The natives are getting restless!

Man, y'all sure know how to make a girl feel bad!! I go a few days without posting and you would think the sky is falling!! Ha! I'm glad there are people who actually look at my postings. Anyway, here are a few pics from this morning.


Flowers Beau got me for "no reason". Super sweet!

Elijah decided he wanted to play in his sandbox this morning and since it wasn't quite as hot as the Underworld yet I went outside with him...

How cute it my big boy!!?

Even little boys get wedgies!

As usual Elijah thought he would line his toys up...

Every lego had to be exactly straight and in line...

Proud of his accomplishment...

This picture just cracks me up. I'm not sure why, it just looks so sad...


When we got inside Elijah had to go straight to the shower. He was COVERED with sand. I better go, Elijah is getting a special treat right now. He's watching the Diego movie and getting to eat lunch in his chair in front of the tv. (Don't tell Beau!) Its just so I get a minute to blog, otherwise I might have to go another week. I mentioned Elijah is all about mom and unless Diego is on (and sometimes even when its on) he has to be with me. Anyway, my mom and dad are coming in Friday. We're going to watch Zac play at Rice Friday night - Go Ponies!! Saturday I have a big day of projects for Beau and my dad!! Better go, nap time!!

It's been a while...

Sorry, its been so long. With summer coming to an end we've been really busy and will be busy for the next few weeks. Just to catch you up on Elijah. He's still counting in Spanish, but not as much. We have been drilling in the number "3" to him for weeks now. He wouldn't count past 2 and then all the sudden now he's counting to 10. He skips 7 and 8, but who really cares about 7 and 8 anyway? He is also all about Mama right now. He wants to be with me all the time. Its super cute about 99% of the time (its really hard to use the bathroom holding a 2 year old - that's where the 1% comes in)! Anyway, not much else for now. I am going into work later today, just got the morning off (shut up Mom!). Here's a pic of Elijah watching his "shows" this morning...


"Could you get out of my face, I'm trying to focus"

What has my life come to?

If you know me very well at all, you know I hate pushing shopping carts. I don't know why, but I do. I've been known to carry way too much stuff in my hands or in those little baskets to keep from pushing a cart. With a baby I got used to having to push one when he's with me, unless I have another person with me and I can weasel them into pushing the cart. Well, now its sunk to a new level. Elijah has discovered the "car carts". Now these carts are horrible. They are twice as big and hard to maneuver. However, Elijah absolutely LOVES them. He begs to go in the car anytime we go to the store. Seeing the joy on his face and how much fun he's having is worth it.
I was talking to my mom when I got to the store and she was laughing at me for having to push this cart and asked me to take a pic...

As I tried to work my way thru the store all the moms would look at me and give me the "it doesn't last much longer" empathy face. Elijah was squealing with delight turning the wheels and having a great time.

On another subject. Please go to www.ponyfans.com there is an article about my brother, Zac Thomas who plays football at SMU. It is about halfway down the page and has his picture. It's great. I am so proud of him!!

A hard lesson to learn...

This is a pretty funny story...

As a mom of a 2 year old you try to come up with distractions for your child during church. We try to keep Elijah with us in church until the sermon and then let him go to the nursery. We have cars (his new favorite toys), we have snacks, and he loves the singing so we're good for the biggest part of services. Then comes communion. This is the hardest time because everyone is quiet. We really try to get him to focus on the fact that we need to say our prayers - or "payer" as he says it. I usually hold him in my lap and we whisper our own prayer. He is a little upset when the bread passes because he doesn't get anything. Then the fruit passes and I let him have my cup. He loves it. He will immitate drinking out of it for the rest of the time. When its time for the collection I tell him we can pick out some money. He gets excited. I open my change purse and he picks out what he wants. We count it, then whisper a prayer of thanks for the money God gave us. When the basket passes he usually gets excited, throws the money in and claps for himself. But not last Sunday. Last Sunday, the basket was coming, he was excited, then I said "okay Elijah put your money in." He looks at the basket, looks at his hands full of change and yells, "No, Mine!" I say, "yes it is yours but we are giving it to Jesus". He looks so sad, but put his money in. I told him I was very proud of him. That is a very hard lesson to learn. It is so cute how children can portray exactly how we feel sometimes.

I just got this pic this morning too cute...
Mimi and Grandpa are coming this weekend to visit (and to babysit for us!!) I'm off to clean a little.

Pictures from our trip...

I got my camera cord (Thanks Dad!!) and finally posted about our trip last week. Its backwards though. If you scroll down to the third post and go up its in chronological order. Sorry, I'm usually good at that, but its raining, Elijah is napping, and the quiet (except for the rain and thunder) is making me tired!!

Back to Mandy's

Tuesday morning we went back to Ft Worth so Mom could go to work and we stayed another night with Mandy. After Elijah's nap we went and walked around the mall (free air conditioning). We went into Hallmark and Mandy was smelling candles. Elijah wanted to smell too. She would hand Elijah a candle...

And he would smell it. This is his smelling face. She would take it back and he kept saying, "more, more" she would hand him another one and this went on for a while...

Elijah loved playing the keyboard with Brett. They are hoping to have a real piano soon. I said that would be good, Elijah loves to play the piano!

Note to above picture: Those are air hockey paddles in Brett's hand. For some reason Elijah only wanted Brett to use those when he played.

Wednesday morning Elijah and I were at Brett and Mandy's alone (they had to work). I promise we didn't snoop at all (I did that a long time ago)! Elijah had a bowl of cereal in his new bowl from Jannie (Thanks Jannie!!)

