It's been a long time!!!

I know I know most of you have probably stopped checking to see if I have updated the blog. The first week in Aug. we went to New Orleans to visit lots of family and as soon as we got back things got crazy with me going back to work. It has been a rough transition for all of us. I still feel like I am far behind. I moved classrooms at the end of last year and I did not get to get in there and unpack things until the week before students were to return. After that things just spiraled.

I have a super awesome class this year, I am back to teaching inclusion(a mix of special ed students with general ed students). It is definitely my passion. I am also enjoying that I am getting to work with some scores kids(students with Autism and Aspergers). Although, this has made for a very needy class and working late hours. It is ok, it is more refreshing than what I had to deal with last year.

Ok enough of the excuses, before I fell off the bandwagon, I edited some pictures from our trip to New Orleans. I just never got around to posting them. We had an awesome trip. Isa got to try her first beignets and we had a nice vist with lots of family. Check out the link below for the pics.

New Orleans Pics

My next post I will post some pics of what has been going on around here with some brief explanations. Hopefully after that I stay more up to date. Especially since in October we have lots of fun events planned.

Keep Checking back!

Isabella's 1st Birthday Party

Last Saturday we celebbrated Isabella's 1st birthday with our friends and family. We had a blast! It is hard to believe that she is already one. It feels like yesterday that she was swaddled in a blanket being handed over to me. It makes me sad that those baby days are over but so excited for the things to come. She is changing so much every day and turning into a little girl. So enjoy here are some videos from the party and and a link to some pictures. Eddie is still working on a video of her first year and as soon as he is done with that I will be posting that here. Coming soon!

Click here to see pictures

4 year wedding anniversary!

Jess and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary on Thursday, July 16th. It was a very fun evening thanks to my mom and dad who were in town and were willing to watch Isabella for the night. We went to dinner at "Moonshine" which was my 1st and Jess' 2nd time. It was excellent; we stuffed ourselves and we still walked across the street to the Hilton hotel where we had our wedding reception and had dessert at the hotel's restaurant. Yum! We were rolling out of there. We then went to a late late movie to see Harry Potter. All in all we are very blessed.

Happy Birthday Abby & Happy 4th of July

On fourth of July weekend we went to Alvin to celebrate my niece Abby's 4th birthday we had lots of water and bouncy fun. Then we headed to Kemah Boardwalk to enjoy the fourth. It was really really hot but we had a good time. Amanda and her girls were able to join us and again it was an adventure. Since all of the restaurants were packed we decided to order our food to go and find a place to picnic. Except by the time we got our food it was almost time for fireworks so there was no place to sit even on the ground. we got a bright idea that we would be able to see the fireworks from our car. We went out to the car laid a blanket down opened the hatch and sat down for a picnic in the parking lot. The adults sat on the blanket and the babies sat in their strollers while the older kids sat in the back of my car with the seats folded down. It is something I will always remember. No your most conventional idea of watching the fireworks but it worked and we had fun doing it. Again another happy memory that I am glad to have with Isabella.

P.S. If you have been wondering the entire time reading this,"Why is she underlining everything?" Well I started this post right before Isabella woke from her nap and in the middle of it she woke up. I thought I could bring her in the office and finish it really quick, but all she wanted to do was push the keys and she pushed something that is causing it to underline and I can not figure out how to undo it. If she could answer me back I would ask, but that is not going to happen. So you get an underlined post. Sorry!









Apparently Abby does not like loud noises. This reminds me of my cousin Dustin who always watched the fireworks from inside my Grandparents house. I am sure he feels your pain Abby!




So Garion was a real trooper. He was not to keen on the roller coaster thing. You can see from his face he is scared to death. Abby is ready to go. She loved them. Let me tell you though this is a baby coaster that bounced them up and down. No bueno for Gare but WooHoo for Abby! You should have seen Garion after we road the big coaster. It left him speechless and I don't think he will ever ride another roller coaster again.







Love these two. I think they were telling there first best friend secret

Weddings, Food & WALKING!!

