Recent Happenings...

This is the tree Chris had in his room every Christmas growing up. Everything from the lights to the ornaments are original. John Reid loves it!

Trip Kuper came over for a quick visit this week. John Reid got a taste of what Benjamin might be like in a few months. Here Trip is pulling on John Reid's ear.

Chris and John Reid on the hay ride to cut down our Christmas tree. It was very cold but a great tradition has begun. Almost as great as the experience at the Christmas tree farm is the yummy food at near by Babes!

Our neighbor Lindley had out her electric car the other day. You push a button and it goes 2 miles per hour. Lindley was sweet to let him ride. Although it's not his color, he loved it!

Family picture at the park on Thanksgiving afternoon. We had family in town and went out to eat this year. It was great to have a clean kitchen, but we all missed having left over turkey around the house!

Family Picture before Thanksgiving lunch

Oh, and if you haven't noticed we got a big boy hair cut. It was VERY hard to do but now I'm now glad we did it.

Benjamin is taking after his mom (AKA as Princess Chubby Cheeks) and growing so HUGE cheeks!

Dressing warm before going to get the tree.

Benjamin loves to look at animal faces.

He is one sweet boy!

Dressed up before Thanksgiving brunch

I am so grateful for this time of year. We are having a lot of fun with John Reid as he understands much more about Christmas this year than last. He is really into what people's names are and where they are from. He says things like "Dada's name Chris. GiGi's name Jan." And he often says where everyone lives "John Reid live Fort Worth. Grammy Grumpy live Oklahoma. Papa, Grandma Uncle Chase live Alabama (followed by 'Roll Tide Roll')." The past couple of days we've been working on learning Jesus' mom's and dad's name. He says "Jesus mom's name Mary." And today just before nap we talked about how Jesus was born in Bethlehem and now lives in Heaven. Like all kids this age, he is such a sponge and I enjoy seeing him soak in the Truth of Christmas!

A few recent quotes from John Reid

Emily to Chris: "Are you going to take John Reid to the P-A..."

John Reid interrupting: "R-K. P-A-R-K park. Dada, Barnabas, Rivers park"

hmmm... I guess we aren't so sneaky spelling out words huh?

Emily: "John Reid what do you want Santa to bring you for Christmas"

John Reid: Yellow penalty flag.

hmmmm.... this might be a 1st for Santa!

Go Frogs

TCU continues to be undefeated after Saturday's game against Utah. The day started with an early morning walk to campus for the ESPN Game day festivities. We had some friends over before the game for a Thanksgiving style tail(back porch)gate party. I could only be away from Benjamin long enough to see the first half, but thankfully the game was over by then! I watched the rest of it at home. We are hoping to win out the rest of the season and planning on making a trip to support the frogs in a BCS Bowl Game! It's so fun to see TCU and all of Cowtown blow up in school spirit!

Yummy extras on the grill

Fried Turkey with "John John."  The Branagh's spent their anniversary with a quick trip to Ft. Worth for the game.

John Reid loved playing Corn Whole

Game Day Set

Game Day Crowd 

Group Photo

The dogs enjoyed getting into the trash after we left for the game! 

Grandad-O and Nana

John Reid and Benjamin have 2 sets of great grandparents. Benjamin was able to meet Chris' maternal grandparents last week. They came for the day, even after Nana fell down at their house before they left to come. What a trooper! We are so grateful for their love over our family! The boys will meet my grandparent this weekend in Oklahoma.

Thanks for making the trip Grandad-O and Nana!

Kissing Girls

This is John Reid going in for a smooch with our neighbor Lindley at a Halloween party. They have done this a couple of times now. It seems to be a very flirty relationship. Lindley came over last week and they played "tackle" in the front yard. We all could stop laughing as Lindley really beat up on John Reid. Even though he was all smiles the entire time, Chris decided he needed some defensive coaching.

And this is John Reid with Livy Anne (he calls her Annie) Thompson. See the Thompson's blog for details... http://whitneyandzac.blogspot.com/2009/11/pecan-pickin.html

Welcome to Cowtown ESPN

The Trigger house could not be more excited about this Saturday's game. TCU plays UTAH at home, just a couple of blocks from our house. Our walks around campus should be extra eventful this week with TV crews setting up for Game Day! Go Frogs Go!

Halloween Week in Review

These are very out of order, but I don't have time to mess with cutting and pasting! Here are the happenings of last week at the Trigger House...

TCU Game

Matching costumes. Being a former Children's Minister we don't call these skeletons, 

but "God Made Bones"

John Reid met Super Frog Friday night at the TCU Homecoming event. He hasn't stopped talking about him. He asked to see the picture so many times I had to print them off for him so he can look at them whenever he wants.

The Club had a little Halloween party on Friday afternoon. John Reid won 2nd place in the costume contest!

My friend Whitney and our little giraffes

John Reid, Livy Anne Thompson and Mathew and Caleb Bates! 

We carved our pumpkins Thursday night. John Reid is pointing at Daddy's Jack-O-Lantern

John Reid next to moms Cat Jack-O-Lantern

At the pumpkin patch picking out our pumpkins to carve

Chris got a book of NFL helmet stickers from his Sports Illustrated subscription. Hours of fun for John Reid

John Reid riding the jeep at the zoo. We went to Boo at The Zoo Tuesday night. 

He LOVED the carnival games at the zoo. I just can't believe he is big enough to play them!

Even though Halloween is over John Reid still want his "Texas Rangers jersey" on every day. He also wants his eye black on everyday. He says "Eye black, cheek, right there (pointing under his eye)." My brilliant husband found that if you pretend to put the eye black on with the lid still on he thinks is on him! 

In the Mind of John Reid

Yesterday, John Reid took an onion from my sandwich and threw it in the air. Chris and I responded and began to discipline him and he quickly said "Coin toss". Like every Sunday afternoon at the Trigger house, football was on TV and I guess coin tossing was on his mind.

And today I quickly ran downstairs as I heard a horrible crash. John Reid had dumped out my nail polish box. These are the items he found and what they reminded him of.

Pumice Board 

"Tennis Racket" -John Reid Trigger

Wooden Cuticle Stick 

Golf "Tee" -John Reid Trigger

And here are a few recent shots of the boys.

We missed the kiss, but this was in action

Family photo at the park

Haloween costume preview

Painting and coloring

Making Halloween cookies

Tummy Time for Benjamin. He's looking at John Reid

No Fluid

Yep that's right. The sonogram from Friday showed us 3 WONDERFUL things. 

1. Benjamin's kidneys look "normal" and the fluid around them is gone!

2. His hips are "normal"

3. There is no fluid in the abdomen any longer!

PRAISE GOD once again for our healthy baby boy!