It Isn't that hard, but it isn't easy

I am pretty much full time holding Emaleigh when I am at home. I do get breaks to run the laundry and cook dinners. So keeping this blog up hasn't been a piece of cake. Another complication that I let be an obstacle to me is that I don't ever know if I have a good photo to post and hate to post without. So today I am posting anyway. It is lunch, I have some time. The Force family is fully houseguest free now after having the pleasure to host Mima and Papa for the holiday extended. Mima went to the airport to join Papa in the jungle last Wednesday. She arrived at her temporary home in time that she and Dad could celebrate their 39th wedding anniversary together. We missed her immediatly, I think she misses us too. It was nice having extra hands around not to mention extra hugging arms. Mom will be back in May to help Amy and Jen with their newborns as has been the tradition with all the grandkids. Dad is hoping to come for a visit this summer too.

We had a full weekend in Converse and about. Friday night was coffeehouse night at our new church. Our new church, Journey Fellowship , is located right off of IH-35 across from Costco. We have really been loving this addition to our hectic weekly schedule. The church has a great program for the kids and Kevin and I can hear the message in the huge gathering place or we can go to the coffee house and get it on a screen while we comfortably sip coffee (decaf please) on a soft couch nursing Emaleigh if necessary. Needless to say we are really comfortable here. Addie and Lucas are loving it too. So we were excited about Coffee House Friday to get a chance to meet some folks and see if they were maybe going to open up the cool activity center for the kids to play. That was a big NO but Addie and Lucas had a great time coloring with Teddy and Brogan while Kev and I got to chat with a few other parents. There was live music and ofcourse plenty of coffee and cookies.

Saturday morning we got together as quick as a family with three little ones does to head to the Sears portrait studio. It was time. We had yet to do baby portraits of Emaleigh and she has already started to crawl. That fact combined with Ms. Addie's earache made the session rather difficult. But it's over and done with now and I think we got a few or a couple of cute shots. We may need to try again with a better photographer but I atleast have relieved that nagging sensation that I was somehow being unfair to the baby. She's so cute.

She kept crawling out of the shot to chase her daddy or Elmo. I did order prints to share and got the CD with all images as well. Check your mailbox for photos sometime before March.
Well the rest of the day was packed too. We spent a few hours at Mrs. Nelly's house. It was her 35th birthday and a good excuse for our kids to play together. She has a two story house so the big kids spent half of the time going up and down the stairs and the other half of the time playing on the trampoline out back. Neither of which managed to wear them down a bit. We left that hopping party and headed out to Grandpa's by 7 to see cousins Jessica and Kayla. They played there for another couple of hours before they begrudgingly went to bed at ten pm.
We winded down the weekend with Church on Sunday morning, lunch at On-The-Border and long naps for all followed by a family movie then bed time. It flew by and so did my lunch hour.

Monsters Park

Well we did hit that new park in Schertz over the weekend.

Saturday was dad's last day in town before he headed back to the gold and coppper mine in Indonesia he calls work, Hi Ho! Hi Ho!...Aunt B and her family drove down from Austin to join us for park day. It began as a pretty dreary day with tons of wind, low temepratures and plenty of clouds, but by 11 am the sun peaked through and it got a little warmer. It was still fairly cool and windy but we bundled up and brought kites. We parked at the Schertz Library and in no time the three big kids were running and giggling and hiding and trying new things. The park was built by volunteers and paid for with community donations. The oversized playscape sits on soft ground which is good for falls and there will be falls. It looks from the parking lot like a castle with green pitched towers. There's a section that looks like a train engine and a horse and carriage section. And in all of the little nooks hang monster portraits painted by local little artist. AB found a balance beam and a tightrope that was more like a chain. LJ found a firemans pole and also realized that no matter how many times he ran around and back to the top of the firemans pole, papa would be there to catch him everytime. I did try to fly that kite, and although it was a cheap kite, somewhere in the area of 99 cents, it was high flying, but this wasn't a kite flying park. There were too many overhead obctructions to make it an enjoyable endeavor. Kev and Papa showed up with lunch just as soon as everyone got aquainted with new park and we all sat down to share some Texas BBQ which is a little tricky in the wind but we savored everybite. Then more running, hiding tackling, swinging, falling, hanging, chasing and definitely giggling and screaming. The kids played for a total of two hours and still cried when we decided to go. We really really really enjoyed this park. At the end of our park visit Aunt B took some photos of all the kids, and the baby swinging to replace photos she has in Ds nursery right now.

Back to Work, Everyone

I returned to work this week after the holiday but welcomed my folks back from their family trek to the south. Mom and Dad arrived late Tuesday night after visiting the Prewitts in Mississippi and Aunt J and Uncle Stinky in Florida. Dad really has to go back to work I guess. I was hoping they would become permanent Texas residents. So I left work early to spend a little time with them. We have plans for tomorrow with Aunt B and her family. This evening we headed out to San Antonio near Fiesta Texas. I drove us through some projects I have worked on at La Cantera and others that were projects for my company before we parked at the Rim to head into the Bass Pro Shops. A couple of hours later we had dinner. Bass Pro Shops is amazing. The big kids could stand in front of the big fish tank and talk to fish all day. I think we covered the entire floor space and between the three adults and three kids left with only a shirt. That's pretty good holding onto our wallet for two hours of shopping. But I think Dad put a boat on lay-a-way when we weren't looking.

It's a girl

Both of my little sisters are expecting new additions the their families in May. I am excited to announce that I am getting two new nieces. Never enough girls.
I shared the news with my kiddos last night as I was putting them to bed. It went like this, "Hey guys, you know Aunt B and Aunt J have babies in their tummies? Well guess what they are having" So KF being a smart ass pipe up to say, "A BABY!!!" Immediatly LJ got really excited but his comment on the subject was ,"YAY!, now maybe we can ride on a spaceship!"
So I guess that you have to be a little boy, three yrs old with no less than 5 girl cousins for this spaceship ticket!?! Not sure where that came from but this sentiment was shared from my son who says he loves his family because he loves the cowboys. His reasons don't always make sense to me but atleast he always has a reason. Congratulations to the girls who each at one time were my babies.

It has begun, Where will it go?

OK, so I didn't officially make any New Years resolutions. BUT I have said several times that I wanted to start a family blog just to write about what we are up to and how the Texas Forces in Converse are doing from time to time. It seems like sometimes there is nothing to share and othertimes there is so so much. There is actually plenty to share right now. BUT I will let the news of the day be simply that I have actually started, I gave it a name and setup a blog space. Visit here for family news. I will try to be regular and illustrative. Here's a not so new photo of me with my youngest two.