Carter's Birthday!

Ok people..........5 is a big one for me!!!! 5 means school everyday ALL day!! Let's just be honest, I'm panicking. What am I going to do without her everyday? It's so hard because I want to sit and cry every time we talk about her going to school, but at the same time, I don't want her to think SHE needs to cry about it. How am I supposed to handle this?? Her 5th birthday was so fun! I think she had about 4 parties. One at school, one with Grampy and Hershey, one with the five of us, and one with her friends. This girl loooooooooooves getting pampered on her birthday, that's for sure. "Micah, I'm first because I'm the birthday girl." That got old pretty quick. :) Les was like, "ooookay, we've got to steer this another way."

at her school

look at Toby checking that cupcake out

these are 2 of her classmates that came to her party....one I'm sure all of you have heard of. Tyler.

AND...............summer is here!!!!!!!!!!!! I think the first day that we didn't have anywhere to go, we just stayed in the house and didn't get out of our pjs until 5:00 that night!!! That was so great! We've been swimming as much as we can. I think our neighborhood pools opens up for good this weekend, but we've been going to the pool at Lifetime. I'm so thankful my kids love to swim. Even Toby seems to like it already. :) It's so funny/sad when babies accidentally put their face in the water because they don't see the difference between air and water. Thankfully, I've always been holding him when he's done that! He just sucks his breath in, licks his lips, and goes on splashin!

Toby is crawling now, which means he doesn't cry when I sit him down and walk to another part of the room!!!! Now, he just follows me. :) His personality is really starting to take shape. I just usually find myself smiling and laughing at him. He is pretty funny, and he LOVES to make us react to him......probably because he has a dramatic mama and he thinks I'm a toy. Love this boy!!

Micah is into alligators and dinosaurs!!!! I'll hear him walk around the house going, "I'm a Spinosauras!!!" or "I'm a Triceratops!!" or of course a t-rex. His wrestling techniques are getting more advanced. He used to just run from another room, full blast I might add, straight into you. (you'd better be watching, or you'll lose some teeth.....or get whiplash). He now adds a flying karate kick in mid air. Les informed me of that a couple of nights ago. Love it!

Stay tuned for some cute summer pics!!

He Is Risen!!!!!!!!

Happy Easter!!!!!!! We had an absolute beautiful Easter weekend! Beautiful weather, friends in town, family over, peeing in pants, baby spit up.........oh wait! Those last two just kind of go with everything. :) Ok, the story on that is that we were sooooooooo excited to send Micah and Toby to church in semi-matching Easter outfits. They are two little hunks. One with a big bootie, and one with big eyes. I did get a couple of cute pictures before we headed off to church.

But before we even walked out the door, Micah already had BLUE toothpaste on his little sweater vest. I have NEVER seen him get it on his clothes before. His face?? Yes, all over it. His clothes? Nope............not 'till Easter Sunday. Of course. So, ok, I caught it mid-teeth brushing, so I got most of it out. We take them to church, take them to their classes, I take Toby up to the "mommy room" to feed him, and he surprised me and ate super fast. I was so excited because that meant I might get to sit and listen to Pastor Gregg preach!!! I had prepared myself to be sitting in the "mommy room" listening to burping, pooping, and mommy stories. Speaking of burping, I guess I didn't pass the Toby burping test that morning. I took him to his class all spiffy......he only had to stay there for about 30 minutes until I would come to get him. SO, by the time we went to get our children, Toby had some cowboy onsie on because he had spit up "all over his shirt", and Micah had some cool jeans on and some different undies on because he had forgotten to "point it down". He definitely scored cool points on the jeans. The undies?? Thank you for them, but who are we kidding here? First of all they were probably a size 47, and to top that off, THEY WERE WHITY TIGHTIES!!!!! I think it scarred me more than him. :) So, there went the day of matching boys. Oh well, let's have an Easter egg hunt!!

This is a little side story or two...........

