All Grown Up!!

Luis, his older brother, Daniel, and his Mom, Dorene, all headed to Monterrey, Mexico this weekend to celebrate their little cousin, Cynthia's Quinceanera. As you can imagine with all of the news going on about the violence in Mexico these days I was very apprehensive!! Thankfully they had a wonderful trip and made it back safe and sound!! I can't believe this little girl I met when she was just a baby is 15, yikes!!! From what I have heard the party was AMAZING!! As you will see in the picture below one of the fun things that they had at the party was a photo booth along with silly props to wear if you so choose. Not surprisingly Luis and Daniel had to partake!! The first strip of pictures is Luis, Cynthia and Daniel, kinda of silly but just wait, the second strip is of my goofy husband and brother in law "wrestling" with clown gear on. I have a suspicious feeling these may have been taken later in the night after some more alcoholic beverages had been consumed, what do you think?

Happy 4th of July

No fireworks this year because of the drought but a great time was had with the Ewers' and Wissing's at the Wissing's house!!

Trae Swinging!!

Jace on the slip n slide!!

Mini Summer Vacation!!

Luis and I decided to use our Groupon for a night in Kemah at the South Shore Harbor Resort to take the kids on a little mini vacation. We decided on Wednesday we would head down to Galveston so Trae could experience the beach during the summer for the first time and then after we were worn out we could drive up to the Hotel in Kemah to get cleaned up and head over to the boardwalk for some dinner and fun.

Well wouldn't you know that in our record drought summer it poured on Wednesday (believe me I wasn't complaining). So we got all the way down to Galveston and tried to wait the rain out a little for a clear patch of weather, so first we tried going to the Train Museum, but with a lot of the exhibits closed we decided not to spend the money. Our next attempt to pass time by was going to eat lunch. We asked Jace where he wanted to go and he said "the turtle place" which means Tortuga, we had one in The Woodlands but closed recently. So we ran in from the car to try and stay a little dry for lunch. After a nice lunch we decided, who cares if it is raining, you get wet on the beach anyway right? Well that idea worked out for Trae and I for about 10 minutes tops, I guess I should have taken into account the high speed wind and the sun not being out because I had the biggest goose bumps I have ever seen. Pretty gross actually. Luis and Jace played for a while in the ocean (which actually felt like bath water since it was so cold outside) until it started to lightening. So they ran up to the car where Trae and I had been hanging out. I guess we will have to try again for Trae to really experience the beach!!

We checked into the hotel and actually had some clear weather so we went swimming for a bit before getting ready to head out for dinner. We went to dinner at Joe's Crab Shack on the Kemah Boardwalk and after dinner took the train ride.

The next morning after breakfast we headed back over to the boardwalk so Jace & Trae could ride the rides and play in the fountains. We may have had a rough start but our trip ended on a great note!!

Eye of the Tiger!!!

Jace had to test at Tae Kwon Do on Wednesday night for graduation to become an official Tiger, which means he now has his orange head band to go along with his orange belt. Now he has to practice to work on getting his yellow belt and head band to become a Cheetah. Here is Jace doing the "One Step" during part of his test.

Fall Family Pictures

Here are some of the family pictures we got taken this fall by the talented Amber Wilson!!

Go Hook's!!!

Jace's first K-ball Game was today. In the fall (the off season) all of the teams are Astros farm teams so our team was the Corpus Christi Hooks. Watching the boys play is quite entertaining to say the least. Of course all of the boys no matter where they are on the field all go for the ball and create dog piles. We are really enjoying it and so is Jace. Here are a few pictures!


Jace heading to get a grounder!


Waiting to run Home!


These are the signs I made for all of the players on the team to hang up during the games!

Baylor BFF Sally Visits!!

Sally is one of my best friends from Baylor, we were in a sorority together (AXO), and she and her twin sister Katy were in our wedding!! I am so sad that I don't get to see her as much as I would like but whenever we do talk or see each other we don't skip a beat!!

NALTA Conference

The NALTA (National Association of Lease and Title Analysts) Conference was supposed to be held in Nashville this year - which I was super excited about - had to get changed last minute because our hotel was flooded up to the second floor. To my delight it was moved to New Orleans so Luis was able to fly out on Thursday night to join me. The conference was wonderful as usual, I learned a lot and realized I have a lot more to learn too. Here are some pictures!!


Me in front of Paddle Boat for the dinner cruise we took on the Mississippi River.



Our good friends Coy & Tiffany



A group picture of Tiffany, Coy, Marsha, RJ, Me and Tena (Luis was taking the picture)

Trae is on the MOVE!!!

Here is a video of Trae crawling & bouncing. Enjoy!!!

Watch at Your Own Risk!!!

Here is a video of Trae swinging in the back yard. As you can tell by the amazing video I was trying to film and push him at the same time. I hope you don't get motion sick!!!

