Frank and Holly

JAG Official Movie Trailer WOLRD PREMIER

2012-02-10T17:57:00.000-06:00

Last month the boys released their first music video. This month, they hit the big screen!

We took a trip downtown on Austin's Metro Rail. It was the boys first train ride. The Morales' invited us out and it was the perfect train ride. Hopped on at the Highland station and rode south to the Plaza Saltillo station. Got off there for lunch and ate at Nuevo Leon. After that we walked back to the station and caught the next train back. It was a very fun time out on the town with the kids. Shaky iPhone video, but you get the gist. Wish I had footage of the boys with Eli, but I took more photos than video

Speaking of pictures...check'em out here.

JAG Music Video WOLRD PREMIER

2012-01-15T18:26:00.000-06:00

The new duo on the scene are the JAG Twins. Fraternal twin brothers, these little guys have taken the worship music scene by storm! The twins recently showed up in Austin, Texas and put on an announced performance. This is the live performance...

Seriously though, we took the boys to church last December for the CD release celebration of the Austin Stone Worship team. Holly and I were up in the front row for this and had the best time, tired arms and all, worshiping and holding our boys. The event was also streamed only and has been available online since then (see below). The boys have asked to watch it repeatedly and they know how to start playing the CD on the radio themselves. They hit play and keep replaying their favorite song, God Undefeatable, over and over again. Holly finally caught them on her iPhone. She caught one performance, then Jordan hitting the back button and then jammed to it again. Jeremy can worship like no one is watching...when no one is watching. As soon as he saw the phone, he hid behind the corner. Holly had to pretend like she wasn't recording and thats why sometimes its really shaky or the kids aren't in frame. Hope you enjoyed it.

As for the Austin Stone Worship team, they have samples of their music online. Along with tutorials on how to play the music and the theology behind each song. I'm pretty sure you want to go buy the album! Check the live performance from the release celebration:

Austin Stone Worship Album Release Event from The Austin Stone on Vimeo.

Christmas Begins

2011-11-26T21:51:00.001-06:00

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"

2011-11-19T21:31:00.002-06:00

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

2011-11-18T12:43:00.000-06:00

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

2011-10-29T21:26:00.000-05:00

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

2011-10-22T21:41:00.000-05:00

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

2011-10-15T22:45:00.002-05:00

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

2011-07-29T21:51:00.000-05:00

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

2011-07-27T22:10:00.000-05:00

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

2011-07-02T08:19:00.000-05:00

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

2011-06-30T14:23:00.000-05:00

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

2011-06-02T19:36:00.000-05:00

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

2011-05-26T20:14:00.001-05:00

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

2011-05-26T10:31:00.001-05:00

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.

iMapMyRUN: May 25, 2011 12:23 PM

Find more Runs in Austin, TX

No, It's A Moon

2011-05-20T19:56:00.001-05:00

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

2011-05-07T14:31:00.000-05:00

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

2011-05-04T16:28:00.002-05:00

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

2011-05-02T22:57:00.000-05:00

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

2011-03-29T16:31:00.001-05:00

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

2011-03-06T19:13:00.000-06:00

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

2011-02-20T19:14:00.000-06:00

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

2011-01-31T22:19:00.001-06:00

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.

Hallelujah! What A Savior

2010-12-20T21:38:00.001-06:00

Have I got the best Christmas presents for y'all! You don't even have to get me anything in return because thats just the way I roll. The Austin Stone is going through a series with the same title as this post. Check it out here: http://www.austinstone.org/resources/sermons/category/hallelujah_what_a_savior/
Learn what "hallelujah", how the three shepherds must have felt and about the one place in the bible where the word hallelujah is used and where you specifically might be mentioned in the bible. Trust me, this is a great series.

One of our worship leaders, Aaron Ivey, also teamed up with some of the pastors and staff and came up with a new Christmas worship song that is simply amazing. They have also made it free for download on the church website: http://files.austinstone.org/audio/mp3/Hallelujah,_What_A_Savior.zip
It is a zip file with 2 mp3s (original and acoustic version). If you feel like it, you can also get it HERE and leave a tip (or not, still free) for the artist. Finally, you can also get it from the artist's website here: http://aaronivey.com/
Either way, you won't be disappointed.

And last but not least...the History of Redemption. I could tell you about it, but there is already a great website that'll do the trick. Check it out: http://www.historyofredemption.org/
While you are there, don't miss the link to watch the sermon...it's God's story, a full sermon/story of the bible from cover to cover straight from scripture. I've said too much already, click the link and give yourself just a little time to watch/hear an amazing story. By the way, if you are still looking for a last minute gift, the History of Redemption would be prefect! Great story, great art and it comes with a disc to help memorize the scripture.

Merry Christmas!

Lucky 13

2010-12-19T21:51:00.002-06:00

Tomorrow Holly and I celebrate 13 years of marriage. She's put up with a lot! Wacky. If she didn't love God, we would have never made it. Her love for me is about as close as you can get to the way God loves us. She chases after me every day, even when I'm difficult. When I mess up, she forgives me and that's that...she never holds it against me or later pulls out a "remember when." Pretty sure God picked her out for me and used her to show me how He loves us. She goes to all my football and basketball games. Helps me play with a band and watch the boys on her own while I mess around on the guitar. She is one of the best mothers who ever walked the face of the earth. Yeah, I'm blessed. Love you babe...happy 13th.

One thing that stands out about while we were up there and Holly's dad was marrying us...I had the Princess Bride wedding scene in my head and was really fighting back laughter just waiting for her dad to start with, :Marriage..." in that slow funny voice.

Just in case you live under a rock and have never seen the Princess Bride:

New Traditions: Part 1 of 2

2010-12-08T15:20:00.000-06:00

This year we did a couple of things that we plan to turn in to family traditions. The first happened while we were vacationing in Arizona. What the first thing you do when you get to your room while on vacation? You jump around on the bed, right? You're basic tomfoolery. We jumped a lot. Threw the boys on the bed a lot, just plain ol' fun. We caught some of the action on camera and decided from now on, hopefully once a year, we will get family pics like this of everyone jumping on the bed together. Things should get pretty interesting once the boys get older and bigger! The last pic was perfectly timed with Holly and Jeremy in mid-flight! You should be see this more soon...

Our First Big Family Vacation

2010-12-07T19:15:00.000-06:00

We took our first real family vacation last September. Destination: Arizona. We planned it our the Raider game in Phoenix against the Cardinals which was on the 26th. We DROVE all the way there with two 20 month old twin boys. The drive was actually fun, sort of. We stopped for a short day and half visit in El Paso. Here is our El Paso Photo Album. Visited with the parents, grandparents and check out my lil sis's volleyball game. The boys had their first encounter with popcorn there and loved it. On Saturday the 25th we packed up and headed for a much shorter drive from El Paso to Scottsdale. We made a quick stop in Tucson to see my big bro and his family. We would see them again on Sunday for the Raider game. Made it to our resort in Scottsdale with no probs and relaxed.

Sunday was a fun, long day of tailgating and the Raider game. My bro and a neighbor of his grilled up some tasty food for us then we got to see a great game with a disappointing ending as Janikowski missed a FG in the last seconds. Raiders should have won that game, but gave away too many penalties...not to mention the opening kickoff they allowed the Cards to return for a TD.

We set out to Arizona with a week and a half to spend on our trip and had only one thing planned...the Raider game. The rest of the time was just do whatever we felt like doing once we got there. On Monday we chillaxed at the pool and pretty much did nothing. It was awesome. Tuesday we were psyched to go check out the Wildlife World Zoo & Aquarium Holly found online. The zoo was tons of fun with the boys. Got a crazy number of pics too...there was this one really cool bird. Reminded me of one of the Skeksis from the Dark Crystal! It wasn't ugly looking like a skeksis, but it reminded of them...not sure why. Holly had a blast taking pictures of a osterich that was smiling at her. Reminiscent of the scene of Spencer and the ostrich in the opening credits of iCarly. What?? Here are our Raider Tailgate and Wildlife Zoo photo album. We left around lunch for a bite to eat. Boys got a short nap on the road and then back to the zoo to check out their aquarium. Really neat place...but it was crazy record breaking heat the weekend we were there.

The rest of the week was a lot more of nothing. Time at the pool and kiddie fountains and a morning hike at Echo Canyon Park. There were tons of people there on a weekday walking/jogging up this pretty big mountain. Good thing was there was a lot of shade for most the morning, bad thing was it was still pretty warm, but oh so pretty. This is our Final Days photo album for the trip. We had too much fun...it is gonna be tough to top it. These vids are from breakfast one of our lazy days and one from Echo Canyon Park where Jordan all of a sudden decide it would try to repel down the stairs.

CHOO CHOO TWAIN!!

2010-11-27T23:01:00.000-06:00

Creepy story time...

Well, seems I forgot we had a blog. If you are on Twitter or Facebook, then you've probably already heard about our visit to the Austin Children's Museum (Kelli). If not, got a little story to tell. It's about a boy who falls in love with trains. All aboard...

Choo-Choo Twain!

Rewind 7 days ago, Saturday the 20th (it was my Dad's birthday that day, happy birthday again Pops!) and we headed out to the museum. The boys had been there once before with Mom, but it was my first time with them. Place is awesome, I had...I mean, the boys had so much fun! I got to play, sorry, they got to play with this thing-a-ma-jig that blows rings of smoke out into the air. A spinning metal disc on a table that you can roll smaller spinning discs and balls on. All sorts of little exhibits displaying the magnificent wonders of physics. There is also a choo-choo train that rides around on a track way up high, but you can climb some stairs and go up into a little glass room and watch it pass by right in front of you. The boys LOVED it. Video break!

Then we went down to partake in the museum's story time. The lady reading stories was a little creepy and the boys didn't really get in to it. So we left the story circle and played with toy choo-choo trains and a neat set of wooden tracks. Jordan really really fell in love with the trains here. He tried to hog them all up and decided he wasn't going to share any of the trains cars with anybody. So we put back all the trains and went to check out the rest of the exhibits. Had some more fun, but started getting close to lunch and nap time so we split. On the ride home Jordan made it clear what he wants for Christmas...peep out the vid:

Halloween A Year Ago

2010-10-29T08:00:00.024-05:00

Yes, I know I have slacked big time in sharing JAG photos. Got some to share, along with a recap of the DR trip I'm still not sure how to go about sharing. May just enter stuff I journaled. Any who, I will be back with more photos.

