Lavish Celebrations!!

SHE IS 1 YEAR OLD!!!!

We had lots of fun at her birthday party. This is probably the messiest face we got of her eating her cake. We also had fruit which she preferred over the cake! She refused to walk for our guests. We are sorry about that but thought we would share a video of her walking a few days before her party.

Here are just a few pictures over the last few weeks.

Helping Daddy open presents at his birthday

Getting into the fridge

Opening presents

She loved her own chair and the cool Veggie Tales CD from Uncle Drew, Aunt Jill, and Aunt Megan! Thanks!!

Rachel with Great Grandpa Lehmann

One more video

LEAPIN' LIZARDS!!

Ok, well, we don't exactly have any leaping lizards around the house, but Jeff did find a little gecko the other day. So, what we do have is a WALKING baby!!! Well, she's not exactly a baby anymore and we're not sure she likes the idea of walking, but yesterday she took not 1, not 2, but 3 steps by herself!!! We are so ecstatic. We did get her this great walking toy that she went crazy over from the moment she tried it. She's getting better at turning it around herself, or she just walks around to the front and pushes it backwards.

Our child is one that tries something once, doesn't necessarily think it's great and then waits another month or 3 to do it again. We couldn't for the life of us make Rachel roll over. She did it a few times when almost forced, and then didn't do it again until she was crawling, because she would want off her back to go crawl. She is now a tummy sleeper despite the fact that we put her in bed on her back.

My (Teri) parents celebrated Labor Day with us. Rachel had a lot of fun playing inside and out.

Rockwall had its homecoming last weekend and Jeff was in the parade so Rachel and I went to watch the excitement!

Wednesday was also Jeff's birthday! Happy belated-Birthday! We opened presents, had a nice breakfast, and spent the rest of the day at the State Fair out on a date without Rachel. It was nice and enjoyable.

Learning Curve

School has started out well for Jeff, who only teaches 5 classes this year because he'll be coaching soccer. The soccer coaches made their first cuts on Friday to decrease the number of students in the class for the fall, but they will also be having open tryouts in December for those who aren't in the class or play other sports.

Growth can be a tricky thing. For children it's a necessary thing for their body to catch up to the size of their head and to allow greater stability to walk/run/play. It can also cause great pains when your bones decide to grow too fast. Well, in the case of Jeff's school, they are growing and doing construction, which is causing some pain and suffering. The athletic department is adding new locker rooms and storage closets, so all the equipment has been moved around quite a bit since before school started. The most recent move has been because the stuff was in a football storage closet and they were putting in new shelves, so all the stuff had to get moved yet again and they were only given a days notice. In a similar way, growth in our spiritual life can cause painful memories and realizations of our heart's motivation to be brought to mind so that we might cleanse ourselves and become more Christ-like. On the other side of dealing with spiritual issues there is great joy in living for God each and every day like we should.




On a personal note, getting back into a normal routine has been a two week process. We've also had some sniffly noses and no rain around here thanks to Gustav. Surely normal life will one day come back, or appear for the first time.

Lackadaisical Living

Okay, so it's been a while since our last post. We've been trying to enjoy each other's company before the dreaded day of August 18th came around and Jeff had to get back to real life. We've been around, but not really doing much. Well, I guess we have had our eyes glued to our makeshift television for as many hours of the Olympics that we can get our hands on! Monday, the 25th, will be a sad, sad day. Jeff sees his new kids for the first time, our sister is leaving for a land far, far away, and I will be home all alone, but with Rachel of course.

I must say, YEAH, the USA has won many medals, and May-Treanor-Walsh RULE! Okay, so we really like volleyball in our house and it's totally awesome to watch people moving around that fast.

Well, Jeff has taken the Assistant Soccer Coach position and for some reason I thought it wouldn't effect our lives that much until after school practice started. It seems that I was wrong. Jeff had 2 weeks of soccer camp this summer, 2 days of inservice for coaches, 2 days of working with the other coach on various aspects of the year, he'll be spending most of his Friday at school working on inventory, and there's a Meet the Jackets night on Saturday that he must attend. Let's not forget the other Jackets night on September 2nd, but that's still 11 days away! I'm not sure the stipend he's getting paid to be in this position will help our budget much, and the number of hours that will be put in since he took the job will be quite minuscule. I suppose the money in all of this wasn't really the point, but rather the impact he will hopefully have on the coaches and players he will come into contact with that he might not get to build a relationship with otherwise. We will be praying for Jeff and those people for much of the year.

