the graduate.

yesterday brenner graduated from seminary with a masters of divinity.  

i cannot believe that it has been two and a half years since brenner started!

i am so proud of him and all of the hard work that he put into seminary...  

he graduated with a 3.66 GPA! 

it is funny how seminary has changed brenner into a person who loves to learn.  once he started studying things that he was really interested in, his attitude toward school changed so much.  i also like to think that my love of school and nerdiness had something to do with it too.

my brother is now the only one left to finish his graduate work.  

my sister got her masters of business, my brother in law got a masters (sorry adam, i can't remember what it was in!), i got my specialist degree in school psychology (a degree that is in between a masters and phd) and now brenner has his masters of divinity.  all brother has is one semester left before he graduates from law school.

how fun is that!!!  

congrats brenner!  we are so proud of you!

craft time.

i don't know about other parents with toddlers, but i since our days of playing outside are becoming more limited because of the weather (which is annoying anyway because with our ridiculously hot summer, we have had such a small number of outdoor days), i am always on the search for new activities to do with cole.  

my parents got cole a small table for his birthday which we use mostly for crafts.

cole is starting to enjoy playdough more.  we don't have any of the play dough tools though so i have been trying to find things around the kitchen for him to play with.  here he is stabbing play dough with a plastic fork.  i also found my pastry roller (since you can guess how often that is being used by me these days) and a baby food jar.
i know, nothing but the best around here!

believe it or not, this face is actually a smile.  i asked him to smile for the camera and this is what i got.  

(these are also pre haircut pictures)

we have been doing lots of holiday crafts too.  so fun!  what will i do in january when there is no theme for all of our crafts????
(and sorry cole is not wearing pants in this picture!  potty training is easier with no pants!)

here is some of our  artwork. 

 his cheesy "cheese" face.

 working on our fine motor skills threading beads onto pipe cleaners.  

He LOVES this and now has 5 beaded bracelets. 

brenner is so proud of his bracelet loving boy.  

i am thankful for saving all of my random craft supplies from my time teaching and in college!

27 weeks.

here is my 27 week photo.

the doctor said that i am measuring about 32 weeks, 5 weeks ahead of schedule which is normal for twins.  i don't feel like i have gotten that much bigger over the past few weeks.  

the girls are continuing to do great.  

their fluid levels are both measuring normal which is amazing after the prognosis that they gave us just a couple months ago.  the specialist in houston told us that things like this (twin to twin transfusion syndrome) don't regress.  

our situation has regressed.  

my God can do anything!

we feel so blessed for all of the prayers that were spoken on behalf of our precious girls.  

we know that God answered those prayers.  

the other morning i was praying and while i was praying for the girls, i realized that i have not been praying as fervently as i had been when we were uncertain about their health.  

i do not want to become complacent in my prayers and in my praise of God just because things are going well right now.  God answers every prayer that we lift up, they just may not always be the answer that we were wanting.  

right now, God has answered our prayers of healing for the girls, and i am thanking Him for that. 

but i hope that i will still be challenged to trust in Him if things go the other way again.  

i have grown so much over the last few months (more than just physically!), with one of the most important ways being my deeper understanding that God is worthy of praise no matter the circumstance.  we praised Him and His perfect plan when things looked bad.  and we are praising Him and His perfect plan now that things are looking great.  

i hope that God will always remind me of this as i face life's turns and trails throughout my life.  

blessed be the name of the Lord.  

i married a goofball.

cole got a hold of the camera the other day while it was sitting on the coffee table and brenner was on the other side of the lens.  

 i snapped this one after removing the little person from behind the camera.  

i love my silly boys. 

for the love of trains.

this kid loves him some trains.  

i found a couple of trains over the summer for him and then he got some more for his birthday from us and from brenner's mom.  

 thomas and his little friends have provided hours of entertainment.

 i love playing with boys.  i actually enjoy trains, cars, and planes!!

 and since we are potty training, it is only fitting to have trains on our underwear!

thanksgiving weekend.

we had a great thanksgiving!  

brenner's family drove in and we held thanksgiving here at our house.  

it was so great to not have to travel anywhere!!!

brenner deep-fried our turkey (you non-texans may not know that texans deep-fry anything, including our holiday favorites) and i must say it was tasty. 

here is a picture of the bird straight from the fryer. 

cole and i had made placecards for everyone.  it took a long time but we had fun doing it!

anything involving stickers is fun!

we ate a lot, watched a lot of football and squeezed in a family photo (not everyone was in the photo, just brenner's immediate family for his mom's christmas card)

let me just say that white is not flattering to a pregnant girl.  it adds 10 pounds.  to my additional 26.  not pretty.  and my hair was weird. but overall it turned out pretty well. 

here is a zoomed in shot of my baby.

precious.

