Welcome to Austin

It's been about a month since we moved.

It's been a really long month.

Our boys seem to come down with something every time we venture out of the house, so we end up spending the rest of the week recovering our health. Last Saturday the flu hit mommy within a couple of hours and I didn't feel normal again until late Wednesday. Wow! I haven't had the flu in about 6 years and I think that little bout should last me for about the next 10 years.

Course, guess who got it next?

J 1st and now C. Since they were vaccinated by T-rav's orders, they've recovered from it much faster than I did...Thank the Lord! So I guess I'll admit that the vaccine is OK......maybe.....hmmm......

It hasn't been all bad though. I'm painting such a horrible picture for you that you may be wondering why we haven't just chopped it up to a mistake for moving here, packed our stuff and headed back north. Sickness can sometimes cloud your perspective on things, I know when I get sick it makes me temporarily depressed.

So I shall move on to the silver lining in my cloud of temporary depression......therapy, if you will.

The hilly drive to the house we are renting is very beautiful. When we told folks we were moving here the 1st thing they would say is "the hill country is beautiful!". That ain't no joke. It is beautiful! I enjoy the little drive out to this house because on a few hills and turns my tummy gets little butterflies from the ups and downs.

You know, I haven't felt that since I was kid driving down S. Conwell by the hospital on our way to my Aunts house.....brings back some good memories. My Aunt and Uncle were young and would let us do almost ANYTHING. It was almost like going to Disneyland of Casper....

OK, so I got off subject.

I've discovered this thing of beauty called "H-E-B" and I wonder how I ever managed without this store. It's glorious! For those of you who don't know, H-E-B is a grocery store. Yes, I'm this excited about a grocery store...*sigh*...I used to be kind of cool. But it's not your regular run of the mill grocery stores.....it's like Central Market took a class in humility, decided to not over charge for the "ambiance" and offered more affordable, real prices that people can afford with out sacrificing quality like another place (rhymes with Allmart, if you're wondering).

We got into BSF....a huge plus! They had a spot open in the children's program for both of my my boys as well as a spot for the mommy.....talk about the hand of God, it's almost next to impossible for just a spot for an adult to get in sometimes. This year is the book of Isaiah and I have to be honest I was only wanting to sign up so that I could be forced to read the Bible and so J could have some fun with some other kids....Isaiah has always seem to be "out there" for me. I know I know I know....it's a great book prophesying the coming of Christ....it's important. For some reason I just wasn't super excited like I was about the Life of Moses a few years ago. But of course, His Word never returns void and I have already learned so much in just 2 very short weeks.....blows my mind when I read the notes and the culture context is applied to the verses. Wow. It's all I can say.

We found a great new Pediatrician, Dr. S in Drippin (yes, that's how the locals call it and I'm not one to try to offend the natives my 1st month in town....trying to make friends here folks.) and she is wonderful. I loved our Dr M in Ft Worth, but I knew that even a 3 hour drive for a Dr was a little ridiculous, so when the boys got the flu this week we went and checked her out. They both loved her! She's a mom of 4 and is pregnant with her 5th......she must love kids, cause being around them all day, then to come home to a house full sounds exhausting to me. God built us all differently, variety is something He loves and I appreciate that about Him more and more each year.

We are touring a pre-school next week for J. I'm nervous for him but won't let on because I'm the mom and need to set the example (course I need to repeat that to myself everyday) cause he'll only be scared if I make it scary. If you think of it, please pray for him next week as he starts at his new school. It will be Monday and Wednesdays for 4 hours each day. Not too long, but just enough for me to get a few things done with just 1 baby in tow instead of 2.

I've started going to Zumba at Lifetime Fitness. It's a fast paced latin dance fitness class...just an FYI in case you were curious. So far I've only made it to 2 classes because of all the illnesses. Let be the 1st to tell ya....Wow, what a hysterical site I am! Then I got to thinking the other day that is has been right around 10 years since I was on the Calvary Dance Team for Casper's indoor football team (big time, oh yah!) and 10 years has not been good to this girl...I am laughing right now thinking how hysterical I look in the reflection of the mirror at this class. Folks, I'm not 22 anymore! I'm a mother of 2 very little boys which both came via c-section, 32 years old and ridiculously out of shape. I still love it though and because I'm not there to show off or perform it's become a slight addiction.........I did notice that I still have the rhythm, it's the ability to make the moves "look good" that I've long since lost. It's a random little tidbit about me ;-).

