nap time...or lack thereof

so jesse is quite the little pickle! he is so different from annie and toby. sometimes i don't know whether to think he is just the spoiled baby or if he is just so much more dominant than they ever were! he thinks of the sneakiest things to do. fortunately for me he is not good at hiding them yet, so i can find him out pretty quickly. but a prime example of this is naptime. most days he still goes down for a good nap, but often i will think he is napping only to hear some small bumping noises and i will peek in to investigate and find a book shredded or the bookcase peeled of its paint on one side! he quickly scampers to bed and says, "don't spank me." well if that isn't the most imcriminating statement there ever was...of course i am going to spank you! although i think he is spoiled in some ways...don't tell tim i admitted that though...i think he really is more bold and more of a natural leader than the other two are. he just has to learn how to channel that. it's an awesome responsibility and daunting, but i am not too worried really. i know that God has such a great plan for him! i just went to check on him and he was taking a nap in annie's room today and had found her secret candy stash and was silently eating away at it...little booger!

unbalanced

Lately annie has been having a hard time at school. well, i say lately, but it has been an up and down battle all year long! not exactly as i had hoped or imagined! all in all though, it hasn't been bad, but if you ask annie how school is, she will get a pained look on her face and say, "it's okay..." maybe we are better off moving to another country so i can homeschool her. or maybe it's just the teacher or maybe there's a crazy kid in her class that says little mean things to her or maybe it's just natural growing pains or maybe it's a spiritual attack! i don't really know, so we are just praying through it and trusting God to take care of her. if nothing else she has learned this year that mommy and daddy don't have all the answers and they can't always make everything better. she has had to face fear on her own and tell God he has to handle it! she has been fabulously brave and i have been so proud of her. many times she has picked herself up and said, "okay, tomorrow is going to be a good day...i know it!" School and kids can be brutal and yet she is willing to face Joey every day who tells her that jesus and heaven are just a made up story. she loves him anyway and has fun with him. she says she feels bad for him too because his parents have lied to him. then there is sweet, chubby alan who annie has personally decided will know jesus before they part ways. then there's kate who is cute, fun -loving and sassy! she says all sorts of crazy things! the other day annie got in the car and says, "MOM..we can't vote for mccain, Kate told me today that mccain kills tan people and we are kind of tan and if we vote for him, he is going to kill us!" But annie is enamored with Kate, so annie is learning to not believe EVERYTHING everyone tells you! so we have had so many great heart to heart talks this year. she is so much fun to talk to now! recently when she was again having a grip of fear about going to school the next day i asked her why...she said, "i don't know mom, i just feel so unbalanced." she used her hands to show me one was higher than the other. she explained there was too much school and not enough mom time. sweet girl! so we talked about some ways we could get more time together. well just this week, she hopped into the car after school and she says, "guess what?? we get summer vacation!" i said, "yep!" she said, "you knew about that??" as if i have been holding out on her all this time! annie is always amazed that i know some of the things she learns at school. well amazed, but also skeptical...like how could i know all that...i'm just the mom! so anyway, she looks at me and she says, "i cannot WAIT for summer vacation...now that's balanced!!"

conversations

recently i walked into the kitchen to hear a big debate going on between annie and toby. annie is righteously indignant! she looks at me and exclaims, "mom, tell toby that we are christians!" to which toby replies, "no we are not!" so tim asked toby why he was saying that and he says, "because Saul put all the christians in jail." tim and i thought that was so funny! it proved to us that our 3 year old boy actually listens in sunday school class, even if he didn't get the main point!

They WON!!

Hooray...after two seasons of playing, tim's team finally won their first game...incidentally, the last game of the season! It was 3-2, but they dominated the game! Tim scored us a goal even! We were all so excited, we rushed the field afterwards, in my haste, i forgot Jesse, he came trotting out to mid-field a few minutes later with somone else and a very tear-stained face! but he quickly forgot all about his trauma when we went out for ice cream!!
the kids found some rejected balloons and had fun chasing them around the entire game...
my sweet Toby...just waiting to play with the big boys...
the boys doing some pre-game stretches with their Daddy...a hero and a legend in their eyes...they would do anything to be just like him!

I think they are naturals...

Lifegroup: Family Talent Show!

Our Lifegroup meets every week. Sometimes we eat dinner together, have a kids time and an adult time, like a regular small group, once a month we go out and do evangelism and once a month we have a family night...this particular night we had a talent show...here is tim getting dog piled at the end of the night.
Mini-Kooper
dancing to Jesus, You're my Super Hero!
The Bundy Family...live!
The Dunn family...a skit of course....

BEST DATE EVER!!

This was the best date EVER! We were surprised by some young married couples that we LOVE with all our hearts! They came over arms full of groceries to make breakfast for our kids, then they shooed us out the door and sent us to goodwill to buy silly outfits for ourselves. we ended up at the brazos river with a picnic already laid out for us. we spent the rest of the night, eating cheese, crackers, summer sausage, really yummy wine, and strawberry shortcake. they had questions for us to talk about. it was so wonderful. we came home to every candle lit in our room, the bible opened to song of solomon and our bed short-sheeted! it was the MOST LOVED we have ever felt!
tim also brought some cigars from mandi and ben's wedding...he looks totally stoned here, but i think he was deliriously happy.
me on my second or third glass of wine...yum!
our cool outfits...notice the bead necklace the kids made me before we left.
tortilla tossing...apparently a baylor tradition...we had to launch tortillas out to this cement pillar. 3 points for every tortilla landed and 1 point for every tortilla that touched...tim won...but i got the most on the pillar...

SeaWorld

We went to SeaWorld again. SO fun! i could seriously work there! I caught Jesse getting his finger munched by a duck or some kind of bird thing. so funny.
shamu and the kids...while we were watching the shamu show, toby turned around and looked at me and said, "mommy i heard jesus in my heart." it was such a tender moment. later i asked him what jesus said and he said, "to watch shamu..." a little anti-climatic, but still...i think with the swelling music and the emotions that drums up, that was what he was able to equate that feeling too, it's got to be jesus! =) my sweet boy.
toby, tim, annie and another random girl riding the texas splashdown...you can't see toby though, because he ducks every time. we probably rode this ride 10 times. it was so fun.
here is the amazing dolphin tim won for us! i was SO excited! we've never won and we WON!! he already has rip down his back though...cheap seaworld prizes!

here are the kiddos with some penguins dressed up in halloween costumes. we had such a great weekend! thank you Lord, for providing that for us! memorable for sure!

Halloween!

annie with a friend, audrey, from school,not her class though that we met at the carnival
toby, tim and jesse on the ferris wheel
annie on the swings...saying later, "i was screaming with laughter..."




Happy Halloween! This year we decided to knock on a few doors and then head to Baylor for their homecoming carnival! It was so much fun! a night to remember, especially since it's our last time to do it for awhile. i can't believe we are starting to say...our last anything! we have 180 days left...

Toby can read!

Toby can read! He has been trying to sound out words for a couple of weeks and suddenly he is doing it all the time! It's so fun to watch him decode a foreign world to him! Annie has taken it upon herself to be his personal tutor! stainless steel may look cool, but is not very functional! so we have to use the oven front for our magnetic letters!