First Day of School

After months of great anticipation, Michael and I sent Jonathan off to preschool at a local church yesterday. I had a strange lapse in resolve and considered not sending him (what if someone is mean to him?!), but decided that, yes, this is the best option for our family at this time. Now, mind you, I was not concerned about Jonathan suffering from any kind of separation anxiety; strangely enough, I was concerned about my separation anxiety! Jonathan in no way disappointed...at meet the teacher on Monday, he was the only kid screaming, "No go home, Mommy, no go home!!" (I'm sure the teacher wondered what was so terrible at home that he didn't want to go home to!). What goes around comes around, though, because that was me as a kid...I never wanted to go home, I was always wanting to go/see/do more.

Then Tuesday morning rolls around, we don his new backpack (see photo), and off to school we go! I take off his backpack to hang it up on his hook, and he walks right in without even a backward glance at me! The teacher says, "Jonathan, tell Mommy bye-bye," and he kind of half lifts up his hand and hollars over his shoulder, "Byyyyeeee." After just a twinge of sadness, I come to the conclusion that I would much rather have this kind of drop off than dramatic wailing and nashing of teeth. I'm glad that Jonathan is very social and adventure-seeking...all in all, it made me more comfortable with leaving him there.

I really like his teacher and think that she will be great for him. She seems to understand boys and their, eh hem...unique need for lots of activity/movement. Their daily schedule is super structured (a good thing!)and does a great job of alternating between quiet and active activities, and they even go to Bible and music class everyday. I've been very impressed with the detail orientation of this school and despite my brief misgivings, I'm ecstatic that we have the opportunity to send Jonathan to this preschool. I think it'll be really, really, really nice when little peanut gets here, and I think Jonathan will thrive in this environment.

The note that his teacher sent home with him said, "Jonathan had a GREAT first day of school. He played with gusto and loved everything!" Yep...that sounds about right, playing with gusto! :>

Here are a few other fun photos for you...

Bubbles in mommy's tub


Having a picnic with his trucks (totally his idea!)


Enjoying chocolate cake with our friends Chris and Becky


Helping Daddy switch out hinges...(no, we're not espousing a nudist colony, we've begun potty-training and the first few weeks we just let him run around naked! And besides, every little boy needs a naked picture with boots on!)

Seaworld

Jonathan and I went to San Antonio to see Mary, Hannah, and Chloe (and a wee bit of Matt) this week. This is probably the last time I'll see her before peanut gets here, so I cherished every moment I got to spend with her! The good talk time in between crazy kid stuff was short and sweet but so worth it. I had a blast getting to know her girls, Chloe and Hannah, even better. Chloe and Jonathan got along the best they've ever gotten along. Chloe used to not like to be touched, and Jonathan, well...he doesn't really understand the concept of 'personal space.' But Chloe is not minding being touched as much, and Jonathan is doing a little (a liiiiiitttttle)bit better with not hugging/tackling/knocking over people. We got in late Monday night, and Tuesday we got up and went to Seaworld. Looking at the dolphins... Jonathan LOVED seeing them play... Fish aquarium You can kind of see Jonathan's face, he was smiling SOOOOOOO big...it was adorable. He LOVED the fish Watching the sharks We couldn't even get him to turn around for a picture, and he normally loves the camera. We went home for naps and headed back to Seaworld in the evening for two shows. Before he loaded up Jonathan's car seat, Chloe decided she should sit on Jonathan...I was so surprised because she used to not like to be touched. Jonathan was enamored with her! We ate dinner while waiting for the first show to keep everyone happy. The kids did SOOOOOOOOOOOOO well during the shows and were totally mesmerized Baluga whale
Holding hands to keep up in the park. The kids did so well, they were great! In front of Shamu, aren't they super cute? Jonathan was really excited to see Shamu, he kept asking to see the "Killah Whay-ale" The whole crew, Mary was such a trooper keeping up with a toddler and a squirmy baby! The show was incredible and the kids did SOOOOOOOOOOOO well!! Jonathan was enamored with the show and even danced along with the music We got to this show 25 mintues early and it was almost already full!! We had come prepared with bubbles, colors, markers, stickers, etc to keep them entertained while we waited and we was so glad that we did!


We all went home super tired, but super contented. Seaworld was definitely a success! The next day I watched the kids while Mary went to a doctor's appointment. We had a BLAST painting, doing stickers, and playing outside in the pool. After naps we all headed out to the neighborhood pool and wore Jonathan out before we headed back to Houston. Thanks, Mary for a great time! I'm always refreshed and challenged when I walk away from my time with you. You are an amazing wife, mother and friend. You do a phenomenal job with your girls, and I loved getting to know them better. You bless me!!