For now, the boys 2nd halloween is right around the corner! Last year they were an angel and devil. This year I had so many ideas. Holly did too, but none of our were remotely similar. Holly's involved cutsie plush animal/flower stuff...blah blah blah. My ideas were very very cool. Stuff along the lines of ninjas, Matrix characters, lucha libre (Mexican wrestlers). Pretty much all my ideas, just couldn't see the boys wanting to wear masks, make-up on their face or any other kind of head gear. We settled for some store bought costumes.

If you follow me on twitter or are friends with Holly or I on facebook, then you've already seen the boys in their costumes yesterday. If not, then you will just have to wait until we get pictures of them in the costumes on Sunday when we go trick or treating. Can't wait to fill up my 2 bags, err, the boys bags, with tons of candy!

This weekend is going to be jam packed. We are putting together a shed in the backyard. Mike and Mike came over last weekend and helped us lay the foundation for it. Its a small, stylish 7x7 shed so we can store some of Poppi and Poppas things when they move in. Oh yeah, didn't we tell ya? The grandparents are moving in the first weekend of November! My main goal while they're is to convert them to Raider fans. We'll probably be working on the shed and cleaning today and tomorrow. Tomorrow I got a "gig" with the band at a halloween party in Leander. Should be fun...first paying gig! Then Sunday we go get our church on, go to my Old Testament class, then FOOTBALL!! Raiders should get 2 in a row on Sunday and then we go out in the hood to meet neighbors and tricks or treats.

DR: Makarios Video

2010-08-24T22:10:00.000-05:00

Don't have to much to say right now, but here is a video from our trip. Does not show all that happened, but just small taste of the trip. Hadn't planned on taking video, so didn't record a lot and they are random clips put together. I just started taking vid with my phone and ended up taking just enough footage. Will be back with pics as soon as I can. Feel free to comment, e-mail me or call if you have any questions about the trip! This week is going to be busy...after that, I will try to post once a day and recount the trip.

Back From Puerto Plata, DR

2010-08-23T17:54:00.000-05:00

First, go back a couple of pages to see some "new" posts. Holly blogged them a couple weeks ago and had asked me to proof read, but was bogged down with work and preparations for our mission trip. They are all posted now.

A more current update, I got back in town safe and sound last Saturday. Had the most amazing week of my life in the Dominican Republic. God truly, truly is good. I am still processing everything that went on that week. I will be back as soon as I can to share the experience with y'all...but for now, this one picture does a pretty good job of summing up the week.

Santiago, DR

2010-08-13T22:51:00.000-05:00

Left Austin at 9:55 to DFW to Miami and we finally made it to
Santiago. We will be here for a night and in the morning head out to
Puerto Plata and our real host home. Can't thank all of you enough.
Overhelmed with the insane amount of support for this trip. Our host
home for tonight has wi-fi, so i was able to talk my beautiful wife
through text messages and see pics of my azing boys. Don't think I
will be online after this. The island looked a lot more tropical than
I expected. Alright, keep us in your prayers!!

Here are some pics of the sky/ocean near the DR and of our hosts'
place. They had sandwiches, chips and stuff waiting for us. It was
delish!

Sweet, sweet, Jeremy.

2010-08-09T21:33:00.000-05:00

Recently we started noticing that Jeremy was pulling away from us emotionally. I thought at first his personality was changing, and I was sad but thought it was his way of becoming more independent. Then Frank mentioned that he didn't think Jeremy liked him much, and my response was "he doesn't like me much either". That was when we realized something was wrong. Our sweet, silly, full of JOY Jeremy was different. He was not making eye contact as much, and was not accepting hugs or kisses. He has been refusing hugs and kisses for a few weeks, we were not forcing them, but then he started pulling away more. We were not connecting at all. He seemed like he wasn't happy. He didn't laugh or smile much. (except with Jordan) He kept a grumpy look on his face most of the time.

Everyone that knows us, knows that we adore our boys. I spend all day loving them and reading to them and playing with them, but Jeremy needed more. Jordan on the other hand has never had trouble getting loving when he needed it. He will run give our legs hugs several times a day. If that's not enough he says "up please" and hugs us around the neck as long as he needs.

So I started watching Jeremy closely. I noticed that he always has his eyes on me even if he was playing. When I am reading to them and he gets up and leaves he needs me to keep eye contact with him. So that is why I have started always looking at him and smiling at him no matter what I am doing (glad I have the books memorized) so that he had that connection even when we weren't touching. Then I started just grabbing him every few min to hug and kiss and love on. He was grumpy with the hugs the first day, pushing me away and fussing, but soon started leaning in to them. The second day of this he hugged my legs twice on his own and was accepting kisses and hugs happily. That night we heard him laugh hysterically for the first time in weeks. He started smiling at us on his own and making eye contact constantly. Several people noticed the difference in him that day. Yesterday he pulled me to the floor gave me a huge juicy kiss and hugged me hard. He seems much less frustrated and able to handle stress much better, and has not bitten once.

He is now back to his goofy, silly, joyful little boy self. Smiling all the time.

The decline into himself was so slow, but coming back was almost overnight. THANK GOD! We now know that he pulls away when he is sad or hurt (emotionally) and we need to go to him. We need to constantly seek him out and cuddle with him especially when he is grumpy and pushing us away. I am so thankful we figured this out as soon as we did. I hope to teach him he is safe to seek comfort when he is sad or hurt. Thank you God for opening our eyes, and showing us what to do. We are still in shock and saddened by how close we came to loosing our joyful little boy. I will now be more aware of every change. This is a hard scary job. Glad we have God to guide us.

You learn something new every day.

2010-08-09T17:35:00.000-05:00

Kirsten came over on Thursday to play and I learned something about Jordan while she was here. The boys were in their highchairs snacking while I was busy making the rest of lunch. The rule while eating is don't throw your food and don't feed the dogs. As far as I knew they had learned this well. Kirsten let me know that I was dead wrong. Every once in a while Kirsten would crack up. I finally asked her what was so funny and she said that Jordan was keeping an eye on me and every time I turned my back he would feed a dog. Little stinker. Then when I sat down to eat with them every time I took a bite she would laugh. He would sneek the dogs food every time I turned to take a bite. Guess Id better keep a better eye on them.

Stars

2010-08-09T09:19:00.002-05:00

We stayed in my high school room in El Paso and the glow in the dark stars are still there and glowing. The boys loved them so when we got home, thanks to Daddy, we discovered glow in the dark stars in the boys room. They are so excited to see the stars every nap and night time. Makes going to bed even easier.

17-18th months

2010-08-09T09:00:00.000-05:00

Wow its been 18 months and the 17th-18th months may have been the most fun so far. The boys have exploded in language, motor skills and personality. We may be in trouble. They can say anything they want now. Just a few examples are "Where are you?" Jordan says this whenever hes looking for something. He wanders the house yelling "Where are you?" They say "Help please, up please, more please, Bible, bubbles, nubbie and 1,2,3 go" They know tons of animal noises, signs and names. The other day when we pulled up to HEB Jordan yelled HEB. :) Not sure if that one was a fluke or not, but the other day he said it again when there was an HEB commercial on. They are saying things I didn't know they knew. Just now Jordan went over to the rocker, pushed it and said "rock, rock". When did he learn that?

They are so funny and starting to be a challenge now. The discipline starts now so we can never be tired or lazy. Jeremy started angry biting in El Paso and thinks time out is funny so that's going to be a challenge. Its hard to always have a consequence ready so were trying to plan ahead. We will let you know how that goes in about 20 years :) My goal is for my mom to see a difference in their obedience in a month..... I love a challenge. eek!

I am starting to have to carry a note book around to right down all the funny things they do. Today Jordan was walking on my wet floor. I told him to be careful the floor was wet, so he took baby steps and waddled all over my wet floor. Smart, silly boy.

*This was blogged back in July, we are just late going live with it

The Boys Are Back In Town!

2010-07-18T22:50:00.001-05:00

And so is my amazing wife. After 2 LOOONG weeks in El Paso, they have returned home like the salmon of Capistrano. Feels so good to have them back. Boys are running around faster than before and talking more. I've been getting really good hugs from them both the last day. Just here to post some vids, enjoy! But before we leave you, some really awesome news. My trip to the Dominican Republic has been fully funded! You guys rock, such an amazing blessing to go and you all are a part of it. Got a lot of thank you notes to write now, I hate writing, but these will be the some of the best letters I've had the opportunity to write.

OK...the vids...

1. Spaghetti Face - Jordan got a piece of pasta stuck on his face, and he kept turning trying to find it.

2. Jeremy Dance - Jeremy came up with this flailing arm dance on his own. Kinda reminds me of the Bushwhacker's dance from the WWE.

3. The boys get so happy when the ice cream truck passes by...just imagine how happy they'll be when they actually get to have some ice cream!

4. Mmmm...ketchup - The boys saw us dipping at dinner one time and now they are ketchup fiends. Anything that can be dipped will be dipped...even their own fingers.

About a year ago...

2010-07-09T00:10:00.001-05:00

We just got some pictures in the mail from the lady who has been photographing Holly and the boys for the Texas Department of State Health Services. The boys and momma have been modeling for her since the second day the boys escaped from the womb. There are some REALLY COOL pics of the boys in the latest batch...too many to scan in and share online. So you'll have to come over if you want to see them all. I don't think the boys actually made it into print this time, I don't know why...maybe they wanted to give other kids a chance so they wouldn't feel so bad. Kind of like in tee ball where everyone gets to play and wins a participation ribbon. Anywho, it reminded me that it was about this time last year when Holly and the boys were on the cover of the Texas WIC News magazine.

Here are just a few pics from the boys' photo shoot earlier this year for the State's breastfeeding campaign in August this year.

Sunday Lessons We Really Love

2010-07-07T23:18:00.000-05:00

Been wanting to share this with you all. They meant a lot to us and we really hope you guys enjoy them too.

