Bath Time Fun

Emily had a nasty fall into the bottom of the tv stand the day before this pic. It's mostly healed now, but I'm afraid it might leave a little scar.

Happy Easter!

We started Easter Sunday off with a visit to a new church in the area. We are hopeful that this will be our church home. It is also where Emily and Kason will attend preschool next year (Emily will be in the Children's Day Out program and Kason in PreK).


Best we could do...Kason practically choking Noah and Emily showing her great displeasure


This is what Emily views as proper photo-etiquette :)


I have given up on the idea of a good family photo :(

The Easter bunny made his stop during nap time and the kids were thrilled to get their Easter baskets when they woke up. A little later in the afternoon, Josie, Megan and her husband, Jared and his brother, Spencer joined us for Easter dinner, games with the kids, and an egg hunt. It was a great day!




A little more cooperation for a photo with Grandma


The Easter bunny brought bubble guns!












Kids with their baskets (the eggs were way more interesting than the camera)


Our best attempt at a post egg-hunt family photo

Life Lessons

I'm filing this one away in lessons that my children need to learn. As much as I hope Emily learns these lessons, I also think there's a valuable lesson for my boys in here about the type of girls that are worth their time as they get older.

Taken from http://kateelizabethconner.com/ten-things-i-want-to-tell-teenage-girls/

1. If you choose to wear shirts that show off your boobs, you will attract boys. To be more specific, you will attract the kind of boys that like to look down girls’ shirts. If you want to date a guy who likes to look at other girls’ boobs and chase skirts, then great job; keep it up. If you don’t want to date a guy who ogles at the breasts of other women, then maybe you should stop offering your own breasts up for the ogling. All attention is not equal. You think you want attention, but you don’t. You want respect. All attention is not equal.

2. Don’t go to the tanning bed. You’ll thank me when you go to your high school reunion and you look like you’ve been airbrushed and then photoshopped compared to the tanning bed train wrecks formerly known as classmates – well, at least next to the ones that haven’t died from skin cancer.

3. When you talk about your friends “anonymously” on Facebook, we know exactly who you’re talking about. People are smarter than you think they are. Stop posting passive-aggressive statuses about the myriad of ways your friends disappoint you.

4. Newsflash: the number of times you say “I hate drama” is a pretty good indicator of how much you love drama. Non-dramatic people don’t feel the need to discuss all the drama they didn’t start and aren’t involved in.

5. “Follow your heart” is probably the worst advice ever.

6. Never let a man make you feel weak or inferior because you are an emotional being. Emotion is good; it is nothing to be ashamed of. Emotion makes us better – so long as it remains in it’s proper place: subject to truth and reason.

7. Smoking is not cool.

8. Stop saying things like, “I don’t care what anyone thinks about me.” First of all, that’s not true. And second of all, if it is true, you need a perspective shift. Your reputation matters – greatly. You should care what people think of you.

9. Don’t play coy or stupid or helpless to get attention. Don’t pretend something is too heavy so that a boy will carry it for you. Don’t play dumb to stroke someone’s ego. Don’t bat your eyelashes in exchange for attention and expect to be taken seriously, ever. You can’t have it both ways. Either you show the world that you have a brain and passions and skills, or you don’t. There are no damsels in distress managing corporations, running countries, or managing households. The minute you start batting eyelashes, eyelashes is all you’ve got.

10. You are beautiful. You are enough. The world we live in is twisted and broken and for your entire life you will be subjected to all kinds of lies that tell you that you are not enough. You are not thin enough. You are not tan enough. You are not smooth, soft, shiny, firm, tight, fit, silky, blonde, hairless enough. Your teeth are not white enough. Your legs are not long enough. Your clothes are not stylish enough. You are not educated enough. You don’t have enough experience. You are not creative enough.

There is a beauty industry, a fashion industry, a television industry, (and most unfortunately) a pornography industry: and all of these have unique ways of communicating to bright young women: you are not beautiful, sexy, smart or valuable enough.

You must have the clarity and common sense to know that none of that is true. None of it.

You were created for a purpose, exactly so. You have innate value. You are loved more than you could ever comprehend; it is mind-boggling how much you are adored. There has never been, and there will never be another you. Therefore, you have unique thoughts to offer the world. They are only yours, and we all lose out if you are too fearful to share them.

You are beautiful. You are valuable. You are enough.

9 Months Old

In 3 short months, my little man will be a whole year old. Wow!

At 9 months old:

You are an angel baby; so calm and happy, the perfect addition to our family.

After being such a huge newborn, you are now much smaller than we expected, but still a healthy size at 19 lb 13.5 oz and 28.5 in...50% all around. You are also my only baby that has been solely breastfed without an ounce of formula in your life. The fact that you refuse a bottle of any kind probably plays into that a bit. During the day, you have 3 solid meals plus 2 snacks a day and are just starting table foods (bits of bread, pasta, meat, fruit, cheese). You really enjoy feeding yourself and even do pretty well out of your sippy cup.

You sleep fairly well, but have out-of-control allergies that can sometimes wreak havoc on your sleep. Most nights, I nurse you at least once, but then you are back to sleep right away.

