Easter

Easter is such a special holiday for believers and our day started off with a great service at church celebrating our risen Savior. I thought I would get some pictures of the kids all dressed up, but Anna was having none of it. At least we got a decent family picture before she melted down.


We had an Easter egg hunt at church yesterday but I forgot my camera so I don't have any pictures of that. However, we did get some pictures of Andrew's egg hunt at school on Thursday.



He got a lot of eggs in these two eggs hunts considering he doesn't even eat candy! I guess I'll have to take care of that part for him. :)

Spring

We are so excited that it's Spring and we can spend time outside! Both Andrew and Anna LOVE being outside. Nana bought Anna a swing to go on the swing set for her birthday (Nana, you'll notice in the pictures it's not the one you bought. I couldn't get the straps of the one you got around her ample little belly so I had to go get another one!) She absolutely loves swinging! As does Andrew!

The Princess is 1!

Well I can't believe it's taken me this long to blog about Anna's birthday party! She turned 1 on the 14th of March! Grandma, I really hope to be better about keeping up with the blog.
So here are pictures of her party-we had a blast! She absolutely LOVED the cake and hated the balloons! :)

Anna's Adventures!

So she's been crawling since her 11 month birthday but I'm REALLY behind in my blogging! She absolutely LOVES being able to go where she wants, and especially being able to come find me if I'm out of the room. I now have a little girl at my feet all the time! :) She's also started doing a few other new things like touching her head when you ask where her head is. She says mama, dada, uh-oh and sometimes you can pick out other words she's trying to mimic. She got her first boo-boo by trying to pull herself up on the tv cabinet and she fell and hit her face on the knob. I feel like there will be tons more of these...she is quite active! She eats just about anything you put in her mouth...her favorite thing being mac&cheese at this point (definitely takes after mama!). She points to things she wants or where she wants to go, which most of the time is outside. The girls LOVES being outside! She has pretty good balance and can stand for a few seconds on her own. I just can't believe she's almost a year old (on the 14th)! Times just goes too quickly.
Anyway, here's a video of her crawling and babbling...just ignore me. I watch these videos and always think, "I really shouldn't talk so much!" Ha!

Anna's first snow!

Snow! In Texas!!!

We finally got snow! And enough to play in...I think the final count was somewhere around 6" and we have had a blast playing but mommy is snow ready for Spring!

Anna Grace

There are about a thousand pictures I could put on here of our sweet Anna Grace....it seems she changes all the time now. She is quite active, not quite crawling but moving herself around to get whatever she wants. She does most of this on her tummy but she has done little crawls here and there. I really think she'll walk pretty quickly because she LOVES to be standing! She says uh-oh when she drops something and mama and dada. This last week she has been jabbering like crazy like she's telling you something. It's cute. I just can't believe she'll be 11 months on Sunday!

Sick Andrew

I was just telling Jay the other day how thrilled I was that Andrew has been so healthy this winter (he usually has pnemonia) and I guess I spoke too soon. Last Saturday night he started running fever so I took him to the dr. the next day to find that he had RSV. While it's not a major deal for kids his age, it would have been awful if Anna has gotten it! So I quarantined him the next few days and (knock on wood) so far she's been fine. He started feeling better after about three days so he went back to school that Thursday. After school I gave him a breathing treatment and this is what I found after about a minute:


Poor guy was just so worn out from school that he couldn't last any longer. He slept for 2 1/2 hours that afternoon! He's pretty much all better now so I am thankful.
While he was sick that first day, I handed him his pop tart that morning and he said, "You're such a great mama." What a sweet boy! He also said during this sickness, "Mama, I need to eat...I want something square. I love square food!" Well if you don't know Andrew, he hardly eats anything except pop tarts and chips so I knew this was his way of trying to get pop tarts for dinner. It was so funny that I gave in...he was sick after all and not even eating chips!

New Year

Who can believe it's 2010? We rang in the new year with the youth and college groups at our house. Our family spent the first day of the new year lounging around the house and just spending time together. The kids really love to wrestle with daddy!



I pray that this year our family's focus is all about bringing glory to Him!

Christmas Day

We woke up this morning and Santa had visited our house! Andrew was so excited that Santa brought exactly what he asked for...and that he ate all of the cookies! Santa was really glad the cookies were there as he was putting together the 214 piece king's castle that Andrew asked for. Anna slept in until 9:45 so she enjoyed her present from Santa a little later. :)





We've had a really sweet day together. We played with the toys the kids got most of the morning and then we had roast for lunch. This evening we drove around and looked at Christmas lights. When we got home we watched the Polar Express. And then as we put Andrew to bed, Jay went over the Christmas story and made sure he understood what Christmas is really about. It's been a wonderful day.

