My precious Dad ~ 10 Years

I woke up this morning thinking and remembering my amazing dad.  10 Years Ago today my dad went to be with Jesus.  I wanted to take a minute and just love on him, especially today.  It's crazy to me that it's been 10 years, when so many times it feels like it was just last week.  I miss my daddy ALL the time!!!!  I think of him, love him, and remember SO many amazing memories we shared together and as a family.  He was always my hero, and someone I looked up to tremendously!  He was an amazing man of God, he was a great joy to SO many people, he was a WONDERFUL father, and an AMAZING couch to me in many areas of my life.  I miss his humor, his jokes, his 'teases', his hugs, his presence, I just miss my dad today!  

Dad, 

Thank you SO much for being not only my dad, friend, and coach, but for being someone that I truly admire.  Thank you for raising me the way you and Mom did.  Thank you for working SO hard for our family.  Thank you for making it a point to take us on vacations, even if it was a stretch for you(which I never knew if it was), but thank you, those memories are more than worth every penny ever spent, and a tradition and treasure I am now making a point to focus on in my own family.  Thank you for coaching me in my sports(and driving me on the bus, I truly was proud that my dad was the bus driver, it was pretty cool for me, thanks), for encouraging me, for explaining SO many things to me, for always being there for me when I needed a dad to talk to.  Thank you for laughing at me and with me, thank you for loving mom SO much, and expressing that love your entire marriage.   Thank you for showing me how a wife is supposed to be loved by her husband.  Thank you for always making our house fun/funny/filled with laughter.  Thank you for putting up with all the junk that I know I caused in your life.  Thank you for leaving a legacy behind, thank you for bringing me to church (even though for years I thought I'd forever hate you for it, of course, you knew best!).  Thank you for sharing your family with me, thank you for giving me a home that was safe, fun, and filled with love!  Thank you for not stopping with only 2 girls, but for letting me join and 'end' our family unit.  I'm SO thankful for every second I had with you, and b/c of everything you struggled through, for years with your shoulders, and cancer, I know how strong of a man you were!  Amazing!  I'm SO blessed to have had 15 years with you, and as I sit here, I cry b/c I realize how precious time is with those who you truly love.  I miss you daddy, I really really do!  A LOT!!  I wish you were still with us, but I know that you are watching down from heaven(having the time of your life), and seeing my beautiful family grow, and watching me become the woman that I hope you were trying to raise.  I'm proud of the person I am, I still have a lot of learning and growing, but I love the Lord with ALL my heart, and I know, one day we will be together again for eternity, and I treasure that moment!  Daddy, I hope I'm making you proud up there, I live my life for Jesus, and I know that without you raising me the way you did, I would never be the woman I am today, thank you!  Daddy, I have a beautiful family, oh I wish you could meet them!  Chris is an A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. husband, father, provider, worker,...he's great dad.  All those years you and mom prayed, paid off, b/c he's a gift from God, just like the meaning of my name.  He reminds me of you a lot, which is so nice.  He's got your sense of humor, and he's a very hard worker, and a determined man, and can fix anything he touches.....just like daddy.  My girls are precious dad.......precious!!  I've told them about you, and they know they have a grandpa Harry, and they forever will, b/c whether you are here on this earth with them or not, you are their grandpa, and I'm SO proud that YOU are their grandpa!!  I wish they could of met you, they would of adored you as much as I do, and their lives would be even better knowing you!  Kate learned how to spell your name, and tells me.....'mommy, harry is....h.a.r.r.y', I'm SO happy that she knows that, it's a precious thing for me to hear.  Dad, you would be SO proud of Kate, she's SO smart, and SO precious.  She's a lot like me, as far as gifts go, but she also has such a soft heart, she is very sensitive to people.  She's very caring, but adventurous all at the same time.  She LOVES to travel, again, just like me.  She's a great 1st daughter.  Hailey is truly a Joy, and she's fun to watch, she has a good imagination, and loves to play with the dogs.  She is very sensitive to people's feelings, she's also very busy.  She's great, and mom says she looks the most like me as a kid.  Hailey loves t.v. shows and movies, and I could see the two of you watching some silly movie together and laughing and loving it.  She'd soak you up dad.  Brooke is almost one, and she's almost walking, she just took 8 steps the other day.  She's by far my busiest baby we've had!  She's not so much into t.v., she's just on the go and wants to play play play.  She figured out how to climb up our stair ladder and get onto the trampoline, and she's so proud that she can, she's great!  She has a glowing smile that melts your heart every time!  She's a lot like me to, and I'm sure you look down from heaven and laugh, b/c she's not a fan of her car seat, and I know I wasn't either, you truly do reap what you sow....haha.  As far as me, you know, I'm doing good, I'm growing closer to God daily, and I'm doing my best at becoming an EXCELLENT woman!  I could go on and on and on dad, but I just wanted to write you a letter to say I miss you daddy, and even though it's been 10 years since you left us, you are still and forever will be in my heart, thoughts, mind, family, and most of all hold a special place in me that no one else will ever be able to have, my daddy!  I love you Dad!  Thanks for being such a GREAT dad for me.  

