She found her feet!

Ashlyn has finally figured out that her legs and feet work! We haven't been able to get her to take ANY steps. Not even with full body support. She would just pick up her little legs and completely refuse. Now she's loving it and having a great time with her walker, little chairs on the kitchen floor, toy buckets, or anything else that she can walk around with. Hopefully she'll get brave enough to take steps on her own soon. I know most people dread the walking stage, but I'll take it any day over crawling. Dirty knees and an eye for ANYTHING on the ground. I'm sure it won't keep her out of the wipies, though. She knew she was caught and was trying to escape before I got any hard evidence!

Sidenote: She finally has teeth! Still none on top, but that's okay. We weren't sure this day would ever come!

Let's get ready to RUMBLE!

Last Friday, Gracie (the little girl in Isaac's b-day pictures) invited Isaac to go to a Monster Truck Rally for HER birthday! Of course, we couldn't let Isaac go without us! Poor Gracie was done after about 10 min. "It's loud, boring, and I want to watch my new Mermaid movie!" The Jordan's ended up leaving at intermission, but we had a great time! Isaac never complained once, but was enthralled with all that was going on. They had some amateur motorcross and fourwheeler racing also. Isaac (and his Dad) is still trying to convince me that he needs a little motorcycle like those ones! Carter had a rough time during the slow parts, but he perked right up at the end when the monster trucks came out for their "freestyle" show. It was life changing for the both of them, and now I have two monster truck drivers to-be. Isaac begged and begged for us to take him to the Saturday night show, but once per weekend was enough for me. Towards the end, the announcer said that if you wanted to be a monster truck driver you had to stay in school, listen to your parents, and stay away from drugs. The next morning Carter was on the ball with everything I asked him to do, not his usual state of being. "Mom, I'm listening so good so I can be a MONSTER TRUCK DRIVER!" He has also transformed Ashlyn's walker into the "Twisted Dragon", our favorite truck of the night, and he has quite the moves with it. The pictures we got were blurry and for some reason we didn't really get any of the kids, but here's a tiny taste of our night, with the only disappointment being that no one flipped their truck. We had a GREAT time!

Isaac's Birthday!

Yesterday was the big SIX for Isaac! I can hardly believe I have a kid so OLD! We had a fun two day celebration. On Friday, I took brownies and icecream to Isaac's class, then we had his cake that night with all of our friends. I found this cake on Family Fun's website and I thought it turned out soooo cool! Isaac loved it!



(She's so cute, I just had to toss her in!)

With candles on both sides, it was kind of tricky to blow them out, but Isaac handled it like a champ!

On his actual birthday, we went to the train museum, McDonald's, and then ended the fun and games at Inflatable Funland! He got to take a friend, and he and Gracie never stopped running. Thanks to my mother-in-law who came to save me! She figured I might like a little company and with three turbo kids it was nice to have an extra adult to keep an eye on them. Especially since I couldn't resist for long and was racing and jumping right along with the kids!

Carter is almost impossible to take a picture of these days. I worked hard to get this one!

We ended the night with dinner with my in-laws and a little more cake and icecream. Isaac said "he had the BEST day ever!" I'm glad he had such a great birthday!

Someday...

So maybe she's not quite ready for piggy tails yet, but we're getting there!

Happy Birthday Eric!

Eric turned 29 on January 2nd and boy is he sweatin' it being so close to 30! He's one of those who never believes HE can get old! He was gone all day, so we didn't get to celebrate too much, but the kids made sure we decorated the house so it was all ready for him when he got home and his parents came and treated us to BBQ. It was great! I seemed to have a little trouble with his bday cake, so H.E.B. was so kind to come through for me! We got him a NERF gun and it has been his most useful present yet. The kids make great target practice as they streak through the room. I think I'm more grateful for January 2, 1979 than anyone else. If he'd never been born, how would I have found such a WONDERFUL husband?

Christmas!

Here's a quick recap of our Christmas vacation for you.

We drove to AZ this year and it was more than worth the trip. We had a WONDERFUL time! Here are some of the highlights -

- Being spoiled by Grandma

- Tractor rides with Grandpa

- Grandpa and Daddy taking the boys to the mountain to play in the SNOW! They got to build their first snowman.

- Santa making a personal appearance at Grandma and Grandpa's Christmas Eve. BIG highlight!

- Enjoying Christmas morning.

- Spending extra time with my brothers and sisters-in-law.
- Seeing friends I hadn't seen in awhile.

- Cody taking Eric and I out to shoot his automatic gun.

- Eric and the boys checking out the cool helicopter that Uncle Mike flies in.

- Playing with cousins

- Hanging out with my sisters
- Bringing home Cindy's Explorer. Hooray for air conditioning!
- Ashlyn's fever FINALLY breaking the day AFTER we left! She really is a happy baby! :)

Thank you so much Dad and Cindy and Kimberly for all of the good eats and pampering! I hope everyone had as great of a Christmas as we did!