Mother's Day and Baby Dedication

On Mother's Day, our church also had baby dedication. It was such a special and humbling day to stand with Josh and dedicate ourselves to raise Noah to follow the Lord. We've prayed since before Noah was born that he would grow to glorify the Lord.

Our little family waiting for the big moment.

A shot that shows Noah's picture on the big screen. Our pastor, Doak, who we've known since we were engaged sharing the story of our miracle baby.

(My sister took a ton of pictures that day and if she ever sends them to me I'll update the blog with more. Hint! Hint, Christine!)

The Henney's were in town...

Our good friends, the Henneys, came to visit Texas. We've missed them terribly since they moved to Indiana. They are now planning on following the Lord even farther from us so it was good to visit and catch up. A lot has changed since we last hung out....they now have three kids and one on the way and we have little Noah. But friendships based in Christ don't change much despite the miles. We were encouraged and refreshed by our visit with them.

We rode the train in Fort Worth and spent quite a few hours at a McDonald's...which allowed the kids to play and the adults to talk. The Henneys offered us lots of parenting advice since they are a few steps ahead of us in raising a family. Here are there three beautiful kids....and since this photo they've had another sweet little girl.

Henneys, we are so excited to see what the Lord has planned for your family in the coming months and years. We will miss you and be praying for this new chapter (or is it a whole new book?).

The search for soup....PART 2

I meant to take a picture of our meal tonight. It was great. I'm not sure if it was worth trips to 5 different stores but it was good. Jason came over to eat with us and the three of us finished off the entire crockpot.

And I want to take this opportunity to plug crockpot liners. It is a plastic-like bag that goes in the crockpot and that you fill it with all the food. Dinner was cleaned up in just minutes. Then Josh served dessert--sopapila chessecake!! YUM!!

Hope your dinners tonight were delicious too!!

He is risen indeed....

We celebrated Easter this year in Houston. I have very few pictures of our weekend due to the fact that I was sick and spent most of the time we were there knocked out from some fabulous medicine.

Josh assures me that everyone had a really nice time though and that Noah loved playing with Gigi and Kippy. I know Kippy took a ton of pictures that weekend but these are the few I managed to snap during the few hours I was awake.

Noah got a Tonka truck from Gigi and Kippy for Easter. He loved showing off his skills of walking behind and pushing the truck across the living room.

Noah had some special bunny ears that his teacher at school made him but this was as close as we could get to getting a picture with them on. He wanted to tear them off his head instantly.

Of course the best part of Easter is being together as a family and spending time thinking about the sacrifice of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. It never ceases to amaze me that our King died for me, for Josh, for Noah, for you, for everyone.

Thank you, Jesus. Thank you for loving us eventhough we don't deserve it. Thank you for the cross. We look forward to eternity spent with you.

John 3:13-15

13 No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

The search for soup....

I try to plan meals for the week. I'm semi-successful at this. I plan the meals, make a list of everything I'll need and go to the grocery store and get it all. I know for many of you this is just standard practice but honestly it is a habit that has taken a while for me to develop. I used to be an everyday grocery kind of girl. I'd think up what I wanted to make for dinner on the drive home from work and swing by the store and get it. This has become more difficult with Noah.

Anyway, when planning meals for this week I was looking through a cookbook. It is a slow cooker book that I just grabbed at the checkout one day. I love the slow cooker....but of course it requires planning ahead because you can't grab meat at 4:30pm and slow cook it for 8-10 hours and expect your husband to think you're a homemaking genius.

And I see this great and easy recipe for garlic beef and potatoes. It is simple---you put the beef in the crock pot with cut up red potatoes and some garlic. You add dry garlic herb soup mix and beefy mushroom condensed soup. You slow cook it. Then you take all that out, add broccoli and let that simmer in the juices for a few minutes. And dinner is served!! This sounded easy and delicious. Plus the picture looked good.

Now this is a picture of a picture so it isn't the best but I promise that the picture looks great in real life. Don't you love a cookbook with pictures. I'm totally a judge a book by the cover or a recipe by the picture type of girl. Plus I htink it is helpful to know what in the world it is suppose to look like when you're finished.