Marriage, Sex, Singleness & Divorce: "A 4-week look at some key things the Bible says about marriage, sex, singleness, and divorce; grounded in Paul's letter to the church at Corinth (1 Corinthians 7)." [more]

The Purpose of Marriage 34:15, Matt Carter January 18, 2009 Matthew 19:3-10 [mp3]
The Purpose of Sex 43:00, Matt Carter January 25, 2009 1 Corinthians 7:1-5 [mp3], Jen Carter's letter to wives [pdf]
Singleness 34:39, Matt Carter February 8, 2009 1 Corinthians 7:7-9 [mp3]
Is Divorce Biblical? 39:18, Matt Carter February 15, 2009 1 Corinthians 7:10-15 [mp3]

Vids for Poppi

2010-06-18T23:40:00.000-05:00

Told Poppi I would post these vids for her when she visited a few weeks ago. So here they are...

Dominican Republic Missions Trip

2010-06-13T22:48:00.000-05:00

I am unbelievably excited to be heading to the Dominican Republic in August. Hopefully you all already got the letter about the missions trip. There are many teams from Austin Stone Community Church heading out this summer, about 12 trips and 150 people! I am blessed to be heading out with folks I work with behind the scenes at the Stone in the Audio Visual Lights and Camera crew. We are heading out to assist with the ongoing efforts of Makarios there in the DR. (Read more about Makarios HERE.)

The total cost for the week long trip is $1500. The first $750 is due by this Friday, the 18th. I need tons of support financially, but most of all...I need your prayers. Prayers for me to stay focused on my own personal prayer and study time, prayer for all the teams heading out this summer and prayer for all the paths we will cross. Praying the God will work wonders through us all and lift His people in the DR up.

If you did not receive a letter from me, don't fret! You can read/print it out right HERE. Please pray about it and if you can, send in the support card right away. We got our first pre-training meeting this Friday night. Will keep you all updated on preparation.

Photo Album Update

2010-06-10T17:07:00.000-05:00

Sorry it took so long. Busy, busy past couple months. Got a photo album back log...4 albums to share. Been a while since we posted some JAG pics. So here goes...

Bluebonnet Photos at Walnut Creek Park: These were taking back in April. I didn't notice while I took the pics, but I learned I need to use the flash when the sun is directly overhead to try and get read of the shadows on people's faces. Wish the pics of Holly and the boys were better.
JAG April Pics: Pics of JAG life in the month of April. Starts with pics of a nest and bird eggs in our backyard. Towards then are pics of the baby birds in the nest! You also get pics of the boys. There is a funny string of pics of Jeremy, he can't keep his eyes open cause he knows the flash is coming. Pics of our backyard during a heavy downpour, the boys playing out front with bubbles and playing out back in the pool.
Pond Pics w/Tio Zaiah: Isaiah was hear visiting back in the beginning of May. We took a bike ride to a nearby pond for pics.
Mother's Day Pics: Not sure how in the world this happened...but didn't get ANY pics of mama! It won't happen again, I promise. These are just pics of the boys playing out back...it was on Mother's Day though :)

I will be back very soon for an update about my upcoming mission trip!

Muddy Buddy (ATX)

2010-05-16T22:44:00.011-05:00

I know, I'm behind on sharing JAG pics with the family. Been a busy month with work and training for the Muddy Buddy, which by the way, was yesterday! I promise, I will be back sometime in the near future with JAG pics and vids. Feels like we spent a month in last weekend...so this is going to be a long post that could probably get boring quick. Look for BOLD headlines on what happened and for links to picture albums. Going to tell you about camping, the Muddy Buddy race, boating and jet skiing on Lake Travis and getting in my truck which was already occupied by a snake. Hopefully this doesn't get boring quick! If you just want to see the pics, check out the photo album HERE.

CAMPING: PEDERNALES FALLS STATE PARK
As I mentioned earlier, James and I have been running and mountain biking to get ready for this race. We kind of started the weekend of on the wrong foot. We planned to camp out at nearby Pedernales Falls Park in Johnson City so we could get a "good nights rest" and not have to wake up super early and leave Austin early to arrive in Johnson City by 7am. Well, waited to long to reserve a camp ground, but we were sold on the idea of having a fun Friday night, campfire and relaxing before the race. So we got the primitive campground. The primitive camp sites are a 0.8 mile trek from the parking lot. Not bad, we got bikes for James, Morgan, Isaiah and myself...easy ride. Well, we got there late. Big surprise huh? So we didn't eat before arrival as planned. Found out 2 things when we arrived: 1) the hike to the camp site is 2 miles, not 0.8 as we originally thought; and 2) no campfires allowed out there...bummer! There went our "fun" camping. Thats cool...we made the trek and set up base.

Now it is getting dark...we ride back to the trucks cause we need to go get dinner. The ride is not easy. Muddy trails, creek crossings, big inclines...Morgan was trooper and got through it all okay. We head in to Johnson City and end up stopping at Hill Country Cupboard. It boasts about having the worlds best chicken fried steak..."over 3 dozen sold." At this point we are starving and could have eaten at Burger King and had the best meal ever, but I think the food was pretty good. Dinner is over and we are back at the park, pitch dark. James pulls out his headband lights, one works and one is out of batteries...I had nothing to offer. Somehow it is enough light to get us back and finally are getting to bed. Oh, we left a sleeping bag in the truck. I open up the one bag and spread it open for me and my bro...luckily it didnt get too cold. We might as well not have brought it...offered little in terms of padding and we didn't get to cover up. I think we all woke up about 20-30 times that night with the rain, wind and lightning....good times! So the plan to be close to the race for a short morning drive was a major FAIL. We're just happy the rain stopped in the morning so we could pack up and get back to the trucks dry. As we pack up and take the tent rain shield/cover off, there are dozens and dozens of daddy long legs all over the tent. They are still there, we just rolled them up in the tent. We're still good though, a few bananas, granola bars, oatmeal and powerbars later and it is...

MUDDY BUDDY TIME!!

This is a race where teams of 2 alternate riding a mountain bike and running and alternating about every mile where there are check points and obstacles courses. The person with the bike goes first, reaches the check point, leaves the bike, does the obstacle course then takes off running. The person who was running reaches the same check point, does the obstacle course then picks up the bike and rides. You continue to switch off at every obstacle course. At the end of the race is a big mud pit where both teammates have to cross it together. The Austin, Tx. (Johnson City really) race was a short 5.4 mile race with obstacle courses about every 1.1 miles. I took off on the bike first, since we got there late, I'm behind the pack and have to be patient while all these slow people crowd the road...finally there is some space and I start weaving in and out of traffic trying to make up time. I am WAY better at biking than running, so I was determined not to fall back on my riding to make up for my slow run time. 1.1 miles later I reach the first obstacle, the High Walls. A wall, not really that high, with indoor mountain climbing type of nubs all over it and on the other side a cargo net to climb down. Was easy peasy. Now I'm running and suckin' wind. 2.3 miles into the race is the next obstacle, the Inflatable Slide...a very TALL slide. Straight up climb on a cargo net the a fun slide down. I'm down and then James starts pulling up so I take the bike and go. 3.3 miles into the race is the Balance Beams, so I ditch the bike and jump up...normally this would have been easy and it was, but it was more challenging doing it with Jell-o legs.

This next stretch was killer, mostly uphill and really muddy from all the rain. I started off good, slowed down and then finished strong...4.6 miles into the race and I'm at the Low Crawl. They have a net low to the ground and you gotta go army style crawling on yer belly to get through. I do and then gotta wait a little longer for James who had the bad luck of getting the bike ride on the worst leg of the race...it was almost impossible to ride most the uphill battle in the mud. He gets there in good time considering and I'm off again on the bike for the final leg. It starts off uphill but I get through it all the way and then relief when I see this loooong downhill ride and I let gravity take over. 5.7 miles later I am at the final Mud Pit and waiting on James. He arrives and we head for the pit and we hear the PA guy, "Here they come...your OAKLAND RRRAIDERS!!" James and I get through the Mud Pit and run the final incredibly muddy and slippery stretch to the finish line...we finished with a time of 54:17. We were in the 76-85 combined age group and finished 7th. Only the top 5 place...we were 37 secs away from top 5 finish.

It was really fun though and we got lots of nice goodies at the end. Really hope to do it again. Here is a vid Zaiah took of us finishing...

LAKE TRAVIS: PONTOON BOAT AND JET SKI
On the way home from Johnson City, Zaiah and I stopped at the Nutty Brown Cafe on 290 for some lunch. Tastee! Got home and then spent way more time cleaning bikes and everything else. Was much easier getting the mud on instead of off. Just as I finished, Mari and the girls pulled up. By 4:45 were back on the road and headed to Lake Travis. We rented a pontoon boat and a jet ski. We anchored in the cove, swam and took turns on the jet ski. The water was pretty cold, but once you were in it got easy. The girls had a blast on the jet ski, it was fun having everyone out there.

SNAKE IN THE ~~GRASS~~ TRUCK

After the lake we headed to Carlos N Charlies to meet the Bruces and the Dunhams for dinner. Holly, Mari and the kids headed there to meet up with them while Isaiah and I carried stuff back to the truck. I get in the truck, about to sit down and I noticed out of the corner of my eye some trash on my center console. It took maybe 1/2 a second at most for me to think: "who left trash on my console" and "it kinda looked like a snake." Of course I totally disregarded the whole snake theory...then the piece of "trash" moved and jumped back out of the truck. Look in and yup...its a snake alright. I saw him head to the back seat for more leg room. I opened up all the doors, but dude just wanted to chill. I get up close to snap a pic and he turns away, so grab his tail to yank him out, but he pulls back and slips out of my hand...and now hes mad. Coiled up and his little mouth wide open. Didn't have giant teeth, but I still didn't want them in me. After throwing the boys Burger King crown at it failed to get him to exit, I break a branch of a tree to try and lift it out. Few failed attempts and it finally turned away and "ran" out the opposite door. It was a fantastic 24 hours!!

