Dad and Dan!

As you all know, my awesome dad and brother came to visit us a few weeks ago. Here are some pictures of the fun we had! We went to the capitol building (which is HUGE!!) It was definitely the biggest building Tyson's ever been in and perhaps the biggest I've ever been in. The best part was the Davey Crockett and General Houston statues inside. Don't worry though, Texas sent duplicates of both to the White house which are probably stashed in some back closet, so you don't actually have to come to Texas to see the cool statues (but you should come to Texas so you can see us!!) In Austin 1.5 million bats come out every night six months out of the year. We were fortunate enough to get to see them and it was cool! My brother is braver than he might credit himself. As soon as he has a kid of his own he will wonder what he was thinking in this picture!Yes, that is a bare bottom! Here's our cute boy! Here's a psychedelic guitar which was randomly on the street in Austin. There were a ton of them! Austin's motto is "Keep Austin weird." It really was a little iffy, but I think that was mostly the part of town we visited :) Here's me and my favorite older brother! He really is one of my favorite people in the entire world and I am so grateful he came to visit! Thanks for coming and staying with us! Inside the capitol building! Tyson and his Grandpa got to spend some quality time together! Thank you so much for the fun times and everything Dad! It was great to see you!

Walking!!

Tyson is 15 months and he took his first step on Saturday! He is adorable! Here's the proof:


We are so proud of him!

By the way, I never realized I have such a high voice! Christian assures me it is usually only used when I'm talking with kids...I hope he's telling the truth!

October fun!

This past week was awesome! My older brother Dan and my dad both came out for a visit and it was so much fun! Unfortunately, we're still waiting to get pictures emailed to us since we didn't take many with our own camera (same problem with Halloween!) Aside from that, here is an update on our lives: First, babies... One of my favorite people on the planet, Lyndsay Riggs, had her baby shower (she is due any day!) and another one of my favorite people, Aimee helped to put it on! Their husbands are in Christian's class and it has been so much fun getting to know them this past year! I love them to death and can't wait for Lyndsay to have her little surprise!! Next, the garden....Here we are showing off our dried ears of corn. Christian didn't think it was quite as cool as I did, but he was a good sport anyway! All of our kernels. We only got three ears, so I thought it was pretty good! Ta Da!! As my brother likes to say, "This is home grown goodness!" Hey everyone! I climbed up here all by myself! Pretty much I can get onto anything now! Get ready, 'cause I'm going to scare you silly! Roar! I love his face when he's trying to surprise you! Whoa, this workout's harder than it looks! Tyson has started to want to work out with me when I do my 90's work out videos! It is so funny to see him try and lift the weights! I love it! Tyson loves to read books by himself and sometimes with me. Often I'll be reading to him and he'll crawl out of my lap and find his own book to read by himself. It's a little sad, but cute at the same time! This airplane is definitely his favorite toy and I think it may be keeping him from learning how to walk as he can pretty much get anywhere he wants to via the airplane!! Finally, it is the season, so here it is: Father and son, happily watching football together :) I thought this was so funny since Tyson usually tries to pound on the computer keys. This time, however, it must have been an interesting game! So there you have it, an update! Hopefully it won't be too long until we get pictures of our family and Halloween up on the blog! We really did have a great time with Dad and Dan! Thanks for coming to visit!

Being a mom

Sometimes it is hard being a mom, but I found this poem and it really hit home. It really is the best thing to have a family even if it doesn't seem as exciting as other alternatives.

“She came tonight as I sat alone, the girl I used to be…
And she gazed at me with her earnest eye and questioned reproachfully;

Have you forgotten the many plans and hopes that I had for you?
The career, the splendid fame, and all the wonderful things to do?
Where is the mansion of stately height with all of its gardens rare?
The silken robes that I dreamed for you and the jewels in your hair?

And as she spoke, I was very sad for I wanted her pleased with me…
This slender girl from the shadowy past the girl that I used to be
So gently rising, I took her hand, and guided her up the stair
Where peacefully sleeping, my babies lay innocent, sweet, and fair.

And I told her that these are my only gems, and precious they are to me;
That silken robe is my motherhood of costly simplicity.
And my mansion of stately height is love, and the only career I know
Is serving each day in these sheltered walls for the dear ones who come and go.

And as I spoke to my shadowy guest, she smiled through her tears at me.
And I saw that the woman that I am now, pleased the girl I used to be.

- Author Unknown

Bugs Bug!!

I love living in San Antonio. The one thing I do not like (at all) are the bugs. We have strange dirt piles of larvae in our jungle of a backyard, my garden has become overtaken by ants, there are termites digging into our neighbor's fence and more than anything I am deathly afraid of fire-ants! Anyway, here is an awesome spider we found in our pear tree the other day. Today, Tyson and I went on a walk (which was really fun). The best part was finding this amazing Thanksgiving wreath which had been thrown over the side of the road! Seeing as I wasted more than say two hours of my time surfing the net yesterday looking for the perfect home-made wreaths that I could only dream about making, I thought this was a tender mercy of the Lord! The only bad part was as I was fixing it up, Tyson started pointing and humming at this spider that came out of the wreath. Next thing I know, a scorpion jumps out! I was so scared! Christian was a man and took these pictures before swatting it. He's so great! The worst part of our day was going to the library. We went to the library only to find that it was closed randomly until noon (who knew you could just put up a handwritten piece of paper on the door of where you worked and you got to go out to lunch or sleep in a few extra hours?) Well, Tyson had fun putting the books in the book drop and then we sat down in the grass. After maybe three minutes of crawling around, Tyson started grabbing at himself and I realize he is sitting in a fire-ant mound. Ahhh! I hate fire ants! I was so worried I just picked him up, tore off his pants and diaper, and started swatting at the ants on his feet. I was bit three times in this process (armpit, finger, and arm) but Tyson got the worst of it by far. Here is one of his feet. So fire ants are scary because they don't just bite, they grab on to you with their jaws and then sting you with their bum as they rotate around where they've grabbed on to your skin. In my hurry to get the ants away, I just threw Tyson's ant-covered pants and diaper onto the ground right as this man walked by. He shot me a weird look as he saw this frazzled mom holding onto her bare-bottomed kid and throwing his diaper and pants onto the side walk. I felt awkward and I was the one that knew what was going on! So I got back to the parking lot and realized I didn't have any more diapers in my bag! That is usually a very bad thing, but this sweet mom with screaming kids (they were screaming because they were excited to go to the randomly closed library but now had to get back into their car seats) gave me a diaper and told me what to put on Tyson's bites. She was so nice! So we ended up going to CVS and buying baby benedryl and cortisol cream and Tyson zonked in the car. Needless to say, it has been a crazy day! (Although I should be more grateful since Christian was able to come home early and take care of stuff while I took a nap--benedryl seems to have an overcoming effect on me! Thank you Christian!!) Anyway, here is a video of Tyson coming up with more and more reasons why he doesn't have to walk. For one thing, he can already carry anything he wants to where ever he wants to take it!