In Loving Memory

Native American Prayer

I give you this one thought to keep-
I am with you still-I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush,
I am the swift, uplifting rush
of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not think of me as gone-
I am with you still-in each new dawn.

This is a poem from a sympathy card I actually bought for Spencer when his sister, Carlene, died. I never did give it to him, and now I know why. It's been a year since his passing.
We feel your presence in everything, dad. We love you!

Little Tigers

Can anyone say CUTE?!!!!!!

Do not be fooled. This is a genuine tiger, not a four year old wearing a tail.
Watch out for those claws.

Calyn marveling over Kota. Yes, he is a legend in the making! Just look at those baby blues.

Our good friends, the Wesleys, threw a huge LSU vs. Auburn party with lots of great food and friends! There was standing room only, and there were so many kids and newborns, Josh said he felt like he was in Shrek's nightmare with the waves of babies invading his house. It was a sight! Mark has a projector screen, so we watched the game as if we were at the movies. (It was that loud too!) Chris Tarver (an old friend of ours who was Josh's roomate in his bachelor days) made ettoufe, Jeni made red beans, Robin made her ever-so-delicious salad, and we had a gajilion other things to eat/drink. It also happend to be Aaron's birthday, which we celebrated during halftime. I think that will be a memorable day for him, fo sho! GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
TIGERRRRRRRRRRS!!!

Guess What?!

Here's two hints

Ayden and Ian are going to have a new baby to play with sometime in May, 2009! We decided to start trying for baby #3 in September, which turned out to be an easy task. Josh told me that I take all of the fun out of baby making and he called me a "sperm stealer!" What can I say, I know my cycle a little too well. We're really excited and we're hoping for a girl, but we're trying not to get too set on that. Ayden has been telling everyone about his baby sister named Afton for months now. He might have a breakdown if this baby turns out to be a boy. Then again, so will Josh. He really wants a girl to spoil rotten. Anyway, at this point, the baby is just a bunch of cells dividing called a "blastocyst". I haven't even missed my period yet. Thanks to modern technology, you can test yourself up to 5 days before your missed period. This is very good for my eager/impatient self!! I have a lovely baby ticker displayed on the left for your enjoyment.

FYI

We didn't have internet service for a few days, so if you feel neglected of comments or posts, now you know why. It came back on yesterday so Josh & I were fighting over computer time! I'm finally caught up on emails and blogs. It only took about 2 hours!

Surprise!

The other day, I decided to drill Ayden on identifying lowercase letters. I got out his alphabet train puzzle and started with "Aa". He jumped up and ran to his closet, which made me think he wasn't interested. He was actually very engaged. He grabbed his magna doodle and copied the capital "A" you see on the left. I decided to act quick and searched for the rest of the letters needed to spell out his name. So here you have it, Ayden's first attempt at spelling his name! The "d" and "n" are jumbled together and the "e" came in last, but who cares?! I am so thrilled that he is now interested in writing his letters!!

Last night we tried it with his pencil. He improved quite a bit already.
I told his teacher about this, and asked if she had been working on this with him. She said that she hasn't, but to keep up with his pace, she sent him home with a dry erase sheet and marker to practice tracing his name. She also said that he's smart as a whip and picks up on things very fast, which was music to my mommy ears!

One Day Of School In Two Weeks

September 11th. My first day in a while to have alone time with Ian.
I caught him biting his lip. He does this a lot when he's in a goofy mood.
He'll say "vuh-vuh" with his teeth like that. Translation: Brother-which is his label for Ayden AND our cat Jewey. I guess he loves her like a brother! It's sweet. We had breakfast at McDonalds, then went grocery shopping. I restocked our fridge just in time to probably lose our power again. We're supposed to get winds up to 60 mph today. Lovely.

Doesn't every kid get happy at McDonalds?

He loves to hug. I love the Sam's Club carts. They have seats for two.
Ayden has a telltale sign of whether or not he took a nap at school.
What a mop!

When we got home from school and Sam's Club, we were greeted with this in our front yard.
This was done on purpose to check the water flow to the ditch at the end of the road. Now we know why we have a mysterious hole right next to the drain. We used our sand bags to fill it a few days ago, but it's a gaping hole again.