~Forever your baby girl,

~Forever missing you,

Theanna

Thanksgiving & First Santa Visit

Now that it's December 4Th, and the countdown is on till Christmas. How was every one's Thanksgiving? We had a quiet Thanksgiving this year. We had a surprise visit from my Uncle and cousins from Waynesville Missouri. It was GREAT to see them! After they came by, we just sorta hung out around the house, watched some movies, and as you can see, Hailey took a nap while Kate just hung out with us, watching the parade and playing some games. It was a good relaxing afternoon. Brooke was cuter than ever, she was playing with pot lids like drums, and she thought it was GREAT FUN, and we had fun trying sunglasses on her too. Later that evening Chris' sister, Amy, her husband, Eric, and their 2 boys, Tyson and Ryder came over for our big dinner. Robyn joined us once she got home from work. The kids played together and us adults got to talk. Mary also 'skyped' in, and it was great to hear from her and Trevor. So all in all it was a good Thanksgiving, just a quiet one.

Now that we are in December, the girls are very excited about Christmas and Santa and all the fun that comes with the holidays. The Frisco Square does a big light up the night, so we went to the first night of that event. Santa parachuted in, crazy, and fun, and then surprisingly, we were the first ones to see Santa, and the girls talked to him and told him what they wanted for Christmas. Kate was not afraid, and was excited to see Santa this year, she told him that she wanted a girl puppy this year, a puppy that would stay small. Hailey was shy and not so sure of Santa, so she mainly hid behind me, but she did get out that she wanted a new baby doll. Brooke was very intrigued by Santa, as long as I was holding her, but the minute I tried to put Brooke on Santa's lap, for a quick photo op, she was NOT OK with it.....see pictures(the first one the girls were worried for Brooke, the second one I told them to just look and smile...haha).......it was great, you can say we tried at least. So that was our first visit to Santa, we are planning on going back again this Friday night, and I'm sure we'll go to a mall or two and visit Santa there also. It's been fun, but December is already going by fast, the other day I thought it was still November, and here it is....December, the end of the year. Crazy! Brooke's 1st Birthday is right around the corner, and we are excited to celebrate her birthday soon, just can't believe she's almost 1 years old already.

Hope you are all doing great and enjoying your December as the end of this year approaches us quickly. Happy Holidays!

