Daddy's 32 today!!!

HAPPY 32ND BIRTHDAY BABE!!! WE LOVE YOU!!!!

Christmas Pics 2009

Here is a sample of Christmas photos for now. I will upload the rest and create a slideshow later in the week after we have Christmas with Davin's family and his birthday stuff (he will turn 32 on Dec. 31st)! Hope you all had a wonderful holiday!
Love,
S

Christmas Cookies!!!

I had to post a couple pics of Hayden's very first experience baking Christmas cookies with Mommy! We had so much fun. I just love getting to do this kind of stuff with my son and can't wait for Peyton to be old enough to help out; maybe next year! Merry Christmas everyone!

-Spencer:)

Cutting his first cookie!

He was so excited!

We got flour on each others noses :)

Not a bad outcome for a first-timer

Yummy cookies for Santa

Pre-Christmas Update

Hello all! I hope you are all having a wonderful holiday season so far. I just thought I would post a little update about the family before Christmas, since I know we'll be busy with all of that and so will all of you. :)

Peyton Update:
She now has FIVE teeth!! We went from no teeth to four teeth on December 7 and as of December 13th, she got another one! What's so funny is that four of her five teeth are all on the top! AND she apparently has the "Chapman Gap" between her two front teeth which I think is adorable! She looks just like her Cousin Cate when she smiles ;) Also, she is still babbling and trying to talk to us, but usually just says "ooooooo" and "ahhhhh". She's trying. She is also pulling up on everything now, so I know standing and walking is not too far behind that. I started weening her off of formula at 9 months (just like I did with Hayden) so the only formula bottle she gets is her bed time bottle. She eats baby food for all her meals and snacks on puffs and pear juice in between. She LOVES her puffs and it is the funniest thing to watch her eat them! She does this new "head bobble" thing that resembles Stevie Wonder when she eats and when her daddy shakes his head at her and it just kills me! So blessed to have her in her lives; I can't remember life without her.

Hayden Update:
He is such a big man now! He dotes on his sissy, but sometimes he gets a little carried away and hugs her a little too hard, haha! His obsession with dinosaurs has only increased, so I'm hoping Santa brings him that remote controlled dinosaur he wants. ;) He wants to do everything by himself like pick out his clothes and dress and undress himself...hilarious! He cannot wait to make Christmas cookies for Santa with me and he is really excited to see if Santa eats them when we put them out on Christmas Eve. I have it on good authority that Santa will only eat chocolate chip cookies, but I think we reached a compromise when I suggested sugar cookies with red and green M&Ms, so Hayden and I can use cute cookie cutters and sprinkles. Hahaha. I can't believe this is our "baby's" third Christmas and that he will be THREE next month! He changed our lives three years ago so much for the better and we have been so blessed to have him in our lives too. I love this little guy!

Spencer Update:
My semester ended and I am very happy to report that I made a 4.0 this semester! I am so excited and pleased that all of my hard work aid off. Now I have to get through another full course-load next semester in addition to studying for my Master's Exam that I will take on March 29. I have already started studying for this exam and am currently reading Paradise Lost for the first time (I know I should have already read it, but I purposefully avoided it like the plague and now I know why) and then I will read Moby Dick over Christmas break. I am also hoping to meet with the Director of the English Department at one of the Alamo Community Colleges here about a job for next year as an English professor. I would LOVE to get paid to do something that I love and also get a pretty great schedule out of it too! I wouldn't be working 8-5 5 days a week all year long, so I would have holidays and summers with the kids which is GREAT!

Davin Update:
Davin has been working his butt of since September! He has been home maybe an average of 2 nights a week since then up until last week. He has a reprieve from his collections until the first of January, but he still has some other work to do at a couple of the ranches between now and then. I personally can't WAIT for him to be home every night with us! Hayden always asks me "Um Mommy, where Daddy?" when he's not here; it's so cute. This has been a very busy, but exciting year for him as he started his collections business with Phillip, Venado Sires. He loves what he does and I love that for him, it is just very time-consuming work. We are VERY proud of him and all of his hard work.

