Baby Update - 25 Weeks

We interrupt this Christmas blog to bring you a brief pregnancy update! Christmas is so busy that sometimes I almost forget that I am pregnant... until I have my daily craving for a bagel or try to zip my jacket!

I had my 24 week appointment last week and everything is progressing nicely! Our baby book tells us that in weeks 24-25, the baby weighs 1.5 pounds and is about the size of a small cantelope. She can open and close her fists and her fact is fully formed, including eyelashes and eyebrows. Pretty amazing!



Thankfully, I've been feeling really good lately. Lady Lock moves around a lot, especially when I am sitting down. She also is extremely active when music is playing, and Chance and I have been playing around with different types of music in the car to see what she likes best. So far, loud rock gets her moving the most! Cade still seems very excited about having a baby sister and talks about her quite a bit. He already seems very protective of her, which is too cute. We have officially picked out a name for her after changing the one that we originally decided on. We also bought her some bedding at the San Marcos outlet while we were in New Braunfels for Christmas. I'm not sure that we are completely ready to have another baby in our lives, but she is accumulating some cute little girly stuff! Honestly, no matter how much "stuff" she has or doesn't have, we can't wait to meet her!

Christmas in Bryan

We made the great trek to the city of Bryan to have our Christmas with Nana and Papa after our quiet day at home.

Cade was so incredibly excited to see his cousins! They were all very good at taking the obligatory precious pictures before the presents could be touched.



Great-grandkids with White Hair Nana



Nana and Papa's biggest fans!



Finally! Presents!



Such excitement over a shark explorer set!



Stocking time! These kids can rip through paper and dump stockings out in record time these days.



The next day, the 3 kids had some special time with Nana and Papa to play games and watch movies. Nana bought the boys matching Star Wars pajamas. They loved wearing jammies all afternoon!





Merry Christmas, once again, everyone!

Our Merry Little Christmas

We really enjoy our quiet little tradition of spending Christmas Eve night and Christmas morning as just our little family of 3. It is such a peaceful way to welcome the magic of the season and re-affirm our focus on Jesus.

We attended our church's family Christmas Eve service, which means that the Children's sermon was longer than the real sermon and the entire service was only about 45 minutes long. Perfect! Then, we took our annual family picture in front of the pointsetta tree.



Cade absolutely adores Wes Taylor (aka Mr. Wesley), who leads the praise band at our church. We were so delighted that he took a picture with Cade! Imagine if you took a Christmas picture with your all-time favorite singer, and that is how Cade felt about this picture. It is going on his wall!



We ate a tasty dinner of leftovers from New Braunfels and then spent some time reading stories and taking in the beautiful Christmas tree. This is our family ornament this year. It is hard to believe (and pretty amazing!) that we will have our baby girl with us next year!



After moving the ottoman away from the fireplace, taking a bath, reading Christmas stories, and saying prayers, it was time for bed and promises not to peek at Santa during the night.

Before bed, I spent way too much time trying to capture out tree in just the right light.



Santa *may* have gone a bit overboard with Cade this year since it is his last Christmas as an only child!



The next morning... Santa borrowed Daddy's ipad and left a thank you note for the cookies and chocolate milk!



We started a new tradition this year of reading a Bible story before opening presents. Chance and I want to make this a priority, and Cade was mostly a good sport about it. But he was quite ready for the presents! He slept until a little after 6:00 that morning, which was a Christmas miracle in itself, so we thought we had better get down to business...



Cade's #1 request from Santa this year was a Star Wars spaceship. The Milenium Falcon was the first present he opened!



Holly and Sarge got presents too!



The biggest hit this Christmas was the set of ewoks that Cade got. He loves these little creatures and they now travel everywhere with us!



The rest of Christmas Day was quite relaxing and even included a family nap during a House Hunters marathon. We were so thankful for some quiet time with our little family. It was just what we needed! We are also so thankful for all of the family fun yet to come!

Christmas in New Braunfels

Our first Christmas this season was a great one! We went to New Braunfels to spend time with Alyssa's family and really enjoyed ourselves. We got there around lunchtime and Cade could hardly make it through the meal, as he was overcome with excitement about opening his first presents!



The biggest highlight was a can shooting game from Oma and Opa - the orange gun shoots at cans that are lined up on a board, and when the light from the gun hits the sensor, the guns fly off of the board. It was fun for everybody!



