We are still here!

I have been out of the blog world for almost a year! I was checking a friend's blog tonight and noticed that she had a link to my blog, and I realized that I have not posted in a long time. If you are reading this right now, you did not give up on me (or you have blogroll and it automatically sent you an email).

Here are a few pics from this school year. We have been incredibly blessed with the opportunity for our boys to attend Children's Discovery Center at First Baptist Irving. It is a Montessori school with a 33 year track record in Irving. This is its first year to be located at First Irving, and I am so grateful. Both of my boys, preschooler and kindergartener are less than a football field from me all day long. I can sneak a peek of them throughout the day or help in their classroom during my lunch. It has made having a Kindergartener so much easier this year. Not only that, but the boys LOVE going to school. They are sad when it is an "S" day (Saturday or Sunday) because they don't get to go to school. That is a good problem to have!

Gabe got to take his class bear, Ranger bear, home for the weekend. Peter set up the tent in our backyard for them to camp out...it lasted a few hours until a storm rolled in.

















On the weekend that Josh got to bring his class bear, Puffy, home, his school had a Fun Run. Puffy made it to the starting line and then had to take a seat so Josh could run the race. Josh did a great job and finished his mile in 8 min 42 seconds. He came in first for all of the preschool and kindergarteners in his school. We were so proud of his hard work of training and finishing the race!





























































The boys enjoyed a day at the Pumpkin Patch with their CDC friends!































































The boys dressed up for CDC's Fall Festival...my superheroes were actually in the mood to pose!

Glory to God in the Highest

Merry Christmas! We pray that this Christmas is a wonderful time of reflecting on the incredible sacrifice Jesus made for us when He wrapped himself in flesh and took on the form of a man... "Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord." Luke 2:11

It has been so nice spending extra time with our family this week. On Thursday afternoon we tackled making cinnamon rolls from scratch. It is quite a long process, but Pioneer Woman's cookbook walked us through it! It was great how much the boys wanted to help. We were baking them for Christmas morning breakfast, but of course we have had a few already!


Tonight after Christmas Eve service at First Baptist Euless, we came home and let the boys open one present...pajamas and slippers. Here they are with their new loot!

Visit with Santa

We took a trip to Grapevine (Christmas Capital of Texas, or so they claim) on Saturday. Peter's mom was in town, so we did a little shopping and enjoyed the decorations on Main Street. We walked in one store and Santa Claus was sitting there! Joshua was very excited to see him...let's just say that Gabe was not so excited. Santa asked Josh what his name is, how old he is, and what he wants for Christmas. My shy son, who does not usually give strangers the time of day, answered all of those questions confidently!

"I am four years old."

"Hmmm. I would like a pogo stick...a sleigh like yours...and a Christmas tree in my room." Santa gave Joshua a sleigh bell on a ribbon, and told him he can hang it on his Christmas tree in his room when he gets it.

And a final picture with Santa. We did not get any pictures with Gabe and Santa...he did not even want to go in the store!

Gabe-isms

It is obviously time for a new post...my how this last year has flown by! I'm not going to try to recap 2010 on the blog, but I did want to post a few things about what the boys have been up to as we are getting ready for Christmas. This post is titled "Gabe-isms" because Gabe seems to have a way with words lately!

Since August, the boys began asking to play with a plush nativity scene and all of the people are finger puppets. They really enjoyed it last Christmas, but it has since been put in a box somewhere in the attic. They have continued asking for it several times a week, in which we respond, after Thanksgiving when we get our decorations down from the attic. The cute part is that Gabe asks for "the activity scene when baby Jesus was boring." Josh is probably the one who taught him "activity scene" but he is now able to say "nativity scene." We are hoping that Gabe learns this year that the nativity was anything but boring!

On Wednesday night we got all of the Christmas boxes down from the attic and Peter & I were so excited for the boys to find the nativity scene. I mean, with all of the anticipation built up since August, they should be ecstatic to finally have it in their hands! Here is a pic of them following Peter up into the attic.

And the moment we've all been waiting for...

See the nativity scene in the top left corner of the box? Yes, that is Joshua reaching for something else in that same box. They did not care at all that they were finally getting to see and play with the nativity scene! (Note: they have since played with it)

2nd Gabe-ism: When talking about the Christmas story last week, we were prodding the boys to tell us the parts of the story that they remember. We asked, "Who were Jesus' parents?" to which Gabe replied "Mary and Jo-fish"...followed by lots of giggles from Joshua and all the adults in the room.

