Lost and Found

If these are your sunglasses, Luke is taking good care of them until they can be returned! They have been in the back of Brent's car door forever. Luke really thinks they are cool!

Keeping our little guy busy!

This weekend, we went downtown to the Log Cabin Village Exhibit... these cabins were located in different parts of Texas in the 1850's and were relocated to this park to preserve their history.

This is one of the homes... a family of 10 occupied this space! If you look closely, you can see the stairs in the back left of the house that go up to the 2nd floor. Boy, this made me appreciate my house!

We visited the school house- the rules were posted:

Luke rang the school bell:

They have volunteers that run the site in period dress... they were cooking over a fire and it smelled delicious! The lady was putting carmelized nuts over twice baked sweet potatoes, they had cornbread from milled corn, and the guy in the back was pulling their main course off of the fire.

After seeing all of this, we were hungry, so we headed on over to our #2 favorite BBQ joint, Railhead. Luke had his first bite of chopped beef and really liked the french fries! He is a Brewer, through and through!

Pumpkin Patch

All is well at the Brewers!

We took Luke to Penny's to get pictures last weekend... he cried through the whole thing (not like our Luke), we got him home (after rescheduling our apt.) and realized he was burning up... took his temp-102 and went on to Care Now. Luke had strep-- nothing a little Amoxicillin won't cure... and it has-- here is how I know:

Making blowing sounds on balloons with Daddy:

By Tuesday, Luke was back up to no good... at dinner time, he threw Cheerios over his highchair to Allie on the floor and I had to get on him... he laughed in my face and did it again... that is how I know he is feeling better!!! And that is how I know we are born with sin nature!!! Ha! It took all I had to not smile, knowing I did the same thing to my parents... OH, the irony!

On a side note, yet parallel, if I can just keep Cheerios anywhere in the house but IN HIS BED, I will consider my role as Luke's mother a success! I do not know how they hitch a ride on Luke, but somehow they do. Cheerios... I love em, but I hate em!

Week 1 of Financial Peace

Well, Brent and I have come to the decision that we would try Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University course and this was our first official week to "work the plan". Dave's philosophy is "Live like no one else now (cash only, no credit, and plan purchases) so later you can live like no one else (let your savings multiply over time and be your wealth, not owing money every month and choosing where you want to use money, give money, etc.)" This week has been an amazing one with little victories all along the way that I take to mean God has planted those victories to keep us moving toward our goals AND His goals for our lives. As I began to think about this week and count up the good, I thought I better document our little victories at the start of our journey so we can give thanks when we should give thanks!

- Verizon sent us a letter this week telling us they reviewed our cell phone account and we can reduce our plan because we are not coming close to our monthly minutes... I am serious!
- We budgeted $50 this month for Luke's clothes- it turned cold on Monday, so I headed to Target with my $50, and walked out spending $44.65 and lots of new items! I got home and realized Luke needed size 12 jeans, not size 18 but I didn't want to take back the 18 because he will need those too and I may not be able to find them when he needs them (after all, they were just $7)... well, the next day, I was cleaning out my wallet-- don't need it now because I am not toting around credit cards and found 2 gift cards from last Christmas with $1.61 and $2.54 on them... that was the exact difference I needed to buy an extra pair of jeans and stay under $50!!!
- Brent and I were calculating out if buying formula at Sams without a coupon or at Walmart with a $5 coupon would be cheaper... we concluded either was the exact same, but I went on to Sams and there was a bonus 12 extra servings included! That is 3 days of bottles!
- Luke is getting his pictures this weekend at JC Pennys and I needed a cake for his "smash cake" shot-- I checked Sam's- too big, checked Walmart- to theme-y, thought I could make one myself- no time, called Albertsons and apparently, they give away smash cakes FOR FREE!
- I went to McDonald's today and they started Monopoly-- I peeled back my game piece on my french fries and I won a FREE small coke or coffee!

I know all of these things are silly, but I wrote all of this to say, these things never happen to us but we are excited to continue to watch every dollar so that we can feel some financial freedom and move toward the goals God has placed in our hearts for our family... wish us luck!

Helllloooo Fall!

I have been waiting to unveil this t-shirt since early September! This pretty much sums up my deepest, darkest feelings about little Luke. "My Mummy Says I am Sweeter Than This Candy" Uh huh. No lie! Doesn't he look like a highlighter just burst all over him?! I'll have to check if he glows in the dark :)

Luke's New Ride

Luke has been getting a little restless and has been going strait for the "no" areas lately, so Brent and I decided to go ahead and give him his birthday present early so he could get some fun out of it now and so we could keep him busy! Here was the highlight of Luke's weekend:

"Helping Daddy". I swear we didn't pose this!

Taking his coupe for a spin!

Giving Monkey a turn:

Crusin'

"open" and "close" the door- he thought that was the funnest part!

The hightlight of our weekend was celebrating Tim's birthday (and Maggie's week of being ant free). We love our friends and the food Holly cooked up was excellent!

