Lynzi's turn...

...for a blog all about her! Oh boy, where do I even start with this girl!?!? These are a few of the sweet, crazy or funny things she's said or done in the last month or so...and I've just been waiting to find time to blog about it! If you keep up with me on facebook, then you've already heard a lot of these. Here are a few of my favorite Lynzi-isms of the month...


1.) A few weeks ago, I turned the t.v. on towards the end of the Rachael Ray show to see what she was cooking. We rarely ever have the t.v. on during the day (except for cartoons in the morning or occasionally the news.) So we hadn't seen Rachael Ray in awhile. But we had seen on the news the other day that Oprah was going off the air next season, and this is the conversation that came of it:

Lynzi: "HEY MOM, look who's on...I thought she wasn't on t.v. anymore...remember we saw it on the news the other day?!"

Me: "Oh no, that was Oprah."

Lynzi: "Yeah, Oprah...that's her."

Me: "No, this is Rachael Ray....they're two different people."

Lynzi: "Oh, well they look alike!!!"

Me: "HAHA." :)


2.) The other night I was putting Lynzi to bed and we finished reading some books and the Bible and we were about to pray...and Ryan came in at that time b/c he had finished getting Asher to bed, so he asked her the usual, "What are you thankful for?" and "What do you want to pray for?" It's usually pretty much the same...she wants to thank God for all she did today and pray for everyone we love and pray for sweet dreams for her and Asher, etc. Well this particular night...she says, "I want to pray for the 2 babies that mommy is going to have at the same time!" What?!?! Ryan and I just looked at each other, trying to figure out where in the world she would have come up with that?!?! The reason we were so flabbergasted by it is b/c our friend in California (who was actually Lynzi's pediatrician when she was born) had a 3 year old little girl at the time, who had been praying with her parents for them to be able to have another baby and suddenly she started telling them that God told her they would have 2 babies at once...and sure enough, the next month she was pregnant with twins! NOT that we have been praying for a baby at this time, but her comment just caught us off guard! YIKES! And several times since then, she's told me she wants a baby sister...


3.) She started a ballet class last Saturday. Today was her second class. It's a six week session for 3-4 year olds and during the last class, they will have a mini-recital to show friends and family what they've learned. Of course, she's an adorable little ballerina...I'm posting pics below of her first class, but they didn't come out very good...so I'll post more soon.


4.) The ballet class will keep her busy until soccer starts in March! She's already signed up and she cannot wait. Ryan and I definitely think soccer is more her forte' than ballet. She really wanted to do the ballet class, but she hasn't had a whole lot to say about it...other than it's fun and they twirl! Yet, she asks at least 5 times a week how much longer till March, when soccer starts!


5.) She got a haircut this week and it's now up to her shoulders. I don't guess it's really all that noticeable to just anybody, but to me...it makes her look so much older. I think b/c I got my haircut when I went to kindergarten, I associate her as looking like a kindergartener. I've been telling her all week that she looks like a kindergartener!

6.) She turns 5 on March "fourf" and she is SO excited to be 5...in fact, she's already ready to be 6! For now, she wants to have her birthday party at Incredible Pizza. She has about 16 friends to invite and she keeps mentioning more!!! She's such a social bug and thoroughly enjoys all of her friends (which are many!) We'll have a great time celebrating 5 years of Lynzi!!! :)

7.) She starts Kindergarten this fall and she CANNOT wait for that. She thought that she got to start Kindergarten on the day she turned 5! One night she told me she couldn't wait to go to school on her birthday! So I explained that she had to wait until school started again in the fall. Then she wanted to know EVERYTHING about school. Like...where would she get her desk, where would she hang her backpack, where would her school clothes from, and she let me know that she wanted a lunch box, not a lunch bag, etc, etc! Then she told me in complete detail exactly what she wanted in her lunch box for the first day of school: peanut butter and jelly sandwich, carrot sticks, apple slices and raisins. That conversation was right at bedtime, so once she finished explaining all the details of this day that was still 7 months away...I went out, so she could go to sleep. About 20 minutes later, I thought she was sound asleep and she came down the hall to inform me that she decided that banana slices would be better with her apple slices than raisins!!! :)

8.) She's learning to read and doing AMAZING! I've been doing preschool with her at home since September and we have calendar time and a math lesson and a reading lesson and usually some kind of activity or art or craft. I started using a book called, "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons." It's been around a really long time and is very effective in teaching children to read, using the distar program. We're only on lesson 12 and she's already reading many words, such as...am, sam, ram, at, rat, sat, mat, eat, seat, see, seed, me...and so on.

