Well, it's official: I'm old.

I found my first gray hair this morning. Jason tried hard to convince me that it was blond, not gray ("It's the same color as your hair at the bottom!" -- i.e., the old highlighted hair that's growing out -- that did not make me feel any better, by the way). But there's no denying it, I'm getting gray hair.

Hear that? That's the creaking of my knee as I lower one foot into the grave . . . .

There's a party in my tummy . . .

Well, so much for that posting-every-week thing. Sorry!

Anyway, around the third week of April, I looked at the calendar and realized that maybe I should start thinking about giving Julia some solid food since she was coming up on 5 1/2 months old. With Caroline, we were so excited to start solids; I believe she was 4 1/2 months when we started cereal with her and right at 5 months with sweet potatoes. Well, poor Julia, time just flies this time around and I wasn't anticipating it as much this time -- probably now because I know what a mess it makes and I'm not looking forward to cleaning that up! It's so much easier just to sit down and nurse whenever we feel like it. But I can't keep her a little baby forever, so I decided to break out the rice cereal the next week. And man, did she like it! She kept diving for the spoon so much that it was hard to get it in her mouth:

Look at that tongue!

(I love how she's holding her toes in this one)

Looks like she's an eater like her mom & dad, but seriously . . . she likes rice cereal? I bet it tastes like cardboard. No, I haven't tasted it. In fact, I have not tasted any of that baby stuff -- no formula, no breastmilk, no baby food has passed or will ever pass these lips. I know lots of moms that do taste the stuff, and hats off to them, but I can't screw up the courage and I figure, if the baby's eating it, that's fine with me -- I don't need to jump in on the action. Curiosity won't kill this cat.

"I like it, Mom!"

It was so different from Caroline's experience. Here Caroline is in December 2005 upon her first taste of rice cereal:

Obviously, she was not a fan. We tried it only a few times and then went to the jarred food. I did try another kind of cereal (oat, I think), but she did only marginally better with that. So no more cereal for her! But her baby sister eats a bowl every morning. They are definitely different girls -- Julia so far has been more laid back than Caroline ever was, although Julia isn't exactly a shrinking violet herself (little kids typically like to come talk to her when we're out in public, and they're always amazed at how loudly she can scream)! But I think they'll still be sweet sisters. I know I was (and still am) very different from my younger sister, but I'm blessed to have her and I love her lots. I think my girls feel the same way:

Bluebonnets!

A few days ago, Jason had the fabulous idea to load up the fam and drive to the country for some bluebonnet viewing. Somewhere in the recesses of my memory I recalled that there was a bluebonnet trail around here somewhere, so . . .

After checking the Ennis Convention and Visitors Bureau's website, I found that the town was conveniently holding its bluebonnet festival this weekend too! So we shared the idea with Caroline, who proclaimed that "it's not bluebonnet festival, it's bluebonnet day," and that we would get a chocolate milkshake as we looked at the bluebonnets. Alrighty then.

First stop was the festival for a quick pickup of the bluebonnet trails map. The quick stop turned into an hour and a half of bounce housing, shopping, pony and whale riding, and corn dog and kettle corn eating.

"I call this pony Princess!"

Whale riding, Ennis bluebonnet festival style

Sweet Julia, having fun just watching with her daddy

After the festival stuff, were were off to see some bluebonnets and take some pictures! This Panhandle girl didn't see bluebonnets until she was a college student at Baylor, and I could never understand why it's the state flower of Texas if you can't see it in Perryton (hey, Perryton is part of Texas too!!). But now that I've seen it, I do love bluebonnet season . . . the beautiful azure sea of flowers tipped with little white caps . . . the way they appear seemingly out of nowhere in meadows, in neighbors' flower beds, and alongside even the busiest of highways . . . popping up nearly always around Easter time, serving as yet another reminder of God's continuous renewal and everlasting love for us. And today I got to smell the perfume of a field of bluebonnets -- I'd never smelled that before, but it's wonderful!

So we got the kids out and tried to take some pictures of some moderately willing subjects -- here's a couple:

Caroline kept wanting to get back into the car to watch Mary Poppins on her DVD player. At 3 years old, she's already bored with Mom & Dad's plans! Caroline can already make the words "Dad" or "Mom" into three-syllable words. Three going on thirteen, I guess! I can remember being a kid and wanting to read my book rather than look out the window, so I decided to respect her wishes and didn't insist that she watch field after field of flowers at 35 mph (I can see how that might be a little boring for a preschooler after the first 10 minutes or so). So as we drove, JuJu slept, Caroline watched her movie, and Jason and I rolled down the windows, enjoyed the countryside, and talked.