My Dumpster Diver

Brent went to an informational MBA program session on Sat., got all the way home and realized he wasn't wearing his wedding ring. After retracing his steps and turning the kitchen and our bedroom upside down, he remembered his rings clanking together when he was washing his hands at the informational. He drove back to the school and thought he would strike the bathroom, take the trash liner and go through it in his car-- the last thing he would want was an admissions counselor to see him rifling through trash, right?! Well, Brent got to the bathroom and what do you know... the trash can had been emptied. He headed for the nearest dumpster and began the search. As he got to the bottom, he had no luck. As he was turning away to go home, head hanging low, upset and mad at himself for loosing what we couldn't replace right now, he looked up and saw a janitor coming out with more trash. He dug through all of it and wouldn't you know that the last bag, the last crumpled piece paper is where his ring fell out! He said he hugged the janitor three times and drove home beaming wearing that dirty ring proudly! He wouldn't pose for a picture, so I had to reinact what I thought his ring might have looked like in the trash :)

Injury Report

I went to pick up Luke at Day Care and had to sign a second injury report... this time, not self inflicted. Some kid bit him on the hand (it didn't break the skin). What do I do with this information?!!!

11 Months

Luke is 11 months old today and I swear he looked older this morning. It is a bittersweet feeling that I can't put into words- tears of happiness for the way our world has been turned upside down this past year! Here are a few things from the month:

Luke's daycare has really worked with him on feeding himself... we had success this month! Here was the first time he ate Cheerios by himself! Momma cried- what's new?!!

New words this month:

Tree ("Truh")

Dog ("Di")

Monkey ("Di Ti")
Momma ("Muh Muh"):

Luke, you are becoming more independant and your parents are so proud of you! You are standing by yourself, pointing and waving "bye bye" using your whole arm! You throw a fit when we close the back door to let Allie out because you want to go too. You want to hold your own spoon but don't know what to do with it! We went by the fish at Walmart and you LOVED watching them- touching the tank and giggling. You and Grant chase each other at school until you are out of breath... Mrs. Becky calls you both her "little tornadoes" since you turn over chairs together, crawl under cribs getting stuck, and make a jail break when they open the door to take a buggy ride. We are loving every minute of watching you explore and learn. You are a joy to our family and a song in our hearts. We love you, sweet baby.

Been Hanging Around

Some recent pictures:

Secret Top 10

One of my girlfriends at work made the observation that marriage and parenting is hard-- those things are rarely talked about which leads to a lot of unrealistic ideas on the subjects.

SO, the top 10 BABY THINGS no one ever talks about:

• 10 Toy tornadoes every night after baby's bedtime
  9 The dog bowl-- the funnest "No No" EVER
  
• 8 Getting called out of church to come get your screaming child out of the nursery
• 7 Mommy guilt
• 6 Daddy worries about sending children to college starting at day 1
• 5 Meals are never hot anymore for Mom and Dad and there is always a 1 foot perimeter mess around the high chair after meal time- dogs are helpful here
• 4 Crying at weddings


• 3 Exhaustion by night time after giving all you've got with little time for yourself
• 2 Sick babies at daycare making me worry all day if they are spreading germs to my healthy baby
• 1 Poop on the fireplace (I'll spare you the picture)

The top 10 MARRIAGE THINGS no one ever talks about:

• 10 The way his family did it and the way her family did it are always different
• 9 You don't really know the person on the day you say "I Do"- you haven't been through ups and downs yet... you just hope you picked someone with character and values that line up with your own
• 8 When you both get fat together, you don't realize, until you do... then you really have your work cut out for you!
• 7 Strange bathroom habits (I will not go into detail here)
• 6 Gender roles in marriage don't just "happen"
• 5 You both always think you give more than 50%
• 4 Tracking where the money goes is harder with 2 people than 1
• 3 Your love for your spouse totally changes when you see them enteract with your child
• 2 Everybody knows when the cooking is bad... you don't reach "Grandma" cook status until you are a Grandma
• 1 Why did every one of you jump down to this one and think I would say something I am NOT going to say?!!!

So there is your list, Jennifer... hope you enjoyed it! With all of that said, I wouldn't trade any of it! Not even poop on the fire place! Somehow, these things never hit the same status as the "good stuff" does in my mind when I talk about my child or my husband.

10 months, 3 weeks

Luke stood for 7 seconds! Once for me and once for Brent!

Pet Peeve #1

When people sign their signature in an illegible manner. It is your name, be proud of it. Make it readable so the person behind you knows who you are. It only takes milliseconds more to make it pretty. Take pride in such small things-- scribbling is for kids :).
What is your pet peeve?

Chris and Christy Are Hictched!

Here are the highlights!

The Rehearsal:

Practice Makes Perfect!

While the wedding party was waiting in the back of the church to practice, Chris and Brent were sitting in the sanctuary all by themselves... I thought it was pretty neat they were all alone and wonder what they were talking about. I made them reenact for the camera...

The Rehearsal Dinner was at Escalantes- yum mo!
The guys:

The girls:

Our Family:

The wedding was at Second Baptist where Brent and I were married, so it was fun to see it all unfold and remember back 4 years ago!

Mr. & Mrs. Chris Brewer!

The boys found tri-cycles at the church:

Aren't they good looking!

He's taken, Ladies!

Luke's wedding outfit:

Luke got to meet his Great, Great Aunt Freddie and Uncle Bobby-- Luke went strait to Bobby like they were best buds!

Jamie discovered that Luke likes golf:

Granddaddy threw Luke around and taught Luke how to go up and down the stairs:

Grandma got some good hugs in and Bailey (Chris's puppy) thought Luke tasted sweet!

Luke's Babysitters (when we needed to be baby-free!). Thanks, Momma and Daddy.

Luke enjoyed playing your piano:

It was a FAST weekend, but we are so blessed by our family and love that it is growing. We couldn't be more proud of Chris and his choice in Christy. She is even more beautiful on the inside than out (if you can believe it!) and we can't wait to see how God directs their life together.