Our inventive child ran inside and grabbed the tub boat to give it the ride of it's life!
The video is shaky because I was holding Ian back with my free hand. If it wasn't for the super deep hole, I would have let them play in it.

Norma's Earthquake Kit

I've been reading "Can't Wait To Get To Heaven" by Fannie Flagg and thought this paragraph had perfect timing with everything going on in our area.

Norma had also had an earthquake kit in the garage, where she kept bottled water, matches, six cans of Del Monte chili, a small supply of her hormones, thyroid medicine, aspirin, a jar of Merle Norman cold cream, and fingernail polish remover and an extra pair of earrings. Although it was not very likely that an earthquake would hit Elmwood Springs, Missouri, she felt it was better to be safe than sorry.

Driving in BR

I had to get some video while we were driving. This is how all of the intersections in Baton Rouge are. Actually, this one is tame compared to others. We have the 4 way stop rules, but if you pay close attention, hardly anyone knows what that means. We have to think of routes that have the least amount of big intersections, but also avoid roads with power lines, wires, poles or trees blocking the way. A lot of trees have been cut out of the way since Tuesday, but we still have to be very cautious. Our curfew was from dusk to dawn, but now it is 10pm to 6am because of the hazards and to prevent the stupid-heads from looting. We will try not to leave the house AT ALL, but I want to get more pictures of the mess around town.

Around Our Neighborhood

This pine couldn't bend anymore and snapped in half.

Our neighbor's tree stood strong through the storm.
If this thing would have fallen, it would have done some serious damage.
If it would have fallen our way, it would be in our bedroom.
Josh's mom actually got one in her bedroom. Luckily, she rents from a good guy
who is taking care of everything already.

From left: Josh, Dakota, Robin, and Ayden watching the winds from our living room window.

These guys weren't so lucky. This is a few blocks from our house.
I hope they weren't home when this happened.

Everyone's yards look like this after cleaning their lawns.

The trees in BR are massive, so you can imagine the mess they made everywhere.
This is just around the corner from that house with the tarp.

I took these pictures yesterday-5 days after the storm. We left for Josh's brother's house on Wednesday after cleaning out our fridge and helping Josh's mom, Mimi, get her mattress outside. We stayed in Gulfport until yesterday and enjoyed some normal things like McDonalds, Outlet Malls, and ELECTRICITY!! Mandi and Jason let us have their room which we thanked them for at least a hundred times. It was a nice break from crazy Baton Rouge. Jason and Mandi had the worst winds from Katrina, so they know exactly how it is for us here. Robin, Brent and Dakota went to Gulfport too and slept at Robin and Josh's grandparents' cottage. Robin and Brent's house had the electricity restored on Friday, so they headed back home with a car full of groceries to avoid the maddness of shopping here. We left Saturday morning, planning on going to stay with Robin and Brent, but LO and BEHOLD! While we were at our house getting some things to take with us.........OUR POWER CAME BACK ON!!!!!!!! Not only that, but we have our phone, internet, and dish network back in service! Robin cooked fro us last night-since we had an empty fridge-then went with me to Albertsons. When we got there, they announced that they were closing in 24 minutes! We were just like the supermarket sweep, running down isles and grabbing things on my list as fast as we could!They were better stocked than I thought they would be. The only thing I couldn't get was eggs. No biggie, we can live without eggs. I only got enough food to last a week, since Ike decided to come for a visit. He should be here by Friday. Well, anywhere between Florida and Texas, but that was the same story with Gustav. We're prepared for the worst again. Uggh. Josh and Brent joined a group of men at the church this morning for an 8:00 sacrament meeting, then they will go work on people's yards around town. There's a big crew of guys sleeping at the stake center and working hard every day. We'll just have sacrament meeting today, just like after Katrina. I guess I should start getting the boys ready.

All is Well!!

We made it safely through Hurricane *&%^^ Gustav!! We experienced close to 100 mile an hour winds throughout Monday afternoon. There are trees down everywhere in BR. We were a few of the lucky ones to have remained safe and to have had no extensive damage to our property. It was quite scary at times. I mean it was really frightening. At times, it sounded like a fleet of Blackhawk helicopters coming toward us. Trees snapped like matchsticks! Anyways, we're safe and sound. No electricity, it's very humid inside and out (Ayden & Ian have been slipping on our tile floors), but we're happy to be safe. We'll check back in the future.