Christmas Begins

Black Friday. We never really were the shopping type, never mind going out on days when the rest of the world is out shopping as well. And now we never have to worry about. While Black Friday will be a day of shopping for some, it is now officially a new tradition for us to starts Christmas. We started it last year, but now it is officially a tradition that we plan on continuing.

Friday began with Holly's experimental egg nog pancakes. I threw the idea out to her early this week and she dug it. So Friday morning she whipped up some pancakes and instead of using milk, she used egg nog. They weren't spectacular, but they were oddly good. I think it is just a taste you're not expecting, so it seems out of place. They had a faint egg nog flavor, but without any sweetness. Maybe she will tweak the recipe and try again at Christmas.

After breakfast we loaded and headed to fine town of Elgin, Texas. More specifically, we headed to the Elgin CHRISTmas Tree Farm. Such a fun place. I think it was the first day it was open for this season, so it was busy, but not bad at all. We checked out the farm animals and then waited for a tractor ride out to the tree farm. They gave us a bow saw and then it was up to us to go out and find a try we wanted. We searched and searched. High and low. Near and far. A few minutes later we found our tree. Jordan was positive we found our tree, but Jeremy wanted more of a tiny "Charlie Brown" type tree. He was overruled by the rest of the family.

We caught a ride back to the main area to get our tree measured and tagged. Then we walked back towards the tree area to check out a hay maze and the area where they have service on Sunday mornings. Seems like it would be nice to have church out there one morning. They also had tetherball and we learned that my little sister, who is now a freshman in high school, has never EVER played tetherball. So once the boys finished their game, I gave her a quick lesson. After the lopsided victory, we headed into the hay maze. We gave the boys full control as they guided us through the maze. We will definitely be back again next year and keep the tradition alive.

On the way back we stopped at Southside Market for some BBQ. First time there and our taste buds and appetites were very pleased by Southside. Last year after getting our tree we had stopped at Meyer's, which was pretty good, but Southside won the BBQ battle for us. The parking lot was full of vehicles with trees in the pick-up bed or strapped to the roof. After a fun lunch it was off to the house to decorate.

We have it down to a science in our house. So it took us no time at all to get the tree decorated and the stockings hung on the chimney...with care, of course. I had put up the lights on the roof on Wednesday. So I only had to get the lights setup in the front lawn and get everything powered up for the first night of the Christmas season. We had been looking forward to this day all week and we were not disappointed in the least.

God Said, "No"

This was drafted back at the beginning of November, but took a while to think about actually publishing this post. If you haven't read the previous post, you may want to do that first.

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We told very few people, but Friday, October 28, was the day we'd find out if we would be parents of 2 or 3. This happened to fall on the exact same day we had been planning, with our missional community, a neighborhood pumpkin carving party in our back yard . The whole day I was flipping out. Poor Frank, every time he looked at me, or asked me to do anything, I would burst into tears. The crying started the night before. I knew from the last time that this was going to be the kind of day I was going to have. I stayed pretty busy with the boys and getting ready for the party. I think the worst part was knowing that several of the people coming over knew this was the day and if it was bad news, how in the world was I going to hold it together every time someone new walked in. However, I knew God had me and He would carry me through.

It was 4:45pm on the 28th, the party started at 5pm and a couple from our group was already here helping us set up. Frank ran upstairs to do something and I was outside with the boys when the phone rang. A very happy lady asked me if I was ready for the news. Then she tells me that the embryo is still there, but it is not alive and it tried really hard to make it. I was trying really hard to not to fall apart and was doing a good job. I was looking around for Frank, but couldn't remember where he said he would be. I passed two people who knew I was not ok, but I had to find Frank first. I finally hid and called him to find out where he was. He was upstairs. He met me at the top of the stairs and I fell apart. A few minutes later Jeremy runs up the stairs because people started arriving and he doesn't do well in big crowds. So Jeremy and I snuggled upstairs for a while. He kept checking on me and hugging me and somehow making me laugh.

