Christmas Catch Up

Hello All,

Otenti Christmas pictures are now up on Flicker. The link is to the right, so enjoy.
There are also some pictures of our sweet girl enjoying her new Matryoshka dolls, (little wooden figures- each one smaller than the last and they fit inside each other) painted in Mickey Mouse characters of course!


Our sweet friends, the Bull Family, are in Russia, and they sent us these cute dolls, which Chloe spent the rest of the evening opening and closing, lining them up, hiding the Pete doll in each of the other bigger dolls. I compared them to Higglytown Hereos (a show on the Disney channel- all the people are like these dolls), so she calls them "Higglytown Hero Minnie, Higglytown Hero Daisy, ets." Cute huh? Thanks to our sweet friends the Bulls, they're too cute!

Happy New Year to All,
The Ross Family

I'm Rediculous, I Know

Why have a blog if you're only going to write on it once a month, you ask? I don't know. It seemed like a good way to keep people updated with pictures if nothing else, but I don't even do that well. Oh well....anyway....

Christmas at the Ross house and with various family members went well on all counts. We all got rid of our stomach bugs (mostly) just in time to be able to enjoy the holidays. Other than that, some of our blessings included lots of books, movies (mostly Veggie Tales), a great new camera lens and digital picture frame for me, the traditional tool for Casey from his dad, and some super cute clothes for Chloe. I have pictures of her in them already.

Hope everyone else's Christmas' went as well if not better. Safe travel to everyone who's now headed home after the holidays.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

~Crystal

Happy Thanksgiving

Hello All,

I hope that everyone had a THANKFUL Thanksgiving Day. We spent the day with Casey's Dad out in Waxahachie. Casey, his Dad, his uncle, and sort of brother-in-law Aaron all went and played golf for the morning while the ladies stayed home relaxing and preparing food. The turkey took it's precious time cooking, but it all turned out well and everything was delicious.
Then, Friday we went to my sister's house in Garland. We all spent a good bit of time admiring the beautiful work that her husband (Timm) and our dad did in putting together my new niece's nursery. Then we had more turkey and played games before heading home.
We haven't gotten the big tree out yet, we'll have to wait till next weekend, but I've already got lots of stuff to wrap. That's my project for this week. Then this weekend, the Christmas parties and series of birthdays begins. We have 4 in December, 2 in January, 3 in February, 3 in March, 2 in April, and 1 in May. It's the partying time of year!
Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season and that no one is getting blown away in this blustery wind. It almost got Chloe the other day! She had to take several steps, moving with the wind to avoid being knocked over, and I had to go get her! So be careful out there.

Love to all,
Crystal

I'm Another Aunt!!

Ava Joyce Dilling was born Friday, November 7, 2008 at 7:20 pm by C-Section at McKinney Hospital. She measured 8lbs 12oz. 20in long, and that was 2 weeks early! Here she is with her Big Sis Jadyn (who calls her "my baby"), her proud Daddy (Timm), and then between Mommy (Heather) and Big Sis Jadyn. Jadyn and Ava are the beautiful girls of Timm and Heather Dilling (Heather is Crystal's sister).

Welcome to the family Ava!

Love,

The Ross Family

Facebook

Hello,

I first heard of Facebook awhile ago, but I hadn't bothered looking into it since I'm so terrible about keeping up with this simple blog. That is until last weekend. Our friends, The Bull Family, put up pictures on their Facebook page, and maybe I was wrong, but it seemed as though I couldn't see the pictures unless I was a member. So I took the plunge and joined, just to see pictures of our friends. Then I saw a bunch of people I went to school and church with growing up and now I'm really starting to like it. So there's my little plug for Facebook. Don't expect me to be any better about posting on there than I am on here though. Once Chloe sees me pressing buttons it's hard to do anything on the computer because she wants to press buttons too.

Love to All,
Crystal

Good Times

Hello All,

We've been enjoying good times lately. Saturday the 4th was Chloe's 2nd Birthday Party (that's her cake to the left), during which, we crammed 21 people into our house! We had dinner, watched Planet Earth (that wasn't planned but everyone was glued to the tv), opened presents, ate birthday cake, and then watched some more Planet Earth. The bottom of the ocean is captivating, what can I say?

Then last weekend/week we went up to Amarillo to surprise Casey's brother Chris for his birthday. Once we got there though they (Chris and his wife Megan) turned around and surprised us by announcing that Megan is pregnant. Yeah! Their first little one is due in the middle of June and we're quite excited for them. We stayed with them Sunday through Thursday and then headed home. (That's Casey and Chris above.)

And finally, this weekend we went out to Grangee and Dodad's house (Casey's Grandparents) for dinner. Chloe got to play with her second cousins Sam and Charlie and her Great Aunt Jennifer. She had a great time. She's giving Dodad a high five there in the picture.

And that about does it for us so far this month. Hopefully we'll have a costume for her soon and go do some Fall Festival stuff. Maybe I'll attempt to cut Mickey Mouse out of a pumpkin. Although, they have a plastic one with light included at Walgreens that would be a lot easier.

Anyway, I'll try to get pictures on to Flicker later this evening.

Love to All,

Crystal

Ridiculous

Hello,
It's ridiculous how bad I am about keeping up with this blog, I know. I wasted nearly half of my picture allowance last month over in Flicker simply because I didn't upload any pictures! So this month I'll have to be super stingy as I choose which ones to put up there. Sorry guys.
Anyway, our precious girl is officially 2! Yesterday was her birthday, which she shares with our friend Karen Bull, Happy Birthday to You! (I didn't realize that till I saw it on your blog, ha!) She's already had two parties and her big party isn't even until Saturday.
Chloe's Nanny and Great Aunt CC (Casey's Mom & Aunt) can't come this weekend, so we went over to Nanny's house on Saturday to do a b-day lunch. She got Minnie Mouse ears, sunglasses and a set of Clubhouse Characters to play with. Then CC got her a very neat book that shows animals actually moving as you turn the page. (That's her Nanny in red.)

Monday night, Casey and I stayed up until 12:03am- the exact time Chloe was born two years ago- and prayed over her. Later in the day, Casey actually got to come home for lunch, and then after dinner we went ahead and let her open nearly all of her presents from us, which was a surprisingly large number. She got 5 precious outfits, a whole bunch of new crayons, a couple of new coloring books, a little Mickey Mouse Clubhouse ball, a sippy cup with her name on it, and some glowsticks, which she got a good giggle out of last night.

The fun's not over yet! I'll post some pictures from the party sometime next week.

Have a Good Week!