to know Jo.....

is to love Jo!
We are always finding new things to love about our 5 year old! She is truly one of a kind. She's just so easy to love. Here are my top five things to love about JoJo:
1. She puts others before herself - so kind and loving. She prays sincerely and has a genuine empathy toward others.
2. She is a great example to others and a leader among her peers. She is a great big sister to Kate and Sam!
3. She has her priorities in order. I love that she doesn't care about material things like clothes and toys. She is content and thankful for what she has.
4. She is so fun to be around! Her creativity and silliness make for fun days here at home. She is always creating new games and ideas for she and her siblings to play.
5. Josie's easygoing personality reminds me of her Daddy. Yes, they are kindred personalities! She might be the lowest maintenance little girl I have ever met and you can count on her to go with the flow.
Thank you Lord for our Josie!

kate update

Thanks for all the prayers and thoughts as we started a new adventure with Kate this school year. She is part of a program in GPISD called PICS to help her with receptive and expressive language and speech. It is a small class of 10 three and four year olds (she is the youngest) that meets on Tuesday and Thursday mornings. Kate only goes on Tuesday mornings so she can be with us for Sonshine Club on Thursdays. The class is taught by a speech pathologist and has been wonderful for Kate. They sing, dance, read, play and work on all their speech objectives for two and half hours. She is always happy to go and happy to see us when we pick her up. She has received two report cards and shows progress in all 8 speech and language objectives. We are so proud of her! We praise God for the way He made our sweet, yet feisty little girl.

superdad

I want a send a shout out to Will, aka SuperDad around here.
He is our rock, and we would be lost without him.
This picture speaks volumes. We are so blessed that he comes home and eats lunch with us every day. We make a lot of memories in that small half hour. Here he is - playing "monster ball" with Jack, trying to eat his lunch, and being Josie's prisoner in her latest game of tag. Made me laugh when I looked out the kitchen window and saw him multi-tasking! This guy can do it all, and we do not take him for granted! Love you Will, Daddy, Da-da.

fenced in

When we moved into this house over three years ago, we knew that a new fence was in the future. We love our backyard and spend countless hours a day sporting, creating, and make-believing in it! This past summer it became evident that we must repair the fence for safety reasons. My awesome husband and our handy friend Mark gave the backyard a huge facelift a few weekends ago and transformed our backyard.
Thank you Will for giving up four days to make our home a more safe, fun place for the kids!
It's no surprise that, during our thankfulness time at dinner the other night, one of the kids said they were thankful for our new fence!

to everything there is a season....

"I'm going to miss baseball!"
These were Jack's words after Game 5 of the World Series. He was holding back the tears and sad to see it end. We all were. Sounds silly to many, I know. But the Rangers season meant so much to us this year. 162 games, and we missed maybe 2! It became a part of our daily schedule and routine. And it wasn't just Jack and Will who loved it. This Rangers team was a part of our family. You know it's important when your 3-year old little girl is chanting "do the claw" and your 5-year old girl can recite the batting lineup!
I am not idolizing these players. I know they are flawed just like all of us. But this was a great team, and I believe that God was honored by the way they played and treated each other. I also feel that we were given this gift of a great season during a very difficult season in our son's life. When Jack broke his arm in June, we were all devastated. I will never forget lying in the hospital for 3 days watching the Rangers with Jack. I will never forget waking him early to receive his factor medication here at home from a home health nurse. What did he want to watch to distract him while he was infused? Taped Rangers games. When we travelled to Colorado in July with my parents (who are also huge fans) we were worried that we would miss a few games because we were told the Rangers games were not televised in CO. Guess what? We watched the Rangers there every night as well! Sounds silly, but it's like the Rangers were playing for our family!
I don't know how to wrap up this season in words. I know a new baseball season will be starting soon (less than 90 days until pitchers and catchers report!) and we will be there opening day. But, I will never forget this Rangers team and what they meant to us. I will never forget the delight in my son's eyes when we won the pennant. I will never forget seeing my husband become like a little boy in his excitement. I will never forget the image of our kids' grandparents taking them to the ballpark to make a memory.
We will miss baseball!
See you soon, Rangers.