Walkers' Trail

A little bit of snow and a lot a bit of goofiness!

Our littlest superhero turns 4 on Monday! We celebrated with his three best (boy) friends with a Super Hero party last night. It was a beautiful evening and we were able to get them outside to play! Jason created an obstacle course to complete, and then we also played a game - something like "capture the villain" (who was Jason) and they had to tie him up with toilet paper! The Superheroes prevailed!!!! Happy (early) birthday, my little munchkin! I have to say of all of the birthday parties I have had for my kids so far, Kyle was the most excited for this one! He was ready to celebrate!

Ten years ago today. Ten men, including my friend, Nate Fleming, lost their lives in a tragic airplane crash. I am so proud to be a Cowboy and vividly remember the days and weeks following the event. I have so much respect for Coach Sutton, even through his ups and downs, for being a great coach and mentor and representative and now, a friend.

and it never becomes less miraculous! I L-O-V-E the chance to be pregnant with a wonderful child again!

Grab your kleenex... I saw this couple on Oprah's Ultimate Australia show, and it just hits home because they are young 30's with two boys! So cool...

I am so happy to have a great report on my blog book! This is project I have wanted to complete for a while, and it turned out to be so much easier than I imagined! I ended up searching for several web-sites that offer this feature, and actually uploaded to a few to compare prices and options. Sharedbook and/or blog2print (same place) ended up being where I decided to move forward! The book is a hard back, about 3/4" thick (smaller than my high school yearbook), and contains more than 210 posts, composed of all of my entries from 2008-2010. The site offers many things: a foreword , table of contents, personalized pictures on the cover, include/exclude blog comments, just to name a few. Here is the front (a 2008 photo!): Here is the back (a 2010 photo!): Each page has the web site title and a page number on the bottom: Just an example of a page: You cannot select font, and probably my only complaint is that the photos automatically upload to the left, with all text to the righ...

Pregnancy #3! Side shot at 20 weeks - HALFWAY THERE! Master Walker is the length of a banana and approaching the 1 pound mark near the end of the week. Not a whole lot of belly pooch quite yet (just expanding elsewhere first!) At 16 weeks and the size of an apple!

Jason couldn't be happier than to be practicing in our town! It just makes him so happy and has enabled our family to meet a lot of wonderful people. However, the actual office and equipment were really outdated and relatively ugly when we bought the building and practice. In the past 3 years, we have chosen to update the equipment to better serve our patients, as well as make the office appear cleaner and prettier! Here are the before pictures of Jason's main opertory (the hygiene rooms were updated during Christmas 2009 and are fairly similar). Lots of clutter... The front desk ( orangy -ugly countertop ): And the AFTER of his opertory and the front desk. (side note: we also painted walls throughout and updated the furnishings in the lobby this past year, and I regret to say I didn't take pictures of the "before" of that project). This countertop now has pretty stuff on it, too - this was just taken when we first saw it after the demo! MUCH cleaner, ...

With Grant and Kyle, I created a pregnancy journal that carried over for their first several years! The blog is now my journal so you, as my readers, will just get to know everything, too! Sweet Baby: At 18 weeks, you weighed right at 9 ounces. I could first feel your movement in my uterus around 15 1/2 weeks. I think this was earlier than your brothers, possibly due to the fact I knew what to feel! You love to move from about 7 pm - 11 pm. I am 19 1/2 weeks and still don't really look pregnant. I have my maternity clothes out, but don't really need to wear them yet. You're spreading "all over" and not just "out." I expect your Daddy will be able to feel you any day now. If we could just get the timing of his hand on my belly and your kicks, then that would be great! Your brothers love to talk to you!

After checking out a friend's blog, The Steen Style (link on my page), I decided to take the quiz on sproost.com to find my decorating style! Here it is: 100% Modern Elegance. Not much room for anything else! Below are a few of the rooms that suite my style that they gave me. I do like a bit more "cozy" furniture than shown below, but I am always a fan of clean rooms with clean lines! What's your style? Go find out and let me know! Modern Elegance: Variety is the spice of life! And nowhere is this truer than in the design of your home... You either love contemporary but wish it wasn't quite so cold and austere; or perhaps you've always been drawn to more traditional rooms but are now at a point in your life where you'd like to pair down a bit or want to create a less cluttered and busy space. Transitional Style is here to marry those apparent contradicting designs. And guess what — it's the contradictions that make the mix of contemporary and tradition...

God knows that Jason and I are happy to be parents of little boys and to have the opportunity to raise mentally, religiously, physically and emotionally strong and healthy men. (I just may need a few more Mom's Night Out doing girlie things and seeing girlie movies once I have four boys under my roof!) We don't yet have a name for this fella but will announce it when we do decide! Here is his profile, with his face down. You can see his heart, brain, and the white bone of the spine. Frontal view looking at us! This shot has always freaked us out a big - one of the boys called it the alien picture, and I can't help but agree! Hi, Friends and family!!! I am waving to you! Baby's heart rate was 145 - exactly what the other two boys have measured around this time. As of the ultrasound, he measures 18 weeks and 4 days (one day ahead of schedule) and weighs right at 9 oz. It will be exciting to see if he physically favors Grant or Kyle or becomes a new combination of us!...

Our family ended a great 2010 with a fun-filled trip to San Antonio. It was a trip that once we found out we were pregnant, we really wanted to do with the boys! Oklahoma State ended up earning a trip to the Alamo Bowl, which was while we were there, so it was extra fun to see so many OSU fans, players, and coaches while there. The most fun was when Kendall Hunter was in the lobby of the Marriott, and we started talking with him. Side story: Kendall is good friends with one of our church's nursery workers, and apparently , Kyle talks about him so much that she asked him to sign a Christmas card for Kyle. It says "Merry Christmas, Kyle! Happy Birthday to Jesus!" So we told him that "this" Kyle was "that" Kyle, and he remembered and asked Kyle to take a picture with him. Our little fella was in heaven! Just a few steps away, Grant saw Brandon Weedon walking and yelled at him and got a high-five. It was fun! That night we went to the Riverwalk...

This Christmas break, with Jason home for a week, has been perfect. There have been so many memories made and so much laughter... I just wanted to say how much I love my three boys!!!

I just HAD to find this clip from Marmaduke after more Grant-isms this morning (in Jason's face). This was his favorite part of the movie and will randomly say "wait for it... wait for it..." and then die laughing as he toots.... So, here's in honor of Grant's movie scene!

Our our trip south, we stopped by to see my grandmother in her independent living center. She is 3 miles off of the highway and it worked out great to see her for over an hour! It was the first Christmas I hadn't seen her so we remedied that problem! Here is the boys other great-grandmother at the family Christmas eve celebration. Our town once again as the outdoor ice rink set up so we decided (actually, Kyle decided) to go again! This time, it snowed on us!!! Brrrr but really, it was quite fun. Here's a picture of Kyle just stepping out of the rink - he was tired! The 2010 skaters!

One of my favorite things about Grant in the past few weeks is his sincere desire to be the best big, BIG brother as possible to our baby. He will always ask me how the baby is feeling, and he just loves to try to stick his finger in my belly button to tickle "his" baby. (note: this really annoyed/bothered me at first, but when I realized why he did it, I just adore this sweet gesture now). Yesterday, on New Years morning, we were laying in bed and I was on my back. There was this little bump on my tummy that hasn't really been there and I showed him. He immediately gets down to my belly button and starts talking sweet things and telling the baby how it was now 2011, which was the year it would be born. It's fun going through this pregnancy with bigger kids. Grant was barely 1 when we conceived Kyle so this is a new experience for everyone! and it's been fun and sweet and miraculous.