  

(see that large mark on his forehead?  it is an imprint from his uncle's boot.  and cole fell on the boot, his uncle did not kick him in the head)

brenner also hung the lights on the house, put up the tree and put all the lights on the tree.  

we decorated the tree as a family, which is one of my favorite holiday traditions.  

bring on christmastime!!!

thankful.

i am thankful for so many things in my life.  

the love of my savior.

my husband. 

my house.

my dogs. 

food on the table. 

family. 

friends. 

healthy, growing babies.  

and of course, this little dude. 

birthday and blessings.

sunday was brenner's birthday. it was a busy day and we had to go to houston for a doctor's appointment for the twins that was scheduled the next morning.  

brenner loves seafood so we went to a great restaurant in houston that night for his birthday and one of his good friends from college was able to meet us which was a lot of fun.  

the specialist's office was .2 miles from the houston zoo so after the appointment we took cole to the zoo for a couple of hours.
we had fun, can you tell?

 the best part of the zoo was the two baby elephants.  so cute!!!!!

 when we got home that night, i wanted to make brenner something different and special for his birthday and i found just the recipe.  i had seen it on a blog a follow months ago and then rediscovered it on pinterest.  

cookies n' cream oreo fudge browines. oh yeah, you read that correctly.

here is the link. 

they will probably change your life like they did mine.  it is a good thing i am pregnant and supposed to consume an extra 800 calories a day is all i have to say. 

anyways, on to the doctors appointment.  

things went great.  the girls are continuing to fabulous.  they are growing steadily and are within 11% of each other (which is totally normal).  they are maintaining good blood flow in the heart, brain, and umbilical cords.  they have strong heartbeats.  and they never stop moving!  there continues to be a discrepancy between their fluid levels, it has not worsened and the fluid for twin b (the smaller twin) has even increased slightly.  the doctor feels that things are going to stay where they are since we have been stable now for a month and that we are not going to need surgery and probably won't need any sort of intervention for the rest of the pregnancy.  when we asked him what he thought our chances were of making it closer to full term now that we have been stable for several weeks, he says in his experience, 92% of patients like us will make it all the way to full term for twins (35-36 weeks)!!!  we are thrilled to receive such great news!  

while we know that there is still a chance for them to come early, and for more complications, as there will always be for twins, we are praising God for this blessing. 

the power of prayer has been incredible and cannot be denied.  we know that God works in different ways in each situation and that healing does not happen for everyone.  but we also know that God does answer every prayer perfectly and he is choosing to intervene for our girls.  we are giving Him ALL the credit for this!  

please continue to pray for them, as we hope to have a minimum of 10 more weeks of 'baking' time!

a few facts and pictures.

i thought that i would tell you a little bit about my two year old.  

and here are a few photos i took when i attempted to take his two year photos.  

(photo session was a disaster, i may or may not try to get some better ones)

weight: 28 pounds

height: 34 inches

favorite toys: trains, trucks, cars, airplanes, helicopters, boats, basically any form of transportation

favorite activity: playing with his favorite toys!  but he also loves stickers, drawing, basketball, football, baseball, going for walks, playgrounds, and bubbles and of course driving!

favorite show: sesame street 

favorite foods: strawberries, blueberries, oranges, granola bars, pretzels 

favorite books: wheels on the bus, trucks, thomas the train

homecoming.

this weekend was baylor's homecoming.

it was a lot of fun and filled with cool weather, good friends, and lots of yummy treats!

our friends the Urichs stayed with us and the boys had a lot of fun playing together.  

saturday started off with the homecoming parade (the largest in the nation!)

we all bundled up and headed to campus.  this was the first time for both the boys to see the parade and they did amazing.  both of them were completely taken with all the floats, people, and all the trucks!

 bruiser the bear rollin' on the segway

 brenner and the boys (as sean and i are in the back deep in conversation)

 always a favorite...the double sided car.  this has been in the parade since i was in undergrad.

tyann and carter looking cute!

brenner and my dad's business, the overlook, was in the parade too 

the best float!

 they even had a real mario inside the gameboy!

cole giving carter kisses. 

we went home, ate some ninfa's mexican food (a must on homecoming weekend) and took naps. 

cole is rockin' the bed head as usual.

then it was on to a little tailgating and the game. 

our first touchdown.  cole followed the crowd and yelled touchdown with his arms in the air (while also holding his snack!) 

 i love this little face!

sic em' bears!