Beau taught Elijah to drink out of the bowl. Very sophisticated! Thanks Beau!...
Then it was off to the airport and back home. We had a great trip. It was long and we were ready to be back home, but we had a wonderful time!

Juju and Pawpaw's

When Mom flew in from Hawaii she came and picked us up in Ft Worth, at Mandy's and we were off to Stephenville. For most of the day Satuday we just lounged. Mom and I had hair appointments and Dad stayed with Elijah. Saturday night we walked to Jannie's for dinner.

Pawpaw, Elijah and Juju...

Elijah got to ride on Pawpaw's shoulders...

Funny story, I talked to Jannie earlier in the day on Saturday about dinner. She said she had also invited the summer youth intern (he has been living with Jannie and Larry for the summer) and his girlfriend for dinner. She said the girlfriend was down to hear Chris preach for the first time. When Jannie met the girlfriend Jannie was telling her that her grandaughter's husband is also a youth minister south of Houston and they met at ACU. The girlfriend said, "is your grandson Beau Ballard?!" Jannie was a little shocked and said, "yes", the girlfriend went on to say that Beau was the youth intern one summer at her church and I used to stay with her family so I could see Beau. We were all on a mission trip together when Beau proposed to me. So, how ironic that this girl, Jenna, was staying with my family so she could see her boyfriend, the youth intern and I used to stay with her family to see Beau, the youth intern 6 years ago!! We took a picture to prove it to Beau.

Sunday morning everyone was so wiped out we all over slept (even Elijah didn't wake up until almost 10am so we missed church. Bummer! I was excited about seeing everyone (ok I just wanted to show off my beautiful boy). So we relaxed all day Sunday too.

Elijah having a snack of grapes and I said, "say cheese"...nothing...I said "show me your teeth" and this is what I get...

Pawpaw trying to teach Elijah how to ride Brook's girly tricycle...

"Look how big I am, Mom!"

Elijah helping Zac pull the trailor full of wood (one of Mom and Dad's trees died and Dad had to chop it down) Please keep Zac in your prayers. He's in the middle of Two-A-Days at SMU and it's usually over 110 degrees on the field and they are practicing in full pads!

Elijah was acting very "twoish" the whole time. I would catch him doing a lot of things like this...

He had to have a lot of baths when we were in the country. Pawpaw helped me out by giving one to him for me...

We had a great time in Stephenville. Thanks Pawpaw and Juju!! Did I mention while we were there we found out Joel and Sherrie are going to have a baby!! (Joel is my mom's brother, they live in Dallas. Sherrie is a nurse and Joel is a police officer) YEAH!!

Off to Mandy's

Elijah and I flew to Dallas and Mandy picked us up from the airport. We went straight to Pei Wei to have lunch with the nursing school group. It was great, I hadn't seen them since I was pregnant with Elijah. From the left: Jenny Kern (ICU nurse, lives in Frisco) who had just had a baby 2 weeks earlier and had the most hilarious labor story ever! She didn't even know she was in labor, but went to the hospital because she wasn't feeling well and had to stop in the vallet parking for labor and delivery nurses to come and get her out of the car because the baby was already coming out and she had the baby only a few minutes later!! Are you kidding me!! Then is Suzanne. She is a L&D nurse who lives in Lewisville with her husband. Then Mandy (L&D in Ft Worth). We had a great time catching up, but decided it would need to be at some one's house next time so we have more time and can better entertain the kids.

At Mandy's house Elijah was up to his same-old, same-old...

"That's better!"...

Mommy to the rescue!!

After church today Beau said he wanted to go out to lunch. I had planned on cooking lunch, but he said he was too hungry to wait. (That happens when you have to be the very last ones to leave church) Anyway, we went to Las Flores (Mexican, how did you know?) We were enjoying our chips and salsa. Elijah, not wanting to be left out, wanted to dip his chips in the salsa too. We would let him get a little taste, he would then start coughing and rubbing his tongue until we made him get a drink. He was well on his way to enjoying the spicier side of life that Beau and I love so much.

A few minutes later our waitress brought our food and I was busy fixing Elijah's plate. I'm not sure if I saw something out of the corner of my eye or if my Momdar was just alarming, but I looked at Elijah. He was choking and wasn't making a sound (for those of you who may not know, if someone is choking, but making noise they can still breath and may just need a minute to "cough it up". However if they go into the "ugly choke" where there is no noise and a panicked face its go time). I jumped up, pulled Elijah out of his chair and had him upside down in one fail swoop. I pounded on his back a couple times, still no output, I swept my finger thru his mouth and plopped out a hug ball of chewed up chip onto the floor. I pulled him upright and he started crying. The elderly couple at the next table was cheering and the wife was clapping. It took a few minutes to get Elijah calmed down and back in his chair. It took even longer before I could pick up my fork (my arms felt weak).

Beau, who had sat back down was just starring at me (read: Starry Steve, 2 posts back) in awe of my quick thinking and sharp skills. I do have to admit, I had never had to give anyone the Heimlich and definitely didn't want my own child to be the first, but oh well. When you work at the job I have you need to be able to preform under pressure and quickly, but it took more time for me to recover when it was my baby in my arms.

On a lighter note:

Many of you have already witnessed this, but Elijah (who refuses to count to 3 in English) is now counting to 4, regularly, in Spanish. I'm wondering how long I can chalk this up to pure brilliance on his part and not too much tv. I promise you he doesn't watch more than 2 shows a day (and they're really short). However, I do limit his tv time to educational tv such as Diego which is obviously where he learned "uno, dos, res, watro". I will try to get it on video for you to see for yourselves. Camera cord should arrive tomorrow. Hope you've enjoyed our family stories.