I knew I had to go down and mingle, but every time I thought of it, I'd start crying again. I finally forced myself and Jeremy downstairs, with Frank leading us like a body guard. I hit the bottom step and I was ok. There were no tears left and a peacefulness rested on me. Throughout the night I found out there were three other people there who had been crying all day. God put us all together on the same night to comfort each other when none of us would have done it on our own. In my mind, getting the news, good or bad, couldn't have landed on a worse day. Thankfully God is in control and not me. I was so blessed that night by my neighbors and was so in awe of Gods love, strength and faithfulness. I was telling a lady I had only met once before, about what God had done for us concerning the embryos. She said that God is always that present and physical in our lives, He just chooses to let us see a glimpse of it once in a while. That has had me in awe, once again, all day. I knew it in my head, but not in my heart, or maybe I just didn't know what it looked and felt like.

I spent today loving and playing with my little miracle, crazy haired boys (as Kelli calls them). I am so blessed to get to be their mom. God is so faithful and loving. What a week!

God is Awesome

This post is from October 19, 2011 and has been sitting here as a draft. Took us a little bit to look it over and finally hit publish...

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Some of you know that after doing IVF for the boys we had 3 embryos left. They were frozen and we had to decide what to do with them. We have had 3 years of praying and searching for an answer. We finally decided to try again. A burden we've been carrying was wondering what to do with any embryos left over again. We didn't think there was any way, physically or financially, that we could have three more children. If we try again and there are is "someone" still left over, we would probably have to donate them to a couple looking for their own little blessing. This was beyond ours strength and courage, but we knew if God wanted us to do this then he would supply the strength and courage we would need daily. We prayed for the potential couple that might be out there and could be receiving our child. The thought of someone who does not try their best to love God and repeatedly run back to Him after failing or teaching our child about Him is incredibly painful. Another prayer was something like this: Father, we pray there was never any life on hold, frozen, waiting, because of desires to start a family 3 years ago...may all three embryos not be viable. Finally, another prayer went: Father, we pray the first two are not viable, but the third is and whatever happens from there we will be completely at peace knowing either way You made this happen for us. Ultimately, we did not have to decide on donating. Especially since we have always felt that adopting may be part of our future. We knew this was a huge burden on us, but I don't think we knew just how big it was until this wednesday.

Wednesday we went in for the transfer. We knew this was the only transfer we could do because our insurance would only pay for one more. There is no way we would be able to cover all the expenses on our own. So this was it. They were going to "defrost" our embryos one at a time. If the first one looked good, they would implant it. If it didn't work and we had embryos left then we would have to donate before our family was full. The possibility of the implant failing and still having to donate was our biggest fear. Next was that we would have to donate at all. Third fear was having twins again. Three years ago we decided to double our chances and had 2 embryos implanted. They knew we only wanted one put in this time, so they'd only be thawing one and there was a good chance of having embryos left over.

We were in our room waiting for our doctor (fantastic woman, she is) to arrive. Things finally started moving and the embryologist came in to tell us how the unfreezing went. He started to tell us the "bad news" that the first two embryos did not make it, but the third was beautiful and he handed us a picture of the little guy, or girl. Frank made him stop to repeat it because he thought he was imagining it. The man apologized and said it again. Frank and I could not hide our goofy grins. God had taken our burden from us. God placed the embryos in order for us. If they would have thawed the third one first, we would have never known what was to be of our donated embryos. We no longer had an impossible decision to make. We were able to just enjoy the ride and see what God had in store for us. We do not know if we are going to be pregnant in two weeks, but right now we are. Our family is complete, no one has to leave. We are sending our love to this little one as long as we get to. No matter what happens God's hand was in this 100% and we are so glad.

Pumpkin Carving

 We had a neighborhood carving get together last night, but we were too busy cooking hotdogs and talking that we never got to carving our own pumpkins. We took care of it today though! The boys wanted  "pooky" faces, spooky faces, on their pumpkins. They've been carrying them all around the house the past two days. Luckily pumpkins are pretty tough and even a tumble down the stairs did no harm.

Holly went all out on her design. When she saw the pumpkin with the stem bent down like a nose, she decided on carving "Ellyvan," a character from Jungle Junction. It came out really good.

