Joshua and Luke

In the blink of an eye my boys went from looking like this.

To looking like this.

In the first picture Luke is exactly one year old.  That was Luke's first trip to the zoo on his birthday.  He had been walking for two months!  That little boy had no hair, but it looks like Joshua had a little that day.  I teared up yesterday when Joshua walked up to me holding that picture. 

The second picture was taken yesterday.  Luke has hair; Josh, not so much ! 

Those boys bring me joy.  

Those boys make me laugh.

Those boys throw baseballs in the house when they are not supposed to.  They knock over my stuff.....and break it.

But, I love them. 

They are best buds.

I am so thankful Joshua is not a real good cook.  It means they will need me longer.

Hopefully forever.  Yes, as in if Luke never moves out I will probably be okay with it.

Because I also like pictures like this.

I love my boys.

Happy Father's Day to the Fathers in my Life!

Happy Father’s Day Daddy!  

When I think back to my childhood I think of the Saturdays with my Dad.  I was his helper around the house, I ran errands with him, we had our weekly lunches at McDonald, followed up by an afternoon at the park.  I was Daddy’s little helper and I loved it!  He woke me up in the mornings and rocked me in the living room until breakfast was ready.  He carried me to bed at night like a sack of potatoes, with me laughing and giggling the entire way.  My childhood was a charmed one, and I know he did a lot to make sure it was that way.

When I think of my teen years I think of a Dad who was there for me.  There to talk, there to listen, and there for support.  He became one of my biggest cheerleaders as I played volleyball.  His was the first face I looked for in the crowd.  It meant so much to look up and see my proud father beaming down at me. He made sure to give me the space I needed to grow up, without giving me too much.  

As I moved into my college years he was again were a huge supporter.  He encouraged me along the way and never let me give up, even when I wanted to. 
 

While my entire childhood and teen years were charmed, it seems that the hard times in life started soon after I moved into adulthood.  He was there.  There to hold his daughter who would become broken, depressed, sad, and lost.  He was there to remind me that God was in control and we would make it through difficult times.  In the sorrow, there have also been the highest of highs.  And I am so thankful to have shared them with him.  One of my favorite things as an adult is watching my Dad be a Grandpa to my son.  It brings me such joy to see his face light up when he see Luke.  I love hearing of all the adventures he takes with Luke.  And to this day, he will still drop what he is doing to come and help me when needed.  I am blessed beyond words by my Dad.

Thank you to my wonderfully Daddy for all he has done and continues to do.  He is truly the best Daddy in the world.  I love you!

Happy Father’s Day to my Love!

Joshua, I had the rare opportunity to see as a young bride what my husband would be like one day as a father.  I loved watching you with your sister.  I saw how much you loved her and took time to spend with her.  It was then I realized what an awesome Daddy you would one day be to our children.  

When I think back over your years as a Daddy I think of how you took care of Luke all by yourself for our three days in the hospital.  My only job was to feed him.  You took care of changing all diapers, clothes, and anything else he needed.  I think back of the times we were settling in the house trying to figure out who took care of what and the best way to manager our new little boy. 

I think back to the toddler years and you helping Luke to learn to walk.  I will never forget the joy on your face as he walked to you the first time.  You lit up the room!  

As Luke has gotten older I see him gravitating to you…he wants to be just like his Daddy.  I am so thankful you take time with him.  I love watching and hearing you two play baseball in the back yard.  I love hearing him squeal as you all goof around and play.  I love how you two go off for boys day.  I love how you encourage him like no one but a Daddy can.  Never has there been a Daddy more proud than you.  Luke is so blessed to have you as his Daddy!  

Thank you for all you do for our boy.  It is a wonderful gift to have a husband who is such a terrific Daddy!  I love you much!!

Happy Father’s Day to my Father-in-Law

He will never fully know how terrified I was to date, and eventually marry a preacher’s son.  I was scared of the expectations there would be on me.  Scared I would mess up.  He helped to teach me that a preacher’s family is no different from mine.  He accepted me and held standards no higher than my own parents.  

I cannot thank him enough for being a wonderful Dad to Joshua, as I know this is where he learned how to be a wonderful Daddy to our son.

Thank you for treating me and loving me as your own daughter……giving me a hard time just like you do your own kids!  

I could not have asked for a better Father-in-Law.  I love you!

The father of a righteous child has great joy; a man who fathers a wise son rejoices in him.    Proverbs 23:24

 

My Boy

Those blue eyes put a smile on my face.

You wish they could look into outer space.

The freckles sprinkled on your nose remind me that you’re not a baby anymore.

One day I’ll miss your toys covering the floor.

You love to read, watch movies, and you are a thinker.

But truth be told, you are also a stinker.

You make your Momma laugh every day

With your jokes, stories, and games you play.

You are happy and filled with such joy.

I could not be more thankful that you are my boy.

I love you.

Happy Birthday, Joshua!!

There are some things that I am just real good about and some things that I am not.  And one thing that, unfortunately, I am real bad about is throwing Joshua a birthday party.  I do not think I have given him a party in the last seven or eight years.  Maybe even longer -- terrible!  Each year I have real good intentions, but then things happen and I totally fail at it.  

