February 19 - My baby girl turns 31

My baby girl, Lindsey Nicole, is turning 31 years old!  I think she realizes, now that she has Benjamin and is ready to have another baby, how fast time passes.  Your kids seem to grow up so quickly.  As I was looking through old photos for this blog, I had to smile when I saw this picture of Lindsey and the 'Stang'.   Her brothers kidded her about it... but it was her first car!  That's Mizuzu getting in.  Mizuzu was our foreign exchange student from Japan.

Lindsey has always been athletic...loving sports, at least loving playing sports!  She played soccer, basketball, volleyball, and softball in school...and soccer in college.  Kickboxing was not one of her sports, but Karate was!

1987

This was Mimi...my mom's mom, Lindsey's great grandmother.  I loved her so incredibly much, that I knew when I had grandchildren, I wanted to be 'Mimi' to them.

Lindsey and Mimi

Lindsey and her cousin, Lissette.  Lissette is a year older than Lindsey, turning 32 on Valentine's Day.  Lissette and Lindsey were always vying for Grandpa's lap. 

Loving sports and family...here is Lindsey with Sami at a Texas Ranger's baseball game in Arlington, TX.

Lindsey was an excellent skier.  One trip to the mountain, she decided to try snowboarding because her friend, Amy, nope, that friend was Manka, (aka Lindsey) was going with us.  Amy Manka snowboarded and convinced Lindsey to try.  At the end of the day, Lindsey told me she had wasted a skiing day.  The next day, the snowboard was replaced with skiis!

This is not the order of their birth!  Lindsey, Joshua, and Gabe.

I'm not sure what's going on in this picture, but Lindsey certainly doesn't look thrilled.

Ahhhh, now this looks happier!

Lindsey and Amy were unseparable friends from first grade through fifth or sixth grade.  They were always together. (I'm not sure whose foot that is sticking up!)

Lindsey and Heather

Colleen and Lindsey

I think this was one of Lindsey's birthdays.  On the top is Tammy, then Lindsey, Colleen, and Heather.  On the bottom is Katie, Lindsey, Amy, and Caitlin.

We had a boat for a few years.  Lindsey was a skier and a boogie-boarder!

Lindsey has always loved animals.  When we got Eskie, she would bathe him in the sink.  It was a struggle, but she persevered.  Now Fluffy gets the same treatment.

 

My brother, "Uncle John", came to San Francisco...can't remember the occasion, but Lindsey and I met him there.  We went to Sausalito where this was taken.

Lindsey and Uncle John on a boat to Alcatraz.

Lindsey and the Kato's...and Mizuzu.  The Kato's are friends of Lindsey's who live in Japan.  Lindsey stayed in their home and became friends when she did a summer exchange program.  They still keep in touch.

The Kato's with Lindsey and Mizuzu

On the cable cars in San Francisco

Lindsey has always loved history and traveling.  We made numerous drives from Texas to California, taking different routes to see different sites.  Here we are at the Royal Gorge.

 When Lindsey was a student at Cuesta or Cal Poly, Joshua and I met there to see her.

1999...one of my favorite pictures of Gabe and Lindsey

Animals...her love extended also to horses.

This was New Year's Eve...I think it was 1995.  Lindsey and Tammy

In the summer of 2000, Lindsey went to Belgium to be an au pair...a nanny.  That's a story in itself, but later in the summer, I flew over and met her.  We journeyed around Belgium, the Netherlands, England, and France.  It was my first time in Europe.  I loved being with Lindsey and seeing all the sites!

Fast forward to 2012.  Lindsey is now pregnant with her second child.  We were blessed with Benjamin in 2009. 

Lindsey and Benjamin

One of my many favorite pictures!  Right now they are 3, but soon they will be 4!

Happy 31st birthday, Lindsey!  

I love you so incredibly much!

G H L

Emerson...he has a thing for letters and numbers... He's known his ABC's, being able to recognize them, since he was 2 years old.  (He's 2 years, 9 months old now.)  He's been into spelling recently, as I blogged earlier.  Now, he's starting to write!

Amazing!

Crab

 This was our dinner Saturday night...

My guy told me I should take a picture of it and put it on the blog for Joshua... Crab is probably Joshua's favorite food on the planet!

Thanks to my buddy, Jake...

Jake and her wonderful husband, Jim...

Jim is a U.S. Marine... I don't think you're suppose to say he 'was' a Marine.  I think it's 'once a Marine, always a Marine.'  He and Joshua have a connection because of that.  Jim is also a fisherman...and the source of the crab!

Jake is only too happy to cook the crab Jim catches...and to share it with her buddy (that's me!)

Thank you, thank you, Jake and Jim!

Virginia

My baby boy...

Is leaving California...

He's so proud of his sweet wife's outlook of the news...

Erica is looking at it as an adventure...

It's not quite as easy when you're 12 years old...

But I know Thalia will do just fine...she'll meet so many new friends...learn a lot about herself... and get to experience a new part of our country!

Virginia... my friend, Jake, said it's absolutely wonderful.  I suppose I'll find that out for myself this summer!  I'll miss them even more, just knowing they're farther away!

BB...aka 'Before Babies'

I started thinking yesterday, what did I blog about before the boys came along?  I definitely have always blogged about family..but I caught myself thinking I didn't have anything to blog about since I'd covered all the recent times with the boys. 

But I blogged for 3 1/2 years before they were born... so I looked back at old posts... I found a precious video of my friend, Laner's, first grandson right after he was born (almost cried), I saw our house getting a little remodel, I saw the farm, going on a walk with Rema, lots of Camilla... just a variety of topics.  So, I decided to blog about the woodshed!

I'm sitting here on a Tuesday morning, 6:30 a.m., enjoying my coffee, with NO FIRE!  Rats!  I miss it when there's no fire in the wood stove.  Considering it's in the mid-50's outside...that's why there's no fire.  But I still miss it.

My guy has worked hard on stocking the woodshed this year.  You can see how much we've used this year -see there in the front?  The last picture was taken from the door of our family room... I should have photoshopped it so you could better see how the clouds were... beautiful...it was a blustery day, kind of like it is now, except right now, it's still dark...

Running with Papa

 Emerson was ready to run...

 and his Papa was ready to run with him...

 back and forth...

 "around the bend" as Emerson says (from Thomas the Train!)...

 It's not everyday you see people running with a blanket...

 But Emerson did... never tripping over it... not putting it down... he did look back several times to see if I was taking photos... or getting it all on video...

 Occasionally, he'd run to me and want to look at the camera to see the picture.. and then once he'd seen it, off he'd run...

 "Let's go, Papa!"

Emerson is not a quiet runner... I love hearing all his little happy noises as he runs!

 You may notice an absence of Papa in the last photos... someone was getting a bit tired from all the running...

and it wasn't Emerson!

Should I or shouldn't I?

 Emerson climbed up on the stool when he was visiting...

 He had spotted the phone and pulled it toward him...

"Ummm?  Should I or shouldn't I start pressing buttons?"

 He quickly pressed a button or two....

"Ummm?  Nothing happened.  Should I try it again?"

The phone lit up...

"Now what?" 

It was so cute...Emerson was so curious about the phone...about how it worked...