Zoo Day

One thing I love to do with my girls is go to the zoo. This first picture was at the opening gate, they were very excited to be at the zoo. Surprisingly it is a rather expensive thing to do, except for Wednesdays when it's half price day at the Ft. Worth Zoo. With Kate in school, we haven't been able to make it to the zoo, but for Thanksgiving break she had the whole week off, and to mommy that meant, the perfect time for a zoo day! Even though both Chris and I were feeling sick, fighting a cold, and cold sores, we had to take the opportunity. And I'm glad we did! So that is exactly what we did. It was SO much fun, and I'm SO glad we took the opportunity to go. This time last year I went to the same zoo, except I was trying to go to the zoo not to see the animals, but to walk out the baby(Brooke) who was still in my tummy. So it was great to get to go this time without having contractions, and without having a baby in my belly, but a baby that LOVED watching all the animals! This is the first time I think we've been able to go to a zoo where all 3 of our girls were totally amazed by each and every animal, so it made it a lot of fun for mommy and daddy to tag along. Brooke would make noises and clap her hands with excitement, and it was SO precious to watch her. Kate was very excited about the snakes and lizards, which in my book is just grose, but I let her be excited....hopefully that will go away one day! Hailey loved the elephants, the hippos,(b/c Hungry Hungry Hippo is one of her favorite board games we play with her), the giraffes, all the 'bigger' animals. I would say that Brooke's favorite was either the monkeys/apes (the picture is of her standing at the cage looking into the apes, all smiles), or the bird cage that we got to go in. Yes, I said, bird cage that we got to go IN. One of the great things about the Ft. Worth Zoo is that they have a place where you can go in and buy bird food that is stuck on a stick, and feed the birds, we even got lucky enough that a bird landed on Kate's stick, as seen in the picture, she wasn't so sure about it, but was excited at the same time. Hailey wanted nothing to do with the bird landing on the stick, but she enjoyed letting them eat off of her stick. Brooke on the other hand, she wanted to hold the birds....she kept trying to reach out and grab them.....it was great! So our day at the zoo was GREAT!! We really had a lot of fun with our girls.

Finally Christmas Time

So I haven't blogged in a while, but A LOT has been going on, so I'm going to do a few 'blogs' now to catch us up. First, if anyone knows me, they know that I am a Crazy Christmas Person!! (Don't you love the red, just for Christmas) I LOVE to decorate, and when the streets and the stores start decorating, I get VERY excited. We went to the mall a few weeks ago, and they started putting up there decorations, including the biggest Christmas Tree in Dallas, and I got VERY excited!!! (This is half of the tree) Here are the girls next to the first Christmas tree we saw. They also got VERY excited!! As soon as November 1st hit, I was already asking Chris if we could start decorating our house, and he kept saying, "no, not yet, crazy", ha...I finally talked him into it, and so the weekend before Thanksgiving we started the decorations. Our girls LOVE Christmas, just like their mommy, and they LOVE to decorate for it also. They were very excited to go up into the attic to get all the Christmas decorations and boxes down, and they were also very excited about going up on the roof top to hang the lights. They never stay up there long, but it's always a fun adventure for them to go up and down the ladders. Here's some pics of them putting up the lights and enjoying their 'roof' time. So I'll have to get a picture soon of the finished product, but we are very happy with our beautifully decorated home! Of course after the outside we started decorating the inside, and so I put up some pics (a bit fuzzy, sorry) of the girls putting the star on top of the tree (yes, we had to take it down and let them each have a turn). I have one good story to end this blog with. Our neighborhood is having a Christmas Decorating Competition, for the best decorated house, from the outside of course. Well with our competitive spirits, and our LOVE for Christmas, we were deffinetaly going to go ALL out!! So the other day, we decided to drive around the neighborhood to see where we stood at the moment, and it was just the girls and me in the car, and we saw houses with a little lights here, or a little tree there, but nothing GREAT like ours of course. Then we turned the corner, and out of Kate's mouth, she quickly said, "oh no mom, competition!" I started laughing, b/c it was so funny to hear her so concerned!! But don't worry.....we are still in the lead, I pointed out that they had more yard decorations than we did, but we still had more lights!! So needless to say the girls are set on our house winning, so we'll see if we do. Hope you are all enjoying your decorating as much as we are.