Mike's Jiu-Jitsu Tourny

2010-04-19T09:36:00.007-05:00

Spent most of my Saturday in Wimberley, TX. to check out Mike in his first Jiu-Jitsu tournament. Never heard of Wimberley before, it was a neat little town and the drive between Kyle and Wimberley on FM150/FM3237 was pretty. Really wanted to stop at several places for pictures, but several things prevented that: short on time, small 2 lane road with no shoulder or place to pull over, and rain. Hopefully someday we can go back just to hang out and explore.

So the tourny started at 10, but Mike's division didn't start to fight until 1 PM. Mike finally got his turn and faced off against one the meanest, rock-solid guys in the building. So Mike came after him right away and almost started a street brawl he threw him off the mat and they almost kept fighting behind the ref's table only 10 seconds into the match. So the ref stops it and gets them on the mat again and they go...again, Mike goes after him pushes him back and off the mat, this time Mike falls face down and his opponent falls on his head and Mike's forehead hits the ground.

Take 3...finally both are grappling and they end up on the ground. Hard to describe the pretzel twisting that begins...so just watch video. I was corrected about my Twitter post, Mike did not tap out, the ref stopped the fight. Which was probably a good thing, his arm was bending in his the human arm is not meant to bend.

In the end, Mike took home 3rd place after only one fight. He was supposed to fight for the 3rd place, but his opponent forfeited after taking an accidental blow to his chin in the previous fight. That was my first time watching a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu tournament, very interesting. The kids fighting were fun to watch, but don't think Holly would have enjoyed it. There were a couple of girls fighting against all the boys. It was cool to watch this one girl, she was maybe 12 years old, beat this one boy and then give him a big ol' happy smile and a hug.

Easter and Beyond

2010-04-16T23:34:00.005-05:00

Been a long time...so here comes a quick (maybe not) update. Mari and the kids came to visit Easter weekend. Colored Easter eggs Saturday afternoon, Mari spilled the coloring and made a mess. Big bag of confetti disappeared off the counter top, haven't seen it since. That evening we went to IBM and got a bunch of pics with the bluebonnets. Then it was off to dinner at the County Line on the Lake. Long wait and there were not even any turtles in the river to keep us company. Here is the full photo album on Kodak Gallery.

Rewind a little further back into March and we had Poppi staying here with us for almost a month. The boys got to really get to know her and had so much fun with her. This Photo Album has all the March pictures.

And finally some videos of the boys. The first video is from March 4th when Poppi was here. She was letting the boys play with her glasses. The looked like goofy little nerds wearing her glasses.

This last video goes way back to October 18th, 2009. It is a video of Jeremy learning to go from sitting to crawling and then back to sitting up on his own. He got so happy when we cheered for him!

Bailey wearing Poppi's cap

Jordan's Surgery

2010-04-02T22:40:00.001-05:00

As we were walking in to the surgery center for Jordan's eye surgery, I was praying that God hold him tight and protect him. Then I started to notice the children and parents around me. There were so many children with obvious physical and mental challenges. I changed my prayer to a prayer of thanks. We are so blessed to have two healthy boys.

Later Jordan was so good while we waited for the surgery I was able to look around and observe the other people there. The parents with the children that had wheelchairs and obvious head surgery scars were patient, loving, happy and content with their children and the long wait before seeing the doctor. The parents with the seemingly healthy children were impatient, complaining (about the wait and not being able to eat or drink in front of the hungry, thirsty children who had to fast before surgery) and yelling at their kids; who in turn were yelling themselves. Made me want to always keep the mindset that this may be my last days with them and I want to spend it patiently loving them.

1 Year (and 2 mos) Check-up

2010-03-30T09:48:00.002-05:00

The boys had their 1 year check-up yesterday. Was late because the boys can't be sick for their "wellness" check and vaccinations. We've had almost a 3-4 week streak of good health in the house! The boys cried when they got stabbed in the leg with needles 4 times each, but they recovered nicely when it was done. Jordan had to get blood drawn to check his iron (it is better, but still a little low) and they drew his blood the "normal" way. I sat down with him and they checked his arm, he had a good vein. So they put that rubber strap around his arm, tapped his vein, I held him while a nurse held down his arm, then another nurse stuck the big needle in and drew blood. Jordan watched the whole thing and didn't even flinch. It was crazy.

JAG Stats (Percentiles)
Jeremy: Length 31-3/4" (70%), Weight 23lb 13oz (50%), Height 49" (75%)
Jordan: Length 30-3/4" (50%), Weight 21lb 14oz (25%), Height 48-1/2" (50%)
They didn't write the percentiles down for us...so that is coming off our flaky memory, but they should be really close.

And now its picture and video time! It's been a while since I posted pics, so got a few albums to share:

And a couple vids...

In this one Jeremy learned how to spin and both boys started doing it and falling down.

This one is from our after dinner walk yesterday. We got the boys a wagon this weekend and this is the first time using it for our walk. Jeremy loves to push it and was pushing Jordan. I would steer, but it was mostly Jeremy doing all the work!

Biblical Manhood

2010-03-10T00:24:00.000-06:00

Sin of Laziness and Immaturity...that's me, right there. Been "wanting" to study for myself more on the great message God gave us through Matt Carter at the Austin Stone Community Church, and I just don't do it. If your reading and praying, please prayer for me to stay focused on studying His word.

I hope all of you, men and women, single or married, will take some time to listen to the Biblical Manhood series that was served up to us last month. It is short, a 3 week series, but it is unbelievably convicting and urgent that we understand this message. Am I one of the very few that has always thought Eve sinned first and was alone when she ate the forbidden fruit? Just more proof that I need to study God's word more.

So here is the audio for the first sermon, Biblical Manhood Part I. Listen online here or download the MP3 here. Here is their blog post to help you apply the sermon. I am not a "thinker," philosophy is just a killer scrabbler word to me. So I'd like to hear from you and what you think about part I. Going to try and spend a few days on this and then will come back and post part II. But don't wait for me if you want to keep going. You can find the rest of the series (and more) right here. Look for the sermons on Feb 14th, 21st and 28th.

If you are an iPod/Phone user, you can get their podcasts (free) right here.

Death in Adam, Life in Christ
Romans 5:17 - For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

Just Some Videos

2010-03-06T11:11:00.005-06:00

Got a few videos to share...

1. Stair Masters
Holly recorded the boys showing off their stair climbing and repelling skills.

2. Jeremy hiding Jordan under the sink
We never got around to putting on the child proof locks on the cabinets under the sink in the boys' bathroom. So we just took everything out from under the sink that is not safe. Holly heard Jeremy start to giggle, but his giggle sounded like he was having too much fun.

3. JAG Jammin' to Ellen
Holly and Ms.Karen watch Ellen in the mornings...this morning the boys had fun dancing to Ellen's music. Jordan REALLY had fun this morning getting jiggy wid it.

He's No Kermit

2010-03-05T22:42:00.004-06:00

We were on a walk this week when I saw a frog sunning himself on the sidewalk. I was so excited to show the boys their first frog. I got it and held it up to them. It wasn't moving much so they weren't very impressed.

I put it on Jeremy's arm and it started to jump. That's when it got fun. The boys were cracking up every time it jumped. I grabbed my camera and tried it again, but this time it wasn't funny.

It was scary. Poor Jeremy started crying and Jordan soon followed. Stinky frog!

Easy Weekend

2010-02-21T20:47:00.001-06:00

Ah man...what a nice weekend. It was like a Sabbath weekend, not just one day. Saturday Poppi (Ms.Karen) got Holly and I working on crossword puzzles. Did that while eating lunch and throughout the day. We paused to go for a hour+ walk around the neighborhoods here.

About 30 minutes in to the walk, we came across a pond and T-Bone had a blast playing fetch in the water. Poor T-Bone's eyes aren't what they used to be though. He had a hard time find the stick in the choppy waters. We will definitely take his bright orange water toy next time. For dinner we grilled burgers for dinner and relaxed. Sunday we worshiped at the Austin Stone, came home and Holly and I went for 3 mile jog around the 'hood. More word games and relaxing. Ribs and mac 'n chees for dinner and now some Olympics on TV. Good times.

Conflict Resolutions

2010-02-10T13:53:00.003-06:00

Jeremy and Jordan were fighting over their Alphabet Train today. I was hurrying to break it up when Jeremy grabbed Jordan by the head and pulled him close. I thought "Oh no! Hes going to bite him," but no, he had another plan. He put their foreheads together and just like that all was forgiven and their squabble laid to rest. They laughed and continued on playing. The things we could learn from one year old's.

Pre-Spring Cleaning

2010-02-04T20:26:00.000-06:00

Boys wanted to get a jump on spring cleaning and cleaned out their drawers.

Happy Happy 1st Birthday Party

2010-02-01T23:03:00.003-06:00

What fun we (the parents) had last Saturday for the boys first birthday party. We can't say enough how blessed we are to have such great friends and family to come celebrate our boys' first birthday. Thank you all so much. The boys played around with friends all day long and skipped their nap. They were so happy to have everyone looking at them while they were sung to and got a piece of cake. They didn't want to get their hands dirty. They studied the cake for a while and finally Jeremy just ditched the hands deal and just went in for a bite.

That cracked Jordan up and eventually Jordan did the same thing. After a while they finally decided it was okay to get their hands dirty and they ripped that piece of cake to smithereens. They had fun opening their gifts and even played with the toys some instead of just playing with the wrapping paper. Every once in a while they let out a "Ouuuu" when they got a good toy.

At dinner time they were a bit fussy because of the whole skipped a nap thing. Then more family came over for a visit and they were back in entertaining mode. They had more fun playing with all their toys and with Uncle Mike that they forgot they were tired. They then went a half hour past their normal bath time...and eventually it caught up with them, but they made it to bed and slept good.

My cousin Augi and the family drove in from Houston for this special occasion. His kids (Serena and Diego) are huge now. Augi mentioned Serena recently had her first sleepover. Made me a little sad thinking about how I practically grew up living at my Tia Esther and Tio Agustin's house with my cousins and how the boys would not have that. Those were fun times...except for the time we were playing on the side gate, swinging ourselves on it and the gate (wrought iron) broke off. Ay chihuahua was Tio mad. If your looking for photo albums of the party, you've come to the right place. The first album (click here) are the pictures we took. The second album (click here) has the really good pictures our neighbor Angela took for us. They came out really really good! The last pic here is of the card the boys' cousin Serena made for them :)

Video to come later...I need some sleep...

