my little early birds

this morning the kids woke up at the crack of dawn. we had plenty of spare time to putz around after eating breakfast and getting dressed. of course, we took pictures! lauren and jared frequently ask me to take pictures with their brother. so sweet.

brandon is just getting so big! i love that he's growing up and we are getting to know more of who he is, but i already really miss my little baby! i know, i need to just enjoy every minute of this!

and a here is lauren showing off her mad scissor skills! pretty soon she can start scrapbooking with me. maybe i'll finally get caught up if she helps! ha ha.

my chemo angel

i was so excited to get an email from ann marie back in december '08 saying that she was going to be in town this spring for a business conference. i was just about to email her to see if she was still coming and she beat me to it! i was so excited to find out that her trip was still on.

i could barely contain my excitement while driving to her hotel!

it seems like just yesterday when i was going through this funk. i was feeling sorry for myself. not proud of where i was in my life. thinking i should have more, be more, etc. a wise friend told me that i was doing the most important job in the world, and that although money is nice...cuddles and kisses are just the best paycheck ever. but to me...it didn't feel like it. so then my wise friend told me that i needed to use my talent to help people less fortunate than me. so i found an organization called chemo angels. i applied online and they matched me up with a young mom in pennsylvania. this woman had a husband and three small children. and she was in the fight of her life. it didn't take long for me to realize how blessed i was. i'd pray for this woman day in and day out. send her cards. pray some more. cry. we didn't really ever communicate back and forth until one day she wrote me back. and it was the most surreal thing. it was like we had known each other forever. i know that God put her in my path for a reason. i know that i was supposed to be there to support ann marie through her crisis, but little did she know that she was helping me through mine. i could never thank her enough for what she has given me.

and PRAISE GOD that she is cancer free!

here we are at lunch at the grand lux.

it's a sister company to the cheesecake factory. to say that lunch was delicious would be an understatement. in fact, they make your dessert from scratch, so you have to order it at the beginning of your meal so it can be finished by the time you finish your meal. we ordered the rustic apple pie. those big chunky sugar crystals were so tasty!

we were obviously very, very happy we ordered this!!!

after lunch, we headed down to the medical center. i wanted to take ann marie to the cancer survivor pavillion. only fitting since she's a cancer survivor!

on top of seeing this pavillion, she got to see how out of control the quinceaneras are around here. and the crazy houston weather. i'm sure she loved it being nice one minute, downpour and humidity the next. so much for our hairdo's!

our visit went by so fast, but we are already planning our next visit. we look forward to coming to see y'all in pennsylvania this summer!

i was sad to leave ann marie, but i came home to these cutie pies!

isn't this the sweetest picture ever? brandon was just cracking up at jared getting sugars from his cheek and neck!

and then me and my baby boy (thanks to jared for taking these!)

4 months

brandon's getting HUGE! we cannot believe he is already four months old! seems like just yesterday we were at the hospital waiting for him to make his entrance into the world. time needs to slow down...seriously!

(see auntie crystal...we love the moon statue that you sent us. it matches his nursery perfectly!)

on to brandon's 4 month stats.........

• has discovered his thumbs and loves to suck on them when he can't find his pacifier
• weighs 16.5 lbs.

• oops! i forgot to measure his length this month!

• no more mommy juice. i just wasn't producing enough

• drinking at least 5 8 oz. bottles of similac early shield formula
• smiles and smiles and smiles

• laughed for the first time when we were in dallas over easter
• still loves it when i talk in that really annoying high-pitched voice
• now he copycats in that same annoying high-pitched voice!

• is really starting to get tickled when i get sugars from his chin/neck
• sleeping through the night (first time friday, april 10)

• usually has about 2 naps per day
• is starting to play under his floor gym more often (because mommy knows it's time to stop holding him so much!)
• does not like to lay in your arms like a "baby"...he wants to sit or stand up

• still loves to hold on to his camo and polka dot lovies (burp cloths) from steve-o and katie

• celebrated his first easter
• loves his swing and watching mickey mouse clubhouse while i take of chores or jared and lauren

• is getting so alert and aware of things going on around him

• first trip to the beach (april 19)
• did i mention that this kid is always smiling?!?!?!

• still has gorgeous slate blue eyes

• will sit in his horsie jumperoo and gets so excited when the music starts to play!

and a HUGE thank you to my sweet friend jennifer in utah who made him two beautiful blankets. this green one being one of them. you are so sweet to me and my children. love you girl!

can you believe this?

as if melissa hadn't done enough...

she sends this.

and oh my. it's heavenly. i love chocolate dipped anything.

i should have been sending her something to thank her for making the trip here.

the funniest though, is the man that delivered it called me on my cell phone when i didn't answer the door at the house. i was in the carpool line at the time. so he drove to the school and delivered it to me there. you can imagine the looks i got. i wonder if some of them tried to guess why i got a fruit bouquet! would be funny to find out! ha ha.

lis is going home and i'm so sad

i'm sad...and it's actually been over a month since she's left. i've been holding out on these blog entries because typing out how much fun we had while she was here makes me even sadder. notice i can barely say her name.

