Autumn Fun

I am so glad that the weather is starting to get a little cooler (if you can call 70 degrees f "cool", but compared to the 100+ degree weather this is a nice change!) and about time too, its the middle of October! I love the fall. It is my favorite season. The beautifully warm colors, cool weather, falling leaves...college football... :)

Because Mark and I love the months of October and November so much, we have planned things to do with the boys practically every Saturday that has to do with fall. Last Sunday (we skipped going Saturday because the weather was so warm and humid), we went to a pumpkin patch near where we live. It was perfect weather. Not hot, but not too cold either. They had a play set for the kids, some animals such as pigs, roosters, llamas, goats and rabbits; a corn maze, and a hayride. It is your small, quaint farm that gives off a distinctly "country autumn" atmosphere.


Despite the expression on his face, Elias loved the pumpkin patch. He would not crack a smile though.


At first Christian wanted to behave like Elias and keep looking away and not smiling, but it didn't last long. He is such a ham :)





Love my boys.


At one point Christian ran around the farm pretending to be an airplane.


Elias and I watching Christian play.

This weekend it is Pumpkins in the Park at Turtle Creek in Dallas. I am sure Christian will want to pick out a few more pumpkins. Our house is slowly being filled with pumpkins of all sizes. Happy fall!

State Fair

Yesterday Mark, Christian, and I went to the State Fair of Texas. It was both Mark and Christian's first time to go. Well, technically Mark had been to the fair back in October 2008 when we attended the Texas/OU game with friends, but all we really did was a walkthrough after the game. Yesterday, we walked the entire fair and tried to do everything there was to do. We got back home exhausted, legs aching, but having had an awesome time. We now plan to go twice next year!


Iconic symbol of the State Fair (besides Big Tex)



Start of the day.


Having fun on a ride. Christian loved to scream his approval on all 3 of the rides he was on :)


Captivated by the dog show.






Although we tried a lot of the fried food the Fair boasts of, the hit of the day remained the cheapest food item. Popcorn :) Such a fun day.

Letterboxing

I think I have found my new addiction. Letterboxing. Have you ever heard of it? I hadn't until visiting my favorite scrapbooking website and then I hurried on over to letterboxing.org to read more about it. Its amazing! All over North America people letterbox...and I had no idea until a few weeks ago!

Basically, people hide a book, or notebook, or pad of paper or anything that means something to them in an air tight box and leave clues on letterboxing.org for others to find and leave their mark. It can be a stamp (what is generally done), or a signature and date, or whatever.

What I did this evening was look up boxes near where we live to find one to stamp. At first I didn't narrow down the dates well enough and was coming up with boxes near us with old dates, such as 2003, 2004, etc. Crazy! This has been going on for years! Well, I finally narrowed it down to boxes recently hidden and found one super close to where we live (won't give it away unless someone else wants to find it!) and the hunt was on! We took our stamp and inkpad and drove to the location of the box. At first Christian and I had a tough time finding it, but then we spotted it:


Christian is small enough to fit in that small opening and had no problem with going in there to drag the box partially out. Needless to say, we both emerged a bit dusty after our sojurn in the dirt. :)

Once I opened it I found a notepad with the team's name on it and when I opened the first page, two other stampers had beat us to it. The box had been hidden September 9, 2013 and we were the third ones to find it!


Christian loved stamping the notebook.


And here is our stamp. We are wanting to start our own letterbox, and in the meantime we will be letterboxing and stamping away. So if you ever come across this particular stamp, you might have found where we've been. :)

Happy Thursday!

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Dedication

I know this is a couple weeks late, but on September 29, Elias was dedicated at our church.This is a very momentous occasion both for the parents and the baby. It is a pledge by the parents and the congregation to raise their baby in the Lord. To dedicate them to God.

Dedication is based on the Biblical principal giving the parents the great and solemn priviledge of modeling how to love and and follow Christ. When they are older and can understand, they will need to make the decision for themselves to follow God.

What I love so much about dedication is that it also gives the congregation of the church a share in the responsibility to help us model Christ and teach our children how to love God. Like a clowd of witnesses. It is such a beautiful promise, and a wonderful undertaking; one that Mark and I, as the parents take very seriously.