Happy 1st JAG Birthday!

2010-01-26T19:15:00.001-06:00

We're gonna head down and give the boys a lil' piece of birthday cake. Here is a video of a bunch of different vids from the last couple of months. Video starts with the boys watching themselves on the display of the camera after waking up. Then the boys are chasing each other after a bath wearing only their towels on their heads. After that the boys are learning to walk, first Jordan and then Jeremy...which turns into a fight over the infant tylenol bottle that Jeremy found. After taking it away from both of them, Jordan loses it. The boys settle down and start to play on their alphabet train. Finally, the boys are playing on their chairs and looking out a window....Jordan takes a tumble but recovers nicely.

A Year Ago Today...

2010-01-25T22:19:00.003-06:00

Holly's water broke. It was right about now, about 10PM CST. We had just taken one last picture of Holly's belly. Holly wasn't feeling like taking the picture, but she's glad she got the last one in. Here is the video of all her belly pics and the boys birthday.

Also uploaded some pics from the last couple of months HERE. So at the year mark, Jordan has 6 teeth and Jeremy has 7...both are about to get their molars too. Jeremy is walking around really good. Jordan is walking around too, but so many steps at a time like his big brother. They can both stand up on their and just go from sitting to standing. They can sign for food, music and "more" and chain the more with music or food. Will keep this post short. Hard to describe how amazing these boys are and how blessed we are. Been pretty busy...but will try to be back soon with more video of the boys.

Click HERE for more posts from last January.

Yea Christmas!!

2009-12-24T21:33:00.003-06:00

We finally have our own little Garcia family for Christmas! To think of how much we love our boys and how little it pales in comparison to the love God has for us. Emmanuel...God with us, what better gift than that this Christmas?

We have been incredibly blessed this year with our family, amazing church, health, friends, jobs...the list is endless. Okay...now the real reason I came on here. Wanted to share some photos and video with y'all. Couple of weeks ago we made it out to Marble Falls to check the Christmas lights display there. We met Brian and Jean there and ate at the River City Grille. Good times. Here is the Photo Album.

This past weekend we headed up to Edmond, Oklahoma, just outside of OKC to visit the grandparents and Mari. Just hung out on Saturday, then Sunday it was church and more hanging out. Mari showed us Larissa's picture with Santa at Bass Pro Shop and we decided we needed on of the boys. I was so hoping the boys would be terrified with Santa in the pic and I wasn't disappointed!

On the way home we made a stop in Dallas and stayed with Brad and Kelli for a night. Kelli made an awesome dinner for us. Little Anna is so beautiful...she is getting big. Oh, and then Brian and Jean showed up! It was a Festivus miracle! They were in town visiting with Jean's family. A good ol' fashioned home group reunion in Dallas. It was good to be back in Texas...but now wishing we had stayed in OK for Christmas, they have SNOW! Here are all the photos from OKC and Dallas: OKC/Dallas Photo Album.

That is all for now...have more December JAG pics to post, including some with Mrs.Karen who stayed with us a couple days last week on her way home from M.D. Anderson in Houston. Amen! Another prayer answered this year. God rocks!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

12

2009-12-19T21:47:00.001-06:00

It's been 12 years since I trapped my wife in marriage and locked her in with her "I do." No take backs!

Time to get started on lucky 13 with our two JAGerrific boys. I'm living walking proof of how awesome God is...that He can love and forgive me and bless me with such an amazing woman who would help bring me home to Him. A woman who loves God, has brains, beauty, amazing mother, she is hilarious, she also laughs at all my jokes - which is key, she is probably now a bigger die hard Raider fan than I am...I win! I still remember watching a Raider game many many moons ago and she yells out, correctly mind you, "That's HOLDING!!" If there was every any doubt, which there wasn't, it was all laid to rest then.

Happy 12th Beautiful! I lub you!

Christmas Card Past

2009-12-10T22:09:00.010-06:00

I think this might be the earliest we've got our Christmas cards mailed. Got 99% of them in the mail today...still need a few more. So keep an eye on out for it. Here is a look back at some of the homemade cards we've sent out this decade. To check out all the photos for the making of some of these cards, CLICK HERE.

Christmas 2008: Holly was 8 months preggers last December. Our whole year was mostly about the boys, obviously. Knew we wanted to use the boys sonogram pics for the card. Somehow came up the idea of taking a picture of our Raider Christmas tree and photoshopping the boys pics in as ornaments. Jordan is on top, the 3-D pic. Jeremy never was in a good position for sono's after about month 5...so his is an older regular sonogram pic.

Christmas 2007: I think I was just going through pics to look for something to use for the card and spark an idea. Came across a sleeping doggy pic and ended up with the idea of the dogs and cat sleeping and dreaming about what they love doing. Jezebel (top) is dreaming of playing in her kiddie pool. T-Bone (middle) is dreaming of going out for a run with me...and carrying his own leash. Tiger II (a.k.a. "dumb cat", bottom) is dreaming about sleeping.

Christmas 2006: Don't remember how we came up with this idea, but it was one of the best times we had. The idea was to try and get a good shot, but include a bunch of "blooper" type shots. Trying to stage bloopers is not as easy as you'd think, but it sure was fun. My 2 favorite bloopers are the one of T-Bone who ended up in the shot alone and the one of Jezebel with her back to the camera and Holly caught in a blink. Good times.

Christmas 2002: We moved in to our new home in February of 2002...this was our first Christmas at "home." So we used that for the card. I knew once I had my own house I would use the same ceramic bulbs I used to string up on the house growing up to decorate. Still using those lights today! Although now the 2 little trees out front are much bigger.

Christmas 2000: This is a recycled card. The original pic was taken in '98 and did not include Jezebel. We only had Spyncer (cat), Kukoc (parakeet, named after a player on the Chicago Bulls back when the NBA was still fun) and T-Bone. The original "photo shoot" was hilarious. Trying to get the cat, bird and dog to all sit still for the pic was a lot of fun. Not sure if we ever sent the original out or not...but eventually in 2000 when we got Jezebel, I photoshopped her in and used that for our card.

EDIT - no idea what happened to the missing years in between. I know one year we sent out Scooby-Doo Christmas cards that were store bought. Haven't the foggiest about the rest of the years. Maybe we didn't send cards...maybe they were store bought? You're guess is as good as mine.

JAG Boys Love Taylor Swift

2009-12-07T12:45:00.000-06:00

The boys loved dancing to Taylor Swift last week. We were watching SNL and Holly's bestest friend Taylor Swift was the host and musical guest. When Swift performed, the boys had fun getting jiggy widit. That is not saying much though, since the boys can get down with half the commercials on TV that have a good beat. Still though, they had fun...Jordan just need to work on his head banging at the end of the video!

Gobble Gobble

2009-12-01T22:48:00.006-06:00

Wait so long for Thanksgiving and time with family and then poof...its all gone except for some stale honey wheat rolls and a couple last shreds of white meat and ham. Our house was jam packed with Garcias this holiday, it was awesome. The kids out numbered the adults, so it was a bit scary. Luckily enough they never joined forces to overthrow the powers that be. Isaiah arrived last Wednesday night followed by my Pop and the whole family about 1:30am Thursday morning. Finally Mari and the girls all got here Thanksgiving day. We played football out front, then watched the Raiders give away another game, but we were too high on tryptophan to really care much about it. Turkey, ham, mashed-taters, green bean casserole, stuffing, fruit salad and honey wheat rolls...YUM!

Friday we just veg'd and recovered from eating on Thursday. Went to the store and Zaiah bought ingridients for menudo and then he and Dad cooked it for dinner. It...was...TASTY! Saturday it was off to Town Lake and the park to hang out and fly some kites. It was a beautiful day...there were parrots hanging out at the park. We saw one, figured it just escaped from someone's home. Then we saw another. Then another. Three green parrots just chillin' in the park. After the park it was off to Chuy's for dinner and then downtown to Amy's for ice cream.

While Larissa was here, Mari was hoping she might catch on to crawling and getting around like the boys, but instead, Larissa taught Jeremy how to lazily boot scoot across the floor. Basically, she stays in a sitting position and scoots her butt forward (much like a dog does on carpet) then stretches out her legs and does it again to move forward. Good times...good times...

Thanksgiving Photo Album

Meanwhile, Thanksgiving marked another milestone for the JAG Twins...it was their 10 month mark! Back at the beginning of November the boys went for their 9 month check up. Jeremy measured in at 21 lbs 4 oz - 30" - and a head circumference of 48 cm. Jordan measured in at 19 lbs 6 oz - 29" - and a head circumference of 46 ½ cm. The boys got some big ol' teeth now...2 front middle top and bottom and then a few extra. We are starting to brush their teeth during bath time (just the brush) to get them used to the brush. The boys can crawl up the stairs on their own...and they have! Jeremy sneaked up on us twice and got half way up the stairs...yikes! They are having fun playing together. It is great to watch one boy chase the other while the other crawls away cracking up.

This month their art project was to create a painting for Poppi (Mrs.Karen) while she is at M.D. Anderson. Holly used their butt prints and feet prints to make a landscape picture. Their butts were the sun and clouds and their feet were tree tops. It had the writing, "Soon the worst will be BEHIND you and...you will be on your FEET in no time!"

Not too many photos this month, but here they are.

JAG November Photo Album

T-Bone's Thanksgiving Picks (Week 12)

2009-11-26T01:50:00.000-06:00

T-Bone finally picked the RRRAIDERS to win a game. First time in 38 years the Raiders play on Thanksgiving day! Woohoo! Enjoy the turkey and football games tomorrow.

T-Bone's NFL Picks: Week 10

2009-11-13T17:31:00.003-06:00

My dog didn't pick my Raiders to win this week. Bad dog? Probably not...probably a good pick. Argh. We tried a new method for the way T-Bone makes his picks. This week he just TOLD me his picks.

Outlet Covers

2009-11-07T09:28:00.001-06:00

Guess it is time we invest in better electrical outlet covers.

