i love pineapples

YUMMY! Baby Braxton Lee (33 weeks) is now the size of a pineapple...which just so happens to be one of my most favorite things! Doctors appointment today went great (other than the fact that the nurse insisted on writing down my weight in front of me....there is NO reason that my eyeballs should ever see number that big associated with my body)!!!


Obviously there are no pics of Brax's room yet, and this is because I am lazy. Well not totally lazy...but after chores around here...running around after the two crazies + the other crazy (that is justin)...subbing at preschool...nursey...AWANAS...MOPS...trampoline time (dont worry I am not getting on there)...feeding all these crazies....and etc. of course, well I have just not found the time to walk in there with my camera. For some reason that seems exhausting. I do have to say its looking pretty darn cute though, AND its so amazingly fun to go through Brody's box of clothes he has grown out of. I am anxious to put another little baby butt in all the super cute fleece pants he had!

We celebrated Justin's 27th birthday this week. I made a butter cake with peanut butter frosting and a chocolate glaze for the top and even frosted a toyota symbol on top so we could take it to his work! The boys made a big posterboard with their hand prints all over it and we successfully embarrassed the patooty out of him at his office! Mission accomplished :) The day after we celebrated our wedding anniversary! I am a lucky little lady to have such a precious husband. He surprised me that morning with a Movado watch and then a home cooked meal when me and the boys got home from Awanas. I always thought that our wedding day was going to be our most special memory of our love...that exchanging our vows was the most precious moments...but I have come to realize that is living our vows that has been a million times more special. Living up to those promises that we made in front of our loved ones and sharing our lives together...man its been good.

the beginning of our family
the day we made the promise

i really love this guy

lazy blogger

I have been a slacker on the blog updates lately! I am getting pretty gigantic over here and this nice weather has given the boys extra super large doses of energy...so we have just been running around like crazies. Tuesday night sometime my car was broken into, Justins birthday presents...some Christmas presents for Brody...a bag of maternity clothes...and a southern living platter were taken out of the back. I am sending up a special prayer for the person who did this to our family. Our house keys were also stolen so we had to have all the locks changed today. Other than that, I have just been working on Baby Braxton's room and starting to prepare myself mentally for the new addition to our family. Somehow I have managed to go the past 8 months without really thinking about being pregnant haha and it is all beginning to become a little more "real"!! Pictures of his room will be posted soon...maybe even tonight :)

oops one more thing....or two

Forgot to mention that Baby Braxton is the size of 4 oranges now....
and I could not leave out this cutiest picture EVER!

PS: when you click on the pics you can make them bigger then just press the back button to get back to the blog...

october is over

My precious little puppy dog!
Photo thanks to Mustard Seed Photography

The Superhero Crew (aka Bryce and his Bffs)

He saves MY day!

My super cute shower hostesses

cutest pumpkin shower ever!!

We have been super busy lately with lots of fun things going on! Halloween was so fun this year. My cutie butt little puppy and my super strong and so courageous batman were too precious for words. Bryce was slightly over excited about the whole "neighbors are giving out free candy" thing...he absolutely wore us out! We had some really great friends over to share in the fun and romp down White Creek. I have to say we had the cutest/loudest crew on the block!

Thank you to all of you that prayed your hearts out for our doctors appointment. We had a little bit of a scare (ok so it was not little...we were practically peeing in our pants for 3 days) at the OB last week when the dr. noticed I was carrying extra fluid. Thankfully to our precious Lord and all the amazing prayers when the specialist went in to take a look...everything seemed very normal. We will continue to pray for Gods miracle on our baby Braxton and we will continue to be grateful for His perfect creation.

In other news...the boys Pop Pop (my dad) got them a trampoline for their birthday and its finally all set up! My mission today is to get pictures of them in action...but its a lot harder than I thought lol.

Last Sunday I sent my handsome husband off on his birthday trip to the Cowboys game in Dallas (i know i am a pretty awesome wife) and my beautiful friends here threw me the most adorable shower to celebrate Baby Braxton! It was a full house and I am just so thankful for the big time friendships we have made in this past year. Among all the friends, my aunts and Meme even drove in from Houston just for the shower and then drove back home after and Justins Nana made a special trip all the way from Lampasas! It was a pretty big bummer not having my mom sit next to me while opening presents. She loved parties and any reason to celebrate. These events are so precious...yet just not quite the same without her. I am already practicing my strength for the day he is born and she is not able to be in the room with me...I better practice really hard.

fantastic fall

Brody loves pumpkins!
They had to see EVERY single one before we picked the pumpkin!