New Job, Broken Santa, Seizures, awards, 11 months

So I haven't updated this in a while, it's been very busy for us lately.  So I'll start with explaining the title one at a time, first big news for me.....I have a job!!  I am working for our Chiropractor/friends/home group leaders, as their front desk/secretary on Wednesdays from 3-6 while Chris watches the kids, and then I will also be doing some of their data entry.  It's a great job for me, and I really did enjoy my first day.  It was a nice break for me and I'm glad it all worked out.  Plus it was an answer to our prayers, just that I could somehow bring in some extra income without the stress of a 'job', so this is the perfect answer, God is SO good to us!!! Next is our 'broken-santa', today we went to Market Street to buy the girls their advent calendars for December.  I know it's early, but I am Theanna, and I am SO excited for Christmas!!!  Anyways, at Market Street they have mini-carts for the kids to push, 

so we let both girls push their own grocery carts, of course, telling them 'DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING' without asking first!!  Well, they were doing great and half way through the store, we heard a 'crack' and onto the floor fell a santa coffee cup.  Hailey immediately started crying, and was SO embarrased!  Poor girl.  The store manager came over and was like, "don't worry about it, it was an accident, you are fine, it's not a problem, you're ok", but of course Hailey was histarical, poor girl.  We made her apologize, as hard as it was for her, just to be respectful.  Then we moved on.  

The seizure story is actually about my brother in laws dog, Max.  Last night, while I was at my first night of work, Max had a seizure.  I wasn't here to witness it, thank God!!  But Chris told me that it is a rather scary thing to witness, and he's (Max) sorta been acting weird ever since.  Plus it's very dangerous for our kids to be around it.  So hopefully it's the last one he'll have in a long time!!  

Now for another great update on my kindergardner.  Kate had another awards ceremony at school, and she got another award for perfect attendance.  She's also reading now, and got amazing grades all exceeding kindergarten levels.  

The picture is of her receiving her award from her principle.  She's doing GREAT in school and we are SO proud of her!!

The last news is that Brooke is 11 months old today, and I can't believe it!!  She's almost one, but to me she only feels like she should be like 9 months old, not that I should be planning a birthday party.  She's doing great!  She's a precious baby, and she's really starting to have an amazing personality!  She's a very happy baby, and getting closer and closer to walking but still not there yet.  Anyways, I'll end with a pic of my 11 month old cutie!  

One of those days.....

We all go through tough times, I know, especially with the economy the way it is......well, like a lot of the rest of the world, we are struggling. I just want to know, how to get away from it? How to catch up? How to survive? How to breathe again, and why does it have to be SO hard for SO long?? I know we are doing all that we can, and trying the best that we can, but it just doesn't seem to be getting any easier, no matter what we do. I'm believing for a miracle, I'm believing for BREAKTHROUGH, and I'm believing for FAVOR to overcome our lives, but the wait is hard. I know God sees the bigger picture, and HE has the perfect plan for us, I just want to know how long this season is going to last, it's been a LONG season, and we are SO ready for change. You go through seasons to learn lessons, then God moves you on after you've learned your lesson, well, I feel like we've learned A LOT of lessons, but aren't moving anywhere! Does anyone else feel this way? It's easy to want to blame God and say WHY ME?? WHY MY FAMILY?? but I'm trying to not focus on that, but to focus on being grateful for what I do have, for the things in life that are going right, and to stay as positive as I can, but it's hard, it's REALLY hard to do for SO long!! Anyone that reads this, your prayers would be greatly appreciated, I know we all go through tough times, and our 'tough-time' is draining us, it's been a LONG LONG LONG 'tough-time' for us, and we need prayers as we wait and believe for our miracle.



I'll leave you with Kate's kindergarten school picture. This week she started reading all on her own, and is riding her bike, all by herself, no training wheels. She's growing up TOO fast, and she's doing great at everything! She's a truly wonderful child to have. The other two girls are doing great too, they just don't have any new news at this time.



We hope you are all having a blessed day!