JAG Halloween

2009-11-05T18:39:00.008-06:00

We had so much fun getting the boys dressed up and out for Halloween. We walked around collecting candy, but the best part was meeting all our neighbors. We usually don't spend time out in our hood like we should. Lots of people were just outside hanging out giving candy or watching the Longhorns game in their garage. It was a great time. The boys were dressed up as an Angel and a Devil! Good times. CLICK HERE for all our Halloween pictures. They include a more adult party, with a "children's characters gone wrong" theme. I was Scooby Doo...if he was adopted by Michael Vick. So I had some battle scars. Holly was M.Vick and wore an orange (prison) shirt with M.Vick's prison info on it. Our garage band played at the party again this year, we had a blast.

The rest of October flew by. We had plenty of family visit us last month which was awesome. Isaiah stopped by for a nice long weekend visit. Mrs.Karen and Mr.Greg stopped by for a short visit too and will hopefully be back again soon. And before we knew it...it was November. Here are a bunch of photos of the boys and our visitors from last month. Enjoy! CLICK HERE

T-Bone's NFL Picks: Week 8

2009-10-29T21:26:00.002-05:00

3rd solid week for T-Bone...week 7 was spectacular like his week 5 and week 6 picks, but still...solid. T went 8-5 and his season results are 61-42. This could possibly the week of T-Bone's downfall. Out of the 13 games this week, he picked the underDOG in 10 of those games! T-Bone has both the Browns and Rams claiming victory this week. His pick of the week...
The Falcons over the undefeated Saints! Dum Da Duuuummmmmmm

T-Bone's NFL Picks: Week 7

2009-10-23T17:00:00.002-05:00

T-Bone has had 2 fantastic weeks in row going 11-3 in week 5 and 10-3 in week 6. His overall record is now 53-37 (.589). This week I think some might be expecting him to fall back down in the standings. Hes got his usual "what are you thinking??" upset picks...for instance, the Browns over the Packers!

Raiders Key To Victory

2009-10-19T12:36:00.011-05:00

How do you pull out an upset win over the Eagles? Pigeons > Eagles.

Isaiah, Punkins and Crawling

2009-10-11T17:41:00.007-05:00

Isaiah is visiting this weekend and we took him to a punkin patch so he could crawl through it. It was soo cute. Actually, we took Jeremy and Jordan, but Isaiah is here visiting and went with us. It was a pretty fun Saturday afternoon at the Evergreen Farms Christmas Tree. They had pumpkins for sale (no real pumpkin patch) and lots of activities for real kids. We just hung out and got pictures. Here is the PHOTO ALBUM. No charge unless you do some of the activities like hay rides or "train" rides. The hot chocolate was nice in the cool fall weather. On our way to Elgin down Old 290 we also passed a "ghost town." We went back to check it out, but it was reserved for a private party, so we will have to go back another day. We get Isaiah here until Tuesday when he drives back to Pensacola and back to the Navy.

As for crawling...Jordan has been working on actually crawling on all 4's. Up until yesterday, he had only managed to string together about 2-3 "steps." Last night though, he took off. We got it on video too! By the way, about a minute into the video when Jordan is crawling down the hallway and starts smiling at the camera, it is because I turned view screen towards him and he was able to see himself on screen and smile at the gorgeous boy on video.

T-Bone's NFL Picks: Week 5

2009-10-09T12:56:00.005-05:00

That time of week again. T-Bone had an excellent week 4 and went 10-4. This week T-Bone decided to go with his FlingShot Flying Monkey to decide on his picks. This week he likes the Bengals over the Ravens...but, he also likes the Titans over the Colts. Not too sure about that one. Peep it out...

A Real Post

2009-10-07T21:31:00.007-05:00

Ok, no silly T-Bone vid here, just trying to catch up on sharing some photo albums. Lots of stuff has gone on this past couple months with the boys and family. Another post will come some time soon to share photos and vids of the boys. For now, here are some non-JAG photo albums. Enjoy!

Larissa's 1st Birthday [ photo album ]
My birthday is so wicked awesome that peeps are stealing my day. First my little sister Amanda stole my birthday (born 20 years after me to the day), then my mom got married on my birthday and then Larissa's decided to take the sacred day for her 1st birthday party celebration. We drove up to Oklahoma to share this fantabulous day with our niece. The night ended with Larissa demolishing her bit-sized cakes and rubbing it in her hair.

Mom's Baptizim [ photo album ]
Barely one month later and headed back up to Oklahoma. Mom felt moved to make her own decision in being baptized and accepting Christ as her Saviour! Woohoo!! It was a short weekend, left Saturday morning and drove back Sunday after lunch, but it was worth it.

Raiders vs. Texan [ photo album ]
Very few know this, but we are helpless Raider Nation citizens. We like pain. Like serious self-inflicting misery. Life was good for the Raider Nation up until 2002. Despite the jokes that end with a Raider punch-line, we will always support our team. We don't have to love every player, or coach, or owner...but we will always proudly support the Raiders. As evidence by our trip to Houston last week. Could have enjoyed the 3 day music festival in Austin know as ACL. It was capped off by my favorite band of all time, Pearl Jam...but no...instead I went to Houston to witness in person the horrible accident that has become the Raiders. And still, had a lot of fun with Holly, the boys, James and Morgan. Also got to me Edward...a chef at the cafeteria in James' building at work.

T-Bone's picks will be back though...think the next one will try to use a new method of making his NFL picks. Maybe use the SlingShot Flying Monkey next...

T-Bone's NFL Picks: Week 3

2009-09-25T13:28:00.004-05:00

T-Bone showed some improvement last week and got 9 out of 16. His overall record is 17-15 and is batting .531 on the season. This week again he likes more underDOGs than favorites. Some notables: RRRAIDERS over the Donkeys, Bengals over the Steelers, Browns over the Ravens and the Rams over the Packers!

T-Bone's NFL Picks: Week 2

2009-09-18T13:23:00.002-05:00

Well, T-Bone went 8-8 last week and is in 20th place out of 25 people (and 1 dog). He went with 8 underDOG picks this week. I tried to talk him out of it, but he wouldn't have it.

T-Bone's NFL Picks: Week 1

2009-09-14T16:11:00.008-05:00

It is that time of the year again. Here are T-Bone's prediction for the kick off weekend of the 2009 NFL season! And yet again, my own dog picked against the Raiders. Jerk. Smart, but still....jerk.

8 and Half Hours...

2009-09-14T12:48:00.005-05:00

Until kickoff!! Here is my custom desktop wallpaper to get y'all ready. If it doesn't size right for you, let me know what size you need. The pic of the players is from the game in Miami we went to a couple years ago. The skull graphic was designed by Robert Ortiz and used by permission.

Wood Floors Part III

2009-09-13T22:17:00.004-05:00

Uncle Mike showed up this morning after church to help for the 3rd day. Today he put the trim molding all around the edges. We took a little longer than we thought we would. After the hard part was done we got Mike's truck packed up and he headed back home to try and beat the rain (it was already raining when he left).

Got to touch up the molding along the base boards with some painters caulk, but them hard part is done. Mike and his miter saw worked wonders. Oh, we also need to put the trim along the fireplace, but that is going to require some sand grout and we also want to tile the bathroom, so we are going to wait and do those at the same time.

Mike, Mike Senior and lil' Mike...thanks so much for all the help, achy knees, bad backs and all the sweat the last 3 days! Can't thank y'all enough!

Wood Floors Part II

2009-09-12T22:08:00.003-05:00

Almost done! Went by a lot quicker today. All the flooring is laid down. T-molding between the kitchen tile and the living room floor is done. Need to work on the quarter mold around the edges tomorrow and that should do it!

Wood Floors

2009-09-11T21:39:00.005-05:00

We've been talking about for a long long time, and now Holly's dream has finally come true. We got wood laminate for all of down stairs. Stayed up until 1:30AM last night moving stuff into the garage and upstairs to clear out the bottom floor. Was up cleaning around 8AM and Uncle Mike and his dad came over to help. So glad to have their expertise here to help. Was tough getting things started with the floating floor, but we finally got it down and it started coming together.

Day 2 coming up tomorrow...

Milestone Month

2009-08-28T23:05:00.003-05:00

The boys turned 7 months old last Wednesday!

What a month this has been. At the beginning of six months we still had babies. Now we have little people. It started with Jeremy deciding to sit up. Soon after he said his first word which of course was "Da" his favorite person. Then Jordan (not to be topped) decided to sit up then he start to scoot on one knee and elbow. Now he gets up on his hands and knees and rocks back and fourth. As soon as you grab his hands, he takes off running! Then this week he said "Ma". They both got 2 teeth each, 3 days apart. Along with a whole lot of new tricks and noises.

Last week was their first night in their room and in their own cribs. It went well. They only woke up once. I think they were too crowded and waking each other up in the one crib before. They had a little trouble taking a nap since they like to play together before they fall asleep. I may let them take naps together. The month is almost over...they may be potty training next at this rate :)

6 months is so much fun...can't wait to see whats in store for us at 7 months. Gotta lock the cabinets and plug the plugs.

And now...PHOTO ALBUM time!! August photos are uploaded...remember, you can save the photo album and get to it anytime if you have a Kodak Gallery account.

Moving right along...JAG video time!! Jeremy's video shows his last trick...a snort, crinkly nose trick.

In Jordan's video, he was being fussy...Jump Frogz came to the rescue!

I Married A Cover Girl

2009-08-21T07:34:00.005-05:00

Easy. Breezy. Beautiful.

It is going to be rough trying to elude the paparazzi from now on. Holly is available for car shows and other publicity events!

*EDIT* this is not a joke, no photoshopping done here. It is a real magazine for Texas' WIC program. I know you can get to the PDF version on the WIC website. Click HERE for the PDF of the above news maganize. There are a couple more pics on page 3 and 4. Not sure where you get the printed version...I guess a health clinic or a WIC store?? Here is the first brochure from their first gig right after the boys were born:

Click the pick and it will take you to the PDF for that brochure on the WIC website. They are on the cover and pages 4-5, 6, 8-9 and the infant feeding plan checklist at the very end.

