Grampy's desk writing my blog while Mom isn't watching. I love this desk because I can type and watch out the window all at the same time. While I've been in Oklahoma, I've been wearing my winter hat ALL the time. It's freezing here! Everybody's always telling me I have to put my hat on when we go out. I don't mind wearing it, I think I look pretty cute in it.
I got to try to take a nap with Grampy one afternoon. It didn't last long, I could see all my toys from his chair. I couldn't stand just laying there when I could be playing. I went to go see Santa yesterday afternoon. I got into his house and saw what he actually looks like in real life and decided I didn't want to sit with him. I think for now I'd rather pretend that Grampy is Santa and Grammy is Mrs. Claus. And, finally, and most importantly, when we went out to eat I got my very own kids meal! Mom always makes me share with her, but Grammy insisted I get my own meal. I got applesauce as a starter and then cheese ravioli. It was so delicious I ate it all!

Me and Mom are here for the rest of the week while Dad is at winter meetings in Indianapolis for Baseball's Winter Meetings. I'm gonna have so much fun!

Snow!

Lane and I went up to the ballpark this morning and ran into Clint and some snow!!! My two boys were pretty excited about it!

Dude Night Finale

On Tuesday, Lane and I ventured out on our final "Dude Night" of the year. Again to the mall, due to the 40-degree temps outside, but we had some fun none-the-less.

There are activities not documented in photo on this outing as to not reveal the locations of one special lady’s Christmas gift selections. I will say we DID NOT visit Dollar Tree, any vendor in a portable stand along the walkways or the Great American Cookie Company.

I added captions to each photo. Each caption matches, to the “T”, what Laners was thinking as we strolled around the mall that night.

I hope you guys enjoy. Brooke, don’t be jealous of how intelligent our child is – we all know he did not get that from me. From me, he received his giant stature, his love for sleeping and his ability to eat, and eat, and eat….. Which reminds, only one meal left of Grace’s turkey and dressing.

Yall have a great day!!! :) :P :0 :)> O:)