Thankful

Sometimes having a two year old can be...well...overwhelming. They are full of fun, energy, opinions, words, and will. At times this energy and willfulness can be channeled into inappropriate outlets. This provides a great opportunity as a mother to attempt to refocus this energy into a more positive expression. Sometimes at the end of the day I find myself begging, pleading, bargaining, with God for more patience. Then I realize that having a two year old means that God has given me approximately ten thousand opportunities to practice patience already today and it is not even lunch time yet! It can be easy to overlook these opportunities to practice patience and turn to anger and frustration which I am often guilty of but what would that accomplish? May I see each and every opportunity that is thrown at me as a chance to practice the patience I so desperately need! May Mary be my guide as I parent with intention, patience, and attentiveness. Thank you God for the lessons being sent my way daily!

Snow Day

What a wonderful time we had playing in the snow today!!! I know you guyses up north probably laugh at our "snow" but we had a great time! Tons more pictures on our picassa site.

Photo shoot with the families

Over the past month we have had two huge photo shoots with the Counts family and the Schwartz family. Be sure to check out all of the out takes on our Picasa site. There are some absolutely gorgeous pictures and some pretty hilarious ones also. Curtis is trying to find his smile for the photographer and mostly looks like he is grimacing. Made for some pretty funny pictures! There are a few shots of Kaylee sitting in a chair holding on with both hands and Curtis grimacing in the background while holding her chair. It looks like he is about to dump her out of the chair at any minute! No one was harmed in the making of these pictures!

This is my absolute favorite shot of the bunch. It is just a perfect picture of childhood innocence. I love that they both have a hand in the shot too. It is SUPER cute zoomed in a little more and in black and white also! We are so blessed to have such awesome families!

Stolen Time

Blogging on some stolen time here. Curtis has been asleep way longer than normal for his naps. Its funny to feel like I have gotten away with something by having all this extra time! We had a wonderful trip to Illinois for Thanksgiving. Tons of pictures on Picasa. Curtis is growing like a weed and has really picked up the pace on his talking lately. Mostly he is really trying to put sentences together like, a tummy a full, or a man a walkin, I LOVE this age!

stolen time over...more later!

Happy Birthday Anna Banana!! Our little "niece" turned two yesterday! We love you!

Perspective

I remember growing up and my parents always telling me they thought I would be REALLY big when I was as tall as the TV. It is funny what we base our perspective on, grocery carts, gym equipment, anything we see them around often. This week I realized that my perspective had to do with his baby tub. When I saw him looking like this in it...

The tears started. I know I post about this almost weekly but seriously I can not believe how big he is!!! Happy weekend

Catching Up

Wow, these past few weeks have been a whirl wind! We headed to Florida two weeks ago to attend Grandma's funeral. We had a really nice few days with Grandpa and the rest of our family. The funeral was beautiful and was a great way to remember the beautiful woman my grandmother was.

Curtis was an absolute dream the entire week. He rode in the car without a fuss the entire way to Florida and then played nicely, slept great, and had wonderful manners while were were there. Upon returning to Texas I said numerous times that I truly do not deserve him, he is such a blessing!!! Here is an adorable picture of him in Florida playing on the beach, his eyelashes go on for days! And another picture of him trick or treating in the Destin shopping arena:

When we returned home Curtis had a really rough week. He is finally getting his two year molars in and man do they hurt! I can not imagine what it would feel like to have such a huge tooth tear its way out of my gums! Poor guy! We had a pretty trying week, especially when it came to going to daily mass and confession. He was just miserable and was not able to suppress his emotions for five seconds, no less an hour during mass. Mass is where i rejuvenate. The body and blood of Christ give me the strength to parent without reserve. Because of the sacrifice Christ gave for me, I am able to sacrifice for my family. When I am unable to receive Him my well runs dry. It was a very trying week. Thankfully, mass on Saturday morning was amazing. I am humbled when I think about how blessed I am to have a child in which not being able to sit through mass is the exception! The intention of the mass on Saturday was the soul of our precious Gabriel. It was a healing mass in more ways than one. I am so thankful to the Church for providing such concrete ways to remember and bless our precious babies. Sunday mass was more of the same beautiful child of God that I know and love. Curtis bows to the alter, genuflects, signs himself with the cross, repeats the amen, alleluia, and Jesus, kneels during the consecration, all of this and he is not even two! God is so good!

Can you tell my mind is swarming from the weeks previous? I hope to blog more soon, nap time is over.

Celebration of Life

My Grandmother Geraldine Bos passed away Tuesday afternoon while on a cruise with my Grandfather. She was a beautiful, strong, and wise person who loved God dearly and strove to serve him daily. I want to remember her as the stubborn and hysterical woman that she was. She had a rough last few years here on earth due to a stroke that occurred post open heart surgery in 1997. Sometimes she was totally cohesive and other times terribly confused but through it all she was always willing to laugh it off. For instance:

The last time we saw her was Thanksgiving (when Dan and Kristy announced their pregnancy with Kaylee). When she arrived at the house she promptly hugged Kristy and told her "Happy Anniversary!"

The day before that my mother served her spaghetti with Italian deer sausage and she asked my mother "well, how did you know the deer was Italian?"

At our wedding she made silly faces at Dan and Kristy the entire time they were on the alter and when the ceremony was over she told Kristy that she liked her wedding the best (you know the one that was going to happen the following June :) )

She loved to crochet and even though her fingers were tired and fragile she still made both of her great grand children beautiful blankets for their arrivals. My grandfather called my brother before grandma sent the blanket to Kaylee warning them that it was not her best craftsmanship. When they received the blanket they realized it was full of dropped stitches and much longer on one end then the other. She worked her fingers to the bone out of pure love for her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Dan and Kristy call it Kaylee's Linus blanket (from the Peanuts cartoon).

We love you grandma and know that you are finally able to dance again! We are so glad that your pacemaker will no longer keep you up at night tick, tick, ticking. And that darn left foot will no longer get in your way! You are a great source of love and inspiration to us all. We look forward to the day when we are united with you again. For now please give our love to our two precious babies. We know they are thrilled to meet their GiGi for the first time. We love you!