Prayers..please!!

We need prayers...as many as possible...for a lot of good reasons!

(Not in order of importance)

1. Our house is officially on the market and the FOR SALE sign with brochure holder is out in our front lawn. Please prayer that our house sells quickly, that we don't have to give it away, and that Kate stops asking me every time we pull out of the driveway why the sign is there!!

2. Wesley is 22 months but that is close enough to TWO to classify us in the official 'terrible twos'. What are a few months anyway?!?! Please prayer that he gets tired of being disciplined and just decides to be the sweet, charming little man that we all know he can be. I'm fearful that if he doesn't go through the terrible two's rather quickly, that soon He will become a clause in our Sellers Agreement...something to the effect 'If home is purchased prior to July 6, 2010, and therefore Wesley Samuel Peters is officially still 2 years old, he becomes permanent property of the house on 10532 Fallow Lane and therefore becomes the Buyers child....'

3. No more monsoons (as my friend Kimberly likes to call them). Please pray that we continue to get rain on a consistent basis throughout the spring and summer, but not consistently for hours and hours. This is ridiculous. When my friend Maria cannot get home from the gym b/c the streets are flooded...that is just ridiculous. When my granny AND Justin's father both call at lunch to check on us and make sure we haven't floated away...that is ridiculous.

Once again, after our house is sold, I don't really care how much it rains in Conroe but for the time being....please Lord..no MORE MONSOONS!

4. And finally......please pray for our most precious Rex. He's been squealing when we pick him up recently. It is like something hurts him but there is no immediate sign of pain (bump, cut, blood, etc). Of course, Justin is scared he has cancer and that is why he has been sleeping so much and just 'isn't himself'. The practical part of me says it can't be cancer b/c he still eats good and still weighs a lot and other than the occasional yelp, he is just our very lethargic Rex. However, there is the part of me that realizes I'm in denial and Rex is getting old and has fought through some pretty tough health issues as a young pup. I realize that the surgeries he had in 2004 gave him extra time to enjoy life. I guess I assumed he'd be around forever. Please pray for our little guy that if he truly is sick we have some more obvious signs because our vet is pretty laid back and if we take Rex in and say he's eating fine, he sleeps a lot and he still likes to go for car rides, the vet will look at us like we are idiots. However, if there is something seriously wrong with him, we'd like to know so we can have tests run and get to the root of the issue. Rex was my 21st birthday present. I remember picking him out and convincing Justin why he would be the perfect companion for Jake. He's the love of our lives. Sexy Rexy as I call him when he gets excited and 'smiles' at us. I love him so much!

A Little Lesson on Life (courtesy of Grandma)

Anyone who has ever heard me talk about my childhood has definitely heard me say how I had the best grandparents EVER! Hands down my grandmas and grandpas were the BEST (and yes, I called both grandpas - grandpa, and both grandmas - grandma). Everyone knew which one I was talking about when I spoke of them. Anyway, now that I have kids of my own I get to appreciate my grandma through an entire different set of eyes. I never in a million years would have thought my grandma could be this whimsical and creative. She's not touchy feely, never has been, never will be. She's always expected a lot from me and at times growing up she seemed very abrasive and demanding. HOWEVER.....now that I have a daughter of my own I realize the many different hats my grandma has had to wear. She went from being my grandma to my mom and now she's become one of my best friends. Never when I was 18 would I have thought I'd be saying that my grandma was my friend....but its because of her high expectations and demanding approach that I made it through high school while living by myself. I made it through a top notch college in 4 years and got a great job and have stuck to it for 9 years now. It was also b/c of her intense unconditional love that Justin and I made it through some rocky roads and stuck together and have now been together for 14 years and have two beautiful children.

So a month ago when we were at her house for SeaWorld/Disney on Ice/Justin's bday, she took the kids across the road to the vacant lot where my grandma and her neighbors share a garden and chickens. Its Kate's favorite place to go when we go to Grandmas. She gets to see the Rooster and pick the fresh laid eggs and sit on the swing while my Grandma pushes her and Wesley. Dylan (the neighbor boy) joined us this time and picked a caterpillar from the dill plants my grandma had planted. He had been harvesting these caterpillars for a few weeks. My grandma had even bought him and Kate these little bug containers. So Dylan found a nice fat caterpillar for Kate and she put it her container and closed it up. Here is a picture of the caterpillar on Day 1 with fresh dill plants.....

Then after about 3 days we noticed that the caterpillar stopped moving around and stayed perfectly still on the dill stalk...

If you look closely you'll see how the caterpillar has already formed the cocoon and is holding itself on one silk strand...Justin thought it was dead at this point b/c it never moved again..... But on Sunday morning (04.26.09) Kate and Wesley were checking in on their caterpillar and MUCH TO OUR SURPRISE.....

