Controlled Chaos

Kids Say the Darndest Things

2012-01-25T18:59:00.000-08:00

I am pretty sure I have already titled a post that, but I am too lazy to go and search to see if I have and title this post something else. This post may not be that interesting to you, but like I have said in a past post, I am really wanting to blog a lot more about the boys and the phases they are in for my records. I have a hard time sitting down, opening up a journal and writing down silly things they say or do.
The other night at Community Group, my friend Angie, asked if I have ever heard of Blurb.com. I had not and she told me that you can insert your posts on this web site and make your blog into a book. I was super duper excited because a few weeks prior I had been thinking about printing out all my blog posts and putting them in a binder and that being my journal for the boys and a keep sake for us to look back at and see what was going on in our lives during a certain time.
Seeing how printing all my posts since 2007 would take a lot of paper, ink and time, I decided to go check out Blurb.com. I loved the idea and web site so much, that I joined and started to transfer all my posts from 2007. It was so much fun reading and looking at all the pictures from then. I first started blogging when Joseph was about 8 months old!! Crazy! Now, he is 5 and now I have an (almost) 3 year old and 1 year old! INSANE.

One of the things I wanted to journal tonight was some pretty cute things the boys have said lately:

Joseph (5)
The other night we were at an intersection and Joseph asked, "Is this the road the airport is on?" Jeff and I, both very impressed, because it was, but we hardly ever take that particular way to the airport and you couldn't even see the airport from where we were.
Then on our way back from a friends house, the same night, we were at another intersection, and Joseph asks, "Is this the road the Y is on?" Again, we were both super impressed because again, he was correct and we don't go to the Y the way we were coming from and again, you couldn't see the Y. So, Jeff and I started talking to each other how impressed we were of him and his sense of direction (basically, gushing about how smart he was) and then Joseph pipes in, "Dada, am I a good knower?" *Sigh*

Joseph comes up to me while How To Train Your Dragon is playing and asks if I like the blue dragon. I say, "There's a blue dragon?" Joseph, "Yes, he comes with his girlfriend."
I kind of chuckle and ask, "Joseph, what's a girlfriend?" Joseph, "A girlfriend is someone you like a lot. Like, June." (She is Joseph's cousin and my boys love her! They pray for her every night.)

One night Christian was whining about something and I overheard Joseph say, "Christian, quit your honkin'."

Translations
Beard= Beer
Starve Wars=Star Wars
Life Saver=Light Saber
Smarshmellow=Marshmallow

Christian (3)
We have had this exchange a few times:
Christian, "NayNay bite me."
Me, "Aww, Nathan bit you?"
C, "No, he bite me."
Me, "He bit you?"
C, "Nooooo, *opening mouth and pointing to his teeth* he bite me."
Me, "Nathan bite you?"
C, "Yeah."

Translations
Beard=Beer
Starve Wars=Star Wars
Life Saver=Light Saber
Comemom= Come on
Milt=Milk
Joefuff=Joseph

Having boys, I have learned......

2012-01-12T13:31:00.000-08:00

Every since I was young and dreamed of becoming a mother, I always wanted four boys. I was super athletic, active and loved being outdoors when I was growing up, so I thought I would do a better job raising boys.

Well, God has blessed me with three amazing little boys and as I type that, it puts on a little grin on my face just thinking about how blessed I am. When we talk about having a fourth, and that it could potentially be a girl, I get a little nervous. All I really know are boys: trucks, balls, loud noises, messes, etc, so the thought of dolls, playhouses, pink, bows and having to do hair, really freaks me out. Don't get me wrong, I adore all the little girls I know and I would be more than happy to watch your daughter for ya, but having my own, really makes me nervous.

Since I have three boys, I have learned a lot about the World of Boys these past five years. If you have a son, you may relate to a few of these or if you have all boys, you may relate to all of the following:

Having boys, I have learned:
*That decorations for holidays just isn't going to happen until they are all out of the house. They tend to take the decorations I have set out and use them as weapons or target practice.

*I posted this a long time ago as a status on Facebook, but thought I would say it again; throw pillows are horrible to have on the couch or beds because they are used for one of the following: weapons, walls to their forts or obstacle course, shields, or tissues/napkins.

*I am beginning to believe that the appropriate position for the toilet seat is to be up.

*They go by the rule, "If it's yellow, let it mellow."

*That peeing with your brother, at the same time, is the new thing to do.

*No accessories needed, all boys need are shorts, a shirt (some of the time), and as Joseph once said, "I don't need shoes, I have my feet." Reminds me of that Kenny Chesney song from back in the day (did I just say that?), "No shoes, no shirt, no problem."

*Every firm, straight thing (sticks, wood,etc) can be used for several things, some examples are: sword, bat, or spear.

*That by age 5, 3/4 of their shirts will consist of some superhero; Spiderman, Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, and one I learned last night, Flash.

*That they don't really care if they match or coordinate. They wear their favorite shirt, favorite shorts, favorite jacket and favorite shoes, no matter if it coordinates. Example below.....
*They like to build "blocks".....whatever that means. To clarify, it's not them stacking blocks, because that would be good and they would be learning, but no, to build "blocks" in this house means to get as many toys as you can find and put them in front or behind (my least favorite location) doors. Example.......this "block" is in front of a door, a little better than behind the door. *I don't think the words "Quiet" and "Walk" are in a boys vocabulary.

*If they see any type of furniture that is a foot or more off the ground, their goal is to climb to the top of it and jump off.

*Anything that is round shaped, is a considered a ball and most be thrown.

*Have to be super careful about how you ask questions, as an example:
(C, my almost 3 yr old, is in Joseph's bed during rest time, but is to be in his bed)
Me: Christian, you are to be in your bed and if I catch you in Joe's bed again, you are going to be disciplined. Joseph, please be an encourager to Christian and if see him doing something he's not supposed to be doing, encourage him to do the right thing. Do you want to see him be disciplined?
Joseph: Uhhhhh. Yes!
(Doh! Not what I was going for!)

*And as the next couple of pictures will show, it is very difficult to get one picture with them all looking and smiling at the camera.

.....Seriously, is it that difficult for you boys to look at your Mama and smile?

Even though it's nice to escape this male dominated house every once and a while for a pedicure, clothes shopping or coffee with some of my girlfriends, the World of Boys is pretty entertaining. And even though we have our fair share of chaotic moments, we have a lot of precious moments that I know will pass by quickly. I love these little guys so much and as happy as I am that God has blessed me with them, I am so glad they have each other. They truly are a "Band of Brothers," and my prayer for them is that they will continue to have the love, support and bond they have now, the rest of their lives.

Christmas 2011

2012-01-03T05:12:00.000-08:00

Christmas Day 2011

This Christmas was like every other Christmas since we've had children....crazy. This was our year to be in Dallas Christmas morning, so that means we are running around like chickens with our heads cut off trying to host a birthday party, attend birthday parties, get last minute gifts, do our family Christmas, do Jeff's family Christmas, come home and unload all the goodies from Marnie and Poppy, then pack up our things, and head to Dallas all between December 21-24.

The years that we go to Dallas, we usually do our Christmas the morning or the evening of the 23. Then every year, we do Christmas Eve morning with Jeff's family, which I love because it frees us up to head to Dallas and not miss Christmas with either family. Then about nap time, we head out towards Dallas and are there by 7 or 8 in the evening.

Even though it's crazy, it's a lot of fun watching the boys open their gifts and get excited about them. We hope that your Christmas was just as crazy and exciting as ours.

Here are some pictures from our wonderful Christmas.

Attempting to get one of the boys....

Mimi and Papaw working hard at getting all the awesome food ready.
NayNay on his new ride.

My brother-in-law Josh made Jeff and my dad these cigar box guitars. He did an awesome job!

C looking over the carrier that he and Joe received. This was defiantly one of their favorites!

Joseph opening one of his gifts.

Christmas at Marnie and Poppy's.

He was super excited about his new tractor.

And his Spiderman Mask.

We got the boys a trampoline for Christmas. Nathan loves being on that thing!

Until next Christmas....

Joseph's Fifth Birthday

2011-12-21T13:11:00.000-08:00

Five years ago, a little miracle named Joseph Scott, came into our lifes on Decmeber 21, 2006 in style. He made me work for him and gave me a few scares at the beginning, but all the hard work has defiantely made these five years worth it.I absoluetly adore this little guy. He brings our family so much joy! I am so thankful God brought him first into our lives, because he is such an amazing older brother and helper.

Joseph at 5:
Loves his little brothers. We have our fair share of arguments and not wanting to share, but overall, he is awesome with Christian and Nathan.
He's really starting to get into ninja, power rangers and good guy/bad guy toys.
Loves to be read to.
Still loves animals. Wants a dog so bad, but I think he understands why this year wouldn't be the best year to get one for Christmas. He still loves catching frogs and lizards.
Loves baseball.
Still loves his popcorn and movies. One of his favorite movies right now is King Fu Panda.
His favorite drinks are milk, coke and sprite.
He has a sweet tooth, so I have to be on super high alert when we have sweets in the house.
Loves lollipops and bubble gum.
Adores all his cousins and would have them over everyday if I would let him!
He really got into swimming this past summer, so we are thinking about getting him lessons this coming summer to teach him how to swim. I am hoping that he will enjoy it and take to it like a champ.
Can remember things very well. Great for when I am going to the store to get a few items.
Favorite breakfast is Shipley's.
Favorite play place is Chick-fil-a.
Loves to go to the Rodeo with Marnie and Poppy.
Still pretty shy and timid. However, yesterday we were walking from the parking lot to go meet Jeff . As we were walking, a man was passing us and Joseph randomly gave him a high five. I was very surprised.

The following pictures are of his birthdays from the past five years.

Celebrating his First Birthday.

#2
#3
#4

Even though we celebrated his birthday a little early, we still like to make the day of his birthday special. This year started out like it has the past two birthdays....making our way to Shipley's for breakfast to get his favorite: blue frosted donut with sprinkles and a sausage and cheese kolache, came home and watched a movie. Then we headed to Jeff's work to have lunch with him and so Joseph could ride the escalators. After we had lunch with Jeff, we drove to go and see another one of his favorite people, Marnie. We went to see, visit and get as much candy as they possibly could in a span of 30 mintues. After they were induced with a candy coma, we headed home for some much needed rest time. The rest of the day, we spent playing together and hanging out. After dinner, we all got a bowl of icecream, stuck a candle in his icecream and sang Happy Birthday.

I don't know about Joseph, but I enjoyed the day of celebration. Love this little guy so much and I am super excited to see what God has in store for him this coming year.

Happy 5th Birthday, Joseph!

Joseph's Fifth Birthday Party

2011-12-17T20:40:00.003-08:00

I forgot to load this one, but wanted to make sure it got on here. This makes me smile because everyone was gathered around the table to sing "Happy Birthday," and right before we started, I said, "Hey Joe, smile for me." As he looked up and started to give me a big grin, he saw all his cousins staring at him and the smile was quickly replaced by this face. I guess when you are turning 5, you are just too cool for mom. This weekend we celebrated Joseph's birthday a few days early. His birthday is at one of the most crazy, busy times of year. In the month of December, we have his birthday, our nephews Rex and Jack's birthdays and our anniversary. We usually have his party the weekend before or the day of his birthday (since it's a holiday for everyone), but to make that decision I always call my sister in law to see when she is having parties for her boys. Yes, it's crazy!

I am planning to post the day of his actual birthday about what he is up to nowaday's, but for today, I am posting mostly pictures from his party.

This year, I let him tell me everything he wanted, which is nice so I didn't have to think up anything to do. He wanted it at the house, his cousins over, a whale cake, and hotdogs (which we didn't do since we had a few adults stay and visit, so we ordered Papa John's, which is better than hotdogs).

I love how kids are so impressed with little things. As I was making this, I was thinking how horrible it was turning out, but Joseph thought it was the best thing. I guess as long as a kid can tell what it is, then it's considered a success.

As Joseph was opening gifts, our nephew Rex came up to him and started talking. This little guy and Joseph share the same birthday.

Opening our gift....his first G.I Joe.

Singing "Happy Birthday."

A boys birthday party isn't complete without a Superman,

....sword fighting.

.....and wrestling.

Recent Crafts

2011-11-20T19:53:00.000-08:00

If you know me at all, you know that I.Am.Not.A crafty person....at all!!! You would think that I might be since I have a degree in early childhood education, but you should have seen my art projects in college compared to other girls. Mine were hideous! You would also think I would be super cheery and peppy since I was once a pre-k teacher, but I am not. Maybe I totally missed my calling, hmmmm.

All that to say, I have been up to some things lately and thought I would share. I was introduced to pinterest and despise (jk) the person, ahem, Megan S. for showing me the web site. I had been hearing a lot about it, but read on a blog that if you don't have a lot of extra time, don't even go look at the site because you will be hooked. Well, I went, looked, signed up and now I am hooked!! Even though none of the following crafts are from pinterest, that web site has really motivated me to be more crafty.

My first craft is my new stocking hanger. We have never had a good place to put our stockings since we don't have a fire place. We have a pretty large entertainment center that has a great shelf to put one of those stocking hangers on, but Jeff and I aren't too big on those because they slide off the surface too easily and could cause a pretty good injury. So this year, I was determined to find something to do with the boys stockings. We had this wall hanging that was given to me a while back as a gift, but there was a certain picture on there that Jeff hated. It wasn't anything inappropriate, but he said the monkey looked like he was holding "something" ( I'm not going to say), but just take my word for it, Jeff hated it. As I looked at a few days ago, I thought how perfect it would be for three stockings. So I ran to Michael's, got some scrapbook paper and sparkly letters and created this....
If you look really closely, you will see that it's pretty crappy, but it's good enough for this year.

See, this is what I do. I have this awesome idea in my head, stay up late, am tired and rush through a project and then it turns out not near as cute as it was in my head.

My next project is posted for a friend on request. I had seen this idea shared by an old friend and thought that it was not only a cute idea, but a great idea, and I really wanted to do it. So, again, trying to put something together really fast, created this...........

.....Our Thanksgiving Tree for 2011 that looks like it has been through a hurricane, which could have possibly happened seeing that we are near the coast and have been through a hurricane (or maybe it was a tropical storm and it was really only Jeff who was here. I happened to go to Dallas that weekend and slept great!). I put this together in about 20 seconds and it is created with brown, paper lunch sacks. If anything, it does make my laugh every time I look at it because of how hideous it looks. My friend, Amy's, was muchmuchmuchmuch better looking than this one.

But the purpose of this tree, was/is to ask the boys each day until Thanksgiving, something they are thankful for. We put what they say on a "leaf" made from construction paper. I tried really hard not to prompt them to saying certain things. I really wanted it to be something that came to their minds. That is why some are off the wall, like, "pencils."

The other thing that I tried to encourage was them to not repeat something they had said the day before. I was okay with Joseph and Christian both being thankful for Dada, but I didn't want Joseph to say that twice. I plan on putting these in their "memory boxes" because I think it will be fun to look back at the things that they really liked at the time (which has been what they are thankful for...cars, fighter jets, lightning mcqueen and baseball).

(On the tree, I put the scripture, "Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, His love endures forever.")

Hope you have a wonderful holiday season!

Nathan's First Birthday Party

2011-11-09T13:04:00.001-08:00

Nathan's first birthday party went pretty smoothly. I tend to get a little stressed when I am the one that is going to be making all the food and when there are going to be a lot of people at our house. It worked out great the weekend that we had it because Jeff was off on Friday, my mom came in Friday afternoon and one of Jeff's cousins had a MDO on Friday morning, so I was able to get a lot done before the party. I was so thankful for my mom and Jeff and all of their hard work, helping with preparations and entertaining the boys.
Two things we did a little differently for Nathan's first birthday party was, (1) we had it as a come and go and (2) we didn't do gifts for him. I read a blog once that mentioned that they had done a come and go party and I thought that it was genius. I really feel that it takes a lot of pressure of the guest feeling like they have to stay the entire time allotted. I mean, I love my kids dearly, but they might not want to spend 3 hours at a party just for him. It also took the pressure of me of having tons of people all at my house at once. Even though most of the crowd was here right around noon, we had a light crowd before and a light crowd after.
Also, not having gifts for Nathan and him not having to sit there and open them was really nice. I always feel like birthday parties can put a lot of pressure on these little guys to be so happy and bubbly for a long period of time and it's not fair to them. He did great through the entire party, but he was asleep during the first hour (just a few people were here though), and when he woke up, all that we had for him to do was to eat his cake. Then when it was time for his second nap, all the guest were gone. So he did great. Here are some snap shots of his special day....

My nephew, Phillip, came in a chicken costume and I couldn't get enough it. Love that kid!

We asked the guest to not bring gifts for Nathan, but instead donate a gift for the Ronald McDonald House Santa Store.

Nathan seemed a little shy about digging into his cake, so I had to help a little bit.

My other nephew, Rex, who is going to be one next month! Can't believe it. It literally seems like yesterday, his mama and I were sitting on the floor at my mother in laws getting excited about delivering these babies!

We rented a small obstacle course from Manvel Moonwalks, who were great!! After the majority of the guest left, and our kids were out of the moonwalk (very important), Jeff, our good friends Mark and Megan, my sister, Joseph, Christian, and myself, did timed runs through the obstacle course. It was awesome, however, the aches, pains, and burnson the elbows were not fun the next day. Mark won by completing the course in 6 seconds.

Decorations for his party (the lightning McQueen cup isn't part of the decorations).

I have seen this done at other parties and have always enjoyed it. (It's Nathan throughout the first year)

Now I am off to plan my other baby's birthday party. That little guy is going to be turning 5! *shedding a tear*

Happy Birthday, Nathan

2011-11-02T11:59:00.000-07:00

I know it's going to sound cliche, but this year has absolutely flown by! This morning, I couldn't wait to get little Nathan and thank the Lord for blessing my little boy with a full year of life. I also woke up a little sad, thinking that it can't already be his first birthday.

Here is Nathan, on his first day of life...

And here, celebrating his first year of life!

The following may be considered TMI, but I never blogged about having him. Once we arrived home, we hit the ground running and I didn't even get back into blogging until he was 6 months. Only close friends and relatives have heard the story, but I love to tell about the day I had him because it brings so much GLORY to my Heavenly Father.

