my favorite decade

When I realized this morning that today was December 31st, at first I blew it off. "New Year's Eve. Big deal. I haven't stayed up to celebrate in years, and I won't this year. It's just another day."

But then I really started pondering, and continued throughout today, all the amazing and incredible experiences I've had this year as well as the previous 9; thus the title of this entry: "my favorite decade". My life before the year 2000 was full of tons of wonderful experiences and blessings too, for which I'm grateful...most importantly the day I became a Christian (January 10, 1997). But now I really want to share with you some of my favorite things I've gotten to do over the past 10 years:

-2000: I graduated from Texas Tech. I got to work a 3rd summer at Camp Travis, a Christian sports camp on Lake Travis (and where I met Lee). I got my first "real" job as a teacher/coach at Brenham Junior High. Lee proposed on December 6th.
-2001: I got to marry the love of my life! Lee and I bought our first house, our first dog, and I began working at MCA. I started the MCA Cross Country program.
-2002: We met some of our dearest friends, Cameron and Christin, who had just moved back to the states after a year-long Campus Crusade for Christ stint in Estonia. We were chaperons for David's senior trip to Arizona. We got to be a part of Travis and Megan's wedding that summer. I completed my second (and last) full marathon in San Antonio.
-2003: Travis and Megan moved across the street from us. Two big trips with Lee's family....to Greece and Rome in May, then Christmas in California...visiting Dennis & Jan, Yosemite, Big Trees, and Disneyland.
-2004: We were the chaperons Becky's senior trip to Arkansas and Missouri.
-2005: I had my first baby! We got to see Luke & Lindsy get married in Idaho.
-2006: My friends threw a surprise party for my 30th birthday party. We got to go to Seattle and Canada (first time for both of us). The Dunn sisters went on our first annual Sisters' Weekend. I had Addie! Less than 2 weeks later, both my boys and girls Cross Country teams won the State Meet...the only year to do so, also the only year I didn't attend State. We went to Vail for Christmas.
-2007: Lindsy had Josiah, our first nephew!! Lee and I went to New York for our anniversary. The girls got to go to their first annual Nana Camp.
-2008: Annalee placed her faith in Jesus! We traveled with Lee's family and a few friends from church to Israel. I had Brady! Mary Kathryn and Tim got married.
-2009: We got to take the girls to Sea World and Disneyland. Wally & Micah got married. God blessed us with a 4th baby (gender to be determined by sonogram in 4 days). Becky & Keith got engaged.

We have truly enjoyed sharing our lives with all of you. We look forward to what God has in store for us, as well as you, in the next 10 years. HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Christmas program

Annalee's Pre-school Christmas program was on Tuesday, and it was so cute! She was an angel, and below you will see a picture of her with her friends Lane (dressed as Mary) and Skyler (the Christmas star). It is really neat watching her start to develop friendships at such a young age. She has actually known Lane since birth, as her parents are some of Lee's and my best friends and we also live across the street from each other. Skyler is a friend she met last year in Pre-school, and will hopefully continue to be a friend as she grows up; she also plans to attend MCA starting next year. Can you believe Annalee will start Kindergarten in just 9 months?!?

Annalee is the 2nd angel

Annalee, Lane, Skyler

Addie's class also celebrated Jesus' birthday on Tuesday, and the kids were allowed to ice their own cupcakes. As you can see, she clearly takes after me in that she licked off all the icing, took a couple of bites, then threw away the cupcake!

SNOW!

Last Friday it snowed here in Midland for the first time in 2 years, and for all intents and purposes (that was for you, Tim W.) it was the first time ever for the girls; since they don't remember when it snowed 2 years ago. Of course, Annalee and Addie LOVED it! Brady, not so much. But once he realized he could eat it, he was content.After playing for an hour or so, we went back inside for some monkey bread and hot chocolate, breakfast of champions!

a few pics

Our 4th annual group photo with the Smiths and Voskamps...trying to get a decent picture with all our kids was like herding cats!

The girls got their faces painted at the Midland Bible Church Fall Festival.