Traditions

Our family is starting to really develop some good traditions, now that our kids are at an age that they can remember and truly appreciate things we do together as a family. One of the traditions we know we are going to continue is 'back yard camping'. We did this about a month ago. Chris, myself, Kate, Hailey, and even Riley all enjoyed this one. We set up a two bedroom tent in our backyard, made hot dogs over the grill, and ate outside on the camping table. We even made smores together over the stove top on the grill outside. Then it was bed time. Kate and Hailey slept on one side of the tent, after we put them to bed, Chris and I watched a movie on our laptop on the other side of the tent, then we too went to bed. Brooke slept inside the house in her crib, and we just hooked up the monitor outside, so we could hear her. Riley would not sleep inside, so he too joined us in the tent. It was a lot of fun, and the girls still talk about how much fun there 'camp-out' was. So we plan on continuing that fun tradition. Another tradition we plan on continuing is our newest tradition, 'family-floor-picnics', I'm still not sure if it will be a weekly thing, or every other week thing, but we all enjoyed it. It's SO simple, but it meant so much to the kids. We just put a sheet on the floor in the living room, and we all had a picnic lunch together, talking and sharing good memories. One of the foods we had was grapes, and we all had fun trying to throw grapes up in the air and catch them in our mouth. It was fun for everyone. So those are two of our traditions that we've just recently started and hope to continue doing with our kids. It's fun when they get to an age where you can really start to see what mean a lot to them, and what they truly enjoy. And the best part is, seeing that it really is the simple things that mean SO much to them. Just that family time together.

Today is Election day, and I know we will all be praying that above all else, GOD IS IN CONTROL!!!

Fall Festival ~ 10/31/08

We started our Halloween day with attending Kate's Fall Party at her school. Both Chris and I went and helped out with the event. She was very happy to have us there with her. Then we went home, and Hailey wanted to take pictures of us, so I posted the picture she took, she did a great job!! One of our new family traditions now is to go to Chipotle for Halloween. Every Halloween if you dress up as a burrito and go to Chipotle, they'll give you a free burrito......(well, all you really have to do is have a piece of aluminum foil on you somewhere, and they'll give it to you). So Robyn, Chris, the girls, and I all wrapped aluminum foil around us, and we got a free dinner at Chipotle. It was great!! We got $40 of food for free...totally worth it!!! After that we went to the Fall Festival at our church. It was a TON of fun. Our church puts on a GREAT 'carnival', they have everything from bounce houses, to bounce mazes, to games, to balloons, to slides, to swings, to airplane rides, to carousels, to train rides, to horse back rides, to TONS of CANDY for everyone!!! It's been a HUGE hit for our kids both years we've gone now! Another reason why we LOVE our church! We ended up staying for the whole time. We were one of the last ones to leave the festival. I thought I'd put up a few pics from the night.....Kate was The Little Mermaid with bright RED hair, Hailey was Tinker Bell (but the wings didn't stay on that long), and Brooke was a little pony (the cutest pony ever!). Enjoy the pics from our night of fun. At the end of the night, we left with TONS of candy, and VERY tired kiddos, but it was a great Halloween for all of us! Hailey fell fast asleep on our 5 min. ride home. That's a successful night!!

A few good stories....

