Santa

We took the boys to see Santa the Sunday before Christmas. After standing in line for an hour of complete excitement...we finally made it up to see him. It was great...no tears!



I promise to add more Christmas photos soon. I still need to upload them!

It's Snowing!

After hearing stories that it was snowing in College Station this morning, we finally got snow of our own! I witnessed it snowing at the office, but the ground was too warm and it didn't stick once it hit the ground.

Tonight, Richard went out to cover our large fern on the front porch. He came back in and said, "You have to come see this!" It was snowing large flakes and actually sticking to the ground! We got the boys out of bed and video taped the momentous event!






You can see my roses are still in bloom!

Christmas Decorations

Here are just some of my decorations. I will take more pictures later. I need to start wrapping! I just love the way a tree looks with pretty presents under the tree!

I packed my Christmas dishes and linens to get ready for moving, so I had to improvise for my dinning room table. I just finished it tonight, and I think it looks pretty good!

Like I said, more pictures soon! :)

I won!

Many of you know that I got a new car right before I got sick in the Spring. Well, if you didn't know, I got a 2008 Toyota Camry Hybrid - red! I love it! And I especially love the gas savings!

On the display, I can watch two different averages for gas mileage; one is the tank average, and the other is the trip average. The trip average is displayed kind of like a graph. The higher the miles per gallon goes, the more the graph gets filled in with white. The graph starts at 25 and goes up to 40. When you turn off the car and the gas mileage is over 35, a message flashes "EXCELLENT!"

Richard and I kind of treat it like our own little video game in the car. We compete to see who can get the highest "score". Normally, we get around 36 or 37 at the most.

On Tuesday, with perfect driving conditions into the office, I finally did it! I finally filled the whole graph with white and even went past the 40 marker! I got 41 miles per gallon!! I won the game!

Side note: I know this is silly, but when you drive 60 miles to work one direction, you have to entertain yourself somehow! :)

Bad News

I spoke with the realtor today regarding the house showing yesterday. The lady loved the house! However, her adult son that came on the showing with her, did not like the fact that the house backs up to an FM road. He "forbids" her from buying the house! My realtor told the other one that he needed to stay at home next time! :)

The irony of it all is that one of the best parts of our house is the fact that we have a new detached garage with two garage doors and a driveway that goes through the garage out to the FM road. Perfect for boaters!

So I'm sad tonight. We have the house back on the market now though. Hopefully there will be other displaced people that would like a really great 3 bedroom house in Mont Belvieu!

Please pray this morning

We are showing the house between 10 and 11 this morning. The couple that wants to see the house is a displaced family from Ike and is considered a cash buyer. They already have seen the outside of the house and are aware of the roof and garage doors that are still damaged. The are currently living in FEMA housing coverage so even though this doesn't have to happen immediately, the sale could happen fairly quickly.

After having everything on hold for the last two weeks, it is really exciting to show the house again. With the thought of all of the other displaced families out there, we are will leave the house on the market list instead of waiting for all of the repairs to be completed. This family sounds very promising and we are praying for the best!

Something Extra

In light of my anniversary this past weekend, I found some of these pictures that were scanned in from our engagement session and wedding. Enjoy!


The marina that we took our engagement pictures at really got torn up during Ike. All of the boats that were left in the marina were pushed ashore and pushed right up against each other. The docks were pretty much gone. Kind of sad, but I'm sure it will be rebuilt.


No, the flowers are not real. My mother did all of the arrangements and my bouquet.



I have such a handsome husband!

I love my husband!

Tomorrow is the 6th anniversary of my wedding day. It was one of the most wonderful days of my life. I remember getting our picture taken after the wedding, and the photographer told Richard to say "I love my wife!" instead of cheese, and he said "I love my....wife" with self actualization that it was actually real! I loved it; it was so cute! He and I spent our honeymoon getting used to saying the word Husband and Wife. We still cherish the use of those words and how really powerful they are!

In the more recent years, I have been able to enjoy just how wonderful of a father he is. Right now, I'm watching Richard teach John how to fold towels "perfectly" and bribing Robby with M&Ms to stay sitting on the potty and try to poopoo. Yes, that is what our life has become....who can poopoo in the potty! :) I wouldn't change it for anything in the world!