3rd Gabe-ism: We were unwrapping ornaments to put on the tree and Gabe pulled out this ornament...Gabe said, "Dad, can you fix my 'cracker nut' please?"

And a few things about Josh...He has become quite meticulous in some things, like hanging ornaments. He loved it this year! Notice the high concentration of ornaments in that one area.

I walked in the kitchen to find Joshua had neatly organized all of the magnets on the refrigerator by color! Love it!

Happy 2nd Birthday, Gabriel!

Happy birthday, to my sweet, baby boy! We can't believe you are already 2 years old. It seems like yesterday we were checking into the hospital at this time to wait for the c-section. You have always had a fun personality that attracts the stares and laughter of those around you. That has been multiplied in the last several months as you have learned that you can make silly faces or that you can dance a jig in the living room, and people laugh at you. Whatever you do, you are having fun!

Recently you have decided that sleeping in your crib is not so much fun and you prefer to sleep in bed with your big brother. It is very sweet that you love him so much and want to be with him at all hours of the day and night!

You are a smart boy and you love to talk! You repeat as much as you can from what you hear around you. You can count to five, know your colors (most of the time), and are very good at matching games. It is so fun to see each development you make!

You are a joy to our family, and we cannot imagine our family without you! Thank you for being our sweet, cuddly boy!

Love,

Daddy and Mommy

Note from Joe's Parents

"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. " 2 Corinthians 4:18

Continue to keep updated on the search for Joe at http://www.findjoehouston.blogspot.com/. Joe's parents are such a shining light in the darkness, as they are clearly putting their trust and hope in the Lord during this incredibly difficult time. On Tuesday, Joe's parents wrote this letter for the blog and I wanted to post it here as well:

Personal letter from Joe's parents, John and Glyndell Houston
Hi, I'm Joe's mom, and I speak for his dad as well. We wanted to share with you that our son, Joe, is not eternally lost, just physically lost. He gave His life to Jesus Christ and is living eternally with Him whether physically still on this earth or not. He is safe, secure, loved and kept by the hand of God Himself. It is our wish that anyone reading this blog or connected with this journey in any way have that same assurance from Christ that when you die you will be absent from your body, but eternally present with the Lord. 2 Corinthians 5:8If you cannot say this about your life and you haven't given your heart to Jesus Christ, please call one of us and talk to us. We will be overjoyed to discuss this with you. Contact Amy on this blog and she will help us get in contact with you. Jesus is pursuing His lost child even more than we are pursuing our lost child. Please take time to consider this for yourself. Read 2 Corinthians 4.

Love and prayers,
Glyndell & John Houston

Lt. John Joseph Houston

Today is the 10th day in the search for our friend, Joe Houston, a Navy pilot. He and his co-pilot, Bret Miller, were on a training mission off the coast of Corpus Christi last Wednesday. Bret's body was found last Friday in the water, and a memorial service was held for him yesterday. Pray in faith today, knowing that God can perform a miracle and reveal Joe alive today. There have been many pockets of fresh water and wildlife found on San Jose Island, where they believe he may be. The civilian searchers will be covering the last 7 square miles of island today, and particularly an area where they believe he may be. Follow this link to the search blog, http://www.findjoehouston.blogspot.com/ where you can stay updated with search information and prayer needs.

Please be in prayer for Joey's parents, brother, son, and Jenn Todoroff, Joe's fiance. It has been an incredibly hard week and a half, but the Lord has sustained them. I have been amazed at the grace He has given them, and they are giving Him all the glory. It is a beautiful story of how God gives us grace in our weakness, and strength when we are in the midst of trials.

Fall-A-Palooza

Josh and Gabe were scuba divers for our church's Fall-A-Palooza. These two pictures were taken during one of the five minutes Joshua wore the full costume. As soon as we walked inside, he saw a large inflatable obstacle course, and took everything off except his shirt and pants. Poor Gabe was not in the mood to be dressed up and fought every attempt at putting his oxygen tank, goggles and flippers on. It was fun to see how into the games they were this year. Even Gabe went "fishing", played bean bag toss, and ring toss. It was a very fun night!

Potty Training - Check!

I have been pretty relaxed regarding Joshua's potty training, but secretly wondering if he would ever be out of diapers! Joshua finally decided that he was ready for underwear a few weeks ago. He has gone through phases over the last 8 months or so where he was interested in going potty and wearing underwear, but this time it is for real. He is very proud about wearing underwear. The other day, he saw his friend Tobias, and immediately told him that he was in big boy Wall E underwear. At KDO, he walked in his classroom, told his teacher that he was wearing Incredibles underwear and asked if she wanted to see. The funny thing is that as soon as Joshua made this switch, Gabe began asking to go potty. He has gone everyday at least once for the last five days. I haven't changed a poopy diaper in three days and I am seeing the light at the end of the diaper tunnel! Maybe little brother won't take so long to potty train!

