Happy Easter/Birthday!

Today is Easter, it is also Lori's 3rd Birthday. I didn't want to make a HUGE deal over the fact that it was her birthday cause I kinda wanted her focus to be on, well you know, the whole Jesus raising from the dead part. Seems a LITTLE bit more important, however, we wanted her to feel a little special.
Basically, we did the usual Easter stuff. I sang this morning in our worship choir and then we had an AMAZING breakfast provided by the church. (I swear, I know Jesus rose from the dead to conquer our sins and allow us to have eternal life with him in Heaven, but I also think that these biscuits could have had something to do with it.) On a more serious note, I was kinda finding it hard to get through the worship songs today. I was really hurting over the loss of our loved ones this past year. I kept thinking about how it is BECAUSE Jesus died, that they are not really gone. I think I usually think of death as being the end. Being the final chapter. But in all actuality all that we are living is just the prolog, isn't it. I had a whole new prespective on Easter this year. I know I should have probably came to this conclusion long ago, but I don't know, it just hit me. I realized that if Jesus hadn't died for our sins, and raised from the dead, conquering death, then my loved ones, Brian, Kimberly and Mike, would cease to exist. The would be dead. But now, because of what Jesus did, and their willingness to accept that gift, they will live forever in Heaven. And I will see them again.

Kisses for my Birthday Girl!


Kids runnin amuck. Glad they feel so at home at church!

Family shot in front of the flower cross.

More of the crazies...

After church we went home to rest for a bit, and then off to our friends' house for a get together, potluck lunch/dinner thing. We started doing this 5 years ago and there were only 4 kids. Today there was 14. All under 7. It was intense. FUN, but intense During our time at home Lori opened some gifts from her Grammy and Papa (my parents) and we called them and they said "Happy Birthday!" to which she said "and Happy Easter!" That made me happy. (She also said "Thank you" when people would said "Happy Birthday" which also made me proud)

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EGG HUNT!

Then is was time to celebrate Lori. She walked in to the kitchen of our host and politely said, "Its my Birthday time now." She got a piece of Cherry Cordial cake (made by our friend Sara Kinsey) and we sang her Happy Birthday. As you can see by the look on her face, it was quite a magical moment.

And now some pictures of David...

Happy as can be! Apparently when you are 15 months old everything is funny. He was cracking up while crawling up the stairs.

And finally, one last family shot. :) All in all it was a great day! I can't wait to celebrate Lori again at her party in a few weeks. She really is a joy and we love her to pieces!

Away in a Manger!

I was pretty excited for this Christmas because Lori is at the age where she is just now getting the whole concept. "Be a good girl or Santa won't bring you any Band-aids" has become a real threat that actually yelds results. (Band-aids and batteries are the only things she's asking Santa for) I've been enjoying watching all the Christmas movies through new eyes. The lights, the tree, the cookies and decorations all have a new magic about them. With all this new found excitement though, comes a responsibility. It is my responsibility, as well as Jorge's to teach Lori what the TRUE meaning of Christmas is. Most of the Christmas books are about Jesus and not Santa, so we've been reading those. However... I'm fairly confidant that our church's FABULOUS childrens program is to thank for the bulk of her knowledge.

A few weeks ago Lori was asking me if I wanted to go to a party with her. I had NO idea what she was talking about, church had been over for hours and we had just been running errands so I wasn't really thinking along those lines. (I actually first thought she was inviting me to go POTTY with her, but that's a different story, anyway...) Upon further questioning I figured out that she was inviting me to a party for Jesus' birthday being thrown by our childrens ministries at our church. Last Sunday was the party, which Lori informed me was complete with cupcakes. They were able to capture this picture for me... which I will forever be thankful for!

When Lori saw this picture she said "Hey, that's me!" and then the following conversation took place.
Me: What were you doing?
Lori: I was looking at the Angel baby
Me: The Angel baby? What was his name?
Jorge: Jesus?
Lori: Yes, Jesus.
Me: What was He doing?
Lori: He was sleeping. In the manger. Cause He doesn't have a crib anymore.
Me: Why doesn't He have a crib?
Lori: Umm... I don't know.

Out of the mouths of babes, as they say. I truly just LOVE the simplicity of her logic and thinking.

Just what I've always wanted!

This Mother's Day was AMAZING! It started out with Lori bringing me my travel coffee mug, with a NEW insert that she and Jorge made. It was the most wonderful thing I've ever seen! In all honesty it was. As you all know I am a pretty crafty person, and having worked at a school, I was the one who made all the crafts and gifts for kids to give there moms. In the back of my mind, I always thought I'd be the one makin' my own keepsake crafts with Lori. But Jorge did it for me. Now all she did was "color" a little part of it, but still, it was so special! He even have Davey a crayon and had him help a little too!


