Saturday, October 06, 2007


Here's our smiling baby girl! She is becoming really sweet!

Tuesday, October 02, 2007



Here is a slide show Justin put together of his trip to Honduras. We are glad to have him home, if only for a few hours each day. He is now working nights, only 3 more weeks till he's back with us for real!

Wednesday, September 19, 2007




Well, Justin is in Honduras this week. He is taking health surveys for the government and participating in some free clinics. He's been having a great time. He just called tonight briefly and told us that he has been having a great time. HE says the people are great and his spanish is coming back and he's even dreaming in spanish again. HE got to ride in a black hawk and play lots of soccer and participate in a few clinics.

Meanwhile back at the ranch. . . I've been busy organizing the lonely wives club. A few of my friends had working husbands on Tuesday so we all got together and had dinner together. It was a lot of fun. I've also been frantically painting furniture and vainly trying to save Michelle from violent attackers. Nathan threw a can of pears at her head on Monday to spite me. She is fine, but the whole incident was scary. Of course she screamed, but calmed down shortly after I picked her up. She has a nasty red mark on her cheek, but it never did bruise and as her pupils looked normal I didn't take her in, and she seems to be normal. THe kids also almost knocked over the shopping cart in the grocery store and she would have gone down as well, but luckily I caught her just in time. I accidentally dropped her in her carseat also. Poor baby! She has had an awful week, but she is still doing well and starting to smile sweet but infrequent little smiles at us. We can't wait for Justin to get home on Saturday!

Monday, September 10, 2007




Samantha, Nathan, Michelle and I went on a mother-daughter campout this weekend. I wasn't going to go because Justin had to work and wouldn't be able to watch the boys, but a friend of mine last minute offered to let the boys have a sleepover at her house while I took the little kids camping. It was kind of last minute, but we all had a great time! It was Joey and John's first sleepover. Joey says they stayed up till 2 am and John swears he stayed up all night, but since they didn't take a nap the next day, I think they probably went to bed a little bit sooner. As for the little kids, we had a great time camping with Vicky and Lizzy SMith and Melissa and her 3 daughters Jenna, Haven, and Leah. We also saw lots of different people from our stake. THe water was cold, but so refreshing in the Texas heat. I could have stayed all day long. I can't wait till our kids are older and we can all float down the river together.

Saturday, September 01, 2007

1st week of school 2007




THe slide show for this week features the first day of school and a photo shoot of Michelle and the little kids including bath time. Well, this was the first week of school for this year, and so far it is going to be a great year. When asked by their mom how their first day went and every other day since Joey has always responded "great!" and John "Boring!". At one point on the first day John even said he'd had "the worst day of his life!" but that was mainly because he found out that Samantha, Nathan, Michelle and I had pringles for lunch and we ate them all. Even though he's had such a "boring" time at school, John has been the first one awake each morning and quickly gets dressed and eats breakfast so he can run to school and be one of the first ones there. Joey and John have started walking this year which has been wonderful! That way the little kids can sleep a little longer and their naps aren't interrupted in the afternoon. It also give me an extra half hour or so to work out or clean or shower in the morning while the little kids are still sleeping or dazed. I love it! The boys love it too. This way they are never late and can leave as soon as they are both ready in the morning. On Tuesdays and Thursdays they have market days at school and they can buy and sell things they made before school starts. They think it is the neatest thing. Samantha started preschool this week too. It was my week to teach and it was great! The class is smaller this year (5 kids) and the kids are all 4 rather than 2-3 like they were last year. Their attention span is sooooo much better! It's great!

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Michelle's First Month of Life

Michelle has been a busy baby! In her first month of life she has gone to the beach at Corpus Christi, gone to six flags in San Antonio, had dinner at Benihannas, gotten sunburned and gone to the pool regularly! She has been very good to us so far, although like all babies she has her moments. From the beginning we all commented on how loud her cry is. I think Heavenly Father decided to forgoe the quiet new born cry so that we would all be able to hear her and make sure she didn't get lost in the crowd. She really doesn't cry that often, but when she does she is loud. She is just barely starting to wake up and establish a schedule. It is nice to have awake moments with her. She is a sweet girl and tolerates alot from her siblings. They still all love to hold and kiss her. She's our sweetheart!

Sunday, August 12, 2007

8/12/2007 Sunburned, full of sand and having fun! The joys of being non anal



Well, we just finished our first "normal" week since Michelle was born. All of our company went home on Monday. (Mom and dad Rowberry came out for Michelle's blessing). On the way home from the airport, I stopped by costco and loaded up on milk. We also stopped at a couple other stores on the way and got a few things with no real problems! What a miracle! No one ran away or left the store screaming, it was a real success! We also made it to the pool 3 times this week which was really fun. Everyone did just fine. I still can't get in the pool, but luckily between the baby pool and the self sufficient boys, we were all able to enjoy ourselves without me getting wet.

Justin had an awful week this week. He had call on Tuesday and then on Thursday he had to go up to Fort Hood for the day, night and day. He got home on Friday at 8:00 p.m. and I made him watch the kids for me while I went shopping for our beach trip the next day. Poor guy, I don't think he really wanted to go to the beach, he just wanted to sleep and lounge the next day, but I knew that if we wanted to make it to the beach this year, yesterday was probably the only time to do that. We were invited by the Padillas to go and a few other families (the Lillywhites, and the Carltons) went as well. We left at 8:00, got to Corpus at around 11:00, enjoyed the beach and headed home around 5:00. It was a really nice day. My only regret is that Michelle got sunburned on her face a little. I tried really hard to keep her in the shade, I even bought a tarp, but I guess I didn't do a good enough job. Poor girl, it looks kind of painful. Other than that though, the kids had a blast. We brought the rafts that we took to lake Travis last year and the boys had the best time floating out into the ocean and building sand castles and catching fish. They actually were able to catch a fish with just their bare hands and a bucket!! It was cool and I think Justin had a good time playing with them. I waded a little bit, but I still can't swim for a few more weeks so I spent a lot of my time in the shade with Michelle eating lots of junk food. Not exactly the best way to lose all that baby fat, but that's life. It was fun to have a few other families there to talk to. They all have little kids (4 and under)but everyone still had fun. It's always interesting to be in a group of young parents, it reminds me how non anal I am. I'm not sure if it's a good way to be or not. Sure makes life easier not to be anal, but it means there is a lot more sand in your food at the beach.