We are spending Christmas at home this year (ever since Hayden was born we decided to start alternating one Christmas away, and one in our home--compromising since Davin spent every Christmas of his childhood traveling to Arkansas and I spent every Christmas of my childhood at home, so we figured this was fair and gave the kids the best of both worlds!) and are very excited! We are going to go to the Christmas Eve candlelight service at church and have dinner with my parents and cousins (my parents would have been here anyway even if they didn't live here now because they knew we weren't traveling this year--just like they came to us two years ago for Hayden's 1st Christmas. Then he four of us will go home and put out goodies for Santa! I'm think of maybe reading "The Night Before Christmas" to the kiddos before bed...Then Davin and I can't WAIT to watch the kids come into the living room Christmas morning and see their faces when they see the tree and everything! How FUN!! That's just going to be priceless. We are also going to host Christmas dinner at our house for my parents and possibly my brother later that day---i LOVE cooking holiday food! It's so exciting since this is Peyton's 1st Christmas and we are eager to see what she thinks about it. I predict that she will eat all of the paper and bows, haha! Then a few days after Christmas we hope to have Christmas with Davin's parents and Amber and Carson and the girls! That will be so fun; the kids get two Christmases, awesome! I'm not sure what we are doing for New Year's/Davin's birthday, but hopefully we will figure something out soon!

We have some super exciting times ahead and will really end 2009 right! We hope you all have a blessed holiday with all of your loved ones! Look for LOTS of Christmas pics after next week ;)
Love to you all,
S:)

Picture with Santa

So after waiting two hours (yes two hours) at Bass Pro this morning, Hayden and Peyton got their picture taken with Santa! I knew Hayden would be great with Santa since this is his third tim eto see him, but I was very nervous about Peyton and those of you who know her can probably guess why. Hahaha! She tends to be a bit of a drama queen and I was pretty certain that she would have a complete meltdown and deafen half of the store. BUT much to my surprise she was GREAT!! She stared at Santa for a while because I think she was trying to figure out whether or not he was her Papaw, hehe. Here is their picture below, enjoy and have a wonderful week!
Love,
S:)

Nine Month Pic

Peyton's Puffs--PRICELESS!!!

Hays' Sweater Party!

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Party Weekend!

Greetings all! We've been pretty busy around our house lately! I had three parties to go to on Saturday, which is funny because I normally have no parties to go to on a Saturday! Hahahaha! Anyway, here are some pics from my friend Kara's baby shower and some pics from the SEC Championship (which I still can't bring myself to talk about) party at Michael and Jennifer's. Cate and Hayden are completely nuts and crack me up when they are together! I'll post a slideshow from Pat and Angel's sweater party, if I can ever get the dang thing to download!!!!
Love to you all!
-S:)

Ariel and Prince Eric

Cheesing with Honey
And Poppy

Cutie patootie Mommy-to-be, Kara!

Aunt Jet, Poppy, a thrilled Hayden, and Honey having lunch at El Mercado

Thanksgiving and Gator Game!

Hello all! I hope everyone had a GREAT Thanksgiving holiday! Below is a link you can visit to see a montage of our Thanksgiving week including our trip to see the Florida Gators!!! Thanks to Mimi, Papaw, Honey, Poppy, Aunt Jet, Aunt Amber, and Uncle Carson for watching our two kiddos so we could go to the game!

Love to you all,
-S



http://www.onetruemedia.com/shared?p=9f2ac2d0a5539a63d11869&skin_id=701

Papers, Rainy Days, New Moon, and Pat's Birthday!

This last week has been pretty busy! I am drowning in papers for my grad classes (my three final papers), it rained LOTS this week, the girls and I got to see New Moon, and yesterday was Pat's 29th!!! Whew!!! Davin missed all of this fun stuff because he has been working his butt off for a WEEK solid!!! We miss him sooooo much around here and can't wait for him to get home.

We are soooo looking forwad to this weeks activities too!!! Mimi and papaw are coming to stay with us tomorrow, my Aunt Jeannette is coming in too, Amber, Carson, and the girls are coming on Thursday and everyone is coming to our house for Thanksgiving!!! Oh...and Davin and I are going to go to a little football game on Saturday...maybe you have heard of THE FLORIDA GATORS!!!!!!!! Davin got tickets for us to the Florida vs. Florida State game for my birthday back in Feb. We will get up SUPER early Friday, drive to Gainesville, go to the game Saturday, and drive all the way back home on Sunday. Can't wait!