David's part is the purple on the right and Lori's in the red. (Jorge helped her write her name, she's not THAT advanced)

Then we went to church where I received a rose for being the mom of one of the youngest babies in the service. :)


After church we all came home for peanut butter and honey sandwiches and while eating lunch our neighbor came over and said he was going to have our backyards mowed and edged as a gift for me for mother's day!! Isn't that awesome? I thought so! :)

The rest of the day went like this, Lori took a nap while Jorge watched the Cubs game and Davey and I stepped out for a bit. When I got in my car I heard the familiar sounds of the Glee soundtrack that Jorge had slipped in to my CD player which hadn't worked in MONTHS!! He totally surprised me, which trust me, is very hard to do. We drove to the used book store, the Goodwill and Micheals, just cause I wanted to. Once we got home, we all drop to the Super Target where we met up with my sister and her family for "Frappy Hour" (1/2 priced frappacinos) and the Starbucks there. After THAT, (wow this is turning out to be a rather packed day isn't it?) we went for a walk with my sister and her family, and our good friends the Kuykendalls. Then came home, put the kids down and had pizza! It was great!

Now that the holidays are over we are packing up Christmas and getting our lives back to normal. Like most people it takes a while to "De Christmas" our house. It has taken me longer than usual since Lori is so mobile.




Here she is giving me a "helping hand"

(for the record she got in there ALL on her own. How, I have no idea seeing as the box is above her waist.)






So Christmas is packed up (mostly) and we're looking ahead to the upcoming year! We have so much to look forward to! The first of these things the birth of our nephew. My sister and her Husband are expecting their first baby, a boy, on February 4th (give or take) and we are so excited! He'll be born in California but I'll get to fly out and visit a few weeks after he's born. :)

We are also very excited to watch Lori grow and to celebrate her 1st birthday in April. I'm already thinking about how to celebrate! We're going to go all out!

In March Jorge's best friend and his wife are coming to visit us. We haven't seen Steve since our wedding and we haven't seen his wife Michelle since there wedding over 5 years ago. They are driving down from Minneapolis to spend a week with us, and bringing their 4 year old daughter with them who we've never met. We recently got reconnected with them thanks to Facebook. (I have say that albeit a GIANT waste of time, facebook sure has done wonders for us by connecting us with LOTS of people we would have only heard from a few times a year at best.) Thank you Facebook!

On top of all that we have a handful of very close friends who are also expecting babies this year so our Houston family will be multiplying greatly. And we can't be more excited!

Here's to 2009! It's going to be a good one!!

Happy New Year everybody!!!

This year was a big one for us for one very obvious reason. Lori has made our lives so much richer. We have not only been blessed to have her as a daughter but we also feel even MORE blessed every time we see her with one of our friends or family. We love watching her be a "joy" to those around her and seeing how much all of you truly love her.

This year we celebrated the New Year by serving dinner at The Brookwood Community, a community for adults with functional disabilities. It was such an amazing experience! Our church has been involved with Brookwood for a long time and it was one of the many things we loved about Grace. We, along with a few other couples form our Sunday School class were lucky enough to be able to serve the residents dinner at their New Years Eve party! The party only went until around 8:00 but Lori felt like leaving early (hungry) so we stayed long enough to serve them their food, but not long enough to dance. (Hey there's always next year!) I loved watching all of the residents smile as Lori gave them a huge toothless grin. Like I said before, watching Lori make people happy is one of my biggest joys in life. She is really living up to her middle name, that's for sure!





After we were done all of us went to our friend friends Grace and Duncan Vise house and rang in the New Year! It was as usual ( for us anyway) a low key New Years Eve, although it seems to be getting harder and harder to stay up until midnight, and I'm beginning to think it might be overrated.

"Joy" to the World!

To add to our already long list of Christmas traditions Jorge and I decided to take Lori to see Santa Clause at Stanford mall last week. We waited in line for a little while and when it was Lori's turn the "Helper Elf" (He wasn't dressed like one but it was his job all the same) came up to me, very animated and said "OK, here's what we're going to do, we're going to have you "back her in" while you step over here and distract her, while we take a few pictures" My response was, "uh, I don't think she'll have any problems, but ok"
He looked at me and Lori, and then repositioned himself so he could PHYSICALLY block Lori seeing Santa. "Yeah, we don't like ones her age to see Santa" Evidently he takes his job very seriously! (and rightfully so, what would Christmas be with out pictures with a mall Santa?)

