Monday, December 22, 2008

A Farewell to a Legend

We are at my mom's house in Celina now. We got here Saturday morning. At about 2:00 that day, Laura, Kyle, Conly, Amanda, and Ryder showed up at my mom's house. We left all the kids (Trent, Drew, and Ryder--the Freemans had left their kids with Laura's mom in Round Rock) with my mom and sister, and we took off for Irving to go to the last Cowboys game in Texas Stadium. We went to Humperdink's first to eat and have a couple of drinks. Then we went to the stadium to tailgate a little bit in the freezing cold. We had a parking pass for Blue parking, which is the best parking lot at the stadium, so luckily we didn't have to walk very far to get to the game (thanks, Amanda!). It was SOOO cold! We tailgated for about an hour and then headed on in. Surprisingly enough, this was my first Cowboys game to go to. I don't know how that's possible, having grown up in this area, but somehow I have never been to a Cowboys game. So I'm really glad I got to see them in their last one at Texas Stadium, even if we did suffer a humiliating loss. It was very cool just to be there for the farewell. We had really good seats (thanks again, Amanda!) There were lots of former players there, which was really cool--would have been a lot cooler if Troy Aikman had been there, but he had to work (ever heard of a red eye? Come on, Troy!) We wanted to stay for all of the post game stuff, but it was just too cold. We stayed long enough for them to bring out all the former players who were there (so awesome to see Michael Irvin and Emmitt Smith walking down the field together--again, Troy should have been there!), and then we booked it for the car. I would have pictures to post, but a.) I'm on my mom's computer and I have no idea how to upload anything to a Mac, and b.) our camera died after I took about 4 pictures, all before the game--idiot! Note to self: always have your camera battery charged before the last game at Texas Stadium! So I have to wait for the Freemans and Geveckers to send me their pictures.

In the meantime, here's a slideshow of pictures from my Mom's Club Christmas party. We had a Santa Claus from the fire department come hand out presents to all the kids. We had to buy a present beforehand for our own child so we could give it to the Santa to hand out. I actually got what Trent had already asked Santa for. It was a $6 monster truck from Walgreens! Easy enough. So Trent was a happy guy. I had a bag full of stuff that I was going to set out for him (from Santa) on Christmas day, but I went off and left it at our house! Dang it! So I had to improvise with some replacement shopping today. I'll give the other stuff to him for his birthday. Anyway, here's the slideshow...

Friday, December 19, 2008

Trent's Christmas program

Yesterday was Trent's Christmas program at school. It was so adorable. His class, the Pelicans, sang 4 songs with another class, the Dolphins. Here's some pictures and a few videos. I cannot say how cute it was. It means so much to me that Trent is in a Christian environment where it's okay to sing "Great Joy for the Babe in the Manger" and "Happy Birthday Jesus" (the 2 videos).

I love the choreography!

The high note in this one is priceless! "...and it's all about yooooouuuuuuuu!" And check out the choreography on the part that says, "...make the holiday swell". So freakin' cute!



Dallas White Rock Marathon

HE DID IT!!!! I'm so proud of Aaron. He ran the Dallas marathon last Sunday, December 14 with his best friend Matt. I was surprised at how emotional the whole thing was. Trent, Drew, and I got there a little earlier than I expected so we actually were right up at the finish line. I think we got there right after the first place finisher crossed the finish line, so we knew we had a while to go before Aaron came across. My sister and her boyfriend joined us a while later and got to see Aaron finish also. Like I said, it was pretty emotional to watch even complete strangers finish this huge accomplishment. At one point before my sister got there, there was a guy who fell right in front of us, maybe 10 yards from the finish line. You could just see that it was a huge struggle for him to get back on his feet. He just couldn't get his legs to work. The crowd was going wild cheering for him to get up and finish. It looked like it was the hardest thing he had ever done, and he finally made it to his feet and crossed the finish line with the whole crowd cheering. It brought tears to many eyes, mine included. I saw other people who were just struggling to put one foot in front of the other, and I'm thinking, Lord, please don't let Aaron come up here like that. I don't think I could take it. But he and Matt were smiling as they crossed the finish line. I was so glad when I finally saw him. We started yelling and waving to him as soon as we saw him, and I was so glad he actually saw us because there were so many people next to us that would be yelling at whoever they were there to support and the runner would just be so focused on the finish line that they couldn't even hear their loved ones. But Aaron saw us right away...


