Sunday, January 20, 2013

Girls visit to the Houston temple grounds

We took the girls Saturday afternoon to visit the grounds outside the Houston Temple.  We are so blessed to have a Temple here in Houston and I can't believe we have not taken the girls to visit the grounds sooner.  This was their first visit.  It was a beautiful winter day here in Houston and we just couldn't let the opportunity pass us by to enjoy the beautiful temple grounds.  The pictures I took tell the story of our visit.

Houston Texas Temple
Haley, Rachel, Kayla

Daddy with his girls
Rachel
Rachel
My girls and I
Kayla

Haley
Kayla
Haley jumping
Rachel looking at the flowers
Haley
Kayla

Monday, January 14, 2013

6th Wedding Anniversary

January 12th, Thomas and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary.  In the 6 short years we have been married, we have been through a lot, but we have been richly blessed and are so grateful for what we have been given. 


Despite the challenges we have been through in regard to our children, we fought to keep the faith and trust in God.  Looking back, some days I didn't want to go on, but Thomas was my strength and was so strong.  Together we made it!  I am so grateful to have a loving husband and father.  Don't know how I would have been able to make it without him.  I have been blessed.  I love him and hope for many more happy times ahead.  Thanks to Thomas for all he has done for me.  Happy Anniversary!       

Written by Thomas:
I can hardly believe that six years has passed since that beautiful day Amanda took the plunge and married me. We have been through so much in the short six years. I can't begin to imagine life with out my beautiful companion and wife. She is such an amazing person. I must say I have definitely married up. I am extremely blessed to have her in my life.  I love and cherish her so very much. Words can not and will never describe my feelings for her. She puts up with a lot from me, I sometimes wonder how she does it, but she does. In these past six years we have had many happy times together, we have had challenging times together as well. I am grateful to have such a good friend by my side to spend the happy times with and the challenging times. it is through these times that we have grown together and been strengthened by those challenging times. Thanks be to a kind and wise Heavenly Father for Amanda and her precious life. I owe everything to my sweet wife. I just hope and pray I can strive each day to be the best husband I can for her. Happy sixth anniversary babe. I look forward to many many more together and through out all eternity.  

 

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Kayla is 13 months old

Kayla keeps growing up on me.  She is another month older!

These photo shoots with Kayla are getting harder.  She just won't stand still for me.  That's to be expected for a busy toddler!  After taking several pictures (~90), I was able to get some really cute ones.


At 13 months, Kayla weighs 19 pounds.  Yes she is small, but proportional.  She wears mostly 9 month size clothing, but she can wear some 6-9 month size clothes like the dress she is wearing in these pictures.  She is a lot like her sister Haley when it comes to size.


We are working on transitioning her off the bottle.  She is getting better with the sippy cup, but she really likes her bottle when she is tired.  She is doing ok with whole milk, but her spitting up has gotten a little worse since starting whole milk.  As for eating, she is getting so picky.  Her main likes are yogurt, crackers, Gold fish crackers, graham crackers and mini pancakes (in pieces).  I have recently given her a cheese sandwich (broken in small pieces) and she did ok with it.  Also tried a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (broken in small pieces with a small amount of peanut butter) and she seemed to like that as well.  Its kind of hard right now with foods since she only has 6 teeth and they are all the front teeth.


Kayla has such a fun loving, playful, outgoing personality.  She loves attention!  She makes anyone smile and laugh.


I know I have written this before, but Kayla LOVES her sisters.  She thrives off them.  She likes to get playful with them by climbing and crawling on them.  She playfully harasses them!  When Rachel and Haley go to bed she always walks into their room and goes up to their cribs as if she is telling them good night.  Its so sweet!


Kayla continues to work on her talking.  She is working on saying bye and ball.  She jabbers away a lot!