Happy Birthday Curtis!

At 9:51 a.m. two years ago today our precious little Curtis FINALLY arrived! As you all remember he took his sweet time coming out but he was definitely worth the wait! I am so thankful that God has blessed us with such a wonderful little boy. Besides being the greatest joy of our lives and our love made flesh, he is just a great buddy! We are so excited to watch him grow and to enjoy every second of his fleeting childhood. We know that God has big plans for our little one, may we be made worthy to raise you according to His Will! That's enough or I am going to be a basket case of emotions! We love you Curt-Burt! Happy second birthday!

Little Bear Bear

Our beautiful Niece Clare turns two today! Born and unbelievable ten days apart, she is definitely Curtis's best buddy.

I love that she is obsessed with Little People. She knows all of their names and can pick them out among a thousand other toys.

I love that silly "Bear climbs over the mountain" song she sings anytime she sees a bear or hears the word bear.

I love that she inherited a huge sweet tooth. She can spot chocolate from a mile away!

I love that she truly loves Jesus, Mary, Joseph, The Holy Church, and is always actively involved in daily Mass.

I love that she calls herself BearBear about a thousand times a day.

I love that she is such a gentle soul. She loves babies and anything related to babies. She is going to be an amazing big sister in March!

I love that she is scared of lightning and sometimes airplanes.

I love that she is always super excited to see Gracie and then remembers that she doesn't really like her THAT much.

I love that she is a silly little person with a huge imagination. She is always coming up with new dances and wants to sing songs all day long.

I love that she admires the goat at the zoo that is always on the highest little hill at the petting zoo and that she attempts to imitate his feats whenever possible.

I love that she knows the name of everyone in her family and can recite them when asked.

I love the way she says "Hobby Lobby" or "dobby lobby" is her GiGi's favorite store!

I could go on for days! Most of all I LOVE that we are close enough to know all of things about her! I love that we are able to see her almost daily and that we are able to see her grow and change and blossom into a little lady.

We love you dearly Clare. You bring so much joy and love into our lives. We are blessed to have you as our niece. Happy Birthday BearBear!

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!

Air Show & Zoo Boo

We had an awesome weekend full of great family time. Saturday we headed to Sugar Land to help the Lions club at the Sugar Land Airport. They had a great static airplane display and tons of fun for the kiddos. Curtis loved to look at and "fly" all the airplanes (aaaiiirr-pane).

He was really excited to have his hand painted with a "bue sarr" (blue star) until he realized that it wouldn't come off...

Then on Sunday we went to Zoo Boo . We actually got him to wear a costume! My aunt Nancy sent him some Batman PJ's and they were adorable! Tonight Jacob and I are going out on a much needed date night! Hope you had a great weekend too!

Awesome family time

Curtis is asleep in my arms so I only have one hand to type, but I wanted to thank Dan and Kristy for a great day yesterday! Be sure to check out all the pictures on Picasa.

What a difference a year makes

How did this happen?

In just one year! (Check out more pictures from the pumpkin patch on our Picasa site, too cute!). By the way please don't expect to see some super cute costume pictures in a few days because you will be sorely disappointed. He just WILL. NOT. DO. IT! He told me he wanted to be a lion this year. We looked at pictures on line and talked about it for days. We went out today to buy a super cute lion costume (he practiced his roar and everything). As soon as he saw it he started to freak out. He screamed the entire time I tried to finagle his octopus arms into the suit. Not worth the heartache for my little guy! Maybe I can modify more normal clothes to be a baseball player or beach bum or something. Jacob suggested letting him go topless with blue shorts and a cape and calling him Superman. Naked...now that a costume he would love! No lion this year that's for sure!

