Am I really 32 Years Old?

On August 4th I turned 32 years old. To most this isn't a significant year, but to me it makes me feel very old! I remember when my mother turned 32. She had me when she was 20 years old so I was 12 when she was 32. I remember someone asking me how old my mom was and I said 32. They were like, "Wow! she is young!" It makes me feel strange, I guess because I was 31 when I had Nathaniel and he won't remember me being 32 like I did with my mom. Anyways, this being 32 age is a little unreal to me. Here are some pictures of my b-day. I had two birthday celebrations. One with my Parent- N-Loves, and one with my parents.

Breanna and I

Bryan and I

Marshall and I

Getting ready to blow out my candles!

Family picture with Steven

This was my birthday lunch with my parents at El Jarrito.

My dad with his two grandsons!

Nathaniel and abuelito

Abuelita and Nathaniel

Here I am at El Jarrito in my Birthday Sombrero!

Mis Padres

Aaron, Zenia, and Azriel

Steven, our Chinese Exchange student

This summer my church hosted 300 Chinese exchange students and Lesh and I volunteered to be a host family. During the day all the students went to American culture school and the evenings and weekends our student spent with our family. I had no clue how blessed we would be because of Steven. Steven is 13 years old and from Chengdu, China. He lives with his parents and goes to school on his bike everyday. He is so sweet and kind and very intelligent. He is also brave to come across the ocean to stay with some crazy Americans! Steven was here for almost 3 full weeks and boy did it fly! The following are some pictures of moments we captured.

God showed us many things while Steven was with us. He showed us patience with communication, love for a boy we just met- when he left I cried. He blended so well with our family, I even told him he was Nathaniel's brother. :) He seemed to like that idea. Steven spent hours just laying on the blanket with Nathaniel and just staring at him amazed. He would also play with Nathaniel's toys and of course with Checkers! I know Checkers misses him because of all the extra attention he received from him. We miss Steven and he is welcome in our home any time!

This is one of my favorite pictures. This is what Steven did everyday he came home from school.

This was Steven showing Nathaniel my birthday card.

Here is Nathaniel with his "brother."


Our church took all host families and their students to the Astros game. They won!

Steven and I at the game.

This was at El Jarrito for my birthday lunch and we had to get a picture of Steven with a Mexican sombrero.

A family portrait

We took Steven to play basketball with another host family.

We also went to Moody Gardens with Steven and here is Nathaniel in the Shark cage.

Steven in front of the aquarium.

Steven also enjoyed playing table tennis with Lesh's brother. This is a popular sport in China.

We spent a lot of time with his brothers because he enjoyed time with them playing the Wii or just hanging out.

You can see by all the events we did how exhausted we were at the end of this 3 week adventure. We loved getting to know Steven and making him a part of our family. We thank God for this opportunity to plant a seed in his life. We pray one day he will also be a part of our Christian family.

Our trip to Dallas and the Fourth of Juy

Like I said the day before yesterday, I am very behind in my blogging so I'll be blogging a little out of order. The end of June Lesh had to work in Dallas so we took advantage and went up to see our family and I saw my roommate from college. We went to stay with Aunt Renita and Uncle Terry in thier beautiful home near Cedar Hill.

Here is Aunt Renita with her grandkids, Shannan's boys Cole and Caleb.

We went out to dinner at this crazy good restaurant.

Here is Shannan with her youngest Cole.

Nathaniel had a blast with Aunt Renita!

The funniest dogs in the whole world! Tootsie and Brandy loved Nathaniel and he enjoyed them too!

Howdy Pardner!

Uncle Terry and Aunt Renita with Nathaniel.

He had just got back from his cross country bike trip!


For the Fourth of July Lesh and spent the day with our families. We spent the day with my n-loves, but I forget to take pictures with my camera! Candace is always taking pictures so I''ll have to get her to email me some! Then we went to church with my parents and after we all went to the n-loves house to blow fireworks! We had a great time!

