No Fear

So we finally gave in and let the kid do the Euro Bungy at the mall. He has no fear. It freaks us out a little. He asked me this week about how you land when you skydive...you know for when he does it. Lord protect this boy!! Hope everyone has had a good week.

CB

I almost forgot!!

Okay, you know every year I have to post one of these pics of Collin to compare with today...always around his birthday and Easter. The basket he is holding on the Easter Egg Hunt is the same one he was in. Just a reminder to myself of how God is SO good! Collin is finally on the charts for his weight!! He is now in the 10th percentile! For us that is great news!!

Easter Fun!

We had lots of fun this year celebrating Easter! Our church had an Easter Egg hunt on Saturday with games and blow-ups and also the Easter bunny himself. Little did the Easter bunny know that he would be stalked by a small golden haired boy. Collin followed the Easter bunny around
for the majority of the time. I feel bad for the other moms that were trying to get pictures! Collin kept stepping into everyone else's pictures asking the Easter Bunny to give him high fives. After we left the Easter Egg hunt we had many questions like, "Where does the Easter Bunny live?" and "What is inside an Easter Bunny"..etc.

Earle says he thinks the idea of the Easter bunny is weird and a little creepy. I guess the Easter bunny is a little random. Seriously, a bunny that lays eggs??? I get the whole egg thing being the empty tomb..but the rest is interesting.

Ben had a good time at the picinic too....but was not so into the big fluffy creature this year. He was more into the treats and activities. I tried following them around with the camera to get their pictures on Sunday morning before church and they kept running from me. I finally caught them, but they would not look at the camera...so...the token picture leaves a little to be desired. Maybe soon, I'll put the same clothes on them and try to get a retake.

CB

Collin's Big #3!

Well, I have been horrible at blogging lately, but I had to put up Collin's birthday pics!
Beware of many pictures ahead! We did not have anything really special planned. To be honest, Earle and I are still pretty exhausted and finally crashing after all of this transition. My parents came for a visit and we just had a family party. Collin wanted a "bowling" birthday party. I thought that was pretty funny. I am not sure why, the only reason I can think that he wanted this was because of playing bowling on the Wii. The night before, Ben and I decorated a 'birthday party scene' in our dining room after Collin had gone to bed. I just had gone out to the dollar store and bought less than 20 dollars worth of stuff...but for a boy turning three and fantasizing about a birthday party...this was awesome stuff! I'll try to narrate through the pictures.


Waking up to see something special down the stairs.... A fun party set up just for Collin! Yellow is his favorite color..so we had lots of yellow!

He could not even believe his eyes!!

He is three!

My sweet baby boy! Yes those are M&M's in his hand...they are his favorite...and he likes the yellow ones.

Blowing out his candles to his chocolate bowling ball cake...that he requested. Such a funny little guy!

Hmm...

Love this!!

Opening presents!! Thank you Amanda and Ryan!

He loved his bubble gun!

REALLY loved it.

Why not bombard us from the upstairs?

A tiny boy throwing skeeballs is a life threat to anyone within his throwing circumference...although he loved it!

Getting ready to bowl! Oh my...birthday DREAM come true!

Later that week playing in the backyard with Papa and Cindy.

Dad took them to fly a kite...it was more entertaining for me watching my dad try to get the kite going...but we had a good time.

Happy Birthday my precious Collin! You are such a blessing to our family! I cannot imagine it without you! I love you so much!

CB

Visit to Kilgore

I love the picture above..so cute!!

I know it has been awhile since I have posted. Following my last post, we drove up to Earle's mom's house in Kilgore and spent the weekend with her. The kids had a great time and were able to expend quite a lot of energy!! Earle's mom, his sister Elice and her husband Chad spoiled the boys rotten and let them play until they were about to drop...or at least the adults were about to drop. Chad brought up his little moped for Ben to ride...Ben ended up riding it with Earle and myself, but was thrilled. The boys ran and played and climbed trees...at least enough for them both be a little tired back at the apartment the following Monday after the trip. Last week we remained busy..but it was sort of our crash week because we were just exhausted from the weeks before. We are super ready to be out of our apartment! We are on the downhill now...only a week and a half to go. My friend Rochelle has been so sweet and let us come play in her backyard countless times! It is great to be near her again! Also, a girl I had met at Harding, (I was her RA her freshman year..and she also went to TOCC a few years prior to us in Mandeville) Judy McDonough, has just moved here this past weekend with her husband and her three little boys. So it was nice to reconnect with her.

