Fun with Presents

Our house runneth over! We are so blessed to have such generous family that give Cade such wonderful things. He is having lots of fun playing with his new toys. Here are some favorites:

The airport, a gift from Nana and Papa, is very entertaining for Cade. This is one of the first toys that he will play with by himself. He likes to stand in the airport and move all of the pieces around. I snapped this picture when I was walking by his room. The airplane was flying, complete with sound effects!



Cade also really loves drumming. He will drum on anything that stands still, using pens, makeup brushes (Daddy loves this), or just his fingers. Oma and Opa gave him a drum just like one that he uses at school. His daycare teachers tell us that when the kids have music lessons on Wednesdays, he is best at drumming! Sounds like we have a noisy future!



Cade's new favorite spot to read is on top of the coffee table in the living room.



Daddy is still Cade's favorite toy! He loves it when Daddy throws him up high in the air.

Christmas #3

Our last family Christmas was with Alyssa's parents in New Braunfels. We went to Landa Park a few times while we were there, and Cade finally decided that he liked slides!



Walking through the leaves



Feeding the ducks with Oma and Opa



Breakfast at IHOP with the Wommack family



The Guenther family reunion - this picture is some of the great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren of Oma and Opa Guenther (my Opa's parents). Notice 12-day-old Bryson at the far left!



When I was little, Santa would always visit Great Oma Guenther's Christmas gathering. For awhile, there weren't a lot of little kids, so Santa took a break. Now that all of the great-grandchildren are having kids, Santa returned this year. Cade finally decided that Santa was OK! He very nicely took his gift from Santa, and about 2 seconds after this picture was taken, Cade realized what was going on and started crying. At least we are making progress!



After opening gifts at Great Oma's house, Cade decided he had enough.
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Christmas at Home

Our new tradition is to have Christmas Eve night and Christmas morning at our house. We really like spending this special time together as a little family.

We attended the Christmas Eve service at our church, where Cade got not one, but two child-proof candles from our wonderful pastor. He was so happy!



That night, after we put Cade to bed, Chance and I enjoyed some tasty eggnog while taking care of the rest of our Christmas preparations...



Even though Cade ate his cookies, Santa was still good to Cade! He brought him a construction-theme play tent,



a very soft monkey pillow,



and a little flashlight inside!



Our son is got a flashlight and his first toy gun from Santa. Was this a redneck Christmas?



Even Holly and Sarge like the tent, although Sarge would prefer Holly to stay out.



Christmas Lunch



After lunch at home, we were headed to our next destination... New Braunfels!

Christmas #2

Click here to view these pictures larger

Christmas sure was fun! It has taken me forever to upload and post pics, but we do have lots to share. The pictures above are from our Christmas in Dallas with the Locklear family. I am trying a new/faster method of uploading, and I hope it works for everyone.

ALL of the Locklear parents, kids, spouses, and grandkids were in Dallas together, and it was great! The aunts and uncles got some practice entertaining their nieces and nephews, which was very effective birth control for them :) We all had so much fun seeing each other. Highlights were a visit with Russell at good ol' McD's, a big family dinner at La Hacienda Ranch (not a great success), and 3 little monkeys jumping on Aunt Lindsay's bed!

Dear Santa...

Your cookies were delicious!



Love, Cade

Merry Christmas, everyone! Best wishes for a blessed and beautiful day.

Christmas #1

Let the Christmas festivities begin!

We started our celebrations this weekend with Chance's family here in Bryan. Taking advantage of the absolutely beautiful day on Sunday, we visited a park where the kids got to play on the playground and feed the ducks. Aunt Betty and Uncle Fred joined us, and it was great to see them!

Nana swinging with the kids



Feeding the ducks



Christmas at Nana and Papa's house was lots of fun! It was interesting to see how much more Cade understood this year than last year. He and Xavier wanted to play with each toy as they opened it, while Zoe wanted to speed up the process! We took a little break to read a book from Nana.



Craziness!



Yippee! An airport! We need a bigger house.



More pics of other family get-togethers to come through out the week!