My mom with Nathaniel

Abuelito and Abuelita with Nathaniel

My nephew Azriel with my dad

My brother Aaron, Azriel, my dad, and Zenia who is expecting a little boy!! I can't wait!

After church they had junk food jamboree and they had a petting zoo. We took Azrel and Nathaniel to go see the goats.

Of course here is my cutie who is too little to be touching those ugly stinky goats! It was very hot out there so we didnt' stay long.

Play Group

This summer has been so fun and one of the things I love to do with Nathaniel is play group! I meet up with my friends, Miranda and Wendy who have little babies. This time our friend Tracey joined us too! She has a 7 month old and a 4 year little girl who was camera shy so I didn't get a good picture of her. Wendy has baby Zach who is 6 months old and Carly is almost 3. Miranda has twins Cooper and Chloe and they are 7 months old. We have a blast watching all the babies sit up, crawl and just have a blast staring at eachother.

This is hard to see, Cooper is one of the twins. Chloe is his sister who was eating at the time so I didn't get a picture of her! I was bummed after I saw I didn't get one of her.

Here is Zachary, the happiest laid back little boy.

He pretty much looks like this all the time. So Sweet!

Sweet Carly! She loves to spend time with the babies.


Nathaniel with sweet Kelsey . She crawls already and stands up too!

Just having fun!

I freaked out a little here, because when I was little I was a biter!!!! Nathaniel is teething and anything that comes in close contact with his mouth he bites down on. He didn't actually bite her... but currently has no teeth. This worries me a little. Is this pay back time for me?????

Carly and Zachary


Miranda goes back to work soon so our little play group will be coming to an end but Nathaniel and I will continue to hang out with Zach and Carly and many other friends!

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5 months old

Nathaniel loves to do the following things:

Nathaniel is now totally obsessed with Checkers. He just stares and laughs a whole lot!

Here is the big boy pushing up and wanting to move! He is so funny!

Look what I can do!

Aren't I so silly?

He is practicing sitting up here. I'm sure in a few weeks he'll have it down!

I'm so behind with my blogging! I have recently hurt my back so I have been behind in everything, house cleaning, laundry, blogging and much more! I have had back issues on and off for several years, but this time around I have experienced pain much longer so I have sought out the help of a chiropracter and I thank God for mine. He has helped me a great deal! I'm just now getting to the point where it doesn't hurt to sit or stand. It has been about 2 weeks since I hurt my back. I pretty much ice it every hour for 2o minutes and that has helped the inflammation. I have a swollen disk so you can imagine how painful that is.

So for the fun part of this blog- Nathaniel is over 5 months old and will be 6 months old in just a few weeks. 5 month pictures of my big boy!

So everyone in the beginning said he looked like Lesh, but right here he totally looks like me in one of my baby pictures. :)

27 inches long

over 17 lbs I'm guessing

I always put Nathaniel down on his back, but this day he flipped himself over and we found him on his tummy. He just loves to flip back and forth in his crib and spin around in it too!

Things Nathaniel does now:

- he eats every 4 hours pretty consistently

- he eats cereal 3 times a day along with 4 milk feedings

-rolls both ways often, the other day he rolled across the whole living room floor

- laughs more often now

- jumps up and down in his exersaucer

-loves touching and watching Checkers

- stands really well when you hold his hands

- when I carry him he always grabs my hair with his right arm and just holds it

-reaches out for things he wants

- sitting up with little support and a few seconds on his own

-sleeps 11-12 hours at night!!! Love it!

- takes 2 naps a day

- and poor baby he is teething so he is a little fussy during the day and not napping well these last few days.

- he wears 6-9 month clothing

- he spins around in his crib rolling around

- he pushes up on his arms and when his chest is down his legs go up in the back! I think he may crawl soon! Watch out!

Big Boy Toys

Nathaniel is now playing in big boy toys. I mean the exersaucer and the jump and go and he is loving sitting up and standing up. He is so fun to watch scream and laugh while in these toys.