Blossoming Beauties

Good Times, Sunshine, and Summertime

Matt and Marissa came in town this weekend from NYC and had a pool party this past Saturday! We had so much fun seeing them again and hope they come back for some Cowboy games in the Fall. Slone and I are hoping that we can save up some money to go see them sometime next summer!

Summer Softball

Slone and I drove to Lewisville Wednesday night so he could play on Brent's softball team. Miss Haylea was there and I got some silly pics of her.











We win!

oh, puuhhllleeaasssee!

So mom and Reagan are back at the beach again this week. Totally jealous of them! The water in this picture looks beautiful. I'm quite surprised considering the oil spill.



Reagan found sand dollars - you go girl!

Little dinosaur

Braxton copies everything Brandon does now. If Brandon claps two times, so will Braxton. If he claps three times, Braxton will clap three times. He also says momma now but won't do it for the camera, little stinker. That baby is too smart and I cannot wait to see him next month!!

Here he is copying Brandon and Katelyn by "fake laughing." I think he sounds like a baby Tyrannosaurus Rex. :)

Busy Bees

This weekend was packed full of fun. Friday night we went to our favorite spot, Joe T Garcia's. We met up with some of the guys that Slone played ball with at Texas Wesleyan.

Then Saturday we headed to Dallas to play Whirlyball with our Home group. We had never heard of it but was told that it was a mix of bumper cars, lacrosse, and basketball. We celebrated the graduation of 3 high school seniors (hence the ratio of kids to adults in this photo). It was so much fun and I can't wait to play it again!











Saturday afternoon, I headed to our pool and caught a few rays then we headed to Jon and Heather's at the last minute to hang out and eat chicken tacos. Heather made some amazing food and Slone made sure I left with the recipe. Needless to say we crashed pretty hard that night.





Naked baby alert!


Behold! An almost naked baby :)



Sunday was a day of relaxation and more pool time for me. Since both of our dads live in another state we called and talked to them for a while and then spent the rest of the night hanging out around the house.

Oh, What A Night!

Mammy gave me her fudge pie recipe and I wanted to make it for home group last night. So I went to the store and got all the ingredients and headed home to start baking. When I began to read the recipe, it said "one frozen pie crust." I initially saw "pie crust" and thought "oh, I'll just get the graham cracker kind." WRONG! Apparently, those aren't for baking...I had to go back to Kroger with an hour to spare before our home group would arrive at our house and the pie has to bake for at least 40 minutes! So I take the back road, Perkins, to Kroger and I must admit, I was speeding and in a hurry! Perkins is very "hilly" and I noticed a truck ahead of me get over into the lane to the left of me and slam on his brakes. When I got over a small hill, I noticed that he had stopped completely and I couldn't figure out what was going on. I slam on my brakes and realize that a momma duck and her 7 babies are crossing the street! It was such a beautiful sight, but let me just state for the record that Perkins is busy at 6:00pm and I am quite shocked that the little family made it across the street. Thank God I noticed why everyone was stopping! A really cute aspect of it was that I was in the front of the stopped cars so I got to see them scurry across the road right in front of me. The babies were so short that they couldn't quite make it up on the curb, so it kind of created this ripple effect because they kept trying to get up and they kept bumping into each other. They did make it up and I'm sure they are now at the lake!

Back to the pie story. So I am frantically trying to find the right pie crust in Kroger. That's a success so I got back home and started baking. I love baking and I am learning one day at a time. I follow the directions on the recipe and pray that it turns out as good as Mammy's! Both pies turned out great and they were both gone by the end of our bible study. Yay! I will be able to look back on this when I'm older and laugh at how much I stressed out over making one little pie.

Cracks me up every time!

Braxton's first trip to the beach

While the timing wasn't great considering the oil spill, my family had a great time in Gulf Shores. The water wasn't as bad as they expected but they did see tar balls washed up on shore that looked like cow patties. Slone and I couldn't join them this year because of finances and summer school but I hope that we can save our money to go next year!








I love this baby and miss him so much!

Bird watchin' like his Jo Jo

Date night at P F Changs

I love our date nights, Slonie :)

For Slonie

"Mock-yeah-ing-yeah-bird-yeah-Mockingbird"
- Harry and Lloyd, Dumb & Dumber

The Thunder Rolls, and the Lightnin' Strikes

Yesterday Brandon told me that while my dad was out of town, lightning struck a lamp post in his backyard. After calling my dad to make sure everything was ok, he informed me of the damage that was done. I never knew lightning could do so much in one strike:

• when it struck, it uprooted almost everything in the backyard.
  
• it went under the house and busted water pipes within and knocked out the phone lines. my dad had just hung up new plasma tv's which now only show black and white picture.
• it blew the patio (directly beneath the deck) up through the deck boards.
  

I'm so thankful that no one was hurt, especially all the sweet dogs that he has. He said that the rest of the yard looked like someone planted a bomb and set it off because everything was so out of place. For those of you that know me, you know that I look for God's presence in all situations. I have really been praying for my dad lately and through this, God confirmed that He is hearing my prayers and doing work in my dad's life.

This was where the patio bricks were underneath the deck.


This is the deck after the bricks were blown through it. I asked my dad if those two boards were like that when he got home and noticed the damage and he said yes. God confirms things in the most mysterious ways.

Beautiful moment

I heard about this story this morning on Good Morning America and it brought me to tears. The baby in this video was born deaf and had cochlear implants put in so that he would be able to hear. This video is of him hearing his mom speak to him for the first time. It's so beautiful!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-O8BwGSWpTw

A little insight

This past weekend was eye opening for us! A friend from our church homegroup asked us to watch her 1 year old, Casen, overnight beginning Saturday afternoon. After talking with Slone about it, we decided that we could handle it. So we took care of her sweet baby boy from Saturday afternoon until Sunday afternoon. Saturday night we took him to Chuck-E-Cheese! He had so much fun and Brent and Haylea were there as well. Haylea was so curious about why Casen did a lot of the things he did (he's only 1 and she's 3). But they had a blast together and Casen fell asleep in the car on the way home. Heather, Casen's mom, had told us that he is a little spoiled because she lets him sleep with her at night. Slone and I figured that we would let him fall asleep with one of us and then lie him in his pack-n-play for the rest of the night. That was a no-go. He immediately realized what we had done and began to cry big gigantic tears. My initial reaction was to run to the rescue but Slone suggested letting him cry himself back to sleep. This was quite a shock because I know how much Slone loves his sleep :) Since Heather had told us that she does this sometimes, we tried it. So after what felt like forever to me, (but was really only about 15 minutes), he went back to sleep in his pack-n-play. He woke up at about 8:30 the next morning and I was surprised at my alertness when I heard his sweet little voice calling to us from the end of our bed. I fed him breakfast and we watched his favorite movie, Little Einstein. He ended up taking two naps that day before he left.

Sunday night, Slone and I decided to go out to eat since we had been in the house all day with Casen. As we sat outside in the cool night air, I realized how quiet it was and told Slone that I missed the little guy. I had baby fever for a while after my first nephew was born and then realized the freedom that Slone and I have without children right now. We can finish school, get focused on our careers, stay out late, sleep in on Saturdays and go on road trips whenever we want. Once I realized that, I was grateful that it was just the two of us for right now. However, not having Casen Sunday night, made me realize how excited I am to start a family, whether it be now or two years from now. There's just something about holding a child that age in your arms as they tuck their arms into your chest and rest their sleepy eyes in your trusting arms. God totally has it all planned out for us and I am (sometimes) patient with His timing. :)