This is the picture that was displayed before the dedication.

The moments I live for...

My children are making me old. I don't necessarily mean they are aging me, or they make me feel old by all the wear and tear my body goes through while parenting, (running after Christian, playing with them, swinging them around, lifting them, etc...) but rather that time seems to pass by at breakneck speed. The days run together in one beautiful, messy, and delicious mixture that is both gratifying and bittersweet. I look at pictures from even 3 months ago and can't believe that Elias is so much older, so much bigger, and so changed. A year ago Christian had a delightful way of speaking that would make Mark and I laugh. Example: "Mommy, I like these shoes. No". It was his way of telling us whether he liked or disliked something. So precious.

Because time is swiftly taking flight, I try to be extra cognizant of the time I have right now with my family. I try to savor every moment (yes, even the tantrums!) because I know that even in a couple of months, next year, two years...everything will be different and we will be making new memories; ones that evolve over time with the changing of seasons and the aging of the kids. However, as much as I dislike time going by so fast and the fact that Christian and Elias are growing up so quickly, I am eternally grateful every day that I have with them. Every day is a gift, and I try to appreciate every moment.

Moments I live for right now:

*When I come back from the grocery (or wherever) and Christian runs up to give me a hug and says "Mommy, you're back!"

*When I put Elias down in the crib in our room after his last feeding (still don't want to put him in his own room! I know I will need to soon) and he is still awake, how he immediately rolls over onto his stomach and cranes his neck as far up as it will go to look at me and smile.

*When Christian asks me, "Can Christmas PLEASE be here now?"

*When Christian sings to Elias the little song we have made up for him.

*The sound of Elias' infectious giggle as he is being tickled.

*The way Elias watches every move Christian makes when he sees him.


These are just some of the moments that make everything worth it.

An Eventful Month

The month of September has been very busy for us. Everything from switching gymnastic gyms, birthday parties, to baby showers, to getting ready to participate at a consignment sale, to a new niece being born, to Elias' baby dedication at church today, we have been on the run constantly. I like staying busy, however, the time tends to pass at a much more frenetic pace and when things settle down and I can take a breath, I notice that my children are that much older...which is bittersweet.


Christian was taking gymnastics at ASI, which is an awesome gym and one I will probably start Elias at as well when he gets older. At the end of August his coach at ASI told us he needed to move to an advanced class because of his age. Because he has been at ASI since before he turned two years old, I did not want to move to another gym. Logically it worked best to put him in another class at ASI. It would be the first class on his own; without parent participation. So, I started looking. Every class was full. I was pretty disappointed because, as a creature of habit I did not want to look elsewhere. However, ASI is about 30 minutes away from where we live, and with rush hour traffic it easily would take us an hour to make it out to his gym, so I did some online research and found Empire which is only 10 minutes away. Christian attended a trial class and loved it, and I was pretty impressed with the facility, the drive of the teachers and gymnasts, and the fact that there were a lot of serious male gymnasts, so we made the switch. Christian has attended 3 classes so far and I have definitely seen an improvement in his skill set and motivation.


On September 7, my sister Triana and I threw my sister Nadia a baby shower, which turned out super cute and fun.


I actually got this idea from pinterest and thought it was SUPER cute. I really wanted to do a more original baby shower with a vintage feel.


Everything turned out so cute, and we had so much fun :)

And just a few weeks later, Sofia made her debut 2 weeks ahead of schedule! Nadia and Vhee are very happy parents, and Sofia is healthy and adorable.

Today was Elias' baby dedication at church, but I will save that post for another day :) .

It has been a while... The last time I updated this blog was in 2011! So much has happened since then...life has been crazy busy; a whirlwind of events and life changes within the past couple of years. January 28, 2013 I had another baby boy we named Elias Alan. He is such a baby joy :) Our sweet little tadpole.

December 2012 I graduated with my MBA, which was such a relief. However, I have traded the busyness of studying, taking tests, writing papers, and completing projects to the whirlwind of raising two children, but I would not have it any other way!

*Pictures 1, 3, and 4 taken by the amazing Amanda.