Updates on my boys:

Well we'll start with T-rav. He loves his job! Which helps his mood a lot and then in turn makes our house very merry, not that it wasn't in Ft Worth but I do notice he's a little more patient with me these days. The company he is working for is called Three Rivers Operating. It's a smaller privately owned company with only 21 employees, I think. He is apart of the whole "starting from the ground up" process and I can tell it has really blew out some of the cob webs that had been building up in his brain. I'm thankful that we have been blessed with a new job that T-rav really enjoys. Don't get me wrong, he loved XTO....it was ExxonMobil that was killing him.

J is still a very energetic 3 year old. His 3 are turning out to be sooooooooooo much better than his 2's ever were. He says some of the funniest things and really keeps me laughing these days. He's been gifted with a heart of encouragement and thankfulness. He's always so thankful for simple things like, me folding his clean laundry, catching him before he falls, taking him to Chick-fil-A....these are things that I get a huge thank you for with out any prompting. He also is a great encourager. When I was sick earlier this week, he would come in our bedroom and crawl up on the bed and then ask me "mom, you doing ok? I was just checkin on ya. I'm praying you get better....and you will......soon mommy."

I'm so blessed, he just makes me smile.

So little brother C turned 10 months old 10 days ago. I was feeling so sad that it went by so fast but then I've been reminded these past few days that this is the start of my favorite age. I love this age!

He's starting to take a few steps

He's not real steady when he stands alone....I think he's still got some ear issues

He loves to use the furniture as walkers....chairs, end tables, the little kids table....whatever he can move around really. We do own 2 walkers but he's not really a fan of them.

He babbles a lot, but knows that saying "mama" will get his favorite person in the world which makes me think he really does know he's saying mama, for his mama. Would that count as his 1st word? or does it have to be a word other than mama?

He is starting to lunge for T-rav when he gets home from work, makes me kind of sad because this was the start of mommy not being so great and daddy hanging the moon when Jackson was little....only a little more time and I'm sure I will have lost this one to daddy too.

He loves his big brother and will go crawling all over the house till he finds him. J is pretty good with him, but there have been a few moments that I've had to intervene because C was destroying J's latest Lincoln Log creation. He has a hard time understanding that babies don't know they are ruining something.

This picture is from the end of December, when he 1st started climbing on things

He loved messing with the shutters in the living room and our bedroom at our old house

Busted!

For New Years, Gramie and Papa showed up with more Christmas gifts.

Hurry, hurry Papa, open it, open it! I think he was telling Papa "faster, faster!"

He also got to open all brother's presents this year too.....what a 3 year olds dream!

C throwing a fit in the high chair. He prefers his human high chair....mommy's hip

Papa and J out back enjoying lunch

Gramie and Papa bought J a bow and arrow set at Cabela's when they were here. He wanted to go out back and target practice just like daddy does with his bow

Daddy teaching him "the release"

Fast learner.....he had it down. Check out that stance. You can tell he really studies and watches daddies every move.....no one told him how to stand he just knew

Showing off for Papa trying to earn his man card

a kindred spirit. In December, NO ONE could hold C but mommy. That is until he discovered his best friend Papa

Now in Austin.......He's found one of brothers "arrows" to his bow.

Want it mommy?

K, I'll just gnaw on it a little

This is the "squishy face" he does.....it's much cuter in person

J just teasing C.....holding him captive when he tried to crawl off. Brothers!

Another one of his squishy face.....still the camera can't quite capture it

We moved to the right city....our future muscian

serenading his lil bro

C starring out the back door at our "pets"

The boys got a few hours of entertainment out of crawling and dancing around on these boxes. Notice how filthy the bottom of J's feet are and C's hands......so gross!

Flowers T-rav got me when I was sick. They were still beautiful even after 3 days of neglect. Another quality H-E-B product ;-)

The moon the other night.....so beautiful!

And....

We are moving. Again!

As most of you know by now, T-rav has accepted a position with a new, smaller oil company in the Capital of our great state of Texas. It was a bittersweet decision because of how much peace we felt after weeks of praying about it, but knowing that God was taking us further south and out of the place my little baby boys were born was not something I thought would've been in our near future. We have made so many close friends in Ft Worth. Countless fun memories and even more amazing people who have invested their time into our lives, teaching us how to love Christ....Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.

This week is going to be crazy. The movers will be here on Thursday to load up the trucks and then we depart on Friday. I don't know when the dust will settle but when it does I will post some pics of the new digs and give you an update.

Thanks in advance for your prayers for our family, our move, for our house to sale and the adjustments that will need to be made with the new surroundings.

