Summer Sum-up

We started out this summer with a bang. Luke had his First birthday on June 9th. We decided it would be easier (and cheaper) to keep it to a small family party. He had a Basketball court cake that we all ate and a his own personal basketball cake to mees himself up with. We made birthday hats and had a great time. It was also great that Grandma & Grandpa Draper could be in town for the festivities.
It is always fun to have them come for a visit because I get great company AND my house gets renovated! Woohoo! It was especially nice to have company while Josh was at work during the day. I get lonesome sometimes and their visit was the perfect remedy. I absolutely LOVED how this summer's project turned out. The big project taken on was (drum roll please)...,"Painting the downstairs." Goodbye burnt orange and kelly green, hello neutral! I also now have a chocolate brown accented fireplace wall!! Hooray. I feel so calm and peaceful in my home now instead of constantly feeling stimulated with bold colors. Don't get me wrong, I love color, but I usually prefer color in my accessories.
Toward the end of the summer our family took our first road trip to Utah. We stayed for 2 weeks. It was fun for us and the kids to touch base with everyone there. No one in Utah had seen Luke since he was born. This was the perfect opportunity for the kids to meet and reacquaint themselves with the family.
When I asked Isabella what her favorite part of the trip was she said, "The pinata at the family reunion, and Grandpa's swings." It's true. She really did LOVE that clown pinata and both of the kids couldn't get enough of Grandpa's swing set (how big is that thing, like 20 feet high??). They also enjoyed feeding the horses, watching humming birds and playing on the "Up & Down" chair at great grandma's house. It was a great visit. Oh, and Kyle...Thank you for pushing the kids almost non-stop on those swings!! You are fabulous!! I wanted to also thank Jody and Michelle for the clothes. It makes life a whole lot easier (and cheaper) because of you!
Since returning home Josh has been released as ward mission leader. He is now the gospel doctrine teacher. He also started his new job this week working as the new Assistant Principal at Old Settlers Elementary School in Flower Mound. Josh has worked so hard. I am so proud of him. We are so happy and so blessed.
Speaking of blessings, did I mention that we will be welcoming a new baby GIRL to our family? Our new arrival is expected at the beginning of February! We've decided on the name,"Elizabeth Adele". We are anxious to meet her. Isabella is too. She is constantly walking around the house with a baby doll stuffed under her shirt. She even has me feel her tummy when her baby kicks! Too cute.
Another cute thing Isabella did recently was writing a Christmas list to Santa during sacrament meeting. It was unusually quiet (this usually means that she's up to no good). Well, I looked over to find her scribbling away on a notepad saying,"I want strawberry shortcake for Christmas". This phrase was repeated several times. I think she scribbled out 5 or 6 pages to Santa by the time she moved on to some other activity. I suppose I should have to remember this "strawberry shortcake" thing within the next couple of months.
Luke loves balls and cars. He recently has started to dance too. His favorite song right now is the song from the cat in the hat tv show where their is talk of going on an adventure with the cat in the hat and his thing-a-mi-jigger. He also has taken up an interest in dogs and will walk around the house panting like one.
My kids are so great. It's fun to watch them grow and experience the ups of life. I can do without the "downs" thank you very much.

Surprise!!

Isabella woke us up at 3:45 this morning. Shortly after putting her back to bed I found out from those nifty dollar store tests that we will be expecting our 3rd child in February. Surprise!! We are all so excited. Isabella wants a baby sister. I guess we'll have to wait a little while longer to answer that one. I'm so gald that it's getting nice outside. The kids have been getting so anxious. It's been so stormy recently that they've all been cooped up inside the house. Now I can open the back door and let them out to be as loud as they want and play to their little hearts content. I'm excited fo the city pools to open up. That will make the nice weather that quickly turns into unbearable heat, much more enjoyable.
Speaking of fine weather, we just got back from a wonderful Memorial Day weekend down at the lake. It was so fun to see everyone again. My favorte part was going on the boat with Isabella and swimming in the lake with Josh and Luke. A close second would be the night when all of us siblings (and Josh) sat down and played a good ol' game of D&D together. What a great time we had.

