Happy Birthday Friend!

I can only think of a couple people who are as big of freaks about their birthdays as I am (2 actually, Amy Shelton and Courtney Roberts) and TODAY is Courtney's birthday!!! It also happens to be my half birthday, and no, I don't really celebrate half birthdays, but it's still kind of cool that I have two friends whose birthdays are on my half birthday (Happy Birthday DREW!!!). But, I want to take this opportunity to wish Courtney a very special day and tell her how much I love her!!!

For some reason, when you get married it gets even harder to make friends because not only do you have to click with someone, but you have the click with their spouse and your spouse has to click with both of them, it just adds a whole different dynamic to the friend making process. In fact, I can only think of a handful of couples to where all the factors have lined up. But, Josh and Courtney are definitely one of those couples.

As we've been preparing ourselves to close our San Antonio "life-chapter," I've been getting pretty emotional about leaving our friends here (shocking I know, me emotional?) I just am overwhelmed looking back over our lives to see how God has provided for us no matter where we are. I have to confess that I drug my feet quite stubbornly when we moved here to San Antonio, but once we arrived God blessed us immediately...from giving us a great place to live, friends, a wonderful church home and a son, which we didn't even have to wait nine months to meet :) With all those blessings, we also have faced lots of challenges over the past 2 1/2 years and we were forced to learn a hard lesson....how to ask for help! I know it is our, as I'm sure it is for most people, tendency to want to be the ones who "have it all together" (HA!) and we'd just rather be serving than the ones being served. But, out of all the lessons (and let me tell you, there have been quite a few) that we have learned here, that is definitely the one that really stands out. In learning that lesson, we also have realized that it takes a special kind of friend to let your guard down with and ask when you need something. And usually they're only the friends that you have a long history with, but that is what has been so wonderful about San Antonio, God gave us that special connection with people here without having to have a long history, the kind of relationships that only he can ordain.

So, I would like to thank ALL of our wonderful San Antonio friends for seeing us through one crisis after another during out time here and for loving us even though we so DON'T have it all together :)

Courtney, Happy 25th Birthday!!! Brad and I feel so lucky to have you and Josh in our lives!

Grayson Has a Lovey

Everyone talks about how their child has a special blankie or animal that they carry around with them all the time, or that they just have to sleep with. Thus far, Gray has not really cared about any of his stuffed animals, which is why I questioned why he kept getting them as gifts. But, all of a sudden a week or two ago, he decided he was attached to one of his stuffed animals. Which one.....BOZ....now for those of you not familiar, Boz, the big green bear, is a Christian series of books and videos. They teach not only family values and the love of God, but also numbers, colors, shapes and all the educational things you find on Sesame street. It's by far one of both mine and Grayson's favorite things that we've discovered.

So, for Christmas my sister and David added to our Boz collection with a couple new videos and a stuffed animal Boz. Grayson at the time treated it like any other stuffed animal he owns (ignored it) so I stuck it up in his stuffed animal holder on the back of his door. Just the other day, I heard him in his room screaming something that started with a "B". Now, you have to understand, everything in Grayson's world sounds a lot like "Ba"....for Ball, Bottle, Bath...the list goes on. But, when I went in there to check on him, he was standing behind his door yelling "Ba, Boz, Ba" and pointing to the green bear. I got it down for him, and every since the thing has been attached to his hip.

Boz comes to the high chair for breakfast, he rides in the car with us, he goes to pre-school, and out to dinner, he is truly one of the family! Yesterday, Grayson woke up with a disastrous diaper (which happens on occassion) but the lovely part about this morning was that it had actually come off of him and was all the way down his leg by the time he woke up. So, of course, we had to do an emergency load of laundry with not only his PJs but blankets, sheets, matress cover, and oh yes, Boz. Well, during the time it took for Boz to finish his cycles in the washer & dryer, you would have thought the sky was falling. Every 15 mins, Gray was walking over to the laundry room asking if Boz was done. He was having a very hard time understanding why Boz's bath was taking so much longer than Grayson's baths normally take.

But, we survived and in just a few weeks the Smiths, including Boz, will be starting a new life in Houston!

Terrible Twos....Here we Come

A few days before Christmas, we had our first incident of Grayson climbing out of his crib. We knew it would happen someday, but we didn't think it would be as early as 21 months. Luckily, thus far, it was a one day fluke, but we're trying to prepare outselves for it to become habit. I mean, what do you do when a child climbs out of their crib? Do they make cages to keep them in? Don't worry, we would never really seriously cage our child, although there are moments where the thought crosses our minds.

After having a wonderful, healthy Christmas, Grayson rang in the New Year with a yucky case of RSV. For those of you who aren't parents, it's an upper-respiratory bronchial virus which in our case requires daily breathing treatments. The good news (haha) is that the medicine in the breathing treatments is a stimulant, which makes our already very active boy into a tornado. Seriously, we're giving a child who is already 110% boy a stimulant, it's really quite a hilarious concept. I don't know if the med is giving him super-child powers too, but he started opening up our child locks this week that we have on our doors. Child proof locks were the best invention ever from the time Gray was about 15/16 months until now.....now nothing is safe, I mean NOTHING! Some children are early at speaking and reading...ours is a little Houdini protege.

Besides getting into EVERYTHING, Gray is becoming such a little helper. Tonight when I was dumping our smaller trash cans into the main one, he insisted on carrying the smaller ones and dumping them for me and then taking them back to their original rooms. It was so cute! He was huffing and puffing trying to carry our heavy bathroom one, which I'm sure is great for him when the poor thing is already struggling to breath. But, I think having a boy may come in handy with house hold chores as he gets older :)

In other news from the Smiths, Brad and I celebrate four wonderful (most days anyway)years of marriage tomorrow! I can't belive it has been four years! And in those four years, we have lived in three cities and about to move to our fourth, plus three apartments and a house, about to move to our fifth dwelling place. That's got to be some kind of record. I have informed my husband that I'd rather not keep up this migrating record in the future. Our house goes on the market on Thursday, please keep us in your prayers for a quick sale. While we love our San Antonio friends and are not excited to leave them, Brad will have to start traveling to Houston soon regardless if we've sold our house or not. We do not want to do the long distance family thing for long!