My big boy Bryce

Fall Soccer

So Fall is off to an official start and we have been extra busy enjoying every day! I have been making yummy things like pumpkin cake, chicken and dumplings, vegetable stew and chili!!! Fall soccer has started up again with the YMCA, Brody just loves to cheer on his brother! After haircuts today, I took the boys to the pumpkin patch where we spent atleast an hour browsing through the 19 million pumpkins to chose the perfect ones for our porch. Bryce got a gigantic one, Brody got one about the same size as he is and they even picked one out for Braxton...it is about candy corn sized :)

Big News for Baby Brody...the 2010 Down Syndrome Association Calendar has been released and our little muffin is (drum roll please) MR. FEBRUARY!!! Ugh its too flippin adorable. God is so amazingly stinkin great.

With the fall decorations and cooler weather some heavy thoughts have been placed on my heart. Memories of my mom come flooding in and the pain of her missing out on this beautiful time of year with my boys is pretty yucky. For some reason I keep thinking of the few days after she packed up and moved to Heaven. I think of the shock I felt, the hurt, anger, confusion and fear. The day Justin and I went to pick out her casket and plot...the anxiety we felt as the man brought out the price list...the discouraging feeling that none of the caskets were pretty enough for her body to lie in. Walking through the grave site to see the available plots was so disgusting, none of those pieces of ground were where I wanted my mom to be. None. As we sat in the cold room making these decisions, deciding how him and I alone would come up with the money to pay for it all, I just prayed to God that he would make it go away. That she would call me that minute and say it was all a joke...or that she would even call and tell me what she wanted me do do...tell me that the dress that I had purchased for her was perfect. I wanted to know that she would forgive me if we had to have her cremated (which we did). At a certain moment while I was sitting alone in her back yard crying over all these heavy decisions that had been placed upon me...I felt this overwhelming wash of peace and comfort. I immediately made the decisions that needed to be made and never looked back. For some reason this pretty weather made me think of all this...and I am not really sure why. I am thankful to God for my strength and His constant reminders of His love for me. Now bring on some more of this fantastic fall...

28 weeks

So baby Braxton Lee has been cooking for 28 weeks. Only 100 million weeks to go...
Everything is looking great, he is now the size of a Chinese Cabbage. I do not like cabbage at all so I am anxious for him to grow into something cuter and less smelly. I will keep you posted on that. Some of my adorable friends here are giving me a baby shower for him and I am very excited. Although registering for your 3rd child is NOT nearly as fun as it was the first time around. It was a much more practical ordeal this time. I am so blessed to have such sweet friends that love to love on me :)
We are getting pretty settled in the new house. We have gone from about 90 thousand boxes in the garage to about 20. I still have things to put away like out China (which is soooo pretty but I cannot really think of a day we will ever get to use it). Maybe when we grow up! My beautiful mommy gave us her Christmas China before she moved to heaven and then my dad recently brought over their china that they accumulated while married. So now I have 3 sets of fancy pants china and nobody fancy to serve. One day. Until then....we are paper plate kind of folks :)
Everything else is great. Boys are busy, loving preschool, loving the new house and loving God.

Nashville Pics

our amazing hotel
convention with 4,000+ women

a few boerne girls

Last week I was able to attend the MOPS Convention in Nashville. I missed my boys SO much, but had a GREAT time preparing for our year, learning about God, praying, bonding with some amazing women, visiting the Grand Ole Opry and much much more...here are a few pics!

drum roll please.....

BRODY OPENS PRESENTS ON HIS VERY FIRST BIRTHDAY...

BRODY LIKES TO EAT CAKE!!!

Bryce was so worried Brody was going to get him dirty lol


i WILL get every single lick of this cake!!

MORE BIRTHDAY FUN...

Rainy Day Super Hero Party with the Simmons Boys!

More Brotherly Super Hero Action!

Bryce and Brody's Pajama Birthday PARTY!

PICTURES!

Here are just a FEW pictures! We had these done two weeks ago. As soon as I locate my camera cord I will be adding bday pics :)

one sneak peak of the week...

no internet stinks!