Luke plays chase:

Follow the Prophet:

Baptism song:

Football with daddy

Uncle Dane does a trick:

Master's Degree

This last weekend was an eventful one. On Saturday, May 1, 2010 Josh Graduated with his Master's in Education from Concordia University!! Hooray! His classes don't actually end until the end of July, but lets face it, he's pretty much done. It definitely was a struggle for all of us to get through. It's really such a relief to know that it's over....finally! I recommend to anyone considering to go for a master's degree to do it when your kids are young. This way they won't remember how busy daddy was. I'm so happy to be able to spend more time with him. On Saturday we left our home in Lewisville at 6am to make the 4 hour drive to Austin Texas. Isabella called it our "Big Adventure". She loved being able to watch movies in the car (we save the dvd player for long journeys such as this). She also loved that mommy and daddy forgot to pack toys for her to play with during the graduation cerimony. When we got into town we made a stop at target and got a 7-pack of disney princess figures. We then had a little lunch and headed over to the graduation. Unfortunately, upon parking and unloading the kids from the car I accidentally bumped "Ariel". She fell out of the car and into a nearby rain gutter. If anyone knows how it rains in Texas, then you'll know of the monstrous rain gutters to which I am refering. Poor Ariel... I guess she went back to live "under the sea" after all. Suprisingly, Isabella took it extremely well. I mean, she did still have 6 other toys right? We all got changed, snapped a few pictures, and then entered the auditorium (of a church I can't remember the name of). The kids behaved as well as can be expected for young children during a 1 1/2 hour long event. We were glad when we got home. It had been a very long day. The next day at church I let Isabella play with my jewelry (as I sometimes do). We usually sit in the center of the chapel, but today we sat on one of the side sections...next to the floor vents. Yep, you guessed it. My wedding band fell down the vent. I thought I did a very good job of not doing some serious bodily harm or verbally lashing out at anyone. My heart sank, and I just had to hope that there might be someway to get it back. After sacrament meeting I tore up the vent cover in serach of my prized possession - to no avail. The ring had slid down the chute of the vent and was gone. We reported the loss to the bishop and he said he'd inform the maintenance guys to keep and eye out for it...sigh... Josh called me on Monday with the best news ever. The bishop had found my ring! Hooray!! What a great ending huh? I'm wearing it right now and I don't think I'll be letting Isabella play with my jewelry anytime here in the near future.

Luke Dances:

Show me that smile!

Easter 2010

I find myself getting more excited for each holiday that comes. Isabella is now 3 years old and is starting to enjoy the holidays in a "magical" sort of way. Even though Halloween, Christmas and Easter are over she still makes comments like:

"Mommy, I'm scared of pumpkins... jack-o-lanterns." (followed by a recounting of what happened when she went trick-or-treating).

"Mommy, did you see that?? I think I just saw Santa's sleigh."

"I'm a nice/good girl. The Easter Bunny will be happy."

It's so fun to hear her talk about it all.

So, a funny thing happened with Isabella this last week. Well, actually it wasn't funny when it happened. She was taking a little longer finishing up her dinner so Josh and I got up from the table and went about other things. Shortly after we left the table Bella came over crying and covering her face with her hands. I took her hands away and didn't notice anything except a watery eye. I assumed that she had poked it or something. It also happened to be her left eye. She had a clogged tear duct when she was born and also has allergies. So, it was not uncommon to see that particular eye get watery. Her crying seemed to be escalating and becoming more frantic. What on earth?? What could be wrong with this child? Through her tears and hysteria she managed to communicate that she had a piece of corn up her nose!! Josh and I looked at each other and thought, "Oh, crap! This is going to be one expensive trip to the emergancy room. All of that money for a stinking lousy piece of corn." We tried massaging it out... nothing, sneezing/blowing it out... nothing, we even tried holding her down and going at it with tweezers (yeah, that didn't happen either). I massaged it one more time and tried to coach her on how to properly "blow out" through your nose. She just couldn't figure out how to blow out. She kept sniffing in. Just when I had about given up hope she miraculously blew out through her nose (in between sniffs). The corn popped out!! Oh, but wait, she sniffed it back in! I quickly prevented her from sticking her finger up her nose and began massaging her nose from the top down. The corn slipped out very quickly after that. "Phew"...I'm glad that's over.

Luke is cruising pretty well around furniture and various objects. I believe he will most likely be walking within a month. His latest interest has been to have mommy or daddy (mostly daddy) chase him around the house in his walker. He's fairly quick in that thing. He will giggle and laugh to no end if someone will give him chase. It's pretty darn cute and entertaining to watch. He also has shown some interest in a toy microphone we have (the plastic one with the metal coil inside). He will pick it up and loudly make, "Ah!" sounds into it. That's fun to see too.

Josh is getting senioritis. He is only a couple short months from graduating with his master's degree in administration. He walks on May 1st and he can't HARDLY wait!! Me neither. As for me, nothing much has changed.

I'm still plugging away watching kids. Oh - and I did take part in a small talent show for relief society. A few girls and I did a "nerd herd" version of nsync's, "Bye bye bye." (you can see it on facebook if you want). Other than that, not much else. We hope everyone is doing well. See you around for the next post!