Underwear & Tents

The title of this post originates from about 15 years ago in the home of the Blume Family. Becky, a good friend of mine and Peter, has four younger brothers. Her brothers invited Peter, on several occassions during high school to join in on "Underwear and Tents" nights with the boys. I don't really know what went on, but I imagine that it looked like our house last night (replace diapers for underwear). We set up a tent in our living room, which pretty much took up the entire room. The boys loved setting it up and playing in it. They were having so much fun and couldn't settle down that Gabe had to go to his crib and Josh fell asleep watching a movie.

We are looking foward to many more Underwear & Tents nights in the Murrell house!

Summer Update

What has happened that this blog title is "Summer Update"?! I guess a girl needs to update her blog at least once every two to three months or so. This post may be way too long with pictures, but there are so many cute ones to share!

Here are a few pictures promised from the last post. These are from Gabe's stay in the hospital. When I was taking the pictures, I told him that I had to document his first and ONLY trip to the ER/hospital. Somehow I have a feeling that there will be more trips in the future.

Here is Gabe in the ER...this tiny bottle of Pedialyte was the only thing that made him stop crying.

Gabe was actually feeling better in the picture, but it looks so sad that he had his hand with the IV in it and taped down to a splint. They had to do that because he managed to rip the IV out the first time.

And this was the exciting ride OUT of the hospital! Not bad to ride to the hospital in a red ambulance and out of the hospital in a cute red wagon.

Now on to happier moments in June. Father's Day was such a fun day. Sunday morning was packed with activities at church, but we had a nice lunch at our house with the Murrells. It was fun for Bill to have all of his kids in one place.

Peter and Joshua...

Peter and Gabe...

My dad's birthday is June 28th but we had a late celebration with him. We made him an Oreo pudding pie. As you can tell, the boys just couldn't wait to dig in!

A very fun part of our summer has been enjoying extra boys on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I have been babysitting the Hendrix boys; Toby is almost two years older than Joshua, and Bear & Gabe are only 2 weeks apart in age. Here are some of our fun outings...

Toby and Joshua at our church's playground...

We enjoyed a mid-morning trip to a duck pond and park. By the time we left it was over 100 degrees and the car ride home smelled like sweaty boys! Bear was so sweet to share some of the stale bread with Gabe...

Toby and Joshua spotted a cute squirrel who also loved the bread!

Joshua showing off his new super big smile. I love it when he smiles so big it makes his eyes squint!

We also went to a cute sprinkler park...it was a short-lived outing because of an accident with Gabe. I have been wondering if I should even write about this because of some guilt I have felt over the situation...I am pretty sure every mom goes through this at some point when one of their children gets hurt. But, if this story helps another child avoid an injury, then it it worth telling! Gabe, Josh & Toby were running around the sprinkler park with no shoes on, and I didn't think anything of it because they were in water. Josh and Toby had run over to a nearby playground and sandbox, and Gabe followed behind. But Gabe happened to walk right over a metal grate that was on the ground in between the sprinkler area and the sand box. I guess as soon as he felt the hot sensation on his feet, he froze and began to scream. I immediately ran over there and realized what had happened. I felt the grate and it was burning hot, and this was at 10:15am. His feet formed blisters immediately and I took him to the doctor.

His feet healed even quicker than the doctor expected and has not had any permanent damage. Now, I am much more cautious about the environment we are in and check everything out before hand...I am constantly checking the temperature of the play equipment the boys are on and anything else around...and we wear shoes to sprinkler parks!

More updates to come!

Update from our world!

I know, I know! I have wanted to blog many times in the last month, but there is always something that comes up. I am going to give you a quick update about what's been going on...each of these things should be a post in and of themselves. Sorry for no pictures (I got a new camera and haven't been able to figure out how to download them yet).