As everyone knows the Holidays have approached us. Today is Halloween, at our house we call it the Fall Festival. Hailey's all time favorite thing to do is to go to the pumpkin patch.She talks about it ALL year long. The thing you have to understand is that the pumpkin patch is only open from October 1st through October 31st. That one month a year is a long wait for her. However, we made it to the beloved pumpkin patch 5 times this year. She loves it so much b/c they have hay mazes, bounce houses, hay rides, train rides, a pumpkin house, face painting, sno-cones, and a park, so as you can see, it is A LOT of fun for her! And mommy likes it too b/c it is FREE, can't beat that!! B/c we've gone so many times, I've had a lot of opportunities to take photos. So I thought I'd post some of them for you all to enjoy. It's funny to me, coming from growing up in Colorado, to be able to go to a pumpkin patch in October and still be wearing short sleeves, and have to leave b/c it's simply too hot! Ha...only in good ol Texas! One of the down falls we run into is that We can get pics of the kids, and either Chris or I can get pics of us with the kids, but we rarely get pics of us. So this year we decided to let our kids have a shot at taking pics of us..... they did a pretty good job. Chris and I were very happy with them. I had to do a little bit of cropping, but I'm just impressed that we are both in the picture and our heads aren't cut off or anything. So yeah for kiddos!! The one on the left Kate took and the one on the right Hailey took. Well, I only have a few quick stories to share this time, but here they are. The first one is of Hailey. The other day we were watching Diego, and Hailey decided to tell me that she thought Diego was handsome and she likes him. So cute! Hailey is a funny one with her words lately. She has been making me laugh with the way she interprets things, and they way things come out of her mouth. The next story I have is about Kate. For those of you don't know last month was the end of Kate's 1st 6 weeks at school. She got her first 'report' card, in kindergarten they don't have grades (A,B,C,D,F), they have numbers, (1=not ready for school, 2=Average, 3=expected level for kindergarten, 4=above expected level for kindergarten, 5= above advanced), well Kate got all one 3, nineteen 4's, and three 5's. I am VERY proud of her to say the least!!! We had our first parent teacher conference, and the teacher said to us, "these are the easy ones, I'm sitting here trying to think of something to tell you to work on, and all I can say, is keep doing what you are doing! She's an amazing kid, if I could clone her, I would!" As her mother, I was SO PROUD!!!! It was one of those moments where as a young parent you feel like you must be doing something right. Her teacher, Mrs. Wilson, ended the meeting telling us that every 6 weeks, they hand out awards to the 'Star Student', and that Kate was her 1st Star Student. So the next day we got to go to an awards ceremony and watch our Kate receive her 1st award for being a 'Star Student'! We are very proud of Kate, she's doing AMAZING!! She's learning SO much every day, and every day she comes home excited to do her homework and learn more. The last thing I wanted to say about Kate, was that yesterday, Kate started to learn to read! We went to the library, and she sounded out and read an entire book all by herself. SHE DID IT!!!! She's a great kid!! Last story is about Brooke, whose now 10 and 1/2 months old. She has 6 teeth now, 4 on top, and 2 on bottom. She is mastered crawling, and does it VERY fast!! She's learning very quickly to climb up onto things, she's climbed up onto the girls picnic table outside, she's climbed up onto the first step of the step stool to the trampoline, she LOVES the trampoline!! Now she is trying harder and harder to walk. She is transfering from the couch to the recliner, or wherever she can reach, and she's loving being able to walk with the play grocery cart we have for the girls. She walks all over the house with it, and it's GREAT!!! Last week, we went out to dinner with Robyn, Cory, and our family, to celebrate Cory's birthday, and to say goodbye, b/c he left us to go to Wisconsin to play hockey. Well, we went out to eat at Olive Garden, and we decided to give Brooke a lemon, so I thought I'd end with the movie we took (I can't figure out how to download it, so maybe next time). Enjoy the pics, and I'll post more soon. I enjoy writing, so this is GREAT for me!

My First Blog

OK....so I thought I'd try this thing. I have a good story to open up with......as we all know, Halloween is 2 days away. Well, we don't celebrate Halloween, we celebrate the Fall Festival. My kids know this VERY well.......they think that the word Halloween is a bad word, and my fault, I haven't really corrected them.....(I secretly like them thinking that).......well the other day Kate had one of her neighbor friends over, and they decided that they wanted to color a picture together. So they sat down and her friend said, "Let's color a picture for Halloween", immediately Kate was like, "No, we don't celebrate Halloween, I'll draw a picture of why we don't celebrate Halloween". I was in the other room overhearing all of this, and thought to myself, what is she going to draw a picture of. So a few minutes later, I walked in and said, "hey girls, what are you drawing pictures of?" Kate said, "I'm drawing a picture of why we don't celebrate Halloween", and held up her picture. I almost started crying, b/c her picture was of Jesus dying on the cross. It was such a precious moment for me! I was so blessed by my daughter to see that. Then she said...."we don't celebrate Halloween b/c it doesn't honor God" then Hailey charmed in with, "Ya, b/c if you celebrate Halloween, you'll go to hell", yes, this is what Hailey said. So she's still a bit confused, but they at least know that it's NO GOOD!!!! Ha. So that's my beginner story. I'll write some more tomorrow with some pics, and maybe I'll venture out to a video too. But enjoy! Let the blogging begin!