I decided to carve "Jack" from Nightmare Before Christmas. Wasn't sure it would work out when I started carving out his mouth and it was really thin. It seemed to work out okay though.

Happy halloween folks...may your trick or treats yield a bounty of Snickers, Twix and peanut M&M's. No smarties!

Automated call

Last week, Holly was made a call to fill a prescription and got connected to an automated phone system. She gave her name and then said the numbers for her prescription. The automated system repeated random numbers that didn't come close to what Holly said. She had no idea where the system was coming up with these random numbers, until the third try when she realized Jeremy was behing her yelling out numbers with her.

And now for a random fishing video from last Apri when we still had water in our neighborhood creek...

Halloween Craft Day

It's my favorite time of year for crafts. We had our second anual neighborhood halloween craft day this week. The turnout was great this year, 8 adults, 13 kids. Everyone chipped in to bring snacks and crafts. The kids loved it but, I think the Moms had more fun talking and relaxing. I am so blessed to have such amazing neighbors.

One of the crafts was a snack time craft. Angela brought pumpkin shaped sandwiches and boxes of raisins for the kids to put together and make a face. Jeremy took it a step further and paired it along with the apple mouths with peanut teeth, that Jennifer brought, to make a very scary pumpkin sammich.

For hi-res photos, check out our Kodak Gallery album here.

If you build it...Food Face

Two more videos on the way. It's rare when I get to play with my blocks, I mean, the boys blocks, and build a tower more than a foot high before the boys knock it down. Got this tower up and it was bigger than Jordan. Then he knocked it down.




In this segment our hero finds himself with a piece of cracker stuck on his nose. I quickly challenge him to eat it without using his hands. Actually did try to do it.

Car Snooze and Sunday Afternoons

Another couple videos to share. This first one is after our hellish nightmare at the Buda weiner dog races. Long day and on the ride home Jeremy is falling asleep with his thumb in his mouth while holding on to his ballon. He keeps getting startled and half-waking up.




This is from a lazy Sunday afternoon. Mommy and Daddy are chillin' on the couch while the kids play. Jordan somehow ended up with a plastic tool we used to get the rubber trim in a screen door and was spinning it on the table. He was spinning it and getting some good hang time on it. Once I started recording, he gave up. Gave it one more try, but it hit something and stopped spinning right away. Then Jeremy saw me recording and he made it more interesting. He imitates my whistling really good at the end.

Good Morning! I shot myself in the leg

Two more videos. The first is from a couple month back. Just a recording of the monitor and the noises the boys make when they wake us up in the morning.



Second one is more recent. Weed whacking (yes, I work in the yard in shorts. Texas is hot y'all!) and a stick was shot into my leg. Even though it grossed Holly out, she watched me pull it out. I think there is still a piece in my leg.

Random Animal Videos

Got a lot of vids to share and not enough time. Here are a couple vids involving cute lil cuddly wuddly animals.

First is a vid of the "longest" turtle in the world. Saw when I was chillin' at PetSmart with the boys:


Second vid is of a seal pup that was recently born at the Sea World in San Antonio. We saw it when we took the boys there last Sunday:

Forgotten Videos

Posted some JAG videos on YouTube last December and they were still marked private. Here they are!

First video is the boys making animal noises. Mainly we wanted to capture Jeremy's horse impersonation. This was taken on 11/28/10.



This video is from the beginning of December when the family went to Cedar Park for their tree lighting festival. They got this big ol' monster tree with thousands of lights. They got music, hot chocolate, big fire and all that good stuff.

The New Backyard Patio

Final design

Holly has been wanting a backyard patio for a long time now. Since Poppa and Poppi moved in, we have been doing a lot of work in the backyard. Poppi put up some hummingbird feeders that work very very well. We also put up a windmill birdhouse, church birdhouse and cross that Poppi got from her brother who does a lot of woodwork. We started a garden and we put flowerbeds all along the back wall of the house. We got a nice patio table that seats 6 off of craigslist on the cheap. The only thing left to do was the patio.