From the WIC website:

WIC News
The Texas WIC News is published every other month by the Department of State Health Services, 1100 W. 49th Street, Austin, TX, 78756. Subscriptions are free. Issues can be viewed in pdf format on this Web page. Requests for a subscription or for copies of back issues can be e-mailed to WIC News subscriptions or Leticia Silva or mailed to the address above.

Parents don't have to worry though...we have extra copies to send to ya!

Screamin' Monkey and the Boy in the Mirror

2009-08-19T08:48:00.018-05:00

Quick post to share 2 things with y'all. One, to show you how poor lil' Jeremy is [was] scared of the FlingShot Flying Monkey I have. The FlingShot Flying Monkey is cool... but thats another story. Basically what it is is self contained monkey sling shot that flies through the air. The motion of being shot through the air sets of the monkey screaming.

The scream. Apparently its a pretty freaky scream for Jeremy. The first few times we played with it in the house, it freaked Jeremy out. He cried right away...and every time it screamed. So we didn't play with it.

Eventually we tried getting him used to it. The pictures are from him when he wasn't used to it...so scary. The video is of him starting to get used to it. Check out the face he makes around 10 seconds into the video when Holly asks him if he is okay.

Now...this is awesome. Jordan just saw one of THE CUTEST kids in the world and couldn't stop looking at him. He was sitting in his exersaucer and then noticed the cute kid in the mirror. Man he could not stop looking at the beautiful boy the popped up out of nowhere. He was soooo happy.

And this video is one of both boys just so you can get a Jordan fix. He is starting to get the crawling motion down. In this vid he tries to get on his hands and knees and rocks back and fourth. He got brave today and turned the rocking back and fourth in to a forward lunge!

I'm sorry Mr.DeadlyVenomousDiamondbackRattler guy

2009-08-06T13:03:00.010-05:00

Pest control was at our place yesterday morning. When the pest dude was done he brought me over yonder, yonder the side gate...coiled up nice and tight, hidden in the grass in the corner between our A/C unit and the side gate by our house, was a diamondback rattlesnake. Never seen one of these dudes up close and personal. It was pretty cool. Unfortunately I couldn't just leave the side gate open and usher the little pit viper out. So...armed with a big rock and a shovel, I had to secure the homeland and rid it of the slithering sacks of venom.

The pictures are tough to make out. It was probably somewhere between 2-3 feet long, it was tiny. It seems a lot smaller in the pic...but trust me, it was 2 yards long if it was a foot. Once it was dead (I didn't have to use the rock because the lil guy was already set for a long day's slumber) I was able to get a better look. Didn't take pics cause I didn't really enjoy taking a shovel to it (it is one of God's coolest creatures...not like it was a mosquito or fly or a cat), but it had 5 rattles on it...which still rattled some when the nerves kept firing. Same thing for it's jet black forked tongue which kept trying to reach out to me from beyond the grave to exact its revenge on my weak and easily digestible flesh.

Knarf 1, Pit Viper 0...I'm sorry snake.

Glad the doggies didn't find it before we did. The serious lack of rain and 46 days of 100+ degree weather has these belly walkers moving out in search of water. Check out this 7 footer/11 rattle d-back that was killed in a neighborhood not too far from us.

6 Month Update and Stuff

2009-07-31T23:41:00.016-05:00

The boys are 6 months old! Going in reverse order on the July going-ons. On Thursday we took Jordan to the nose/throat/ear doc (forget what they're called) to get his throat looked at. When he coughs, sounds like a goose...kind of a croup type cough. Hes not sick and doesn't seem bad...just playing it safe. Doc said it didn't seem like anything, but he can't see past the vocal chords. In order to do so would mean putting Jordan under and sticking a little camera down his throat. Don't think its anything to worry about and feel like putting him under isn't worth the risk. Jordan next goes to the doc on Monday to get his eyes (tear ducts) looked at. Poor guys hasn't gotten over his blocked tear ducts. They been pretty goopie since we left the hospital.

Sorry...this looks like its going to be another long post. On Monday we took the boys to their 6 month check up. Jordan weighed in at 16 lbs 3 oz and Jeremy tipped the scale at 19 lbs 2 oz! After a quick look over it was time for their shots. This time the boys got their shots at the exact same time. So no one had to go 2nd and listen to his brother's cries and realize something wasn't kosher and he should probably bail. Like before the shots were a shock at first and after a quick cry it was all over. Best of all, boys did NOT get sick after going to the doc...first time in their life!! They did get a fever and felt pretty cruddy from the shots for a day, but they did great.

And...one last entry...last weekend we had the Mills/Chisums over for a cookout. Grilled some chicken and ribs. I botched the chicken and pulled it off the grill too soon. I was worried about burning it because last time the grill was dirty and there was an extra grease fire going that cooked the chicken too fast. This time was worried about them burning and they weren't cooked to perfection. The ribs were delici-oh-so! Highlight though was just hanging out...Holly and Cin played with the boys in the pool and everyone else got into throwing themselves down the Slip n Slide. *Note to self, do not attempt sliding down the ramp on your knees again.

So here is a photo album for the month of July that has random pics of the boys and the cookout last week: PHOTO ALBUM

Make sure you check out the series of pics at #62! Jordan discovers himself in the mirror in the new exersaucer Jessica lent us. Holly got great shots of him admiring himself.

Oh I lied...one more thing. Last month the boys started eating solid foods. So much fun. Jeremy loves it. Jordan REALLY loves avocado and bananas, but not much of anything else. He does like the kids cereal (kinda looks like the grain pieces in lucky charms) and Kix cereal. Jeremy pretty much likes it all and opens his mouth wide for food. Here is an album of the boys eating: PHOTO ALBUM

And finally, we leave you with a video of their very first time eating solids and some other shots. Bye!

Father's Day Photo Shoot

2009-07-22T22:43:00.005-05:00

Well, I didn't post pics of Holly's Mother's Day gift (studio photos) until June. So posting Father's Day gifts (more photos) in July is par for the course. Last month I posted pics of Holly's gift, pics of me and the boys. For Father's Day Holly got me the same gift. I wanted pics of just her and the boys, but she insisted on family pics while the boys are still "young." So here they are. Oh yeah, Miranda has been here all summer and she even got in on the action! We spent way too much money the first time, so don't expect to get pics in the mail this time...except for parents/grandparents. If there is a shot you know you want, let us know and we can either get for you or tell you how to order :)

Here are the pics we got...we didn't get a CD with the order this time (again, expensive), so these are scanned in photos. Don't recommend using this for prints.

Slipitty Slide Happy Fun Time

2009-07-19T15:54:00.005-05:00

Last Thursday was another consecutive day over 100°. We decided to try and beat the heat with our a slip n slide! Can you believe Alyssa has NEVER been on a slip n slide before!? We all (adults, kids, dogs) went for a mile jog then walked another mile. Pulled out the toy from the garage. Sparked up the grill, we call him 'ol Grillie. Then cooled off. After trying teach 'lyssa how to slide she gave it a few attempts. No matter how hard she tried to slide Superman style, she always ended up on a knee or hip.

Holly did her best to give an all out slide and didn't ease on to the slide, but instead went airborne Superman style then came down on a knee and hip. She's got a bruised knee to show off now. Its beautiful. "The Slide" was capture on film and is displayed proudly now at the top of our blog!

The boys had fun cooling off too. Splish splashin' and trying to grab the water shooting out of the slip n slide. The burgers and dogs Holly grilled up were yummy and it was the perfect end to perfectly hot day.

Need A New Banner Here

2009-07-14T14:35:00.001-05:00

Seems like I always put up a new banner that gets old fast. The mother's day banner stayed up for a long time after mum's day. I need to act fast before August rolls around and the 4th of July EPT banner is still up.

Hmmm...but what pics to use...

Jeremy Being Goofy

2009-07-08T23:19:00.001-05:00

He had been sticking his tongue out a long time and making bitter beer faces...once I got the camera, not as much tongue hanging out, but still goofy.

Austin to El Paso in 2:39 (Highway 40)

2009-07-08T08:08:00.001-05:00

The 4th (and 5th) In EPT

2009-07-05T22:18:00.008-05:00

July 4th and 5th came and went. Spent the whole time with family and it is still not enough. Saturday morning it was off to Great Grandma Licha's for breakfast. Food never tastes as good as it does at Grandma's kitchen. We got a pic of her and all the great grand-kids. There was one...and only one pic that came out where Bella wasn't making a funny face. I don't know if she always does it on purpose or by accident, but she makes the most hilarious faces in front of the camera. In the photo album you will see one where it looks like Jeremy is choking the life out of her.

After eating at Grandma's, it was off to Grandpa Andy's for more food! Gotta have a 4th of July cookout. Pops grilled up plenty of BEEF! The weather wasn't bad if you stayed in the shade. It was just about as hot indoors as outdoors, but the breeze outside was fantastic. After eating too much, we headed out yet again over to Tia Esther's for, you guessed, another cookout. Man oh man, so many kids in our family who were just lil' tikes the last time I saw them and now they are mini-adults...just flat out weird to see them after all this time.

We really got to get back home more often. We really miss you guys! Miss the El Paso sunsets and mountains too. Austin is beautiful and we love it there, but I do miss the mountains. These were the last 2 sunsets of our trip.

Today we hung out with the Chisums (Poppy and Pops) and went to church at Westside. Our old family home. Miss them too. They were a huge blessing for us when we had the boys with all their prayers and support. Got to see Jim Leeah too who I haven't seen in a long. He helped me get into guitar and showed me a lot. He is playing in 2 bands now, NarroPath and The Polynomials. Nice!

After church is was off to lunch the the Chisum's wacky crew from church. Funniest bunch of ol' folks you ever did see. Delicious lunch at The Magic Pan and then back home to finally chill out. The boys were WIPED OUT and slept almost the entire afternoon. I headed out to my dad's again and took the kids to Peter Piper Pizza. Holly and the boys relaxed with the Chisums. Jordan helped Poppy out with her crossword puzzle.
And now...some final packing and sleep before the long journey back home. Hopefully we get some clouds and/or rain along the way to keep the sun from beating us down. Sleep boys...sleep...

