My baby is 5 years old!

Caleb's 5th birthday was this weekend, and I still can't believe it has come and gone. How can it be possible that my first, sweet, little baby is already 5 years old? Five just seems so old! I know for those of you whose babies are even older, it might not seem this way, but I feel like he is entering a whole new phase of his life. He's becoming a big brother to #2 little sister, he's starting to play sports and kindergarten is just around the corner. What's next--dating and graduation??

The time has gone by so fast. And Praise God--his first five years have been filled with so much love, laughter and happiness. He has brought us more joy than we ever thought possible. I am so proud to be his mommy, and I only pray his next five years will be just as wonderful and memorable as these past five. Some of my favorite pictures of my big boy...

Who knew such a little person could change your life so much!

He's always loved spaghetti :)

Always a cowboy at heart

So precious!

My little helper

The best big brother ever!

It's a hard job being this cute. :)

Such a ham...but with a bright future!

Another precious prayer

As christian parents, we all pray for our children to know God and His word. In fact, our prayers for our children take so many forms--praying for their health and safety, their spirits and souls, their futures, etc. For Dawson and me, it has been the most awesome blessing in the world to see God answering those prayers a little bit at a time. We feel like Caleb, who-unbelievably-will be 5 years old within the week, has at least begun to grasp some of God's attributes. And by the grace of God, I've seen him display some beautiful characteristics of God's spirit, like mercy and compassion. I don't say these things to brag, but instead to give glory to God for how He is working in our little son's life. An excerpt from tonight's prayer that brought much joy to my heart....
God, it makes me so, so sad that some people don't have any beds, or food or money. Please give them all those things. And God, you are the biggest, biggest man in the world and the boss of everybody--EV-RY-BODY. And thank you for Jesus and that he died for all of our senses. :)
Thank you, God, for teaching and molding our children, in spite of their completely flawed parents.

Some recent pictures of our little blessings...
Our breakdancing gangstas :)

Cheesin' it on our cousin's cool, new 4-wheeler

Fun times with our cousins from around the corner


And the 3rd one on the way (Huge, isn't it? and shaded to downplay the stretch marks :)

A little late...but, Christmas 08

Sorry for the cheesy title. I know that I'm a little behind the times for posting Christmas pictures, but c'est la vie. We had a crazy, but awesome Christmas. We travelled a lot. First to Hutto, then back to College Station for less than 48 hours--but an important 48 hours because we had our first Christmas Eve night and Christmas morning in our own house, then up to Ft. Worth on Christmas day and then off to west Texas to Menard to spend a couple days at the "Big ranch". It was a crazy two weeks of living out of our suitcases, but it was worth it to spend all that time with our families.

We did absolutely love doing our own Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. On Christmas Eve, we had a service at our church, which of course was totally awesome, then we came home and got to do all of the fun stuff to prepare for Santa. We baked cookies, set out 'reindeer food' and finished a fun new tradition called "What God wants for Christmas." It is this awesome little book and kid-friendly nativity scene that I heard about through my MOPS group. It was such a blessing to us. For 7 days, you open up a little present each day and read a part of the Christmas story. The whole time, it continues to ask the kids to think about what God wants for Christmas, and then on the 7th and final day, you find a mirror in the bottom of the last present, and the story talks about how the ultimate gift God wants is you. Caleb was totally into it, and I loved the message that it sent to him.

Anyway, we had a great time. The kids LOVED their little gifts from Santa (which I'm totally convinced that 'santa' is really for adults because it is more fun being santa than just getting gifts from him) and we were blessed with many wonderful things from the rest of our family. Here are some of my favorite pictures...


1 of the 65 pictures taken in front of tree for Christmas card--but the hard work paid off!


My two favorite gifts!


Making the cookies for Santa!


What God wants for Christmas...


Setting out the cookies for Santa..but contemplating if we really want to sacrifice two whole cookies for him. :)


The long awaited castle from Santa (with 'good guys and bad guys' :)


Ellie's gift from Santa, a Cabbage Patch now named "Princess" (I don't know who is more excited about her, Ellie or Mommmy :)


Singing Happy Birthday to Jesus, with some celebratory monkey bread on Christmas morning (so delicious--thank you Missy and Jan Carder for the recipe!)