Took us a bit, but we finally decided where to put it and what size. After pricing out various stones for the patio size we wanted, we had to go with the cheapest of stones. We like them though. After deciding on size and the stones, I started playing with

Patio supplies...check!

MS Paint to figure out a pattern so we know how many stones to buy of each color. Came up with a few designs before I had one we liked.

Technically we started work on the Thursday, April 21st. Holly was slowly digging out the grass from the patio area, along with some help from Poppi. On my way home from work, I stopped at Home Depot (the first of many stops this weekend) and picked up some lumber for the frame. To be honest...I had no clue what I was doing. I read Home Depots brochures on patio and looked at a few blogs and websites. One of Holly's main gripes with patios from the many homes shes worked at as a nanny was that the stones start to shift. So she was happy with the frame I wanted to make for the patio. I would've loved to use those big 6x6 railroad looking pieces of wood for the frame, but again, we had a tiny budget. Shopping for a 15'x11' foot patio, I bought a 2"x6"x16' board for the long edge along the house; two 2"x10"x12' for the sides; and two 2"x10"x8' for the other long edge (couldn't find a 2"x10"x16' for this side). Then just got some brackets and screws for the inside corners and the middle of the long edge I had to piece together.

Friday was the big day. Woke up to a great breakfast with the fam at Chick-Fil-A and then hit up Home Depot which was crazy busy! Long story short...it took 3 trips to get everything home: one trip for the 86 1'x1' silver stones, one trip for the 79 1'x1' terra cotta stones and one trip for all the sand and base. Spent almost half the day at Home Depot. The rest of the day was digging out the grass by the ladies and me digging a trench for the frame.

Saturday morning was a lot more physical. When Friday ended, I had the left edge dug out and the 2x10 in place. Most of the grass was cleared out. Saturday was a lot more of the work. Digging out the trench for the remaining 3 sides and cutting the boards to the right lengths. The trench was the worse. Using a pick axe to dig it out was murder on the back. Remember earlier when I said I didn't know what I was doing? The two boards for the long edge I had to piece together, I measured twice then cut. Unfortunately I measured it incorrectly. One more trip to Home Depot. Finally got everything cut out right, trenches dug, and Holly had the rest of the grass all dug out and transplanted to a bald area by the flowerbed underneath the kitchen window. My "man" skills kicked in and I eye-balled the frame...yup, a perfect rectangle! This was where we were at by the end of Saturday:

The glove now reminds me of the Laverne & Shirley intro

Genius!

Sunday is Easter. We didn't have any big family plans other than church. Church was awesome though. Austin Stone Community Church rented the Frank Erwin Center where the Longhorns play basketball. Holly and I volunteered to help with KidStuff and take care of some rowdy rowdy 3-4 year olds. We heard the podcast for the service later that week. Check it out for yourself, it is pretty amazing. We are sad though that we missed the choir of children from African (I think Uganda?) that worshiped there with us. Also missed an incredibly time of worship by all of our worship leaders. We were bummed later to find out all the recordings of the worship service failed, but I digress...

This is how we do it...

After church and lunch, we put the boys down to sleep then back to work. Needed to start leveling out the ground. That is when my "man" skills kicked in to overdrive. I went back to Home Depot and bought another long 2"x6"x12' board. This was my thought process. The stones are 1" thick. Everything I read recommended 1" of base sand. So need the ground to be 2" below the top of the frame. That is why I got that extra board. I cut a notch on both ends that was 2" up and on the other side cut a notch that was 1" up. So used the 2" notch to start leveling out the ground. Then started pouring out the sand. After a couple more trips to Home Depot, I had enough sand. Used the 1" notch on the board to start leveling out that sand. Then I pulled out a piece of plywood I've had in the garage and used that to place on the sand then jump up and down like mad to pack it, add more sand, pack it in, level it out, etc. The boys had a great time helping Holly and I jump up, jump up and get down. Jump! (Holly had to go in and start getting the boys ready for bed while I worked on the sand, but she came back to record me actin' a fool) By the time we were done Sunday, we were ready to place the stones.

One more day of work left

Fingers crossed!