Christmas Eve

We spent Monday through Thursday at Nana's house and opened our gifts with her and Mimi but we forgot the camera so I don't have any pictures of our time with them. :( Of course Nana went crazy and both Andrew and Anna got more than they could play with. After we passed out presents and were waiting to open them Andrew said, "I'm the king of the whole world!" He's so funny.
We drove home yesterday, Christmas eve, and unpacked and cleaned up some in time for our Christmas eve service at church. It was a sweet time of fellowship with our church family. We came home and opened our presents. Here are some pics:




The kids really seemed to love all of the stuff they got....like they needed any more after our time with Nana. And Pop sent a huge box filled with toys that they loved as well!

Anna Grace is 9 Months Old!

Today my baby is nine months old! I'm doing my best to hold on to these moments of infancy but I feel like they're just rushing right on by. Life is so busy and the days go so quickly. If only we could stop time for a bit so we could treasure this time a little more. Her first birthday is right around the corner!
She's doing a few new things, except crawling but she seems right on the brink of that. As she's sitting on the floor she moves her legs around to be able to get closer to whatever it is she wants. Usually things she's not supposed to have. :) It seems that she can get to just about whatever she wants. It's funny, she'll pretty much do the splits to reach something. She rolls like crazy, especially on the changing table which she rolled off of the other day! Thankfully Jay has quick reflexes and caught her before she hit the ground. She is definitely not the complacent baby that Andrew was. She always seems to be moving! She can't pull herself up to the standing position, but if I stand her up next to something she'll hold on and loves standing there for awhile.
She has her two bottom teeth that she got at six months and her two top teeth pushed through around eight months. She loves saying dada and still has yet to make the mama sound. I think this is a sign of stubbornness. :) She can also gives fives and wave bye bye. She seems to be coming out of her extreme clingy-ness to me. She reaches to people to hold her now, which a few weeks ago was absolutely unheard of. If I'm standing there, she immediately wants me back but it's progress. She does great in the nursery at church so that's good. She loves to eat as you can probably tell. I've tried some table food with her and she's not really that impressed. She did like the taste of chocolate pudding I gave her the other day though. :)
She is still an amazing sleeper, which I am so thankful for. I just lay her down while she's awake and she usually goes right to sleep and sleeps through the night. So that's our Anna Grace in a nutshell. She's an absolute doll and so much fun! I wish all of you could meet her.

Soccer is Over!

Soccer has been over for awhile now but as is customary with me, I'm just now writing about it. Our last game was the middle of November and we did really well! As I've mentioned before, they don't keep score but if they did we would have won that one! Andrew kicked the ball a few times this season but never scored a goal. We'll leave it up to him if he wants to play next year. Jay did a great job with our team. Here are a few pictures of our last game and the party we had afterward.

Christmas Cuties

I needed a picture of the kids for Christmas cards so I tried to get some tonight. I didn't get a perfect one, but I've discovered when photographing more than one child, that's just not possible. Some of these turned out pretty cute though!





Things have been pretty good around here. We got the house decorated for Christmas...Jay even put lights on the outside of the house for the first time ever. I'll try and get a picture up on here soon. Anna has an ear infection so she's been a little fussy lately. Today has been a turning point though-I took her back to the doctor this morning and he said her ear was still red so he put her on a different antibiotic. We got home and she's been pretty much back to her old self so I doubted whether I should change anything, but I'm going to follow the doctors orders. Andrew is still doing great in school. He really enjoyed "helping" Daddy put the lights up outside and then helping decorate the trees as well.

Andrew

I'm ashamed to say that this is the only recent picture I have of Andrew, besides the Fall festival pictures. I'm not sure why this is, but I'll work on it.

Andrew is doing just amazing in kindergarten! Last month he got smiley faces every day so Jay bought him a movie as a reward for that. He really rarely gets into trouble and seems to be learning a lot. He also seems to be picking up some bad behaviors/attitudes at school. This morning as I was getting him ready for school, he got mad because I wouldn't let him play with some toy and he said "What's your problem?" I think my mouth fell open! He's never talked like that before. I mean, he's been sassy but never like that. Anyway, for the most part he's a normal five year old. He is still quite sweet most of the time. He seems to be enjoying soccer, which is thankfully almost over. Poor Jay has a hard time keeping six five-year-olds attention for any length of time. He has started bribing them during practice and this seems to be helping a little.

Andrew is also doing great in AWANA. He learns his verse every week-it just amazes me how easily kids can memorize scripture! He also is learning to play the chimes during music class on Sunday nights. I'm hoping they'll have some sort of presentation so I can see it for myself and maybe get some pictures to put on here.