I have been extremely blessed with easy pregnancies and semi-easy deliveries (well, except for Joseph who made me work for about 3 hours before he decided to join us.) However, with each pregnancy I have had a hard time keeping my platelet counts up. With Joseph, it was never brought up, with Christian, it was brought to my attention the day we went in to have him and I was told the count was borderline and would result in me possibly not getting an epidural. They decided to do a clot test on me and my blood clotted at a good rate, so they were comfortable with me getting the epidural. I get asked a lot what does the platelet count have to do with an epidural? Well, if your platelets are low, your blood could potentially not clot, causing you to bleed to death. That being the case, they require your platelet counts to be at 90,000 or higher before blindly sticking a needle into your back. The risk with low platelet counts and epidurals is that the anesthesiologist can't see where he is sticking the needle, so if he "nicked" something and caused me to bleed inside, he wouldn't know and I wouldn't either because I can't feel anything.

At my 36 week appointment with Nathan, they took some blood to see where my count was. That weekend was a Fall Festival at church and everyone was asking the usual questions, "how you feeling? "How many more weeks?" That day, I was telling everyone that I talked to, to be in prayer that my numbers be high or that I go early so he is small (my other two were pretty good sized, so I thought if I had to do it on my own, I would prefer that he be small) and I experience little pain. That was a Sunday and also Halloween. So that night we went trick or treating with my little Superman and Spiderman. Monday came and I was a little sore and tired. My weeks turned on Mondays, so everyone Monday I would notice myself getting a little more sore and fatigued. I went about my day feeling pretty good. Went to my mother in laws and hung out with my sister in law, who was also pregnant. We let the older ones run around while we talked about the excitement of our babies. That afternoon I went home and at about 4:30p I got a call from Doctor. M. She informed me that my numbers were low (74,000) and that she was going to put me on a steroid to help boost the numbers so I could get that epidural. I hung up and went straight to FB, put out a message asking for prayers for peace, comfort, and that my numbers increase. I remember just sitting on the couch, wanting to burst into tears and just looking at my older two and hoping that nothing would happen to me.

I pulled my self together, got up and started dinner. As I started cooking I began to feel a little cramp here and there. I didn't think anything of it, but then it was like the Lord kicked me on side of the head and I thought, "Hey, these are pretty frequent and in the same place, maybe I should start timing." As I did, at 5:30p they were already 7-10 minutes apart. I didn't want to make a big deal of it, so I just kept track, told Jeff and he too didn't think much about it. At dinner I looked at Jeff and said, "Maybe we should call your mom and tell her that I am having some cramping and to keep the phone close by." We didn't.

After dinner, I asked Jeff to go and get my medication while I stayed home and gave the older two a bath and ready for bed. As I was getting them ready, the cramping was getting a little more intense, you know, the kind where I had to stop and breath through it. Once the cramps got to this point, I went ahead and packed the boys bags, just in case.

After putting the boys to bed, I went and took a really warm shower hoping that would help. Up until this point, I was thinking I had done too much that day and was just needing to get to bed. Once I was done with the shower, I went and laid down on the couch and was flipping the channels between the World Series game between the Rangers and Giants and the Monday Night Football game between my favorite team, the Colts and the Texans. As I was laying there, I was beginning to believe what I was experiencing were indeed contractions. They were getting more and more intense. After laying on the couch for a while, I was starting to feel exhausted, so I grabbed a big thing of lemonade and told Jeff I was going to go lie down.

When I went to my bed, the contractions started to get more intense, so I got up to walk around. I felt like a dog trying to find "the right place" to poop. I was just going around in circles because every time I laid down it was miserable. I began to start keeping track of the contractions again, because I was becoming more and more convinced this was real labor. Finally, I had Jeff keep track and they were about 3-4 minutes a part. After about two or three of the contractions being that close, I decided to call the on call doctor. It was about 12:30am, I got a hold of the doctor and I told him, "I am having pretty intense contractions about 3-4 minutes a part. " He then asked how long they were lasting, without knowing (because I hadn't been keeping track of that), I said, "I don't know, maybe 30 seconds." He said, "Well, if it's real labor, the contractions will be 5 minutes apart, intense and lasting about a minute." I kindly said, "Sir, I have 2 of the 3." He told me to go back to counting and if they were lasting longer than a minute to go ahead and head to the hospital. I went back to my room and immediately experienced a contraction. When it was done, Jeff told me it lasted a minute. Then the next one came about 3 minutes later, that one lasting a minute and a half. I stood up and said lets go. We called my mother in law, but when we were unable to reach her, we called my brother in law Kyle. Once he got here, we were off. We got the hospital in record time.

On the way there I was telling Jeff to go as fast as he could because I needed to push. We pulled up to valet. I called for a wheel chair and we were on the elevator in no time. At this point I knew I was going to be doing this without an epidural. So far the pain had been bearable. I tried so hard to breath and get through the pain that was happening and not think about how much worse it was going to be. With the other two boys, I had gotten to 5 cm without a lot of pain, so I knew I could do that. So on the elevator, I looked up at Jeff, probably with the saddest eyes and said, "I hope I am at least at a 7." We got off the elevator and went to check in. After all the dumb questions that I don't think they need to ask a women who is in labor, we were wheeled to a room.

Once we got to the room, the super calm nurse was like ,"Okay, get this gown on and go to the restroom because this may be the last time you get to go for a while."I started to head to the restroom and turned right around and told the nurse, "Ma'am, if I sit down on that toilet, I am going to push this kid out." She then told me to come to the bed and she would put the monitors on. As she started to put the monitors on me, she could see that I couldn't relax and said, "Let me check you real quick." All I could see were her eyes and they got huge. She said, "Uh, you are 9 1/2cm and bulging bag, I'll be right back." She ran out of the room and came back with a crew of nurses. When she left, Jeff and I just looked at each other and both breathed a huge sigh of relief and he hugged me and said, "You did it!"

When the entourage of nurses came in, they were asking a thousand questions and having me sign papers between contractions, which, there was NO IN BETWEEN, they were one right after the other. As I was signing, I told a nurse that I was going to get sick. They rushed over a peach colored, kidney-bean shaped bucket and I released a good amount. After the third vomit, my water broke. The nurses were cleaning up the vomit and then I looked at one nurse and said, "My water just broke." I have to laugh when I think about the nurses early in the morning. There they are, at the nurses station enjoying a nice cup of coffee and then I come in. They were going crazy in my room. I come in, about have this baby, vomit all over them and then bam ,my water broke. They were probably thinking, "slow down woman!"

As soon as my water broke, my body took over. I really only remember pushing 3 or 4 times and he was here. I had arrived and checked in at 1:06 am and had Nathan at 1:45 am.

When Nathan arrived I was worried about him being so early (he was 19 days early), but he had the loudest scream of all three. Then I was concerned about him nursing well. I knew from my mom who works on a post-partum floor, that early term babies can be lazy nursers and I knew from my previous babies, that they lose weight before they leave the hospital. He was 5lbs. and 12oz, so I really didn't want him to lose any weight. God was so amazing to us that entire week. Nathan took to nursing like a champ and didn't lose much weight at all. The only thing was that he would fall asleep after nursing about a minute or so. So we had to strip him down to his diaper and constantly rub his ears, feet and back to keep him awake. Then at his two week check up he was a pound past his birth weight, which blew his doctor away. They were just wanting to see him back to his birth weight, but here he was, an entire pound more.

God's grip was felt that entire evening: The peace during the contractions while at home, the safe drive to hospital, the super speedy delivery, no hemorrhaging (which I had really bad with Joseph, I lost a liter of blood, and then a little more than normal with Christian), Nathan coming out screaming and very alert, Nathan's strength and wellness, Nathan eating well and gaining. I have also heard with early term babies, that they tend to get sick more often than full term, but we have been blessed that he has been a fairly healthy little boy.

It always amazes me when God will show you His peace. I know He is always there, but sometimes you feel his presence more when you are going through things that are completely out of your control. During those time, I am reminded of that verse in Exodus, "The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still."

I can't believe my baby boy is a ONE YEAR old. We feel so blessed God placed little nay-nay in our care. We treasure him so much!! Thank you God, for this wonderful, precious gift.

*You may be wondering where we came up with the nickname 'nay-nay?' Well, when we brought him home from the hospital, Christian had just turned 21 months and didn't talk much at all. When we told Christian, this is your brother Nathan, he couldn't say it. Then one day, he called him nay-nay and of course, we thought it was the most adorable thing ever. *

Halloween 2011

2011-11-01T18:57:00.000-07:00

As much as I look forward to these special days, like trick or treating, I am so glad when they are over. The build up, anticipation, and the chaos the day of can be pretty crazy!
All that to say, we had a great year of pumpkin carving and trick or treating....We hope you did to.

Joseph carved his own pumpkin this year. He did awesome! (or so I thought). His is on the right and Christian's is on the left. C had a little help.

This has nothing to do with trick or treating, but this is the mask that went to Joseph's ninja costume and I thought it was so awesome on Nathan.

The older two boys were both Ninja's, or as Christian says, "Injas." They were so cute going door to door.

And here we are..reality. Nathan was having a pretty rough night. During one of his crying fits, I noticed his bottom two molars coming in, so maybe that was the cause of his melt down.?

The older two did have a great time, I promise.

Our Season of Life

2011-10-26T13:29:00.001-07:00

This is a post about our season of life, so it may not be for those we see a lot because you probably know what's going on, but for our family and friends who we don't see often. When I was in college, I would email family about every couple of months to give them updates and from what they told me, they always enjoyed it. They felt like they knew what was going on in my life even though they didn't get to see me.

So here is an update for our family, starting with Jeff: He was currently assigned a new project that is out of Canada. As much as we are very grateful for new projects and a job, a starting project can be pretty demanding. Like having to work from home on the weekends and over-time. I am also loving the fact that if he has to travel for this project, it's going to be to Canada and not overseas or South of the border. I told him, "I might actually travel to Canada with you if you have to go."He has been running with some friends and family a few nights a week so that's been good for him. I feel bad for him because I know he enjoys working out, it's just finding the right time to do it. He gets up pretty early to go to work and he's respectful in the fact that I like having him home by 6, so that eliminates working out before and after work. He sometimes runs during his lunch break, but that can be pretty toasty between the months of May-October. So this has been a good compromise. He is home for dinner, gets to play with the boys, helps with baths and bed time and then gets to go workout and be home by 10.

As for me, I have been pretty busy with the normal, "motherly" chores. I have also been in a Fall Bible Study that is on Wednesday mornings. I love love love love this day of the week. Even though this study has been pretty slow, God has revealed himself to me in a very loving way. I have recently started meeting with two wonderful girls on Monday nights to share stories, talk about our struggles, pray for and encourage one another. How God orchestrated this situation was perfect. When I was asked by Sarah to meet with her and another wonderful women of God, I was going through a rough season. A season where I was feeling abandoned, a season where I felt God was humbling me, which can be pretty miserable, so the timing of the invitation was awesome. I have only gone two times, but I have really enjoyed it and I now look forward to Monday evenings as well as Wednesday mornings.

As for Joseph, well, he is about a month and half from being 5! I honestly can't believe it. He is going to be a ninja for Halloween, so we are looking forward to that. He is really into baseball right now. He asks just about every day if there is baseball on t.v.. We are enjoying the World Series right now since the Texas Rangers are in it.

Christian-boy is about to be three. He is officially potty trained!! I am so relieved. He got the pottying down really fast, but going #2 took a while. We were pushing almost two months of him not telling us when he needed to go. We tried prizes, special drinks, movies and popcorn, candy, nothing was working! I was confident that he knew what he needed to and how to do it, he just wasn't. It came down to where I had to get pretty firm for two days and boom, he's been successful ever since. He too, is going to be a ninja for Halloween.

Nathan is a week away from turning one and I want to go lay on the couch and get in a fetal position and cry. We talk a lot about having a fourth, but we don't know if it's safe for me to continue with another pregnancy, so the thought of my baby ALREADY turning one is very sad for me. I don't think I did a post on him when he turned 10 months or when he turned 11 months, but when he turned 10 months, he wasn't really doing anything different from when he was 9 months.

So to make up for that, Nathan at 11 months: You are in size 3 diapers, you are now crawling and pulling up on everything. Tonight, you pulled to a standing position on the side of the tub. You say:Mama, Dada, ball, doggie, more, m (for milk), and I am almost certain you said "Joe" the other morning. You can dance, kiss, clap and wave on command. You lovelovelovelovelove Joseph....ok, and Christian (a different kind of love ;-) ). You love your milk, although, we think you have had a little virus this past week, so we have taken the milk away and probably won't bring it back until next week. You love balls and the firehouse that is in Joseph's room. You wear 9 month and 12 month clothes, although the other day, I got you into a 3-6 month onesie. You wear size 3 shoe. You take two naps (10a and 2p) and go to bed at 8p. The morning nap is at such a convenient time *saying with a super sarcastic tone*, with running errands, having play dates and church. You are a pretty happy baby, but I don't think people believe me because when our friends see you, it's during your morning nap, which you tend to be grumpy gills.

And to conclude the update on our family, I would like to share that we have recently become members of a new church family.
When Jeff and I got married, we talked a lot about where to attend church. He was raised in a Church of Christ and I was raised saying that I was follower of Jesus, but attended different churches throughout my childhood, some being under the umbrella of Assemblies of God and some being Baptist churches. He had been a part of a church for at least 15+ years. His entire family went there, close friends went there, people that he loved and respected went there. So we thought, for the beginning of our marriage, that was where we needed to be. About 6 months ago, we felt God really pressing on both our hearts for a fresh start. Without airing all of our most intimate conversations here, what it came down too was that we both were in need of something fresh. We needed something fresh for our own spiritual lives, we needed something fresh for our marriage, and something fresh for our children. About a year prior to us making the difficult decision of stepping out there to see where God was going to take us, a vast majority of Jeff's family had departed and went to different churches around the area. That was a very difficult time for the both us. As much as I wanted to be excited for everyone and to see what God was doing in all their lives, I couldn't help but feel alone. When I think back to that time, it was actually a very good thing for Jeff and I. We began to sit down and talk about why we go to church, what we want to get out of church and how we wanted to be Jesus' hands and feet.
We prayed a lot, we sought a Christian counselor from Houston First Baptist, we sought scripture and Christian authors, like Hank Hanegraaff.

I can't speak for Jeff, but for me it really got to a point church was just about Sundays and Wednesdays and from what we have experienced these past 6 months, we have learned that church is beyond Sundays. Being a follower of Christ is living a daily life totally surrendered to Him (which I can/do struggle with). I once heard a preacher say, "that being a Christian isn't just knowing the facts, it's an experience." That was so convicting to me. Here I was learning about God, but I wasn't really going out into our community sharing, loving or reaching out. I think we at times tend to favor and make our decisions on what's familiar and what's normal to us. Even though we tend to favor normalcy, this quote sums it up for me, "I think the point is for us not to let familiarity with something make us think we don't need to give it our all." I really think that was where I was in my walk, not giving it my all.

Being a follower of Christ isn't always the most convenient, comfortable, normal thing to do. I'm in a bible study and this entire semester is on surrendering and getting rid of the old and going on with the new...."weeping forward". As hard as the decision was for us, we knew we had to do it even though it might hurt a lot of feelings. It also came to a point we had to stop trying to please others, but to exam our own spiritual lives, our marriage, and our roles as parents.
After many conversations, Jeff and I decided it was time to step out and visit other churches. We weren't searching for the perfect church, because that doesn't exist, and we weren't following a group of people, but we were looking for a place that we could see ourselves growing, our marriage being challenged and encouraged and a place we could see our kids growing and being taught. We went with an open mind and heart, so if we didn't feel like God was taking us anywhere else, and felt led to go back to where we were, we were going to do just that. One of the things we really wanted to try was going to churches in our community. We really wanted to start reaching out to our neighbors, people we met at parks, chick fil a, etc, and be able to invite people to church. Visiting churches was a much harder task than we thought it would be. We went to churches where people greeted us with hugs, we visited churches where not a single person approached us ,we went to a church that after about 10 minutes in, we were like, "we do not fit in here." It was a long search, but we have recently joined a new church home and we couldn't be happier.

We are at peace with our decision and super excited to see where God is going to take us through this church. We have already seen God work mightily through us since we stepped out in faith. It was very hard to leave a place that was normal, a place that was familiar, a place where everyone knew us, a place that loved our boys, but we have seen God's blessing. It's hard not to think about the feelings that were hurt, but like I said before, it was something we felt God was pressing on our hearts, and we felt like we needed to surrender. Even though getting to that point of surrender was very difficult, it feels so free now to know that we did what we felt led to do.
"God's ways are not always the most practical, popular, or unopposed, but they are the most blessed."

Pumpkin Patch 2011

2011-10-19T13:16:00.001-07:00

I am really taking advantage of the pumpkin patch picture years, because with boys, I know it will soon come to an end.
For me, it's fun to go back each year and compare pictures to previous years and see how much each boy has changed. Last years pumpkin patch, I was about ready to have our little bundle of joy, Nathan, and C-bear was a little guy.
Taking pictures this year was a little challenging because: Joseph pretty much doesn't smile for the camera, instead, he does these super silly grins, goofy faces, or frowns. Christian, cheeses so hard it looks like he is dropping pellets in his undies. As for Nathan, he was distracted by the hay, grass, pumpkins, other mothers yelling at their kids while trying to get their pictures, "hey look up here. hey hey hey," and the cars that were zooming down the road.
Even though I didn't get the most amazing shot ever, I did capture one of my favorite traditions through the camera and we went away with three pumpkins (small, medium and large), for my little pumpkins, also, small, medium and large.

Love these guys!!

See, cheesing so hard!

Yes! All looking at the camera, although,Christian is about to sneeze.

See, silly smile

Beavers Bend Weekend

2011-10-18T19:10:00.000-07:00

About two weeks ago we were blessed by my parents, a.k.a, Mimi and Papaw with a trip to Beavers Bend, Oklahoma.
We have been wanting to go camping for a while now, but with Nathan only being 11 months, we weren't sure how tent camping would go. The more Jeff and I talked about it, we thought if we were going to go tent camping, we should go around the Houston area just in case Nathan didn't sleep well in the tent. We had planned if the first night of sleep didn't go well, Nathan and I would make the short drive back home.
After looking at area camp sites and all of them being sold out, we decided to go with a cabin. We were going back and forth between Arkansas and Beavers Bend. My parents suggested Oklahoma because they had a lot to do at BB State Park.
They were right, it was a blast.
The cabin we stayed in was awesome! Usually when you hear or experience a cabin deep in the woods, you think: dirty, nasty, big spiders, dirty, roaches are going to come out of the shower head. Not the cabins we stayed in. They were so nice and clean. It had a kitchen so we, well, my mom (Love You!), was able to cook. We were very secluded, so the boys were able to go outside by themselves and play. Boys are just meant for outdoors and woods!
Here are some pictures from our trip:

Papaw and Nathan enjoying the nice, peaceful river.