I had to spend a vacation day so we could finish on Monday. Like eating, I'm a slow worker...a bit of a perfectionist when I get into something. Now the fun part, putting down the stones! It was also the scary part. Once again, I really don't know what I'm doing. I wasn't kidding before, I literally eye-balled the frame. I had I strong guess that the side board along the patio and the board along the edge were good. I measured the distance from the house to the long edge all along the board and I was hoping the house patio was square. That was the extent of what I did to make sure my patio was square. It wasn't until it was all said and done that I remembered when Uncle Mike came over to help build our foundation for the storage shed when I remember measuring the distance between cross corners to make sure it was square. Measuring is for suckers! Monday's work was so much easier. Just started laying out stones in the pattern we designed. When we got to the very last stone...it didn't fit! But we had left small gaps along the way, so we just started shortening all the gaps...still not quite fitting in...after I jumped on it a couple times, perfect fit!

Finally! Not to shabby

We have been making plenty use of the patio. If anyone wants to have a cookout, com'on over! Here is a photo album with more pics of the process. A lot of the process was also keeping the boys entertained while we worked...think that might have had something with this taking for days to complete.



For you young-ins, here is the intro to the Laverne & Shirley sitcom.

Walnut Creek Park: Bike Ride of Death

Walnut Creek Park is an amazing park here in Austin and not too far from us. Tons of amazing trails and a creek. You can see all sorts of animals like cardinals, hawks (don't know what kind specifically), squirrels, big ol' fat fence lizards. Running and mountain biking there is incredible...as long as you don't kill yourself.

Don't turn here

I rode at WCP on Monday, but I forgot my helmet and gloves. No gloves is okay at first, but then you start sweating like a politician in church and now your grip is not as good as it was before. The helmet thing, don't really need that anyways...as long as I stay upright. Looking back, I probably shouldn't have taken some of the more difficult trails, but it was fun. Only close call was when I decided to make a right turn that ended at a cliff overlooking the creek. That's what I get for listening to the cardinal that was sitting there telling me to make the turn. Don't listen to the cardinals if you go to WCP. On Tuesday I loaded up again for a ride, but forgot my helmet again and I had just told Holly I wouldn't ride without my helmet again. History dictates at least 2 weeks must pass before I go back on my word.

Wednesday I finally remembered my helmet and gloves. Amazing how I turned into a professional mountain biker once I put my helmet on. I rode up to the "BMX Trail" which has some great loops, mounds for some decent jumps and some big ups and downs. It also has a real BMX track that is usually filled with real BMXers running the track. Well, yesterday when I passed it...the track was empty. So now I'm a professional BMXer. I start running the track on my mountain bike, it was gnarly! I only wiped out a few times. Gotta make sure I'm going full speed next time so I can make it up the next jump.

Bike meets tree, knee meets bike

I'm out here on my lunch break and at the opposite end of where I parked so I got to book it back to where I came from. The problem is now I'm wiped out from the BMX trail and I also get lost every time I ride here. I sort of know where to go, but it is always hit and miss for me to get where I actually want to go. There are some power lines that are close to where I park, but you have to be pretty close to them to see them through all the trees. As I get closer to the neighborhood I parked in, I'm trying to ride fast and I'm now on a trail I've never been on. I get to this pretty steep downhill and halfway through, picking up speed, there are a lot of roots and they are making a sort of stairway downhill. I have to keep my speed up to get over the roots and just hit a step down as I try to slow and go over the handlebars. I'm going faster than I really wanted to and then the trail makes a left turn. The brakes are not working as fast as I needed them to and I slam into some trees! It was so much fun! The bike just sort of wedged in between some trees

It's a lot more steep than it looks!

and didn't really take any damage. I was thrust forward, but my right leg took the brunt of the impact on the front fork. That was my first real wipe out...it was totally rad.

This new (to me) trail finally takes me back to the neighborhood I was in, but I'm nowhere near where I parked. Had to pull out google maps and find my way back to the truck. Super fun lunch time. This is the map of my ride at WCP, the top/right corner is where the BMX track is. The left/middle/top is where I started. The bottom left loop is where I popped out in the wrong place and had to ride around the neighborhood looking for my truck.