Fingerpainting Fun

I am always looking for some fun ways to let Curtis get good and dirty. After all boys need to be dirty at least ninety percent of their life to be consitered true men. Curtis has fingerpainted before but this time he actually got more paint on the paper than on himself. Huge improvement! Now that he has developed more language I love to quiz him to see what he can remember from the activity we just completed. Today I asked him what he drew and he remembered that we drew Jesus ("sesus"), circles ("cirk"), and his name though all he could remember was the letters "R" and "I". It is so much fun to see what his little brain can compute. The only color that he could remember was blue but then again every time you ask him what color something is he always resonds "bue". He is at such a fun age! Watching him learn and explore daily is such a joy.

Chug! Chug! Chug!

Here is Curtis in his very first (and Mommy prays his last) chugging contest...(rootbeer of course)

Eyes closed in concentration.

And look who won...

Daddy was so proud.

Me and Little Man

Because of my miscarriage, surgery, and then hurricane Ike, it has been a LONG time since Curtis and I have had a normal day just the two of us doing our thing. The past two days have been life back to normal. I realized that yesterday has been the first day since I was about five weeks pregnant that I felt great all day. Morning sickness, pregnancy tiredness, and surgery recovery had me feeling off for quite some time. It has been wonderful to be feeling great and able to play like crazy with my favorite little guy. So today we went to the zoo...


















It was a wonderful day. God is so good and generous for giving us such a beautiful and wonderful little guy. Can you believe how long his little legs have gotten? He has really sprouted the past month or so, I have a feeling he is going to be tall like his Pop Pop.

The good ol boys are on TV tonight!!! Sic 'Em Bears lets go for three and one!

We survived!

We have definetly had an eventful and emotional past two weeks!

September 3rd I had a surgery to complete our miscarriage and the loss of our precious Gabriel. The surgery went well and really was a very minor procedure. The recovery has been difficult, mostly because I have been unable to hold Curtis. We are both having a very difficult time not being able to get in all of our snuggle time! I had a post-op appointment yesterday and have FINALLY been cleared to hold my little pumpkin. Now he can be permanently attached to my hip again, life is back to normal! We have gotten some preliminary results back from the procedure that have been very helpful in the healing and moving on process.

Hurricane Ike paid us an unwelcomed visit on Saturday. We evacuated to Sugar Land and stayed with my parents who had very little damage and only lost power for 18 hours. Our neighborhood was hit pretty hard. We returned to find most of our neighbors hauling carpet and sheetrock to the curbs. We were incredibly blessed to have only lost some shingles and our backyard fence. God is good all the time! We got power and clean water back yesterday and we were finally able to get back home after almost a week in Sugar Land. Despite the conditions, we had a wonderful visit with both sides of our family!

Curtis is just about to wake from his nap so I better get ready to go play with him, more later.

Our precious Gabriel

The Lord has taken our precious baby back up to heaven. After seeing the babies heartbeat three weeks ago we were shocked to have an ultrasound yesterday that confirmed our baby no longer had a heartbeat. We are still in a state of disbelief. We are at a total loss right now trying to decipher the will of the Lord. We know that His plan is unfathomable and good, and we shall praise him all the days of our lives. Its still hard to understand why. We decided to name this baby Gabriel Thomas, it was the only name we had decided upon. Gabriel after the angel that proclaimed to Mary that she would bear the Christ child. And Thomas after St. Thomas Aquinas the great theologian that documented just about everything we know about celestial beings and the doctor of the Catholic Church. Please pray for our precious Gabriel. We know that he is at the foot of the Lord with our dear Catherine interceding for our beautiful family. Also, please pray that through the work of our doctors we can figure out why this is happening and that the passing of Gabriel is quick and safe.

