The Two Year-Old That Wasn't

We celebrated Josh's third birthday on the 22nd. Because Easter was the next day, we celebrated his birthday with an Easter egg hunt with cousins. We had eaten a special dinner with his Granny Nona (Deb's mom) the night before and had cake (without candles) when we got home from the egg hunt.

In all honesty, I have thought Josh was three for several months. He has always been "large in stature." He plays right along with Julie and David, never more than a step or two behind them. More often than not, I have had to stop when I am getting frustrated with him, cool down, and remind myself that he is only two.

One day, just after the school year started, the man checking my receipt at Costco asked, "Hasn't school started?" implying that both boys should be in school, not with me. I replied that Dave had missed the birthday deadline and that Josh was only 2 1/2. He looked genuinely shocked! It is so cliche, but I would be rich if I had a dollar for every time someone asked me if Josh and Dave are twins. . . . Okay, with inflation, maybe not, but even our friends get the two boys confused at times.

Josh is such a sweetheart! My heart misses a beat when he sweetly comes to me and says, "Me need you," lifting his arms for me to pick him up. I am so glad this sweet New York baby came to our family!

Easter Spoils

Make a free ecard - it's easy!

Video Time!

Don't miss this exciting interpretation of the children's classic!

House of Faith

family

husband, children

growing, laughing, building

rambunctious, intelligent, united, eternal

learning, testifying, welding

posterity, ordinances

temple

Happily

I often nicknamed myself "Deborah the Dreamer" when I was younger. I always had a story playing in my head, one in which I was a heroine in action instead of the quiet bookworm in the corner. But, this week I looked at my sweetheart Jesse and realized I was living my own story. I had caught the tall, dark, handsome man, and we are living the "happily ever after."

The moment came again after a pretty embarrassing trip to Target. The boys like to hang on the side of the cart and play "garbageman" - I give them an item I need to purchase to put into the cart, our "garbage truck." On this particular trip, Josh wasn't following the rules. He stepped off the front of the cart, and the wheel caught his flip-flop; frustrated, embarrassed (of course, this happened in front of two Target employees), and relieved I hadn't run-over his foot, I put him in the basket. We were done by then, so I pushed on to a cashier. As I cooled down, I looked down at my three blonde boys, one with curls, and counted three blessings.

"Quotes of the Week"

Josh has two older siblings; thus, he has learned that the best way to get attention is to make us laugh. He was asked to offer the prayer at dinner this evening. He started saying the prayer in a loud, crazy voice. We stopped him and asked him to say the prayer reverently. He started again, reverently this time, but interrupted himself, "Look at the big bug." Jesse explained that we also need to keep our eyes closed during the prayer and asked Josh to try again. Josh prayed again and said in the middle of his reverent prayer, "This is reverent." We were glad it was:).

Then, after dinner I made lollipops for a treat for the kids. Josh didn't finish his, so I dipped it into powdered sugar so it wouldn't stick to the plastic bag that I put it in. He said, "It's sugar. I need it!" Don't we all, my boy; don't we all!!!

NEWS FLASH

James can stand without support for up to seven seconds. When he gets uncomfortable, he lowers himself to safety in either a sitting or crawling position. When we is standing, we can see him think about moving his legs, but he just doesn't have the courage . . . yet.

Wacky Weather

This weekend the boys had planned a campout with some of David's friends and their fathers. Unfortunately, they will have to postpone the outing due to snow in the forecast! I have to say: I lived in Texas for nine years before going to BYU and in those nine years, I saw snow once. In the two years I have been back in Texas, I have seen snow twice. Global warming?

Well, I thought I would dedicate this blog to the wacky weather I saw while growing up in Texas. When I was in junior high or high school, there was a hurricane in the Gulf that hit land around the Houston area. Wichita Falls, where I grew up, is on the Texas - Oklahoma border, pretty far north of Houston, but we still got a lot of rain from the dispersion of the storm system over land. I remember going to Target in the afternoon; the sky was gray and threatened rain. When we came out about a half-hour or so later, the sky was pitch black and pouring sheets of rain. The torrential rain didn't impress me so much as the dark sky in the afternoon did.

A year or two later, a couple of tornadoes touched down in the small towns that surround Wichita Falls. My family was traveling north, toward the air force base, which also happened to be toward one of the towns where a tornado had been. The dust and the dirt colored the north sky dark brown. I was very scared and desperately wanted to go home, which was south, away from the storm.

Since we returned to Texas I have continued to witness the incredible potential energy stored up on Mother Earth. Shortly before James was born, we had a wonderfully typical Texas thunderstorm: lightning, thunder, and strong winds that blew torrential rain sideways. The next day we were chatting with our neighbor who had recently moved here from California. She described how scared she had been. I kept silent, though I thought to myself that wasn't that scary, just a typical Texas-sized storm (yeah, yeah; it's a Texas pride thing). A week or two later I started panicking: the sky had turned yellow-brown, which to me meant there was a potential tornado nearby. Sure enough, the city's warning sirens went off. We turned on the news: a tornado had formed in Arlington, a few miles west of where I occasionally shop. All we got was rain, but I was sufficiently scared for the rest of the evening, worried that I might sleep through more siren warnings.

Yesterday, the snow storm that piled 5" in some cities and 7" in others a mere half-hour north of Grand Prairie missed us. We escaped with a couple inches of rain and freezing temperatures. In lieu of their campout, the boys have invited their friends to come over for hot dogs and smores in a warm, cozy house sheltered from the elements (or "elephants" as Jesse misheard when I was praying the other night).

Video Time!

What happens when you give great power to crazy men?

Julie Speaks

So, Julie saw Hillary Clinton yesterday. She has a rally poster on her door and a pin to wear. Here is what she has to say about the event:

She talked about healh inserinece (insurance) and she talked about geting kids in to college well, she also talked about cleaning the white house, about how president bush started a war, jobs enrgy, and thats mostly it!