Perri's 2nd Birthday Party!!

Last weekend we celebrated Perri's 2nd birthday (how is she already 2?!?!) at Inflatable Zone. My parents and sister drove down for the weekend and festivities and were a tremendous help with birthday prep and helping out with Perri.

My dad spent the better part of Friday putting together Perri's new kitchen (pictures to come soon) and table (thanks MeMe) and Craig joined in when he got home from work. Thank you both for the hours spent putting these two together. Perri LOVES them!

The party was Saturday afternoon and we had a blast! Aside from Perri's mini-meltdown halfway through it was a good time! She wanted in the party room while we were setting up and needed to stay in the bounce room and was MAD she couldn't go in there. Did I mention she took a 45 minute nap before the party? Yeah, not good. She'd been down less than an hour and we heard her upstairs bouncing in her crib. Guess she was too excited about the party?

Anyhow, here are loads of pics from the fun. And no judging the pics- I for some reason brought the wrong lens and wasn't thinking and tried to shoot on manual in terrible lighting and fast moving kids. Bad idea :)

Thanks to my mom, dad and sister for making the trip down and all the help and to our sweet friends for coming and helping to make Perri's 2nd birthday a special one!

(She'll be two tomorrow, November 12, so hopefully I can get my act together and get another post for that! haha)

Happy Halloween!!

Hope everyone had a great Halloween!!

Katy Rice Harvest Festival

So I am a little late at blogging about our weekend. Oh well. That's how I roll with the blog.

Anyhow, last weekend we met up with friends Lisa and Shanna and their little ones at the Katy Rice Harvest Festival. I know nothing about the history behind it or anything except that they shut down streets in Old Katy and vendors set up and sell things and others just kind of advertise? It was sortof weird. But anyhow, the fun part was the rickety old, slightly questionable-looking carnival rides. We were a little weary of how Perri would take to these but oh my goodness, she had a BLAST. And apparently has a love of horses. But not so much a love of getting her face painted.

The first ride we did was the carousel. But this wasn't your typical carousel, it was on full blast and that sucker was FAST. Like I got really nauseated from going so fast and up and down (and probably also because I was standing backwards to take pictures of the girls.) I get nauseated just thinking about it. Anyhow, they all loved it and when it finally stopped and we could stand up straight without puking (jk)we got the girls off to move on to the next ride. My dear child threw a huge fit and starting bawling and crying "neighhhhhh, neighhhhhh" over and over again. It was actually pretty funny.

During the fun

Posing for us after the ride. Impossible to get them all looking in the same direction.

Luckily there were more horses to be ridden, but these were real! And free! Score! Again, a huge highlight to the girls and so much fun!

Excuse the beautiful background scenery.

After the horses we moved on to ride the boats and cars. Both equally fast but they loved them nonetheless. 

Sweet girls.

After these rides and have already wandered around for an hour prior, the girls and ourselves were all hot, hungry and tired and called it a day.

First Day of School!

I know I am terribly behind but that's just kinda how it works with me and the blog. Anyhow, three weeks after the fact, I thought I would document Perri's first day of preschool. Down here, instead of MDO, it is "preschool," I guess because they kindof just transition into the preschool as they get older? Who knows. I do know its insanely expensive here (1 day costs the same as 3 days in Arkansas) so we are starting with a one day a week for her haha. Craig said I'd have to work part time to cover more days right now, and well, that totally defeats the purpose of her going :)

She so far is loving school! The first day my biggest worry was her nap, as she is super particular and loves  her some sleep! Surprisingly, she slept for an hour on her nap mat, and last week slept an hour and a half!! This is awesome considering she's on a nap mat on the floor and without her sound machine! The downside to school is I totally pay for it when she gets home. Or atleast so far I have. Whew talk about in a funk and grouchy mood! Those nights she's gone to bed early because we just can't deal with the grumpiness any longer. Luckily we could probably put her to bed at 5pm and she'd still sleep until 8:30 the next morning. We may or may not have done that before.... ha!

I'll leave you all with some pics from the first day. Nothing great, as she doesn't look at the camera these days but mainly some just to keep for us to remember!

Lunch box. She LOVES to carry this around and throws huge fits when I take it from her.

She grabbed her lunch box and waved at me and said "bye bye"

Checking what she'd get for lunch. This kid is serious about her food and snacks

I did not tell her to do this. She walked over and gave Emma a goodbye kiss. 

Ah! Something familiar!

Checking more things out in the classroom.

Sadly, I was horrible at documenting this special day and was mainly talking to the teachers about things as this was our first time meeting them since we missed all the meet the teachers and orientations due to being in Mexico. I was sad about that but quickly got over it since hello, Mexico!

Mexico!

Yes, we are alive, I'm just horrible at blogging (as you've already noticed..) Thought I'd catch up on some posts so here's one for you!

A couple weeks ago Craig and I went to Mexico for a week with Craig's brother Jonathan and our sister-in-law Patty and LOTS of their friends. I knew no one else but Craig knew a few of Jonathan's fraternity brothers. The total number in our group was I believe 22 but mainly we were just with Jonathan and Patty and J's 3 fraternity brothers and their wives/significant other.

We stayed at The Royal Cancun, an adult-only, all inclusive resort and it was beautiful! Right on the water, balcony overlooking the ocean and beautiful clear blue water!

Some pics from the trip, and sorry if some are blurry. I accidentally left the camera on manual when others were taking pics and they didn't know how to work it.

Goofy

View from our balcony

Dinner one night

So pretty

muscles

Laying out reading

Awkward

Jonathan, Patty, Me, Craig at dinner

We had a wonderful trip together but definitely missed our girl! It was nice to know she was in good hands with my parents, getting ridiculously spoiled as always. We skyped with them a couple times so we could see and talk to her so that made it not so bad being away from her for so long!

One of the Most Inspiring Things I've Ever Seen

This summer we have had the privilege of having Gary Thomas preach at our church and have thoroughly enjoyed his messages and wonderful sermons. This morning he spoke on God's mercy and redeeming love for us and showed this video of Dick and Rick Hoyt. Some of you may have heard of this father and son duo but Craig and I never had and were extremely touched by their story and the video Gary showed.

To give you a brief synopsis, Rick Hoyt was born a "spastic quadriplegic" with cerebral palsy from having his umbilical cord wrapped several times around his neck resulting in oxygen deprivation. Doctors even suggested his parents put him in a special home but they refused and insisted upon raising and loving him as their son, trying to give him as normal of a life as possible. He was also unable to speak but upon insisting that they be able to communicate with Rick, his parent's took him to Tuft's University where a special interactive computer was built so that he could "speak" to them. A teen in their town was paralyzed in a car accident and there was a benefit run and Rick told his dad he wanted to run in it. In this race, his dad, who was a self proclaimed "couch potato" pushed Rick in his wheelchair for 5 miles. That night, Rick told his dad, "Dad, when I'm running, I feel like I'm not handicapped." From there, they went on to 10ks, half marathons and marathons and eventually triathlons and then the Iron Man Triathlon. In the swimming portion, Dick swims and pulls Rick in a boat for 2.5 miles, 112 miles on a bike and then pushes him for a 26.2 mile run.

This video is almost 5 minutes but it is incredible and so inspiring to see a father's devotion and love for his son, just as God loves and is so devoted to us.

This isn't the exact video we saw but is pretty close. Enjoy!

P.S. Craig and I, along with the entire church, cried like babies from this.

Show Me Your Silly Face

Lately Perri has been making some pretty hilarious faces about everything. And now, when I tell her to "show me her silly face," this is what I get:

Such a fun, silly little girl.