Staycation 2010

Now that we are a one income family, the days of traveling to exotic and exciting places like Uganda, Hawaii, and Israel are over (at least for a few years). Brad really needed to take some time off from work so we decided to take a staycation. We spent some time in Ft. Worth, caught up on things around the house, and most importantly relaxed (Brad enjoyed being on the same nap schedule as Anna).

We visited the Ft. Worth Zoo which is one of the top 5 zoos in the nation! I remember feeling depressed the first time I went to the zoo as an adult because the enclosures for the animals seemed much smaller than they did when I was a kid. I didn't feel that way at the Ft. Worth Zoo because the habitat areas are so natural and open.

We finally had a chance to eat lunch at the Joe T. Garcia's.

We stumbled across this beautiful chapel in the middle of the Central Market Shopping Center and had to stop for some pictures.
Anna enjoyed several evenings of combined bath time and pool time.
Oh, and we had to take a trip to Austin to deal with a rental house but squeezed in a little time with good friends. We met up at my favorite kind of restaurant...one with outdoor seating, live music, a play area for kids, and sweet potato fries.

2nd Father's Day

I am so thankful this man is the father of my little girl! I am loving watching the bond between these two develop. Whenever Brad gets home from work, he takes Anna out on the back porch and she sits in his lap while they talk and look at all the little critters in the yard. The other day he told me that he is going to enjoy this while he can because one day he knows she won't want to sit on his lap and hang out (I'm not so sure about that:)). I'm glad that Anna is out of her "I want mommy all the time" phase and she loves to go to her daddy too.

And while I am taking a moment to recognize Brad, let me just say how much I appreciate how hard he works for our family. He has been working on a new product for his business and recently got "the boards" back. This was a really big deal! Hours and hours of blood, sweat, and tears have gone into this board. Brad is used to working with a team of technical leads, other engineers, technicians and support staff. This time, he wore all of those hats so he had to teach himself many new concepts. I am always amazed at his ability to focus and figure out almost anything. He is now in the debugging phase of the board while his business partner is designing much of the software. I cannot wait to tell you more about the final product once it is ready!

Birthday Boy

Growing up, my sister and I always talked about having kids at the same time so they could be best friends. God allowed us to get pregnant within one month of each other and now our babies are one! A couple weeks ago, we traveled down to Houston to celebrate Marcus' first birthday. Since Marcus is a summer baby, the birthday was a fish/water theme.

This was the cutest cake and really easy to make. Everything on the cake is candy - even the rocks!

This is what was left of it...

Sweet mama and her boys.

The little ones had fun fishing.

While the big ones had fun throwing water balloons.

And my sister and I got to watch our babies grow up together.
(I love Marcus' tongue in this picture - he is definitely a Kutach!)

Walking, Talking Girl

It seems like the day Anna turned one, she turned into a big girl. Sometimes I feel like I should be videotaping her almost 24/7 to catch all the new things she is doing and then I should be blogging about it to get it documented. On the otherhand, I just want to enjoy being in the moment with her and not worry too much about documenting everything. The time I spend with her compared to the time I spend on the computer is so much more important.

I thought to myself, I can relive my childhood in a matter of minutes by flipping through a few photo albums (I don't even have any videos because we didn't have a camcorder until I was much older). Anna will have more photos and videos to look at than she will ever even have time for...she probably has more photos from her first week of life than I do of my first 18 years!!! I digress, here are a couple cute videos...

Walking Girl from kelli bruce on Vimeo.

First Words from kelli bruce on Vimeo.