We have soooo much to be thankful this year: we welcomed our daughter into the world, our new niece Camryn was born, some of our best friends got married, some of our best friends just had an adorable little boy, and some of our best friends are having TWINS in April, my parents moved to SA, I could go on and on. I am so very thankful for my wonderful husband, my two precious babies, my parents, in-laws, brother, nieces, aunts, cousins, and of course our fabulous friends. Sorry to go on and on, but I think it's important to take a minute and appreciate all we have. I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday with all of your loved ones!!!

Love to you all,
S:)

P.S. WATCH FOR US ON TV SATURDAY! HAHAHAHA!




Papers...

More papers...

'

Watching "The Grinch"

Little, teething monster

" I got you Mommy!"

He's really into the movie

Be afraid, be very afraid...

Master's Exam

I finalized my reading list for my Master's Exam with my Chair today. Dr Lopez will serve as one of the three professors who will sit on my panel for my Master's (MA) exam that I will take on March 29, 2010. Regardless of what your GPA might be, if you do not pass your MA Exam, you do not graduate. I thought I'd post my list to give you guys an idea of what exactly I will be responsible for on my exam. I have to read every single thing on the list below and be held accountable for everything I learn from all of these. Soooooooo over Christmas break, I will be reading, reading, reading. I am also going to ask Santa for gift cards to Amazon or Barnes and Noble because I have LOTS of books to buy.
Love to you all,
S:)





English M.A. READING LIST


A. Pre-1500

1) The Beowulf Poet, Beowulf
2) Geoffrey Chaucer, from The Canterbury Tales: “General Prologue,” “Knight’s Tale,” “Miller’s Prologue and Tale,” “Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale,” “Clerk’s Prologue and Tale,” “Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale,” “Nun’s Priest’s Prologue and Tale,” “Parson’s Prologue”
3) The Gawain Poet, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl
4) Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyd



B. 1500-1600

1) Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene: “A Letter of the Authors,” Book I (all), Book III (Cantos 1, 5-6, 9-12)
2) a) Sir Philip Sidney, The Defense of Poesy; Astrophil and Stella 1, 7, 9, 20, 29, 45, 106, Second Song, Fourth Song
b) Queen Elizabeth I, "Speech to the Troops at Tilbury" and the "Golden Speech" (both are available in The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 7th ed., Vol. 1)
3) William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part I, The Tempest, Hamlet
4) William Shakespeare, One history play (Richard II), one tragedy (Macbeth), and one comedy (Twelfth Night)



C. 1600-1700

1) John Donne, “The Flea,” “Song” (“Go and catch a falling star”), “The Canonization,” “A Nocturnal upon St. Lucy’s Day,” “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning,” “A Lecture upon the Shadow,” “Twickenham Garden,” Elegy 19 (“To His Mistress Going to Bed”), Holy Sonnets 10 (“Death Be Not Proud”), 14 (“Batter my heart”), and 17 (“Since she whom I loved”), “Good Friday, 1613. Riding Westward,” “Meditation 17” (from Devotions upon Emergent Occasions)
2) John Milton, Paradise Lost
3) a) Aphra Behn, Oroonoko, The Rover
b) Margaret Cavendish, Blazing World
4) Anne Bradstreet, “The Prologue,” “The Flesh and the Spirit,” “The Author to Her Book,” “A Letter to Her Husband, Absent upon Public Employment,” “In Reference to Her Children,” “ In Memory of . . . Elizabeth Bradstreet,” “Some Verses upon the Burning of Our House July 10th, 1666”


D. 1700-1800

1) Henry Fielding, Tom Jones
2) Alexander Pope, “The Rape of the Lock,” “An Essay on Criticism,” “An Essay on Man,” “Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot”
3) Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or
Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself
Phillis Wheatley, “On the Death of . . . George Whitefield,” “On Being Brought from Africa to America,”
“To the University of Cambridge, in New England,” “To S.M., a Young African Painter,” Letter to Rev. Samson Occom (Feb. 11, 1774)
Jupiter Hammon, “An Address to Miss Phillis Wheatly [sic]”

4) William Blake, “All Religions are One,” “There is No Natural Religion” [a and b]; from
Songs of Innocence: “Introduction,” “The Lamb,” “The Little Black Boy,” “The Chimney
Sweeper,” “Holy Thursday”; from Songs of Experience: “Introduction,” “Holy Thursday,” “The Chimney Sweeper,” “The Sick Rose,” “The Tyger,” “London”