So begins our life at ORWALL

For those of you not from The Woodlands area you may not be familiar with ORWALL. ORWALL stands for Oak Ridge Woodlands Area Little League. We signed up Jace today for K-ball, which comes before T-ball. Who would have thought that they can start at 4? Jace is so excited, we will have to see how this is going to work out with Tae Kwon Do and K-Ball. If our life is crazy now carting Jace around I can't imagine what it will be like once we have Trae in activites too, I am just praying that they will like the same activites so we don't have to figure out how to be 2 places at once!!

VBS 2010

Jace was in Vacation Bible School this week and my Mom was lucky enough to have him in her class. After a full week of learning songs they performed for the entire church congregation on Sunday. What a treat for us all. If you can't tell Jace was not quite himself - he had been battling a terrible fever all weekend!!

Happy 90th Birthday Nana!!!

Today my Mom's Mom turned 90 years old and we were all able to make it out to Virginia to help her celebrate last night. My Dad drove to Charles Town in the middle of June so he was able to pick up Jace, Trae, Mom and I from the airport on Wednesday which worked out great. Luis flew in Thursday and Pete, Amanda and Elizabeth joined us on Friday night.

The party was a great time. My aunt Susan hosted us all at her beautiful horse farm in Catharpin, Virginia. The others that celebrated with us are my aunt Tina and her husband Kent, Nana's brother Roger and his wife Mary, and their children, Julie, and Susan and her husband Wolf. The evening was full of eating, drinking, singing and tears. I was so happy to share that time with her!!

Fireman Trae!!

Jace was being silly after he put the fireman hat on Trae and started yelling "Fireman Trae" which Trae thought was hilarious, as you will see!!

Our Little Ninja!!

On Jace's 4th Birthday I took the afternoon off to take Jace to see the movie How to Train Your Dragon. Before the movie started there was a preview of the new Karate Kid movie and Jace jumped up and started doing all of his fighting moves. I asked him if he would like to take some Karate lessons and he immediately said yes. I finally started calling around and asked a friend whose daughter used to do Karate to get some information. On Monday I heard back from Master Berry who let me know that they had a Tiny Tigers Tae Kwon Do class at 4:30 and we should bring Jace to let him try out a class. Just as we anticipated Jace loved it!! He had his second class last night and got to wear his uniform and everything. At the end of the class Master Berry gave him his white belt and his head band. Jace was so excited. Here are a couple pictures. I will try and take more to share from his next class.

Houma Sweet Houma

Luis' step sister, Hannah just graduated from High School so Luis, the boys, Trini and I loaded up to go to Houma to help her celebrate. I was dreading taking Trae on a 6 hour (without stopping) car trip. He has always hated the car seat unlike Jace who typically fell asleep within minutes of being on the road. Well turns out I had nothing to worry about, Trae (and Jace) were excellent. We just made one stop each way so I could feed Trae and we could grab a bite to eat ourselves and stretch our legs. I think it ended up taking us 7 hours or so each way and Trae only cried about 10 minutes each way.


I stayed at the hotel with the boys while Luis and Trini attended the graduation so of course I don't have any pictures from it, but I did get a cute picture of Jace and Trae with their Abuelito!!

Yummy, Yummy, Yummy, I Got Rice Cereal in My Tummy!!

Trae eating baby food (rice cereal) for the first time. From what I remember he is much better at it than Jace was. So funny!!!

It Really is Insane!!!

Luis and I decided that we need to get healthy and lose some weight so we decided to start a workout program called Insanity (a girl I work with is doing it and another one is doing P90X which is by the same company).

The name Insanity pretty much sums it up. It is a perfect representation of what you should expect to feel like while trying to do what the instructor on the DVD is telling you to do with your body. Not only are a lot of the positions crazy (which you don't realize until you attempt it) but the quantity, length of time, the speed you are supposed to do them just isn't possible - at least for us anyway!!

You know it is bad when the perfect little beach body people on the DVD are dropping like flies too - YIKES!!

I am hoping by the end of the 2 months of this 6 days a week workout we will at least be able to do one of each of the exercises in correct form, and dropping a couple dress sizes would be nice too!!

Jace vs. Trae

So I just happened to stumble upon Jace's baby book and discovered that Jace was 1/2 inch taller and about a pound lighter than Trae at their 4 month check ups. I was totally blown away. I have been thinking that Trae is so much bigger than Jace was - although I guess technically he is :0)!!

Doctor Visits

Luis and I took Jace and Trae to the Doctor today for their 4 year and 4 month checkups. Jace is 43 pounds and 43 1/2 inches tall which puts him in the 95th percentile for both weight and height. Our little lineman Trae was 19 pounds 2 ounces and 27 inches long which puts him in the 97th percentile for both weight and height.

The Doctor told us both of them look great and are developing just like they should be.

They both did great until they had to get shots. Trae was fine right after because we were able to give him part of a bottle he didn't finish before the appointment. Jace was traumatized, even a couple hours later he would get weepy just thinking about it and has now decided he doesn't want to turn 5 anymore - and I don't think he even has to get shots at 5!!! That's okay, I won't mind if he stays my baby forever!!