It didn't take him long to realize that Lori was in no way worried about meeting the Jolly white-bearded fellow so he let me go a head and put her on his lap.

This might have helped change his mind.
(Lori smiling at her Daddy taking a picture.)




Once Lori was permitted to sit on Saint Nick's lap they took some pictures, very quickly I might add and then it was time to go, but not before we purchased our photo package. (and those things ain't cheap!!)

As we were leaving the "Helper Elf" says to me and Jorge, "That is that happiest baby." I said thank you and something along the lines of "yay Lori, way to go!" and I shrugged it off as the elf just trying to get us to buy pictures BUT I realized that I had already bought the pictures. Then he looked at us and in all seriousness said "No, seriously, I've been here for 47 days straight and that is the happiest baby I've ever seen!"

and here's why he said that...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Love Jorge, Dana and Lori

So much to be thankful for!!

(After reading my sister's blog I felt the need to write a little bit about out Thanksgiving this year.)

We were blessed to have my WHOLE family join us for Thanksgiving this year!

They all got here on Friday and after we had lunch I introduced them to the joys of SuperTarget! (My sister Megan loves Target, so I knew she'd enjoy a SUPER one!) For dinner we all went to Logan's Roadhouse, a staple for all out of town company! Logan's has the BEST rolls known to man, and they GIVE them to you! You can't go wrong with a place that has free bread, ribs that fall off the bone, and that lets you throw peanut shells on the floor!! The best!

On Saturday we made our first Thanksgiving "lunch"



Ryan helping, enjoying himself to the fullest!

Dad working on his stuffing, or dressing as it's called in Texas

Megan makin' a pie. Note Megan's little belly in the top of the picture on the right! (I love it!!)

Jorge and a chalice of chicken drippings

I did my part too...

and then the four of us "kids" headed off to watch the Twilight movie. Needless to say, Megan and I were a little more excited to see it than Jorge and Ryan (our brother-in-law)

We were lucky enough to be able to plan it so that Lori could be dedicated while my whole family was out here. (more on this to come in a later post) It was so great to have them here for such a special time. Earl Baudin took some family pictures for us. He's an amazing photographer, here's the Proof.

We loved having them here. Lori loved it so much that she didn't nap the WHOLE week!

Happy Halloween!

I love Halloween! I always have! As my family will tell you, I'm a sucker for tradition, and this Halloween was no different. We went over to our friends Chris and Amy's house for the third year. (Has it been THREE years already?) We have the same dinner of Amy's homemade Chili, chat with friends, take A TON of pictures and then go Trick or Treating every year. The first year, 2006, there were 4 children... Natalie, Ethan, Ryan and Jenna. Last year there were 5, with the addition of Rachel. It was also the year that Jorge and I told everyone that Lori was coming! This year there were 7 thanks to Lori and Sophia.

Here is a picture of the three newest additions to our Halloween extravaganza

(note Lori's expression... she apparently was indifferent to taking this picture.)

This picture might be my favorite of the night! I love seeing Jorge with Lori! This is the first picture we've taken of Jorge, his friends and their daughters. I didn't realize it until now just how neat it is and how it really shows me how much our lives have changed and how far we've come.

Chris and Sophia , Jorge and Lori, Ben and Rachel


Ryan and his future bride
(unless Lori has something to say about it...)



Ryan (in true Ryan form) and Rachel Kuykendall

Sydney Hammon (Ladybug) and Ethan Mann (Jr. Fireman)

Usually we go over to the Ferguson's house after dinner and hang out there until the kiddos need to go to bed, but this year Houston Christian High School (the school their daughter goes to) was having there Homecoming game. They stopped by to see the kids all dressed up. Doug and Lori hung out for a bit. For the record, Doug doesn't do diapers.









Ladybug and Kitty Cat (NOT a leopard) swinging...

Rachel the Bumble Bee and Katelyn Erickson

Chris and Brian having fun!

Amy's aforementioned chili and Ben and I enjoying said Chili

And FINALLY, here is a picture of our family on Halloween...

"Queen Kong" climbing the Transamerica Building and the Sears Tower

We actually didn't go Trick or Treating this Halloween. We ended up leaving a little early and heading over to our friends Dave and Jennifer's house to hang out and watch a movie (The Life of David Gale... it was Meh... not bad but just Meh.) Lori was so tired she went to bed at there house with no problem. All in all it was a really fun night!

Here's a few more pictures of our sweet little monkey, she definitely enjoyed the attention she got from being dressed up. She likes it when people smile at her!!