Brian opens his presents

Although we started celebrating Brian turning 1 year old when the Fuller family was around yesterday was his actual birthday. He got muffins for breakfast (fyi, don't put a candle into a warm muffin...it will melt on the inside), grilled cheese for lunch and Grandma and Grandpa Fuller came over for fajitas and ice cream for dinner. Aaron loves all of Brian's presents and opened most of them for him too. I'm trying to be the referee today as Aaron cries when Brian wants to play with one of his own presents. Here's some cute shots of how the evening went!

Running through the sprinkler

Tuesday it was hot! We've had a week or more where the heat index has been 105+. We decided to run through the sprinklers and have a good time. We ate homemade popsicles, turned the slide into a waterslide, had running races and hung out in the shade. Brian didn't like being in the grass, but Aaron, Mommy and Daddy loved it all!

Reality TV

Paul took these videos a week ago while I was at BUNCO. I appologize Sissy if you don't get your hours in today!

This first one is of Brian walking and Aaron encouraging him.


Next we have Aaron reading his shirt (it says "Reading Club" by the way)


Lastly we have Aaron reading one of his favorite books Tickle the Duck

My brother got an iMac

My sister-in-law Kayleen has been playing with it and just made this movie about our time at the lake house. It's so cute I had to post it on my blog too.

Fuller Family Vacation

Jen's siblings and their spouses, Marcia and John and Marc and Kayleen, were in town this past week for the Fuller family vacation. We spent most of our time at Lake Conroe and although the jetski was in the shop and we didn't get the boat fixed until Friday night we had a good time just relaxing together. While we were all together we celebrated Dad's 60th birthday (July 28) and Brian's 1st birthday (August 16). Here is a picture and video of Brian eating his birthday cupcake!





Aaron and Brian had a lot of fun with their Aunts and Uncles. Paul and I of course were happy to let others play with them! Here's a few pics of the boys with their extended family.
Uncle John and Aaron

Aunt Nancy and Brian

Uncle Marc, Aunt Kayleen & Brian

Aunt Sissy and Brian


Of course we had to get a family group picture in!
The Richard Fuller Family




As for an update on my Dad: he has had tons of doctor appointments and both of my siblings and their spouses were able to go with him to spend more time with him. Dad is actually doing pretty well right now. After a frustrating full week in the hospital last month and then having to go back every day last week for IV antibiotics he's finally acting more like himself. He had a PET scan to tell us if the chemo was working and while the scan showed sites still active, they said the disease has decreased so we are encouraged. The doctor did worry about how bad this last round of chemo beat him up, so we're taking a 3 week break before we start any more treatment...that should give him a chance to get his strength back.

I love them!

I love my children. But is it ok for me to love them more when they are both asleep?

Swimming Lessons, Chuck E Cheese and the Beard

Yesterday Aaron had his 6th swimming lesson. He has a love/hate relationship to swimming lessons. Every time I tell him he has a swimming lesson he begins crying because he doesn't want to go. He usually cries on and off during the lesson, but after he always tells me he had a good time. You can see from the pictures that he is doing a great job kicking, getting his feet to come out of the water, and with the kick board can motor around the pool by himself pretty well! He still doesn't like to go underwater and wants to take a break every 2 minutes or have cuddles or sit on Chandler's lap, but he is getting better and we'll have a few more lessons and he'll do fine.


The lesson yesterday was in the afternoon and Paul was able to come with us so we finally have a picture of the beard to show you. I do think he looks handsome and I'm always amazed at how much red hair there is in his beard. I guess our kids could have any color hair!


We bribed Aaron yesterday that if he didn't cry, then after his lesson we could go to Chuck E Cheese. He's been doing "ok" with potty training (Only one or 2 accidents a day) and we thought he deserved a reward. Here's 2 of the pictures we loved. The first one was on a machine that rocked back and forth. Brian had never been on something like this before and he absolutely loved it. He had amazing smiles!


This last one is of Aaron in this tunnel system up above our heads. He had to climb up there and play around completely on his own. Once up there is no way for us to get up there if there is a problem. We forgot to make him take his shoes off before he got in and so he took them off somewhere in the tunnel system. We had to send him back up again to try to retrieve them!
It was a fun evening and we were all pretty tired when we got home. I'm sure we do it again soon though!