No, It's A Moon

This evening after the boys shower they were playing in the game room. They played with momma and their puzzle box with shapes cut out and blocks to fit in each shape. Jordan picked up a crescent shaped block. Momma named it for them, "It's a crescent." Jordan kindly corrected her...

"It not a pwesent momma. It ah moon. It go in da sky!"

Photo Contest Update

Turns out one of Jeremy's photos was in this week's contest too. I did not get an email about it until yesterday. However, he got a lot of support yesterday! He was ranked #7312 yesterday and today is now #489. Thanks to all who have voted and shared the link. Keep it up this weekend!

Click HERE to vote for Jeremy: http://photos.parents.com/category/vote/photo/837149

And don't forget to keep voting for Jordan too! Click HERE to vote for Jordan: http://photos.parents.com/category/vote/photo/834136
Jordan went down from #776 on Tuesday to #1100+ on Wednesday. On Thursday he was ranked #924 and by Friday that was cut in half to #435. Today is currently ranked #235!

So keep those votes coming and share the links! Not sure when voting ends...think tomorrow might be the last day. So try voting again on Sunday if you can. Peace out...

Jordan's Photo Contest

Entered Jordan in a photo contest on parents.com and we need your help! Go vote and tweet, facebook, email and just totally spam all your friends and family until they block you!

VOTE HERE NOW! http://photos.parents.com/category/vote/photo/834136

(P.S. It is a week long contest and you can vote once per day, but feel free to vote through different browsers, on different computers, phones, etc... every day this week)

Lesson Learned

It has been about a month since our last update. I've collected lots pictures and video. Had grand plans to update the world wide web with still and moving pictures of what we believe are the most precious kids in the world. Thought I might also update y'all on the killer stone patio we built Easter weekend. Instead I'm piecing together the single most horrific moment of our life.

We have been wanting to go down to Buda for their annual wiener dog races. The last few years Holly was pregnant and then the boys were too small. This year we finally thought we had it together and could have fun out there with the dogs...and we did, until we lost Jordan.

We got to Buda and hit the shuttle parking area. The boys (ok, Holly and I) were really excited to see the shuttles to the festival area were school buses. The boys, T-Bone and Jezebel all got their first ride in a school bus. FYI...they do not make school buses for 55 pound plus dogs. Slow ride through traffic to the park, but not long after we are finally there walking around. T-Bone and Jezebel got treats as soon as we walked in the door. They spit them out. They have never really been in to those healthy, all-natural, organic treats. We walked passed the first couple tents and the dogs wet their paws in some wading pools. The boys decided they'd like to get down and walk. Sure, no problem. We are in pretty wide aisle with boothes on both sides. We just walked down a few boothes when a man and his little girl approached us and asked if he could pet Jezebel and give her a treat. It was another organic buffalo jerky type treat, but that's besides the point. Turns out huskies are his "dream dog" and he starts asking us question about what it was like to raise her, especially in the heat of Texas.

Our lovely little baby girl is getting some attention and we are more than happy to answer the questions of the nice man with an eye for beauty. Holly and I both had a kid in our vision while we talked. After what was maybe a couple minutes, Holly asks, "where is Jordan?" Just another panicked question when she loses sight of one of the boys for 2 seconds. I look around, he is probably standing right behind her. I look around, still looking, and now the panic is creeping in. Finally Mike Tyson lands a haymaker, right on the jaw, Jordan is gone. I am freaking out, trying to hold back the fear, trying to formulate a plan, trying to not run through all the horrific possibilities in my head. All I can think is to rush to the entrance and make sure no one is trying to leave with him.

