Let's Rodeo!

What do I want to look at next, chickens, cows,
or rabbits? Who am I kidding, take me to the
food booths!

Evan and Torin plowing the fields.
Evan loves tractors so much that he cried
when I made him get off of it.

This is Evan's future wife, Madison.
Don't they make a great couple!

The kids and I went to the Houston Rodeo with several
of our friends. Evan's favorite part was petting the pigs
and goats. He tried to pick them up and carry them around.

Torinzilla

Evan got a "new" train track today. I spent
about 30 minutes getting it all set up when
Torin destroyed it.

At this point there was quite a bit of track
still assembled.

Torin is eating the tree.

Blue Bonnets

Evan rarely looks at the camera lately.
Even so, I really like this picture.

We went and took blue bonnet pictures a little
over a week ago. It's so hard to get the boys
to look at the camera together.

Classic Torin grin.

I think that this picture is just so beautiful.
My boys look so peaceful and innocent.
Sometimes I miss childhood.

This photo is off the men and women who were
awarded the Silver Snoopy Award and the astronauts
who presented them.

We got to go on stage with Justin when he was presented
his award. The director of JSC asked me if he could
hold Torin. I warned him that I was not responsible
if he spit up on his nice suit.


Justin was nominated for this award by one of his co-workers.
Only 1% of all Nasa and contract employees are honored with
this award each year. You are only allowed to receive
one Silver Snoopy Award in your lifetime. If you are interested
in finding out more info on this award, look it up on Wikipedia.

Pictures of the Boys

I guess the lion cub had an itch that needed scratching.

Torin and his cousin Gavin was playing their
first game of soccer. I'm sure Torin would
have won the game.

Stopping long enough to give Mommy a quizzical
look before getting back to more important things, playing.

I know you can't see the action, but this is Torin
crawling in his big brother's room. He just started
crawling a few weeks ago.

Evan's New Train Table

We bought Evan a train table in January.

At first, he was so good about keeping the pieces
on the table. Now he drags them all over the house.

Evan admiring his handy work.

The Many Hair Styles of Torin

This is Torin's regular hair style.
His hair naturally lays flat on his forehead.

I decided to have a little fun with Torin's hair
before we got his first hair cut.
Here is his faux-hawk.

Here is his 1950's "Leave it to Beaver" style.

This is his Eddie Munster look.


I have to admit that I had fun playing with his hair.
Evan's hair was so coarse that I never could have fun
playing with it. Torin got his first hair cut about
a month after I took these pictures. I will post pictures
of his new hairdo as soon as I find Justin's camera.

Family Update

I apologize for how long it has taken me to put up a new post. Things have been crazy lately!
Torin has been sick with a cold for almost three months now. Just as he starts to get better, he catches another cold. He caught another one last week and has passed it on to me. Even though he has been sick, he has been a trooper. He still smiles, coos, and snuggles with us (through all the coughs and snot).

Last week Torin said his first word, dada. This week he has made a great deal of progress with crawling. He can pretty much crawl anywhere in the house. Granted, his crawl is quite interesting. He will start out crawling like a typical baby and then he tries to crawl on his hands and feet or on one knee and one foot. Torin also pulled himself up into standing position this week. That boy needs to slow down! He is growing way too fast.

Evan has been driving me a little nutty these past few weeks. He has definitely become the jealous older brother. I think he got spoiled to having two parents home during the Christmas break. He was able to get all the attention that he wanted then. Now that it is down to one parent being home during the day, he is having difficulty sharing my attention. Don't get me wrong, Evan loves his baby brother. He just doesn't want to share Mommy with him.

Here are some of the latest things that Evan has been up to lately (other than giving Mommy more gray hair). He LOVES to climb. He climbs on top of our kitchen counter, table, dresser, and even his bunk bed. We had the ladder side of the bunk facing the wall so he learned how to scale up the side of it. We turned the bed around so that he can climb the ladder to get to the top (safer alternative to climbing up the side). Evan's favorite cartoon is Tigger and Pooh. He watches at least one episode a day. This week, he has started bouncing around the house like Tigger. It's pretty cute! I just wish I had half the energy he has.

Although his speech has improved, Evan still has some funny ways of saying things. Here are some of my favorite sayings. "Honk the corn (horn)." "I hicked the ball." "Thats draindrous (dangerous)!" "Ya (courtesy of the Swedish pig on Shrek)." "You play the caputer (computer)?"
I think I will be a little sad when all of the cute little speech issues go away.

Justin has been doing well. He just found out that he will receive the Silver Snoopy award from Nasa at a ceremony this Wednesday. I found out that this is a pretty big deal. Only 1% of Nasa's employees and their contract employee can receive this award each year. That is a pretty small number considering how many people work directly and indirectly for Nasa. It's nice that Justin is going to get recongnized for all of the hard work that he does to keep the Space Station functional.

Well, that is about all that is new with us. I promise that I will try to update the blog a little more often.