Here is the overwhelming winner of our family picture! We want to thank our friend Lisa Gower who agreed to take our pictures and really worked at getting the boys to cooperate!



I've also included some of the other really good ones of the boys!

Fall Fest

We usually have a Fall Festival at church on Halloween. This year, mostly due to Ike, it has been canceled. However, the Children's Ministry made sure to have something for the kids at church this morning. They asked all of the kids to wear their costumes too.

John is Handy Manny from Playhouse Disney. Robby is cowboy. I know that he is really Woody from Toy Story, who is actually a Sheriff, but Robby doesn't really know the movie that well, so he just knows that he is a cowboy! Robby also doesn't realize that he is missing a gun for his holster...and what he doesn't know, won't hurt him!!








By the way, did you notice how well my roses recovered from Hurricane Ike? They had been pretty stripped of their leaves, but thanks to the great weather that God has provided since Ike, they are healthy and back to new again!

Afternoon with the Pumpkins

We took the boys to the Texas Feed Stop here in Mont Belvieu to take some pictures with the pumpkins. Plus we really like the truck too!

Family Pictures

We took family pictures yesterday. I have uploaded a lot of them to my Facebook site. Please take a look and let me know which ones you like the best. We took over 200 pictures with my camera until the battery died. There are some more on Becky's camera, but I haven't seen those yet.

We have another chance at Thanksgiving while we are all in Tyler to take some pictures if necessary. We may try either way depending on the weather.

Let me know if you can't view them in Facebook and I will send you the album from Snapfish.

Thanks!!

Oh the Irony...

Most people who know me well, know that I rarely dress the boys in character clothes. They may have a few items, especially pajamas, but really I usually stick to polo shirts and jean shorts. My mother, on the other hand, loves knit. Knit, knit, and more knit! If it has a character on it, that's okay as long as it is knit and washable.

When I was in the hospital, it was Spring. It was finally warm enough to wear shorts on a regular basis. John wasn't 3 yet, and even though we had started to buy him some new clothes due to his height, he still needed more. My mom took on this task; plus it gave her an excuse to shop with someone else's money (every women's dream)! She bought several t-shirts and knit shorts for both boys.

So I'm in the hospital, paralyzed, and this is what my boys are wearing to daycare:
(You might have to click on the picture to enlarge and read it.)





Thanks for the play clothes Gramma!

Nap time

Every Sunday we race home from church or out to a restaurant in order to get lunch in before the boys fall asleep in the car. They have such an active time at church that they are usually hungry and exhausted.

Yesterday was no exception. We went out to lunch and had to leave before the boys were finished because their tired, ugly side was coming out for the world to see. (Yes, they do have this side!) I finally got John down in my bed. Robby got in trouble for playing around, so I put him back in his bed. I went back to watching the Texans game.

About 10 minutes later, I hear noises coming from the playroom. I went to check it out, and then grabbed my camera. This is what I found!



When he heard the camera flash, he turned around to say "cheese"; just like he wasn't doing anything wrong. He is certainly the charmer.



By the way, THE TEXANS WON!!

The End

This is the end of the Alphabet Book! I hope that you have enjoyed the pictures. I'm not sure if I'll do the Alphabet again next year; we will have to wait and see what pictures we have. I do know that there will be another book, but I don't know how it will be organized yet.

These are pictures from two very happy boys! John, of course, is wearing Daddy's boots. Who knows what Robby was cheering about, but he was always happy in Ms Cynthia's class.

Grampa loves taking some of his grandsons around in the back of the tractor. He made sure to go slow enough for the boys to really have a good ride. Grampa and Josh appear in the book, and they are the only ones outside of our immediate family to appear ever. Of course, they take pride in their appearances!

More Alphabet!

We went to a pumpkin fest last year in Summerwood (where we are currently looking for a house) that my company supported. The boys had a blast trying to pick their own pumpkin. Robby thought they were big balls that needed to be thrown!


We were at the church festival on Halloween. This was supposed to be a game, but my boys just sat on the table and picked out all the suckers they wanted. Robby was a cute Mickey Mouse with a nuggie (pacifier) in his mouth. John was a bear, which Aunt Dawn generously passed down to us!