Thanks........

Pictures!

The tree making it's way into our house at the end of the Thanksgiving weekend

After we got some lights on her

The boys playing together while we string up the tree with lights

J trying to pose next to his latest Lincoln Log cabin, but instead he got in front of it.

Built this one all by himself. He's getting so good at it

J at his pre-school Christmas program at the beggining of Dec. His class sang Feliz Navidad and they all held guitars

Just hanging out. They sit together a lot. C will either crawl over to J or J will come in the room and sit down next too his baby brother. I'm so thankful for a bond that has already started

I find them doing a lot of things together. I heard J telling C "when you get a little bigger brother, I will take you for a ride out there in my dump truck. OK?" I came around the corner and found them both staring out the window. It was so cute

C wanted to leave J's room but J wanted him to stay. So how do you keep your crawling baby brother playing in your room? You baracade him with every toy you can find!

T-rav told J that he was going to change the oil in the truck after church, so that morning J was in his room playing with his trucks and I presume "changing the oil" so funny!

And later that day....daddy's truck and the dump truck got the oil changed.

Eating breakfast. C started eating table food on Dec 15th. It's like a switch flipped in him and all of sudden he didn't gag anymore when he ate. He's just like J was and refuses to eat anything pureed, so his 1st food was Cheerios and loves to eat veggies put they have to be softened chunks that he can mash with his gums. Still no teeth, but at least I'm not nursing him every 2 hours anymore....whew! (I kind of wonder if it was related to the ears at all? huh)

Making Christmas cookies for the neighbors....another high for J. That boy loves to cook! His wife will thank me one day. He can cook, helps out really well and already knows how to waltz

Playing around with their cowboy hats

My little firey red head!

I had posted at least 10 nudey boy shots of J's bottom by the time he was this age, so for fairness here's one for C

Playing under the table with big brother and knawing on the chairs too

We got a ton of rain here on Christmas Eve and as usual J wanted to go out play in the rain. It was FREEZING, but you could see the grin on his face from the back door.

Baby M loved Mr Travis and followed him around all evening saying "hold you?" It melted my heart to see a little girl clinging to Travis, BUT not enough to even consider "trying" for a girl. We'll just borrow this cutie once and awhile

The kids watching The Wiggles.

Christmas with the Kinley's! These are our Christmas morn pics.......

C sitting by the back door under our stockings hung with care, waiting for big brother to wake up

Finally big bro got up! The boys heading off to open the gifts

J discovering a little something hanging on the back door.

Helping C go through his stocking stuff

J checking out the new Veggie Tale movie that daddy got in his stocking. T-rav actually wanted to see this one

J opening up his favorite gift this year....his garbage truck from Meme

trying to show C how it works

C got a giggly wiggly ball from T-rav's cousin. He loved it!

dragging C's present over so he can open it

C checking out his new walking lion

J excited about his new airplane and airport mommy and daddy got him

J was even excited about the clothes and books he got this year. such a grateful kid, he kept telling us "thank you" after each present he opened.

later that day. he gets C to come to his room and play with him by getting down on his level and crawling to the room. If J gets down and crawls, C will follow him every time

And tonight was another 1st. C signed "all done" tonight after he was done eating his dinner. Course he was mimicking what I was doing, but hey we are the right path to having some other form of communication besides wailing and screaming. this mommy's not a fan of that form

A rant about something that really bothers me

T-rav and I went through some very stressful events this year of Twenty-Ten and despite all that, we've come to the end of the year with our marriage stronger than it's ever been. We went through a job change of sorts (ExxonMobil bought out XTO very un-expectantly), moved twice, had a baby and then remodeled our kitchen. These things are huge trigger points, in what "experts" and "surveys" say can and will break a marriage. While in each event, which all were blessings to us, there too were stressful points within. Examples...

T-rav never wanted to work for a major oil company BUT the blessing was he still had a job in an economy where lots of people were struggling.

Moving is very stressful and tiring, especially when you add a very pregnant wife into the mix that can literally help with next to nothing, BUT what a huge blessing our home is and how God provided it at the right time.

A new baby can be very tiring, confusing and nerve racking BUT we were able to bring our little Calvin home in perfect condition to a loving home.

Remodeling a kitchen is a disaster that your willing bring into your home, BUT what a huge blessing that we were able to do that with no debt and create a beautiful kitchen to compliment the home we've been blessed with.