i often wonder if i would have graduated from pitt and gone to medical school if i had stayed. would i have settled there and had a family? so many what ifs. i wouldn't trade my life that i have now for anyone or anything, but i often wonder where i would be if i wouldn't have made the decision to move back to texas. i just know now that the distance between here and pittsburgh is just too far.

seeing lis with my kids was so much fun. i look forward to when she and randie have kids so i can go there and love on them. i wonder if they'll let their kids wear astros or aggie gear?!?!

here is a picture of lis and lauren before i took her to mother's day out. she loves her pittsburgh pirates shirt!

and here she is with my sweet little brandon. he looks REALLY cute in his pirates jammies!

thank you so much melissa for coming to houston to celebrate my birthday and for the fun memories. i know these aren't the last. so i'll hold on to that until our next visit! and don't you dare tell anyone about the tears at the airport!!! i have a reputation to uphold!

miss you so much already friend!!!

two girls and a baby!

after dropping off jared and lauren at school, we headed down to my mom's condo. she was so kind to come along with melissa and i. i wanted to get some pictures of us...i have about 38 friends picture frames. i need to fill them up with pictures of my friends!

here we are outside of her condo. it was so windy. and note to self...unless you are a stick thin model, baby doll shirts make you look FAT! here i am feeling all cute and sassy, but jeepers after seeing the pictures........i feel like big butt jabba the hut!

moving along......i wanted melissa to see the big water wall next to the williams tower. the sun was in the worst possible spot so the pictures weren't as good as i hoped for. we got sprayed pretty good, and my butt got wet thanks to climbing up on the wall to take this picture!

we walked around to this little park and brandon was just being so good. brandon got to see a mama duck with her babies. there were five babies. i was like, "do you think this is a sign brandon?!?!?" shoot. i can barely handle the three i have!!! maybe just one more!

here's my sweet little man! i know i say this in every blog entry, but i just can't get enough of this kid. he has the sweetest disposition. so the opposite of me! maybe that's why we get along so well!

we dropped off my mom (thanks for your help!!!) and then we headed to lunch. we ate at houston's.

i haven't eaten there in forever. but one thing i remembered was how yummy the spinach dip was. so we ordered it and a roast beef sandwich to share. boy was i right about the spinach dip. i know we ate more than we should have! i could have stopped right there (and i should have), but our main course arrived. the presentation was gorgeous, but the meat looked raw. i flagged the server down and she looked at me like i was crazy when i asked her to return it and bring it back well done! seriously, it needed to be cooked! when she returned it, it was nice and brown and lis and i ate it all!

after we stuffed ourselves, we headed to the medical center. i wanted to show her where jared and brandon spent the first weeks of their lives. the hospitals. the train. we went to the cancer survivor pavillion (where i had my bridal portraits taken) and mecom fountain. we had fun being goofy and then just spending time visiting while brandon chowed down on a bottle. one of the things i love about my friendship with melissa is that we could do nothing and have a great time.

here are some fun pictures that we took:

after james got home from work, lis and i headed out to her last supper minus the kids. we went to goode company and had bbq.

of course had to get a slice of pecan pie. and we had to take a picture to rub it in her dad's face! back when i was at pitt, i went to their house for thanksgiving. and in the middle of the night, i got up and ate the last piece of pecan pie. boy was he mad at me! ha ha. one day, i'm going to send mr. ralph a whole pie to make up for that! but until then, he can look at this picture of his daughter enjoying a slice of texas heaven!

let's not forget the crazy clown with the art car, trekking all over northwest houston for 14" tortilla shells, and staying up most of the night visiting. i'd give this trip a 9 out of 10. it would have been better if you could have stayed longer!

and we're off to galveston!

we were trying to think of fun things melissa would like to do while visiting us. james' stepmom suggested galveston. we haven't been there since last summer when we were at the beach house. we had no idea what the island would look like since the hurricane's destruction. but we decided to make the drive and see what we could see (or not see anymore).

melissa got to see our gorgeous downtown skyline, and then about 5 minutes later she got to see what houston traffic is all about! there was some major freeway construction (more like destruction) which was causing all sorts of headaches. i don't know who thought it would be a bright idea to shut 45 down and move everyone over to the feeder lanes. probably a man...

anyway......

we get down to galveston and we start seeing the destruction right away. piers are in pieces, historic restaurants are no longer where they stood, and check out this gas station!

and check out this house. tore up. but the weirdest thing was the little wallet sized photo that was taped to the wall. it looked like someone's big brother had messed up little sister's dollhouse!

we were starving so we stopped at the rainforest cafe. we had never eaten there, so we thought it would be a nice treat. yeah, if we hadn't brought lauren. that child was scared of the FAKE elephants that roared, the butterflies that flapped their wings. don't even ask what she did when their gecko mascot started roaming around the room taking pictures with kids. let's just leave it at EMBARRASSING for those of us in her party! although my dancing on a chair to celebrate my birthday (which round is this?!?!?) might have come close to that!!! there are pictures if you want to see...but i'm not posting them on this public blog for all the world to see!

