HAPPY 25TH BIRTHDAY, AUNT LAURA!

We love you and we hope you have a wonderful birthday!
I love Aunt Laura because:

Judd
*She bought me a present.
*She and Eric took me bowling.
*I like her dog, Diva.

Owen
*I like it when she visits.
*I like it when she takes us to the park.
*I like the Yoda shirt she bought me.

Wyatt
*She and I are both the babies of our family.
*ma ma ma da da da

Family Portrait

Owen drew this picture of our family. I think he did a good job. He was drawing with a black marker so everything is in black. He said that he put red lipstick on me. He said that he made him and Brad larger because they are bigger than us. He gets his creativity from Brad. I love seeing how he is changing. He loves learning and asks lots of questions about numbers and letters. Yesterday was his first day back to school and he had a good day. He said, "My belly was a little nervous when you all leaved me but then it got okay." He is such a sweet, sweet boy. He was happy that his friend Cooper was back. It's almost the exact same kids as last year.

Piano

Little Motzart loves the toy piano. He is very active and into EVERYTHING! I have put my plants out of reach and several other things. He is happiest when he is near his brothers. They try and block him sometimes but he is so big that he just rolls over them.

Updates

Wyatt will be 9 months on Friday. He went for his check-up today and he weighs 23 pounds and 2 ounces (75-90 percentile) and he is over 29 inches long (75 percentile). Like his brothers, his head size is greater than 90th percentile. His weight tends to match up with were Owen was at this age but Owen was longer. Wyatt is crawling and pulls up to everything and is cruising around. My favorite is when he pulls up to the little piano and plays it. I hope to get a video of it soon but the camera distracts him and he loses his balance.

We get together with the Fraziers often. We are glad to have friends close by. I thought it was funny to see Brad and Jimmy both sitting on the couch holding the babies. They are both such good dads.

Owen and Judd have been happy to spend time with their Highley grandparents this summer. They set up a pool for them and they both love it! I'm glad that they have two sets of grandparents pretty close. They will have such good memories when they get older.

Brad is the best husband and dad ever! He took a week off of work to build the boys a "set." That's what Owen and Judd call it. I'll take a better picture and post it later. I did good to get this one. It's hard to get them all to be still. It has a large deck, slide, and three swings. He built it from scratch and it's awesome. It also has a sand box which the boys have loved. These boys are lucky to have such a great dad!

BOOK

I have been reading a great book for mothers of boys. It's called Preparing Him for the Other Woman. It's a mother's guide to raising her son to love a wife and lead a family. This book was suggested to me by another mother at SCC whose children are almost all out of the house. She has great kids and I hope mine turn out as good as her children. If you have a son you must get this book. It is great! It gives you suggestions of things to do starting at 3 years old. I plan to go back and read it periodically. I've also been encouraged by it. Since I came from a family of three girls, I feel lost in boy world sometimes. I worry about how active they are but she explains how important it is to encourage them to be warriors. We want them to fight for their family someday. She also lists prayers after each chapter. I plan to copy them to index cards and pray them over my boys.

Owen and Judd went to Bible School at my parents church. Me being their mother, I knew that they would NOT preform at the program. My mom just knew that they would because they participated and were so cute during the week. On Sunday, everyone was going up on stage and Judd and Owen just sat in the pew. The teachers directed them on stage to which they just looked at the other kids and had their backs to the crowd for at least 1/2 of the time. I was laughing so hard. It was really funny. I wish I had it on video. They didn't sing one word or do one motion. Sometimes Owen even had his tongue hanging out. I couldn't stop laughing. Brad's parents drove all the way from Richmond to see it. Brad's mom said that he would have done the same thing. I never liked these performances and only did them because I was made to do them. At least we know that our kids didn't get mixed up in the hospital nursery. These are our children! I won't make them do it again.

The other morning Judd got in bed with me and was laying on my chest and I was rubbing his back. It was a sweet moment. I did a big yawn and Judd said, "Mommy don't do that stinky air again." I couldn't stop laughing.

Chrissy (my sister in Phoenix) is still very sick with her pregnancy. She is more sick than anyone else I've known. She has to get IVs and has a pump of nausea medicine. She is 14 weeks. Please pray for her. She found out it's a boy. My parents had all girls. I wonder if they will have all grandsons?

Happy Birthday, Aunt Chrissy!!

Aunt Chrissy is 33 today. We wish we were in Phoenix to celebrate with her. The baby in her belly has made her really sick so we bet she's glad we aren't there. We think it must be a girl!

Why we love Aunt Chrissy:

Owen
*She's sweet to me.
*She likes us.
*She takes me to Chuck E. Cheese's.
*She sends me stuff in the mail.

Judd
*She's special.
*She's pretty.
*She sends me Star Wars men.

Wyatt
*She came to see me the week I was born.

We love you Aunt Chrissy. Come home soon.

Movie

Brad took the boys to see Prince Caspian. They loved the first movie. After the big battle scene, Owen leaned over to Brad and said, "Daddy, those guys are going to have to go home and take a shower. Aren't they?"