So I write down the ingredients and head of to Super Target. I gather everything on the list....except that I can't find the condensed beefy mushroom soup. I ask the Target guy to help me. He can't find it either. He asks me if I think Beef Consumme is the same thing. I don't know. Is beefy mushroom brothy? Or is it creamy? It is kind of hard to substitute when you don't even know what exactly you're trying to replace. So, I leave Target with everything I need except the soup.

Today I stopped by Tom Thumb to grab two items. One of them being beefy mushroom soup. However, no beefy mushroom at the Thumb.

When I got home I did a little internet search. I found out the condensed beefy mushroom soup is made by Campbell's as I suspected. They sell it on Amazon. You can order 12 cans and they can ship it to you next day.....for a price. All I need is one can so I'm not thinking this is the way to go.

After Noah goes to bed, I head out to Walmart. Surely they have it. Nope!

Does Central Market? No.

Albertson's? No beefy mushroom in site.

I'm starting to think that we're just going to have to substitute---plain beef broth? golden mushroom soup? cream of mushroom? a mixture of those? Oh dear!!

On last stop at a Kroger. Did I mention it is 9pm now?? Run in and what do I find?

Woohoo!! I did a little happy dance in the aisle. And of course since I went to 5 places to find it....I went ahead and bought 2.

Now I'm off to prep the veggies so I can just dump everything in the slow cooker tomorrow morning. I'll let you know how it turns out. Hopefully it will be the best thing ever in order to justify the 5 store journey I've been on!!

A losing battle....

We introduced Noah to the pacifier when he was just a few days old. He was upset. We needed sleep. It worked. I pledged that we'd get rid of it before he was 6 months old. You can judge from the picture below how well it is going....

I try to limit Noah to only having a pacifier when he is in the crib and going to bed. The other day though he managed to find not one, not two but three binkies. He was crawling around with one in his mouth and one in each hand. He was so happy.

Maybe I'll make it my new goal to get rid of them by his first birthday. My mom always reminds me that I would suck on a pacifier at home until I was almost 4 when it got "lost" in the playroom. I guess I turned out okay....

....I may be losing the binkie battle but I'm determined to win the binkie war!!

I may not be Irish....

....but I am a pretty cute leprechaun!!


Noah's daycare made him a hat for St. Patrick's day. This is the first daycare hat that he tried to take off. He was fine with the Pilgrim hat and Reindeer antlers when he was little but my active 9 1/2 month old wanted the Leprechaun hat off of his head.


I was able to snap a few cute pics before he took the hat off and started trying to chew it.

Sic Em!!!

The Baylor Bears are playing in the NIT semifinal tonight. Josh went to NYC for the big game. Noah and I are staying home but are of course decked out in our green and gold.

Go Bears! Go!!!!

I forgot to mention...

...I passed my principal's test!! Thank you to everyone who prayed for me. It helped so much!

Several people have asked, "So what's next?" The answer right now is "not a lot." I still have to finish my master's. I'm currently planning on graduating in Dec 09. Then I guess I'll begin applying for assistant principal positions next Spring. I love my current job and don't feel any rush to leave it so I'll keep doing it for at least one more year.

9 months!!

Oh my goodness. Noah is suddenly 9 months old. I'm not sure where the time went. He's army crawling everywhere and pulling up on everything. A second tooth is on the verge of breaking through. He's babbling lots of sounds. His favorite is still the "da-da-da" sound although he does smile big and laugh whenever I try to prompt him to say "Ma-ma."

Sometimes I feel a little sad that he's getting bigger but it is also so exciting to see him learn things and change.

Here are the 8 month stats--

Length: 28 3/8 inches (50%)

Weight: 20.5 lbs (50%)

Head: 18 7/8 (greater than 95%)

Noah loves golf....

Noah's Gigi and Kippy came to visit and it included Noah's first trip to the PGA Tour Superstore. I'm sure we'll be making many trips to this golf wonderland in the future.

Noah is still a little small for his own set of clubs but he sure did enjoy checking them out in his stroller.

Meanwhile....

While mom and dad hads tons of fun at Jaimie and Steve's wedding, Noah spent one night with his Nanny and Poppy and the other night with his Aunt Ya-ya and Uncle Mark.

The only problem was that Noah was going through a little phase where he was scared of any men who weren't his daddy.