I would complain about it to Joshua and say something like, you know, your birthday and father’s day are back to back weekends and right when summer starts and well….. you know, that is just real hard.  But, my birthday is the day after Christmas and he seems to find ways to give me birthday parties…..EVERY year!  Even if it is just celebrating with one other family, he pulls it off.  So, I’m thinking he will not be real sympathetic to me and my woe-is-me-who-has-to-deal-with-two-events that are days apart.

But, this year….THIS is the year I had my act together!

Sort of.  I thought about his birthday like two months in advance and I started planning a party in my head.  I even bought a few items for his party.  Then life happened and I forgot to invite people!  Yep, I totally rock at putting together a party for my dear husband.  It turns out our friends are pretty cool with some last minute notification about a birthday party and they all came!  Thank you friends!

Joshua wanted a strawberry cake, so a strawberry cake it was!  And this time when I made it, I did not mess up the icing.  Yay me!

I am so thankful everyone was able to come over.  We had a great time cooking out, eating, laughing, and celebrating Joshua!

We had a Texas Rangers birthday party for Josh!  And we had ballpark food to eat -- hamburgers, hot dogs, nachos!  Yum!

Let it be known that The Sister decided I was not making enough jalapeno poppers and came over with everything needed to make more!  Thank you, dear Sister!

The Sister, Kayla, and I then proceeded to stand in the kitchen and eat ourselves sick of peppers.  Sean got in our way a few times, but we ran him out.

Josh's BFF, Jerel, gave him a Raffy bobble head.  Can you tell how happy Josh is??

The little boys had fun outside.

And for some reason, our friends can't just let Josh and I have our picture taken.  And they moved before I could hit them.

Bunch of clowns!

Finally got it!

Happy Birthday Joshua!!

I love you!!

Random Ramblings

Luke lost tooth number five!  It's exciting stuff.

Well, it's all exciting until you are woken up at 4am to a boy who says, "There is no money, she did not come."  These are dreaded words that will wake you up fast.  And I guess since I was suddenly brought to full attention I was able to have a quick, but most importantly good, response.  "Luke, it is in the middle of the night, she just has not made it to our house yet."  My next good move was to tell him to get in bed with us.  Then I laid there and tried to determine what I was going to do.  All I had was a $20 in my purse.  I hoped that Josh would have some money and I decided I would just deal with it when I got up in a couple of hours.

I got up and grabbed Josh's wallet and went into the bathroom and opened it up to find that he had a $20 and a $10.  No good.  I realized all I could do would be to get into Josh's change in the drawer and give Luke a bunch of quarters.  I went to the drawer and ended up making all sorts of noise trying to get into it and find the coins.  It was then I decided that maybe having him get into bed with us was not exactly a good idea.  While getting more and more annoyed with myself I found that Josh not only had coins stuffed down in this drawer but paper money!  I grabbed it and went back to the bathroom and turned on the light to find fives and ones!!  Hooray!  I went down to Luke's room to retrieve the tooth and put down the money when it dawned on me that with luck I was currently having, when I turned around I felt certain Luke would be standing there in the doorway and then the gig would be up.  I slowly turned around and took a deep breathe when I saw that Luke was in fact not there and when I got back to our room, he was still sound asleep in our bed.

I am still 100% obsessed with tostadas!  I want to eat them all the time.  This one is limed grilled chicken, black beans, yellow and white corn, green chillies, mozzarella cheese, and avocado.  YUMMY!!

Luke's best friend in the entire world spent the weekend with us this past weekend.

These two crack me up and I could just sit and listen to them talk all day long.  They had a great time together.

One the way to taking them to a local pizza place on Saturday night for dinner Josh spotted a turtle on the side of the road.  He asked if anyone wanted to go back and get the turtle and the boys both screamed "YES!!!"  Stupid question!  Josh turned the truck around and went back and pulled over into a driveway and stopped the truck.  Both boys had their seat belts off in record time and were ready to jump out of the truck.  I then informed them they would not be running down the road to get the turtle.  I assured them Josh would bring it over to them and I rolled down the window.

They were both so excited when Josh brought it over.  I would not let them touch it since we were on our way to dinner, but I told them they could look at him more once we got to the pizza place.

Once we got there, they both jumped out of the truck and up onto the tailgate and were just looking at the turtle.  They began talking and discussing if the turtle would be safe in the back of the truck while we were eating.  As in, "do you think someone will come and steal him?"  I almost died laughing.  I convinced them both the turtle would be fine and no one would take him. 

As suspected, the turtle was there after we were done with dinner.

No adult at the scene of the turtle snatching completely thought threw the idea of the turtle.  There is one member of the family who is not on board, at all, with this turtle.

Hank is just not a fan.  All is okay when Hank first goes outside as he is not smart enough to find the turtle right away.  But, once he finds him, he starts this RIDICULOUS barking.  He stands about four feet from the turtle and just barks.  Someone in the house, usually Luke, will say, "Hank found him!"   And then we have to go and literally DRAG the dog back into the house.  Then Hank sits at the back door just going bonkers as he watches out for the turtle.  And if that turtle happens to walk by where he can actually see him, he really looses it!

I loved that Luke had his buddy to play with all weekend, but I found myself missing my alone time with him.  I was so excited on Monday evening when he asked if I would play Sorry with him.  I stopped folding the laundry and grabbed the game!  We had a great time together, up until he beat the pants off of me!

Hope you have a great week and thanks as always for reading!!