Gotta Love Pool Parties!

I know I've already said this, but I looooooooooooove summer!! I love that I have a little boy who has a summer birthday because that means.........POOL PARTIES!!!! We had Toby's birthday party at our neighborhood pool, and we were rebels because we didn't reserve the clubhouse for the occasion. We just had a few friends and some family here, and oh what's that?? Oh, right. A nugget tray, some chips and salsa, aaaaaaaaaaand cupcakes. Yes, it's a party! I was nervous that the lifeguards were gonna come up to me and ask for the fee to reserve the clubhouse and the moola to actually have the party there. NOPE!! These lifeguards could give a rip. I'm pretty sure the only two things they look and listen for are kids drowning and thunder. Thunder means a 30 minute break for them. You'd think that's all it did here in Pine Mill Ranch.

Back to the party! We had lots of fun. We all went swimming for about an hour. Then, we had some yummy food, which included some homemade salsa (thank you Lindsey for the recipe!). It is now a staple in our house. I also made cupcakes, but the most important part was the icing. I had looked up how to make buttercream icing. The great thing was that I remembered someone else making it and saying how easily it melted. Check that......we'll leave the cupcakes in the house until it's time to watch Toby smash it in his face. It's a good thing because at the end of the party (in August remember) you could see the butter starting to pool. Gross? You'd think so, but I'm pretty sure I had 3 of them that day. I kept thinking, "hey, at least the icing is organic." Organic food is a whooooooooole other post which I will be writing about shortly. :) Good stuff! I have to crown Toby as the Strech kid champ of making a mess with the cupcakes. He straight bicep curled that cupcake right into his face. It was awesome!!

this was Micah on his first birthday

I mean, Toby's giving it all he's got! He might be smaller, but the boy can cram a cupcake!

assessing the damage

back for more

he's like, "ok, this time, can you tell I shoved a cupcake in my mouth?"

I also have more good news..........the two bottom teeth that have come in which are about 17 feet apart are NOT his middle ones!!!! One has broken through in the middle! I'm still not sure whether or not there is a second middle one or not. I was starting to really get used to that look though.

pretty sure Toby's looking to see if Micah has a cupcake for him to eat

handsome Papa and cute Toby

Stanley (John) is playing Toby's favorite game with him!

Sugar Bear (Sarah) and the birthday boy! (how beautiful is my sis??!)

He got some really cute stuff for his birthday! The lawn mower and the Choo Choo Train rider has been a hit with all three kids! They all take turns riding it...........which translates into me setting a timer for 2 minutes each, then making sure they give Toby his turn.

Micah's new favorite place to be

Toby is starting to communicate more and more. He has his own signs for a lot of things. We taught him the sign for "more" which he did right at first. After a while, he transferred the rubbing of his chest to the rubbing of the back of his head. Do you know how much food was in his hair at the end of the day? I mean, seriously, it was crunchy. He now has it back to his chest! Also, anytime we get in the car, he'll play for a few minutes, but then he wants us all to sing songs. You would think he was directing a choir, but that's just him saying he wants us to sing. He loves music!! His dancing cracks me up!!! We put on Sugar Bear's (Sarah) jump cd and he just goes to town! He usually watches me and tries to repeat it. You should've seen him shimmy............ok, just kidding. Kind of. :)

Tobias, my little squirrel monkey, we love you to pieces!!!

Undercover Birthday

Oh man does my husband know me!!!!!!!!!!!!!! About 3 or 4 weeks ago, Les told me that he had been planning a special something for my birthday! He is REALLY good at this, so I was super excited. All he told me was that there were only going to be a few of us, it would be an all day thing, and we would have to get up at 6:00 and drive for an hour and 1/2. At first I just knew it was going to be a day at the spa with the girls. Then he said, "you'll never guess this." Aaaaaaaaaannnnd he was right. I was thinking the total opposite of what he was really planning..........and I am so thankful it wasn't a day of pampering at the spa. Don't get me wrong, I love getting a massage, and even though I've never had a facial, I'm sure I wouldn't mind someone rubbing mud or soap on my face. Love pedicures, love soft fluffy robes, love hot tubs before and after massages, looooooove "slumber rooms" when I actually get a chance to read my current Karen Kingsbury book without someone running at full speed straight into me, drooling on me, or playing referee because it's someone else's turn to be the dog in the "dog/trainer" game!!! Seriously.

