Wow....

I just love this picture of Drew. It was taken at a friend's house when all of our kids were there playing in the back yard. Not only is Sara the mom of 2 precious two-year-old twins, but she's an amazing photographer!

Thanks for capturing this sweet moment, Sara.

New Do

It was haircut day again today. We went to Mr. Larry and I told him to cut it a little shorter so his hair wouldn't hang down in his face. That's just what he did! Drew looks like a little man now. The good news is that we don't even have to comb it after bath time now!

Happy Easter

Happy Easter from our house to yours! What a wonderful day this is remembering that Christ conqured death for us so that we may live for Him.

http://www.legacybiblechurch.org/

Kiss Me...I'm (a little bit) Irish!

No pinches here, we're all green today!
Happy St. Patty's Day

Good Friends, Fun Times!

We had the greatest evening last weekend visiting the Vatinyan's in Irving. Lena and I became good friends while working at Arthur Andersen together. We met in orientation class as one of the 3 tax new hires in 1999, and we have been great friends ever since. She was even a bridesmaid in my wedding! Since moving away from Dallas when I married Andrew, I haven't seen Lena near as much as I'd like. In fact, the last time we got together was to celebrate the birth of her second son Sam...who you can see is not a baby any more. So, we were long overdue for a get-together!

Andrew and I always have so much fun spending time with Eric and Lena. They are originally from Armenia, but have been in the United States for long enough to become citizens. In fact, I remember when Lena took her citizenship exam. I was amazed at all she learned about the US & was really glad I didn't have to sit for that exam! They would have revoked my citizenship!! :) It was a hard test.

Lena, Eric, and their sons Sergei and Sam were wonderful hosts. The boys set up a big Thomas the Train traintrack for Drew to play with! And, they gave him his very own Thomas the Train riding toy that plays music and makes real train noises. Drew loved playing trains and getting to be with the big boys!

Sam, Drew, & Sergei with the trains

Sam pushing Drew on his Thomas the Train gift from the Vatinyans

Eric and Lena cooked a feast for us to enjoy!! We had shrimp cocktail and all sorts of great pastries for appetizers, then steak, asparagus, crab salad, and mashed potatoes for dinner. We brought a birthday cake to celebrate Lena's birthday which had been the weekend before we got together. Lena said that they had a fun Armenian thing the did with birthday cakes. She brought out this big tulip shaped candle and put it on the cake. Eric lit the candle, and we all stood and watched as it erupted in a mini-firework show right there in their dining room! Then, when that candle burned out, Sergei asked if they could do another one. Sure enough, a second round of firework candles appeared. We haven't laughed that hard in a long time. Luckily -- we pulled it off without setting off the fire alarm!

Thanks for a wonderful evening you guys!! Your cooking was amazing, and we loved getting to watch the boys play and catch up with you. Six years was WAY too long between visits. We can't wait for you to come see us in Sherman.

Taking a Walk

Drew is walking! He took his first unassisted steps on December 12th, and he's been perfecting his skill ever since. Actually, he wasn't so excited about walking because he is a speed crawler! But, just in the last couple of weeks he's really gotten motivated. Now he can walk across the room all by himself.

We were playing in the back yard and enjoying the beautiful weather today and I captured the little walker in action. He's still a bit wobbly, but he's definitely walking!

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Happy Valentine's Day

We had a very sweet Valentine's Day at the Bossen House. We started the party early by having Drew's playgroup friends over to decorate Valentine's cookies. Drew S, Avery, & Grace joined us one morning to make some "sweets for our sweeties". The kids played upstairs and tested out some of the fun toys Drew got for his birthday. Then, we moved downstairs and frosted cookies. The kids pretty much just ate and played with frosting...but the moms had fun decorating the cookies (or at least I did).

For Valentine's Day, Andrew gave me the sweetest present. He made a list of the 50 things he loved most about me! It was a great surprise...and a gift I'll treasure forever.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone. With lots of love from our house to yours!

More Friday Fun....

After the big playgroup Friday morning, Drew took a good nap and then we went to Griffin's Birthday Party at University of Gymnastics! Drew was a little on the young side to enjoy all the fun, but we're going to grow a little and try again because there was SO much fun stuff to see and do there. Drew loved the bouncy mats - it didn't hurt so bad to fall when attempting to walk! There was a big wedge that he could roll down, which made him laugh. Daddy let him bounce a couple of times on the long trampoline. The best part was playing with the parachute!

Happy Birthday Griffin!!!

Friday Fun!

Wow, what a day! Friday was PACKED with fun. We started the morning with our playgroup friends at the Texoma Children's Museum. Ashley suggested we try it out, and it was wonderful! It ended up being all boys because the Macha girls were sick (get well Macha girls!!).

Caeden, Drew S., Clay, and Drew all had a blast exploring the fun things to play with at the museum. There was a large wooden ship to climb on & slide down, a big wooden train, a kitchen/grocery play area, a construction work bench, a real live bunny & birds in a cage, a dentist office, a reading perch with bean bag chairs, and even a stage area where you could watch a show - or play the organ! We even got the boys to sit still long enough to take a picture together. Well, everyone but my wiggleworm sat pretty still! Fun idea Ashley!!

I "borrowed" this cute picture of Drew & Clay playing in the pirate ship from Ashley's blog.

Dallas Zoo

Andrew has the BEST work schedule ever!! He gets every other Monday off, so we've decided now that the weather is pretty nice that we're going to "explore" on Mondays when he has time off. This week, we took Drew to the Zoo. He LOVED it (actually, we all did).

