Where ya been Fox?

First off, I want to apologize for not updating this blog in over a month... A MONTH! There has been SO much that has happened and I just haven't found the time to sit down and write on here. The biggest reason though has to do with me being occupied building a website for a friend of mine that is starting up his photography business. My friend, Andrew Coloney, asked me in the beginning of October to build him a website, named PatriotPhoto.us, to help him establish his online presence. I've been working pretty much non-stop in my free time trying to get all the details just right for how he wants it. Whew! There are several general pages for his business but the crowning achievement was creating an online viewing section for his customers to view their photos from their event. I also made these galleries password protected so their pictures can only be viewed by them. The site should be operational in a week or so after the final touches are added. Good stuff if you ask me. :) Anyway, that's where I've been. Hopefully you all have had a chance to keep up to date with our pictures on Flickr in the mean time. Now, on to the updates!

Little Makenna just turned 4 months old this past Sunday! It's absolutely amazing how much she has grown in just these 4 short months. She's wanting to stand all the time now. Her neck control is almost complete. We see her baby doc in a week or so and after that she gets her first taste of something other than formula! She's decided to become good at drooling... haha ... and she's starting to want to chew on things too. Mostly she's interested in chewing on hers and my (clean and washed) fingers. She's clasping her hands all the time and bringing them to her mouth on a regular basis. And her eyes are still soaking up everything. Just check out the pic above. Her eyes are just captivating...

And as you all know, Tuesday was Halloween! And look who was the cutest pumpkin ever! This picture was taken by Nonnie (aka Grandma Brenda). If you head to our Flickr site you can see a lot more pictures. Being that it was Makenna's first Halloween, Kimi couldn't help herself and went out and got her 2 outfits and a sleeper. I'm totally serious! Little Miss Mak had her choice of being a Pumpkin or Tigger. So we dressed her as Tigger for the morning at Grandma's house and as a Pumpkin for Trick or Treatin' that night. We made a few stops at different houses in the neighborhood and also at Kimi's Grandma and Grandpa's house and at Dad and Brenda's (I mean Poppy and Nonnie's). We would have done more but it was SOOOOOO cold and we didn't want Makenna to get sick or to freeze to death. Besides, next year she'll be running ahead of us yelling "twik o tweet" and we'll be trying to catch up. :) We can't wait. When we visited my Dad's house, he had a wig that was left over from his costume from last year. I don't know what got into me but I threw on the mullet wig, put on the sleeveless flanel shirt and grabbed my Dad's guitar and set myself up for some embarrasing pictures! I even answered the door for him and told the kids to "rock on ya'll". What was I thinking again? Brenda and Kimi thought I looked like Billy Ray Cyrus... :)

Speaking of Kimi, well guess what? My lovely wife and I recently celebrated 3, THREEEEE, years of marriage. Not to make it sound like that's a long time or anything but well, three years went by realllly quickly. I guess its true then what happens to time when you are having fun. :) Haha To celebrate our anniversary, I took Kimi to a cute little Bed and Breakfast in Purcell called JMarie's B&B. It was very reasonabley priced (compared to others we've been to) and was very well accomidated. It was in a three story building that was built at the turn of the century. When we walked in, there was a long hallway dimly lit by chandeliers that led to a staircase that rose up and up. We looked at each other and thought, "Oh No, what did we get ourselves into...". We made our way up the creaking staircase past the 2nd floor where the old ballroom with hardwood floors and 20 foot high ceilings was in complete darkness... Wait, is that another set of stairs over there... yes, and theres a room at the top... So we trekked another flight upward and saw... one of the most beautifully decorated rooms we've ever seen. The room was made to look like a New York City loft apartment complete with a faux brick wall, hard wood floors, a jacuzzi tub, and more. Quite the delightful surprise from our earlier impression. We would recommend this charming little place to anyone, and for the price, you can't beat it. Stop by her website and check it out yourself. They've been in business for less than a year so it's not perfect yet but the breakfast the next morning was to die for, just ask Kimi. :)


The other part of our anniversary gifts included going to Texas for a clothing shopping spree for Kimi to get some new outfits and Kimi to surprise me with purchasing a guitar for me. As you saw from the pictures above, I'm extremely good at playing guitar... yeah, right. But we got a great deal on a Fender Accoustic and I'm going to start learning how to play so I can lull Makenna to sleep at night while she's growing up. It's a good plan. If only I could figure out how to tune it... Anyway, while we were in Texas, we were blessed to be able to meet the newest addition to the Fox family in Caden William Fox. He was 3 weeks old at the time this picture was taken and he was very alert and well behaved. :) Look how huge Makenna is compared to him. Brent and Elizabeth (Cadens parents) were shocked at how fast she's grown and were saddened at the same time b/c little Caden would be growing up that fast too. We shared our vast wisdom of parenting with them (it took about 2 minutes) and scheduled a play date for the Fort Worth Zoo in the spring.. lots of fun!

The last thing I got Kimi for our anniversary was tickets to see the Audio Adrenaline and Mercy Me concert. It was Audio Adrenaline's Farewell Tour and they are Kimi's favorite band of all time. We also invited my Mom and Scotty b/c Mercy Me is my mom's favorite band of all time. (When I bought tickets, I was thinking two birds, one stone...)Audio Adrenaline has been around since the early 90's and one of their biggest songs (and kinda annoying after so many years of hearing it) was "Big House" that if you sang it, it was requisite that you do the hand motions too. So there was Kimi at the concert singing at the top of her lungs doing the motions to Big House with no remorse. It was great! And of course, my mom cried when Mercy Me was singing. It was a great concert and well worth the money of going. Adios Audio Adrenaline... We will miss you...

I hope you all enjoyed the update (finally!). Did anyone have any cool Halloween stories they wanted to share? :) I know there has to be some good ones so don't be shy!