Ainsley is Walking!!

We had an unexpected visit from Ainsley last weekend when she came with her mom and dad for Great-Grandma Ernst's funeral. We kept her one afternoon and evening and she was a very busy little girl. She is walking now, so yes, she was in to everything.

I took several pictures that turned out blurry. She was moving FAST!!

She especially loved the Christmas catalogs she found and rummaged through them tearing out pages and carrying them around the house! I think she's going to be a shopper, like her Mimi!

Checking out the view!

The Sleepy Peep

Ainsley, the PEEP!

This Trick-or-Treating is just such hard work, after a busy day at school....Going...going....

GONE! (Maybe next year I'll get some candy. Daddy would have eaten it all anyway!)

Halloween

Macy and Marshall having fun at a Halloween Party!

Macy, the Mermaid.

Marshall, the cowboy!

The Bicycle Rodeo

Bicycles as far as you can see awaiting their riders in the Bicycle Rodeo on Wednesday, October 23.

When Macy found her purple bicycle with training wheels, she was just beaming. Notice her "High School Musical Bear" sitting in the back...with its helmet on also!

The little boy in front of her is checking out the bear. He's probably thinking, "GIRLS!"
Here she is coming down the finish line, with Dad giving her words of encouragement. She really did an amazing job of staying inside the yellow lines on all the events. She was very proud of herself and loved getting her "Blue Ribbon." Marshall was less than enthusiastic about the whole thing, but he enjoyed playing with the little transformer his mom had just given him. Next year, Marshall, it will be YOUR turn!

Macy and the Trapeze Artists

Macy was busy entertaining herself with her Fisher-Price dollhouse family in the living room. I saw her doing something with them on the coffee table, then got distracted. After she left to go home, I went back into the room and saw this! I guess they have all become part of the circus trapeze show!

What really made me laugh, however, was the fact that the babies were all being held, upside down, by the grown-ups!

Busy Little Ainsley

You can't really see the teeth marks Ainsley just put in the table at The Black Lab in Houston, but she left her mark there!

Ainsley wasn't sure she liked the statue of an English guard at the restaurant, so Mommy held her tightly!

One of her favorite things to do is listen to books being read to her, especially after she pulls out an entire basket of books and sits in the middle of them!

She loves to walk around and around the coffee table. She'd let go and take just a few steps. It won't be long before she is running through the house! Look at her new "Bobux shoes!" Very stylish!

She just fits in the little chair that was originally bought for Macy, when she visited Aunt Leenie and Uncle John at about this age. And she looooooved the new Dora tent and tunnel that Daddy bought her!

I think it's safe to say, Ainsley has taken over the family room! It is child-proof, and full of everything an 11-month old loves to play with.

Here is a very sleepy little girl waving "bye-bye" to me this morning. See you in a few weeks, Ainsley! It was another fun weekend getting to play with you, Mom, Dad, and your Gigi.

Hurricane Ike and Tornado Ainsley

The headline on the tv screen says it all! Hurricane Ike hit the Houston/Galveston coastal area and we were lucky to have John, Colleen, Ainsley and Colleen's mom, Carolyn come stay with us for four nights. Ainsley was a delight, but she was as busy as a tornado! We entertained her with all kinds of toys and make-shift toys, like the laundry basket, which she enjoyed sitting in....

....and crawling under! It also served as a blockade to keep her away from the tv dials which she discovered.

She made us laugh with her "tongue action." The more we laughed, the more she did it!

John thought of an easy solution to the glass-top coffee table, which Ainsley loved to bang her hands on! It soon became a little play area, which she enjoyed! We hated to see all of them leave this morning, to go back to a house with no power, but they were anxious to see the damage caused by Hurricane Ike, and to begin cleaning out their refrigerator and freezer, fixing the fence which blew down, and making other repairs. It was an unplanned, but great visit.