Caroline loves to watch movies -- just like her daddy!

We found another field near the end of our drive with bluebonnets and Indian paintbrushes and got a few more pictures by informing Caroline that her posing was a condition precedent to acquiring the chocolate milkshake. JuJu didn't even bother to get out of her carseat at this stop; she was obviously over all the picture taking too.

Beautiful field of flowers

More pictures? Seriously?

One last stop on the way home: Kincaid's for burgers and fries, as well as for that bluebonnet day chocolate milkshake!

It's been a long, long time . . .

Well, I see that it's been over a year since we have made an entry on our blog. You might think it's because of the boringness . . . but no, it's been a very eventful year. I have been composing this post in my head for a long time, and there was so much I wanted to say about my journey over the last year and a half, and maybe I'll write more in the future about that. But for now, suffice it to say that I stopped blogging around September 2007, when I learned after about ten months of trying to have another baby that I had a blocked fallopian tube. I was devastated and really went through a period of despair. But I have several friends who have been on this journey, and from some of them I got a recommendation for a good doctor who, with lots of pills and injections (and the answered prayers of our gracious God), helped us to get pregnant again! And now we have a sister for Caroline: Julia Elizabeth, born on November 14, 2008!

We're starting this blog back up again (hopefully with some amount of semi-regularity) because it's been very crazy over the past year, and I find that I don't remember things that have happened even a month or two ago (lack of sleep and utter disorganization will do that to you, I guess). So I hope this will be a way to capture my memories while at the same time sharing our lives with friends and family, both here and far away. Plus, I think this blog is linked on a few of my friends' blogs, and I don't want them to delete me :) Our lives are pretty busy now, maybe a bit less boring than they used to be . . . but definitely blessed beyond measure.

Home from the hospital, our first family picture - November 17, 2008

Christmas in Cowtown

Well Christmas came and went. And with Family in from London, England we had no choice but to take them to Cowtown and the World Famous Fort Worth Stockyards!

Which of course meant a mandatory fitting for custom-made boots at Leddy's for the Londoners. And I am proud to report that they both purchased cowboy boots...

Not sure if Auntie Kimberly's boots are going to be red or if it was Uncle James's, but the boots were purchased. (And Caroline was SOOOO Jealous!)But all of this goes to show you that Lyle Lovett was right when he sang, "That's right you're not from Texas, but Texas wants you anyway!"

Howdy Folks! Welcome to the State Fair of Texas!

We have a calendar in our Study that shows various pictures of DFW landmarks and Caroline had never mentioned one of them, until the picture of Big Tex came up. I explained to her who Big Tex was and where he was... Soon it became a promise that we would take her to the State Fair to see Big Tex.

And then we were there! Caroline informed us that "Big Tex is tall" and that "he got boots"... And like every good female in America (never miss an opportunity to get more shoes!) she proclaimed that she wanted some boots.

Caroline bought right into to her Daddy's philosophy on the State Fair... EAT! EAT! and then EAT some more! We had corndogs, candy-apples, corn on the cob, french fries, funnel cakes, oh my!

She also got to experience what life would be like working on a farm! The exhibit "Little Hands on the Farm" was great fun.

Caroline loved the State Fair and Big Tex. She often requests to be tall like Big Tex... And she does an excellent impersonation of him as well. We're already excited about next year's State Fair. More importantly, Caroline would like to say to each of you-

"HOWDY FOLKS! WELCOME TO THE STATE FAIR OF BIG TEX!"

Swimming Lessons

For two weeks in August, four afternoons a week, we went to parent/child swimming lessons at the local YMCA. Caroline learned to "swim" on her stomach and on her back (with mom helping to stay afloat), blow bubbles, climb out of the pool (elbow, elbow, knee, knee), and get her head wet. She did make a lot of progress over the two weeks and still talks about swimming lessons every now and then. When we make the turn off the highway to go home, sometimes she points in the opposite direction from our usual turn (towards the Y) and says, "I go swimming lessons!"

Here she is going down the steps into the pool:

The last day, the swim teacher put this canoe in the pool and all the kids got to sit in it.

Caroline loved the canoe! So much that she was quite mad when it was time to get out. She kept crying and pointing, "My boat! My boat!"

Swimming on her stomach.

Swimming on her back. Caroline never really liked this part, so I had to float on my back and tow her along with her on my chest.

Good times.