E. 1800-c1850

1) Herman Melville, Moby-Dick; or The Whale
2) a) Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
b) Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
c) Sojourner Truth, “Ar’n’t I a Woman? Speech to the Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio, 1851”
d) Frances E. W. Harper, “Ethiopia,” “An Appeal to my Country Women,” “Woman’s Political Future.”
3) William Wordsworth, The Prelude, Books I & XI, 1805 (not 1850) [Recommended text: Norton Critical Edition The Prelude, 1799, 1805, 1850 ed. by Jonathan Wordsworth], “Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey,” “Michael,” “Resolution and Independence,” “The Ruined Cottage,” Preface to Lyrical Ballads (1802)
4) Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Frankenstein; or The Modern Prometheus


F. c1850-1915

1) Walt Whitman, “Song of Myself,” “Crossing Brooklyn Ferry,” “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,” “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” “O Captain! My Captain!” “In Paths Untrodden,” “When I Heard at the Close of the Day”
Emily Dickinson, [Recommended Text: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, ed. Thomas H. Johnson. Little, Brown, 1955] “Why—do they shut Me out of Heaven?” (Poem 248), “Over the fence—” (251), “I felt a Funeral, in my Brain” (280), “Some keep the Sabbath going to church—” (324) “After great pain a formal feeling comes—” (341) “Much Madness is divinest Sense” (435), “I was the slightest in the House—” (486), “They shut me up in Prose—” (613), “I dwell in Possibility—” (657)
2) Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
3) George Eliot, Middlemarch
4) Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Ulysses,” “Tithonus,” “The Lady of Shalott”
Robert Browning, “My Last Duchess,” “Fra Lippo Lippi,” “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came,” “The Bishop Orders His Tomb at Saint Praxed’s Church,” “Andrea Del Sarto,” “Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister”


G. 1915-1945

1) T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” “Tradition and the Individual Talent,” The Waste Land
2) Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse
3) Americo Paredes, George Washington Gomez
4) Zora Neale Hurston, “Sweat,” Their Eyes Were Watching God


H. 1945-1968

1) Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot
2) Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart
3) Flannery O’Connor, “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” “Good Country People,” “Everything That Rises Must Converge,” “The Artificial Nigger”


I. 1969-present

1) Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon
2) a) Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, 2nd ed., Introduction and Chapters 1-7
b) Lorna Dee Cervantes, from Emplumada, “Uncle’s First Rabbit,” “Cannery Town in August,” “Beneath the Shadow of the Freeway,” “For Virginia Chavez,” “Poems for the Young Man...,”
c) Cherrie Moraga, From The Last Generation “Queer Aztlán: the Re-formation of Chicano Tribe”; From: Loving in the War Years, Expanded 2nd ed., “Loving in the War Years,” “La Güera,” “A Long Line of Vendidas,” “Looking for the Insatiable Woman,” and “Out of our Revolutionary Minds Toward a Pedagogy of Revolt”
3) V. Nabokov, Pale Fire



J. ADDITIONAL LISTS

1) All students must include at least one numbered item from Section J on their individual exam list.

12. Gender Studies And Queer Theory
Virginia Woolf, From A Room of One’s Own: [Shakespeare’s Sister, Chloe Liked Olivia, Androgyny]
Adrienne Rich, From “Compulsory Heterosexuality and Lesbian Existence”
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, From Between Men and Epistemology of the Closet
Monique Wittig, “One Is Not Born a Woman”
Judith Butler, From Gender Trouble: Preface, “Subversive Bodily Acts”


Elected Works

(1) William Congreve, The Way of the World
William Wycherly, The Country Wife
(2) Nathaniel Hawthorne, “Young Goodman Brown,” “The Minister’s Black Veil,” “My Kinsman, Major Molineux,” “The Birth-Mark,” “Rappaccini’s Daughter”
(3) Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin
(4) Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
(5) Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie
(6) Robert Frost, “West-Running Brook,” “Design,” “The Death of the Hired Man,” “The Oven Bird,” “Birches,” “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” “The Gift Outright”

Peyton is 8 MONTHS OLD!