~One of the biggest changes for us is that we have stepped out of the role of being a CARES Team for Apartment Life and have moved to a house in Irving. It is bitter sweet to not serve in this capacity anymore, but we are excited to still be connected to Apartment Life. Peter is going to be the director for the 8 CARES teams that are members of our church. It is really amazing that there are so many teams from our church and we are excited to all partner together to impact the kingdom!
~We closed on our house the end of February and have been making changes/improvements to it ever since. Peter has been working like a dog on this project and has done an amazing job! When I get the pics off my camera, I will post some before and after pictures. We moved in the house the beginning of May and have been slowly getting settled in, amidst paint cans, ladders, and lots of tools! It is so nice to be just a few miles from our church and to live close to the students and families that we minister with.
~We celebrated Joshua's 3rd birthday on May 5th...how is it possible that he is already 3 years old?! He is at such a fun age, wanting to be so independent and explore everything. He and Gabriel are becoming friends and it is so special to watch that happen.
~Joshua performed in his first school program for Kid's Day Out. He was so precious singing four songs that they had learned throughout the year. I have video of that to post as well.
~Peter had surgery on his right hand due to tendinitis. He has been working so hard on the house and other projects with a hurting hand, so it has been nice to have some relief from that pain.
~Gabriel is bringing our latest news. He has had breathing difficulties for months now, having to be on breathing treatments when a cold sets in. It seems like he struggled with it often throughout the winter months this year. He hadn't had a breathing treatment in a month up until Monday night. He started having a runny nose and coughing, so we gave him two treatments. On Tuesday around lunch time his breathing became pretty rapid and shallow, so I took him into the dr, with Joshua in tow. They gave him two treatments in the office and they didn't make the difference they were hoping to see, so they told me that he was going to have to go to the hospital. Janelle came up to the dr. office and got Joshua. Peter had been in Decatur planning for an upcoming mission trip, so he was hurrying to meet us at the hospital. Gabe and I rode in the ambulance to Medical City in Dallas. We spent about seven hours in a room in the ER and then they determined that he was going to have to stay overnight. I thought he was doing much better, but he did have to have some oxygen throughout the night while he was sleeping to maintain the levels he is supposed to have. The nurse told me that he would have to be off oxygen for 24 hours before he could go home. That meant that we spent all day and night Wednesday at the hospital as well. Praise the Lord, he made it through the night last night without needing oxygen and we are just awaiting discharge papers! Please continue to pray for him and for us to have wisdom on what to do from here. Asthma does not run in our families, so we don't really have experience on how to deal with his symptoms or treatments.

So, as you can tell, it has been a busy couple of weeks, chaotic at times. The Lord has reminded me often that I need to rely on Him for strength. I have failed in that countless times and have learned some hard lessons. We are praising Him for this new day!

My God Is So Big!

There is nothing like hearing those words from the mouth of my sweet boy! I started singing "My God is So Big" to Joshua last week and he chimed right in. Apparently he already knew it from singing it in Kid's Day Out or Sunday School.

80 Wonderful Years

Today is a great day...Easter AND my Grandpa's 80th birthday! Just wanted to send a shout out to my most faithful blog reader, Grandpa Ashdown. I love you and wish I was in California today to celebrate with you. Tell Grandma hi :) This picture was from last June...Grandpa and Grandma (Grandpama, for short) with their grandkids and great grandsons.

6ft Tall Rats

Six foot tall rats are not what I think of when I picture my Disney friends Mickey & Minnie. However, a friend told me about a comedian that says that must be the way children see them. Not all children have a horrified reaction when meeting Mickey and Minnie for the first time...but mine did!

My sweet friend, Molly, works for Radio Disney and she gave us, and Janelle & Ella, tickets to go see Disney on Ice last week. As if that wasn't great enough, she also gave us tickets to the special Radio Disney pre-show where a character from the show would make an appearance. There was a room full of kids and parents, waiting in anticipation to see which characters would come. Lucky for us, it was Mickey & Minnie! Janelle somehow got at the front of the line for our kids to take pictures. Apparently that wasn't enough time for Joshua & Gabe to get adjusted to the idea of seeing them up close, because they both burst out in tears. Joshua wouldn't go closer than 10 feet from them. All this momma wanted was a picture! As Ella and Maison took a cute, smiley picture, we headed back to our table. A few minutes after we sat down, Joshua told me that he wanted to take a picture with Mickey. We headed back over to see them again. Joshua began showing resistance again, so I decided to pick him up so he would feel more comfortable. As we got closer to Mickey & Minnie, Joshua literally climbed over my shoulder to get away and I had ahold of his knees. Janelle snapped a few pictures and I got what I wanted...just no smiles!

I love Mickey & Minnie's reaction to Joshua's exit strategy!

Maison & Ella's cute picture...

The show did not disappoint! It kept all of the kids' attention the entire time (except for Gabe's 40 minute nap). The Stitch (from Lilo & Stitch) snow cone also helped!

The car ride to the show...

After the show...

Thanks, Molly, for a fun night! They loved it!