Collin was sick on Sunday, so Ben and I visited Cinco Ranch Church of Christ together. We had a great time and I was encouraged. I met a girl I knew at Harding..and also quite a few other ladies that have played the "corporate Gypsy" roll as well and moved with their small children quite a bit. A few of the have just moved here as well and live in the same area...so I am excited about the prospect of having that in common with some of the ladies I go to church with! We are ready to get into our house and get into a normal routine! I know I have not been on Facebook as much...I have been opting out of computer time and giving myself time for a nap..so hopefully I will get back into the swing of things soon. Also, it was kind of funny, but while we were watching the Olympic Gold medal hockey game...poor Ben was so confused with who he was supposed to route for! He thought our team was Canada! Well, I guess you Canadians have taught him well! :)

CB

Oh What a Week!!

So today we have been here in Houston for a week. Some of you may think that I temporarily fell off of the face of the earth. We have been busy every day until late at night. I must say even my facebooking has suffered tremendously! When we got here on Wednesday night to our little two bedroom apartment on the third floor, we were so glad to finally be where we were going, but we had many loose ends to tie up. I had been a little sick while in Calgary, but something happened on our flight and I ended up extremely sick. I had to go to a walk-in clinic the next morning to get some medication and breathing treatments. Earle and I were trying to set up just normal things here in the U.S. We had to get money transferred to our U.S. accounts and just random things...amid our exhaustion and sickness. Friday morning we started looking for houses with our friend and realtor, Butch Watterson. We quickly narrowed down the area that we wanted to live in and from that point on looked at many houses for the next 3 days. I am pretty sure we looked all day Friday, half day on Saturday and then again on Sunday afternoon after church. Sunday we found a house that we decided would work great for us. We made an offer and signed the contract on Monday evening...so that was lucky. Not to mention that we did get to have a few meals with some old friends who we were happy to get to be reunited with! Also on Friday night we got our dogs safely delivered to our apt. from Calgary. So anyway, I know it sounds like I am going all over the place here..but Tuesday night we decided to just sit at home and do nothing except watch LOST which was great! Wednesday night we had to go find a vehicle for Earle, and so we spend the better part of the night finding and taking care of that. He decided on a used Toyota Rav 4...and is pretty excited about it. Tonight we had been waiting to go to one of our all-time favorite restaurants...Lupe Tortillas..so we took the boys and experienced the best fajitas ever made. Ohhhh how I have longed for those since we have been away from this place! This weekend Earle is off tomorrow, so we are going to drive to Kilgore and spend it with Earle's mom and let the boys run wild and be spoiled..while maybe we will sneak off for a nap or two:) We close on our house on the 9th of March...so we are eagerly awaiting this last step of starting to get settled into our routine. I do have a picture that I took of the front of the house...but it was not yet listed and I will have to take better ones another time. Hope everyone is doing well. We are still caught in between a bit...but we are starting to catch our breath. Maybe next week I can read all of your posts that I missed this week! Thank you for all of your help and your prayers for our smooth transition! We hope to see many of you come to visit as we get settled!

CB

SO LONG...

Goodbye Calgary! You have left and imprint on our hearts and will never be far from our minds!! We love you and will miss you very much!! We hope to keep in touch with you all and are so glad to have picked up some amazing friends along the way. Thank you for everything.

Now, we must move on to the next phase!!

If you are not a Texan, you are probably not familiar with this phrase:
GTT...I have wikipedia'd it for you!!

click here

See you on the other side!!
Cheers!!
CB