Scout Camp 2007

I spent the week of the 4th of July at Scout Camp. One of the blessings of my calling as Assistant Scoutmaster is to take a week of vacation to spend sleeping in a spider-infested tent during the sweltering Texas summer weather, and eating really bad camp food. It was so much fun! Six scouts and two Scoutmasters of Troop 1065 went to the El Rancho Cima Scout Camp in Fischer Texas about 180 miles north west of Houston. Technically this is the Texas Hill Country and is very pretty.

The boys that came with us all had a good time and each earned their nick-name. Shooter, Spider, Blade, Splinter, Bullseye, & Freight Train had a LOT of fun.

We got rained on Monday through Thursday. Averaging 2 inches per day. Our cheap store-bought ponchos didn’t hold up. But the 55 gallon trashbags sure did the trick at keeping us dry in a pinch. Our musty BSA issue tents kept our gear dry through the torrents of rain. That much rain raised the level of the river... and the current was pretty fast making the mile swim more challenging than usual. Freight Train pulled off the mile swim with a time just over 2 hours.

We took a short 5 mile night hike they call the “Death March.” It sounds torturous, but in reality was closer to a fast walk through a meadow. But it wouldn’t sound very cool calling it the Meadow Mosey. My hiking boots that I have had for 14 years met their demise on that hike, so I guess it was plenty vigorous. Breaking in new boots is never fun.

Seven days without shaving gave me a good start at growing my beard. I don't know how long I will keep it. But for now it is fun. Jen says I look handsome. And I think I am through the itchy phase.

As much fun as I had, coming home from scout camp gives new appreciation to home cooked meals a loving spouse... and air conditioning.

Cruising Fun!

Paul and I will have been married for 5 years this next Thanksgiving so we are going to go on another honeymoon. We have booked a trip on Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and will leave on January 20th for a 7 night cruise. Our itinerary is to travel from Galveston to Jamaica to Grand Cayman to Cozumel, Mexico and back to Galveston. We are so excited! Does anyone want to join us?

On another note, in case anyone wanted to know, we also purchased plane tickets to go to Utah for Thanksgiving. See you then!

Brian's First Steps!!!!

I was at my parents house this morning and Brian took his first steps. At first it was just one, then 2, then 3. Now if I place him in the middle of the room he will take 4 or 5 steps to get to me. It's totally cute. Of course now I'll have to keep a closer eye on him, but it's awesome. Here are 2 pictures, and if I can get the video on I'll do that too. Both of the pictures were taken midstep and the video shows him taking a few steps. Love it!

Update on Jen's Dad

People ask all the time, so I thought I'd give a brief update on my dad here.

He's about to start his 4th round of Chemo next week. He should be having another PET scan soon, which will show us if the Chemo is working or not. The doctors say that they think it is working since his pain is being managed and they say if the tumors were getting bigger he would be in unbearable pain. Most of the time he has no pain though since he is on great pain killers.

He has all the typical side effects of Chemo. He has very little energy, he get nauseated, and he doesn't feel like eating much. Because of all that he's lost 60 pounds and needs new clothes! He's been quite anemic this past month and has had 2 blood transfusions to help that problem. He has been a little loopy sometimes (although it's not THAT different from his normal loopiness!). He'll talk about really random things and sometimes he sees things that aren't there, but usually it's just that he's drifting in and out of sleep so easily and talks about his dreams so what he talks about doesn't make sense to us.

We are in relatively good spirits though, except for the few times we aren't. We are very grateful to everyone who continues to offer their support through visits, cards, e-mails, and especially prayers. We love you all and continue to pray for the best. I'll let people know when there's more news to tell.

Let's Go Astros!

Last night Paul and I went to the Houston Astros Baseball game and it was AWESOME! Craig Biggio, the Astros 2nd baseman, had a 5 hit game which put him as the 27th person in history to hit 3,000 hits.

Hit # 3000

Witnesses

It was also the second time in his 20 year career that he hit 5 hits in one game. The game went into extra innings and was won by the Astros in the 11th inning by a grandslam homerun. We are so glad that we were able to go to the game.

