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

farm pics

Bryce and Pop Pop shooting the gun! He thought it was SOOO FUN!
Brody Tody being his happy little self...not really sure what happened to his pants though

Big Boys on a 4 wheeler ride, Bryce was obviously not ready for this picture, but he was having a blast! We couldnt keep him off of it :)

work

So today was my first day at work and it was a success! Our church preschool needed a substitute teacher for the year so that is my new gig although it is pretty part-part-part time lol! Today and Thursday are teacher work days so I have the teachers kids (plus my own) and it was super fun. We have not left our house by 7:30am in ...maybe ever. So it was a slight challenge getting the 3 of us dressed, lunches made, breakfasts in the belly etc. but we managed and we got there in one piece. Next week I will work again on Tuesday for meet the teacher (which is also a full teacher work day as well) and then Thursday I will be off because I dont want to miss my guys first real day of preschool! Brody is going to be the cutiest little school man :) He already had so much fun today playing with all the toys...but it was kind of cheating because I was the teacher! We are anxious to meet all our new classmate friends and get back into our routine. My camera is broken so I am having a slight meltdown because I absolutely need it to be working for next week. I may have to buy a new one this weekend...but I am just not ready to admit that yet.

phew

Well the weekend is over! We had a very busy few days with lots of visitors and now we begin our fresh and full of fun things week. Justin's parents, sister and nephew drove in Friday evening from Houston. We went to SeaWorld on Saturday (and yes it was as crazy as you would imagine the last Saturday before school started!) and Bryce had a great time! Shamu's trainer came over and talked to him and gave him a high 5 and that was totally the hilight of his day! Sunday we got to go to my grandparents farm house in Moulton to meet up with my Dad. He wanted to bring me my mom's china and some pictures and other misc. items of hers. We all always have such a great time when we go there! I can't be sure if Justin or Bryce has more fun :) The boys rode the 4 wheeler, went on a couple jeep rides AND Bryce got to shoot the gun. He shot a water bottle and it may have been his proudest moment. My Dad got lots of great pictures on his camera and I will post those as soon as I get them from him. As always, Brody's smile was the hit of the day! He is such a sweet and loving boy.
I am learning to feel a better peace about where my mom is now. I still yearn for her voice daily, but my heart is starting to slowly heal. I have begged daily for God's strength and although I know I will never fully heal...I am now starting to find some peace. As I encourage one of my dearest friends through her loss, I see how strong our precious Lord has made me and it is very reassuring. I am very comfortable with the fact that I will never feel OK about her being gone, a day will never go by that the memory of her voice and caring words do not bring tears to my eyes and the feeling I get in my stomach when I think about her is here to stay. I am grateful for these strong emotions and pray that God will let me feel these affections forever.

praise

Blessed be the Lord...the God of our Salvation.
So many times we are able to place satisfaction in the hands of a person or object. We can blame hardships on trivial things. We take our situations for allocations we believe we deserve. I am guilty of this as well at times as it is easy to get caught up in the moment, but it hurts the most when I see beautiful people who have not strengthened there relationship with our Lord take advantage of their blessings. We have to look at every situation as an opportunity that He has bestowed upon us...and these situations are not always the best. We are challenged, things are taken from us, we make mistakes, we stop listening to Him...but His constant love for us allows us to get back on track at any moment and praise Him for our blessings. He is constantly validating us and blessing us with such glorious gifts. When things were the hardest, like the day Brody was born, the day of his surgery and the day my mom died...I WHOLE heartedly handed my life to my Lord and He took care of me. That was a very difficult thing to do when part of me just wanted to scream and be angry and curse the "misfortunes" that were falling upon our family. Over this past year my relationship with God has manifested into the best relationship I have ever had in my life and I am so grateful that He wrote my path so difficultly so that I was gifted these chances to further my bond with Him, to learn my own strength and to be reminded exactly who is in control of my life.

food things

Brody has added some fun new foods to his diet that I thought were worth writing down! He is now eating olives, oranges, baked ravioli, vegetable soup (the ABC kind of course), spiral pasta, tator tots, turkey sandwich and fried calamari...yeah you read that right! He is an eating champ! He will eat ANYTHING! I just hope it stays that way. Bryce ate a cheese sandwich for the first time today and although it is not nearly as nurtritious or exciting as all the things Brody is eating...its a big deal for my big man to eat bread lol.

stage 1

Here is stage 1 of our mailbox to Heaven. I need to head back to Hobby Lobby and get some more paper because its looks a little too crafty in some places. The back side has more of a cluster of butterflies in the middle, which is cute, but it needs something and I dont know what yet. We also have a great wooden butterfly that we painted and will put on the very front when it is all done. Anyways...I will post the final product when its all done :)

For now I need to clean decoupage off of mine and Bryce's entire bodies!

Half way there!

I am now into my 20th week (5th month) and Baby Brax is now the size of a banana :) We have had VERY busy past few days. MOPS planning is getting into full swing, millions of dr.'s appts and LOTS AND LOTS of fun with friends! Our family has officially started celebrating football time and we opened the season with The Simmons Crew. Bryce and Andrew had another successful sleepover making "caves" and tents and eating lots of junk food! We are blessed for all of the wonderful people in our lives. True friendship is really a rare gift. I just wish my mom was here to see our happiness...she would be so terribly proud.

hooray!

OK...I promised info on the Dr. appt today but our crazy family has been all over the place today SO here is the short and sweet 11pm version. Everything is PERFECT! Braxton looks absolutely amazing. Great heart, great tummy and huge feet! Other than a few abnormal uterine contractions that we are going to monitor...everything was great. I again declined any other further testing or blood work and the Dr. said he was very comfortable on my decision with that. We will do a utero echo in 5 weeks and then hopefully we won't see Baby Brax again until he makes his appearance in DECEMBER! Please pray that these odd contractions end right away (they are not "working" contractions...so that is a plus at this point) and that our precious man has a cozy little stay in Hotel Misty.

oops

this is what happens when your baby can crawl and is a food junkie! i went to the bathroom and came back to the living room and brody was under bryce's table begging for food! i love it!

quickie

My big boy Brody is just growing every day! His menu is getting pretty extensive these days...he is eating things like waffles, cheerios, avocados, peas, tuna, watermelon, mashed potatoes and anything else he can get his hands on! He eats like a grown man at the table and no longer requires any special baby foods at all! I think he is going to be my good eater of the family and I am very excited about that! We are still not able to do things that are too crunchy because the silly man is still toothless. Bryce on the other hand is just like his mom and I am OK with that. I started eating "grown up" food when I turned 19 lol.
This Thursday is our big ultrasound appointment so we need some big and serious prayers. Mostly just prayers of encouragement for me. God has already created Baby Brax just like he wants him and I think I am prepared for whatever that may be. He will be just perfect to us...but it still wont hurt for you all to pray for perfect lungs and heart :) I will post info on this Thursday afternoon.

pictures

my silly boys relaxing on daddy's ugly chair
big brother is so proud of his baby!

brody is just a stand up guy now!

toder and noodle

pregnant me getting getting a pedicure at our church spa night!