What came out of the cocoon? A beautiful black butterfly with yellow and orange spots!

We had already prepared Kate that when the caterpillar became a butterfly we'd have to let it go b/c the container was too small. So they took a final look at their butterfly and we opened it up outside and let it go. It stammered for a little while and then flew into a tree and stayed there for a while. Probably taking a much needed break after going through so much change in a few short weeks. How Amazing!

So the moral of this posting is to stop and soak up the experiences around you. Something beautiful comes of everything..ever experience, every moment.

And just to close this posting....we washed the bug container and just a few hours later the kids were playing outside and got very very quiet. I went to check on them and found Kate and Wesley giggling by the water hose hanger. I thought for sure they had found a lizard but that would have been to easy. They actually found the cutest little green tree frog. In an attempt to save the little frogs life I bargained with Kate to stop trying to catch him and we'll put him in the bug container. So I grabbed the container, went back outside, put him inside, gave him some water and sticks. He slept in her room last night and went with her to school today to show her classmates. We are going to let him go when we get home from school today (and I just pray its still alive!)

Our Zoo Day on Friday

We have been holding out going to the zoo until Wesley was old enough to understand what was going on and enjoy it. I'm sure that the mom with the 3 kids under 5 and the newborn twins had a great time too but I am not up for that kind of challenge so it was really important to take Wesley when he could truly appreciate it. And he certainly did.
Maria wanted a day just to spend with Nadia since Maya is at that age where she demands a lot of attention (not sure when they get out of that age b/c I'm still waiting myself) but you all know what I mean! I was contemplating just taking Kate so it could be an all girls day but Kate insisted we take Wesley. So we got an early start....and so did every school bus in the SouthEast Texas area (Tomball, Pasadena, Baytown, Houston, Spring, Huntsville..need I go on?) Anyway, we ended up avoiding the groups for most of the visit and the kids loved seeing all the animals. I'm in the process of uploading the pics to Shutterfly right now so that I can create a zoo book for the girls. Evidently Kate spent all day Thursday telling her teachers and classmates that she won't be there on Friday b/c she was going to the zoo. So they asked her to bring pictures. Here are some of the cutest ones to share..and just for the record..Nadia said that if she could be any animal she would be a giraffe. Wesley can't really pick which animal just yet so I have to pick for him and I'd say the monkey b/c that is the one that really got his attention (and he spent a few minutes going ooh ooh ahh ahh when he saw them). As for Kate...well she's my special little girl. She was so excited to see the elephants and she absolutely LOVES elephants so I was almost 100% certain that when I asked her what animal she'd be, she would pick the elephant. Oh no....she said she'd be a turtle! Yeah, one of those big, slow, brown turtles. That is what she wants to be. Most of you have heard me talk about how mellow she is....so much like her father...but seriously...a TURTLE?!?! Got to love it!

Victoria or BUST!!!

So we have a lot going on these days. As if our lives weren't busy enough, Justin just got the offer of his life and couldn't turn it down. Same company, great opportunity, closer to our families. Man, you can't beat that. But its a lot to take in and process and this time I truly have to say that I'm leaving in the Hands of the Big Man. I have to. Justin has to start his new job 3 hrs away from us on June 15th. This means that our house has to go on the market ASAP. Kind of scary considering the real estate market isn't exactly booming right now...but we do have hope since our price range of homes is really getting interest right now. So that is def a good thing. Hewitt is a remarkable company and everyone at work is completely happy for me and very supportive of me working 100% virtual.

Kate and Wesley have to find a new school. Most of you know that I am very adamant on Private Schools so only the best will do for my munchkins. So the search begins (I thought the search was over since they just started their new school a week ago!!). Please keep us in your thoughts and prayers and hope that our house sells soon. The kids and I are going to stay in Conroe until the earliest of either us selling our house or August. My granny has offered to come stay with us and help with the kids if Justin has to move to Victoria without us. So that is a nice offer but hopefully we won't have to be here long without him. I know he'd miss them too much and they would definitely miss him.

So I snapped a few pictures of the kids playing around this afternoon while Justin cleaned out all the stuff that has been on our list...and everyone knows what 'list' I'm talking about. That 'list' that we all have that keeps a running tally of 'things-that-need-to-be-fixed-before-we-sell-our-house.' You all know you've had that 'list'. Anyway, to keep the kids out of his way, we painted with water colors...Wesley started painting himself so I thought what the heck, took off his shirt and I painted a big smiley face on his tummy. If you have a kid with a tummy like Wesley's, you might as well make good use of it! Monkey see monkey do...Kate wanted a happy face too.

Enjoy!

Rain, rain, go away....

Don't come back another day.

That is exactly how we have felt the past few days. It started Thursday afternoon and did not let up until Saturday night. But by then we had been prisoners in our own homes and as much as we wanted to let the kids splash like crazy in the massive puddles in the yard, we couldn't.