After the toy gun, the boys knew it was time to move onto the bigger ones. So, the BB gun and targets were quickly set up in the backyard!



It is neat to watch my dad, brother, and husband share their expertise with Cade!





Cade loved checking out the new holes in the target each time!



That night, we went to Great Oma's house for dinner and more presents. Cade was our little Santa and passed out all of the gifts!



Star Wars toys bring out the best smiles



We've been having a paper fight at my Oma's house for as long as I can remember. Cade thinks this is pretty great! Here's everybody attacking the camera woman!



The next morning all of the Wommack family met at IHOP in Seguin for our annual Christmas breakfast. Grandpa had almost all of his grandchildren and all 5 of his great-grandchidren there. It was good to catch up with everybody!



That night we went to the plaza in downtown New Braunfels to see the beautiful lights. Chance and Cade had a fun game of chase under all the lights.



Fun family time!





This was a perfect way to kick off our Christmas vacation! And so much more fun is ahead!

Grandma and Grandpa Locklear

Chance's Grandma and Grandpa have 5 children, 15 grandchildren, and 11 great-grandchildren. All of these family members have been blessed with Grandma and Grandpa's support, love, and memories, and Grandpa's devotion to Longhorn football. Unfortunately, both Grandma and Grandpa have recently gone to heaven - Grandma in October of this year, and Grandpa on December 21. This has been tough on the Locklear family, and we're all spending some time remembering all of the good times we've had visiting them in Deer Park.

Grandma and Grandpa loved being at home in Deer Park and rarely traveled. So, we were especially touched that they attended our wedding in New Branfels!



In June of 2008, we introduced them to Cade!



We tried to visit at least once a year, and Cade enjoyed playing hide-and-seek with Grandma in the living room and relaxing on the recliners with Grandpa (who loved brainwashing his grandchildren with the "hook 'em").





We spent a morning at their house this past summer and we're so thankful for the time we had with them.



We will all miss Grandma and Grandpa, and are spending time during Christmas cherishing the memories we made with them. We will miss Grandma's sweet and welcoming demeanor, Grandpa's toothless grin (he refused to pay for false teeth!), and their two energetic puppies. They leave behind a strong legacy of Locklears who will always try to make them proud.

Family Pictures

Ladies and gentlemen... we have a winner! The contest? Who can photograph the Locklear family without causing great drama for Cade? And the winner is... T&M Photography! Thom and Megan go to our church (Thom is a drummer in our band so Cade already thinks he is awesome) and they mentioned a few months ago that they started a little photography business as a hobby and bonding experience. We do love our usual photographer, Sarah Giles with Butterfly Chaser Photography, but she is incredibly busy and I didn't have the forethought to schedule a Christmas card photo session back in June.

So, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, we met Thom and Megan at the Texas A&M Horticulture Gardens, which I didn't even know existed but now love. They were completely prepared for the session, which involved Thom taking pictures and Megan entertaining Cade. After this was our FIRST picture of the session.....



I knew it was going to be a successful afternoon! Even though all I requested was a cute family photo for the Christmas card, Thom went all out and brought pintrest-inspired props for us to play with. We tried to be a compliant family and pose with the JOY letters...



But Cade quickly had other ideas...





After that little experiment, Cade hammed it up for the camera and we got this great shot of him.



Thom did some serious pintrest research and had some ideas for Chance and me. Since they are a budding photography business, they need to practice on clients and we were happy to oblige!





I really loved this maternity photo. It truly looks like Cade is listening to Little Lady, and maybe he really is!



Happiness is... playing with Daddy!







Thom was nice enough to give us a DVD of all of the raw images (along with plenty of edited shots), so it is fun to see some of the "behind the scenes" action. This was another pintrest idea that didn't turn out as cute as I hoped...



But had this wonderful, rescued surprise!



10 1/2 years of wedded bliss!!



We tried some cute maternity photos with blocks on my belly, but I wasn't showing enough yet to have enough belly to really make it work. Stay tuned for another pregnancy post to see how that belly has changed recently! Anyway, Cade had fun spelling his name with the blocks so they still got used.



We love this little girl so much already!



It wouldn't be a family photo session without Cade taking flight!



And jumping!



We are forever grateful to Thom and Megan for capturing our family's personality and love for each other in a very fun and relaxed session. We'll see them again in the spring!