Tuba Christmas 2009!!

Every Christmas season about two hundred tuba players play holiday music on the steps of the Capitol in Austin. This is my fourth consecutive year to go watch the tubas! You probably wouldn't think that a bunch of tubas could play beautiful music but YES! they can! These are some pics from December 21st, Tuba Christmas 2009. My favorite song they play is Jingle Bells! It's pretty awesome to hear that song played by only tubas! Oh, did I mention my dad is one of the tuba players? Great job, Dad!!

My dad playing his tuba.

The crowd watching the tubas play at the Capitol.
Molly with 3 of her friends (who are all librarians) and Carrie with her friend, Hilary.

My two favorite guys.

My dad with some of his groupies (a.k.a. me, Carrie, and her 2 friends, Hilary and Jennifer).

Introducing Oliver!!!

Oliver is my sister, Molly's new mini-dachshund and he is ADORABLE!!! He's the perfect additon to the Dahlstrom family. He was only a couple of months old when she got him in December and he got to spend his 1st Christmas with all of us in Victoria. He had a great time and got to spend time with his cousin, Bailey. They get along (most of the time....OK some of the time) and Bailey was excited to have another pup around for the holidays! Look how cute he is!!

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Ollie!!!

Bailey checking out his new cousin.Ollie snooping for presents under the tree.

Pink, Pink, and more PINK!!

Eric hard at work.

Great job, Eric! Almost done!

Two weekends ago we got the baby's room painted...PINK! I have to say that Eric did most of the work and I was very impressed with his very first painting job. I now have faith in him for bigger painting projects in the near future :) Here are some painting pics! More nursery pics to come once it's finished...

Happy Thanksgiving!

My dad and mom and the turkey...

Molly, Carrie, and Eric...
My mother-in-law and her two boys, Eric and Jeff...
Brother-in-law Jeff and his wife, Lacie.

Our Thanksgiving holdiay break seemed to have come and went so fast. After a short work week for me and school week for Eric, we headed down to Victoria on Wednesday evening to celebrate Thanksgiving with our families.
We spent all of Thursday with the Dahlstrom crew eating lots of turkey, dressing, and fixings....and pie. Then we watched Texas beat the aggies (what a game!!), and then ate more leftovers!
Friday we spent most of the day with the Otto clan. More turkey, more dressing, more fixings, more pie. Bailey enjoyed getting to play with my in-law's dog, Snick.
It's such a blessing to get to spend time with our families and see how excited they all are about our new February arrival. Our baby girl will definitely be loved and I can't even believe she will be here so soon! We have so much to look forward to next Thanksgiving.

Run, Carrie! Run!

Carrie and her finishers medal. Molly, Carrie, and me.

Carrie striking a runners pose.

Sunday morning Molly and I road tripped it to San Antonio to watch our sister Carrie run the San Antonio half marathon. After waking up very (very) early, we made our much needed stop at Starbucks and we were on our way to the race. After fighting through the crowds of over 30,000 people we finally found Carrie and got to congratulate her after her big 13.1 mile run! She did awesome and I am so proud of her. After the race we stopped for delicious Mexican food and headed back home to Austin where Carrie enjoyed a long nap! Congratulations Carrie!

Welcome Fall...

Me at 23 weeks.

It's officially November! This is my favorite time of year! The weather is getting cooler and we have started to pull out the winter clothing. I am getting so excited about all of the fall and winter decorations in all of the stores, the holiday movies that are starting to come out, and I can't wait until we start seeing Christmas trees! I'm already ready to put our tree out! I think I should probably wait a few more weeks...

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We had a great Halloween evening last night. We handed out candy to all of the adorable trick-or-treaters (unfortunately, our carved pumpkins didn't live long enough to see the kids) while watching UT crush Oklahoma State 41-14! Hook 'em Horns!

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Eric and I have also been busy decorating our baby's nursery. At the moment we are in the middle of choosing paint colors. There is lots of pink involved in the nursery so I'm hoping Eric won't sick of the color pink! So far he's totally embracing it! I've had several requests to post a picture of me and my belly. The photo attached was taken on Friday night and I'm currently 23 weeks pregnant (just over 5 months). I know the sweater is a bit bulky but it's one of the few I have wearing makeup :-)

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Happy holiday season to all!!

Pumpkin carving 2009!

Amy's pumpkins...

Eric's pumpkin...
Eric cleaning out one of the pumpkins.

What a beautiful weekend we had in Austin! The sun was out and the weather was PERFECT! So, we decided it would be a great evening for carving pumpkins! This year was the second year Eric and I have gone and picked out pumpkins and carved them together at home. We carve away in secret and then reveal our creations to each other after we are finished. Hopefully the pumpkins will last long enough for trick-or-treaters to enjoy them on Halloween. We hope to make this a fun tradition for our kids in the years to come!