Survivors

Here are the two baby bunnies that survived the snake attack. They
seem to be doing fine and they are so cute!

My husband the snake slayer

My manly husband triumphed over this snake that ate 4 baby bunnies in our backyard. You go babe!

18 months

- My new favorite photos -

Thank you Aunt Rachel for taking them!

Howdy!

Check out this Texas boy trying on a hat in the store. He loved it and
seemed to know that he looked pretty cute!

Back!

We're back after a blogging hiatus. As you may know the last 2 months held a lot of big changes and decisions for us, and we find ourselves unexpectedly here for a while. While change is hard, we are happy with where we are and what we are doing! God's given us a lot of peace, and we're so thankful to be nearer to our families for this time. Here's a few photos of our growing boy... I'm hoping to be better about blogging now that we are more settled.

This boy is fascinated by rain! We realized soon after getting here that he'd never really seen it before. It's a good thing he likes it because we've been getting a lot of it here in Texas. This mama is liking it too... There is something great about the sound of rain on the window and I'd missed it!

Our handsome boy

Texas Time

We made it to Grandmama's new house, and she took some great photos while we were playing outside.

At Grandma's House

We couldn't be enjoying our family any more if we tried! Our sweet boy is loving wintry PA, as you can see below. Next stop: Texas!

Our Talker!

I thought I'd write down what Justice is saying at this point. At 15 1/2 months,

Here is what he can say crystal clear:

Mama

Daddy

Baby

Apple

Uh-Oh

And here is what he can say not-so-clear, but still understandable (to us anyway):

"Ba" - ball

"Ba" - bath

"Ba" - bye

"duss-duss" - Justice

"pee-sa" - pizza

"wee-wee" - kiwi

"da-ghun" - get down

"na-na-na" - no no no!

...And about a million other babbles that clearly mean something to him, but not so much to us yet! His most used word at the moment is definitely 'baby'. He is always pointing to babies in books or pictures or in person and showing us. Oh, and he does sign language for "more" and "all done," which helps at meal time.

Here are a few pictures:

I know the next one is blurry, but I just had to share the mischievous look...

And this is what I found when I rounded the corner the other day... looks like I have a laundry sorting helper!

Our Favorite Place

We went away for a few days to our favorite vacation spot: the place we got married! We've been back a few times: a couple of years ago for our 2nd anniversary, again this time, and a time or two in between. The water and the rugged mountains next to each other make it a gorgeous spot. It also has some of the best snorkeling in the world - which happens to be Brian's and my favorite thing to do together. But I think our days of snorkeling together are over, at least for a while until Justice gets bigger. Oh well - taking turns works fine. This is a view from our hotel (which, by the way, is the hotel we would choose to have our wedding at if we could do it all over again!).

Do you see those tiny palm trees in the distance in the picture above? At the farthest point to the left where the mountains are reaching out into the water? Well that is where we found a good remote snorkeling spot. The pictures below are taken there. It requires some off-roading to get there, and we only got "almost-stuck" once. Definitely worth it.

Does anyone else think he looks like his Grandpa Pauling (my dad) in this next one?

Playing in the sand while waiting for Daddy to finish snorkeling - and investigating the 7up from the local bedouin man who sells them nearby.

Taking a break from the sun in the hotel...

I think these next 3 capture our little monkey's character pretty well - these are some expressions we commonly see!

Fun at the Park

                                 Can I get out of here?  Plotting my escape...

                                        What IS this?  Must investigate...

                                                           soccer skills