We saw penguins, monkeys, elephants, giraffes, meerkats, flamingos, and so much more. Drew waved at EVERYTHING. We'd say "hi (animal)"...and he'd start waving. It was so cute.

The best part of the adventure was the aviary in the Children's Zoo. You walked in and birds started landing on your shoulders. We bought a stick of birdseed to feed them, but really, the birds were so friendly that they'd come to you whether you had food or not! It cracks me up that my big strong husband can get flustered by a little parakeet...but he does! I had to show the boys how it was done, and then they warmed up to having the feathered friends land on them as well. In fact, one of the birds took a big liking to Andrew and wouldn't leave him. The bird sat on his shoulder and would nibble on his ear and his sunglasses! Of course, all of that happened after my camera battery died. I snapped a few pictures on my cell phone, so if I can ever figure out how to get the pictures out of my phone, I'll post them eventually.

Friends!

We had a very fun impromptu dinner with the Boothe's at Cheddar's last Saturday night. Andrew and I always love hanging out with them, and Drew & Clay had a great time too. It's going to be fun to look back at the boys as they grow through the years. Here's another cute picture of the little buddies.

And just so you can see how far they've come...this was the first time they met. You could tell they were going to hit it off! Good friends are such a blessing!

Fun at Northpark!

Aunt Steph invited us to Dallas to go to the children's Valentine puppet show at Northpark Mall last week. Gram was in town too...so it was a fun family get-together. Drew met up with Avery & Julia to see the Valentine puppet show and boogie to some music. After the show was over, we explored the children's library (yep, there's one right in the mall...how handy)! It was great because the kids got to crawl around, play with puzzles and books, and climb in carpeted holes in the wall. What a fun time. We worked up an appetite having all that fun, so we hit the food court. I was amazed when we left at how it seemed that we left more food under the table on the floor than I'm sure actually made it into the kid's mouths. We should have left a tip for the poor people who had to clean up after us. Eating with 3 kids 2 & under is an adventure! After lunch, we headed to Aunt Steph's house to relax just a little before hitting the road. Thanks for the invite, Aunt Steph! We had tons of fun.

Milestones

Seems like life is on fast forward now. Drew hit his 1 year mark and now there are all sorts of tasks to tackle - like walking, feeding yourself, & talking! We're working on all of them. Some are going better than others. He had his 12 month checkup and has really grown. His stats are:
Head 18 3/4 inches = 75%
Height 30 inches = 50%
Weight 23 lbs 6 oz = 50%

Our little man will walk all over the place as long as you give him your fingers to hold on to. He really doesn't need them, but he doesn't know that yet. We were at a friend's 2nd birthday party over the weekend and his best buddy Clay was there. All of the other kids were walking around and Drew really wanted to be too. He took a couple of tries at it. Then, he was over in a corner by Clay and just grabbed onto Clay's shoulders and the two of them walked piggy-back for about 5 steps. It was the funniest thing in the world! I wish I had captured it on video...but we weren't that speedy. Hopefully one of these days he'll learn he can walk all on his own!

Now climbing...that's another story!! This kid can climb anything! We have to watch out for what we leave out and around because he'll be climbing up on it before we know it. The other day he was on the ground and crawled over to his stroller, climbed up into the seat and under the tray and would have climbed up over the top of the stroller if we didn't stop him. Today, he figured out how to twist around in the Wal-Mart shopping cart and climb out of the seat belt! Ufda!

Talking is another thing Drew is taking at his own pace. He definitely has a vocab of his own, and I'm starting to clue in to it. Every morning when I get him out of the crib, he says "Da" (looking for Dad) and then "Daw" (looking for the dog). He has occasionally said Ma...but those moments are few and far between. He started to say something that resembles "Hi Dog". His daddy and Grandma & Grandpa B worked on that with him. It's cute to hear him start to communicate with the world around him.

Eating is one thing he has down quite well (I think he must have gotten that from me)! We're working on teaching him to feed himself. He did pretty good at his first try. (I did catch this one on film).

Birthday Dinner

You can never celebrate too much, right? Last Thursday (January 29th) was Drew's official birthday. He had a fun day at Mother's Day Out. Then when Daddy got home, we took him out in his new forward-facing car seat to eat a birthday dinner at Chick-Fil-A. He even got to play on the playground a little after dinner! He loved the car ride. It was a whole new world to him being able to see out the front. He just looked around a lot. Since then, he's started making this "vroom...vroom" noise every time we drive anywhere. I think he thinks he's on some sort of playground ride!! Happy Birthday sweet boy. This past year with you has been the greatest of lives! We pray we'll have many many more years to celebrate with you and watch you grow. We love you so much!

Happy Birthday Drew!

Our "baby" is officially 1! We celebrated Drew's birthday with a ball themed party the weekend before his real birthday. We had lots of friends over to our house to celebrate with us, along with Gram, Boppa, Aunt Heather & Uncle Adam, and Aunt Steph, Uncle Collin, cousin Avery, & cousin Julia too! What a fun weekend it was. Drew was given the royal treatment with so many fun toys to play with! A first birthday doesn't get any better than this....

And, to keep the party going, Grandma & Grandpa B came up the day after Drew's real birthday to spend the weekend & celebrate with him. They got lots of quality time (more than they probably wished for) because I was out of town on a Women's Retreat with our church and Andrew had a meeting for most of the day on Saturday. So, Grandma & Grandpa had Drew all to themselves for quite a while. They spoiled him with presents and he had so much fun getting to play all day with them! Since I was out of town most of the weekend, I don't have many pictures to post of all the fun they had...but judging from how tired Drew was after they left, I think they partied their socks off!