So...we have not had Internet for almost 2 weeks!! It has been an absolute nightmare. I have had total withdrawals about my email account, my beloved facebook and even my checking account not to mention no way to update my life on here! I have just been lost and unbelievably UNorganized. So I will not be able to update pictures today because our home internet will still not be back up until Wednesday...but I stopped by Justin's office to make a quick update because I just could not stand it for one more second!
Things that have happened while the move has stolen my livelihood from me...
1. Brody cut his first tooth! HOORAY! The bottom left tooth is coming on in and I cannot wait to see what a big boy he looks like when it comes all the way through.
2. Brody turned ONE! It just seems like yesterday that we were stranded in the hurricane while Brody was trapped in the ICU on endless wires and plugs, awaiting his surgery while we feared the worst. Our family has come such a long way in this past year...and 55 days in the hospital, 3 or so ambulance rides and countless smiles later we have a precious and perfect ONE YEAR OLD MAN! We celebrated his actual birthday with The Simmons Crew and Brody was MORE than excited to jump RIGHT IN his cake and rip apart his presents! We are truly blessed to have him in our lives.
3. Brody had an ER visit...yes another one. It started with low grade fever and everything went south FAST! Luckily we were in our doctors office as it happened. We are blessed with the most AMAZING pediatrician in the entire world. He is very calming and he really takes his time with Brody. We ended up taking an ambulance ride from his office over to the ER where Brody was given some good breathing treatments, some serious suctioning and a hefty steroid dose. A few hours later we were on our way home and Brody was doing tons better. He was back to his old self about 3 days later.
4. We CLOSED ON OUR HOUSE! Finally...sheesh. We were VERY tired of living out in the middle of nowhere where it took 30 minutes to get to the nearest store of any kind. We moved to a precious little area called Leon Springs, which is in between Boerne and San Antonio. We have neighbors now, a local HEB and we are 9 minutes from our church/school in Boerne and 8 minutes from The Rim! So good riddance to the hill country mansion :)
5. The boys had the most super fun birthday party on Friday! We celebrated with a ton of fun friends at the Boerne YMCA. We had a bouncy house, scooters, a jungle gym and of course lots of pizza cake and other goodies! They got way too many fun toys to fill up there big new playroom with! Bryce has really been celebrating a month long of birthday fun. We have had endless cards and gifts in the mail from everyone and it has really been such a blessing to know what loving and sweet people we have in our lives that take time to love on our boys! It has been hard doing all this celebrating without my mom, because nobody puts the party in birthday like MaMaMe...but we know she is watching down on us and having a little party of her own. One of our biggest birthday highlights is a TRAMPOLINE from my dad. Pop Pop always knows how to spoil those boys rotten :)
6. Bryce started soccer! Fall soccer has begun and our sweet little man did great! He was pumped up and ready to rock in all his gear!
OK I know that was the longest post EVER...but we have had so much going on and even more fun things to come. I will be posting about one hundred zillion pictures on Wednesday afternoon so get ready :)

weekend things...

Baby Braxton is now the size of a large mango. I cannot say that I have ever actually held a large mango or even seen one in real life...but that is what google images are for :) I am 23 weeks now and my next appointment is in two weeks I think...so more updates then.

Here are some pics from the Boerne MOPS float we rode on this morning. Our float won first place in the Kendall County Fair Parade! In case you are curious what all this MOPS stuff is that I talk about all the time, you can check out the new blog I am writing for that...boernemops.blogspot.com

Bryce has been talking about MaMaMe a whole bunch the past few days. He has been waving to her up in the sky or saying things like "oh MaMaMe would have been so proud of me on my first day of school" or "brody, MaMa really likes it when you are a good boy"...he says his prayers out loud at night and ALWAYS includes her. Sometimes he even thanks God for inviting her to live at His house. I am so encouraged by Bryce's relationship with God. He truly has this huge understanding of his creator and he constantly asks questions (that sometimes I have to REALLY think about). His innocence is such a gift to our family as it reminds us how God really wants our minds to work.

We are counting down to Brody's FIRST BIRTHDAY! 6 more days to go and I cannot decide if I am so excited or if I just want to throw up about it. He is such a big man now. I just feel like it was yesterday that we moved here and I was still gigantically pregnant and awaiting his arrival....man what a year it has been!

We are headed to the river house tomorrow to spend some time with my family while Justin goes dove hunting so I am sure there will be more pics to post after tomorrow :) Happy Labor Day Everyone!

HOORAY!

What an AMAZING day! The boys started preschool today and it was such a success! We made it out of this house this morning with school bags on, lunches packed and BIG smiles! I was so proud of my big boys. Bryce was so excited to go to his new teacher's big classroom with all his friends and Brody was such a sweet boy for his teacher too. I was nervous all day (although I did manage to have a nice day shopping and lunching with my favorite girlfriends lol) and I prayed like a crazy woman all night, and my fears were totally put aside when I walked into two smiling boys at pick up time. Here are some pictures of the special day! My adorable husband surprised me with a brand new pink camera so these moments would not be missed....what would I do without that cute man?

My first teacher, Ms. Rhonda!

Big Boy Bryce

sweet brothers

look, my school bag is bigger than me!

handsome man