August 2009

Hanging out in the hammock

Playing with her leapfrog table

Catching up on some light reading in Ella's swing. This boy insists on playing with everything that belongs to his sister. Jealousy is definitely an issue in our house.

Rockin out on the drums

living room camping is the best.

July 2009

July 4th we had a bbq at MeMe and PawPaw with Kade and Kainon. They got a big water slide for all the kids. Will loved it but wouldn't go down it by himself so Daddy had to go too.

Kade on the slide
Kainon going down the slide backwards

July was pretty boring. We really didn't do much of anything. Played around at the mall almost every week. Went to story hour at the library. We are very boring people :-) But, we do have lots of fun play time at home

June 2009

June was the first month of our summer vacation and it was pretty busy. I got a little stir crazy early on so we tried to go out and do something several times a week. Mostly we just went to the mall and walked around and I let Will play in there play area, mainly cause its free :-) Gotta love cheap entertainment.

Ella enjoying some time in her new jumper

Cheesy grin

Seriously, the boy has some toy jealousy issues. I'm surprised he didn't pee on it to mark his territory. And I really wanted to get on to him for doing this, but I couldn't stop laughing.

Will put his sippy cup in a koozie. True testament that toddlers notice EVERYTHING

Ella's cheesy grin

We took a trip to Baton Rouge for Fathers Day weekend. We decided to leave on Thursday when Brandon got off work so that we would have an entire extra day. This was a BAD idea. The kids slept most of the way (which we had expected) but we were hoping that after a little visiting they would go back to sleep. Well, we were WAY wrong. Neither of my darling children wanted to go back to sleep at all, and both decided to have a screaming contest until 2 am. Then Ella decided to get up a 6 and since we were all sharing a room, Will decided since everyone else was up that he would get up too. Once we got the sleeping situation under control we had a really nice visit with Brandon's OPapa.
We spent a lot of time outside because the weather was pretty nice. Brandon's mom and our nephew Kainon (he is 3) came too so we set up the pool and splash pad outside for the kids to play with. They had a BLAST!!

Kainon

Will and Kainon playin on the splash pad

Ella loves being outside

Daddy and Will

I was tickling him

Bucket hat

Before Summer

When I finally downloaded all the pictures off of my camera I realized I had a TON of pictures on there from before the summer. So I'm gonna put these pics on here too. I go through the blog a lot sometimes to look at how big my kids have gotten and marvel at all the things they've done so far. Sometimes when I miss them during the day I'll go back and look at all of their pictures (I know my mom does this too :-)). So these are more for my benefit then anything :-) But I hope you enjoy them as well.

The boy loves raviolis!

but as you can see he cannot eat them with clothes on!

Very strange child, he LOVES to brush his teeth
Will sitting in his sister's bumbo chair.
He does NOT like that we've given his sister some of his old stuff.

Daddy and his babies in Astros gear

Chuck E Cheese

Eating at his big boy table

Pretty girl in a pretty bow

He's rather territorial :) When he wasn't sitting in the chair he was carrying it around. Determined to not let Ella sit in it. He sat in time out A LOT for this :)

Please pray for Emma

www.emmadunnam.blogspot.com

Emma Dunnam is the daughter of Kelvin and Christy Dunnam, the leaders of our small group at church. She is a very beautiful little girl. Emma has a rare degenerative genetic disorder called Batten's Disease.

The Dunnam's faith in the Lord is a remarkable one, and one that despite everything has never wavered. I'm blessed to call them our friends.
Emma is in a lot of pain right now and they are asking for prayers. Please stop and lift Emma up in your prayers.

Did you miss us?

I apologize for the blog absence. We didn't really have a computer at home during the summer break and I've had a pretty busy beginning of the school year so far.

We had a great summer. Didn't really do a whole lot other than hang out at the house and play around town every once in a while.

Will turned 2 and his vocabulary has EXPLODED! We still only understand every couple of words but it's nice to finally hear something other than NO (although we still hear it A LOT!)

Ella is 8 months old and is on the MOVE! She has been crawling since she was about 5 months old (army crawling). Finally started crawling on her hands and knees about a month ago, as well as pulling up and cruising on furniture. All she wants to do more than anything is follow her brother around so I don't think it'll be long before she is walking. Right now she is getting over the flu, and while it's been a rough week I know it could have been so much worse so we are definitely counting our blessings.

I have tons of pics from the summer and the last month that I will try to download soon. I hope to really start updating this blog more. These pics are ones that Grammie took over the summer so I'll leave you with these for now.

We got the waterslide out at Will's b-day party but he wouldn't go down it by himself. Brandon and Uncle Matt took turns going down with him.

Yummy cake

He couldn't wait for the fork and tried to dive in face first
Blowing out his candle

She looks scared

Ella and her Aunt MeMe

On August 16, 2009 we had Will and Ella's dedication at church. After church we had Will's 2nd birthday party at Brandon's mom's house. It was such a great day of celebrating our kids and spending time with family.

Ella and Pastor Tommy

(Tommy was the youth pastor when Brandon was in the youth group, so this was pretty special)

Will kept his back to the audience so he could watch himself on the big screen :-)

My handsome little man on his 2nd birthday

My Memaw

ELLA MAE ARNOLD, born May 16, 1937 in San Augustine, Texas to Will and Maggie Greer. She passed away on August 31, 2009 in Baytown, Texas. She was married to Tommy Arnold on October 2, 1954. They lived the majority of their life together in the North Shore, Channelview, and Galena Park area. Together they worked to create T & J Superette and operate many other enterprises in the North Shore and Cloverleaf area. Preceded in death by her parents Will and Maggie Greer, brothers Burton Simmons, Curtis Crocker and Earnest Crocker and sister AddieLackey. She is survived by her husband of fifty-four years Tommy Arnold; children Pat Grisham and husband, Dave, Belinda "Bendy" Arnold, Tommy "Bo" Arnold and wife, Kari; grandchildren Holly Lamb and husband, Brandon, Matt Grisham and wife, Nicole, Cory Arnold and Caisey Arnold; great grandchildren Will Lamb and Ella Lamb; sisters Bonnie Newton, Jo Rogers, and Gwen Citty. She is also survived by many nieces and nephews and her extended family in the Cloverleaf area home of their family business. Ella Mae was a wonderful wife, mother, grandmother, great grandmother, and friend. She influenced and helped many people with her caring and generosity. "Mom" will be tremendously missed by all who knew or had ever met her. The family will receive friends from 5:00 until 8:00 PM Wednesday, September 2, 2009 at San Jacinto Funeral Home, 14659 East Freeway. Funeral. A Celebration of Ella Mae's Life will be held at 2:00 PM Thursday, September 3, 2009 at San Jacinto Funeral Home with Reverend Kenneth Plunk officiating. Entombment to follow, San Jacinto Memorial Park. Those serving as Pallbearers will be Matt Grisham, Dave Grisham, Rusty Scott, Steve Smith, Ross Shipley and Wayne Gray. Honorary Pallbearers, Cory Arnold and Bo Arnold. Please visit www. sanjacinto funerals.com to share memories and send words of comfort to the family.

I love you Memaw!!