Our first decade

Today is our 10th anniversary. It's hard to believe it's been 10 years since we got married! About 30 minutes from right now I was getting ready to walk down the aisle to start the rest of my life. I'm thankful to have such a wonderful husband who is loving and kind and has turned out to be a fantastic father (not that I ever had any doubts!)

Here are a few pictures from June 12, 1999.

Hannah was 4 and Katie & Lauren were almost 7. They're so little here and are such pretty, grown-up girls now.

A pre-church miracle!

You'd think it would be easy to leave at 9:15 for church when we're all up by about 7:00, but for some reason we're usually rushing to get out the door. Today we were actually ready a little early, so I took the opportunity to take a few pictures.

Recent life

A few recent pictures of my boys . . . This is one of my all-time favorite pictures of Luke & Noah.

Arrrrrgh, matey! Mother's Day
Gary & Luke went on an Adverture Guides campout last weekend. Friday was beautiful, but a cold front blew in about 3:00 Saturday morning, and they had to come home early because the day was a washout. This picture is from Friday, before the deluge.

Luke was up till about 11:30 Friday night and didn't sleep well, so he was exhausted on Saturday.

Sandra and Baby Allison

I helped throw a shower for my friend Sandra a couple of weeks ago. It was really nice, and I think Sandra enjoyed herself. These pictures are out of order because I couldn't rearrange them for some reason.My friend Adriane made this tutu to go with a really cute onesie I gave Sandra. I can't wait to see Allison in it!

The guests of honor

My friend Denise made this cake - isn't it the cutest cake ever? Man, I have some talented friends!

Yikes!

It seems as though we are under a severe thunderstorm warning every other day around here, but we experienced something brand new last night. About 7:30 we were in the middle of a second round of thunderstorms; there was plenty of thunder and lightning, but nothing nearly as severe as some of the storms I've seen here. Gary was in Noah's room reading books to him, and Luke and I were in the living room watching TV when I heard the loudest, closest crack of thunder I've ever heard and saw a bright flash of light. Luke & I ran to the front of the house to try to figure out what happened. Gary said he thought lightning might have hit the house. We soon discovered it hadn't, thank goodness, but our neighbors told us they saw the bolt that nearly hit the house. Regardless of what the lightning hit, it did some damage. Here's a list of the things in our house that are no longer working and where they are located in our house:

-Internet & phone (OK, these are working now, but it's only because the AT&T guy just left about 30 minutes ago, but the lightning fried the modem last night): Gary's office
-the printer in Gary's office
-one of our garage door openers (OK, this is working now, too, but it was out for a while)
-the HVAC system
-the base to our cordless phone that was in our living room (the lamp that was plugged into the same outlet, however, is fine)
-DVD player in our living room (the TV and satellite dish that are plugged into the same power strip are undamaged)
-the Wii in our living room

Even though we could potentially have to spend thousands of dollars to fix/replace these items, I'm so thankful that we're not having to replace our entire house. I think we got very lucky that the house didn't get struck. I told Luke this morning that our neighbor saw the bolt that nearly hit us and that God was watching out for us because the house didn't get hit, and he said it was because God put a force-field around our house. I agree.

We were all on edge last night, and neither one of the boys fell asleep until nearly 9:00. Gary is pretty stressed today, trying to figure out ways to fix some of this stuff, and I'm still trying to understand why some things got damaged when others didn't (I'm sure I'll never figure this one out!) I'm just glad I still have a roof over my head and a working computer!

Slacker

I have become a blog slacker. I have the best intentions to update it more frequently, but inevitably it gets pushed to the bottom of my to-do list every day. So, I'm finally taking the time to give an update on us.

-Noah is quite the chatterbug lately. He is saying new words all the time, and many of the words he's been saying for a while he now says more clearly. A few exceptions to this are "vacuum" (which sounds like "mamu"); "ice cream" (there is no way I can explain how he says this word - it's bizarre!); "music" (which sounds like "hehaw"); and "basketball" (which sounds like "badudu").

-Noah is a very polite little boy. He says "bless you" when anyone sneezes, says "excuse me" when air of any sort comes out of his body", says "thank you" when you give him something, and uses "please" most of the time. It's really charming.
-Speaking of charm, Noah oozes charm and personality.
-Last week at school Luke's teacher chose him to be the line leader for the entire week. Apparently this is quite an honor.
-Luke also received the Tribes Award for his class for the month of April. This award is given to the student who consistently shows respect and is a good example. Way to go, Luke!!
-Luke's soccer team won their game last week! This is only the second game they've won over the past two years. Luke scored 4 goals. He's developed into a really good little soccer player.

Luke getting recognition at Friday Live for receiving the Tribes Award.

Mimi

My mom spent the last week with us, and we had a great visit. Noah was, for the most part, really friendly with her. We both figured he wouldn't want much to do with her because he's so very two right now, but he must have said 100 times, "Hold you, Mimi." He loved playing with her and having her read books to him. Luke woke her up every morning to play a game with him, and he even got in bed with her a couple of times. It was a nice break for me to have her here. We all miss her and can't wait to see her this summer!