We are both shouting for Jordan as I make my way back towards the entrance. A festival worker/volunteer walks up to Holly and I walk back over. She tells Holly to stay put. I give T-Bone to Holly and she has both dogs now. I take Jeremy and start walking with the lady giving her all Jordan's details. She wants to call the cops and let the park know a kid is lost. She stops walking to use the phone and at this point I told her everything, so I tell her I'm heading for the entrance. As I'm walking away a couple tells me they saw a lady walking with a little boy and point the direction they went, right around a big tent. I walk to the corner of the tent and look around and don't see anything. I ask the couple to please come show me where the lady was headed, they just said "around the tent" and now I'm pissed that they would just come walk with me and see if they can find the lady they just saw walking by. And then...

"Frank!" Someone is calling my name and underneath the big tent is the one couple we came to see. Lori was there under the tent with Jordan and I think the lady was there too. I can't even remember anymore. If she was there, I didn't see her. I saw Lori and Jordan and then it was all Jordan. Looking back, Jordan walked away and he couldn't have been away from us for more than 3-5 minutes. He walked away, a lady saw him alone and confused. She must have asked him something about wanting to find "mommy" and "daddy" and he trusted her and took her hand. They walked passed the big tent Lori and Marcos were under and Lori thought she recognized Jordan. The lady and Jordan walked up right behind them and she heard the lady talking to paramedics about a lost little boy. That is when Lori jumped saying she knew the little boy, Jeremy or Jordan. To her credit, we can't always get their names straight either. With Jordan's long curly hair now, they are starting to look a lot alike too. Lori said she started talking to Jordan and tried to use familiar words he would recognize, like Jeremy, Jordan, T-Bone. She had just told Marcos to call me when they saw me and called me over.

It is difficult to really piece the time lapse together...it was one of those moments where people say the minutes felt like hours. In all, I'm guessing it close to 5 minutes that Jordan was away from us. All I remember was begging, over and over again, "please God." Holly had to try and keep it together while she just stayed in the area where we lost him. As soon as I picked up Jordan and I told Lori I had to go get Holly right away. Holly spotted me and the boys almost instantly as soon as I walked out of the tent towards her. She ran over and with every step her face melted more and more. She held Jordan and sobbed. People who had been helping were trying their best to not let us think we were idiots for losing our kid and talked about how they lost their kid in Wal-mart. Jordan finally needed to come back to daddy cause momma's suffocating hugs and sobs were freakin' him out a bit.

We've seen too much tragedy recently with some old friends losing their infant son to illness and other's discovering their healthy 7 year old boy suddenly lost his sight because of a brain tumor. Their tragedies helped me remember how blessed I was. Somehow, that started to fade as I walked around the park looking for my boy thinking I didn't hug him enough and I'd never see him again. I got another reminder this weekend not to take my family for granted (anyone else ever want to say "granite"). I pray I never have to experience that feeling again.

We were able to recover and semi-enjoy the rest of the day. It got better pretty quickly and Jordan had no idea anything messed up had just happened. We got to see Marcos and Lori's dog race. Oscar and Maya. Maya came up short in her race, but Oscar finished top 2 and advanced to the next round. In the next round Oscar got a great jump coming out of the gate, but swerved across a couple lanes and lost focus on the finish line for just a second. It was enough to keep him from advancing again. He did get featured on the http://welcometokyle.com/ homepage though. Way to go Oscar!

2 Year Check-Up

Jeremy making silly faces at himself in the mirror

Boys were sick earlier this year, for often and on for most this year, so our 2 year check-up is a couple months late. Boys are looking good though!

Quick Stats
Jeremy: Height 38.25" (100th percentile) - Weight 32lbs 8oz (90th percentile)
Jordan: Height 38.50" (110th percentile) - Weight 31lbs 6oz (80th percentile)

We think they were a little off with the height measurement for one of the boys. We think Jeremy is just a smidge taller, don't think Jordan is the taller one. Any who, boys did really well. Jeremy got checked out first, heartbeat, reflexes (he was a little tense and took a while to get a response) and then Doc Enders shined her light in his ears to see his choo-choo train. He thought that was just terrific. After that, Jordan couldn't sit still and had a hard time waiting for his turn and wanting her to see the choo-choo train in his head too. After the ears, Jeremy had to open up his mouth really wide so Doc could take a peek. He still has 2 molars that need to come out.

