Happy Birthday Dad!!

We celebrated Lance's Birthday at one of his favorite places....Texas Roadhouse.

We love you, Dad!!


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Trimming the Christmas Tree

We love decorating the Christmas Tree. The girls put the ornaments on so quick, I can hardly keep up with them. I pass them out while Lance helps get them on the tree.

All the girls have special ornaments that they put up each year. I love the ones with pictures on them, to see how much they have grown.

Every year we take turns putting the star on the top. This year it was Abby's turn! With four girls, they have to wait a long time before it is their turn again, so it is very special to have your turn!!

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Alyssa turns 10!!

Alyssa and I had so much fun taking her pictures. She is so sweet and quick to smile. She loves life and you can see it in her smile. I am so blessed to have wonderful daughers with such unique personalities. They all have different gifts and I love to watch them in action.

Alyssa loves to have fun with friends. She has always loved art and dogs!! She is cheering for the first time this fall and has had a great time. We cheer for the school football team, which includes lots of cheers, a half time routine and cheer competition at the end of the season. She is really working on her back-walk-overs ending in the splits!

Alyssa is still loving martial arts and now has her blue belt. She is also working on her sword pattern. We are hoping it will be a good skill for dating someday!

What a precious girl. We love you Alyssa!

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Hurricane Ike

This is definitely one of those things you will remember for the rest of your life. Its hard to describe the winds that blew for hours and hours. We put the kids to bed on a big pallet it our closet, they thought it was so much fun.... they slept through it all! I couldn't sleep! I stayed up all night. We didn't loose power till about 6 that morning, so I was able to watch it on TV, after that we listened to it all on the radio. We are very fortunate to live in an area that doesn't flood and does not have very many large trees. The older part of our neighborhood is were I took most of these pictures and they had a lot more damage. Lots of trees and fences were down and roofs had lots of damage.

On Sunday we had church "un-plugged" and I drove by Wal-mart to get this photo. People we lined up to get in!! Gas stations were just as bad!!
This is a picture of one of the neighborhood pools we swim in during the summer. Two trees fell into the fence and into the pool.
Sunday afternoon we still didn't have power, so we went over to a friends house to watch a little football and sit in the air conditioning!! The kids had a lot of fun playing with friends. They have been out of school all week and are hoping to go back on Tuesday. Many of the school are damaged and still without power.Everyone brought over their meat to grill before it goes bad!! From Friday through Sunday we ate like kings....steak, pork chops, chicken and more!!
Thank you for the email and phone calls from all of you, we are so blessed to have great friends to look out for us. Continue to pray for all those still in need of so much!

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80th Birthday Celebration

We were so happy to be at Grandma's 80th Birthday Celebration. We stayed in Dallas and had dinner at a wonderful restaurant. Here we are headed out to eat. Grandma looked so beautiful!! She is an amazing woman and I am blessed by her.

Most of the family was able to be here tonight. We had a lot of fun remenising about family memories. We laughed a lot! Paul's new bride LynnAnn is the newest addition to our family, she is awesome and we are so excited to have her.

Crazy Cousins!!
I love you Grandma...Happy Birthday

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Orange Beach

Orange Beach with the cousins!!! My sister in-law Jana and I took 7 kids to the beach for 4 days. We had so much fun. There was no schedule and everyone went from pj's to swimsuits everyday. We stayed up late and the kids found out they love the Food Network Channel?? The kids love spending time together and we always have a great time. Lindsey and Ashton
Alex and Ben
Katy and Alyssa
Abby
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Alex is 5 years old!!

Alex turned 5 years old July 8th...I can't believe how quickly she is growing up. She is so much fun and keeps us laughing all the time. She asked her Daddy for a guitar for her birthday and Lance couldn't wait to give it to her. She has already put on several concerts for us. Her show is very diverse with anything from songs from church to Bon Jovi...her favorite song "You Give Love a Bad Name" I've already gotten some great video of her rockin' out!!
We had our friend Mackenzie over for the day. We went to McDonalds for lunch and Mountasia for Putt Putt and games. 18 holes of Putt Putt is a lot for 5 and 6 years olds...plus the fact that it was very Hot!! But I think they had a lot of fun.
And a birthday wouldn't be complete without a trip to Chuck E. Cheese!! When Lance got home we headed out for fun with the big mouse. Ashton and Alyssa are with Nana this week, so it was just the four of us. We miss having them here with us, but I know they are having a lot of fun at "Nana Camp."

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALEX!! WE LOVE YOU:)

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Disney World!

Champions!!

Alex and I have been enjoying the lakes around our neighborhood, so today we took the family to see what we have been up to. We fed the ducks and fish and watched the turtles. The weather has been so beautiful and we love to get outside. We walked around the lake and took a few minutes before the crazy weekend began!!

Saturday morning Alyssa and I headed out to the Martial Arts Tournament in south Houston. Alyssa did an awesome job. She got 3rd place in sparring and I was so proud of her. It was a hard fight and she was very aggressive. The girl she fought won 1st place. This was her first tournament since we've been here and she had a lot of fun.

These are the Lopez brothers and for those who don't know they will be competing in the Olympics this year. They are from Houston and somehow involved in the AAU?? They also have a sister going to the Olympics

Yes, I have a tie on!!! This was my first tournament to be an official, and I loved it. I never knew Martial Arts would become such a passion of mine, but I love training and can't wait to get my BLACK BELT in October!!

Well after the MA tournament it was off to the softball tournament. Ashton's team was playing in the finals. Her team was up against the Catz and we had to beat them twice. We played the first game at 3pm and beat them 11-3, the girls were pumped!! We turned right around and played them again. This game was intense, at the end of the 5th inning (usual length of the game) we were tied 3-3. We played 8 innings and won with a "in the park" home run!! Our team came into the tournament in last place, losing our first 5 games of the season, but they learned to work together and became the team to beat. We are so proud of Ashton, she is becoming a really good player and she is lovin' the game!!

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