These were huge trials in our marriage and I admit that during our talking on some issues that arise this year there were times that things got a little heated, leading to even a couple of yelling matches that I wish Jackson was not in ear shot to have heard. For those times though, we made sure that Jackson saw the end product of that. We apologized and forgave each other in front of him making sure that he understood that yes, mommy and daddy will not always agree and that this is true for all couples, but that we needed to have closure to the disagreement so that bitterness would not set in. Might I add that we even visited our marriage counselor from a few years ago a few times just get a check up and help us work through a hitch that was hindering us from moving beyond a particular issue.

So what am I getting at?

Really, it's all about perspective. I tell people that who look upon me with pity at the grocery store as I'm herding my little blondie up and down the isles, all the while holding my fiery red-head and trying to push a giant buggy simultanuoulsy.....it's all about perspective and how blessed I am that they are healthy and draining my energy, not too mention the fact that I can afford everything that is in my buggy. Perspective, folks!

Marriage is hard, it's a choice, not a feeling that you live out everyday. I believe that marriage between believers is especially harder because of the temptations of selfishness that satan brings your way every moment of everyday. The evil of this world would love nothing better than to destroy the institute of marriage and if you look at the divorce rate, which is higher among those who profess Christ as their Saviour, you would say that he is winning the war on marriage. Just this year I know personally of six, yes 6, couples that claim Christ but one of them filed for divorce this year. It makes me so sad, because they have no idea what it is like to work it through the power of God, the One they committed their marriage to in the first place. If they had not been duped by the one who attacks the institution of marriage then they could still stand and say that having faith in God is choosing to live as though the Bible is true REGARDLESS of circumstances, emotions or cultural trends and the Bible has a whole lot to say about marriage.

I come from a broken home to which I witnessed first hand the #1 reason folks take a slow fade of choosing to love another to eventually walking out of an attorney's office, having ended several decades of their life together. This reason is selfishness, plain and simple, whether by one or both parties involved.

Although selfishness does breed more of itself, and I can say that I truly respect and admire someone very close to me for taking some of the responsibility for their broken marriage. To an outsider she would have clearly looked like a complete victim, but because she is humble before the Lord she would tell you that she consciously made choices through her selfishness that harmed the marriage. It may have been a reaction to the selfishness breading in the home, but none-the-less she reacted back with the same nasty habit.

The opposite, Self-LESS-ness is much harder, but anything working for is worth keeping. To be completely real, it's an hourly battle for me to be self-less, which I don't always get victory over. I'm a continued work in progress, but I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

I stole the following from our Sunday School class which is currently going through a marriage boot camp and it was something that T-rav and I both felt defined what we have learned the past 11 years. It's not profound, just something one or both parties in the marriage really don't choose to follow anymore:

God's Definition of Marriage:

A lifelong commitment of unconditional love towards an imperfect person

I'm not much of a crier, but every time I hear of someone considering to end their marriage, I cry. Every time I hear of the latest couple that has split, believers or not, I cry. I'm not mad, just sad. I know that God is using this in me for a bigger plan and everyday I'm asking Him to mold me into something He can use for the sake of marriage........ of course continuing with my own.

I remembered some more

Jackson wants another baby, badly, and he keeps telling us that he needs to have a baby sister. WE ARE NOT EXPECTING!, but I thought is was a little entertaining and told him that if God wanted to give us another baby then that would be fun, huh? Well since I affirmed it, he has just ran with it. He told his teachers at school that we were going to have 2 babies in our house, has told several strangers at the grocery store that he was getting a baby sister soon and then just the other morning when we were eating breakfast he told me out of the blue "mommy, my baby sister is already growing in your tummy." What the what??!!! He better not be prophesizing over me, my hands are full with these 2 and the ear problems. I guess it already feels like we have another newborn in the house, because mommy's not getting any sleep right now.

All that aside, Jackson really does love all babies. He talks about all his friends new baby siblings that have been born this year and even prays for them occasionally at night. On Thanksgiving, while we were being blessed with a full feast cooked for for us at the Liniger's, Brenda asked us all to say what we were thankful for. When we came to Jackson I was really expecting "lincoln logs" to be his, but I was melted when he looked around, saw his brother and said "Calvin." They are already so close, I know there are years ahead of fighting, but even now I don't have to get on Jackson hardly at all about sharing his toys.....he just naturally loves to include Calvin in what he's doing.

Calvin is waving at everything, loves to watch brother build his latest creation of Lincoln Logs and just generally loves to be involved. I do see the gentle side about 60% of the day, but until this fluid drains I think we'll still be seeing the irritable Calvin for awhile.