hermann park

since we had yesterday off from school & it was a beautiful day we decided to head to one of our favorite parks for a picnic, tree climbing &bike riding. since i don't have a bike right now livi was sweet enough to share hers with me & after today i'm really going to be putting the pressure on daddy to get me one so livi & i can ride together.

 after riding around on the trail for a while daddy thought it would be fun to ride down some hills if we felt like it. of course daddy threw challenge at us & we had to except it. fyi, mommy was not the happiest about this because livi has only been riding a bike without training wheels 3 times! well she took off with a scream & going as fast as lightening. i think daddy realized that maybe livi had bit off more then she could chew & jumped in front of her to help her slow down. well that didn't work out as planned & they crashed!!! everyone was ok for the most part, daddy's knee took the brunt of everything. but the important thing was livi got back up on her bike to tackle that mountain of a hill. this time we started lower & worked our way higher till she reached the top. that probably would have been the better plan to have started with.

after hanging around the park for a while we decided to go visit some murals we've always heard about but had never seen in person since we were already downtown... yay!

livi posed & took this picture, isn't it great?!

here's a little movie trailer daddy put together of livi's bike ride at the park today & it's awesome!

kylie's prayer: march run

the other night we went out to serve with kylie's prayer & love on some good people that were down on their luck. kylie's prayer is a christian ministry dedicated to sharing the love of Jesus Christ with the homeless of downtown houston that was started with a 5 yr old's (kylie) prayer to help the homeless. now a few yrs later, the last saturday of the month a group of people meet together to help serve kylie's mission to spread the Word and Love of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ to the homeless, through distribution of supplies, food, love, and prayer.  it's so wonderful going out with our old friends & helping new friends. the other night we had a pretty small group like we used to have, there was only about 12 of us because of the easter holiday. some of our friends brought 40 lbs of bananas & they were all gone in under 10 mins, it was crazy. we brought mostly clothes this time & not much food so i'm glad we had all those bananas. livi's g/t teacher gave us a huge bag of women's clothes & we're so happy she did because there were several woman that were excited to have a nice outfit to wear to church the next day. even though we made lots of people happy with the clothes we felt bad there wasn't much food so next month our family is going to really work on bring food, maybe 15 pizzas or something. i'm not going to lie, this was the roughest night emotionally we've had serving the homeless. there were several people messed up & overdosing on the latest drug trend "kush" which is a fake type of drug that is really really bad. for the first time in all the years we've been doing this there were ambulances, fire trucks & the police told us to leave because of what was happening, that we were trespassing. as we left there was a woman that had overdosed on kush & daddy stopped to help, but didn't know what he could do. we went to speak to the emt across the parking lot to let them know this woman needed help also. the emt told us that she was fine & be on our way... she clearly was not fine. we then went & talked to the police & were told they were having a rough time getting another ambulance out there. It's heartbreaking to see this & my girls are struggling with processing everything they saw. we're asking for prayers for all of these people & understanding that they are seen & not tossed away. the evening wasn't bad by any means, it was just very different from whet we've seen before.  there was a super sweet man who is a diabetic but couldn't say no to livi when she offered him chocolates because he didn't want to hurt her feelings. we love serving Houston's homeless & look forward to it every month. it's just gut wrenching when there's nothing you can do to help & ones that can look the other way. so please just remember there are just so many ways to help & if you'd like to find out more about kylie's prayer or how you can serve please click here

“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink,I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me…” Matthew 25: 35-36

happy easter

daddy a special message just for you

if there was an official award in the category for 'the best daddy daddy in the world', you'd win it every single day of your life. thank you for always being there for us and supporting us. your the best daddy daddy ever! have a happy happy birthday daddy daddy & may your day be filled with all things that make you smile! we love you sooooooooooooooo much!

-love your goofy girls-

look at livi go

livi has been really wanting daddy to take off her training wheels on her bicycle so yesterday he he got up the nerve to do it! she's only been riding a bike for 3 months so we were a little nervous... ok a lot. daddy had her start out riding in the front yard, that way if she feel she'd have a soft landing & she'd really get the feel of pushing her legs since it's harder to ride on than cement. let me tell you from the first push she was off like a rocket. in a span of 5 mins she went from being nervous & shaky to riding like a pro. the smile on her face as she realized she was doing was priceless & poor daddy couldn't keep up with her.

since livi had mastered the yard, we decided to take her to a park with lots of open space to ride in the grass to get even more comfortable.

our little daredevil got so brave that she wanted to ride through a rather big dip in the grass. we all thought she was going to flip over the handlebars or take a big spill, but she was insistent... so we let her go for it!!!

after that livi knew she was ready to meet the cement head on! so we headed to the sidewalk waiting to see how livi would do. there was no reason for us to bite our nails because she rocked it & even was taking curves in the sidewalk like she'd been doing it forever. on her first ride on the sidewalk, she was already at the end of it ready to turn the corner when she yells back "am i doing it?!?!" umm, we were only halfway down the sidewalk way behind her & she had no idea... so yeah, she was doing it! she did have one itty bitty run in with a thorn bush, but she got right back on her bike & didn't ride on the sidewalk again... lol.

it's crazy that in one hour livi went from never riding her bicycle without training wheels to almost popping wheelies... she is amazing & we're so proud of her for being so brave & tackling this with all she had!