Here they are at the moment they crossed the finish line.



He finished in 4h:23m:46s. There's a pretty cool results page here where you can see all sorts of stats on how he did. Also, they televised the race on Channel 8 that day and the boys and I were still in our hotel room when it started so we watched it for a few minutes. I told Trent to look for Daddy because he's somewhere in that crowd (of 17,000 people!), all the while thinking there's no possible way we will spot him. Well, all of a sudden I did spot him right before he disappeared off the bottom of the screen. I yelled, "There he is, Trent! Look!" Of course, it happened so quick that by the time I even started speaking, he was already gone. But it was pretty neat to see him right as he was starting. I am so, so proud of him, I can't even begin to express how much! He's been pretty sore this week, but of course it gets better every day. He's my Superman! :)

Here they are after we found them in the huge crowd...still standing, still smiling!

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Space Shuttle Endeavour Fly-over

Wow. This was last Thursday at Johnson Space Center. Aaron called that morning to see if I could bring the boys up to JSC to see Endeavour flying over on its way back to Florida. They had taken off from Edwards AFB in California on Wednesday to fly back, but they had to land at Carswell AFB in Ft. Worth because weather in Florida was too bad to bring the shuttle in. The way they transport it back to KSC (Kennedy Space Center) is by attaching it to the top of a 747 modified passenger jet. Anyway, they decided to do a fly-by over JSC. Here is just one of the pictures we got. Very cool!



Aaron was actually in this very shuttle last November....see?






Ain't he cute?
Coming soon...results and pictures from the Dallas White Rock Marathon!!

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Random pictures and SNOW in Houston! What?!

Here's a slideshow of some random pictures as well as pictures of Holiday in the Park in League City last Saturday night. There was a parade too, but it wasn't too exciting so we didn't take any pictures. We kind of lost interest in it because we were watching it near the end of the parade route, so by the time it got to us, it was pretty spread out. There were lots of lulls where there was nothing to watch because the walking people got behind. So basically Trent and Preston ran around together and we watched them. Which is better than any parade, in my opinion!



And...Oh my word, could it be? Even though Trent is getting a little bit sick with a cough and runny nose, we had to go out this morning and throw some snowballs. It's been a while since we've been able to do that, and I'm not even sure if he remembers Colorado at all!

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Rollin', rollin', rollin'

As of yesterday (December 9), Drew has officially reached the milestone of rolling over. Now that he's got it down, that's almost the first thing he does when I lay him down on his back. This morning, Aaron got up at 5:30 to feed him, and he was on his tummy. Drew always goes back to sleep after his first bottle, so Aaron put him down on his back. When I went in the room to get him up at about 9:00, he was again on his tummy sleeping like, well, a baby.

I'm so proud that he has reached this milestone! This is the first step toward mobilization, which is good and bad! Before I know it, he'll be walking around getting into stuff. That will be quite an adjustment for us. I remember when Trent started getting into stuff, and we couldn't have any "pretty things" on any bottom shelves anywhere in the house. Trent has understood for quite some time what he can and can't touch, so we now have lots of "pretties" at low levels. I don't know what we're going to do when Drew starts getting into these things! Although I can almost guarantee that Trent will be good at policing the things that Drew shouldn't touch. He's so bossy! :) Anyway, I am very proud of my Baby Drew, and I'm sure I have nothing to worry about because he will just be an absolute angel! Right?

