"If ye are prepared ye shall not fear."

As Hurricane Gustav approaches the Gulf, I am reminded as to why we have been given sweet counsel to "Be Prepared". As a child I can remember living in North Carolina and my parents were making preparations for an evacuation due to a Hurricane. I remember feeling excited but now that I am an adult and a mother, I do not have those same feelings of excitement. Daniel and I have been taking steps toward our emergency preparedness. We have a long way to go but I am still grateful that we have done some things. Today as I was gathering supplies, I jotted down some notes of things that we need to do or things to have in order for us to be better prepared. Sometimes you just do not know until you have an experience. I am positive that I will learn, have learned already, about my families preparedness from this experience. It is pretty intense to think about all that could happen to your home and town. Hurricane Rita came through and devastated this area of Texas 3 years ago. Gustav is projected to be just as big as Rita (Cat. 3). I think that the church leaders learned on how to better prepare the Saints in this area because of that Hurricane. I feel so blessed to be part of a church that cares for their fellow Saints. We have been receiving updates from our Bishop and other leaders everyday. Phone calls have been made and received, as we all look out for each other to make sure that we all have an evacuation plan and destination. Fortunately Daniels older brother David lives in Texas and he knows that we might be there in a few days.

My First Grader

Aren't they handsome!! I love being the mother of two boys.

Little Daniel has finished his first week of First grade. There were many emotions leading up to the start of school, from Daniel and from me. I am excited to say that this week went really well, much better than I had anticipated.

To give a quick history: We moved to Beaumont a month before school started last year. While we were living in Canada we were preparing him for half day Kindergarten (which is the way it should be everywhere), so the fact that school is 7 hours here was quite a shock. For a little boy who has never been away from home, being gone for 7 hours a day was very hard. There were lots of tears throughout the year. He enjoyed his teacher but did not enjoy Kindergarten like he should have. So leading up to the start of First Grade, I thought that we were going to go through some of those same things all over again. Little Daniel takes after me and tends to be very anxious. He started losing sleep and lost his appetite. The class list were not posted until the Friday evening before school so last Friday we rode our bikes over to the school and found out who his teacher was and it turned out that he had met her last year and was happy to have her. Also his best buddy Garret, along with 5 others from his Kindergarten class are in his First grade class. What a blessing!!

So, the first day came and he was excited and happy and that enthusiasm has stayed all week. I went up to the school several times to have lunch with him and he was in a great mood. I have been praying for him to have a positive experience so I hope these feelings will last. He has his own desk and his own text books. He was thrilled to have his own books. He came home the first afternoon and wrote a story about school and the teacher let him read it to the class the next day. I am so proud of him. By the way, he had his first spelling test today and got a perfect score!

Now that Daniel is back in school, Lendl has to readjust his life without brother around all the time. Lendl has been sad this week but fortunately he has a mom that will keep him busy and be a great playmate. Also, now that school is back in session, I will stay busy with my PTA Board responsibilities. I will be continuing my position as the school supply sale coordinator and I will take on being the PTA recording secretary.

MY BIRTHDAY BOY

Happy Birthday Lendl!!!

It is so hard to believe that my sweet boy is already 3. I took some time today to look through pictures of him throughout his life and what joy fills my heart as I recognize the blessing that he has been to our family. An even greater blessing is to know that we can be an eternal family. Lendl is so full of love and life and has so much admiration for his brother. I love to watch the two of them (on good days). I am sure that I am not the only parent that misses the baby stage of their children but I do. He is growing up so fast. Of course I want my children to grow and enter new phases of life but the process needs to slow down. I hope that he will never shy away from my hugs and kisses and that he never stops giving them. He gives GREAT hugs and kisses.

Today is his actual birthday, however we had a small party for him last week. He has been into firetrucks and fireman for a long time and I thought for sure that would be the theme of his party but when we took him to Party City, he wanted an Army theme...so Army it was. He invited a few friends from nursery (plus their siblings) and had a great time. He was so excited to have a party. He kept telling people he was turning 6 years old.

Sweat and face paint do not go well together but a sure sign that he was having a blast. In case you cannot tell, his cake is a Tank. I am not a professional cake decorator ( I know several of you readers are) but he loved it and that is what counts.
His mean machine soldier face.

Little Daniel really got into the face paint.

A grenade war (well, water balloons anyway).
Thanks to his friends that helped him celebrate his special day.

Ms. Patricia

Lendl just finished speech therapy with "Ms Pat". I just want to thank her for all her work with him this past year!

Star Wars, CLONE WARS

We could not miss the premiere of this movie...

Barnum and Bailey comes to town

The circus came to Beaumont and so we thought we would surprise the boys and take them. I think Daniel and I enjoyed watching the boys more than the boys enjoyed watching the show. It was fun.

Though it is a tad blurry, I still love the smile of pure enjoyment on little Daniels face!
Lendl was all about the food (he gets that from his mommy). He ate a ton of popcorn and downed a whole bag, with three different colors, of cotton candy.

This man was in the whole show and was very entertaining. He had everyone laughing.
I posted this picture because I am an animal lover and these tigers were beautiful. However, I felt sad to see them in the circus. I just felt like taking the whip from the trainers hands and whipping her. I know, not very Christlike but she was mean to them.

NASA

We couldn't let the summer come and go without a trip to NASA in Houston! We always enjoy seeing what new theme they have, which changes every couple of months. Besides the theme, they have had a new Star Wars display each time, as well, which is the favorite for daddy and the boys. There are behind the scenes tours you can go on but you cannot take children so we have only been able to go on smaller tours which has taken us around the grounds and in to see the Mission Control room. That was pretty exciting! We will take what we can get.

A model of the International Space Station.
Mission Control. From space it takes only 90 minutes to orbit the earth so the astronauts see a Sunrise and Sunset every 45 minutes. The screen on the right is showing live footage from space.
The kids love this area but before they are allowed to play, they have to spend some quality time seeing the more educational things. But even the educational things are fun.
Captain Rex, from the new Clone Wars movie. Obi Wans life size ship was also there. I have to admit, even I get excited to see all the different Star Wars things. We have pictures from our other trips of Luke's original light saber, another life size ship, and our picture with a Stormtrooper. Pretty cool!