The lightening was so horrible and constant that we couldn't find any period of time when we felt it would be safe to step outside. I took a pretty bad shock through the computer on Friday afternoon as I was chatting with my friend Kimberly. I have never been quite so 'shocked' in my life.
So what do you do when you can't get out of the house b/c its raining so much? Well...we watched snails crawl....literally. We found two snails crawling on the side of our house and the kids loved to watch them slowly crawl from bottom to top. See pics below...And what else do we do when we are couped up in the house? A lot of Honey Do's on our 'Should have been done a long time ago but its too pretty outside so we'll put it off to another weekend' project list. One of our overdue projects has been to fix the jets in our jacuzzi tub in our master bath. I'll admit. I'm not a fan of jacuzzi/jet tubs and will probably never own another. Too much to keep clean and when you DON'T use them often enough the motor freezes up. Which was what happened in our case. Justin had to do some repair work and the jets worked like a charm. The kids loved the extra bubbly bubble bath...see pics below!

Our Solution.....

So a few of you probably heard me talk about our surprise dilemma that struck two weeks ago. Let me set the stage.....Wesley has always been a phenomenal sleeper. All we had to do was put him in his crib and he would plop down and go to sleep...NO CRYING! There would even be times when he'd go to his room, get his blue blanket, come out, grab one of us and take us back into his room and say night night....yes...we know we were lucky!

Well, two weeks ago we were awaken at 5:15am by a loud noise on his monitor. I jumped out of bed to find what the ruckus was and before I could make it to our bedroom door, there stood my Linus (this is Wesley's nick name b/c he likes to carry his blue blanket around and suck his thumb when he's tired like Linus on Charlie Brown). He had completely crawled out of his crib, opened his bedroom door, walked across the dark living room and into our room he came.
So I thought maybe it was a fluke...I mean he'd never even shown any sign of wanting OUT of his crib.
So the next night he did the exact same thing except this time at ONE a.m. Not good. Justin and I were baffled. What do we do? We didn't have a lot of time to think about this.

On the other side of our world, Kate had started having dreams that would wake her up and she was coming in our room during the night. Sometimes we wouldn't even know she was in our bed b/c she'd sneak in at 3am and we'd never even know (thanks to our wonderful guard dogs Jake and Rex that sleep at the end of our bed for not even barking!!)

So I prayed...a lot! This was one dilemma I couldn't resolve on my own. What do we do? Then it came to me. In the form of our sweet little girl telling us that Wesley could sleep with her. So we asked her if she would stay in her bed at night if Wesley was there and she said yes. Only time would tell.

So that night we told Wesley he was going to Kate's room to sleep, so he carried his blanket and crawled up into Kate's bed (her bed is on the floor) and went to sleep immediately. Kate crawled into bed, laid there for some time, requested a drink of water, needed a stuffed animal to sleep with, asked for the radio and finally went to sleep. Seven A.M. the next morning...both were still asleep..sound asleep in her bed. Not knowing if it was going to remain that easy, we tried again.
Well its been 2 weeks now and its still the routine. Kate and Wesley love being close to each other and even comfort each other when they are asleep. Thank you God for answering our prayers. When I was pregnant with Wesley I would always say I wanted Kate to have a sibling more than anything in the world. From the minute we got pregnant with Kate, we knew we wanted her to have someone to share her life with. It almost became cliche b/c I would hear myself say that so much......looking at these pictures makes me realize that our dreams came true. They have each other and they always will.

I took this picture last night as they slept together...they never even knew I was standing over them. And thanks Shannon for the blue blanket. Wesley won't go anywhere without it.
It was raining when we got home tonight (we had hail on the way home) so the kids took on a painting project!)

Wesley did such a good job painting his rabbit. He even would say blue and yellow when he picked those colors.

Kate painting her masterpeices

Our extended Easter Weekend...

Wow..so where do I begin?
Well I'll go in chronological order.

Wednesday, April 8 - Justin turned 32!!! Rex turned 10!! Kate and Wesley's farewell at Primrose!
Justin woke up and opened his gifts. I took our neighbor George's advice and got him a battery charger since his van and lawn mower need to have a 'jump start' at least once a month. Also got him the new Pearl Jam album which was a redo of their very first album. He seems to love it.
Kate and Wesley had a very special day at Primrose. Kate brought a cookie cake to celebrate her last day with her teachers and friends that she's had over the past 4 years. And Wesley brought down the house and had at least 3 teachers tear up as they told him good bye. He is definitely a special boy. Very active but very sweet. They don't see many like him so it was a tearful good bye but we'll keep in touch.
After school we packed up the entire crew (Jake and Rex in tow) and headed to grandmas. Kate fell asleep right before we got there and didn't get to see granny until the next morning. Wesley woke up when we walked through the door and flattered grandma with his talking and gorgeous hair. Now is the time to insert the commentary - my grandma thinks that Kate and Wesley are the smartest, most gorgeous kids ever. She thinks Wesley has the most amazing hair and can't get over his dimples.
Thursday morning we woke up and Justin opened his gift from grandma..a really swanky coffee pot...and we sang happy birthday to him and blew out the candles on her homemade chocolate cake with 23 candles..she thought she bought more candles but only 23 (but that's ok..who needs to be reminded they are getting older!)