Also we have sort of started Drew on cereal. We're not really strict about when we give it to him or even about giving it to him every day (although I think since we started, he has had at least a little bit once a day). So far, he is so-so with it. He seems interested, but he gets tired of it pretty quickly, so he never gets very much. I'm attaching some pictures of his first attempt at cereal and some other stuff as well.

Our Christmas tree


Nativity scene


We're pretty proud of how this turned out.

Tummy time



This is how I found him one morning last week.

Fell asleep wearing his Texas Tech hat

Happy boy


First attempt at cereal



And...we're done

Friday, December 5, 2008

Fun!

Got this from my friend Melanie's blog. It's pretty neat. Basically, you download a picture of yourself and your husband (or whoever) and it will show you what your kids will look like based on features it picks up from the pictures. The boy one I did looks nothing like my current kiddos, but here it is anyway. (He's still cute--but not as cute as my babies!)

http://makemebabies.com/viewbaby.php?bid=9454642

And the girl, I must say, is adorable! Her forehead is a little large (probably from the picture of me), but other than that, how cute is she?!

http://makemebabies.com/viewbaby.php?bid=9454450

P.S. I got a memory stick adapter today, so expect pictures soon!

Thursday, December 4, 2008

They're growing up so fast!

I took Drew to his doctor on Tuesday for his 4 month well baby visit. Here's the stats:

Weight: 16 lbs. 13 ozs. (90th percentile)
Height: 25 inches (50th percentile)
Head circumference: 42 cm (50th percentile)

Whew! He's not quite as chubby as Trent was, but he's still gearing up to be a chunky little booger! Everything else checked out just fine. He had his 4 month immunizations, and of course he cried when he got them, but he was fine about a minute later.

In Trent news, I scheduled his 5th (yes, FIVE!!) birthday party at Jump N Jungle on January 3. I can't believe I have a 5 year old. Crazy.

I still don't have a memory stick adapter. I have checked at 3 different places, and none of them sells just the adapter. They all sell the adapter WITH the memory stick. I already have a memory stick...I need an adapter. I think Fry's Electronics has just an adapter, so I'll go there as soon as I get a chance. And then I can share some pictures of my growing boys!

Sunday, November 30, 2008

New camera!



We just bought this camera! We went to Circuit City since they're closing, and we got a pretty good deal on a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W170 in black. Here's the stats on it: 10.1 megapixel, 2.7" Clear Photo LCD display, Carl Zeiss wide 5x (28mm) Optical Zoom lens, Smile Shutter technology, Face Detection, Intelligent Scene Recognition, Super SteadyShot, HD output and HD slideshow

Pretty fancy. The Smile Shutter is supposed to find smiles when you're taking pictures--and you can set it to find any smile or to focus on a child's smile or an adult's smile. I'm not quite sure if that technology will come in handy for us, but I just thought that was pretty cool! The only downside is that we weren't sure if the memory stick we had to buy (we had an SD card in our old camera) had a corresponding slot on our computer. Sure enough, it doesn't, but I think we can get an adapter for it. Anyway, I have felt lost the past 72 hours without our camera so I am so excited to have one again! Our memories are saved!

Thursday, November 27, 2008

What a difference a year makes

A year ago around this time, we found out we were adding another member to our family. I say "around this time" because it took about 3 days for us to see undoubtedly that it was indeed the infamous pink line showing up. It was actually a "+" sign, but it was pink nonetheless. The first day it was so faint that I wasn't sure, the second day it was a teensy bit darker but I still wasn't sure if I was just wanting it to be there. But the third day, we saw this:



Still faint, but definitely there.

And now instead of a pregnancy test, I am staring at this beautiful face.





The second picture was last weekend in Dallas before the a$$-kicking we suffered by the hands of the Oklahoma Sooners. (You know why Texas doesn't fall off in the Gulf of Mexico? Cuz Oklahoma SUCKS!) But I'm not bitter. Ok, yes, I am. I'm more heartbroken than anything. It literally hurts. I was so certain that this was our year to take it all. But it's okay. We'll live.