What was supposed to be,"just take your shoes off and feel the water,"turned into becoming fully submerged.

I talk a lot about how I love my husband and you may get tired of it, but this picture captures one of the most beautiful things about him. He is such a great dad. Always interested in what the boys are saying and doing. Love that about him.

Enjoying some cotton candy.

Nathan was very interested in holding the blue fluffy stuff, but WOULD NOT eat it. He just tore it apart and would throw the pieces on the ground.

They had a train that ran through BB State Park. It was a nice, scenic ride.

This kid has been DYING to climb trees lately. A few weeks ago when we went to the zoo, it took us forever to get through because he wanted to climb every.single.tree! Needless to say, he enjoyed all the big trees that he could climb.

What I can imagine my boys faces would look like if we lived in the woods. Notice how dirty it is?

Just one of the beautiful views.

Some other highlights: Watching the Rangers win!, roasting marshmallows, kayaking, the boys telling Jeff and I that we forgot to go camping (we had talked so much about camping in a tent, that since we didn't do it, we didn't go camping), almost beating Jeff in a bike race around the camp ground, meeting two labs that were so sweet that I actually thought for a second taking them home with us, and boys sleeping a huge chunk of the 8 hour trip back. They were exhausted!

Thank you Mimi and Papaw for a fantastic weekend!

1+1+1=3

2011-09-19T18:24:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe, just four short years ago we had this little man.

Then two years later, we were blessed with our C-bear.

Then 21 months after that, we were blessed with our third boy.

I get asked a lot what it's like to have three and how difficult it is going from 1 to 2 and then 2 to 3. I remember someone telling me that going from no kids to one was difficult and going from 1 to 2 was also difficult. Then he continued to say that 2 to 3 and then 3 to 4 wasn't that bad. After going from 2 to 3 myself and then my sister in law having her fourth, I asked her what she thought about that statement. We came to the conclusion that the statement wasn't completely accurate. We concluded that it really depends on the order of your kids and their personalities that determines how smooth the transition is.

Going from having no kids to having a child is probably a challenge for everyone. The thing that I most struggled with was getting to be with just Jeff all the time. At the very beginning of being a new mom, I remember missing those nights of just Jeff and I on the couch watching our favorite shows. Now, my life was wrapped up in our new little bundle of joy.

As for going from 1 to 2, that was actually a pretty smooth transition for us. Joseph was a super sweet 2 year old. Didn't get in to much, watched cartoons, and would play in his room for long periods of time. He was also a very patient toddler. He understood from a very young age what it meant when I would say, "hold on, let me finish this and then I will help you." He basically made my job look easy. Christian as an infant was awesome! The kid slept all day, so that allowed me to help Joseph a lot during the day and play with him. And if I had a rough night of sleep, Joseph was so calm that he would just sit on the couch and watch cartoons as long as they were on so I could catch a cat nap with Christian in the early mornings.

Going from 2 to 3 was one of the most challenging things I have ever encountered. Nathan was one of those babies you hear about who has his days and nights mixed up. THAT was my kid. He slept all day and would start his alert time at 9p and would be awake off and on until about 5a and then around 5a till late evening he would sleep. I remember some days feeling like a zombie. I would get really dizzy, nauseated, and super exhausted from the lack of sleep
I was getting. Christian and Nathan are only 21months apart, and Christian wasn't anything like Joseph. He just now (at 2 1/2) will sit and watch cartoons, so that was challenging when I would turn on the toons to try to catch a power nap and he wouldn't sit down. He would want something and wouldn't quit asking until I got it for him or would want to be held. This was also a peek travel time for Jeff at his work, so that was extremely difficult. Trying to manage three small children on a total of 5 hours of interrupted sleep was insane.

Now that I get sleep, things are pretty smooth, tiring, but smooth. The older two play great together and are generally in the same location, so that's nice to be able to keep up with them. Nathan is a pretty content baby and is with me at all times, unless he's sleeping, so it's easy to keep up with him.

At times I feel like I have it together, but then I go to Wal-Mart on Fridays to go grocery shopping. I get this comment at least 3 or more times while shopping, "Wow, you have your hands full." I am hoping they are saying that because I really do have my hands full (having 3 boys, 4yrs of age and under) and not because I have this "look" on my face or because my kids are out of control.

As tiring as it can be to be a mother of 3 growing boys, I love them to death. Most days I am ready to put them to bed and have an evening of peace, by when I settle into my room for the evening, I can't stop talking about them and look forward to the next day.

Love my little men!

Summer Recap

2011-09-01T05:27:00.000-07:00

Here is our Summer recap in pictures: (No particular order)

We played in the water a lot!We went to watch the Astros play the San Fransisco Giants. First time to go as an entire family and Nathan's first Major League game. *Sidenote* We didn't plan it like this, but the last time I had seen the Giants play was when they were playing the Rangers for the World Series and I was laid out on the couch in labor with Nathan.
Took a much needed and anticipated overnight trip to Galveston.

Boys worked hard and read 60 books each to get their reading medals.

Came across a stack of tortillas that a certain little two year old took out of the bag and took a bite of the entire stack!

We went to Dallas to celebrate Cooper's First Birthday.

Ate Strawberries

Went to Cocoa Beach and Ron Jon Surf Shop.

Went to a wedding at Disney world.

Graduated from diapers.

Sat in large buckets of water to cool off.

And we celebrated Nathan turning 7 months,

8 months,

and 9 months.

Hope you had a great summer!

Where Oust Thou Fall?

2011-08-30T11:44:00.000-07:00

As much as I love summers: Popsicles, shorts and sandals, water parks, slip-n-slides, cookouts, splash pads, water balloon fights, water gun fights, sounds of the ice cream truck, the Children's museum, dollar movies at Cinemark, Summer book club, and our latest invention.... Our very own......
water slide

I am so ready for the Fall: Pumpkin Patch, pumpkin bread, cheaper water bills, cheaper electricity bills, picnic's at the park, playing outside, the Zoo, soups and stews.

And as much as I love summers: I am tired of SWEATING as soon as I step outside, feeling like I have to change more than once a day, shower more than once a day, always having my hair in a pony tail, having to ALWAYS start the car before I get any of the kids put in, limited to things indoors and with air conditioning.

Come on Fall!

Weird.

2011-08-24T18:40:00.000-07:00

I thought this was pretty funny: Here is a picture of Christian at 9 months...Here he is at 2. Thought it was funny how similar the picture is two years later.

Here is Joseph at 2 holding Christian at 6 months.
Here is Joseph at 4, holding Nathan at 8 months. Says a lot about their big brother Joseph. Christian and Nathan both ADORE him!

Nathan at 9 months

2011-08-22T19:25:00.000-07:00

Nathan,
You are now nine months! I can't believe it!

-You wear size 3 diapers.
-You can still squeeze into 3-6 months, but mostly wear 6-9 months. I will stop cramming you into 3-6 months when the Fall comes.
-You wear size 2 shoe.
-You LOVE any kind of ball.
-You like to hold something in both hands while you are playing. It's super cute to watch you try and figure out what to do when you want something else, but you already have something in both hands.
-You wave bye-bye.
-You say something that sounds a lot like Dada.
-You take 2 long naps and are in bed for the night by 8.
-Nurse 3 times a day.
-You eat some baby food, but you mostly eat what we are eating. You love anything with pasta. Just like your brothers!
-You went to your first Astro's game last Friday and you did great. We took all three of you and Dada and I were so impressed with all of you.
-You love apples, especially, when you get to hold it and just chomp away at it.

-You really love Joseph, but Christian, you are still trying to get used to him. You usually grunt or squeal when he gets anywhere near you.

-You love being held by your Mama!

-Just this week, you started getting on all four's. (Your brothers were almost the exact same age when they began to crawl.)

-You are super flexible!

-We have to watch you very closely now because you are very determined and quick when you see something you want. You have managed to somehow get a hold of a dice and put it in your mouth.

-You have made a trip to the ER for rapid breathing.
-When the older two are playing rough with me or Dada, you scream and cry. I think you are scared they are hurting us.

-You give kisses on command.

-You dance when we say, "dance, dance, dance."

-You are very interested in the TV when it's on.

-At your 9 month check up you were 15 lbs 8 oz (1%) and 27.o in (13%). You are our tiny one!

I fall in love with you more and more everyday! I feel so blessed to be your mama, neighneigh!

Past Two Weeks

2011-08-17T19:16:00.000-07:00

The past two weeks have been absolutely crazy in the Kirklin household.

About two weeks ago, this little guy turned 9 months. He is such a joy in our lives and I adore this precious little gift. As most mom's know, babies go in at 9 months for a well baby visit. The appointment was scheduled for Thursday, but the day before I noticed Nathan not being himself. He was super fussy, bad cough, bad runny nose, not interested in eating. He would only eat fruit and nurse that day. On Wednesday, I remember thinking that the timing of his cold was perfect since we were going in the next day, so if it was an ear infection or sinus infection, we could get something for it.
Thursday came and he felt really warm the morning of. We went to the appointment and when the doctor came to evaluate him, he checked his vitals (which is always a routine for a well baby visit). He asked me, "have you noticed him breathing really fast?" I hadn't. So Dr. D monitored him for a while and was counting his breaths. He then asked the nurse to come in and check his oxygen levels. The first time they were at 91 (100 is normal. I asked my mom, whose a nurse, and asked how bad 91 was and she said that they gave mom's oxygen at levels of 92). Since his levels were low, he said he wanted to do a breathing treatment in the office. So we had that done. That was exciting. N was screaming! Joseph was crying and telling me to take the mask off because Nathan didn't like it. The machine was SUPER loud, and C was in the corner dancing and singing. After the treatment, his levels were checked again and they had gone up to 95. We were then administered Albuterol, told to watch his breathing and if I didn't feel like his breathing was slowing down, I needed to call. Nathan was given his shot (which he didn't even squeak...I guess because, to him, it was nothing to having that mask on) and we went home. Nathan woke up from his first nap with a fever, still breathing rapidly and really fussy. He then took his second nap and woke up breathing really fast. I decided to call the Dr. office just to see how much longer they wanted me to monitor his breathing and they thought that he had been breathing to long at that pace, so they told us to make our way to the Texas Children's. After about 7 hours of being there, monitoring his breathing and given some treatments, we were okay to leave. (When we got there, his breaths were at 70/minute and they should be at 40/minute. ). The next couple of days were pretty tense and making sure he didn't start with the rapid breathing again.

Friday, we celebrated Poppy's birthday with some burgers on the grill.
Saturday morning I learned that I have to get glasses. Then that evening after picking up Christian from date night, he had a fever and super bad runny nose.
Sunday, we decided to keep everyone home to rest from the crazy couple of days and then Jeff started feeling bad. He ended up going to RediClinic and was told he had an upper respiratory virus.
Monday on the way home from work, Jeff was in a fender bender. His car was dented and scratched, but not much more than that. Joseph starts to get a bad cough and runny nose.
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday we pretty much stayed home trying to get well. I cloroxed, lysoled and cleaned like nobody's business.

Tuesday, we did managed to make a quick trip to the library so the boys could pick up their medals!
They each "read" 60 books this summer! Joseph was especially proud of his medal.

One of the reasons I was working so hard on getting the boys healthy was because Jeff and I had an over night trip planned to Galveston for a least 9 months. (Can you see the excitement in our faces?) We had an awesome time! We stayed at the San Luis in Galveston. We walked the strand Thursday evening and ate seafood. Then that evening we walked the beach and hung out at the hotel pool. Friday, we went to Schlitterbahn, which was a blast! My mama came down and kept all three boys.

This week has slowed down quite a bit....Thank the Lord!

This morning started off interesting with Joseph and Christian secretly eating and ENTIRE pint of Cookies and Cream Ice cream! I asked Jeff, hoping he had already eaten some and he said he hadn't touched it.

Today we went to Jeff's work to have lunch with him and so that the boys could ride the escalators as reward for C for his potty training. How's that going, you ask? Well, he is a one step forward, two step backwards trainee. One day he will be accident free. The next day, he will just poo in his pants. Then the next day, he will have four peeing accidents in a span of 45 minutes and poop in his pants. I can't figure him out!
And we have "using the potty"on our minds a lot lately, so much in fact, this conversation occurred between me and my 2 year old (the one we are trying to get to use the potty)

C: "jibberish, I die"

Me: "Christian, where do you go when you die?"

C: "The potty!"

(I ask him all day long, "where do you go poop?" and his response is, "THE POTTY!" He knows the answer, now it's just getting him to do it.)

Potty Training: Day 4

2011-07-28T18:05:00.001-07:00

Okay, this is probably my last day to post about C's potty training because he's got 1 out of the 2 accomplished. Yes, he does great with going pee, but pooping is another story. No interest what so ever.

Today he did something so awesome. I was in the boys room trying to figure out where I wanted to hang something. Boom, Christian bolted out of the room, ran into the bathroom, I heard the step stool being drug along the floor, heard the toilet lid being lifted, so I peeked in to see what he was doing. There he was, trying to pull down his pants to go to the bathroom. Yea!

Now, if pooping wasn't part of our bodily functions, I would have to say Christian is potty trained. Oh, well, it's only the first week. I am hoping by next week, he will get better with pooing.

Side note: I meant to post this on Christian's update and some cute things he says:

Milt:Milk
And one thing I try to teach my boys is not going by my plate or by my drink and helping themselves without asking. There have been times Christian has helped himself to my plates of food or cokes and the following conversation happens:

Me: "Christian, you need to ask before you put your hands in my food (or take a drink)."
C: "Ask."
Me: "No, don't say 'ask', you need to 'ask mama for a drink.'"
C: "Ask, Mama."
Me: 'sigh'

Potty Training: Day 3

2011-07-27T18:13:00.001-07:00

Today was a great day! No pee pee accidents!! And, he extended his time of having to go, to an hour!

He did go twosies one time in his underwear, but the second time he went today, I caught him trying and put him on the pot and he went.

So proud of this little guy and tomorrow I am hoping for no accidents!

Today was especially nice because Jeff took a personal day. He had a dentist appointment in the morning, so he just took the rest of the day off. It was nice for me because once he got home, I was able to go run some errands to a few of my favorite stores. Not having to worry about accidents and taking a toddler to the potty every hour was a nice break.

I am on my own again tomorrow, but Friday, Jeff is off, so we are planning something fun!

Looking forward to tomorrow!

Potty Training: Day 2

2011-07-26T19:07:00.000-07:00

Today was a successful day in my opinion. C did great. Only a hand full of accidents, but progress is progress.

I usually don't like to go anywhere the first week we are potty training, but I had already made plans to have one of Jeff's aunts watch Nathan so I could take the older two to a movie, before I had decided to potty train. Last week when I noticed we were on the last sleeve of diapers, I decided to go ahead and potty train since I didn't want to get anymore diapers. That was the only reason we went out today.

However, Christian did great. I put him in a pull-up, took him to the bathroom before we left and as soon as we got to the movies. Halfway through the movie he was saying something. I asked if he wanted popcorn, nope that wasn't it. I asked if he wanted the drink? Nope. I asked if he wanted the candy? Nope. Then I asked if he had to go potty? Yes. I was so proud. We all went to the potty together and he went. He did the same thing at the very end of the movie too. PROGRESS!!

Going #2 hasn't been that great. He has had no interest going in the toilet, so this is going to be tricky. This was one thing Joseph did great with when we trained him, so this is a new challenge for me. Christian went twice in his underwear and then after dinner, I waited about 40 minutes and just sat him on the pot for about 10 minutes. Nothing. I did the same thing about 40 minutes later. Nothing.

My hope is that tomorrow he will finally go in the toilet. But as for today it was a good day. Instead of going every 20-25 minutes, like yesterday, he was pushing 40 minutes today and both yesterday and today during nap times, stayed dry.

Yahoo for progress!

C-Bear and Day 1 of Potty Training

2011-07-25T18:01:00.000-07:00

Since I had given an update on the other two boys, I had been meaning to get on and do an update on Christian and what he's been up to. Since I haven't had the chance, I am combining my post on him and his first day of potty training.

This kid is awesome! He makes all of us laugh a lot and keeps the mood light around here.
This kid can do the most awesome cross-eyes I have ever seen.

And he looks pretty handsome doing his "thinking" pose. One day I saw him doing this and I asked, "What are you doing?" To which he replied, "I thinking."

Today was his last size 5 diaper; He is in 3t shirts and 2t-3t shorts; Size 8 shoe; Lovesloveslovesloves Joseph; Isn't very serious, which can be a problem when he is being disciplined; Really enjoys movies now (his favorite right now is Gnomeo and Juliet); Just this week, he has started talking a lot more clear (I think strangers could understand him now); Loves anything that is big and loud (cars, trucks, tractors, trains, construction trucks, etc); Loves to play the guitar; Loves to dance to music; Loves pretty much any vegetable, broccoli is his absolute favorite; Loves "blue" chips (cool ranch Doritos); Loves all fruits; Has become very dramatic when he doesn't get his way (throws his self down and flails all around. I laugh at it, but I am pretty sure with Joseph at that age, I did not.);If I can't understand something he is saying, he will keep saying it over and over and over and over and over. It's frustrating sometimes because I just have to start guessing what his saying; Not too thrilled by cats or dogs (he was attacked by a wiener dog at the park once and ever since then, he isn't a fan); Loves to play baseball; Loves to play catch; Loves fruit chews and tic-tacs; Goes by Christian, C or C-bear.

Some of my favorite phrases he says:

Baby Soup: Bathing Suit

DitDat: Tic Tac

Baby: Nathan (he has always called him baby, except when we first brought him home from the hospital, to which he called him "neighneigh".)

Beetar: Guitar

Conversation that I have had more than once with him:

C: "jibberish, jibberish"

M: "Hon, I don't understand what you are saying."

C: "Why?"

M: "Because you are two and you don't speak very clear."

C: "Oh."

Potty Training: Day 1 (Following talks about Poop and Pee)

Here is our sticker chart that we use for potty training. After 20 stickers, he gets something special like an ice cream cone, snow cone, trip to Jeff's work, trip to the zoo and then at the end, when the chart is completely full, he gets to go to the store and pick out a toy.

This first day of potty training was a whole lot better than the first day that I potty trained Joe. We knew Christian was interested during our family trip to Florida in July, when he told us he wanted to use the potty. So we took him to the bathroom and he went. I didn't have the energy to train as soon as we got back from a trip, so we just asked before each bath time if he wanted to use the potty and we talked a lot about using it just to encourage his interest.