Luke crawls & stands by couch:


What Easter is all about:


Easter egg hunt with cousins:


Luke takes the mic:

Isabella is 3 Years Old!!

I can't believe that my little girl is already 3 years old. Time has passed so quickly. We have just finished our birthday extravaganza weekend. On Friday we had some of her cousins come over to have a pajama party and spend the night. On Saturday we had her friends over for a party, and Sunday we brought goodies to church to celebrate with her nursery class. It was so much fun, but I'm glad it's over. This was my first official kid party that I've done and I have to say that it's a lot of work. I think I might size it down for next year. We'll see. It seems that whenever a big project comes along I say, I'll never do anything like that again." As time passes I tend to want to get wrapped up in the similar activities that I said I wouldn't do again. I don't know, we'll see how I feel in a year I guess.
Isabella has had such a fun time. She gets super excited and runs around the house making "lalalalala" sounds and singing jingle bells and other Christmas songs. This is what she does when she gets excited. Isabella loves Tinker Bell, Spaghetti, twirling in dresses, playing with dolls (barbie and polly pocket-type dolls). She is also into playing doctor. She always wants people to take medicine and receive a blessing. It's cute watching her play by herself and with her friends. I love listening in on kid conversations. It's refreshing and fun. Life is so full of magic when you're young! I catch glimpses of that magic as I watch children experience life. There is nothing like being a parent. Sure, there it's a lot of hard work. Sometimes I want to pull my hair out and scream! But I have to say, that the rewards of parenthood out way the challenges by FAR. I love my children. They are so fun....I want more!Ha!
Luke turned 9 months old on the 9th of March. He is SO happy all the time. I love to hear him laugh. Consequently, I find myself trying everything in the book to make him laugh. some of my tactics range from tickling to peek-a-boo to dancing, to just about anything to get a laugh out of him. Lucky for me, I don't have to try very hard. He's very willing to oblige me with a giggle. He doesn't have any teeth yet, but is cruising around the furniture and can stand for a few seconds on his own. Pretty soon we'll have a walker on our hands. Isabella started walking at the end of 8 months. I'm grateful that Luke is a late bloomer. It saves me a lot of running around.
Josh has been having a lot of pain for a couple of months now. We didn't know exactly what was causing his pain or where it was stemming from. All we knew was that it was painful for him to walk, sit, run sleep, you name it. He's been to chiropractors and they don't seem to be helping. I finally scheduled a doctor's appointment for him. On the day of the appointment his doctor scheduled an emergency MRI for that same day. As it turns out, Josh has a herniated disc that is pinching a nerve. This is causing him to have no functioning control over his left leg. Scary huh? He has been given pain killers and some oral cortisone. This Friday he is scheduled for back surgery. We are all hoping that this surgery will finally fix the problems he has been having. I wanted to thank everyone for being so helpful and supportive to Josh and our whole family. We appreciate your prayers and concern for his well being.
Nothings new with me. I am still the Laurels advisor in our ward and I still babysit kids during the day. Life is so full of ups and downs. I like it that way. Otherwise it would be really boring right? Well, Thanks for reading and I'll keep you all posted.....when I eventually get around to another blog post. Sorry, I know I don't post as often as I should. I kind of have a love-hate relationship with my blog. Bye for now.....

Happy Birthday Phone Call From Grandma & Grandpa Draper:


Grandma & Papa Poyfair's Birthday Card:


Happy Birthday Cake:


Opening Gift From Grandma & Grandpa Draper:

Monster Blog Post!

I know I've been needing to make a post. Sorry for the delay..... Everyone is doing great for the most part. We had a great Christmas and are starting the new year off well. Luke started to crawl on his 8 month birthday. He now pulls himself up to his knees on pretty much anything he can find. He still loves to smile, and is beginning to be quite vocal. Isabella is obsessed with blowing kisses, high fives, and Valentine's Day. She had a lot of fun making cookies for and with her friends (the kids that I babysit). Now that it's over if she hears anyone say, "I love you" She will respond by saying, "I love you too..Happy Valentine's Day." Whenever I blow her a kiss she pretends to grab my kiss out of the air and eat it. She thinks it's hilarious. Who eats kisses? really? No one does, so it must be funny right? She is so much fun. Oh, and she can't WAIT until her Birthday party coming up next month. I love my kids! This year we received some snow!! This doesn't happen very often in Texas, let alone record breaking snow levels. It really wasn't that much, but it was enough to have a few snowball fights, make snow angels and a snow man. It all melted away within a few days. We had such a good time in it. I have a lot of pictures to share and I don't want to make this post too miserably long, so I'll stop writing now. Enjoy the slideshow!!