New Playroom

I've wanted to transform a space into a play area for Jonathan so that we could keep all of his stuff together and so that he could find what he wanted to. It took a few months, but we finally moved our kitchen table into the dining room and transformed our breakfast area into a playroom for him. I love it!! It has worked so well! The first day he was so excited, walking around saying, "My playroom...my playroom." He's been playing a LOT more by himself, painting alot and using his art easel and table (which he never used before when it was upstairs). Here are some fun pictures!








Here's Jonathan helping Daddy mow the lawn after we got back from California...it was a jungle!


Some funny things he's saying:
-Wait just a minute, Mommy (complete with index finger raised)
-No, not today, Mommy, not today (we're working on this one...I can say 'not today' to him, but he can't say 'not today' to me...poor guy, that's got to be confusing!)
-RIGHT NOW, MOMMY, RIGHT NOW! (hysterical, but again, we're working on saying please instead of 'right now')
-He imitates EVERYTHING we say, then laughs at himself
--He LOVES singing and sings along with every song that he can. He has quite a repertoire now, including Jingle Bells, I love you Lord, Jesus Loves Me, Twinkle Twinkle, and several others

Him playing by himself more has really freed me up this week to work on several things. I've gotten a lot done! His fussiness/temper tantrums have been a LOT less infrequent this week, and complete with a pool outing every day, I give this week an A+!

Mississippi, Tennessee, and California!!

Wow! So, June has been a whirlwind, which is how I like life to go! ;> Things had been much, much to slow around here. ;>

After Fort Worth, we were all home for 4 days then headed out to Mississippi for a family reunion. We stopped in Shreveport to catch a ride with Michael's brother and sis-in-luv, Philip and Marissa. We had a great time riding together, and this is really embarrassing, but the only pictures I got of the whole reunion were of the trip there! Ahhh...I've really got to get better at this.





Anyway, the reunion went great and seeing Michael's dad for father's day was really special. Mimi and Papa ended up taking Jonathan with them to TN for a whole week so that Michael and I could go to Saddleback's conference in Orange County, CA (for those of you unfamiliar with Saddleback). I started missing Jonathan immediately and thought about him the whole 10 hrs back to Houston, which was a good sign bc I was scared I wasn't going to miss him at all!! ;> Since he's been feeling better, he's back to his sweet, adorable self and I hated leaving him when he was so cute. I was super pumped about CA, though, and rightly so!!

Michael and I left Tues, and flew into 62 degree weather!!! YEAH!!!!! WAHOOOO!!!! CA is beautiful, and I never got used to seeing palm trees with mountains in the background. The conference was VERY refreshing and we got to hear Francis Chan, Rick Warren, Dan Cathy (Chick-fil-a founder Truitt's son and current owner/runner [is that the CEO??] of Chick-fil-a) and Paul Baloche speak. The scenery was gorgeous, and did I mention the weather was amazing??!!

We met another worship pastor who is at a church not 10 min from ours and we totally hit it off. Michael likes making contacts in the area, and God has totally blessed me with another minister's wife that can relate to my struggles!! Yeah for Lori and Brett Mosser!!
Lori and Me at Saddleback's main campus near the super-cool beach/waterfall area. Lori is super tiny and cute and did NOTHING for my pregnant self-esteem that week! ;>


Fri night Lori and Brett took us to the beach in their convertable they had rented (it was FREEZING)! I was the only one who got in the water!! You can see my pant legs are a little wet.


On Saturday (our only free day) we headed into Hollywood, did the walk of fame, stood in line for 20 min to pay respects to the King of Pop, were interviewed by CBS (not kidding), took a tour of Beverly Hills, and met up with some friends from Plano. Again, not kidding. It's a small world. Liesal went to Hunters' Glenn with Michael in high school, and she and her husband, Jon, are in LA breaking into the directing business. SO, they picked us up on the side of Hollywood Blvd and took us sight seeing and then to Santa Monica. Wahoo!! Super, Super fun. We didn't get any pictures of or with them, though, because we kept taking pictures of each other. Whoops! Thanks, Liesal and Jon for being great hosts!! We had a blast and look forward to doing it again in hopefully two years!






