With Joseph, I just started because I thought he was mentally ready, but the first day was horrible. But with Christian, having already used the potty on several occasions and seeing Joseph go all the time, he took to it like a champ. He, like every new trainee, had several accidents. But, he got, I believe, a total of 13 or so stickers on his chart today! Pooping wasn't a success at all. All three times he went today were in his underwear. The thing with Christian is that he is super stealth when it comes to going #2, so it's hard to catch him in the act. I distinctly remember training Joe and catching him in the act and rushing him to the bathroom. Christian, however, 2 out of the 3 times today, I was sitting there playing with him as he went and had no idea. No grunts, no funny faces, nothing. So this is going to be a little tricky. The bright side to this, by the third time he went, you could tell he started and stopped himself from going. That's a good sign.

When I was thinking about starting this week, I was hesitant because it means my little guy is growing up. With Joseph, it was exciting and new, but with C, it means he is becoming a big boy and it makes me sad.

We don't have any special method to potty training. I have never even opened or read a book on potty training. The only thing I have looked up on training was when I was training Joseph and by his nap time his first day hadn't even gone in the toilet, I looked up ways to have a successful potty training experience via the internet.

What we do is: sticker charts with big rewards after 20 stickers (1 sticker for peeing and 2 stickers for pooing), treats after each successful use, stay home for a week (or really limit our errands for the week), Pull-ups only at nap time and bed time (and if we HAVE to run an errand the first week).

Today, I was planning on just taking him every 30 min or so, but he was having accidents before the 30 minute mark. So it ended up being more like every 20 minutes. I confident that the duration will get longer as the week goes on.

I was very please with his first day of training. I am hoping each day this week, we will have less and less accidents.

And here's my little C-bear in his last diaper.

....Until tomorrow........

Worrier

2011-07-21T17:43:00.000-07:00

Matthew 6:25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?
31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

...Okay, I know what the Bible says about worrying, but why do I struggle with it so much? If you know me at all, you know that I am a worrier. For as long as I can remember, I have always worried about things. When I was in second grade, I would worry about not passing and making it to third grade and all my friends would make fun of me. When I was in the third grade, I would worry about not passing and making it to the fourth grade. This continued each year all the way through college graduation. On graduation day, as I was sitting in the ceremony, I was thinking, "What if they don't call my name? What if I have one more class to take? What if my $40,000 piece of paper isn't in the tube?"

I have always worried!!! Some things I haven't worried much about, were things like dating or marrying. I had enough faith to know that was God's timing and if he didn't bring a guy in my path, I was confident enough to know that He had other plans for me. Although, I did have MY plan and that was to go to Junior College, play ball (which happened), go to a major university (which happened), study education and after a year of school, meet and date my guy for two years, get engaged for the last semester and marry right out of college. Well, I studied education, but the finding "mister right", dating, engaged and being married didn't go like I planned. All that to say, I distinctly remember one night in college in my room, thinking about my college career that was about to wrap up and not having any prospects. I did begin to worry slightly about never marrying, but I just prayed, felt peace about being "single and satisfied" (a sermon I had heard my last summer at college by Tony Evans)and was ready to pursue other things. (Side note: Jeff asked me out (or I sort of asked him), depends who you talk to , my last fall semester, dated 6 months, engaged 7 months and have now been married for almost 7 years).

As I have become a mom, I have realized how much I struggle with this sin. I can worry!!!! I'm not proud of the fact that I do worry as much as I do and I feel like I am constantly battling, trying to overcome fear and worry. Sometimes I worry so much, I feel like I get depressed and it can/has paralyzed me with fear. I have always wondered if this is a woman thing? Which I remember very clearly a pastor at Breakaway saying one time, "Women, You. Can. Worry!" Is this a motherly thing? I don't know, but I hate worrying.

I worry about departing before my children while they are young and they will never know how much I LOVED them. I worry about losing a child and having to go through that turmoil. I worry about losing Jeff and having to support my boys by doing everything. I worry about the house burning down at night and how I would get all three boys out of the house (this is really bad when Jeff travels and I am home by myself).

I worry about going to "shady places" and I don't mean places that have a lot of trees, because that would be awesome. I mean places that are plagued with conspicuous characters or as Jim Carey put it in a movie, "the decay of Western Society". This really stems from being held up at gun point, but that is another post. Jeff can attest to this because anytime we go downtown for anything or a new city, he has to have directions printed out and the mileage so we do end up taking the "scenic route" as he calls it.

I honestly don't know why I am posting about one of my greatest weaknesses here, but it was something I felt like sharing. Maybe to know that there are other mother's out there who struggle with the same things and have good advice on ways to overcome it. Or maybe it's to let other mother's know that there is someone else out there who worries about the same things they do. Or maybe this is form of therapy and a step towards overcoming it.

Since God is all knowing and He knows that I struggle with worrying, maybe that's why he has put the people in my life that he has. Like my college roommate. She was always so peaceful and calm and didn't ever seem to worry about anything. Like before major exams she would come back from the library having only studied a few hours and I would ask, "that's all you're going to study?" She would generally respond, "I studied as much as I could, if I pass, great, if I fail, oh well." I, on the other hand, would study for four stinkin' days for like 4 or 5 hours a night trying to over-prepare and then test day came and I would be like, "what if I studied the wrong chapters? what if I didn't study enough?" AGGGHHH.

Then Jeff came into my life. A guy who is so peaceful and knows that things happen because, well, "that's life." I wish I had that quality about me. To be so peaceful and calm and not be consumed with worry.

As much as I pray and hope that my children don't have this quality about them (because it can, at times, keep you from exploring and trying new things), it has kept me on a straight and narrow path. For example: In high school, when I would over hear friends talking about parties, and I'm not talking about getting together, playing games, eating cake, ice cream and pizza, kind of parties. Parties, that at one time one of my friends said to me, "Linds, it's not your kind of party." I would always think, I wouldn't go anyway, because the one time I do, cops would bust us, take me in, then there goes my basketball career, I would embarrass my family, blah, blah. So, in some respects, it was good (?).

But when I do start to worry or become anxious about things or have thoughts that are consuming me and cause me to take my eyes off Christ, I feel like God reminds of this particular scripture, 27 "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." John 14:27

Broth'a from the same Moth'a

2011-07-14T19:52:00.000-07:00

I started to title this post: "Bro's before (complete sentence here)," but something inside me said that wasn't appropriate and that my husband wouldn't approve of such a title.

On with the post. I love my two older boys and one of the things I love most about them is that they are brothers. Man, they are so adorable together and they are perfect for each other.
Now, I don't know if it's an age thing (they are 25months apart) that they get along so great right now or if I am just blessed, but my prayer is that they will always be this close. Jeff and I really encourage them to love one another, be kind to one another, think of one another, and share with each other. We also allow them to be 'boys.' As long as no one is in danger, bleeding, being suffocated or being attacked out of anger, it's alllllll guuuud.

A few reasons this Band of Brothers works:

Joe- Our leader; Serious; Take Charge; Lover; Daddy's boy; All about Marnie and Mimi; Loves cats and dogs; Careful ;Pleaser; Smart.

C-bear-Our follower; Goofy (in a funny way, not a weird way); Kid goes by the seat of his diaper; Fighter; Mama and Dada's boy; All about Poppy and Papaw; Hates cats and dogs; Risk taker; Not so much of a pleaser (tender hearted though); Will do ANYTHING Joseph asks him to do (which tend to be things that Joseph knows he's not allowed to do, so he gets Christian to do it.....and he will).

And this post wouldn't be complete without a story:
The other night while cooking dinner, I hear their door shut (never a good thing). As I am cooking, I keep hearing these thuds and giggles coming from the room. After hearing this for about five minutes, I decide to make my way into the room. I crack the door quiet enough so they don't hear me. There they are, throwing their very heavy and hard Shamu's at their ceiling fan that is on. C's never reached the fan, of course, but could have at any time nailed Joe in the face. Joseph, however, was hitting the fan and could have hit a lightbulb that would have shattered on the two little hooligans that were standing directly underneath.

Oh, the joy of boys.

JSK

2011-07-14T19:05:00.000-07:00

Here is my oldest son... I love and adore this kid! Joseph is now 4 1/2 and is someone that I love being around so much. Just this past Spring, I told Jeff how much I have really started enjoying him. Now, I'm not saying that the first 3 years were unbearable, but he's just so much fun right now. He was the sweetest baby and toddler. But for some reason, when he turned 2 1/2, my limits were pressed to the max. We had a rough time with the three's (down right defiance, sassy, lying, talking back, talking ugly, using inappropriate tones, WHINING,etc), but soon after turning four, he gelled into this sweet kid. Now that our middle child is 2 1/2, we are noticing that it is a phase. We feel like we just got out of it with Joseph, and here we are, round two with our middle son.

Joseph is a big boy, always has been. He is in 4 pants; can wear 5/6 shirts; size 12 shoe; loves animals (more specifically, whales and sea creatures); loves to read; loves to learn; favorite breakfast is Shipley's, but since that isn't in our budget everyday, he loves his honey nut cheerios and muffins; loves anything with pasta; loves cool ranch Doritos; loves "pop-porn"; favorite movie right now is gnomeo and juliet;everyday he plays with his cars and animals; loves ice cream; favorite place to eat is probably Chick-fil-a; goes by Joseph or Joe; loves trains; just this summer, he started swimming under water; he is a great, great, great, big brother; great leader; is becoming more and more interested in Heaven and learning about God. I am hoping this is a sign of God getting a hold of his heart and Joseph responding one day; loves to help Jeff with anything; loves to play with Christian; he is getting to where he will ask me if he can help with something; very obedient kid (I usually only have to ask him to do something one time and he will do it. Lovelovelove this about him); first thing in the morning, he goes to the restroom and then gets dressed for day (Such a big help to me not having to ask him to do this); still pretty shy; pretty serious kid; has a "smart" sense of humor (he says really funny stuff and when I laugh, he will say "what'd I say?" Very witty kid)

This kid is an absolute joy to be around and my heart aches at the thought of him not being with me all day. I am so thankful I have one more entire year with him before he starts school. This Fall, my plan is to go through a preschool curriculum with him and see what I think about homeschooling. As of right now, we are public school, but if I enjoy the routine of effectively teaching my son and balancing the thousands of other motherly responsibilities I will probably home school. I love teaching and more importantly, I love teaching my boys. Either way we go for school, I will have the chance to do just that.

8 Months

2011-07-07T11:07:00.000-07:00

Where has the time gone? I can't believe this little guy......

("Raising the roof") Does anyone do that anymore? is 8 months old already. We aren't 100% sure if we are going to have a fourth, so to think that it is going this fast (for what could potentially, be our last baby) is kind of sad. I hesitated for a while to put his NB-0/3 month clothes up because I didn't want to believe that he was too big for those clothes already.

Fun Facts about Nathan:

-Size 2 diaper

-Size 3-6 mo and 6-9mo clothes

-Size 2 shoe (he's got the tiniest foot I have ever seen)

-Just this week he has transitioned from baby food to both baby food and table food. This week, he has had, mac and cheese, eggs, toast, chicken nuggets, and fries (third baby for you).

-Sits up unassisted.
-I hate this phrase, but he is totally a Mama's boy. He prefers me over everyone!
-He likes to be held a lot!
-Sleeping through the night since 2 months
-He takes 2-3 naps a day, each lasting around 1 1/2 -2 hrs.
-Nursing 4x's/day
-Some of his nicknames: NeighNeigh, baby, chickpea, and smallfry
-Really loves watching Joe and C
-He is a screamer!
-I wouldn't say he's the unhappiest of the three, but he defiantly lets you know when he doesn't like something.
-He grunts and cries when the older two take things away from him.
-Just this week, he started doing a "push up." Now, it's just getting his knees under him and he will be off. -Loves to grab and hold anything he can get his hands on.
-Loves his puffs.
-He has come so close to saying, "mama." (the older two said "dada" first, so this is epic!)
-Loves being outside.
-Pretty decent car baby. He only protest if we put him in his seat after a nap. He does great if he is sleepy or we go somewhere during nap time.
-Loves bath time.

Love, love, love this little guy!

For Funsies

2011-06-30T11:28:00.000-07:00

The other day I thought I had this great idea for a "game" on my blog and have a giveaway for the winner. After talking to someone that I know very well, "we" thought it wasn't that great of a game.
Today, while eating lunch at Chick-fil-a, I ran into my sister in law, Lindsay. I started telling her about the idea of wanting to have a giveaway and she mentioned to me what one blog mama does sometimes for giveaways. It was brilliant! Thanks Lindsay!
Whoever (or is it Whomever?), gives me the best caption for the second picture will become the new owner of these: They are Yellow Box sandals. The winner will have the opportunity to go here and select your favorite color. The only restriction is that they are one of the $21.99 pairs (sorry for the limitation, but I'm not a cash pinata.) These sandals are amazing and by far, the most comfortable ones that I have ever owned!

Here's the picture:
Since most of you reading this will be on my FB, please leave the caption in the comment box there.
Contest is over at 10:00pm cst tonight.

I will read the comments to Jeff and have him choose his favorite.

Good luck!

Life in my shoes

2011-06-27T18:34:00.000-07:00

A blog that I read frequently had mentioned that she was going to blog about her daily routine for one week. She mentioned that one of the reasons she wanted to journal about her day, was so that she could look back on it one day and see how busy of a mama she was.
One of the reasons I really wanted to get back into blogging was for a very similar reason. I wanted to have something I can go back to, look at, read about what was going on in our lives, and see how much the boys have changed. For a while, I had been keeping a journal by my bed and would write things the boys were doing, something funny they did that day, or some of the funny things they would say, but I started to drift from writing because I was just too lazy and more times than not, I would get serious writers cramp!
So, today, I thought I would blog about my day(only today, not for an entire week) and all that we did. It's nothing extraordinary, but a pretty typical day around here.
For stay at home moms, it may be encouraging to know that you aren't the only one who doesn't get "me time" until 8pm at night or ever get to just sit and think, for the empty Nester's, it may be a walk down memory lane and may have you wishing for a second that you could have one more of these days back, and for those of you who don't have kids, well, this may be a form of birth control.

6:10 a-7 a: I wake up and C wakes up (but I go put him in our bed. I am NOT on mommy-duty until 7a), I do some laundry, have my quiet time.
7a-8a: J wakes up, I get dressed, make my bed, Nathan wakes up, change his diaper, make pancakes and bacon, we all eat breakfast, the older two watch cartoons.

(J's first outfit for the day)

8a-9a:I nurse N, get clothes out of dryer, put a load in the wash and another in the dryer, clean the boys rooms so I can vacuum, find a sippy cup in the older boys room (can't get myself to open it to see if it's water or milk. My hope is that it is water.), I vacuum the boys rooms,

What the boys room looks like when I pick it up and vacuum (this is at 8:35)

I continue vacuuming the entry way, N starts crying to be picked up, C wants a snack (I won't let him have one because he hasn't finished his breakfast),

What the boys room looks like at 8:45a

Vacuum living room rug, vacuum our room, get C dressed, brush boys teeth, do a short bible lesson with boys (and by short I mean about 15 minutes. After all, I have a 2 yr old and 7 month old in attendance).
9a-10a: Change a dirty diaper, load up and head to the Y, work out until 11a.
11a-12p: We arrive back home from the Y, get the older boys lunch, put N down for a nap, I clean up breakfast dishes, found out that it was milk in the sippy cup that I stumbled across in the boys room (gag!), load dishwasher, boys go off and play, I eat my lunch, N still asleep, clean up lunch mess, check my emails, change another diaper

Boys room at 11:57a

J in outfit #2

12p-1p: Put clothes in washer and dryer, do puzzles with the older two, N wakes up, change another diaper.

1p-2p: Feed N lunch, nurse, play with boys.

2p-3p: Have boys pick up toys in living room and kitchen, read books, older two lay down for a nap/quiet time, I fold and put clothes away.

3p-4p: Check emails, lay N down for second nap, read some blogs and FB, fold more clothes, unload dishwasher.

4p-5p: Boys wake up, have snacks, watch an episode of Word World, I read.

5p-6p: Change a diaper, N wakes up, I nurse, go outside and play, Jeff arrives home (hallelujah!)

6p-7p: Heat up dinner (leftover night is the best), eat dinner

7p-8p: Give N a bath, get him dressed for bed, nurse and put him to bed, go outside with older boys and Jeff, and play in the water.

8p-9p: Older boys get pj's on, teeth brushed and put in bed.

9p..................Free at last , free at last, thank the Lord, I am free at last!

I know, not that entertaining, but something for me to look back on and see how busy I was during this phase of my life. This is a typical Monday though, not a lot of drama (boys, for some reason play really well together on Mondays), stay close to home to relax from our very busy weekends and for me to get chores done. I like being able to get a lot of things done at the beginning of the week, so at the end, we can go places and have play dates.

The reason I took a picture of J changing, was because, lately, he has been going through this phase of wanting to change all day. One day last week he went through about 5 outfits. The following day, I put my foot down and told him he couldn't change anymore, but that caused, how can I say this?, DRA.MA! So we compromised: he can change throughout the day only if he hangs up his shirts and puts his shorts in the drawer. If I find a shirt or pair of shorts on the floor, he isn't allowed to change anymore for that day. Seems to have worked.

What's your schedule like?

Cars 2!

2011-06-25T13:53:00.000-07:00

As you can imagine, we are excited about this weekend because.......

....has made it's way into theatres. Unfortunately, we have a packed weekend due to meetings, date night, church, grocery shopping, etc., so we don't know if we can make it this weekend to go see Cars 2. But we are super excited that this movie has finally come out.

One of the reason this movie is special to me is because Cars was the very first movie that Joseph sat through and watched (over and over and over and over and over). And, the Cars characters was the first thing that he started collecting. Ok, ok, lets be honest, Jeff and I got caught up in it to. We used the cars for rewards, got them just because we loved the little guy, and Joseph talked Mimi into getting half of the characters.
I remember having these conversations with him:
(At Walmart in the toy isle)
J: Mama, I want this Lightning McQueen.
M: But, you already have a Lightning McQueen.
J: But not this one. I don't have this Lightning McQueen with the dirt on it.
(Disney started to break our bank account by making hundred's of different McQueen's).

It all started with this particular McQueen. Joe had just watched the movie and soon after we started potty training. I went to the grocery store and while I was checking out, I saw this car. I purchased it to give to him as a reward for using the potty and from that moment on, he was hooked. (Now that I come to think of it, this might have been his first car, ever.)

We went from this one car to this............

58 cars total!

We know, it's insane!

