Here's a few pictures and videos to catch up on the last several days of our life.


Brother and sister reading some books together.


Emily took a big step a week or so ago in conquering her fear of water slides. We pulled out their old slide and converted it to a little water slide into the pool. She was very proud of herself.

Still holding on to the last days of summer. September evening + $20 inflatable pool + 3 and 5 year old = one swell time.








Do you ever want to go out and shoot some hoops but choose not to because you just don't want to expend the little energy you have left in your body? Well, have no fear...our daughter has created a fool-proof system that allows the joy and wonder of basketball and the comfort and pleasure of being a couch potato all wrapped up into one. Just check out this brilliant new system that she has created!

School has been going well. Last week Emily woke up with a fever on Friday morning and ended up having a virus that turned into a mild pneumonia and knocked her out until the following Wednesday. We found out that 7/10 of her classmates were also out sick on one of those days as well. She is doing much better now. This picture is from Friday night at her first Christian Acadmey Homecoming Football game. She (thanks to a very spirited Mommy) got all decked out in her school colors, home-made necklace that said 'warriors' on it, football tatoo and lots of other spirit gear. She is checking the game out and enjoying a hot dog in the bleachers. She was thrilled to see the two other girls in kindergarten (Amelia and Reagan) at the game as well. She also got to go have her picture made with Reagan Bates (who won Homecoming Queen) so she was pretty excited!

The weather is finally starting to cool off a little bit (like in the 80's now and actually barely sneaking into the hight 70's) so we ran off to the park on Saturday afternoon. Joshua and Emily had a blast sliding down the slide with Mommy.

Emily had a lot of fun swinging too!

Brother and Sister showing some love to one another.

Daddy got the wild hair to attempt to make home-made pizza (including making the pizza dough from scratch) on Saturday night. So we got back to the house around 6:30 or so and I was thinking mix the flour and other stuff together and slap some sauce and toppings and we'll be eating pizza in like 15-20 minutes. Then I read further down in the directions (which apparently reading the directions is important I guess) and I missed the part where you make the dough and then you let it sit and expand for 1-1/2 hours...oops! So needless to say we ending up eating a little bit later than I had intended but the final product turned out surprisingly well.

Last night Emily received her Sparks vest (they are both in Awanas at our church now) and so they are both officially sporting their blue and red vests in this picture.

I thought I would take a moment to catch up on the last couple of weeks of our life. The school routine has been a big adjustment and the kids are finally starting to get the routine down pretty good. These pictures are from the lower school chapel that I am helping coordinate this year. The first hour is pre-k-2nd (so I get to see Emily) and the second hour is 3rd-5th grade. It's been fun getting to know the kids and have fun with them and teach them truths from God's Word. The following pictures are me at chapel, Emily and her new buddy Amelia, and Emily posing in her chapel uniform.

Joshua started pre-school this week and his assesment of the experience was 'I didn't cry one time.' He seems to be really liking his teachers so far and in fact when Whitney picked him up yesterday he was crying and throwing a minor fit because he did not want to leave (so we want him to like it in all but maybe not quite that much).

Fridays are my day off and now with Emily in school it is our special day to hang out with Joshua. So we decided to walk around the Portifino shopping center to get out and about. It turns out that Old Navy was a slam dunk with Joshua. They have a huge kids area now where he colored and hung out, then we bought a 25 cent bouncy ball from a vending machine and played with that, then (as seen in picture) he made a new plastic friend at the front of the store, and lastly (as seen in second picture), he discovered three mirrors in the dressing room area and had the time of his life (drawing quite alot of laughter and smiles from the lady working back there). He was truly amazed at all of the 'Joshuas' staring back at him and had his own dance party in a room full of other 'Joshuas' who perfectly imitated every dance move he so skillfully would throw down on the Old Navy dance floor.

Lastly, we have been trying to stock up on more 'boys dressup clothes' and trying to avoid things like 'Joshua, the Mur-man' or 'Joshua, the princess', etc. So when we were at lifeway and discovered that they had a 'Joshua, the warrior' costume with armor and light up sword that makes sounds we could not resist. So we had the little man try it on and he gave me some good whacks with the sword which made me proud. (that's his battle face by the way).

Well I made it back from my week long adventure in China. The trip felt like three little trips in one. This picture above was me, Michael (my 11 year old piano player) and another lady helping me sing and lead worship at fellowship in Southern China. I really enjoyed getting to lead singing in this Chinese fellowship which consisted of ex-pats and natives and my traveling buddy, Ryder, gave the message.



Part two of my trip consited of my traveling buddy heading out to Australia on Tuesday late morning leaving me to wander around aimlessly through Hong Kong armed with exactly two words in Mandarin (hello and thankyou) and a cell phone that refused to work in Hong Kong. So I took a ferry ride across the harbor and then rode a tram up the mountain overlooking the city (as seen in the picture above). I made a friend for about 5 minutes as we became 'I'll take pictures of you if you take pictures of me' buddies. I never learned his name nor carried on any conversation thanks to the language barrier but I thank him for this picture.





Part 3 of the trip was me hopping on another airplane and flying about 3 and half hours north into central China to meet up with some friends who used to work with me back in the student work days many years ago. They have been living in China several years now and amazed me with the Mandarin they have learned and the great work they are doing there for our father. They just recently adopted a little girl from Ethiopia named, Makaria, which makes five total kiddos for them. Living with them for a day and a half stretched me and made me re-examine my own faith and trust in my father.