SO, Les tells me before I leave where I'm going..........

The Bell's ranch to spend 8 hours shooting Mr. Bell's guns at his outdoor gun range!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! I seriously wanted to call Jennifer Garner and ask her if she wanted to come with me. Sidney Bristow is my hero. So, 0600 comes along and Sarah, Amie (Luke's wife), and I are headed out to learn the ropes.........but first, there's no celebration until we start the day with donuts. Now, for the past month our family has started eating nothing but natural/organic food for several reasons. Donuts? Not so much organic. I'm pretty sure those were inhaled in about .4 seconds. Loved them! Even though I felt a little sick right after. I gotta press on!!!

So, we get to their ranch and this is what is waiting for us.....

this is all for me!

Mr. Bell, a police officer who teaches concealed hand gun carrier license classes, and a guy who just graduated from St. Mary's ROTC were there to instruct us. Mr. Bell is a former Army Ranger and knows EVERYTHING about guns and bad guys...........and he has a pretty cool daughter. :) Love you Bella!! (that's "beautiful in Spanish). We learned so much from him!!! We had so much fun!!!! He first had us shoot at targets, then we'd have to put 3 rounds into the target. Then we'd have to take a step out and shoot. Then we'd have to start with our hands up in a surrender postition, grab the gun out of our holster (yes, that's right) cock it, and shoot! Booya!!!!!! After lunch we would do different drills like shoot the target while walking straight at it, shoot 5 different targets while walking from right to left or left to right, start with our backs to the target, turn around find the bullet, load it in the magazine, load our gun, cock it and shoot.........all in a few seconds!!!

Sarah, me, and Amie

Mr. Bell!!!! Best instructor......very serious when he needed to be, and very encouraging when we needed to hear it. :)

Sarah shooting at the targets "hiding" behind the trees!

Mr. Bell and Amie.......she was a natural!

We enjoyed this day so much, that we didn't want to leave when it was over. Soooooooooo, he let us shoot these at the end of the day......

Thank you, thank you, thank you Les for a phenomenal birthday present!!!!!!!!!!!!

this was my target when I got done with him after a couple of hours. :)

Tobias Gage Strech is ONE!

It's bizarre to think that just a year ago I was going up and down the elevator every chance I could to see our new baby boy in the NICU!! And for no reason!!! They HAD to take him up there for 48 hours because my weird body had a fever when I went into labor. We still aren't sure why. Who cares?! We have a precious little squirrel monkey!! I remember for the first couple of months when he was still trying to control his bobble head, he would just lay it on my chest. Actually, he would find that place right in between my jaw and my shoulder, and nuzzle right in my neck........eyes open just looking around with his head down. Our little squirrel monkey. Now he's one!!!! Is he walking yet??? I would say more like, taking one step and diving into whoever will catch him. He is funnier every day! He loves to get a reaction out of people, he growls at anything that is an animal or out of place (for example, he growled at the coffee maker the other day), the child can HUM a ball, he loves certain songs like "If You're Happy and You Know It", aaaaaaaaannnddd he has the most jacked up teeth I've seen on a baby. :) His top two middle teeth came in, with a lot of room in between.......then some bottom two teeth came in. We're praying they aren't supposed to be his middle ones. Check it out......

can you see his two bottom teeth???

Oh we love this boy! He is very happy, and goes with our flow very well. Carter and Micah are so giddy about him still. Sometimes a little too giddy. Usually every day I have to pull Micah off of Toby because he thinks he is hugging him, but it looks more like something my brother and I used to watch on WWF.

He's up now and trying to type this himself........that's my signal......over and out!

Happy Birthday Toby!!!

Can you guess who put this tupperware container on his head? and it wasn't Les...

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!