I am nervous now about this movie and all the new cars they are going to come out with. We honestly don't have much more room in their car bucket for any new cars.

And to conclude, if your boys ever come over to play and they want to play with cars that don't have eyes on them (once a request from my nephew, Mark), you might have to BYOBOC (bring your own bucket of cars).

Whoa! A Post!

2011-06-22T12:51:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, it's been about 8 months since my last post. I can't believe it either. I honestly, have been so busy with three boys, I don't have a lot of time to sit down and write a post. However, while I was on our family vacation, I had the itch to start up again. Now, I'm not making any promises to this being a regular thing again, but I would like to keep up with it more than I have been.
So, to kick off my first post of 2011, I am going to blog about our recent trip. The pictures are not in the correct order, which irritates the snot outta me ( I can never put them up correctly), I am going to tell the story of our trip through the order of my pictures.

Since Joe was 2 1/2, we started collecting the characters from the first movie he ever watched, Cars. We have been able to collect almost all the original characters over the past two years. Unfortunately, there have been two characters that we haven't been able to find out our local stores: Lizzy and Red. Sooooooo, you can imagine our excitement when we walked into the World of Disney store and found Red. (And you can imagine the irritation from me when I went to our local Walmart after returning from Florida, to find this exact Red on the shelves. Ugh!)

Jeff and Nathan at Cocoa Beach. This was a fun, but very challenging trip. You know have you have it in your head that everything will be fine and work out great, but forget you have a 7 month old that is going to hate everything about the beach? When we first got there, everything was great. Nathan nursed, we set up his pack n play under an umbrella, gave him some crackers, should be a happy camper, right? WRONG. When it was time for his nap, he protested his nice little pack n play (that he has slept in the entire trip) and got so worked up, that he couldn't be consoled. So, we had to cut our beach trip about an hour short.

This little man had a great vacation. He learned how to hold his breath and "swim" under water, he got to go to SeaWorld with Jeff, he did the boggy board at the beach (until he nosed dive on one wave and came up with a mouth full of salty sea water), he made me realize that he is at a great age to travel to Disney World with, and he made me laugh by having the following conversation:

We are at a Wendy's (somewhere on the road, in Florida).

Joseph, would have made a great caveman, because he hates to wear shoes. So much in fact, one time when I told him to go get his shoes on, he replied, "I don't need shoes, I have my feet."

So, we are at Wendy's eating and Joe, like everywhere we go, took his shoes off and is walking around the restaurant:

Me: Joe, please go put your shoes back on!

J: Why?

Me: Be cause we are in a restaurant, people are eating, and it's bad manners to being running around bare foot. Plus, it's disgusting."

J: (in his normal, deep, manly voice) Dada, I have to poop.

Papaw and C at Cocoa Beach.

The reason for this wonderful trip....getting see my cousin Elizabeth get married. I can't believe she is married. Such a beautiful person inside and out!

Okay, I have left out this little detail, until now. But the wedding was at the Grand Floridian, Disney World. That being the case, our little munchkins had their own kids menu at the reception. They also had a Mickey Mouse watermelon cut out. The boys loved it!

Nathan and my grandmother.

Christian boy has always been my best sleeper. From days old, he could and still can sleep anywhere. If he's tired, he will just lay his head down where he can, and catch some z's. Here at the wedding, he decided to curl up on Mimi and take a quick cat nap.

Here at my two oldest before the wedding. C, is honestly, my most smiley and happy child, but my pictures, nowadays, beg to differ.

Oh boy, we are at the age where we are going to make faces for the camera, rather than smile. *sigh*

(l-r) Christian, my nephew, Cooper, Joseph holding Nathan.

What your car will look like when you have 4 babies and 3 adults traveling. (Or maybe, your car always looks like this when you travel.)

Four very happy boys to be out of their car seats.

This little guy did great on the trip too. No lie, I am pretty sure the very first day we drove, he slept a good 5-6hrs out of 8hrs driving. Such a good traveler! On this trip, he became very brave and started jumping of the side of the pool, going under, popping up and swimming to the ladder. He also, decided he wanted to start using the potty and on several occasions, while in our room, used the potty. We are not, however, potty training right now. I am one of those mom's who likes to stay home an entire week, get it down, and then start going back out. It's too early in the summer for me to want to stay home for an entire week.

This little angel boy did pretty good. The first days of driving, both going there and coming home, he protested his car seat a little. Then the second day, he was like, "oh, this isn't that bad," and slept most of the trip. He did great sleeping away from home. The only rough days we had were at the wedding(which he needed a nap badly) and the beach day (which he, again, needed a nap badly). I realized on this trip how different all my boys are: J, he would always fall asleep nursing, catch about a 40 min nap on me, and be great. C, kid could/can sleep anywhere. N, ummm, yeah, he's a little more demanding. He has to be in his bed, on his belly, AC set at about 75 degrees, no blankets, etc. So, needless to say, he isn't as easy to take places during his "fussy" times.

When you've been driving in the car for two days, you start to go a little crazy. In some cases, you might smell your brother's croc, say "ewwww" and have everyone, including yourself, lol'ing.

That's all in pictures. We had a great time with family and our extended family. We stayed at this awesome resort that my mom was able to rent from a relative of a friend from work (did you follow that?). We stayed on Disney grounds at the Wyndham Bonnet Creek Resort. If you are planning a trip to Disney World anytime soon, this is a great place to stay. They had about 5 or 6 pools, two of them with slides, 2 lazy rivers, putt putt, movies on the lawn, and different activities for the kids throughout the day. The condo we stayed in had 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, kitchen, washer, dryer and patio. As I have become a stay at home mom, I have realized that hotel stays, or in this case, a resort stay, are ideal for you. I did cook a meal on this trip, but I love the fact that we had the option of not having to cook or clean for an entire week.

Some things I learned on the trip:

-Once you get into Florida, at every food exit you either have 2 of the 3, or in some cases all of three to choose from :Burger King, McDonald's and Waffle house.

-Don't every stop in Ocala, Florida because you will be afraid for the safety of your child and your own life!

-If you make a stop long enough for lunch, 5 out of 7 individuals will have to "take the browns to the superbowl."(Jeff's going to be so embarrassed that I wrote that)

-The further you get into Florida, the older people get.

-My wonderful husband set up a date for a place called Texas de Brazil. I learned if you eat your weight in meat, you will walk funny afterwards. (This place was awesome and I recommend it to everyone!)

-Disney World is not for a 2yr old or 7 month old.

-When at the beach and you are in a hurry to get your screaming infant out of the heat and into the AC vehicle, no one will tell you that you look like Marilyn Manson. (How did I find out that I looked him? I took Joe to the bathroom at a 7eleven, and when I looked in the mirror, I noticed. )

-When you haven't gotten a Slurpee in years and go to get one for the first time, you find yourself getting way too much and it spewing everywhere and now you have to clean up the counter, the cup, your hands and I think I had to wipe up the floor. (this was post Marilyn Manson look).

-Watching the Dallas Mavs beat LeBron and the Heat will be an NBA Finals that I will never forget!

And to conclude, I love my boys and my husband so much and enjoyed getting to spend an entire week with all four and not having any chores!

36 Weeks and counting

2010-10-23T19:52:00.000-07:00

I feel pretty bad about not posting about or taking any pictures of myself throughout this entire pregnancy. Now that it is almost over, I thought, "why not share with everyone how this one has gone."

When I post this, I will be 36 weeks, with 3 more weeks to go. My Doctor wants to induce me again since I have had a history of post partum hemorrhaging with my first two deliveries. She will induce me my 39th week, which will be the week of November 15. I am quite okay with being induced. It really fits my personality style. I like things to be under control, I like to be able to prepare my mind with what is to come, and being induced allows that.

I have felt pretty good most of this pregnancy. The energy level hasn't been near the same as with J and C. I think part of it is that we got pregnant with baby #3 when C was 14 months as opposed to getting pregnant with C when J was 18 months. Four months makes a huge difference! Also, C is a much more active toddler than what J was. Sometimes I don't know if its because of his personality or because he has an older brother he tries to keep up with. When I got pregnant with C, my little man J was a much more peaceful and low active child. He would just sit and play wherever you plopped him....much easier to be pregnant with that kind of baby, than with one who likes to be held ( a lot!) and who is climbing on everything.

Things I have missed or am starting to miss and things I am looking forward to:

- I can't wait to sleep on my stomach again. I am really only comfortable sleeping on my right side for some reason and that is starting to get uncomfortable.

-Working out. I was only able to workout up to 32 weeks with this one as opposed to 36 weeks with the first two. My weight gain hasn't been as much with this one, but I feel so out of shape. I can't wait to get back into running and going to Power Pump again.

-After seeing a few people have some great success with weight watchers, I think Jeff and I are going to do that together once I have the baby. After some thought, I may postpone this until after the holidays. Seriously, start WW a week before Thanksgiving and four weeks before Christmas!? I enjoy my food too much to be that dedicated. But after Christmas...for sure going to do WW.

-Being able to sit comfortably on the floor and play with the boys. I can't wait to be able to jump up and on to my feet again. I am also tired of, and I am sure other people are to, of making a grunting sound every time I have to get up.

-My regular clothes!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some names we have on our list:
Nathan
Ethan
Thomas
Ryan
Michael

More than likely, we are going to use Ellis, my maiden name, as his middle name. This has been a middle name for the last two boys but just have never used it. We have talked about having four kids, but after this pregnancy and it being a boy, we thought we should go ahead and use this as a middle name while we have the chance.

*(Since I have started this post, I have had my 36 week check up) I am 1 cm dilated and some effaced. They did some blood work to check my platelet count. This will determine whether or not I will be able to get the epidural. Please pray that the numbers are above normal (So I can get the drugs ;-)) or peace for me if I am not able to have it (Cause it gonna hurt!).

That's about all I have regarding this pregnancy. It's been pretty smooth, but this was by far the hardest pregnancy of the three. A few people I have talked to during this pregnancy told me that their third pregnancy made up their mind that they didn't want anymore. Much more difficult having to take care of two other children as opposed to none or one.

If I could, ask that you please pray for our family. Please pray for a safe, smooth, easy (if that's possible) delivery. This is about the time of my pregnancy where I get anxious and worry about everything and I don't feel like I don't breathe a sigh of relief until I know he's healthy, I am healthy, we're both safe, and we are home as a family again.

Thank you!

Our summer in Review

2010-09-03T12:49:00.000-07:00

This summer was a great one, but boy, we were busy! Looking back, we had a lot of fun, a lot of memories, but I am honestly glad that it has come to an end. The amount of traveling really took its toll on me this summer, so I am glad that for the next couple of months, we will be staying put.

I usually enjoy my summers now that I have kiddos. I love taking them to parks, spray parks, the zoo, the beach, and Schlitterbahn, but for some reason this summer we didn't do too much of anything because I just down right didn't feel like it. This pregnancy has been a little more challenging, so the inability to get up and go at the snap of a finger, having to hold Christian quite a bit still, and the heat, just made me miserable. Needless to say, I have been looking forward to Fall since we arrived back from our trip to Colorado. Hopefully, the cooler weather(whenever that gets here) will motivate me to take the boys to the park, zoo, basically anything that is outdoors, these next couple of months.

We started the summer off with a family trip to Colorado. We had a blast and we look forward to the opportunity to go again. We were able to join my sisters in law, Courtney and Lindsay and their families. We all stayed in a cabin, in the middle of the woods and enjoyed every minute of it. It was especially fun for Joseph to have all his cousins at the same place as we were. The weather was perfect when we were there. The first night and our second day, it wasn't cool, it was cold! I had to wear a hoodie and the kids had to wear jackets. It was perfect!

Highlights from Colorado: Seeing all the kids play together; playing and BEATING Jeff at ping pong ( I haven't done that since college); intending to scare Jeff, but scaring Lindsay instead; hanging out with the adults and playing games; Holiday World(I think that's what it was called, I can never remember); being out in the woods and admiring God's wonderful creations; eating pizza; seeing a hotel named "That'll Do Motel" and a restaurant called "Ain't Notin' fancy Restaurant" (two places that will never have my services).

After Colorado, the two boys and I made some trips to Dallas. One to welcome my nephew Cooper Layne and the other to see some family from Indiana. Both trips were a lot of fun, but very tiring since Jeff wasn't able to join us. One trip that we went up there for, my mom and I took the boys to a water park. It was a lot of fun and both boys had a blast. Joseph is at such a fun age for that stuff now. He can tell you what he wants to do and then he talks about it for weeks afterwards.

Highlights from our Dallas trips: Going to Splash Kingdom; Joseph "going" off my parents diving board; Christian and his stealthiness, making his way to the very top step of my parents stairs(about 30-40 hardwood floor steps, straight down= heart stopper); meeting baby Cooper; getting to see some extended family that we haven't seen in a while; Joseph falling in love with my sisters dog, Max, and ever since that trip, has wanted a dog....really, really bad!; The electricity going out both times we were there. Now what are the odds in that? Luckily, both times it was in the middle of the night, so we didn't get too hot.

To finish up our summer, we were able to finally make it down to Galveston and go to the beach for the day. I had been wanting to do this all summer, but, like I said before, our summer has been pretty busy. Joseph loves the water, so I knew he would have a good time, and Christian we haven't taken to the beach since he was 9 months, so I was curious to see what he would do. Joseph, as expected, loved it, but Christian took a while to warm up. It could have been because he had a virus accompanied with an ear infection and double eye infection a few days before. I don't think the salty water and sand in the eyes was very pleasing to him. After sitting in my lap for a while and some tasty snacks, he perked up and started playing.

This summer, my little C-bear hit the 18 month mark. I remember Joseph so well at this age and enjoying him so much. Not that the first 17 months didn't mean anything, but it all seems like a blur to me. For some reason, for both my boys, at 18 months their personalities really started coming out, they both started to turn into boys, and it seems like they both started really talking at this age. So much fun to watch them grow, change, and learn.

Christian:

Loves to smile

Loves to suck his thumb

Loves to touch my face and play with my hair

Loves cars and any kind of dump truck, excavator, fire truck, etc.

Loves to 'cook'

Picks on Joseph....a lot!

Hugs on Joseph...a lot! (this is usually his apology after smacking, biting or pinching Joe)

Loves riding toys

Loves to climb

Can say about 10-12 words (only Jeff and I can really understand them); my favorite being 'Mo.Mo' (for more), and 'eeessh' (for please)

Joseph, is now 3 1/2, and still makes me laugh. I was able to post about him a while back, so I won't bore you with all the intimate details of what it's like having a 3 year old, just some of his new things.

Joseph:

Loves Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs ( We watch it so much, he can quote most of the movie and if you see Christian, ask him what baby Brent says..he too will quote the movie) and Cars.
Loves animals....still

Loves his Cars cars....still

Wants a dog

Loves Word World

Loves candy and his newest trick, he can chew gum WITHOUT swallowing it!

Such a good big brother. Has his run-ins with C, but most of all, pretty sweet to him. He is also super sweet to his unborn brother. He will kiss my belly and talk to him.

Loves tools

Loves helping Jeff or myself with anything and everything.

Really does say the darnedest things:

*Driving around in our new van (yes, I officially became a minivan mama this summer) for the first time, Joe said, "This is really neat."

*We have a book titled 'My Grandma is wonderful." He saw it one day and started singing, "My Grandma is great, my grandma is great." I then asked, "who is your grandma?"(Meaning for him to say Mimi or Marnie). To which he responded, "Yo Mama." (I am pretty sure he meant to say 'your', but it came out as 'yo'.)

*Jeff went to our room one night after work to get changed. He turns to both boys after getting dressed and says, "lets go". Joseph then says, "But..."

Jeff, "No buts,"

Joe, (looking at his bottom) "yes, we have butts."

One of my favorite words he says right now: smarshmallows (marshmallows)

We are looking forward to this fall and everything that we have in store: Mimi and Papaw visiting, some college friends coming to visit, County Fair, Fall Festivals, Houston Air Show, pumpkin patch, and of course, Halloween....(Joseph doesn't really care to be anything, he just talks about the candy. Easy enough, huh?)

Until next post.....

This just in...

2010-08-04T13:39:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows me, knows I H-A-T-E flying. I hate everything about it. I hate the stress of getting to the airport on time, going through the lines, waiting patiently for your flight, hoping that your pilots aren't drunk, hoping that I'm not attacked by a terrorist 1000 feet up in the air, the nausea from taking off , the nausea from descending, going down in a blaze of glory, etc, etc.
Last month Jeff and I ventured out on our own for the first time since we have had kids. Planning a get away has been something we have wanted to do since Joseph first quit nursing, but when you don't sit down and pick a date, it just doesn't happen. So, having Joseph weened, turned into having Christian and then waiting for him to be done with nursing, and we almost missed our opportunity again by having another baby due soon.
So when the opportunity came up for Jeff to go to New Jersey for a job interview and my plane ticket being payed for, we didn't sit around thinking too long about whether or not I should go and make this a couple trip. Since I was young, I have always wanted to go to New York(which was a 20 min train ride from where we were in NJ). I always thought it would be cool to see everything in person, and it turned out to be a great trip for us.
Leaving the boys was so hard for me and up until the night before we left, I asked Jeff if we could reimburse ConcoPhillips for my ticket so I could stay home. Leaving the boys for the first time and doing something I hate doing, flying, equaled stress and anxiety for me.
During this experience, I took mental notes of things you don't want to see or hear as a nervous flyer. 1.) I don't want to hear males who have thick Arabic accents come over the PA system at anytime. 2.) I don't want the guy two rows in front of me (who was Arabic descent) keep looking back over his seat throughout a 3 hour flight. I had my eye on him and was going to take him out if he tried anything. 3.) I don't want the pilot to come over the speaker and sound like he just woke up..."ummm, we uh, are about, uh, 30 mile...50 miles from Newark." NOT comforting. 4.) Am wondering if it is standard for all airline employees to have to hate their life and job...those people are never happy. And I am the kind of person who you aren't going to get moving faster by having an attitude with. 5.) Why are they always patting down the whitest male and female in line? 6.) Human error. It happens. I hate that feeling. Jeff got on the plane going to NJ with his 1 inch pocket knife in his bag and was never checked. That's how things happen. On the way back, he left it ,again, in his bag, but this time his bag was searched and the knife was taken away. (Christmas gift idea for Jeff, a Swiss pocket knife).
Once we landed safely in Houston and walked into M&P's house to hug our boys, everything was worth it.
While Jeff was at the interview, I did something that I have been wanting to do for a long time....lay in bed and do nothing. I was able to sleep in till 9:30 (almost missed the free breakfast), went and ate, came back to the room and layed in bed until 2 something. Feeling like I shouldn't let a day go by without doing a single thing, I walked over to Target, that was so beautifully located in the same parking lot as the hotel. I stayed there until Jeff called me and said he was done with his interview. I purchased my things, headed back to the hotel and got ready to go for dinner with one of CP reps. We were treated to a really nice Italian dinner. I wasn't too happy about the drive to the restaurant because the parts of towns we were driving through. Needless to say, I wouldn't drive through those parts of town by myself if we lived there.
The dinner was awesome, but seriously, I am still convinced this place was frequented by the Mafia. The waiters had super thick accents, the place was dark, fancy and there was depressing music on. Let me just say this, I was glad to have been sitting in a seat that I could see the entrance, just in case there was a show down.
After the dinner, we were pretty much on our own. Friday morning we woke up early and headed to Liberty State Park in NJ. We took a ferry to Ellis Island and then Liberty Island. Such a humbling experience. After, our stop at the Statue of Liberty, we dropped off the rental and took a train from Newark to Manhattan. Once in New York, we walked across the street from the train station to our awesome hotel, The New Yorker. Checked-in, and immediately started looking for a place to grab some pizza. Yes, the pizza we had was amazing! From there we made our way to Times Square, M&M store, and then down to ground zero. After these stops, we went to the hotel, freshened up and headed to our reservation at Del Frisco's. I highly recommend this place to eat! It was a nice steak house. Let me put it to you this way, I had maternity jeans on and when I left, the spandex was super tight on my belly....I didn't know maternity pants could do that!
The next day, we had only about two hours before we had to head back to the airport, so we woke up early, grabbed breakfast to go and ate in Central Park. I felt like a cow eating my donut and watching all the super skinny bikers and runners whiz by me.
This was a fun trip and will go back one day, but I enjoy the more laid back, not having the feeling of people breathing down my neck, kind of atmosphere.