Thursday, April 9th - Sea World Here We Come!

We got to Sea World right as they opened and had a blast. We got to see Shamu, the Viva show with the dolphins and dancers and the Sea Lion show. Kate and Wesley got to feed the dolphins (man were they hungry) and they got to play in the water park and Kate got to ride the Shamu roller coaster with daddy. We ate all kinds of junk food (way overpriced junk food) but had a blast. We headed back to granny's that evening and we all went to bed early..we were wiped out!

Friday, April 10th - Disney on Ice (Girls only!!)

On Friday, Kate, Grandma and myself headed back to San Antonio (my granny lives about 1hr 15 mins to San Antonio so it makes for an easy trip). This time though we headed to the Alamodome to see Disney on Ice with Mickey and Minnie. It featured ice skating routines of The Little Mermaid, Lion King, Lilo and Stitch, and Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. Kate absolutely loved the Lion King and Little Mermaid skits. All of her favorite songs were played. Once again we munched out on junk food. Grandma just couldn't resist getting Kate everything she wanted. We have a Peter Pan Sword, A Lilo and Stitch light up sword, two Flounder hats, two coloring books - what we get for Kate we had to get for Wesley as well. I don't even want to know how much she spent on the kids. She kept saying 'Oh don't worry about it, Jessica. That's why I work..for spending money.' On the way home we stopped at Taco Cabana in Seguin. Grandma loves Taco Cabana and this one is the closest to her so we couldn't pass it up!

We made it back to granny's in time to go check on the rooster at Dylan's house and pick 7 eggs!

Dylan (my grandma's next door neighbor who is 8 and an only child) loves when Kate and Wesley come over. He brought them a swing to hang up at my grandma's that he had grown out of. Justin put up the swing and they all had fun.

Saturday, April 11th - Easter Bunny visits Grandmas and Our Trip to the E.R.

Every night at grandma's Wesley woke up coughing. He does that at home sometimes so we attributed it to the fan being on and turned it off. The next day we attributed it to the cold front that blew in and the next day we were starting to get knumb to the fact that he was coughing and sneezing so much. On Saturday morning the Easter Bunny visited granny's house and left a lot of eggs for Kate and Wesley in her flower garden. They rolled around outside in the grass for a while and cracked the cascerones on my head! I had confetti in my hair at the E.R. Nice!

On the way home from granny's he coughed the ENTIRE way....yes, 2 1/2 hrs of nonstop coughing. Poor baby couldn't sleep in his car seat b/c he'd wake himself up. After realizing that he couldn't take a full breathe and his lips were starting to turn greyish blue..not to mention that his face was beet red from coughing so much, we headed to St. Lukes E.R.

They took him in immediately b/c they realized he was having trouble breathing.
Its here that I have to thank Dr. Allen and all the E.R. staff at St. Lukes. Justin and I had almost hesitated from taking him into the E.R. b/c we were afraid they'd think we were 'overreacting'. However we weren't and they treated us with the most compassion ever.

Wesley was diagnosed immediately with asthma and was giving meds to soothe his ailing airways. We were released a few hours later and he was a brand new man!

He has one more day of an oral steriod and two weeks on 2 breathing treatments but more importantly we have to take him back to an allergist b/c something he was exposed to caused his allergies to flare up. A year ago at our beach trip was the first time we really noticed him having issues and we just chalked it up to 'allergies'. Everytime we go out of town our little man is miserable and now we know why. Please pray for us that the allergist are able to diagnose him quickly so we can take measures to curb his flare ups. Doctor said this is very normal and will probably go away for the most part by the time he gets into school. But in the mean time our little man has asthma and we have to take that very seriously.

Sunday, April 12th - Easter Sunday

We had a great night with Wesley. He slept all night and he ddin't cough at all! Beautiful!

The Easter Bunny visited us and the kids hunted eggs before we got our rain storm.

Kate was totally into it. Wesley got about 6 eggs then stopped and opened them all!

What a trooper!

Thank God for these two beautiful people Justin and I get to share our lives with. They are absolutely amazing and make things so much fun. How boring must our lives have been before we had them? Thank you Kate and Wesley for letting us be a part of your lives. You both rock!