Mr. Personality

God has definitely given our son an extra dose of personality. He is just full of fun and opinions these days. Today he refused to sleep without his beloved football in his arms. He somehow managed to continue holding it even after he had fallen asleep. At one point he dropped it and screamed until it was back in his reach. His Pop Pop is so proud! Today he was very into shooting baskets and ended each slam dunk by clapping for himself and then raising the roof. Also today he found an extra fun toy while Mommy was getting the car packed up for the zoo...petroleum jelly. Let me tell you, that stuff doesn't come off easily! He had rubbed it all over his entire body and then waxed some of the furniture with it. Once cleaned off we headed to the car to leave for the zoo, he ran around the back of the car and stuck his arm all the way up the exhaust pipe! He is a curious little guy! The zoo was a blast and was amazingly not scorchingly hot! He knows all the animals and has a blast seeing them in person. When we left the zoo I handed him a PB & J sandwich and found out he is just like his daddy! He opened it up and licked the jelly out! He is just the absolute joy of our lives! We are so blessed that Christ choose us to have such an amazing little boy. It is hard to believe we will have another little blessing running around in just a few months. Can't wait to see how their personalities compare!

We did it...again!

Can you believe it? Two more Counts's babies and this time they are supposed to come even closer than Curtis and Clare...just four days apart! We invited Jessica and Barrett over for dinner a few weeks ago to tell them our news and instead Clare ran in with their ultrasound picture saying "baby!" What an awesome blessing! What ridiculous timing! And no, we did not plan it. But we are completely overjoyed! The joy we have to be pregnant is magnified by two knowing that we will have a precious new niece or nephew to hold as well. Clare is such a beautiful and awesome presence in our life and we can not wait to see what amazing blessing this new little one will bring as well! Two beautiful new babies on the way. The pictures are from the night we told the grandparents. Gran Jan and Papa can hardly contain themselves! The signs didn't last too long but it was great fun!

From Great Sorrow Comes Great Joy

As you all know Jacob and I recently lost our beautiful Catherine. It has been an extremely difficult journey to recovery. Our hope lies in the Lord and we know that we will one day get to embrace our beautiful little girl. This past Wednesday we attended a beautiful mass at St. Laurence in honor of all the families that have been through this difficult experience. The women that coordinated everything had all been through miscarriages themselves and really made it a night to remember. The mass was truly spectacular. Each and every mass is heaven on earth and to share that with so many other families who were grieving alongside of us was really special. The readings were hand chosen to relay hope and challenging us to see our loss as a gain for the kingdom of God. We were all part of God's special plan to create a new soul which in his infinite wisdom he believed was more needed in Heaven than on earth. All of our precious babies are serving full time on Christ's army. What consolation it is to know that our beautiful Catherine is interceding for us at the foot of Christ. After the homily all the parents who have lost a child to miscarriage were called to the front for a special blessing. I can barely explain what it feels like to be a part of this sorrowful yet faithful group. Everyone embraced as we returned to our seats, its a special feeling to know that the person you are hugging really does understand your heartache. It was a beautiful and emotional evening and was a nice way to give ourselves some much needed closure.

Through much prayer and discernment Jacob and I decided we were ready to try again in early July and God has blessed us again. We saw our precious baby a few weeks ago and there is definitely a strong heartbeat! As you can imagine we are thrilled beyond belief and are ready to welcome our little one come March. So far this pregnancy God has been sending me daily updates that we have a healthy baby, in the form of all day sickness! I am too overjoyed to be pregnant to complain! Oh and it has definitely helped with loosing a few extra pounds before I begin to show! Thank you to all of you who have kept us in your prayers. God is good all the time!

Mr. & Mrs. King

Saturday night we were invited to a wedding of one of my very best friends from High School, Ashley. We had the pleasure of teaching them NFP so we were able to get to know her Fiance Jeff a little bit before the wedding. It was an absolutely gorgeous wedding and Ashley was positively stunning. The priest that presided had a long history with Ashley's family and had baptised her 25 years ago this August.

Curtis was a total hit at the reception and literally had three girls fighting to dance with him. He was the life of the

party as he ran around the dance floor cutting a rug. At one point the lead singer after seeing Curtis stare at his guitar through an entire song bent down and let Curtis take the lead. I really think we will have a little musician on our hands. He was FASCINATED with the band and their instruments! It was a great evening that ended around 11 when Curtis literally fell asleep in my lap. He was knocked out from all that dancing! Here are a few pictures of him with his entourage.