Santa, Take Two

Cade and I went to the mall the other day and walked past Santa on our way in. Cade got very excited at first, but as we got closer, the he started to freak out again. But while we went to a few stores and ate a snack in the food court, he talked about Santa the whole time. So I asked him if he would like to visit Santa on the way to the car, and he said yes. Once again, as we got closer to Santa, he held on really tight to my hand and started saying "No, No, No!". But then, he noticed that there were 2 nutcrackers on either side of Santa, which he was fascinated with. Thanks to very patient workers and the lack of a line, we very slowly made our way closer to Santa. This is as close as we got:



Look, Mom, no tears! (no smile either)

Family Pictures

A few weeks ago, my sweet friend Kelsey took some family pictures of us for our Christmas card. It was very, very cold, but she was great with Cade and got some cute shots! Here are some of our favorites.

















Time to go!

Where do we rank?

Here is a conversation that took place in our living room last night:
Chance: Who does Cade love?
Cade: Patton! (Coach Patton is an usher at our church. Cade absolutely adores him.)
Alyssa: Who else does Cade love?
Cade: Pete! (a character from Mickey Mouse)
Chance: (getting a little worried) Who else does Cade love?
No answer from Cade... he started playing with his tractor.

Oh well! We're sure that Cade will decide that he loves us as soon as he needs something.

Here's some great news from yesterday - Cade had his PICC line removed! He is now just taking oral antibiotics and is doing great. We got to give him his first bath since November 22 last night, and let me tell you, this boy smells GOOD!

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas

We are finally getting into the Christmas spirit around our house! We are definitely helped by the fact that our heater has been broken for a week and College Station is experiencing record low temperatures for this time of year. We stayed a few nights at Nana and Papa's house, and Cade loved bossing them around. It really isn't all that cold at home, and we are finally getting settled back in.

St. Nick visited our house earlier this week and filled Cade's stocking with cookies, a book, and a slinky.



And what is Christmas without a picture of a screaming child on Santa's lap?

Last year, Cade was totally fascinated with Santa, but this year, he took one look at that guy and started freaking out. We just had to get the picture anyway, and I'm sure he'll love looking at it someday.

In the meantime...

We have had a few things going on in addition to helping Cade get over his infection.

The Caldwell Hornets ended their season on the day after Thanksgiving when they played Carthage, the defending state champs. They still made Caldwell history by being undefeated district champs, and everyone was very proud of the coaches and players! The week before, Caldwell beat Cleveland in a very exciting and wet game that went into overtime. Here are the coaches' wives of the year!



Chance is now the proud owner of a new truck! We bought our old truck 2 weeks after we got married and it served us very well, taking Chance to out-of-town jobs every day for over 7 years. Since it didn't have a full-size backseat, Cade was quickly outgrowing it, and Chance's carpool buddies were too. So, we now own a truck that I probably will never drive because it is bigger, but we love it! It has already made the trip to Caldwell every day this week, and Chance is really enjoying driving it.



Checking out Daddy's new wheels.

HOME

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! Yes, I know this is a bit late, but things have been a little hectic in the Locklear house lately. For those of you that don't know, Cade somehow developed a bacterial infection in his knee and spent most of last week at Dell Childrens' Medical Center in Austin for treatment. This was not exactly how we planned on spending Thanksgiving, but fortunately everything is fine and we were able to come home on Saturday.

Cade started limping about 2 weeks ago. After the limp got worse and he had several exams, tests, and blood draws, Cade was admitted to St. Joseph in Bryan last Monday for IV antibiotics. We tried to make everything as painless and kid-friendly as possible, so we brought his whole jungle of stuffed animals with us to the hospital. Cade had to wear a sock on his hand to protect his IV, so Mickey had a sock too.



Last Monday was Cade's 19 month birthday, and we were delighted by a visit from Natalie and Kelsey! The hospital provided wagons for kids to ride around in, and Natalie joined Cade for his 100th trip around the pediatric unit. The two of them seemed to have no clue that we were in the hospital and were just as excited to see each other as ever.



Tuesday night we went to the hospital in Austin. It is an absolutely beautiful facility, and truly caters to families. Wednesday morning Cade had surgery on his knee to drain the fluid. After a big post-surgery lunch (he was very hungry after not having anything to eat for 8 hours!), Cade and Daddy settled into the couch for a nice nap.



Since Cade had a cast on and had to keep his leg elevated, he spent most of the next 2 days coloring lots of pictures, playing with puzzles, and watching way too much Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.



As you can imagine, some of this whole experience was rather tramatic for Cade, so his beloved paci returned. He especially loved having 2 pacis at a time!



We called the IV cart his "pet" to make it more fun to keep it with us all the time. After Cade had his knee drain removed on Thursday night, he was allowed to be as mobile as the cast would allow. He was so excited to move around and pushed his "pet" all over the place. The nurses seemed surprised that he was such a handful when he was mobile!