We've had a lot going on--again--the last week or so, which is why I haven't posted anything lately. Obviously, there's a shuttle in space right now so Aaron has had to work weird hours lately because they have to have someone from their office on console at all times. Luckily, this time he only had to work one overnight shift. Trent's class had their Thanksgiving feast last Friday before the Thanksgiving break. I got to help out with it since I am one of the "class moms". The kids were so excited and surprisingly, most of them filled themselves up on all the healthy stuff they had for lunch, so they didn't have much room for dessert! Here's a few pics from that day...



Trent and I made this t-shirt--it's not the prettiest thing in the world, but we had fun!



Dominic, Trent, and Jayden at the Pelican's Thanksgiving feast

Eating lunch


Last weekend, we trekked up to the Dallas area for one of Aaron best friend's (Nate) wedding reception. Nate and Angel got married in October in Curacao, so obviously not everyone could make it. So Nate's parents, who live in Coppell, had a reception for them at their house. Since many of the people in attendance are Texas Tech alumni, it mostly turned into a game watching party--which ended up putting a damper on the happiness we were supposed to be feeling for Nate and Angel, but we all ended up inebriated enough that we didn't care about the game anymore.

Here's a slideshow of our weekend...





And here are a couple from Thanksgiving day.






Why only 2 pictures on Thanksgiving, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. After these pictures were taken, Aaron placed the camera on the back bumper of his truck....and forgot about it....and we went to Kroger a little while after these pictures were taken. Need I say more? Well, I'm going to. We got home from the grocery store, and maybe 10 or 15 minutes later, Drew and Trent were doing something picture-worthy, so I asked Aaron to get the camera which is when it dawned on him that he never got the camera off the bumper of his truck. He took off on his bike to look for the camera and found it mangled on the side of the road on the way to Kroger. So I won't be posting any pictures until we can get a new camera, which hopefully will be very soon. Aaron's mom will be sending me all the pictures we took on Thanksgiving so I will post those as soon as I can. They are leaving for Mexico tomorrow though, so I don't expect to get the pictures until they get back. They flew out this morning for Albuquerque and will fly out again tomorrow, so I'm sure they are busy making sure they have everything they need for the trip.
Anyway, we had a wonderful Thanksgiving and ate way too much and have a lot of leftovers. I hope all of you had a great Thanksgiving!

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Splash the Pelican (and now I'm caught up!)

This past weekend, we had a special guest in our home. Trent's class at Happy Harbour Preschool is known as the Pelicans. Each class has a mascot that is harbour/sea-related, such as the Pelicans, Starfish, etc. The Pelican's class "pet" gets sent home with a different child every weekend. Their pet's name is Splash, who is, duh, a pelican. He gets sent home in his own bag with a notebook, and the idea is that each child draws a picture or writes a story (with Mom or Dad's help) in the notebook of his or her adventures with Splash. Trent has been looking forward to this for weeks! Here are some pictures from our weekend with Splash.

Splash and Trent doing a puzzle together


Trent teaching Splash how to get his guns up!


Splash got to meet Drew too!


Splash (cut off because I took this picture of us), Trent, and me


Going to bed



We took Splash to see Madagascar 2 on Saturday.

Halloween pics--almost caught up with my blog posts!

Saturday, November 8, 2008

I love this 3 month old boy!

On October 28, Drew turned 3 months old. He's getting so big and strong, and he's developing his little personality. He's so stinkin' cute! Here's a slide show of him the last couple of weeks.





And a video of some sweet little sounds! He kind of spaces out at the end. I guess something caught his attention.







Here's a very sweet video of Trent reading "Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too" to Drew. He's not really reading the words, but he's heard the story so many times, he pretty much knows it by heart. There's a better one, but it was kind of long, so it would take forever to upload.