(Pictures below are the same ones from Facebook)

Stages of Life and Conversations with Joseph

2010-05-21T12:37:00.000-07:00

I have a 3 year old. Need I say more? This age and stage of life has really made me feel like a mom. I actually have to be a parent now and it's not like just having a baby around who you just have to make sure is fed, bathed, put down for naps, and make sure they don't get themselves in to too much danger. Having a three year old keeps me busy, tired, on my toes, holds me accountable, basically, I have to do my job.

I love my little big man, but this age has had its ups and downs. I remember my wonderful sister in law, Lindsay, telling me a while back that it wasn't the 'terrible two's' for her, it was the three's that were hard. I couldn't agree more. I once had a professor that told me that she loved having children because they cause you to go through so many different feelings and emotions. They can bring love, make you laugh, cry, and even make you mad. I feel like I have finally reached that point.

You know those phrases you have heard throughout your life and you wonder, "Where did that come from?" Maybe they were said to you or maybe you just heard them in passing. For example: (Some, I am not going to finish because I try to adhere to Ephesians 4:29, "Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up....") (FYI, I have never said any of these to any of my children.)

-"Don't make me break my foot off in......."

-"Boy, I brought you into this world, I can take you out."

-"Don't make me go country...."

-"Man, if I had a rubber hose, I would beat...."

I have come to the conclusion that these phrases were coined when these individuals were parents of three year olds. Just the down right defiance and sassiness can be challenging. But as much of a challenge this age is, I love being with him and can't imagine my day without him. Now as a mother of a three year old, I am seeing Proverbs 22:6 coming to life, "Train a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it." Before I had children I couldn't imagine at what age you would start pouring the word of God into a child's life, and now I am amazed that it starts at such a young age. As much as I want to say, "Because I said so," I am trying/learning (after all, I have only been a mother for only 3 years) to bring scripture to surface since that is more effective than the four words above.

Having a 3 year old has its challenges, but it also has its fun times, and one of those right now is the conversations we have. Below are some conversations that I wrote down the day he said them because I thought they were worth remembering.

Me: *opening up my birthday card which contained money* "Woohhooo!"

Joe:"What Mama?"

Me: "Mimi and Papaw gave me a lot of birthday money."

Joe: "You going to give it to God?"

Me: "Ummmm....."

M: *I see Joe taking bread into his room, which is a no-no* "Joe, take your bread back to your room."

J: "Huh?"

M: "Take your bread back to your room."

J: "It is!"

M: "No it's....oh, I mean take your bread back to the kitchen."

J: *See's a hummer* "Mama, look there's Papaw."

M: "That's not him, but you are right, he drives a hummer and Mimi drives a car."

J: "No, Mimi not drive a car."

M: "Yes she does."

J: "No, Mimi drives a race car."

(I tried posting a picture, but she drives 2009 Honda Accord...pretty sweet ride)

J: "Mama, can I have a drink of your coke?"

M: "Nope."

J: "Mama, you're not going to share your coke?"

I love this kid!

Here's the Hap-Hap

2010-04-15T13:23:00.000-07:00

Howdy there. Once again, a nice long month before another post. Sometimes, as a stay at home mom, I don't feel like I much to say unless the conversation is about bodily fluids, tantrums, stages of life, or anything baby related.

We have been doing good. Life slowing down a great deal which is nice since the weather has been gorgeous around here and we are trying to go to parks and the zoo before the temps hit 150.
I took this below picture intending to do a post, "You know when? Part 2." But since I haven't taken a lot of pictures lately, I decided to put it on this post. Monday's are my cleaning/laundry days. I had all of Joseph's shorts folded and laying on the couch. Joseph asked me to go play, but I said, "Sure, right after I put yours and Christian's clothes away." My wonderful son replied, "Mama, can I help you?" You can imagine the excitement that went through my entire body for a little person and a boy, being so kind to help his Mama out. I said, "sure Joseph, that would be great. Grab your shorts and put them in your drawers , please." I go to Christian's room and put his clothes away. I ask, "Joseph, did you put your shorts away?" He responds," Yes Mama."
Well, as you can see he almost made it. The shorts are to go in that second drawer there. I will take it though, at least he got them to his room for me. Joseph is not changing too much, but he is talking more and more. He is really trying to understand everything that comes out of our mouths and is becoming very interested in learning about everything. Joe and I have started this new routine when C takes his morning nap. Starting on Mondays we sit down and read a Bible story and then read his memory verse for the week. Then throughout the week, we review the story, do memory work and play games/or something we can't play with while Christian is awake. It has been a nice routine and fun to play and interact with just him.

Christian has started walking this week. Last week he walked around the house like a mummy, but this week he is walking around like he owns the place. He has recently been upgraded from the baby of the family to a big brother. Yeppers, we are expecting again. I tried announcing on Facebook, but I kind of snuck the below picture in with some Easter Pictures and I think it was overlooked. The third time around is pretty fun so far. I remember being pregnant with Christian and telling Jeff, 'I am so afraid I won't love this baby as much as Joseph." At the time, it was so hard for me to imagine loving another baby as much as I did Joseph. Now knowing that you can possibly love two babies the same, it makes me super excited about this one.
Everyone is thinking girl, but I looked at the Chinese Calendar (Not that I'm into voodoo, but I was given a booklet at my first visit and it had the calendar in there) and it says boy and apparently is 90% accurate. We will see ;-). People are already asking what I want, and I really don't have a preference, I just feel so blessed to be having another. But, having a boy would be fun since my sister is having a boy, a close college friend and his wife are having a boy (Being a boy, these guys would be 4 months apart), and I wouldn't have to do a single thing...no showers, no changing the rooms, etc.
But if it's a girl, I get to have another shower and get some cute stuff, I will get to paint and pretty up her room (It will be like having your first baby again), and we could potentially have her marry our best friends son and we can finally be related!
So many things to look forward to!
So far, I have been feeling okay. I get these waves of feeling blah. Mornings are pretty rough. I don't have morning sickness, but I feel like crud. I don't want to go from laying down to getting breakfast going and getting ready for the day. As you can see, that's not really an option with a 3 year old asking for ,"break-est." and a 1 year old who likes to be held for at least the first 30 minutes of waking up. Oh, and he wants to watch me make his breakfast. A lot different from the first two pregnancies.
I keep looking ahead because I know it will get better each week, but I do wish I could fast forward to 13 weeks, since my last two pregnancies were smooth sailing starting that week.

Until next month.....

Update

2010-03-18T12:17:00.000-07:00

Um, yeah, I know, its been a while since I last posted, but we have been so busy.

Some things that have taken place since my last post:

We celebrated Christian's First birthday. It was a nice little family party and we combined the celebration with my nephew Phillip since his birthday is two days before C's.

Took some random pictures outside St. Patricks Day.

This one makes me laugh because I kept asking Joseph to sit next to or behind Christian and this is what we could come up with.

Since my last post, I have begun to dislike our neighbor's dog. He has started digging under the fence and has gotten over in our yard twice. He is starting to leave a huge hole under the fence now and I'm not too happy about it. Here is Joseph checking Lincoln out. Joseph doesn't mind too much when he gets over in our yard.

Pitiful dog.

Have gone to Dallas to visit Mimi and Papaw. We visited the Dallas Zoo where we saw a chicken laying on a sheep. 100% cotton.

Not too much going on. Jeff is back in Mexico for business this week and hopefully this will be his last trip for a while.

I am tired and going to treat myself to a movie and popcorn. Hope to have another post soon.

You know....?

2010-02-02T12:27:00.000-08:00

You know how your three year old is now able to get in and out of the frig and decides to take several bites of an apple and then put it back in the fruit drawer?

Or when your children fight all day long and you feel more like a referee more than a mom. You know where your oldest starts to figure out he is bigger, smarter and faster than his younger sibling so he torments him all day?
(Joseph won't let Christian play with his disciples, well, technically, Jesus' disciples, but you get the idea.)

You know how you spent months collecting cars for your eldest because he loves Cars, only to realize how much you dislike having them around the house and want to throw them out? You know when the youngest goes to get one and your oldest child rushes over there, even though he isn't playing with them, and shuts the case so his little brother can't get to them, only to look at you, as if to say, "What?"

You know how it is to have a super smiley baby that is a ham when the camera is rolling or snapping? You know what it's like to have a second baby and realize that the first year of his life flew by much faster than his brother's?

You know that feeling when your child learns a new trick and you just can't wait to show it off? (He can smack his lips when he kisses).

You know when you go to get a drink of your water only to realize your 3 year old has somehow managed to get pinto beans inside your glass?

Or when you go to move your husband's suitcase out of the hall after having sat there for three days to realize your 3 year has placed a bag of carrots in there?

You know the feeling when you go to brush your teeth at night and your toothbrush is gone and you look in the one place that it usually is (the tub), when it's not in the holder, only to learn it's not there. Then several days or this time, it might have been weeks, you find them in the bottom of your diaper bag while at church?

You know what it's like to have a 3 year old?

You know what it's like to have a 1 year old?

You know, right?

Our weekend and Monday

2010-01-25T19:21:00.000-08:00

Our weekend went by very fast so I was excited about that. I had been dreading it a great deal because I thought and knew that I would really miss Jeff over the weekend.
Friday was a beautiful day, so I took the boys to the zoo and to ride the train. On Friday night, the Harrell's hosted date night daycare(we don't have a name for this yet), so I took the boys over there and I went out with one of my favorite girls, the lovely Juanita. We went and had dinner at Mimi's cafe.
Saturday, Marnie took the boys for a good part of the day while I went grocery shopping. After going shopping, we came home and hung out here for the rest of the evening.
Sunday morning we went to church, then out to eat with my in-laws.
We came home, took naps, watched the Colts win (Whoop!), and then headed over to the McDaniel's for some devotion, food, and fellowship.
While we were at the McDaniel's, Joseph didn't take a bite of his dinner and complained here and there that his stomach was hurting. I didn't really pay much attention to him not eating his dinner because when he is around other kids he is usually really distracted. The stomach hurting, I wasn't too concerned because I just thought he had to go #2, so I tried taking him while we were there, but he wouldn't go.
As we were starting to head out, he got sick all over their couch. So a quick bath and a change of clothes, we sped home and got settled for what I thought was going to be a long night. I am so thankful that he slept good and woke up pretty healthy. After we arrived home, he threw up two more times and maybe a little, early this morning, but that was it. He went shopping with me today and to Chick fil a, and he has been happy and running around since.
I finally broke down and called his pediatrician today. I called because several times last week he complained of a stomach ache. I just chalked it up to be that he had to go poop. (I am pretty sure my child has anxiety about being wiped, so therefore, he holds it for several days. FYI, if you are ever taking care of my oldest and he says he has to poop, he has to go and he has to go now.)
Then towards the end of the week, he was complaining more about it and then he said his back hurt. This raised a yellow flag for me regarding his hydronephrosis problem. When he was 9 months, the urologist said, the fluid around his kidneys was gone, but if he ever starts complaining about abdominal pain, come back in. I wasn't able to speak to the Dr. directly, but he did call back and I missed his call. He said he wanted to talk to me, so I don't know what he wants me to do with him.
I have only three more nights and our knight and shining armor will be home. I can tell you that it is going to be a mad dash for him when he arrives home.

Can you guess what C is eating?

It is something very yummy and he got to have his own tonight!

I really wanted Joseph to wear his boots to church on Sunday, so a little pep talk.."...and Jack wears boots, so does Mark, Junie, Tilly and Papaw..." and four M&M's later, I was able to get him to put them on. Go me!

(To answer your question, No, he didn't like wearing the boots or the belt.)
Alright, please continue to pray for us because I can feel God's peace and grace over this household.

Later

*Christian is eating an icecream sandwich.

Day 3 and 4

2010-01-21T19:39:00.000-08:00

*No Pictures*

The last two days have flown by which I am super excited about. Yesterday, I started my bible study at Friendswood Community Church and it was great. After my study, Marnie, me and the boys, along with the Harrell crew went and had lunch at Chick-fil-a. It was a good time visiting and letting the kiddos run wild.
After lunch, we headed home, took some naps and then when the boys woke up we played for a while. We ate some dinner and off to church we went.

Today, we didn't do anything other than go to the Y. After that, we grabbed lunch and then the boys went down for some naps. I organized our linen closet and it looks awesome. I organized the medicine and put it all at the very top!!! (Those of you who didn't hear, Joseph got into my pre-natal vitamins a couple weeks ago. Apparently, this is very serious! We called poison control and they right away said we had to take him to the ER. But once the lady talked to us a little longer, it was determined that he would be okay. FYI, iron overdose is very fatal to children under 6. We got lucky because the vitamins were over the counter one's and not one's prescribed by my doctor for when I am pregnant.)
Once the boys woke up, I had asked Marnie to come over because I thought I might have an ear infection. Being the most awesome MIL that she is, she cancelled her night with her quilting group to come watch the boys while I went to the clinic in Walgreen's. I didn't have an ear infection, but the lady said there was a lot of drainage, but it was all clear. She thinks I ruptured my ear drum. By dinner time tonight, my left side of my face was so sore and it felt like I had been socked in the face. She prescribed an antibiotic and highly recommended me to go see my ear doctor. That's on my agenda for next week.
Tomorrow we are headed to the zoo. I hope to get some pics, but this is usually pretty hard when you are at a place like that. It's hard to mess with settings of the camera, keep the subject happy and watch the other child run wild.

Later.

Day 2

2010-01-19T18:58:00.001-08:00

Day 2 started out a lot better. We woke up, had breakfast and played a little. Christian went down and then Joseph and I continued our study on Creation. This has been a lot of fun. I know this is only day 2, but I am really enjoying the one on one time with him and the teaching part of it.

After nap time we headed over to the property for a photo shoot with my wonderful sister in law, Lindsay. We had Christian's one year pictures done and they are so cute! Well, the one's I have seen. I really wanted to post the one's I have so far, but I decided to reveal them later. We got Christian and Phillip (my nephew who is 2 days older than C) matching Birthday Boy shirts and got a couple of pictures of them together.

After the photo shoot, we came home, the boys took naps while I organized, cleaned and hung up some pictures. I finally heard from Jeff and he was at his hotel room safe and sound. I breathed a sigh of relief. He ate some pasta and shrimp for dinner, and he was very pleased with it. The one thing I do like about his trips are the food stories. His Mexico City food experience was very interesting! While I was organizing I found Christian's birth information and realized I don't have either one of the boys birth certificates yet. Am I the only mother that has gone 3 years without getting that done?

Once the boys woke up, we took a nice little walk around the neighborhood. The boys really do love being outside and our new ride. Once we got back home, we took the tractor to the cauldesac and took some more pictures.

We then came in, heated up dinner, took baths, played and then it was bed time.

Pretty easy, laid back day. Tomorrow I will be going to my bible study class and I am looking forward to it. It is going to be a study by Kelly Minter and her book called 'No other Gods.' This should be very interesting.

This is what I see all day. Joseph looking at me like, 'What?" And Christian freaking out. (Now when I call Joseph's name, he immediately responds, "Why?" I don't know if he is asking me Why he is doing what he is doing or he just doesn't want to hear me tell him what he shouldn't be doing, and just wants to know why he can't do it.)

There is this too, throughout the day.

No, it's not his birthday. He just had the shirt on from the pictures earlier.

Boy, tractor and thumb...can't beat that.

Please continue to pray for my energy and peace. I couldn't go to sleep last night. I think I ended up going to sleep after 1 am and then woke up at 6:30. Then tonight, my ear started hurting, so hopefully, it's not becoming an ear infection.

See you tomorrow.

Day 1

2010-01-18T20:47:00.000-08:00

Today started my first day with me and my two boys. Jeff will be out of town for ten days, and since I won't have an adult to talk to at the end of my day, I will let you all know what I did each day.

So, hold on to your seats, this goin' be excitin'.

This morning started out really rough. I will spare all the embarrassing details, but having Jeff leave is always hard for me. First, having him be away from home, having to fly, having to fly over the ocean and being in another country(Don't other countries dislike Americans?). I honestly don't feel like I breathe until he steps foot into our door.
After me trying to spend most of the morning pumping myself up for the next ten days, we had our breakfast, played and then put Christian down for his morning nap.