Here's a picture of his reaction in the tub when Uncle Mark walked in.....

My sister photoshopped the bath water but you can still get the sense of terror/anger in his little face.

Grunert-Moss Wedding Weekend....

Introducting Mr. and Mrs. Moss

Steve's fun Razorback cake.

These "petit fors" were actually brownies. They served them with vanilla ice cream and it was the perfect dessert. Actually, Jaimie and Steve had the best food of any wedding I've ever been to. They served fried chicken, chicken fried steak and catfish along with mac and cheese. It was delicious.

Josh and me on our second night out on the town

The Weemses.

We had a great time hanging out with Jason and Hailey all weekend.

My mom and dad headed over to Fort Worth to help celebrate the wedding.

Sending off the newlyweds with sparklers.

That soon turned into a smokey haze.

It was such a fun weekend and a really fun wedding. We enjoyed catching up with old friends and seeing Jaimie and Steve start their new life together.

Getting ready for the big day....

The morning of Jaimie's wedding was spent relaxing at the hotel. Jaimie's mom's friends brought all the girls breakfast and we hung out in our matching pajamas. I somehow didn't end up with any pictures of all this lounging but we looked really cute in our pjs despite the fact that we didn't have on any makeup.

We all got our hair done and then headed over to the chapel.

Jaimie looked stunning in her dress.

Here are some shots of the girls doing their "maid" duties and helping get the dress just right.

Jaimie and me before she heads down the aisle to become Mrs. Moss.

Jaimie and Cayce.

The Weems girls

Let's Rehearse....

Of course before Jaimie could get married we had to rehearse. We practiced at the chapel and then headed over to Joe T Garcia's for some good Mexican food. Now if you're a Fort Worth person then you already know about the greatness of Joe T's and if you don't know, well now you do. It's amazing!!!

It was a wonderful rehearsal. The girls shared why we all love Jaimie so much and how glad we are that she found a perfect match in Steve. It was also so fun to hear Steve's friends talk about what a wonderful guy he is and see how much his family loves Jaimie.

Plus it was a great excuse to dress up and hang out with my husband while Noah was with my parents.

JAIMIE GOT MARRIED!!!

Jaimie G got married this weekend. She's now officially Mrs. Moss. We had a blast at the wedding and I'm going to get more pictures up later this week but here are a few that Cayce Connell took and emailed me already because she's so on the ball.

The beautiful bride with the bridesmaids.

Jaimie was one of the most stunning brides I've ever seen. She looked like a bride magazine cover model. And aren't those just the bluest hydrangeas ever???

All the "maids" before the big ceremony. Meredith, Elizabeth, Jennifer, Hailey, me and Nicole.

More pictures with more details coming soon....

Houston, we have a tooth!

Last night I was poking around in Noah's mouth

and finally felt something sharp. I had been feeling like he

was going to get a tooth "any minute" since Christmas and it has arrived!!

Of course taking pictures of that itty bitty tooth

is practically impossible so instead here are some cute

pictures of Noah playing with his favorite teething ring.

So, Gigi, these pictures are for you!! We miss you and can't

wait for you to visit.

Test me. Test me. Test me.

Guess what I'm doing this weekend?

Taking the principal certification test!!! Wish me luck. And feel free to say a little prayer around 2ish on Saturday.

(And maybe seeing Vanilla Ice in concert afterwards. Word to your mother.)

Any 1st and 15th Siestas out there?

I frequently read the Living Proof Ministries blog written by Beth Moore and her two daughters, Amanda and Melissa. For 2009, LPM has challenged their readers with scripture memory. The plan is to pick out a new verse to memorize on the 1st and another one on the 15th.....so if you follow the plan you'll memorize 24 pieces of scripture this year.
Since over 3000 people have posted that they will participate I was wondering if any of my real life friends were. If you are, then comment so we can encourage each other throughout this year. And I'd love to know what verses you are memorizing....

My verse for the first two weeks in January is Psalm 119:9-12
How can a young man keep his way pure?
By living according to your word.
I seek you with all my heart;
do not let me stray from your commands.
I have hidden your word in my heart that
I might not sin against you.
Praise be to you, O Lord,
teach me your decrees.

A Round of Applause...

Check out Noah's new trick!!