YEAH RAIN!!!

Longings...

Since some of you may not know, I have a brother who died 2 weeks after his 18th birthday. He had cancer and went through many things a teenage boy should never have to deal with. I love him dearly.


So...the 5th anniversary of his death is on Sunday and it hit me like a brick this morning. You know when you've lost someone close important dates tend to make you cry a lot? Well, in our family, it's not usually the day that's so bad, but the day before is the worst. I realize I'm a few days early, but knowing me, it probably won't cross my mind on Sunday, so I'll cry today instead. I also realized that my parents are driving part of the way to New Orleans for a cruise on Sunday and I thought it was rather fitting. I don't know if they planned it that way or not, but I'm glad they are finally going on a cruise. Hopefully this isn't morbid, but I've seen 2 people die in my life. It's not a fun thing to be around, and I think the hospice/ICU nurses are just amazing people. They have to be able to deal with so much in order to help their patients and the respective families when they are dying. We had a wonderful nurse who completely reeked of smoke and David told her she should leave because he couldn't handle her smell. After that, she tried very hard to quit smoking, but I've never heard if she was successful. I hope she was for many reasons.




On a less morbid note, Jeff and I went to Shreveport and managed to not come home broke! We didn't even gamble. We did go to the casino, but it was so smoke-filled that we didn't stay very long. Our hotel was pretty nice, despite a lingering smell of smoke. I think I've decided that when you stay in a casino hotel, that the rooms will invariably be smoking rooms. We probably should have at least asked if they had any no smoking rooms. Well, in any case, we stayed on the 20th floor, shopped a little, saw a movie, and just hung out. We think Rachel enjoyed herself with Nana and Papa too.

Partial view from the room...




If for some reason you've read the blog and see me on Sunday, I would please ask that you not mention David, because I do have to teach Sunday School. I'd rather not have to answer questions about why I'm crying from several 6 year olds. I appreciate your candor in this matter.

Luxurious Relaxation

We are so excited about our upcoming trip. We haven't left Rachel for more than a few hours at a time since she was born, so we are getting to take some leisure time for ourselves and leaving Rachel with her grandparents!! Yea!! We thought it might be cool to stay in Shreveport, even though we don't gamble, just to say we've been to/seen a casino. We'll fill you in on some of the details when we come back, like was it worth the trip, and are casinos all they're cracked up to be.

Rachel is one amazing baby. Of course I'm a little biased, but we're so thankful for her every day. She pulls up on everything and tries to climb, but we don't have anything in the house conducive to climbing upwards, so she hasn't been very successful. She can climb stairs when we visit friends/family who have them in the house, so beware. We also love that she is able to walk along all of the furniture. We're one step closer to having her walking! I would guess that if you're a parent, that at least one person has told you that it seems like you can't wait until they can walk and talk and once they can do that you would like for the to just sit down and be quiet. We've heard that a few times, and I'm sure there will be times when I will want her to be still, but it seems like it would be so much easier to help my child if she could tell me what she wants rather than just crying, or throwing a fit.

Well, it's hard to believe it's already the middle of July. I will be so sad when Jeff has to go back to work. I hope everyone has been enjoying their summer. We hope to get some new pictures up soon.

Large Mouth Bass

So in the past 2 weekends we've been to 2 different family reunions. Of course they have been with my (Teri) side of the family. Jeff has met many random people that he didn't know, we stretched Rachel to stay awake for longer periods of time, and had a little fun in the meantime. Last weekend we met the Hollowells in Paris, Texas that is. We played some games ate some good food, and went swimming at the hotel. This weekend we spent time in Athens, again Texas that is, for the Wilson family reunion. We spent some time with our Mamaw and her family. Jeff and my dad got to fish twice and we shot off some of Jeff's fireworks. It will be nice to not have as many explosives around the house! HA! We do have some proof of the fishing expedition, as seen below.

We have also started having dinners for some of our friends on Wednesday nights and we had fun this past week. We borrowed the idea from some friends at church (thanks Nobles and Happy Birthday tomorrow Justin!!) and we like having people come visit us. We are excited about this week since we're having Mexican food. We hope lots of people come and share with us! Hope this finds everyone doing well in this summer heat!