Happy Birthday Bub

We celebrated Cooper's Birthday this past Saturday.  Its was a barnyard theme and we had some very special friends come celebrate with us!  Cooper had a great time!  

Birthday morning cupcakes (and some cheerios)

Cooper does this super cute....thing....where he shows
his "muscles" when you tell him to.  

Reluctant help from big brother

Cooper did well opening the first few presents....

....then we lost him....

....then Daddy got his attention for the last few.

We were getting ready to head home and
I caught this little moment between
my sweet boys.  

They are going to have so much fun in the coming years!

Hope your birthday was fantastic, Bubba!

Can you believe this little baby boy....

....will be ONE tomorrow?!!

I'm about to wrap my little Cooper's birthday present for tomorrow morning.  Our birthday tradition includes cupcakes for breakfast and opening a present.  I thought long and hard about what to get him because the reality is that we have 12-18 month old toys everywhere!  But, I settled for a cute, little car that has a convenient handle on it that makes it the perfect push-vroom-bang-into-walls-vehicle.  Yes, he will be getting a few other things from us.  This is just tomorrow morning's present.

I've been thinking about gifts a lot here lately, actually.  Birthday gifts for Cooper and TJ, Christmas gifts for everyone.  "Gifts" of a different kind.  I have been thinking about the gift of salvation.  The most important gift TJ and I will give our children is the gift of a home and surroundings where salvation is accessible, encouraged, praised and supported.   

"However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace." Acts 20:24

Kind of an odd insert into a birthday post about my son's first birthday but this stuff, however sad, has really been weighing on me. I had a friend who committed suicide years ago and to this day, I wonder if I could have had a larger impact in his life than I did.  I was young in my faith and not quite brave enough to tell him about the love of Jesus, our Savior.  I don't know if I could have played a bigger role in his life or not.  But how selfish of me to not allow my light to shine and to try.  I could have been a light for him, while he made his way through a dark place.  He has been on my heart a lot here lately, for some reason.  And I just pray that I have far more courage each and every day than I had back then.  I pray that if you're reading this and don't know the love of God, that you ask someone who does.  There is no greater love than the love of our God.  No greater grace than His.  It is the best gift you will ever receive.  The gift of salvation.  The gift of Heaven.

Happy Birthday, sweet Cooper.  The gift I want for you just isn't wrapable!  And I praise God for your precious life!  What a blessing you are to us!  Be brave, always!  We love you!

Fall 2012

Here are some sweet pictures of the boys from this Fall....

I have decided that we probably won't have too many good
group pictures.  

This is the closest we came to both looking at the camera.

Being silly!

My dinosaurs!!

RRRoar!!!!

Where are you headed, triceratops?

Trick or Treating at the office

Happy Halloween!  I can't believe Thanksgiving, the Wild Game Supper, Cooper's first birthday, TJ's 32nd birthday and Christmas will all be here in less than two months!!   

Highlights from Our Vacation (from July!!)

Delicious Round Rock Donuts

TJ and Chandler broke a bed when they
were playing.  Of course he had help
fixing it,

Playing at Landa Park in New Braunfels

being silly!

This train ride in Landa Park was probably the highlight of
our entire trip for Chandler.  It's a must do if you are
ever in NB!

Kiddie Park in San Antonio  

SO much FUN!!

 

Port Aransas 

The RV park we stayed at....it was a little fancy for us!

The Aquarium in Galvaston

This would be a picture of Chandler going peepee
in the ocean.  It happened really quickly, before we could
stop it (TJ had his back to Chandler and I was reading) .
And it was really hilarious.

We also spent a few days on The Frio River, where I didn't take a single picture!  It is one of my favorite places in the world to be and I just swam and played with my family.   I kind of regret not having any pictures of this part of the trip.  I have pictures documenting my 20+ years of playing on that river every summer!  But, I'm not too worried about it.  We have some awesome memories and not EVERYTHING has to be photographed.   We had such an amazing vacation!  Such wonderful, sweet, precious family time that our family really, really values.