What Brady does under Uncle Luke's supervision:

My little reindeer:

at-home test

I discovered a while back that an at-home gender prediction test exists, available at Target. Being the fact finding, gotta have information now kind of girl I am, of course I was eager to take it when the time came. This morning I took it, and you can clearly see the results below:

If it were a girl, it would have turned a bright amber/orange color. Although Lee claims this test to be 50% accurate, the company (Intelligender) says the test is right 90% of the time...so I guess we will say we are now 90% sure it is a BOY! I will have my next sonogram in January to find out for sure.

October

Has it really been over a month since my last post?? Where do I begin?

We celebrated Addie's 3rd birthday the first weekend of October, which was a blast because there was a lot of family who came in town to share the day with us.

I made Addie's birthday cake

my mom reading her new book
Aunt Becky read to Joe and Annalee
Brady taught Uncle Dave a few things on the piano
Addie is in LOVE with her Minnie Mouse doll

Then the following weekend, Annalee and I flew to Dallas to see the traveling Broadway production of Mary Poppins. We met Terri, Becky, and Mary Kathryn there too. The show was really good, and we had so much fun hanging out. Another highlight of that weekend was getting to go to the Texas State Fair. While we were there, we saw a large crowd gathering and soon caught wind that Oprah was about to show up. We didn't have time to stick around and wait, but as we were walking away, we saw a caravan of blacked-out suburbans being led by several police motorcycle units. Guess who? So we got a pretty close view of her.
The next weekend we all traveled to Waco for the TAPPS State Cross Country meet. (I help coach at MCA.) All of my runners performed well, and my boys placed 3rd as a team, and I also had one boy and one girl get All-State honors.

That brings us to this past weekend. I was able to get away for a few days and go to Prude Ranch for our church's women's retreat. It was great, but wouldn't you know that Brady decided to take his first steps while I was there!! I haven't had a chance to take any pics or videos yet, but He has progressed quite a bit since then, and can now take 8 steps at a time.

Yesterday I took the kids to a local pumpkin patch:

Brady loved playing in the sand

a bunch of my mom friends met us there

And this is how I sent the girls to school this morning. They are having their Pumpkin Parties today, and let me just say, I love that their school calls it that rather than a Halloween Party, since we aren't fans of the holiday.

And that pretty much sums up our month.

more of Brady

This is Brady's new favorite thing to do:

a year in pictures

Today is Brady's real birthday, and although we didn't do any real celebrating like we did on Sunday (see previous post), I want to take a trip down memory lane. In this post, Lee and I chose our favorite picture from each month of Brady's first year. Enjoy...

just a few days old
October
November
first Christmas
January
February
first foods in March
April
We chose this one for May because he rarely cries, and this is the only time aside from his birth that it was caught on film. He HATED tummy time!!
June
July: Aunt Mary Kathryn did a photo shoot, and happened to capture what we call his "poop face"
August
1 year old! This picture pretty much sums up his personality...joyful.

Brady's 1st birthday party

We celebrated Brady's first birthday tonight over pizza and cake with our Midland family, and will do the same next Friday with our Lubbock family. Brady really enjoyed his first birthday party, but just as any 1-year-old would, he was happy to be there but totally clueless about what was going on. However, he was a HUGE fan of the teddy bear cake I made him...here's what happened when I gave him his piece:

Funny story: Annalee watched me ice the cake, and when I began the dark "fur" I began in between the bear's legs, and after I put the first of about 5000 dark brown icing stars on, she asked, "Is that his pee-pee?"

I had to take him straight to the sink to get hosed off!

Then he got to open his presents...actually, the girls and Joe opened them for him.

Where has the time gone?? I can't believe my baby will be 1 on Tuesday!

In other recent news, I'm about halfway through my 9th season of coaching Cross Country at MCA. I am still really enjoying it, and am thankful that Lee supports me doing it. Here's a picture taken by one of my runner's moms at the Midland meet this past Saturday. I loved that Lee brought the kids to see the races!