on the way out of the restaurant, we saw one of those penny smashers. we love to get those every where we go. lauren looked so cute trying to get that smasher moving!

and she was sooooo proud of herself.

of course we had to take some pictures outside of the rainforest.

of course, i wouldn't be me if i didn't assault the gorilla!

and no...he was not harmed in pursuit of these photographs. and my husband is not jealous. he was the one taking the pictures!

we gave him some love before we got back on the road!

lunch was good and then we headed down to see if the beach house was still standing. it was still there, but the huge sand dunes and the crossover were all gone. the house next door to it was no longer there. it was sad, but we have many memories to cherish and soon enough we'll be back to enjoy our annual beach vacation. and little do the kids know...we'll be doing our beach vacation in the caribbean this year!!!

we did go over to the public beach area. we couldn't get to the beach in front of the beach house because the road had washed away. we unloaded all the toys and the big umbrella and headed for the water. of course......i pack everything in the car but forget the beach towels. we did not forget the sunscreen, and melissa got to hear first hand how annoying my husband can be about being in the sun.

"get in the shade, get in the shade, get in the shade" is about all i can remember about this part of the trip. look at melissa not listening to james! she is not in the shade. do you think that she will regret that?!?!?!

i was so annoyed by james saying "get in the shade" over and over that melissa and i took a walk to collect seashells and of course pictures of our feet! we're goofy! but having a blast!

thanks to melissa, i was finally able to get a halfway decent picture of me and brandon on his first trip to the beach!
and then we introduced brandon to the sand. unlike his brother and sister, he wasn't a big fan.

but i got the picture of sandy feet that i was hoping to get!

and lis with the kids before heading back to houston...

of course we had to stop at galveston island's state park and take a few pictures at the entrance sign. i always stop here to take pictures. some of my favorite beach pictures are from here. we climb in that circle and do all sorts of weird contortions!

we were going to drop james and the kids off at home and go out to dinner on our own, but i decided to torture melissa a little bit more with my kids! we went to texas land & cattle for dinner. thank goodness dinner was good. my kids...my husband...ack...not so much! we dropped them off at the house and then we went to the movies. we went to see "he's just not that into you." i just love it! especially in the last scene where he tells her "you're my exception!" i can sooo feel a scrapbook page coming on from that!!!

you'd think after a nice relaxing movie, we could come back to the house and have a marathon girl chat. but no.......jared left us a nice surprise all over his bed, the floor, his bunny, the bathroom and the guest room. remember those onion strings?!?!? G-R-O-S-S is all i have to say about that!!! i sure do hope he feels better tomorrow!!!

today was a long day, but we had a lot of fun. i'm sad that melissa's trip is half over. i'm wondering if her family will miss her if we keep her?!?!?! probably......

oh.........about the melissa regretting not listening to james' incessant "get in the shade" remarks, i think she wishes she had. now she has a bright red sunburn! ha ha ha. he was driving us nuts, but he was right! (and this is the only time i will admit that!!!)

lis is in h-town!

melissa arrived in houston at lunchtime in the midst of an awful thunderstorm. thank goodness for pappasito's to take our minds off of the ugliness! we had a good lunch. i brought jared and lauren with me. i thought that they would behave. but i was wrong. i don't know what has gotten into my kids lately. they can't sit still at the table. jared's dropping food all over the place, lauren's up and down, up and down. drives me nuts. i'm this close to saying what my mom used to say..."that's it, i'm never taking you out again!" now i know why she said that!

after lunch, we headed back to the house. thank goodness for miss hilda and miss lucy for helping me get the house clean. they were here 6 hours cleaning this house from top to bottom. we got melissa's stuff settled in the guest room and then we just visited for a few hours before my mom and harold arrived.

did i mention this is round 4 of my birthday? ha ha. since we didn't get to go with mom and harold to the astros game last night, they came up here to go out to dinner with us. before we left, mom took some pictures of lis and i and with the kids.

one of mom and harold before we left for dinner:

i picked a yum hibachi restaurant down the street. danielle and taylor came to celebrate too. we had a great chef tonight. he did the best volcano that we have ever seen! there was fireworks and lava!
jared is getting good at using his chopsticks! he pretty much used them the entire meal.

lauren trying to master using her chopsticks too. and see what i mean...she's sitting in grammy's lap instead of her own chair!!!
and surprise, surprise...here's our happy little boy!

and taylor!

some more pics of lis and i...

the whole lot of us.

after dinner, everyone came back over to our house and we played taboo. mom and harold, james and taylor, and me and lis were teams. it was a lot of fun. i'm super competive. so is my mom. taylor giggles too much. james takes too long to give clues. harold uses really big vocabulary words. i'm sure you want to know who won right?!?!? of course, L squared won! go lindsay and lis!!!

i had a really great 4th birthday celebration! thanks everyone for coming out (especially lis for making the trip all the way from pennsylvania!)...and for the gifts too!

so super glad that melissa is finally here! we have lots to catch up on!