Sunday morning up at 3am to catch our flight to Houston, then Monday left to get Jonathan in Mississippi. I was so, so, so, so, so excited to see him!! He called me one time, but Mimi and I decided it probably wasn't a good idea for him to talk to me again because he started crying anytime she tried to take the phone away from him. Talk about breaking my heart!! They did leave me a message on my phone, though, and I listened to it over and over again. He was pretty excited to see me, too, and kept hugging me, and telling me about what he did in Tennessee (boat in creek and float away!!!:>). My mom thankfully went with me, and we stopped in Lafayette for the night, then Tues home for good. Whew! What a great, whirlwind of a month June was. Now we get to relax and enjoy being home together for awhile.

Fort Worth

Mid-June, Michael went to a conference in Chicago so Jonathan and I headed to Fort Worth to stay with some friends. We got in on Tuesday and stayed with Lindsay and Nick and their little 10 month old, Eli. I just realized we didn't get any pictures with them!! Oooops! Sorry! We had tons of fun, though, and even went to their pool! Eli was so cute crawling and splashing in the water!

The next day we went to Annie and Danielle's house. Jonathan and Danielle had SOOOOOO much fun together--I love watching them play together. Annie used to keep Jonathan while I was in school, so it was really fun to stay with them again. Danielle is getting so grown up and talking so much!





Finally, Thursday night we stayed with Sean and Lendy and their boys. Jonathan has always been completely enamored with them, which is GREAT because it allows Lendy and me lots of talk time. It's so fun seeing Jonathan grow up and be able to do things with the "big boys." After the boys went to sleep, Lendy and I were able to sneak out and go hang out with our third amigo, Erin, whom I haven't seen since Christmas.







We left Friday around naptime, so the trip was short, but ohhhhhhh so sweet. Thanks to all of my wonderful hostesses for their awesome hospitality. I left with lots of great ideas to try on Jonathan and feeling very refreshed.

Long time...no hear from...

I just logged on to Jonathan's blog in order to view the links to other people's blogs and realized I haven't posted in 2 months. WOW!!! Sorry about that. Let's just say it's been a ROUGH 2 months. Jonathan started getting sick at the end of April and is just now coming out of it. I started getting run down about 3 weeks ago and it has taken awhile to get back in shape (I'm still not 100%). In the midst of all this, Jonathan decided it would be a good idea to get up around 5:00-5:30am for about 2 weeks (going down for naps and bedtime at the usual time) making for a FUSSY toddler and an exhausted-beyond-belief mommy. On top of all this, I'm still a bit nauseous (with an aversion to raw meat) which makes cooking and cleaning REALLY hard and a true labor of love. So, needless to say, picture taking and blogging and even the desire to do so has been non-existent. Things are looking up, though, with Jonathan getting back to his sweet, eager-to-please nature.

Here's what's happened in the last few weeks (there were some cute/fun things amidst the craziness):


Trying on Daddy's shoes...



Mommy's not the only one who's exhausted!


He loves playing guitar hero!


Blueberry picking with Puddin'




Feeding a little damsel in distress...he took his job very seriously and only picked her the fattest, bluest blueberries he could find! ;>


That's it for this post...coming soon will be pictures from our Fort Worth trip!!

Easter and the Zoo

Our Easter season was super busy with a performance Palm Sunday including the usual praise team and praise band along with drama and full orchestra. Then Easter weekend we had 5 services! Whew! Our church had an Easter egg hunt after every service, and Jonathan did his Saturday night. I'm really glad we did because a huge rain storm came Sunday morning. The weather cleared up enough for us to take our annual family Easter photo!



These are some bunny ears that Jonathan made in Mops. He loved them and was hopping around saying, "Bunny! Bunny!"



Michael took Monday off since he put in so much time the last two weeks. The weather was perfect (I think the rain yesterday drove off some of the heat) so off to the zoo we went! Here are some pictures of our wonderful day...

Seeing 'Jonathan' the lion! He's attempting to roar like a lion, but I didn't quite capture it...


Pointing at the giraffe



Watching the elephant


This is how Jonathan spent most of the day...he's really getting a lot more into Daddy these days. My favorite about the zoo--it wasn't, "Mommy! Elephants!" it was, "Daddy! Elephants!...More animals, Daddy...Daddy! Monkey!" I just happily trailed along taking photos! ;>



Brushing a goat



Riding the carousel




So much activity--totally passed out on the way home!!



We decided to upgrade to a season pass, since if we go one more time as a family it will pay for itself. So, I look forward to many more fun trips!