We were in the grocery line the other day and some lady behind us was talking to Carter about Easter coming up. She goes, "Is the Easter bunny coming to your house this weekend?" and Carter laughs and says, "Noooo." I waited to hear if Carter was going to continue, but she didn't. Rewind about 5 months ago, we were at our good friend, Tiffany's, house. Tiff asked Carter if Santa was coming to her house, and Carter once again laughs and says, "Nooooo." Tiff looks at me and back at Carter and goes, "What? Why?" aaaaaand Carter definitely whips out with, "He's dead!!!" Oh my reindeer and elves!!!!!!! When we talk to them about Christmas, we make sure they know the most important thing about it is Jesus' birthday. Then we tell them about St. Nicholas, and how he was a real man who loved Jesus, and gave presents to children for Christmas. Now he is in heaven with Jesus. Awesome..........she's gonna be the one who makes her friends cry. Not only is Santa not real........he's DEAD! :)

Back to this weekend......we went home and Les' family came over for some yummy grub that Grammie and Amie were already cooking when we got there! Angels! We had some laughs, played Guesstures, had an egg hunt, more food, birthday cake for Leah, and called it a night. It was so fun!!! Some of the eggs were filled with gum, which we don't let Carter and Micah have yet. So, Les ate pretty much every piece...........at one time!

this is the field next to our house which I'm sure won't be here in a couple of years

I hope everyone had a Happy Easter!!!

We're spoiled.......

One of the best things that has happened since we got back to Houston is that Les has NOT been working!!!!!!!! I know, that sounds kind of weird. "What about finances? Does Les get bored? Are you sick of each other?" Those are just some of the questions we've been asked. Answers to those: "The Lord has provided everything we need. Les is NOT bored! Hallelujah! He is focused on getting well. and HECK NO! I'm gonna be so sad when he has to go back to work." One thing though..........it has been a bit of a kick in the stomach when the kids constantly want "papa to take me to school AND pick me up" or "papa sit by me" or "I don't want to sit in your lap, I want to sit in Papa's lap" or "I want to stay with Papa". You know, I'd be ok with "I want PAPA to wipe my poo poos", but noooooooooo. I get the honor of that glorious job. It's been so fun having him here all the time!!! He fixes them eggs for breakfast, and they get to go on special errands with him. One of our favorite new sayings from Carter's mouth is, "I'm goin with Papa to the phlebotomist." Seriously? Didn't even know what that was. That's the 2nd time a young child had to teach me a vocab word. The first time was when Josh and Kelly's 2 yr. old little girl and I were playing "mama and Audrey". I was Audrey, the 2 yr. old and she was Mama. We were on our way to go "ride horses" and she said, "sshhhhhh! The horses are dormant." I figured that had something to do with sleeping since she shhhhhed me, and the spanish word for "to sleep" is dormir. Nice.

These are some pictures of us around the house......

they're doing his stretches with him

Also, I promised a picture of my little Lloyd Christmas......

.....and yes, he is in his "tongue tied taylor" outfit

Micah turned 3!!!!

Oh boy........it's been a while. :) If you want to know what's been happening with our family for the past 3 months, just go to www.caringbridge.org/visit/lesstrech. Basically, we went to Indiana for Christmas, and Les ended up in the hospital. For. 24. days. God showed off in some major ways, so if you really don't know what happened, please go to that website when you have some time.

Meanwhile...........Micah Luke turned 3 years old!!!!!! In my head, he's been 3 for a while now. He's big, tough, and seems like a 3 year old to me. I think that is the Lord softening the blow that he'll be going to college soon. I am pretty darn sure that the best investment we've made was a little something he got for his 3rd birthday. Tripp and Megan are the ones who introduced this little treat to us.........

his new bike!!!

This kid is lightning on this bike!! He starts going sooooooooo fast. I'm so afraid that his wheel is going to get out of control and he is just going to EAT IT.........hasn't happened yet......glory. It doesn't have any pedals, so he basically sits on the bike seat and runs. When he gets going fast, he'll pick up his little feet and glide. It's so great for balance!! Thank you, Tripp and Megan for educating us on these bikes! I don't know if I have a picture of him with his helmet on yet, but if I don't, I'll get one on here immediately. I just have 2 words for that upcoming picture...............Lloyd Christmas.

Here are some pictures of his birthday!

she has about 47 toys in that bag on the front of her bike

we took him to Chuck E Cheese that night

Debbie made him a Cars cake!!!! Even the tires are edible!! We know that because Micah had 3 of them.

He's a 3 year old little boy. He HAD to have these.