Cade had a PICC line inserted on Friday morning, which is how we now administer antibiotics at home. The PICC line is actually a great thing, because he only has to be hooked up to a pump 5 times a day, instead of all day.

While this was a difficult experience for all of us, we are just so proud of Cade for being such a brave trooper throughout the week. When he wasn't being poked or examined, he was really in a great mood and pretty much returned to his normal self by Friday afternoon. The hospital had lots of things for kids to do, including a playroom on each floor, outdoor healing gardens, and fun artwork on the walls. The nurses and doctors were very friendly and accommodating. Our wonderful parents all came to visit us in the hospital and did a great job of keeping Cade entertained and happy, and giving Chance and me time to catch our breath. Cade developed some cute little habits while he was a patient, like saying "heart" when the nurse would come in to check his vitals, and telling people "all done, bye-bye" when they finished their procedures. Since Cade was immobile for several days, we had plenty of time to work on other things, and we are proud to say that Cade knows almost all of his colors by now!

As nice as the hospital was, we were still so happy to come home on Saturday. Our house has never felt so big, our bed so soft, or our animals such a welcome site. We had lots of family visitors this weekend, including Austin and Danielle all the way from Seattle! We missed the big Locklear Thanksgiving celebration, so we were excited that Austin and Danielle spent the night with us so we could catch up with them.



One downside of having a PICC line is that we can't give Cade a real bath for about 4 weeks. So, Cade and Daddy are now sporting matching haircuts... I mean, shaved heads! I was a little shocked to see my baby's hair all get shaved off, but it sure makes sponge baths much easier.



Hopefully we will get some decent sleep and life will return to mostly normal in the next few days. Thanks to everyone who has called, thought about us, and prayed for us. This was a scary experience, but after seeing much sicker, smaller babies at the hospital, we have to realize that everything really is OK with us. God always takes good care of us!

We Remember.

10 years ago, my roommates and I awoke to a phone call telling us that Bonfire had fallen. Like hundreds of other Aggies, we turned on TV and watched in complete sorrow and disbelief of the tragic news. We rode the bus to campus silently, and were greeted with signs everywhere telling students to call their parents and tell them that we were OK. Later that day, some other friends and I went out to Stack. We knew we couldn't do anything to help, but it seemed right to be there. We watched as red pots, brown pots, fish, Aggie football players, and countless others worked tirelessly to rescue as many students as possible. We prayed, cried, and anxiously awaited updates about survivors and those lost. It was so hard to believe that Bonfire, the shining symbol of so much more than A&M's burning desire to beat tu, had fallen and taken the lives of 12 precious Aggies. Just two years ago, we were freshmen, attending our first Cut with our dorm. We wore our pots and virgin stripes and probably weren't the most productive helpers, but we were there. It was an experience I wouldn't trade for anything, and am so grateful that I had the opportunity to be awoken before dawn by my RA to take part in this great tradition. I saw Bonfire burn twice, and had the burned hair to prove it! Again, I am so thankful for these memories.

As horrible as the day that Bonfire fell was, I have never been prouder to be an Aggie. The teamwork and dedication demonstrated by current and former students, faculty, and the community embodied what our Aggie spirit is all about. When we arrived at school on November 18, students passed out ribbons - first, white ones for hope, and later, maroon ones in memory of those lost. We wore those ribbons for many days. That night, thousands of Aggies sang Amazing Grace at a quickly planned, beautiful prayer/memorial service at Reed Arena. The following week, a candlelight vigil was held at the Bonfire site on the day that Bonfire should have burned. Chance and I had only been dating a few weeks at the time, and it was one of the few Aggie events that he attended willingly. We will both never forget that night.

Tomorrow I will wear my Bonfire Memorial t-shirt to school. I will try to tell my students, who were only 8-10 years old in November of 1999, what Bonfire means. These students are not familiar with terms like Bonfire buddies, grodes, stack, push, or centerpole. They don't know what it is like to spend the entire fall semester waiting to see Bonfire burn with your friends. They have heard of the Bonfire Memorial, but many have never even seen it.

Please take some time whenever you read this to think about the families and friends of the students lost and injured at Bonfire. Please also take some time to remember all of our Aggie family as we build new traditions. Nothing will ever replace Bonfire, but the spirit can burn on in our hearts.

Thanks and gig em.