You love bath time, most nights trying to squirm your way out of our arms and into the tub before we can get your diaper off. You have very little patience when it comes to bath time, screaming at us until you get your reward...SPLASHING!

You have two 'words' that you seem to say with some recognition: dada and 'awwww duh' (all done). You say awwww duh while wildly waving your hands back and forth (your sign for 'all done') to let us know to stop shoveling food in your mouth. You also sign more and wave bye.

You love to play "So Big", "Peek-a-Boo", and "Pat-a-cake". You love balls, cars and trucks, and even Emily's Minnie Mouse, which seems to be the perfect size for throwing. You throw her, watch her bounce, crawl to go get her, and repeat.

You pull up on everything - toys, tables, chairs, people, and even the dogs. You are getting very stable and I think you will be standing on your own very soon. You do a little cruising between toys, but for longer stretches, you still choose to crawl. Speaking of crawling, you still prefer the army crawl to hands and knees, although you can do both. Your big brother was the same way.

More and more, I see you resembling your big brother. Just the other day, I was walking down the hall and subconsciously thought a picture of Kason was you. Much like your brother, you are a real mama's boy. You hate for mommy to walk in a room and not immediately pick you up or walk out of room without you in her arms.

Emily and Kason continue to love on you constantly (a little too much, especially now that you are mobile). We try to tell them you need your hands, but just being near you is not enough. They love you so much, they need to be touching you/holding your hand constantly. We love to watch the 3 of you interact and are really enjoying seeing your personality take form as you find your way in this crazy house.

The days around here may be chaotic, but they sure are fun! We love you, NoNo!

Not Sure Where to Start....

It's been so long since I've updated the blog, I'm not sure where to start. So, here's a little story of the past month and a half in pics.

While in Colorado on a house-hunting trip in February, we got an offer on our Texas house. After a little negotiation, we were under contract. The house closed on Monday, April 2. We loved our house and our neighbors in Texas, so while it was a definite stress-reliever, it was somewhat bittersweet.




We spent much of the last few weeks in Texas enjoying the weather, time with friends and family, and saying our goodbyes.


















Kyle and Tony (old college friend) and their newest additions


Kason & Maddie (Tony & Amanda's daughter)








What was left of the cupcakes I took for Kason's last day of school. We took the leftovers to share with neighbors as we said goodbye over pizza, beer, and lots of fun.



After the movers pulled away, we spent the night and much of the next day with our wonderful neighbor, Patti and her daughter, Lilly (Emmy's very best friend). Patti was the very best neighbor we could have ever asked for and we will miss her, her mom, Carol, and Lilly very much!

Sunday afternoon, we headed to North Texas to spend a couple of days with my parents and my brother's family. The kids had a blast.








And, now, we're here...


This pic really doesn't do the view from our master bedroom justice. It is beautiful on a clear day and at night, the lights of the city are even more breath-taking.


Thankfully, between Kyle's aunt Josie, who lives nearby in Littleton and his mom, who came to visit for a few weeks, I have been able to get the entire house unpacked and we are all settling in nicely. We have been lucky in that we seemed to have found another great street to live on with loads of kids to play with and friendly neighbors. We look forward to getting to know the area a bit better in the next few months and lots of great adventures this summer.

Fun at the Park

These pics were taken about a month ago. It was a gorgeous winter day, as our weather this winter has been much more like spring weather. We had scheduled an open house, so we took Maggie over to Kate & Dan's for a doggie play date and took the kids to Challenger park. We love this park, lots of play sets for different sizes and ages and keeps the kids entertained for hours.

On the Road Again

I have been quiet on the blog front for a while because I have had one, and only one, thing on my mind lately...MOVING!

We have known about this for quite a while, but have been silent until now because Kyle needed to give his notice at work. In 2 weeks (yikes!), we will officially be residents of Colorado. Have I ever told you I hate snow?! I'm told it's a 'dry' cold, which means mild winters, all things considered - you know, blizzards and such. Despite the cold and snow, I am excited about our new adventure. We thought Texas was going to be our forever home, but we now see that maybe that's not in the cards for us.

It didn't take long here to realize what a good thing Kyle left behind at Raytheon. A job that you enjoy and a company that takes care of you are really important for overall stress-relief. So, after our short time here, we are glad for Kyle to be going back to Raytheon.

We are hopeful that this will be our final move...at least until the kids go to college, because they are not going to A&M and leaving their mama behind in Colorado. ;) Maybe by then, Kyle and I will both have our Ph.D.'s and move back to College Station to be professors until we retire. Nice dream, right? For now, we are going to rent for a year, hopefully fall in love with Colorado, and be ready to buy our 'semi-forever' home this time next year.

*Here are a few pics from our house hunting trip last week. The snow fell the night before we got there and stuck around the whole time we were there. Really is beautiful.*

Kyle's Aunt Josie's backyard


Kyle and Kason were building a snowman without mittens...Kason's hands were too cold, so he let Daddy finish :) Emily's in the background, eating the snow. Crazy girl!


Mini-snowman

We were so busy looking for houses and driving around, I didn't get much picture taking in. That's ok, though, because we'll be back very soon and I can take all the pictures I want. :)