I think these pictures speak for themselves! My handsome boys!

Almost Finished

We are almost finished with the Alphabet Book.

These pictures were taken last June and it was the boys' first time at the beach! We were in High Island, which is only about 45 minutes from the house. It is a strange feeling to know the dunes are gone and there is a new vegetation line after Ike! The boys had sand everywhere that little boys can have sand! We came straight home and put them in the pool; see letter N.

Robby's first tooth! He was just over a year old here! Last year we profiled John's first tooth. I'll have to come up with a new word for T next year!

These pictures were taken by Sean and Brenda while I was still in the hospital. They took the kids to Chick-fil-A to help wear them out. Check out Sean's blog for the full story in pictures. The pictures following these are all 3 kids passed out asleep in their car seats. Oh the joy of parenthood!

We Survived Ike

We made it through the storm. Unfortunately, it made us very busy at work so I've been too busy to post. Our house did suffer some damage; I'll post pictures soon. Here are some more pictures from our book.

These pictures were taken at Sean and Brenda's house last summer. My little fish! John has no fear in jumping in and letting you catch him...again and again.

I think this is the last of our pictures of our boys sleeping. I'm not sure what I'm going to use next year for the letter Q! (That's Robby in case you can't tell.)

Here is my handsome boy with the big blue eyes! I will be very sad if he looses his big cheeks; maybe they are not just from baby fat. After all, he looks just like Richard! ;)

Ike is Coming

When you look at the map I live when the "n" of Houston sits. We are on the North side of I-10, away from the bay. With that said, we are staying here in at the house. We have the windows boarded up and we have plenty of supplies. We also have a generator that can run the whole house. I met my mother in Madisonville yesterday to send the boys to Tyler for the weekend.

We do live in a mandatory evacuation zip code, but really we live in a Mont Belvieu zip code not the assigned Baytown zip code. There is another northern zip code for Baytown that is not under the evacuation mandate.

Richard and I are considered first responders since we provide public water and wastewater services. I don't have to be out in the field after the storm, but I do have to man my computer and cell phone to communicate with my 8 Boards.

I want to let you know that we will be fine. I will try to remain on the computer for as long as I can to let everyone know what we are going through. God will provide and protect.

Are You Bored Yet? We are Half Way Through!

We are half way through the alphabet!


The first picture was taken at the boys' 1st and 2nd birthday parties. No they are not twins...I know they look alike...but Robby is still a baby here! The second picture was taken on the morning of Halloween. Since we weren't sending the boys to daycare in their costumes due to the heat, Richard spiked their hair. They loved it, but still looked like my adorable boys!

We went to the beach last June. We thought this was a good way to rinse the sand off; so we stripped them down and let them play. Be sure to click on this picture and notice Robby smiling at the camera. That's right, he still didn't have any teeth! He started getting his first tooth about a week after his first birthday, but you still couldn't see it here! :)

Robby is my big boy! These were taken at the party!

More Pages from the Alphabet Book

This group of letters have some of my favorite photos in them!

John's pictures were taken on Thanksgiving weekend when we went to see my parents. I think that John looks like he could be a kid model in these pictures! My sweet little boy!

These photos are very special to me. When I was in the hospital, Cynthia, one of the daycare teachers sent pictures of the boys to me on a regular basis. She made sure to get some happy pictures of the boys kidding around!

Cynthia also took these pictures of Robby. You can tell that he has a great time at daycare. It is nice for a mom to know that her kids are having a good time and are well cared for.

For Your Entertainment

Here are some pictures from the Alphabet Book:


Daddy decided to torture the boys one morning by threading their nuggies (pacifiers) through a bathtub toy number. You know, the numbers that stick to the sides of the bathtubs when wet? The boys thought this was hysterically funny...until they were ready for naps, and then not so much!

My boys love to wear hats! They are also pretty good about leaving them on top of their heads too! The hats at Christmas time are puppy dog beanies. These outfits were very popular when we went out in public!

As many of you know, I decorate my Christmas tree in Mickey Mouse ornaments. This year, I was able to add a Mickey Mouse train that went around under my tree. It was so much fun! The boys are demonstrating the epitome of Christmas...the dreams and imaginations of little boys where a train is the coolest thing ever!