About 3 weeks ago we went to a wedding in McCallen and then hoped over to Brownsville for a few days to spend time with Abuelo and Abuela. During this visit Isabella practiced and achieved some major milestones. In the first few pics you can see Isabella practicing her eating of solid foods. We are still working on getting her to eat more solid foods. She does not really want us to feed her, but she eats very little and sometimes nothing when we give her food to feed herself. She tries it, but I think is still getting used to the texture because things go in but most of the time they pop right back out. Except chicken she loves chicken. You can hear her smacking when she is eating it. It is funny. So we are getting there, at least we are passed the gagging and vomiting phase.






Now for the big news! At the wedding Isabella was all over the place She saw all the kids running around on the dance floor and she wanted to be out there with them. The only problem was she was still crawling and Ed and I were worried that she would get trampled. She the entire reception was a battle until I had Eddie take us back to the hotel.
Well the next day we drove to Brownsville and while at grandmas she started walking more than just taking a few steps. I guess she was inspired. You can see in the last picture she has a fat lip right before we were leaving to go home. She took a wrong step and fell. I am sure there will be more of this with her new found freedom. Of course this has presented new challenges, but we are proud of her. Now on the the big 1. I am not ready for that, but it will still come.



Still needing to hold on at the wedding.

Fun with friends!

Last week one of my best friends from high school came for a visit with her 2 girls. She has a 4 year old and a 15 month old. We had a lot of fun with them. We took the girls to Schlitterbahn, swimming, shopping and a ride on the Zilker Zephyr.

The Zilker Zephyr is a train that you can ride through a park here in Austin. This was a disaster! First of all, the heat that day was excruciating. We cured that with some snow cones. We got on the train and all was good. It was a pretty long ride. So long that Isabella started to get restless. She was tired of sitting in my lap. She wanted to get down and sit on the bottom of the train, but it was made of metal and really hot. So, her and I began to struggle. I got a bright idea that maybe a cracker would calm her down so I proceeded to open my diaper bag and out flew my wallet off of the train. The zipper on my wallet had gotten stuck to the Velcro of the bag so when I flipped the top open my wallet went flying. We were in the middle of the train so there was no way to tell the conductor to stop. The good thing was that in the area it fell out in was under construction. So there weren't any people walking around. The bad part was because of that construction the only way for me to get my wallet back was to endure the rest of the ride and get off and walk about a mile all the way back in the 106 degree weather. Yes it really was 106 degrees outside. The other problem was that I could not walk that far with Isa. Thankfully my nephew and Isabella's god brother were with us. So Garion and Patrick helped Amanda push the babies back to the car while I walked to get my wallet. It was horrible. I thought I was going to pass out but I made it and found my wallet. When I got back to Amanda and the kids, they were about passed out also. It turns out they had a long walk to the car and Garion almost didn't make it either. He was getting overheated. Needless to say we stayed inside for the remainder of the day.

That was our big adventure. Amanda and I can not seem to get together without one. I could go on and on about the adventures that we have been on together along with our other friend Annabelle. We have wonderful memories together and I am so happy that now our girls will be able to make their own memories together. Here are a few pictures from the week.



Here Haley and Isabella play together




The girls got a hold of one of Ashley's necklaces. I monitored them a bit before taking it away for fear they would strangle themselves. It was funny though because they both wanted it and Isabella is pulling at while it is stuck around Haley's leg.



Thank you Ashley for always wanting to sweep my floors. Amanda I pray that she never looses her love for cleaning.



Here are the girls with there sippy cups. We had a hard time stopping them from sharing. In this pic they have their own, but we would often find them sucking on the wrong ones. Espeecially in the car. They also would share snacks. They were so cute.

Summer Visit

Every summer my nephew comes and spends a couple of weeks with us. Here are a couple of pictures that I took of them during one of our many trips to the pool. We had a great time having him here and Isabella sure loved the entertainment. She was always laughing when he was around and always wanted to be were ever he was. They definitely bonded during this time. We were sad to see him go.