It was great to finally get back home and see my wonderful family and be reminded about how great a gift from God they are in my life. I had a blast giving some little knick knacks from China to the kiddos including these outfits that Joshua and Emily are sporting in the pictures below. The last video is a little shot of a song and dance Emily and Joshua made up called 'we are chinese'.

Joshua trying to adjust to our new early morning schedule. He requested to be cocooned in his towel on the floor to avoid having to face getting up and getting dressed.

Ballet is back and Emily is excited. She is now in the 5 and 6 year old class. This clip is from her first day back yesterday.

Kindergarten Begins

Well, one of those life milestones has come and gone as Emily has now begun Kindergarten. You don't really know how you're going to respond to everything. Probably the toughest part for Whitney and I was the massive change in our bedtime routines and the loss of our Friday (my day off) family day together. On Wednesday night the kids were having meltdowns as we had to drag them inside while the other kids from the neighborhood (who haven't started school yet) were out playing and having a jolly old time. Night one...they were definitely not ready to go to bed. It took four stanzas of amazing grace while rocking and laying down beside his bed on the floor for 45 minutes to get little blondie asleep. Emily was finally o.k. with the notion as long as her door was left open and just the right amount of light was let in. She then sang songs and talked to herself for about 30 minutes until she finally wore out. Another emotional aspect to this whole Kindergarten deal is the impact it is having on little brother. Joshua has grown up his whole life having big sister around to play with. The night before her first day he was going on and on about how he was going to miss her and not have anyone to play with. Emily several times told him "I know it's going to be difficult Joshua but you're going to have to get used to it." Then this morning she was giving Mommy instructions on how to care for little brother. The most important thing in caring for him was to play with him a lot. Anyway it has been an interesting adjustment so far. Today was her first full day and when Mommy asked if she missed her she said 'no, I didn't miss anybody' and that she had lots of fun. She said that she wants to buy lunch from the cafeteria because they have 'pasta and tomatoes (potatoes is what she really means) and lettuce'. Here are a few more pictures from her first day:

Poppaw and Grammy came into town to be here for Josh and Suzanne's wedding. Here are a few of our moments we've had together over the past week. On Thursday night before we left Bo came over and hung out with us for a while at the house and we squeezed all three kids on the window seat for dinner time. Joshua and Bo were having fun stealing each other's strawberries.

We had a great time in San Antonio over the weekend for Josh and Suzanne's wedding. Josh is our Junior High Pastor here at church. They both worked with me as student ministry interns my last summer as Student Pastor. So it was very special to get to officiate their wedding. The rehearsal dinner was at Casa Rio's on the river walk where we enjoyed some great San Antonio Mexican food. Whitney and I went over to hang out with the wedding party till around 2:00 in the morning over at their hotel. Whitney had a great time catching up with Ashley Eppers and it was fun getting to hang out with some of my old students and co-workers (Sean Eppers, John Hollomon, Colin Bates, Kevin Mahaffey, Arlen Acosta, and of course Josh Bramlett). On Saturday we walked around the river walk, rested and ate a nice lunch together. The wedding was held at the Trinity University Chapel which was a really cool old chapel with a lot of charm and personality. We finished off the evening at a beautiful old mansion overlooking the city for the reception. Of course there was a ridiculous amount of dancing and a ridiculous amount of sweating as it was August in San Antonio. Here are a few pictures from the experience:

On Sunday we went by and visited the San Jose Mission which is one of like 5 or 6 missions along the San Antonio River (the most famous being the Alamo) built back in the early 1700's by the Spanish.

It was a great weekend for Whitney and I as the kids were hanging out with my parents in Wimberley. So it was awesome just to be able to spend time with my wife and enjoy being together and remember that first we were husband and wife and THEN we were mommy and daddy. We really had fun with Bunny and Ronnie as well as we had a lot of time to visit and laugh with them. When ran by and picked them up on Sunday afternoon and made the trip back to Magnolia. Apparently my parents were giving them driving lessons as they kept wanting to be behind the wheel when we were picking them up in Wimberley:

Well we finally made it back and Grammy and Poppaw gave Emily and Joshua a little toy when we got in last night. An old-fashioned 'pop' gun. We heard popping noises all over our house for quite awhile and were under attack. Who needs expensive gadgets. It seems like the simple little toys get the job done pretty well.

The kids went to 'Wacky and Wild' Pre-school camp at our church this past week. Joshua was particularly excited as this was his first time to go to a summer camp. On Wednesday they go to get 'slimed' with shaving cream. The clip above was taken on the morning of their 'sliming'. Below are a few pictures from their last day of camp.

Well since Emily is about to start Kindergarten at the Christian Academy we did a full-blown family day on Friday. We went and ate lunch at a really cool cafeteria style restaurant called Cleburne's down off of Bissonnet. They had some amazing chocolate-silk pie with a nice flaky crust. Emily gobbled up her portion and of course our son (Mr picky) refused to try any of it. He is a true anomoly as he also claims to not like icecream or milkshakes (even though he loves chocolate milk). We then went to the Houston Children's museum which was a pretty amazing place (even though I think every child in the entire city chose to go the same day). Below are a few pictures from the museum.

After the children's museum we went to IKEA and Emily was now old enough to go into the play area where she watched movies and played on some trees and made some new friends. Joshua was about a half inch too short and still far from potty trained.

Lastly, Joshua got to experience his first trip to a real barber with the legendary Henry Snead. He got to sit in a little fire truck and get his hair cut and wear a jungle apron with cool animals on it. Below is a little video clip and some pictures from the experience.

Lastly, my lovely wife took this picture of our son. I have no words to describe this one.