EPT Photo Album #2

Back in the EPT

2009-07-04T21:39:00.014-05:00

4AM Thursday morning, packing, feed the kids, pack some more...out the door about 5:45AM. 290 from our backyard to I-10 and all the way back home to El Paso, Texas. Randy rode shotgun and Holly rode between the boys in the back. The boys did amazingly well...way better than we expected. They played with the toys dangling from their car seat, yelled at Holly and slept. We had the extra stops for diaper changes and feedings, but it went pretty fast. Our first stop was less than a couple of hours into the trip on 290, Jeremy needed a diaper change. Picture 1: Our first rest stop on 290.

Picture 2: Stopped at a Sonic in Sonora for a baby feeding and a big people feeding...free Route 44 upgrade! Side note...you can't see it, but Randy is standing on a bunch of ants.

Picture 3: The flower (weed?) behind Holly, Randy and the boys looks like the flower Horton carried around.

Picture 4: Jeremy is very happy to be on a road trip with everyone. So much fun.
Picture 5: Jordan is not so happy to be on a 600 mile road trip...and he is not afraid to tell you just how he feels.
Picture 6: Stopped in Ozona for gas and another chance to stretch the legs...Mohair...does that come from a mo? If so, what is a mo? Oh ho ho, this is a mo!

Back home we got to see my Pops and the kids, Mari and the girls and then my Grandma Licha. Boys weren't to happy to finally be home (we stayed at the Chisum's place) and then hit the road again to go see their Great Grandma, but again, they did really great and were smiling for Grandma. Pitcure 7: The boys first visit with Great Grandma Licha.
On Friday we to Grandpa Andy's for lunch. Later that afternoon it was off to Great Grandma Soco's place for a visit and to introduce her to her newest great grandsons.

Plenty of road trip and family photos in this PHOTO ALBUM of the first 2 days. 4th of July pics with more of the familia coming up soon.

Randy's Visit to the Silver M Farm

2009-06-24T07:14:00.013-05:00

This was as much a joy for Holly and I as it was for Randy. We are always waiting for any excuse to go hang out with the Morenos at the Silver M Farm. This time though, we were excited to get Randy out there and get her out on a horse ride. Randy got to help the girls get Buckshot out of the barn and get him ready for riding. Buck seemed very happy to be out with the girls.

Randy got a some quick start lessons from James and the girls as he lead her around. Randa-lyss slowly got used to it. Them thar horses be some mighty creatures. After learning to steer Buck, James lead her a little faster and got them trotting. The girls showed us how they ride bare back and how to run barrel races. Pretty impressive. We need to get out to one of their competitions very soon.

While Randy was enjoying the ride, Holly and the boys kicked it in the shade. Holly had help from Misty Rose (miniature pony) and Bella (great pyrenees) taking care of Jeremy and Jordan. Bella was really protective of the boys. She'd stay very close to them. At one point she snapped at Bella for getting to close to Jeremy. She was all over Jordan and made sure Holly was okay and didn't need any help.

Randy meanwhile was getting pretty comfortable with Buck. Shelly took over for James helping and James headed inside to get the grill going. Randy stayed glued to Buck. She got to the point where she was able to ride around on her own. We finally got her off Buck and we were lured back to the house with the smell of grillin' burgers. Jeremy was all too happy to get back to the house and just chill out while we ate. We had to planned to jump in the pool, but it got late quick. So we eventually pulled ourselves away from our gracious hosts and hit the road. It is way too easy to forget the time and just pass the entire day and night there. Way too inviting and relaxing out there.

Can't wait to get out there again and play cowboys and cowgirls. Check out all the photos on the day at our KodakGallery Photo Album here. And of course...got plenty of video of Randy:

Happy My Day!

2009-06-23T19:29:00.001-05:00

So weird calling my Dad to say Happy Father's Day and then have him say it to me. It was a trip. Sunday was cool...worked producer/switcher at the Austin Stone for the 9AM service then sat in the 11:15AM service with family. While holding Jordan in church, I got him to notice his feet for the first time and stayed hanging on to it.

After church we went to the Cheesecake Factory where we ate too much...Spinach/Cheese Dip to start, Double BBQ Bacon Cheeseburger (only ate the top half) and then the brownie sundae. Jeremy ate lunch holding his own bottle most of the time! How cool it will be when they can hold their own bottle to eat. Oh, at the end of this week we will be feeding them solids. The boys are also drinking water from sippy cups now. Too cool.

Yesterday Holly was holding Jordan and for the first time he reached out to me for me to hold him. Good stuff.

And "this is the first of many homemade cards!"

Holly and Randy Race To Find "It"

2009-06-22T12:28:00.003-05:00

Loaded up a pic for Holly and Randy to see who would be the first one to find "It." What "It" is, they didn't know, but they'd know it when they find "It." I tried to be slick and catch it on film. Left the camera rolling...then being the sly cat that I am, I slowly picked it up and started recording them. Unfortunately, I'm about as sly as our fat cat Tiger II who thinks hes hiding from you cause his little head is behind the couch but his fat ol' rumpus is sticking way out. The girls were on to me and the jig was up. Still gave them a good little scare though...

Jordan Has Something Special To Say

2009-06-17T14:06:00.011-05:00

Jordan loves typing on the computer. He is always trying to type over me. I finally just let him do it himself and this is what he wrote. If anyone can translate we would love the input.

98

abx'./xbxTfwl,GXQC '. ccc ..;
b znbbbbbbbbb hvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv@c gx x
?df ii7o9oooooooml

Randy Is Here!! (New JAG Video)

2009-06-15T19:37:00.004-05:00

As I mentioned before, my lil' sis Alyssa (or Randy, Randa, 'lyssa) is staying with us for a while. Zaiah is all growed up making a man of himself in the U.S. Navy, so time to bring in a new kid. Tradition dictates that when we have out-of-towners with us we take them to...CHUY'S!! We wasted no time and took 'lyssa the first day she was here. Right after Sam's football game we went for lunch at our fav Tex-Mex eatery. Oh Creamy Jalepeno, how I lub you!!

We haven't done anything exciting with Randy like we did with Zaiah in the past. Hard to go to the Gulf Coast with 2 infants. Hard to go most anywhere with 2 infants. Mostly Randy is helping Holly out a bunch at home and eating. We had pizza night where we all made our own pizzas out of biscuits! It is an old fav my pops feed us as a kid...'cept this time we used real pepperoni instead of bologna. The original was great too, making pizza is all the fun. Randy has also made an art out of making her lunch time sammiches. She eats them for lunch, breakfast, mid-morning snack, afternoon snack...after dinner snack. During one of the girls' lunch time sammich feasts...Holly got carried away and got mustard and mayo all over Jeremy.

We finally bought lots of apples and bananas. Don't want to send my lil sis back home pushing 150lbs. We do have some stuff lined up for her to work it off. Tomorrow the fam is going out to Georgetown to visit our favorite famers on the Silver M Farm. We get to go play on the farm, yea! Sounds like James plans on grillin' some good ol' fashioned burgers and dogs too. So we'll back later with farm pics I bet.

Here are the latest pics of Randy's visit and the boys [CLICK-HERE]

And finally...leave you with a random JAG video. There is a spot in the vid where Jordan grabs a hold of Jeremy's face and then decides to go digging for gold!! Gross...

Sam's Flag Football (UT Star Guest Appearance)

2009-06-13T10:29:00.006-05:00

It was a beautiful May day...perfect for FOOTBALL!! The last Saturday of May we finally got out to Round Rock to watch our nephew Sam play some flag football. He plays for the Rams and they put on quite the show. Sam rushed for 2 TDs! After the game the boys had a surprise guest show up. Former UT star LB Derrick Johnson was in town and showed up to give the boys a pep talk (see D.Johnson HERE).

JAG Cam!

2009-06-10T12:49:00.002-05:00

Easy access to the JAG Cam. If you don't have the password, just ask. It is usually online during the day at random times when the boys are in a good mood. If you'd like to be notified by e-mail when it is up, let us know. *To open up the cam in its own window, click HERE.

Where Does The Time Go!?

2009-06-08T12:53:00.007-05:00

Wow...it's been a month since Mother's Day, but here are the pics. I know I posted a little on the photos, but here is how it all went down...

The boys and I got together and had a brainstorm session. After much drooling, tooting and a burping competition (I won), we decided that we'd get Momma some pictures for Mommy's Day. It was going to be a surprise. I say "was" because at the least second the kind lady at JC Penny's strongly advised I bring support to help with the young twins. So, literally about 20 minutes before walking out the door (we were going to sneak out whil mommy was sleeping) I woke Mommy up from her nap to ask her to get ready to go. Fast forward about 60 minutes and we are in the JC Penny's photo studio having a blast. Of course, Stone Cold (Jordan) has his patented mad-dog stare going most the time. He did crack a couple of times and gave us some grins. Jeremy was his usual happy self but often times couldn't quite figure out what was with the goofy girls trying to get his attention. He wasn't sure if he should be firghtened or not. The 2 girls that ran the show were great and did a nice job. Fast forward to now...I got a CD with the pictures and copyrights and here they are! TADA! Sorry, we sent all the ones out that we paid for...so if you didn't get one, our apologies. However, you can order some prints from Kodak Gallery if you'd like. I would be happy to place and order and send them to you myself as well. The Kodak Gallery photo album [CLICK-HERE] also has more photos to it than the photo album show here. Enjoy!

and coming up soon...pics from Alyssa's visit so far in Austin and recap on the boys 4 month checkup. Theys gettin' big!

Date Night: Star Trek and Dairy Queen

2009-05-26T22:00:00.004-05:00

Woohoo! Just got back from watching Star Trek and grabbing some DQ with Holly. Adam and Jessi watched the boys for us and they were awesome. Star Trek was awesome. DQ was awesome. This night was awesome. Was hard on Holly at first, but for a while, it felt like the old days when I'd take my girlfriend out.

Superman

2009-05-25T14:12:00.003-05:00

Just quick post for Jordan's Superman video. Yhis can almost always calm him down whenever nothing else seems to work. Also, the photos we took for Mother's Day are in. We will be sending those out soon!