Birthdays, Teeth & Starting School....

I will try to catch up as best I can. I'm having trouble w/blogspot too, so this may be short & a better update later. We had a good winter, very healthy with a couple of great snow days. Shelby graduated preschool in May & also had her year end Kindertots basketball program. Nana & Papa came to visit & attend. It was so neat to see all the skills she'd learned.

Spring seemed to be a blip and it seemed we were in the hot days of summer very early. Shelby & Drew went to the beach club a lot (our local pool in the neighborhood, there actually is sand for the beach! Both kids took swimming lessons, although for Joshua it was really just getting him in the water, but he loved it! Shelby really enjoyed her lessons & it's been neat to see how well she's doing in the water. And Shelby made friends with 2 neighbor boys and spent evenings outside riding her scooter until dark. And while Joshy got his top & bottom teeth, Shelby lost her first tooth, boy was that exciting for her!! She has another loose tooth that she checks often to see how loose it is.

Joshua turned 1 on July 4th and boy did he enjoy cake! He was very messy and had a lot of fun with that. He also loves ice cream, his Daddy shares with him and he likes it! Shelby turned 5 just a couple of weeks ago. We had a princess party at the house, played games & hit a pinata. It is so hard to believe she is 5, it seems like only yesterday I was a sleep-deprived, stressed new Mom trying to manage just getting a shower each day. How far we've come!! Joshua began crawling in the Spring and is attempting steps now. He stands alone and will lean forward and then CRASH. So, still much to learn there. Shelby started school this week...we are homeschooling 3 days using the A Beka program and then she attends Faith Christian Academy 2 days for their enrichment program (art, music, PE). We work on the core subjects at home and while it was challenging & tiring this week, it was also very exciting to see her learning. We are teaching her cursive writing and looking forward to learning to read.

Ok, well that just about catches things up....life is very busy with figuring out our school schedule, but we're excited about this year and all that it may bring. Oh yea, guess I could update on Drew & I, we do have things going on outside our children! Drew upgraded the lift kit on his Jeep, yes made it higher. He also recently got a promotion at work and while it means working longer hours it's been a great thing so far. I am also still busy with various ministries at church in addition to my Mom/Wife and now teaching duties. I'm going on a scrapbooking retreat for Labor Day and look forward to getting away & enjoying my hobby. Plus football is starting, we are SO excited about that. Boomer Sooner!!

Yes, he still does the "hook 'em horns". *sigh*

Yes, she loves playing my iphone....angry birds is her fav.

Tea party with jaguar...the rings stand was her centerpiece.

Such a messy boy!! He loves to put messy hands in his hair.

He was so proud of himself crawling up there. Think he will be our climber, oy!!

Busy Winter!

Well, since our last post we have made 3 trips to Oklahoma, one looooong road trip to California, Drew went to Tulsa, we had a garage sale, had 2 Christmases, celebrated New Year's & Mom & Drew's birthdays and hosted a baby shower!! Whew, we have been busy!! I seriously think the past few weeks I have had little motivation to do much because we were so busy and going at such a fast pace. And last week I got sick, but hopefully am past that now. Thankfully the kids didn't catch it....they've had the sniffles recently, but nothing more severe than that.

Christmas was lots of fun, the road trip in the RV was, well how shall I say it, EVENTFUL. We had 3 flat tires, yes THREE, on the trip which made for just a little bit of frustration. But on the bright side, Drew is really fast at changing a flat on the RV now!! :) (Not sure that was a goal in his life, but one he's accomplished!) We had a fun Christmas with Drew's family and then a 2nd one with my family over New Year's. (Shelby was pretty psyched about getting 2 Christmases, ha!!) All in all the holidays were good and we enjoyed all of our visiting with family.

Shelby is very interested in learning & starting homeschooling (she has asked me several times about it), so we are starting some schoolwork. I found a preschool website that had printable handwriting sheets just like what she does in preschool. So I printed the alphabet off along with these simple word searches too and she just loves doing them! We are trying to work on that when Joshua naps in the afternoon, we haven't managed to do it every day but we're working on it. I really need to carve out a weekend to just print things & get organized. Hope to do that soon. Other than that, she loves playing dress up, cooking in her Princess magic rise oven, playing her Barbie guitar (she says "I'm a Rockstar Superhero Cowgirl!!"), making cards for all her friends and recently building a rocket with her Dad. She saw a little bit of Apollo 13 one night and thinks rockets are super cool now. She really enjoyed all the snow we had last week. All in all she is a very busy little girl!!

Joshua is growing so fast, although I am happy to say he's not as big as Shelby was at this age. I'm enjoying that because I want him to be little for a long time!! :) I definitely am trying to take the time to treasure this young age and enjoy him being a baby. With Shelby I was always so excited for the next thing she was doing, I think sometimes I overlooked just enjoying the current stage she was at and treasuring those moments a little more. Since our last update, he is sleeping through the night (Hallelujiah, can I get an AMEN?!?!), taking 2 naps/day (finally!) and eating solids. He has eaten all the cereal, fruit & veggies we've tried him on, only turned his nose up a couple of times at the first few bites, then decided "I think that's ok!". And he seems to love peas the best!! SO surprising to me, a green veggie! But he has quite the appetite, I told Drew we probably need to bump up our grocery budget, ha!! I am still nursing him and now think I probably will until he's a year. He just never really took to the bottle, he will drink one but just a few ounces and he's soooo slow with it. Plus it's faster than making bottles (and then I don't have to wash them either!) and cheaper, so I've just continued to nurse and it's worked out fine. At least I know if I do need to be gone, he'll take a bottle, I certainly am not worried that he'll starve. :) He was 15 lbs, 10 oz and 27 inches at his 6-month checkup. He's just in the 20th percentile in weight but that will always be the case because he started out so small. But his length is 75%, so he's just long & lean. He has also started babbling a lot and Drew swears he is saying "Mom". I think he's just trying to make me feel good, but it does sound like it sometimes. He just loves his sister's voice & playing with her. He loves to roll over and is learning to sit up by himself. We still prop him up with the boppy pillow, but he's getting better at sitting. He is a sweet little guy and I've really enjoyed having a son.

Hopefully everyone had a wonderful holiday season!! I've posted some family pictures we had taken in Dec. We took these in downtown McKinney w/some girls at church that are starting a photography business. I haven't downloaded all our pics from the camera yet, will do that soon & post those too. Enjoy!!

My son a Longhorn fan? Seriously?!?!?

It would appear at the young age of 4 months our son is declaring himself a Longhorns fan. SO not cool in an OU household!!! Joshua has taken to sucking on his 2 middle fingers when he's hungry or sleepy, and sometimes just because, and when he does, it looks like he's doing the "hook'em horns" symbol of the Texas Longhorns, one of OU's biggest rivals. Mom is not too thrilled about this!! Drew thinks it is hilarious. Shelby keeps telling me that Joshua is not doing it right, it's supposed to be "Longhorns upside down!!". HA!! At least I've trained one kid well, I guess I have my work cut out with #2!! :)

Yesterday was Thanksgiving and we had a nice day here at the house. Drew had to work Friday, so we stayed in TX and are going up later on Friday to spend the weekend with my family. Below are some pics from yesterday, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

Hook'em Horns! What?? This isn't ok?!?

And in his sleep....sigh, what is a Mom to do?!

Shelby at her preschool Thanksgiving feast, thought the hat was too cute.

Shelby & Daddy fryin' up our turkey! YUM!!

Shelby & Mommy making sweet potato crunch, she did a pretty good job mashing the potatoes!

So much to be thankful for!! Happy Thanksgiving!