Peyton turned 8 months old yesterday (11/9/09)!!!! It seems like yesterday that I was in the hospital with her...time flies!!! She's getting so big and really coming into her own personality. She LOVES to smile for the camera, she is getting TONS of light brown hair (that looks a lot like her Daddy's), and she picks up toys with her feet. She is still crawling like a soldier and I guess she will continue to until she learns how to walk. She did get Roseola over the weekend and had a yucky rash because of it but she's feeling much better now. Her first Thanksgiving and first Christmas is coming up soon!!! This is our first Christmas together a our complete family of four; we are soooo looking forward to it! OMG, then Peyton will be celebrating her FIRST BIRTHDAY before we know it....right after Hayden turns THREE!!! Holy cow!!! Anyway, here are some 8 month pics below for you to enjoy.

Love to you all,
S:)

I'm 8 months old!!!!

Holding her rattle with her toes...monkey feet!

SOOO cute with Aunt Erica

Weird Weekend...

We had an interesting weekend to say the least. Davin is one about 5 out of 7 days a week this time of year and we are starting to get used to that, but taking care of two kiddos by myself and working on all my grad school stuff is pretty hard. Anyway, Davin was away except for Saturday because he was working all over the state pretty much. He's got to be tired! So we thought we would have a relaxing Saturday and not really do anything other than watch football, until I got a very unexpected phone call. Mom called, inconsolable, to tell me that Hunter, my brother, had either had a seizure or a stroke. Luckily my dad was in Nacogdoches, so he got to go to the hospital with Hunter. Long story short, Hunter had a seizure. The CT scan he had done came back "normal" so they still don't know what caused the seizure. He's going to his doc today and a neurologist later this week, so hopefully we will have some answers by the end of the week. Another stroke of luck is that one of Hunter's friends was with him when he had the seizure and he called 911. If Hunter had been by himself, it could have been a lot worse. Please keep him and my parents in your thoughts and prayers this week!!!
Love to you all!
S:)

Happy Halloween 2009!

We hit a new milestone...trick-or-treating!!!! Oh my goodness, it was sooooo much fun!!!! Hayden had a blast, other than not being too sure about people in masks...can't say I blame him. Honey and Poppy went along with us and we had lots of fun going through our neighborhood! Hayden was a pirate and Peyton was a princess, Cinderella (of course!). It was soooo neat watching Hayden go door to door and say "Trick-or-Treat"! He's so grown up. Ha!


We hope you had a Happy Halloween!!!!


Love to you all,
S:)

Aaaaarrrrrrghhhhh!

Cinderella

She's thrilled...

Trick or Treat!

Can you tell they are siblings???

Family Pic

Honey taking Hayden to the first house...the man came to the door in a mask and Hayden almost pulled Honey down trying to run away...hahahahaha!

Walking with Daddy

Congrats to the Hays Family!!

Pat and Angel found out today they are going to have a boy and a girl in April!!! How perfect! we are soooo happy for them and can't wait to meet these sweet babies too!! Congrats Pat and Angel, we love you!
-S:)

Happy Birthday Baby Gage!!!

Yesterday, October 24, 2009 Ashley and John welcomed their first child, a son named Gage Michael Kinkiad into the world!! Mommy and Baby are both doing very well. Gage weighs 7lbs even and is 19 and 3/4 inches long! He has a head full of brown hair, has his mama's toes, his Daddy's nose and is a pretty perfect combination of the two of them...so all in all he's GORGEOUS!!! We are all so happy for the new little Kinkaid family and can't wait to watch Gage grow!! We love you John, Ashley, and Gage!!

Beautiful

Me and Ash

Proud new parents!


Brand spankin' new!

Papa John

Cox Kids Pics

Here are a couple of cute little random pictures of the kids from the last couple of days I thought you might like ;)

Love to you all!
-S

Curled up watching "Phineas and Ferb" before bedtime

"Hey Mommy!!!"

"He, he! That's a knee-slapper Mommy!"

Ohhh she KILLS me with this smile!

Cheese!! Such a charmer!

Funny Face Pics!

Just a few pics to enjoy!
;) S

Still cheesing with Daddy!

"CHEESE-CRACKERS!!!!"
Daddy's boy and girl :)
Like Father, like Daughter....jeez
Hehehehe...it just kills me!