9.) And last night, this was her prayer..."Dear Jesus, umm I need to tell you something. Heal up Haiti from head to toe and protect Grace [her little missionary friend in Haiti] and her family and keep them safe...In Jesus' name, Amen! She has a super precious heart and I love her!

So, that's my girl...

~snowy smile~

(we had 2 weeks of snow a few weeks ago and we had so much fun playing and sledding in it!)

~snowbunny on a snowboard~

~beautiful ballerina~

~ballet class~

~ballerina in action~

~Lynzi and Asher on Christmas Eve~

~Lynzi and Cousin Jax on Christmas morning~

~PawPaw reading 'Twas the Night before Christmas' on the night before Christmas~

All about Asher...

Wow, hello there blogland...oh, how I've missed thee!!! So much has happened since my last post and even before then, so I'm pretty sure I won't get caught up but I'll just start with the last few weeks.

Lots of changes have been happening in Asher's little world in this New Year. As he is quickly approaching 2, we knew we had to break his little love affair with his paci! In fact, his daddy declared it as Asher's new year's resolution! So, we discussed our strategy as to how we would help him lose interest in it and Ryan mentioned just taking it away cold turkey, but I had read about the idea of snipping the end off and decided it made more sense to let him make the decision that he was done with it, rather than it just disappearing and him not really knowing what happened to it or having any control over the situation. Well, it didn't even take a day and it was done! I snipped the end of the paci and told him it was broken. He looked at it and put it to his mouth, took it out (not really out b/c there wasn't enough left for it to be "in") and looked at me and said, "uh oh...it bo" (broke) and threw it on the floor! He's found it a few times since and does the same thing...just launches it across the room! And he's never mentioned it once since then! We were very pleasantly surprised, thankful and relieved (b/c i had been dreading dealing with taking it away)!!!

However, now that the paci is gone...our little amazing sleeper boy is not so much anymore! What is it about those things that instantly calm him and make all his cares go away...it's ridiculously wierd! Since we came home from the holidays...he decided he wasn't much interested in staying in his bed, so as soon as we would lay him in there he would climb right out. So we would try and rock him to sleep, so he would go on to sleep. That is working okay for bedtime (sometimes), but naptime...not so much! He'd much rather play with his sister or toys than lay down during daylight at this point in his life. When he had his paci, he was happy to lay down with that for 2 or 3 hours....but, noooooo...not now! We are NOT giving up naps before the age of 2...no, no, no! So with the climbing out thing...if he wakes up in the middle of the night (instead of finding his paci and going back to sleep), he just comes to our room and hops in bed with us now! The first night he did it was a little freaky! I suddenly felt this little thing beside my bed and I knew the "bigger thing" (Lynzi) was already in bed with us, so you can imagine my level of freaked-out-ness, trying to figure out who or what is at my bedside (since my "baby" should be in his baby bed!) So after that night, we had to get a gate to put in the hallway to make sure he could only come to our room and not go roaming the house in the middle of the night!

And the best news yet is that he is well on his way to potty training! I never expected him to be interested in it this early, but he's shown interest in going potty since way back at Halloween. He started following us to the bathroom and wanting to go too. So I got the little potty out and let him start sitting on it and he NEVER wanted to get off of it! On Halloween night, after trick or treating, he was about to take his bath and he sat on the potty and PEED! Mom and Dad were here that week and of course we all went crazy for him! Then two days later we left for Belize, so we really didn't work on it there. Then we came back for about a week before we went to Texas for Christmas and he went a couple times before we left on our trip. Now that we've been back, he's gone several more times. Most of them pretty much on his own. The other day, I went into the bathroom and he followed me and pulled down his pants and started working on getting his diaper off. So he sat down and when I was leaving the bathroom, I asked if he was done and he said no. So I went back to the kitchen and a few minutes later he came around the corner, real proud-like (he was patting his pants b/c he was proud not to have a diaper on...just pants!) So I told him lets go get a diaper on and when he turned around, I saw a wet spot on the back of his pants. So I got really excited and asked him if he went tee tee (b/c I figured he must have and dripped when he was pulling his pants back on.) So he ran to show me, hollering "tee tee" and pointing in the potty and sure enough there was pee in there! Then the other day, I was going to put him in a pull up, so we spent a little bit of time in the bathroom and he was on the potty and I stepped out to see something Lynzi was doing and I came back in and he had already gone pee in the potty! We're moving forward with it and we'll see if he keeps interest...I'll keep you posted. I'm so proud of him!

I can't get over how grown up he's getting and that he'll be 2 in less than one month (a month from yesterday)!!! He's just so darn cute and hilarious...(even at 2 a.m, when he meets me at my bedside!)