Today I wanted to start something new with Joseph so we did and it went pretty well. Lately,I have been feeling really convicted about getting him into the Word and him watching way too many cartoons in the morning. So, yesterday, I grabbed his little Story Bible and made a lesson plan for this week. Today we started with creation. I read the story from his book, sang a song, and then said a memory verse and then we were done. I posted the memory verse on the frig and in his bathroom and the goal is for him to memorize it by Friday. I then created a memory chart that we will fill with stickers and when he gets 10, he gets a prize.
The only thing I am conflicted on is how much of the verse should he repeat? Any suggestions? I don't want this to be stressful thing, but a fun, learning experience. When I asked him throughout the day to say his memory verse, I would start it and he would finish it. I know it's just the first day, but it made think how much of it do I want him to say, to be able to get a sticker. All, half, or just a word?
After our lesson, we loaded up and headed to the Y. That was a stress reliever for me and it was really nice to get out of the house since I was cooped up all last week with two sick boys.
We came home, had lunch and then the boys took naps. I did some chores and have started organizing like crazy! Seriously, I have been in this 'nesting' phase and I usually get that way for one of two reasons. I am pregnant or I am ready to get pregnant. Well, I can assure you that it's not the first so maybe the second.? I have been cleaning and organizing drawers, closets and today, I started on the garage. So much junk and I have even started a garage sale pile. I haven't decided if I want to have a garage sale or just wimp out and give everything to Goodwill.
After nap, the boys and I took a quick walk around the block in the new limo, as Jeff refers to it. I have debated whether or not to get a double stroller, but some Christmas money I had been saving and then a coupon to Babies-r-Us gave me a friendly nudge to go for it. After a sale and my coupon, I got $100 off this stroller. We love it!! I didn't realize how much I hadn't been doing because I dreaded hearing whining from a little someone about not wanting to walk. I used to love taking walks in the evenings after nap when it was just Joseph and I; now I can do that again because my eldest has a little place to sit.

Here is Joseph telling Christian to smile. By C's look, it is as if he is thinking, "Don't tell me what to do." Mr.Happy back to his normal self. He had an ear infection last week and man it was a long week!

I bribed him with M&M's to pose for me here.

So, one day down. I have been trying to track Jeff's flight but it never fails, "The airline code is invalid," I always get this even when I type in EXACTLY the info Jeff gives me. UGGH. Please pray for my energy and loneliness. I really miss Jeff after the boys are in bed and no one here to keep me company.

See you tomorrow.

My life the past four days

2010-01-14T13:49:00.001-08:00

It has been one of those weeks with two sick children. It has been long days and a lot of worrying for the little one. It started with Joseph getting a runny nose and cough on Saturday night. That was followed with a low grade fever, and it continued on into Sunday.

Sunday afternoon, C started coughing and having a really bad runny nose. Monday Joseph started to really bounce back and started doing laps in the house. One down, one to go. As Monday carried on, Christian started getting warm and we soon discovered he had a low grade fever. Poor baby.

Starting Monday evening, he started to not eat much, which is unlike him. Then the worry starts to set in. Tuesday, no temperature was taken, but he felt warm here and there, but never bad enough for me to take his temperature. Tuesday continued with little food consumption and noses being wiped all day long!!!

Wednesday rolls around. *Third day inside the house!* Joseph is almost 100% with an occasional nastiness flowing for the nose region. Christian is looking worse and worse as the day goes on. He is beginning to cry more and every time Joseph gets near him or touches him, he cries. Not like him at all. Take his temp three or four times that day and it was at a consistent 101. He starts to eat a little more here and there and is drinking which is a sigh of relief for me. At dinner, a light bulb went off in my head and I blurted out to Jeff, I bet he has an ear infection. *Finger in nose* DUUUHHHH.

Thursday morning he wakes up and I scoop him up, eager to see if he has a fever and when I kiss his forehead it was hot. Temp was taken and we are now up to 102.5. Tylenol was given and then he was back down for a nap a couple hours later. When he woke up, he was still warm and had a fever of 101.8. I called the peds office and they got him in immediately and they discovered a single ear infection.

I hate that he is starting so early with those. Joseph didn't have one until he was over 2yrs.
I know this isn't exciting stuff, but nothing exciting has happened to me in last four days because we have been home not doing much. It has been nice, however, being in pj's until 2p and playing with Joseph's cars....errrr, watching him play. I can only sit and watch, no touch.

Sorry for no pictures. I haven't had very happy, smiley babes the last couple of days. I will try and take some this weekend and get them posted soon.

Until then....

Adios 2009

2010-01-03T20:49:00.000-08:00

(I forgot to add the picture first before I typed my entry, so read all the way to the bottom to see why Jeff and I are all snazzy looking.)

I can't believe another year has come and gone. We have had a great year and we are looking forward to what 2010 has in store for us.

Some highlights from 2009 (Not necessarily all great things, but things that stand out):

-C-bear joining our family.
-Joseph being sick for about 3 months straight. He had two stomach virus' that lasted 5-7 days both times, a double ear infection and a sinus infection.

-Seeing thousands of plastic eggs being dropped from a helicopter and the madness that followed.

-Taking Joseph to the beach two times this year. That kid loves the water.

-Unfortunate event in Galveston.

-Taking Joseph to Schlitterbahn for the first time.

-Joseph found a new love: Cars.

-Potty training Joseph. He has pretty much mastered it now, with the occasional accident because he is too busy playing or watching his stories.

-Christian crawling, pulling up and sucking his thumb...all day.

-Collecting Cars characters. We have become obsessed with this and we need to stop.

-Joseph hanging from the ascending garage door.

-Christian nearly falling head first out of his highchair.

-Our family trip to Great Wolf Lodge.

-Our family trip to the beach house.

-Jeff's job laying off hundred's of employees and Jeff being spared.

-My sister finding out she is expecting.

-Our good friends Mark and Megan expecting.

-Getting to see old High school and college friends this year.

-Driving through ice and snow Christmas Eve to see family.

-Jeff and I celebrating 5 years of marriage.

Speaking of our 5 year anniversary, Jeff arranged a nice evening for us (Which explains the picture). We started by going to Vic and Anthony's Steakhouse for dinner. We went out on a huge limb and ordered each of us a glass of wine. Tasted horrible, but I was able to hold it down. We then order portabello mushroom's for an appetizer. For dinner, we each ordered a steak, in which I got a loaded baked potato as a side and Jeff ordered mashed potatoes. We tried to leave room for dessert, but the food was too darn good, so we stuffed ourselves full.

After dinner, we headed on the other side of town and went to Radio Music Theatre. For those of you who don't know what this is, it is a cross between, stand up comedy and improv. These three people do an entire show playing different characters which is absolutely hilarious. We went to see the show titled 'A Fertle Holiday,' which is a classic.

That pretty much sums up 2009. Hope your year was full of joy, memories and little stress.

Some things I'm looking forward to in 2010:

-Meeting baby Manning.

-Meeting baby Selby.

-Watching Christian become a little boy.

-Watching Joseph grow out of this sassiness phase.

-Watching God's work be done in our home, church and Jeff's job.

Everyone have a wonderful year!

2009-12-21T13:28:00.000-08:00

We celebrated Joseph's 3rd birthday Lightning McQueen style yesterday. It was a nice, quiet, day time party. We had just a few guest come over and celebrate with us.

We started the morning off with Jeff making a trip to Shipley's and bringing us a wonderful breakfast. I took some pictures of my sleepy eyed boys eating their breakfast but my blog wouldn't let me load anymore pictures at the time and I just wanted to be done with it, so you will just get to see pictures of his party.

I love this picture! Joseph was in need of a little help blowing out his candles so I asked Luis to help. John decided he wanted to help too. Can you guess which side the adults ate from?

You honestly can't get much more beautiful than Miss Liliana!

The lovely Miss Tilly Belle.

Joseph had some help opening his gifts.

Opening up his Cars race track. This was a two thumbs up gift.

We bought this jumpy jump from a friend and the boys love it. It serves as a nice play pen for Christian and for Joseph, he is able to practice his mad dare devilin' skills.

(Hence the below picture where he is wrestling C.)

Christian and his favorite toy...a ball.

C-bear trying to escape. I don't blame him. I wouldn't want to be tossed to and fro.

Our only picture of Joseph when it snowed here. He doesn't share the love for cold weather like his Mama. One morning we were leaving the YMCA and is was very very chilly. I looked over at Christian and there he was all smiles and bouncing up and down. I then turn to look at Joseph who was grimacing and saying he wanted to go home.

Giving Thanks with a Grateful Heart

2009-11-29T19:04:00.000-08:00

Ever since I have had kids, I feel like I have learned a lot about what it means to really give thanks and to count my blessings. I don't wait until Thanksgiving Day to give God the glory and thanks for what He has placed in my life, but every day I spend time in prayer thanking Him for blessing me.

One thing I am thankful for is this guy. This little 2 1/2 year old that is now about 1 month away from turning 3. I am thankful for his health, his witty personality, and his constant love and affection. And this little ball of energy. My little 10 month old that has a smile to offer to anyone who looks at him. A kiss to offer when asked. A feisty personality that makes me believe that I am going to have my hands full when he is 2 1/2. I am also thankful for his health and well being.

My amazing husband of almost 5 years. Thankful that he asked me to be his with my dream proposal. Thankful that he works so hard for our family and is always willing to serve at any moment. Thankful for a husband who will see that I need help with something and won't wait for me to ask for help, he will just do it. I am so thankful that I have a husband that meets and exceeds every expectation that I have ever had for a husband. He is my hero, the rock, backbone and heart of this family. I can't imagine this family functioning without him.

Thankful for my parents who raised me up to have Godly morals. For my dad who taught me to take care of and cherish the important things in life. To invest in my spiritual life, family, and education. Thankful for my mom who has modeled for me for what it means for be a forgiving, patient mother and spouse, and loving unconditionally.

Thankful for the greatest in-laws in the world. Thankful for a family who has welcomed me into their family as their own. Thankful for these individuals who have shown me what it takes to love genuinely and to serve whole heartily. Thankful that my boys have such wonderful male role models surrounding them and the most awesome cousins, nieces and nephews. All these kids walk into a room and the place just lights up. I am so grateful that each one of these children are all healthy and happy.

I am thankful for my sister and brother in law, Josh(whom I was unable to see this Thanksgiving). She is a beam of light and has a heart of gold. I am praising God this holiday season for answering all our prayers and blessing her with the gift of pregnancy. I can't wait to hold baby M and bless the britches off him/her.

I am also thankful for my health and that I am able to get up every morning and be a mother and a wife to some of the most amazing people. My heart and mind grieves for those mothers who are sick or have sick children. I have been blessed and I don't/can't explain why God has been so gracious to me, but I am forever thankful for what He has brought into my life.

And most importantly, I am thankful for the freedom of salvation. I am thankful that Jesus died for me so that I may have life. One of my new favorite songs has been around for a while, but now that I am kind of an adult, I really understand the meaning of the words. "Jesus paid it all, all to whom I owe. My sin has left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow." I am thankful for Jesus who is patient with me everyday and each new day, it is a clean slate.

Finally, I am thankful for you who have taken the time to read this blog. I am curious if people even read this anymore since all my blog friends are on Facebook. Have a wonderful holiday season and if you don't hear from me in the next three months it is because I am a terrible planner and decided to have a baby 4 days before Christmas, get married on New Year's and have another baby soon after Christmas. I will be busy planning parties, preparing for parties and shopping. Yea for the busiest time of the year. *sighing....heavily!*

My boys

2009-11-24T13:00:00.000-08:00

Christian's new trick. I always think he is about to stand up, but he plops down on his bottom. Even in public we have to sit Broseph in time out for not playing nice.

Scary, but this is what I have in store for myself. Two crazy brothers joy riding. I think I will start praying my safety prayers right about.....now.

If I wasn't scared of CPS taking my babies away, I would totally eat his cheeks. I love this babies face ;-)

This kid loves balls.

2009-11-09T19:18:00.000-08:00

Sorry it has been such a long time since I have posted, but we have been extremely busy and the only reason I am posting tonight is because Jeff is out of town and I finally have some free time.
We have been doing very well. The boys are growing like weeds and CHK is now 3 months away from turning one! For Halloween, Joseph, Christian and I went to Dallas for a four day weekend. Friday, my mom, sister and my family made a trip to Canton and did some shopping. I realized here that my boys are BOYS and do not like shopping. On Friday night, we bundled up and headed to my old high school's homecoming football game. It was a lot of fun to be back at RHS and to sit in the bleachers and look at the field where I played a lot of soccer games.
Saturday we laid low in the morning and then in the evening we headed out for some trick or treating. I was planning on dressing the boys as Mario and Luigi, but right before we left I tried the overalls on Joseph and he didn't want them on...at all. Thank goodness I had a back up plan and have realized that some things just aren't worth fighting over. The boys ended up dressing up as boys for the 60's and it turned out okay. The neighborhood that we went to was awesome! Some houses gave out FULL size candy bars and bags of skittles. I have never seen that and have wondered if that really existed.
Then Sunday and Monday we did our usual shopping trips and my mom spoiled the boys...as usual. Joseph was able to add to his collection of Cars, so he was happy.
Here are some pictures of us over the past month.

Jeff and I have determined that C's going to be our expensive child. As you can see, he is going to need braces because he sucks his thumb all day (I love this, so this isn't a complaint), he LOVES remote controls, phones and pretty much anything that is electronic. OH BOY!

Joseph-Excited about getting candy.

Christian-Could careless.

This picture is geniune...Joseph really does love his little bro.

I love this boys eyes.

If only I looked this cute sleeping like this. (You notice his Car book? I am telling you, he sleeps with something Cars related every single night.)

My birthday boy and his guitar cake. I made it for him and Jeff really liked it.

Cars

2009-10-20T06:48:00.000-07:00

Joseph's new love is the movie Cars. I bought this movie sometime in the summer and he took to it faster than ants going after a dropped cherry snow cone. He L--O-V-E-S this movie.
During potty training I decided to get him a little surprise one day at Walmart for doing such a good job. As I was checking out, I noticed they had a Lightning McQueen car. I bought it, brought it home and surprised him with it the next time he had told us he had to use the bathroom. I honestly don't think he has put it down since.
Then two weeks ago I was at H-E-B and I turned a corner and there was this shrine of the same series of cars. Joseph's mouth and face beamed with excitement and he told me he wanted down. I let him pick one out since we were about to go on a trip and I thought it would be fun for him to have in the car.
Well, it is starting to get out of control. I buy a new car for him every time I go to Walmart or
H-E-B. And just today this is how a conversation went between Joseph and I.....
J-"Mama, we going to the store?"
M-"Nope, not today. Why, what do we need from the store?"
J-"I need sheriff."
Oh boy, I have created a monster. The picture below is proof of how much he loves these cars. He takes them to bed with him every night and he has a Cars backpack that I had bought way before he ever started watching the movie and loads it up with his Cars cars and his Cars books. Yes, there are books too. Last Christmas my Aunt Kim had bought him this adorable set of 8 Cars books and carrier. I thought he was too young last year to have it out, so I put it in his closet with some other books that he isn't quite ready for. Well, we had watched the movie, he had fallen in love with it and then one day I was switching out some books and found the Cars books (which I had completely forgot about). It was like having Christmas in July. He was beaming. So now when we go places, we grab both boys, diaper bag, Cars backpack that contains 8 Cars books, McQueen, Chick, Big Mater, King, Doc, Red, baby Mater, and Sarge.
Praise the Lord these cars are only $3.98 each....and maybe I should practice some self control before he turns 16 and he wants several different cars. Jeff might not approve of me getting him a Honda, Toyota, Beamer and a Lexus.
I guess I will enjoy it while I can.

2009-10-12T13:31:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we attempted our first family trip, with just us four. It was a great time to go to a hotel and not have to cook, clean, or have to worry about anything. Friday we headed to Grapevine, TX to the Great Wolf Lodge. We arrived around 3, unloaded and then headed to the water park. Joseph had a wonderful time. The toddler area was perfect for him. He was able to do everything in that area fairly easily.

Christian had a good time too splashing in the water and army crawling through it. I told Jeff that Christian looked like a Navy Seal in the water, because he moves along on his belly through the water. We even sent him down some slides, holding him of course, and he enjoyed it a great deal.

Joseph was telling my mom on Sunday that I pushed him down a big slide and that it wasn't very nice. That is true, but seriously, these water parks need to get on board and let me go down the slides with him. We went to the bigger kid area and I strapped on his life jacket and gave him a nudge and off he went. However, on the first turn, he ate it, and he ate it hard. He didn't cry, but Jeff, who was at the bottom waiting for him, said he looked very concerned. Joseph was done with that area after that.

There was a lot about this place that I loved and I really want to go back in the future, but Jeff says we need to wait until our youngest is about 3. And by youngest, he means our fourth (If the Lord allows it) being 3. I can't wait that long. I think if we wait two more years, Joseph will be 4, C will be 2 and maybe have a baby, it will still be fun for the two older one's. We did learn this week that Joseph is still at an age that he can't really get off his bed time routine or nap time. We ended the trip with him hitting me and having to sit out. I was making him get out of the water so we could dry off to get dressed and head out to Mimi's house. I did like his enthusiasm for wanting to stay in the water though.

October's off to a great start!

2009-10-05T11:38:00.001-07:00

This past weekend my parents came in and we, of course, had a good time. The weekend started off with Jeff and I getting to go on a date. We went to Las Rosas where we shared some beef fajitas. We then headed to Home Depot to pick up some mulch and flowers for our flowerbeds that we were going to work on the next day. That evening ended with a stop at Starbucks where we were able to enjoy some coffee, conversation and just trying to kill time because we had just done the previous two in record time. (I think we are used to eating and doing things so fast because we always have the kids, and then when we are by ourselves, we are able to go slower, but I don't think we know how.)

Then Saturday morning, Jeff and I were going to work on the flowerbeds, but he ended up with the flu junk. He came outside and lasted for about 10 minutes and then ended up back in bed until after church on Sunday. I was very thankful my parents were in town because that could have been a long weekend without any help. So between my parents and myself, we were able to fix up the flowerbeds.

Then Saturday evening my parents, the boys and myself headed to BJ's for some good ol' pizza and Aggie football. The food and company were perfect, but the Aggies stunk it up.

Then Sunday afternoon, my mom and I took both boys to see Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. Joseph laughed a lot and Christian was surprisingly interested in the movie too.

I have the pictures backwards, but here are the flowerbeds afterwards. You can't really tell that we did anything, but there are flowers in there. They are just really small.

Playing around with my new toy.

The beds before we touched them.

October is off to a good start. I really enjoy the fall now that I have kids. Tons of fun things to do. This month holds for us some exciting things: This weekend we are going to go to Grapevine, TX to the Great Wolf Lodge. It has an indoor water park and the the kids beds are replicas of tree houses, tents, and caves. We are in a cave room! They are also going to have a Trick or Treat Trail this weekend, so that should be fun. This month is Jeff's birthday, so I need to think of something to do there. Then we will be heading to Dallas for Halloween where my boys will be dressed as a famous brother duo.

