Seng and Amy's visit

Two of my best friends, Amy and Seng, came to visit us this past weekend. They came for my 32nd birthday, which was June 29th. I hadn't seen Amy in almost 2 years and it had been 5 years since the three of us were together. It was fantastic seeing them and hanging out!!

Here are the three of us with the kids.
(From left to right--Christopher, Seng, Amy, Jessica, me)

On Saturday, we went and had a picnic in Julia Davis park. It was a beautiful day!
Christopher did not want his picture taken, though. (Notice the grumpy face)

Jessica, on the other hand, did not mind having her picture taken.

Here are Seng and Amy.

The three of us...

There is a beautiful rose garden in Julia Davis park. I took some cool pictures of some of the roses.

The three of us again....

We went out to dinner (A Girl's Night Out). We went to a great Thai restaurant. It was fun!

Too cute for words...

Here are some cute pictures of the kids from the month of June.....

Jessica has been crawling all over the place the past couple weeks and has started learning to pull herself up to standing. She pulled herself up to standing all by herself in this picture...

All smiles, as always

Jessica and Aunt Alli (my sister)

Jessica just being cute.

Our subdivision has a pool and my sister Alli and I took the kids there the other day. It was Jessica's first time in the pool and she LOVED it! Christopher had tons of fun too!

Alli took a couple pictures of me with the kids.

Christopher likes his water wings and his diving ring. :)

Hanging out with Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Michael

Grandma, Grandpa, and Uncle Michael came out from New York for a visit in mid-June. We had so much fun hanging out with them! Here are some pictures from the weekend.....

Jessica and Grandpa

Uncle Michael and Christopher had a blast playing together!

Jessica and Grandma

Jessica and Uncle Michael

"Eagle Fun Days" was happening the weekend of the visit. We got to go to a parade, which was fun!

There were lots of firetrucks spraying water. Christopher thought it was great, as long as they didn't get him wet.

Christopher and Grandpa standing back so they wouldn't get wet.

We also went to a carnival. Christopher loved the rides!

Sick kiddos and other stuff....

Christopher and Jessica both have pneumonia right now. It has been hard seeing them both so sick. Luckily they are both responding well to the antibiotics. Christopher got it first and started his antibiotics on Monday. We're pretty sure he is the one who gave it to Jessica. She started her antibiotics yesterday. Christopher is already back to his normal self (talking non-stop, bouncing off the walls, etc), although he is still coughing. Jessica still feels a little sick today and isn't quite back to her normal self, but she isn't running a fever anymore. I'm sure once she gets another dose of the antibiotics in her she will be back to her normal, smiley, giggling self. Keep your fingers crossed that Matt and I don't get pneumonia too!

And some good news related to my dissertation....After getting the ok from my advisor to set a defense date a couple weeks ago, I was finally able to get all 4 members of my committee to agree on a date and time (an undertaking that proved far more difficult than I had anticipated). I will defending my dissertation on Wed July 9th. Wahoo! I have to fly back to Mississippi for the defense, which will be interesting. I haven't been back to Oxford in over a year. I'll keep everyone posted on how it goes!

The Race for the Cure

My sister Allison and I ran the Race for the Cure here in Boise on May 10th. It was so much fun! There were a lot of people there and it's always amazing to see all the survivors. This is the third Race for the Cure that I have run.


I ran this race in celebration of Matt's mom and my friend Elizabeth. Elizabeth was recently diagnosed and is undergoing chemo now. She is in graduate school with me and is about my age, so it was a shock when she was diagnosed.

Joining the ranks....

I have often said that I would never (and I mean NEVER) be one of those moms who drove a minivan. Well, it turns out that I was wrong.....

Things change when you realize that a husband who is 6'3" and two kids (and 2 carseats and all the other crap you usually have to take with you when you have two kids) really don't fit very well into a 1996 Honda Civic. We got tired of stuffing ourselves into the car every time we went somewhere as a family. So, I am now joining the ranks of the moms-who-drive-minivans. Yikes. It's an adjustment, but I'm sure I'll get used to the idea eventually. I had to laugh, though, that the day after we bought the minivan Christopher got invited over to another little boy's house for a play date. I thought to myself, "And so it begins..." The only thing left to do now is get the kids involved in soccer and the transformation will be complete....I will officially be a Soccer Mom. Yikes again.

Anyway, here are some pictures of our new purchase. It's a 2003 Honda Odyssey EX-L. It's pretty cool and Christopher loves it! I have to say that, so far, it has been great! It is so much easier to get the kids in and out of. Also, Matt can actually drive it when both car seats are in there (something he couldn't do when both car seats were in the Civic).




(You can see Christopher's huge car seat in this picture....Jessica's car seat wasn't installed yet)

Update and Pictures

I know that I haven't update the blog in a while, so I thought I would include a little update about what we have been up to in addition to posting the pictures.

Things have been going pretty well. The kids are doing great! Christopher is 3 1/2 years old. He is very curious and asks questions all the time. He is totally into Scooby Doo and Curious George. He loves his little sister and is very good with her. We sometimes have to remind him to be gentle, though. Jessica is 9 months old (she'll be 10 months old on May 16th). She is getting so big! She is a really happy baby and smiles and laughs all the time. She has 4 teeth now (2 on the bottom and 2 on the top). She is trying to figure out how to crawl. She really, really wants to, but hasn't quite gotten the hang of it. She thinks Christopher is the coolest thing ever and he can always make her laugh.

Matt and I are doing well. I'm in the home stretch of graduate school...I'm working on my dissertation and hope to defend this summer. I start internship in August. I will graduate in May 2009. It's great to be so close to finishing! Matt still enjoys his job. He has some interesting cases (and sometimes some not so interesting cases) and keeps pretty busy.

Here are some pictures from the past couple weeks.....

We took the kids for a ride in the wagon. It was the first time Jessica had ridden in it and she had a great time! We took them down to one of the ponds in our neighborhood to feed the ducks.

Mommy is just soooo funny.

Christopher is getting pretty good at throwing the bread to the ducks.

Jessica is wondering why she can't be down there feeding the ducks with Daddy and Christopher.

We went for a hike in the foothills one day. Christopher thought it was so much fun! I put Jessica in the pack and carried her. She had a great time too.

Christopher is looking at "fire bugs" in this picture. They were some very nasty looking red ants. We told him they were fire ants and told him not to touch them. I don't think they were actually fire ants, but they looked pretty freaky, so we figured it was best not to touch them.

Here are some random pictures.

I think he looks a lot like Matt in this picture.

Here is Toby, one of our dogs. He and Christopher are best buddies.