Aaron's Testimony

I just have a quick story to share that happened today.

As most of you know, Aaron LOVES The Book of Mormon. He wanted me to read it to him today so after I put Brian down and started the laundry we began to read. We ended up reading in Ether 12:6 which says:

And now, I, Moroni, would speak somewhat concerning these things; I would show unto the world that afaith is things which are bhoped for and cnot seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no dwitness until after the etrial of your faith.

I was trying to explain this verse to him and the following conversation took place.

Mommy: Do you believe in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost?
Aaron: Yes.
Mommy: Have you ever seen Heavenly Father?
Aaron: Yes.
Mommy: Where have you seen Heavenly Father?
Aaron: In heaven.
Mommy: Do you remember seeing Heavenly Father or have you just heard stories?
Aaron: Remember.
Mommy: What does Heavenly Father look like?
Aaron: White.

I couldn't argue with him or discredit him at all. Maybe he does remember seeing Heavenly Father in Heaven, or maybe he doesn't, but it brought me to tears just thinking about this precious child and the testimony he has. He is more immersed in the gospel than I am and I learn from him constantly. He's so excited about having Family Home Evening tonight...I guess I'd better prepare a lesson!

Thomas Family Vacation Part 2

Our vacation is almost over, we leave to go back to Houston early tomorrow morning and we are trying to pack everything up, but we wanted to post one more blog describing everything we've done in the past week. It has been a blast!

We went up to Park City, Utah for 3 days. Here's a great picture of Brian with his cousin Lucy. She is about 5 months older than he is, but they played together well and would crawl around together, bang on the walls and windows together, and just stare at each other in their strollers and point at each other. It was totally cute!



While in Park City, we participated in the Thomas Family Invitational, an 11 event tournament which included games of yatzee, shut the box, poker, battle (rock, paper, scissors), radio game, uno, mini golf, a human maze, egyptian rats crew, trivial pursuit, and a 400 meter run. Our 8 year old niece Kate came in first, Jen got second and Paul made his showing at 10th out of 11 participants. Here are some pictures from the tournament. Note: there was some handicapping of the scores to allow the younger, or more out of shape participants to compete.


Shut-the-Box


Egtyptian Rats Crew




The Human Maze


Poker

Sunday, of course, was Fathers Day and it was also Paul's sister Sara's mission farwell. As a Fathers Day gift for Grandpa Thomas David (that's what Aaron calls him now) we took a picture of all the grandkids together and framed it nicely. Here's the shot we ended up using.


Saturday we went to the church history museum with the "cousins" as Aaron refers to them. Here's a picture of Aaron in the kids section, but it looks like he's infront of the tabernacle choir. We weren't there long and look forward to going back because there is so much fun stuff to look at there!


And here's a picture of the whole family together after Sara's farewell.


Sara was set apart as a missionary last night and it was one of the most spiritual meetings I've ever attended. Everyone in the family bore their testimony and the spirit present was just amazing. We are all very proud of Sara for going on a mission and will do our best to write her often and send her cute packages.

Well, that's about all I have for now. We look forward to being home again tomorrow, but have had a great time in Utah visiting family, friends, and being with loved ones.

Thomas Family Vacation Part 1

We are still in the middle of our vacation, but we had to start posting some of the exciting things we've done so far.

We started off coming out here earlier than anticipated because of Grandma Cole's passing. We miss her a lot, but it was a wonderful funeral service and we are glad she is wth Grandpa again. Paul flew back to Houston for a week while Jen, Aaron and Brian stayed in Utah with the Thomas'. We've had a great time visiting cousins, extended family and friends.

Aaron and Brian are totally enjoying being around their cousins and playing with them. Here's some pictures from our trip so far. We've got Aaron with his cousin Kate.



And Brian with Kate as well.



Aaron got a haircut! Here are some before



during



and after shots.



While we were here Kate got baptised and it was beautiful.





Today we went to the Zoo and it was a blast! Here's just a few shots showing how much fun we had.







We're headed up to Park City tomorrow for the Thomas Family Vacation and we will try to post more after that and maybe even more after Sara (Paul's sister) has her mission farwell on Sunday.