Colton

We have seen so much progress in Colton over the last few weeks. When his speech therapist was here last time I was changing Colton's diaper and he counted to 9! Before that he would say 1-2 or 5-6, but he counted all the way to 9 perfectly! It was so exciting. He repeated all the shapes she told him, and he's started putting 2 word phrases together too like, "shut door", "push button", "lay down"...mostly he copies phrases but he has been doing it more often. He repeats words and phrases a lot more now too. And I'll catch him playing pretend every once in a while. He had Jonathan's shoes and he was moving them like they were walking towards some trucks while saying "watch out!". He says everything in a really high pitch, so it's kinda cute.

The most wonderful improvement though has been socially. It used to be if any child (other than family) came near him he would hit them or put on his "mad face" and fight back the urge to hit them. Last time our friend Porter came over, Colton tortured him. This time...he played WITH him! It was so exciting! He followed Porter around with his truck, he even stood right in front of him and tried talking to him. I know Porter was a little put off by Colton standing so close and being a little rough with the trucks, but he even said "Colton's being nice". I can't tell you how happy this makes me to see all these improvements/miracles!

Blessing Day

We finally blessed Max today. It was our last day of church here so it was a bit of an emotional day, to say the least.




A really awful picture of us before church today.

Since we didn't decide to bless Max today until this last week Grammie was the only family member there, and we are very grateful she made the trip down.

Just a little note about Max. He's gotten so fun. He started crawling a couple weeks ago (luckily he's still really slow!) . He went to the doctor last week and weighed in at 18 pounds.
My friend and I were just talking about how silly it is to put up 4 of basically the same picture of your kid; and that only a mommy can see the difference. Well, here are 4 very different pictures of Max, see he's sticking his tongue out in one and smiling in another...I know they're the same 4 pictures, but I, mommy, could not choose just one.








Oh and did you notice Max's awesome helmet?

And another picture of our little chubbers.

Kirsten's Disney Cruise

Kirsten got to go with Grandma, Papa, and Emily on a Disney cruise last week! She had so much fun, she stayed up until midnight the night she got home telling us all about it. She told us her favorite thing was going on the water slide on the boat. I guess she didn't want to go on it, but after she was convinced she didn't want to stop. She got to eat mac and cheese for every meal.
Her favorite character was Snow White, because she was so sweet. She was so excited to show us her autograph book and show us all her "treasures". She even made a sand castle with Mickey Mouse! On the night she got home she asked when she was going to see Emily again. I told her in just a couple weeks. She said "that's not as long as we usually do, but I'm so used to seeing her." I think she really loved hanging out with her aunt.
She had a great time and I'm so glad my parents and Emily took her, but man did we miss her! This house was pretty quiet without her.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Crazy!

I don't think it's been a secret that I don't exactly love it here in West Texas. It's not that I hate it, we have made great friends and have found happiness here. But, I have never really felt settled here. Something about not being able to see water and trees that I just can't handle. So at the beginning of this year we realized that we had lived here for 2 years now and were kind of looking for a way out I guess. Jonathan has been planning on getting his MBA since he went to business school. The timing just has never been right. So we thought now would be a great time. He applied to Rice and got in and we thought we could easily get transferred to Houston. We were wrong. The week after getting accepted to Rice and finding out that we may not be able to move their until the end of the year Jonathan was offered a job in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. I must say I never thought we would go back there, but we felt good about it and he accepted it. So we are heading back to Oklahoma, but this time we are moving to Collinsville (closer to Tulsa). We are actually really excited! We went last week and found a house and we are moving in 2-3 weeks! It's crazy and fast, but we are really excited.