This has nothing to do with Micah's birthday, but I just wanted to share with you a slight laugh I had the other night......

Sarah, John and I had the privilege of hearing Les tell the story that scarred him for life. The story of the cat who gave birth in his car.......on his sweater.......his new sweater. Here is a picture of the best part of the story.

I could listen to that story every day..........so hilarious!

Snow day in Houston

I gotta tell you.......I didn't think it would happen. IT SNOWED HERE!!!! Don't worry that all of the schools closed and let out at noon because we had some flurries. Watch out!!! I guess it's just because Texans flip out when there's snow. We don't have the cool snow toys and machines that Indiana does........so everyone go home and throw snowballs at each other. :) Here are some pictures of the kiddos that day.

He takes these guys everywhere he goes

Carter's not so sure anymore.....

Micah's still lovin' it!! Yeah, I didn't know his tongue was that long until I saw this picture....and to think that at one point in his life, he was tongue tied.

All of this chilly weather can only mean one thing...........A FIRE IN THE FIREPLACE!!!! We never made a fire in our old house since it was 50 years old, and I was scared. Since no one has lived in this house yet....game on!!!!!!!

I know you're jealous of my one HEB log and the massive flames

Thanksgiving '09

Ok, so I figure that I should post about Thanksgiving before I start posting about Christmas. :) After much consideration, we decided to travel to Newnan, Georgia to visit family for Thanksgiving......and by travel, I mean drive. Yes, we did. What was that?? Did you say, "Wait, Emily, you said you would never do that again because it was so awful last time. Didn't Carter puke in the rental mini van last time?" Yes, and yes. BUT, this was a new year, and we planned a whole lot better this time. We already had a hotel reservation for the first night, so we weren't driving around Mississippi at 1:00 AM trying to find a hotel when they are BOOKED because it's Thanksgiving. Instead we stayed at a hotel/casino!!! Carter learned how to play Craps.......just kidding, I only picked that game because I think that's what it's called. Plus, I think that's a funny word for a game. The best part about driving there was Luke, Amie, and Logan were following us. We should've had walkie talkies. Instead we opted for texting which was still very humorous. Funny story about the hotel........

This room was huge! Probably because they could've filled it with more furniture, like a couch, but didn't. Anyway, the closet doors were sliding mirrors. Guess who didn't know this little piece of information? Micah. We wake up in the morning, I am getting dressed in the bathroom when all of a sudden I hear a CRASH, Micah is crying (with his "gween banket"), and Les is trying to comfort him while silently laughing. As most of you know, Micah likes to get a running start at anything. Apparently he looked in the mirror and thought the room was twice as big, so he decided to run across the room......or so the thought. He bolted as fast as he could.........and smashed right into the mirror!!! Les saw the whole thing. He said Micah hit it so hard that his arms went flying as he was stumbling backward. Oh yes, big red mark on the side of his forehead. He was fine once he saw Woobie (Luke) and Lolo (Logan). Laughed my rear off.

Back to Newnan.......we all got to stay with Tripp, Megan, and little Neely. Oh, I wish we all lived closer!!! Tripp and Megan both are gymnastics coaches! I swear, they could be olympians. Since we were there for the holiday, and their gym was closed, we got to go play there!!!!! I think the most popular place in the whole gym was the foam PIT!!!! I've always wanted to jump in one of those things. The boys had to get rowdy of course, so one guy would stand at the edge of the pit holding one of those huge exercise balls, while another came barreling at him at full speed. When they would collide, this is what would happen......

That's Luke on top and Logan on bottom.....so funny!

Needless to say, we had a blast with our Georgian family! Good fellowship, good food, great company......definitely worth the trip. We're looking forward to going back in 2 years!

Carter, Micah, and Neely

Amie and Toby

Grandma and Toby

I have a lot to write about, but I can only write about one thing right now. So, we put up our Christmas decorations about a month ago.........yes, I'll be THAT person who puts them up super early. I feel like it makes our home more sparkly, and that's my favorite! Anyway, since I am trying to drink more water since I'm nursing, I am having to use the potty more (I'll use kid terms). I usually wait unitl I'm about to pee in my pants before I go, then I run to the bathroom in our front hallway. SO, I'm sitting there on the potty, I look up and this is what I see staring at me..............

Just one word...........creepy.