~my big boy on the potty~

~sweet smile~

just a few pics of my loves in beautiful belize...

~L-O-V-E~



~With my beautiful babies in beautiful Belize~

my 20's are fading fast...

Well, I have less than 24 hours left before officially leaving my 20's behind!!! Several months ago...the thought of that made me extremely antsy (and even now I have to say, it wierds me out just a little!) But in the last few weeks, I've come to terms with it and decided to enter my thirties with a thankful heart! Especially since my birthday falls on Thanksgiving Day this year...that means I HAVE to be thankful for it, right!?!? :) And why not? I have SO SO SO much to be thankful for. God has blessed me in more ways than I ever deserved. He's been so good to me.

I'm thankful for my amazing parents who have always loved me, protected me, trained me in the ways of the Lord and been my best friends.

I'm thankful that God chose to heal me of a deadly kidney condition as an infant...if He hadn't miraculously intervened, I would not have experienced the last 30 years and I certainly wouldn't be typing this today!

I'm thankful for the Godly heritage that God blessed my family with.

I'm thankful for the great childhood I experienced. I realize that so many people don't get to fully enjoy growing up.

I'm thankful for my dream come true...in the form of an adorable teenage boy that I've had a major crush on since I was 11 (and I "prophetically" [ :) ] told my mom when I was 12 that I would marry him!) That boy grew into an amazing man of God with a servant's heart and a genuine compassion for God's people. I've had the privilege of being "with" him now for half of my life (yep, 15 years!)...and we will celebrate 11 glorious years of marriage in a few weeks! I love him with every ounce of my heart and to say that I am so thankful for him is such an understatement! Thank you, Lord, for giving me the man of my dreams!

I'm thankful for the path that God set us on and the doors He opened for us along the way. It's been such a fantastic 11 years with Ryan...following God's direction. We're so happy with where he has brought us and of course we're so excited about what he has in store for our family's future!

I'm thankful for my sweet babies! Lynzi is such a smart, vivacious, creative and beautiful girl and Asher is a loving, sweet, hilarious and precious boy. I'm so glad God is in charge of designing our babies for us...he did it so perfectly!

I'm thankful for all of my family and friends! We have such an incredible family on all sides...from parents, in-laws, grandparents, brothers, sister-in-laws, nephews, aunts, uncles and cousins. Also for our friends...some that we've known all our lives, some we've met along the way and some brand new!

What a blessed 30 years it's been. Thank you, Lord, for all you've done for me. I love you and will serve you all the days of my life! I'm excited about what the next 30 years will hold.

Halloween....2 1/2 weeks later!

Well, here we are...2 1/2 weeks after halloween and I am FINALLY getting a chance to post some pics of the cute little critters! I have a lot of updating to do, so here we go....

Mom and Dad came in for a spur of the moment trip the week of halloween because we were leaving for a Builders International trip and it would be a while before we'd see them again and they hadn't gotten to see Lynzi play in a soccer game yet...so they found a good deal and came! We had a really great time (as always)! Halloween was a crazy, busy, but super fun day. We were up early for Lynzi's last soccer game, then we went to her soccer team party, then headed home for naps. Then the kids got in their costumes and we headed to our church for a big festival called October 31st Party! It was really amazing and we could have stayed all day, but we headed back home after a little over an hour to hang out with our neighbors. They built a bonfire in their backyard and we roasted hot dogs before all bombarding our neighborhood to trick or treat together. Lynzi had several costume changes before halloween ever even arrived! First she was going to be a "ballet expert" (in her words)...apparently a ballet expert is different from a ballerina b/c she said she wasn't a ballerina. Well, come halloween...it didn't matter because she changed her mind and wanted to dress in the poodle costume that's been haning in her closet for a year! Either way she was cute. There were all kinds of crazy and cute creatures in our group...here are a few shots of our cuties.

~Panting Poodle~

~searching for treats~

~monkey treats~

~Grammi and PawPaw's little monkey man~

~Monkey and Daddy~


~Monkey and Mommy~



~Pretty Poodle and Monkey Doodle~

soccer machine...

It's been awhile since I posted about our little soccer girl. Since then, she has morphed into a SOCCER MACHINE!!! She is seriously an amazing soccer player. She can run down and score passed anybody on the field, including the boys! If you keep up with me on facebook, then you may have seen some of the videos I've posted. Last week, she had two games...she scored 2 in the first game and 5 in the second game. This week she scored 6 goals!!!

~ Lynzi dominating the ball~

~in action~


~5 goals...last week~

~Go Tigers~

~Asher gets in on the team spirit~

last one...

This is definitely the last tree update for now! I just wanted to show you how many leaves it's lost just since the frost!