Jordan has easy access to his diaper now

Jordan finally got his turn and was so happy. After she checked out his choo-choo and he opened up his mouth on his own. He has a couple molars waiting to come out as well. After that doc gave them a couple Thomas the Train stickers and that just made their day. At this point we'd been in the room for a long time, so the boys were starting to get bored. Thats when we whupped out the iPhones. 3G connection was horrible, so no Netflix, but plenty of kids games available while we wait for the difficult part: blood drawn and shots, 3 shots to be exact! Last time Jordan didn't cry when getting his blood drawn. This time was another piece of cake. Told him what they were going to do and he just watched them poke him, didn't even flinch. Then I showed him how the vial was filling up and told him that it was his blood coming out of his arm. Then they swapped and filled up a second vial and he was done. Jeremy was next, he was still playing on the iPhone while they drew blood, but after a second started watching the blood coming out too and did not cry. The 3 techs in the room were blown away and could not stop gushing over how great they did, they never had 2 year olds do as good as these guys (daddy is pretty proud of his boys).

Then the world as we knew it came crashing down. Having blood taken out is cool, have a big needle stuck in the meat of your thigh and hot burning lava injected is a whole other story. The tech did really good though, she got all 3 shots in super fast and covered with band-aids. But the damage was done. You could tell by their cry's that it was really painful. Jeremy couldn't even cry for like 5 seconds...he was in shock just trying to breathe enough to be able to let out a cry. They are all good now and hopefully won't get any fevers.

The blood is being tested for an old iron deficiency problem that shouldn't be a problem anymore and for food allergies.

JAG Vids: February 2011

Alrighty, a couple more videos of the boys. Got one of each boy for you!

Earlier last month Jordan was playing with the spray bottle Momma uses to wet their hair and comb it. We was so happy to figure out how to spray water...even if it was pointed at his own face!




About a week ago, Jeremy figured out how to be sad any time he wants to. We were all out in the backyard putting up Poppi's birdhouse in the tree. Holly went back in to change Jeremy's diaper and he just start fake crying on his own.



Jeremy has always worked hard on making faces and noises, even when no one is watching. Trip down memory lane...



and...

JAG Vids

These were uploaded to youtube a while back. In case you haven't seen them yet, here they are.

This first one is Jeremy rocking out on the new axe he got for his birhtday.


One of the boys favorite cartoons is the Mickey Mouse clubhouse cartoon. At the end of the show they always do the "hotdog dance" and dance around. Goofy has the best dance of them all...very technical dance. His musicality is unrivaled by any other cartoon. Jordan does his best impression here.


Finally, this video is from Syd's and Nick's birthday. A set of twins Holly took care of for a long time. They are pretty big kids now and their party was at a gymnastics place. I gotta say, I probably had just as much fun as any other kid there. Poor Jeremy was feeling yucky that day and just hung on to mom the whole time. Jordan was running wild though...

JAG 2nd Birthday

Happy birthday boys! To kick off the beginning of the year we took the boys back for some pro pictures. There are some pretty nice shots of the boys. They did really well listening to the nice camera lady and following directions.

There is a link to all the pictures down below. We would like to be able to order prints for family...but it got expensive quick. Kodak Gallery does a good job if you want to order from them. If you want any of the digital images, just let me know.

Two Sundays ago, the 23rd, we had a small family birthday party. The boys have been big on choo choo trains, so Holly made a them a choo choo train cake. They each also got their own engine car piece of cake to chow down on. Jeremy was trying to eat and keep his hands clean at the same time, poor little guy had a slow start but caught up quick. Jordan wasted no time diving in face first.

After quick it was show time, time to unwrap gifts. We saved the best for last. Second to last gift were construction hats...to go with the Handy Manny tool box with dancing tools! As expected, they were and still are a hit. Check out our Kodak Gallery photo albums. This first album has the professional pics, check it out HERE. Pics from their birthday party can be found HERE.

And last but not least...some videos! First video is from their birthday party eating their cake. The second video is of them opening all their presents. The last video is from the 26th, their actual birthday when they got cookies delivered from Tiff's! The awesome Jessi and Adam sent them over for them.