Texas: What I've Learned

After just over a year in the Houston area, this is what I've learned:

People are generally very friendly.

It gets cold here, like really cold!

It's hard to eat healthy. Plenty of yummy (but not good for you) restaurants and a shortage of natural and organic grocers.

Fire ants. Enough said.

Regularly attending church is  the rule, not the exception.

It's so green and lush!

Water boils faster. 

Rush hour is no joke!

Humidity.  My skin likes it.  My hair does not.

Groceries are cheaper.

Snakes and bugs! Ewww!!

People are active.  Boot camp, running and riding clubs, organized classes; the options are endless.

BBQ is a big deal.

It gets hot, but not as hot as I expected.

Everybody has a landscaper!

The swimming pool is usually pretty comfortable.  Sometimes it feels like a bathtub in a sauna.  It's never shock-your-body cold as was often the case in Colorado. 

Gas is cheaper.

The weather is as unpredictable as it was in Colorado!  I think this is true for everywhere, except maybe Southern California.

Fruits and vegetables are very fresh and flavorful, but you better eat them quick before they go bad.

I can't watch the news if I want to sleep.  Then again, I've never been able to watch the news.

Thunderstorms don't get old.

There is always something to do!

The low altitude makes for excellent baking conditions!

So many places to shop, and I do love shopping.  But still, what did we do before Amazon Prime?

It really does rain in sheets!

I love Texas and I love Colorado and right now, we are exactly where we are supposed to be. :)
 

Nine Months

Pregnancy. I didn't love it.  I know saying that is totally against the rules for an infertile, but I can't lie.  I was tired and sick, and then I had complications, and then I couldn't sleep, and I hurt, and I had more complications.  Don't even get me started on the crazy hormones!  Oh. my. word.  
I spent the majority of my pregnancy worrying that something would go wrong.  After so many years without a single pregnancy (nope, not one), I just didn't believe that my body was up for the task.  I couldn't believe that it was really happening.  And because I had complications, I had even more reason to believe it wouldn't end well.
I didn't gain a lot of weight.  In fact, I gained slightly less than the minimum recommended, but my small frame could barely handle it.  And I had an EIGHT pound baby!  Lance and I were both in the six pound range so I'm really not sure how we created such a big guy, but we did!  And it wore me out!
Somehow, in the misery of it all, I felt so incredibly thankful.  Thankful for the little kicks (less thankful for the big kicks, ha!), thankful for his strong heart beat, thankful just knowing that this little life was growing inside of me, that I was blessed to be a part of such a huge miracle!  Even though I was so ready for it to be over, I really tried to be thankful every day.
I knew that I would miss being pregnant, so that didn't come as a surprise.  What I didn't expect was being ready to do the whole pregnancy thing a hundred more times (ok, maybe not quite a hundred) if it meant I could experience that first moment after birth, seeing my sweet boy for the first time, and then the first hours, and those first few days!  It was magical and still is, and I just can't get enough of how yummy a newborn is! 
So yeah, it's confusing, and I don't understand it, but I hated pregnancy, and loved it, and I never want to do it again, but can you please sign me up for another pregnancy, like now?!?          

Back to School

Today was Caysen's first day of Pre-K and he did great!  We are starting out slow so he only went for a half day today, but he will try a full day tomorrow.  The goal is to work up to five full days every week!  For my sake and his, I'm glad we get to take our time adjusting to a full day at school (and away from home).

I absolutely love his teachers this year and am looking forward to all of the fun and learning he will experience.  He already came home today saying, "My name is Caysen.", which is something we've been working on at home all summer.  I don't know what kind of magic his teachers and speech therapist performed, but it worked!

As a side note, I have not been keeping up with the blog lately as life has been so busy.  But, Caysen's birth mother has this blog address (I hope she checks it, but I don't know), so I really want to do better at posting.  Besides, I like to be able to look back on this too, and I think it will be fun for the boys to read it when they are older.  Now that Caysen is back in school, posting seems much more feasible.  I'm going to try and go back and post a few of the big events that I skipped and continue to post as we have fun things to share...we'll see how it goes. :)    

A Tigertastic Birthday

 We celebrated Caysen's 5th birthday Daniel Tiger style!  I asked him if he wanted trains or Daniel Tiger (two of his very favorite things), and he was quite set on Daniel Tiger.  I may have tried to steer him toward trains, but it's his birthday after all.  The boy loves some Daniel Tiger!

 This was the first year Caysen really understood what it meant that he was having a birthday, and a party.  He was so excited for friends, and cake, and most of all, presents!!

 I found tons of great printables on PBSkids.org and just dressed them up a bit.

I tried to keep it simple and sort of succeeded, but I just kept getting ideas that seemed simple enough.

 Caysen loved it!  The perma-grin he wore throughout his entire party made all the preparation worth it!

 Beckett is a big Daniel Tiger fan too and enjoyed all of the activities.

 Toddlers and crafts...fun, but messy. ;)

 Caysen said he wanted a bike for his birthday, so we delivered. We got him a balance bike to help him get used to the idea.  He's currently scared of it so it might be a while.  ;)