Growing Pains

How is it possible that my little man is 19 months old??? Someone asked me how old he was today and I nearly choked when I said 18, no wait, 19 months! He has been the single greatest and most defining part of our lives up to this point. Seeing his little smile every morning makes us realize just how awesome God has showered us with blessings! I just can't get over how big he has gotten recently and how independent he seams most days. He likes to serenade us as we drive anywhere lately we just love to hear his little voice from the back seat. I really should head to bed, who knows what time he will be up in the morning! Here is a picture of my big boy from last weekend...

Baton Rouge

This past weekend we packed up the car and headed off to Baton Rouge to go visit the Harrison family. Kelly, Jacob, Drew, and Luke are such a blessing to our lives and most especially to Curtis's life as Kelly and Jacob are his Godparents. We were thrilled to be able to spend some real quality time catching up with them. The boys are absolutly awesome and were very excited to have a play buddy all weekend. Friday we got in the car around one and expected the trip to take awhile and to be full of stops. Much to our disbelief we didn't have to stop once. Curtis was AMAZING, we read books, colored, sang songs, ate snacks, and before we knew it we were there!!! He was such a trooper! We apologized to him several times for doubting that he could be such a big boy in the car for four hours! We had been postponing this trip for a few months thinking the drive would be horrible, boy were we wrong! When we got there the boys were ecstatic to see each other and played the night away. Saturday we went to the mall, went swimming, and then went out to eat at Boutins. There was live music and dancing starting at seven and the boys really cut a rug. There is a swamp behind the restaurant full of turtles, fish, and snakes. The boys loved it! When we left we told Curtis that the turtles needed to go to sleep so the whole ride home he was saying "Oh no, tuttul seepin" too cute! It was a wonderful trip and we are so amazingly blessed to have them in our lives. By the way Kelly and Jacob look absolutely AMAZING!!! They have been doing weight watchers for a few months now and both of them are back to their high school weights!!!!!

A lesson in early influences...

Curtis is learning to dress himself this week. For some reason he perfers to wear more than pair of shorts. It seams like maybe we have been spending too much time at the West Pearland Wal-Mart! His fashion sense is off to a thugish beginning!

Three years later

The past three years of my life have been by far the most amazing!! Three years ago tonight Jacob and I were nervous, giddy, and incredibly excited as we entered into the sacrament of matrimony. As we watched out wedding video tonight it helped us remember just how awesomely blessed we have been these past three years. Looking back its easy to laugh at our young looking faces getting ready to jump into the unknown together. We bought an amazing house just before we got married and laughed that we would soon actually live in the master bedroom of our house...together! We dreamed of having our first child and spent countless hours imagining what he or she would be like, look like, act like. We imagined all the places we would go and the friendships we would make along the way. What an awesome blessing to have seen these dreams come true! We have had millions of amazing memories these past few years. We have also had our share of heartaches, most especially our precious Catherine. Through it all we have grown together as a family. I have more love for Jacob this day then I could have ever imagined as I stood on the alter three years ago. I could never have imagined what joy I would fee to see our love be manifested into such a beautiful little face. How awesome is God and all of his graces!!!! Thank you Jacob for making all of our dreams come true. You are truly a spectacular man of God! Where you lead I will follow. Fully, Fruitfully, Faithfully, Forever.

Introducing Kaylee Renee Schwartz

Kristy and Dan blessed us today with another beautiful niece to adore! Kaylee was born this morning around seven after a rather scary high heart rate and emergency c-section. As soon as the doctors pulled her out her heart rate returned to normal and all else was great! Kristy and Dan are absolutely thrilled (as are all of us!). I am loving seeing Danny jump into the role of Dad, he is already looking like a pro! He has even changed his first tar diaper! We are already madly in love with her and are dying to go see her again tomorrow afternoon. Enjoy the pics!