Tooth #2

Luke lost his second tooth on Monday! He lost it at school during PE, and his teacher gave him a little tooth-shaped box to keep the tooth in. I prepared him for the fact that the tooth fairy doesn't bring as much money for second teeth as for first, so he wasn't disappointed when he only found a dollar in the morning. He looks really cute with both bottom teeth missing.

1-2-3

What's missing?

Luke lost his first tooth this morning! He's has a loose tooth for about 3 weeks, and this weekend, another was loose. It's this second loose tooth that actually fell out today. It was barely hanging on, and I've been trying to pull it out for the last 2 days, but Luke wouldn't let me. This morning I went out to get the paper, and when I came back in, Luke was holding his tooth and said, "It just came out!" He was eating his vitamins and chewed with his front teeth, and his tooth came out. This it Twinkle Toof, a special box to hold the tooth. Luke will put the box under his pillow tonight (and expects to get $5 - that's the going rate for a first tooth!!)
Can you tell how very excited he is to have lost a tooth??

Spring break

We went down to San Antonio on Thursday for a little spring break trip. It was a whirlwind, complete with sleeping issues and a full-on five-and-a-half-year-old meltdown, but overall we had a good time.

On the riverwalk in San Antonio.
Noah slurped up the last of his ice cream. When it comes to sweets, both of my boys take after me.
Feeding the dolphins at Sea World.

Waiting for the Shamu show "Believe" to start.


Back on the riverwalk on Friday night.
For those of you who don't remember, Gary has a cousin Micajah Autry who fought and died at the Alamo. If Gary had gotten his way, we would have named Noah Micajah. Or Autry. I had to say no.
Remember the Alamo!

Luke's inner gorilla came out an hour or so after dinner. He had a super-mega meltdown at the hotel. He was so tired from being up till after 10:00 the night before, that he just lost it about 7:15 Friday night. He was drawing but was very frustrated that nothing was turning out like he wanted. He was screaming and crumpling paper up, and when I told him to do something else, he said, "But you told me to draw!" Then he decided he needed some tape and kept screaming, "I need tape!" I kept telling him he needed to calm down, to which he replied, "I can't calm down! I need some help!" He did indeed need some help! He eventually calmed down and was asleep by about 7:45. It was a rough evening, but I can laugh about it now.

Here's another gem from Luke:

-"Did you know that dolphins only have teeth on the bottom . . . and the top?" He said these words, verbatim, on the way back to the hotel from Sea World. There have been lots of times that he's started a sentence with "Did you know" followed by something interesting he's learned at school. This wasn't one of those times.

Because he can

Noah's latest trick.

The tag in this hat says 12-24 months. Luke wore it when he was 6 months old. Noah's wearing it at 2. Does that clearly show the difference in the size of their heads?

Eavesdropping

Last night when Luke was talking to Gary on the phone, I think Gary asked Luke to guess where he was. Luke didn't know, and Gary must have told him to guess a state. Luke said, "I know lots of states. South Carolina, Texas, Australia." The child can do simple multiplication, but he thinks Australia is a state. Calculus is in his future, but not the geography bee.

Spring soccer

Luke's first soccer game was yesterday. In the past, his team has not done that well. In fact, the last game of last season was their first win. Whatever momentum they had at the end of the season carried over into yesterday's game. The game was a tie, and they played really well. I am so proud of the progress Luke has made. He's really good at defense, and he's starting to get the hang of the game.

Even though it was about 74, it was really windy and pretty chilly. I'm glad I keep a blanket in the van. We spent most of the fourth quarter like this.

A boy of many talents

Luke first did this activity on his field trip a couple of weeks ago. You can tell he planned this structure - it's not just a bunch of marshmallows randomly stuck to toothpicks. This is a really good example of the way his mind works.

Luke's team ended the season 5-3, and while he was by no means a basketball super-star by the end, he had definitely made some improvements. Gary really enjoyed coaching the boys. I'm pretty sure their favorite part of the season was getting a trophy after the last game.

Seen and heard

I've had concerns for a while about whether Noah is delayed in his speech. I now know he is not. He seems to say something new every day, and he's gotten really good at putting two and three words together. Here are a few things we hear frequently around our house:

-"big blue blankie"
-"ow hurt eye" (or ear or something else . . . I think he's going to be a hypochondriac)
-"Hi, Bubba/Daddy/Mommy!"
-"ma-mu (vacuum) Daddy" (yes, my husband does indeed do the vacuuming)
-"more nandy" (candy)
-"nandy mouf" (mouth)
-"nandy nandy nandy" (are you seeing a pattern here?)
-"big potty/truck/chair"

He says lots of other phrases, too. It's still funny to hear him say more than one word at a time because he just started doing it about a month ago.

Just to make sure everyone remembers how wacky Noah is, here are a few recent pictures. I'll have to pull this picture out when we do a yearbook dedication page for Noah his senior year.