Then of course, the pumpkin patch! I love dressing them up and taking pictures, so this should be fun. Oh, if anyone is willing to help me do this, please let me know. I don't think I can do it during the day by myself, and I don't really want to wait until the evening to do it.

Have a great October!

Happy 8 Month Birthday C-Bear

2009-10-01T13:05:00.000-07:00

Seriously, he is 8 months old today. It is going so fast, that it's kind of 'spooky.'

At 8months, Christian:

-Can scoot around and get from room to room if he is really motivated.

-Goes after every single toy Joseph is playing with, even if there are other toys around him.

-Wears size 3 diaper

-He is in 6-9 mo clothes.

-Is starting to dislike it very much when things are taken away from him.

-Has begun to go to Jeff when he gets home.

-Sleeps through the night. Will head to bed around 8 and will wake up from anywhere between 6:30-7:30a.
-Still sucks his thumb.

-Very sweet baby if you are holding him. Towards the end of the day, it is almost near to impossible to put him down.

Happy 8 month C! I can't believe in four months he will be a year old.

2009-09-20T18:45:00.000-07:00

Since we had a very scary incident involving Christian almost plummeting to the ground head first from the highchair, we have to strap him in. And he H-A-T-E-S it!! Right before this, he was so mad so I decided to take a picture of him being upset because if he wouldn't try to climb out of the chair every time, we wouldn't have to strap him in as if he were going to space. When I opened the camera lens, here is what my little charmer decided to do......

smile

"Whaaaasssss up?" Does anyone ever say that anymore?

Risky business, anyone?

He Knows the Plans

2009-08-29T08:56:00.000-07:00

Do you ever wonder what your kids are going to do when they grow up? Not necessarily what you want them to do or would like them to do, but what God has planned for them. When I see what Joseph is interested in and plays with everyday, it makes me think, 'Is he going to be a...?"

Joseph is at a really fun age to watch play and to play with. His imagination is starting to broaden and he is starting to imitate things he sees. Joseph loves animals, so sometimes I wonder if he is going to be a Zookeeper or Veterinarian. When I think of this, I just chuckle because for his first Halloween, he was a Zookeeper. Prophetic? We shall see. That was even before he was in love with animals. When he was about 15 months, his heart would swell if he was given any kind of animal as a toy. At this age, he would carry around a little horse that he got in a John Deere tractor set. I will forever cherish that toy. He carried it everywhere and would even sleep with it.

Just about every night he goes to sleep, he asks to take an animal or several animals to bed with him. He just loves animals! He adores the neighborhood cats and dogs, frogs, and any other animal life that he can touch, hold or kiss (this one grosses me out).

Sometimes I wonder if he is going to be a coach or preacher. I know some of you don't notice it because he is very shy around most people, be Joseph can talk! He loves to tell stories and loves to talk while he is playing by himself. I don't see him being a bad student, but I can foresee him not getting things done in class because he talks a lot (when he is comfortable). Take potty training for example. He gets in there to go, stands on the stool and will be there for a long time because he is talking to me, drumming on his belly, singing or dancing. Once he focuses, he is done. Same thing at the dinner table....he talks and talks and never gets around to eating. At age 2 1/2, I find myself still feeding him sometimes because I know he won't get anything in his mouth if I don't start it.

Joseph loves to read. I find him in his room, sitting down, book in lap telling a story from the pictures. So cute. Lately, I have found him with the Bible open, him hitting it, and saying, "You obey!" 'Mama, obey!" He continues down his list of names. I just sit and soak it up because it is very funny and when he is done, I applaud him, as if he just preached the best sermon ever.

He is also very compassionate and genuinely worried if I am hurt, have a scar or if someone is crying. A while back I had a bad reaction to a watch band and several times he would come up and twist my arm to look at the rash and touch it and say, "Aww, what happened?" I had a photo album out that held several pictures of me as a baby up to teenage years. There was one particular picture where I am in the bathroom with a cast on my foot. The look on his face when he saw the cast, I could tell he was very concerned. Several days in a row he would get the album, flip to that picture and want me to tell him again what had happened. Does this mean he might be a counselor or Doctor?

Maybe an engineer? From a very young age he would look over toys as if inspecting them and you could tell he was trying to figure out how it worked. He would lay on his belly, roll cars back and forth staring at the tires, seeing what made them work the way they did.

A musician? This kid loves to drum, air guitar and air play a violin. Two of his favorite videos are Animusic and Baby Beethoven. He enjoys watching Jeff and my dad play music and I must say, this kid can really carry a beat.

Lastly, maybe a gymnast? Because this past week I learned that he can hold his body weight pretty well. You will have to ask me sometime what I am referring to here, but the moral of the story is that he held onto the garage door alllllll the way up. Maybe this was the beginning of sport filled with tights wearing, bar hanging athleticism.

Christian, I am still watching him grow and become the person God is forming him to be. He seems more active and feisty than what Joseph was at this age. He doesn't cry much, but he does scream...I don't know which I prefer more. Just today I saw him inching along the floor after a toy. It was the ol' push with your feet, pull with your hands type of action. I must say, he got what he wanted.

Christian, maybe a model, because he loves to smile. This baby is always smiling!! He reminds me of me, from when I was in grade school. Several times throughout my life other kids would tell me that all I did was smile. I didn't talk much, but I always smiled. This is Christian. I also think he is going to smile his way out of things. Anytime he pinches or scratches me and I say, "OUCH!" He just smiles. Or when I tell him not to pinch, he just smiles. Smile, smile, smile...that is Christian.

Whatever God's plan is for them, I will be just fine with! One thing I do wish for them is for them to be educated, Godly men, father's and husbands. If Jeff and I can model what it means to raise your family, love your family, and make God the center of their lives, I will say that Jeff and I were successful as parents.

A man who puts God first, supports and works hard for his family, loves his wife and children, is a Hero in my book. I will be so delighted if my boys and future children grow up and do this in their lives. A decorated resume doesn't mean anything, and is only short term, but loving God, your wife and family has so many more rewards.

So, what do you think your sons or daughters will be? What do they show interest in? What drives them? What are their personalities like? I lift up each of your children right now and pray that when the time comes, they will seek His kingdom and become brothers and sisters in Christ.

"I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11

VBS, 6 months, Family Reunion and Potty Training

2009-08-12T15:01:00.000-07:00

This has been an amazing and very busy summer. VBS was a blast this year and a fun one because Joseph was able to go for the first time this year. Jeff, myself and some other volunteers helped teach the 2 and 3 year olds because Lindsay H. had to leave town for a funeral. I really enjoyed getting to assist/teach Joseph and his pals and hear in Joseph's own words what he learned that night.

This past weekend we went to Bastrop for a family reunion. It was a great time of fellowship, wonderful food, and much fun with the kiddos. I would have liked to have done more things outside, but man was it a toasty weekend. We managed to play at the park a few times and then go swimming on Saturday. Joseph, didn't seem to mind being indoors because he was able to run around and play with June and Jack the entire weekend. I also think he liked the endless snacking that he was able to do while in the main meeting hall.

This past Monday we started potty training Joseph. Monday was just flat out a long, frustrating day. After two very encouraging phone calls (Thanks Courtney and Lindsay), I was encouraged to stay positive and that it would get better. After dinner on Monday night, Joseph used the toilet for the fist time that entire day! Someone asked me today how the potty training had been going and I put it like this: Monday, Joseph went through 11 pairs of underwear, Tuesday, 6 and then Wednesday, 2. So, I guess you can say that we are making progress. If you are first time potty training mom, I think I have some helpful tips for you, and I would love to share. He is doing so good with it and I am starting recognize his pee pee dance, so as soon as I see it, we go. Then when he has to go number 2, he will usually tell me.

Christian turned 6 months two weeks ago and I can't believe how fast it is going. When we arrived back home from the reunion we decided to not set up his playpen, so I was forced to put him in his big boy crib. He has done great! This week, along with the potty training, Christian has decided to cut, not 2, but 3 top teeth. I had been telling people he was getting his one front tooth and the one next to it, but today I noticed he is getting both front teeth and the one next to it. Needless to say, he has been a little crabby during the day and doesn't like it when I put him down. A little hard when you are assisting a 2 year to the bathroom every hour or cleaning up puddles.

This summer has pretty much come to an end for us, which is sad. We will miss the swimming, Popsicles, cookouts, backyard pool, water parks, camp, vbs, and all the outdoor fun we have had this summer. I am really looking forward to next summer when Christian will be 15 months and getting around.

Okay, I guess it is still going to be hot for another 5 months around here, but school will be starting soon, so I just figure since their summer is almost over, so is ours. We are however heading to Schlitterbahn with the Church this weekend. I am looking forward to this because we will just be taking Joseph. This will be a great outing after being inside allllllll week. I am already talking to him about going and he has been asking everyday since I first told him about it on Monday.

I hope your summer was blessed with some wonderful memories.

Next Hanes model?

Joseph posing in his new undies.

Tilly's awesome bed head and playing with her belly button, which I think is cute because Joseph does the same thing.

At the reunion we stayed with the Harrell's. I think Joseph really enjoyed it...fun for him to get to see Jack and Tilly first thing in the morning and fun for Jeff and I to get to visit with Brad and Lindsay. Here, all the boys are enjoying some morning reading.

June was a real ham at VBS. She got up on stage every single night and danced like crazy.

This was a very busy class of 2 and 3 year olds. This night we had 12...that is a lot of toddlers!

John and Luis.

Joseph and the Name Tag. He did NOT want to wear it, but he didn't want me to take it from him either.

Christian at his 6 month check-up.
Stats: 16 lbs (24%)

26 1/2 inches (54%)

Christian's new ride.

Random picture I know, but one day I had a few grapes in my hand and went to get Christian from his swing. I dropped one, but couldn't find it. I looked under the swing, in the seat, under the dresser and then several minutes later I was kissing on Christian and noticed the grape inside his shirt collar.

Ways I find Christian throughout the day. This particular day I heard, *Laughter* "Mama look, Christian funny."

Another day, *Laughter* "Mama look, Christian is stuck. (His jungle gym thing had collapsed on him and he was right in the middle. This was of course caused by big brother.)

Went to the kitchen and came back and noticed Christian had this. Made me realize I need to start watching for small objects on the floor. This little guy can get around and find things...like this cheetah. I took the picture and then had Joseph go get it from him....Christian was NOT happy.

Surprise Visit

2009-07-25T14:36:00.000-07:00

At Mimi's Cafe

On Tuesday afternoon, I received a call from my dad asking what we had planned for the rest of the week. I didn't have much, so my mom decided to drive down on Wednesday and then my dad flew in on Friday. We threw some activities together and ended up having a great time with Grammy 'Mimi' and Papaw.

Thursday, my mom and I went to lunch at Mimi's Cafe, which we thought was appropriate since that is what she is known as around here and then headed to an awesome Toy Store in Pearland Town Centre. Warning: kids may have break down if you enter. Before we left, my mom said she would get something for Joseph. Well, he couldn't quite understand that he could only get one item. I could tell he was thinking, "If I can get one train, why can't I get 5 more?" So, needless to say, a little drama. We were able to successfully make it out with one train and an airplane.

On Friday, after picking up my dad, we headed to Moody Gardens. With several options on our plate, we decided to go to the Aquarium and then had lunch at the Rainforest Cafe. It was a wonderful day and I was happy to spend it with Grammy and Papaw. My mom took some great pictures and I thought I downloaded appropriately from her camera, but ended up not. So I will make a request for the cute pics and display later.

Hope your weekend was as blessed as ours.

Sitting up?

2009-07-21T14:07:00.000-07:00

Attempting to get a shot of just Christian sitting up. However, Big Brother Joseph was wanting to be in the picture too. As soon as I sat Christian down, Joseph jumped behind him and said, "Picture." Yes, but um, can you move a little to the left...a little more...and a little more. Jk. I was more than happy to take a picture of both.

Still trying to get just Christian, but now Joseph looks like a stalker.

This would be Joseph attempting to ride Christian. Yes, Christian is actually sitting up here.

Ahhhh, success. The picture I wanted from the beginning. And this is the look you get as you start to lose your balance and fall over.

Beach Day

2009-07-21T13:57:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, we thought it would be a great idea to join our friends Mark, Megan and a group called ODP (Outdoor Projects) at the beach. We have taken Christian to Schlitterbahn and NRH2O this summer and both times he was an angel. Well, Saturday, I think he was just tired of being in the heat. It was a very warm day and he just wasn't happy about being there. We stayed for about 3 hours, and that was plenty. I would love to go back before it gets too cold, but just take Joseph because he loved it! On the way back, Jeff asked me, "What were we thinking?" Meaning, why did we ever think that would work with Christian. For not getting in the water or playing in the sand, he was very sandy. Joseph wanted to touch Christian's mouth, head, body and I was constantly telling him to not do that. One time I got Christian out of the stroller and then Joseph climbed in...covered in nasty beach water and sand. Grrrr. Now where do I put my little guy?!? I guess life is about experiences and we learned a lot from this one.

2009-07-21T13:39:00.000-07:00

It was a pretty toasty morning, as you can tell by Christian's Rosy cheeks.

Christian looks like Jeff, I think. Get them both to smile at the same time and you will be looking at twins.

Starting Cereal

2009-07-21T13:32:00.000-07:00

I thought it was time to start feeding Christian ever since he tried to grab and eat my dad's pizza, grabbed at some M&M's from my mom's co-worker, and hadn't slept through the night for several nights in a row. I wasn't sure how he was going to do since we were starting a little earlier than we did with Joseph. He has done very well with it, but doesn't seem to L-O-V-E it like Joseph did. Christian will only eat about 1 tbsp, where as Joseph could polish off about 2-3 tbsp. Doesn't seem like a lot, but for rice cereal, it is! I don't know if he just isn't interested or if he is distracted by the big brother. Either way, he does pretty good and I can't wait to start him on veggies and fruit.

2009-07-21T13:27:00.000-07:00

Christian is above at 5 1/2 months, and below is Joseph at 6 months.

Summer Vacation

2009-07-11T21:29:00.000-07:00

I would have to confess that Summer is my new favorite time of the year. I have really enjoyed this summer with Joseph. He loves the water and being outside, so it is a blast to take him to do things. For Father's Day and July 4th weekend we headed to Dallas. A slew of pictures follow this post, however, if you have a Facebook account, this entire post is going to be repetitive. There are more pictures on FB. The pictures are from both trips and since I am posting at 11 o'clock at night, I didn't feel like breaking them up and organizing the pictures correctly.
Our first trip to Dallas was a short and very tiring trip. We had just finished Elementary camp at church, so I was extremely exhausted. However, our trip this past week was a blast! We were going up there for my mom's family reunion and then stay the rest of the week because my dad's family was coming into town. Since we wanted to stay and see everyone, we just decided to make this our family trip for the summer. We planned an outing everyday we were in Dallas and it was a blast. Starting July 4th, we went to a local park to see some fireworks, swam just about every day, went to a water park, children's museum of Dallas, had lunch with Grammy, went to the movies, went to the local library, ate out, and went bowling.
We had a great vacation with the boys and made some great memories.

2009-07-11T21:25:00.000-07:00

2009-07-11T20:26:00.000-07:00

All tuckered out at the water park.

Yea! You can finally see his two bottom teeth.

Joseph ate it off this ledge one day and went head first into the hot tub. Luckily, he was wearing his life jacket and popped right back up...with a mouth full of water.

My mom's cousin, Betty. She was the only member of my mom's side who showed up for the reunion. Very sweet lady and her husband was very sweet as well.

I bought this enormous floating toy for Joseph, but he is terrified of it. So, I get to enjoy riding the walrus and coming up with games with it.

Random Cuteness ;-)

2009-07-11T20:14:00.001-07:00

As soon as he heard Jeff start the lawnmower, he went straight for his and started going through the yard. I love when he imitates Jeff, so cute.

2009-07-01T13:45:00.000-07:00

Grammy and Papaw bought Joseph this t-ball set. Jeff and I were pretty surprised that Joseph just picked up the bat and started swinging away and making contact more times than not. We don't have a t-ball set here and I can't think of any other place where he might have learned how to hit the ball. The stance and everything was right. Also, we realized he was swinging left. I still don't know what hand Joseph is going to use. He apparently bats left, will throw left and right, and eats left. Christian, I am pretty sure is going to be a lefty. He sucks his left thumb, always rolls left and grabs toys with his left.

Sucking his toes is his new soothie. He has two bottom teeth and the other day I noticed his left toe was all scratched up. I first thought, Joseph, but then realized, that is from his teeth!

Tilly Belle at camp. She walked around for the longest time with this candy bar. She was going from person to person just begging for them to open it for her. She would squeal, say, "Dada," and then hold up the candy bar. She is so stinkin' cute.

Jeff, Jack and Joesph playing checkers. Jack looks so handsome here with his blonde hair and little tan.

This is no surprise. We are trying to get things ready and out the door so we can make it to camp on time, then we here Joseph yelling, "HOLP, HOLP," (That's how he says help). I knew exactly where he was and where he isn't supposed to be.

He was in the middle of this mat at one time, but he wiggled off and got turned around and was watching cartoons with Joseph.

The week before camp Joseph had the stomach bug again. For three out of the six days he was sick, he seemed fine. He would throw up first thing in the morning and then play all day like he was perfectly fine. But then Monday arrived, the fourth day, and he was just laid out!

A while back, my dad, Stacey and I took Joseph to a bowling alley in Rockwall. I took a picture of his two spares and of him cheering himself on.

Here is Christian watching Joseph jump on the bed. This is a common occurrence and now that Joseph knows he can get Christian to laugh, he does it a lot. I love C's reaction all the time...you can tell he wants to join Joseph. (Listen closely and you can hear Joseph saying, "Kisstan, watch, Kisstan, watch.")

The other video is of Joseph and his new task. It really was like overnight that he started climbing and jumping on and off everything. I found the lamp inside the playpen one day and it is now broken from Joseph jumping off of the nightstand. Oh well; when I go to turn on the lamp and it falls over, I think of my little man, Joe.

Schlitterbahn '09

2009-06-08T13:30:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we packed up and headed to Schlitterbahn with our family and friends. It was probably the most fun I have had in a long time. Joseph loved this place so much and was on 'go' from the minute we arrived and until we left. I got to thinking on the way home, he only came and took a break twice for about a total of 30 minutes the entire day. My mom came in to help and it was a blessing. Joseph drug her on some slides not just once, but about 20 times. It was a blast for me to see the excitement and joy in his face every time he came down the slide. He was asking me yesterday and today about the water and slides... I am thinking we might have to make another trip before the summer is over with. Who's with me?