Top 20 Photos of 2013: 9

Now today's picture is one of my favorites.  Scrolling through September's pictures I saw this and fell in love with it all over again.  I am so lucky to have a wife that is not only an excellent cook, but LOVES doing it.  I eat well.  Breakfast, lunch, or dinner; Amy is skilled in all areas.  Just one of the many reasons why I love her so.

#9: September

This is one of my favorite pictures of Amy and Stella.  Amy was in the kitchen making something delicious and Stella, as she loves to do, was in there with her "helping".  Stella was so happy to have an apron just like Mommy.  My girls.

Whatever it was they were making is long forgotten, but the picture serves as a reminder that I am so blessed.  Also that something new and yummy is just around the corner.  Dear future husband of Stella: you can thank Amy for that meal.

All is well, picture perfect, in Drosche Land.

Top 20 Photos of 2013: 8

August.

Always a busy and rough month here in Drosche Land.  As I am sure it is in the household of any other teacher during the month.  But since we are both teachers, it only enhances the whirlwind.  August 2013 was no different.  Well, with one exception.

#8: August

Yep.  Remember?  August was the month when Jackson broke his arm.  Right before school started nonetheless.  This picture was taken by Amy when she took him to the ER right after it happened.  He had to be put into twilight to set it.  Poor little guy, he was such a trooper though.  The next 8 weeks would see him with 2 different casts to make sure it was healed properly.

The first break in Drosche Land.  Well, not the first.  Technically the first was when Jackson broke his nose when he was about 18 months/2 years.  But it was slight and nothing could be done.  Therefore the arm gets the honor of being the first break, but of course it was Jackson again.  No surprise there.  The casts didn't slow him down one bit though and all turned out well.  Sadly, I doubt it will be the last broken bone we see.  Hopefully we are as lucky the next time as we were this time!

All is well, picture perfect, in Drosche Land.

Top 20 Photos of 2013: 6

Here I am.

Right on time.  Day 6, post 6.  Yea me!

So, in keeping with my aforementioned monthly theme, here is Picture #6.

#6: June

Again, June was an easy month.  Stella's 1st birthday.  How could I not have chosen a picture of her for June.  Her first year had flown by and had been quite eventful as we traveled down the food allergy roller coaster.  But on this day it was all about celebrating the amazing gift she has been to us.

There you have it, 6 down and 14 to go.  2013 was full of a lot of good times.  Stay tuned for #7, I already have it in mind!

All is well, picture perfect, in Drosche Land.

Top 20 Photos of 2013: 1-5

Hey!
So, before January even arrived, one of the bloggers I follow (Duncan at The Kuantan Blog) posted about a photo-themed blog hop he was planning for January.  I love me a good blog hop and this one was all about pictures.  For the first 20 days of January I would post my 20 favorite photos from 2013.  Sounded great!  I signed right up.  Sadly, I forgot!  YIKES!

But, better late (only 5 days) than never here I am (thanks to a friendly reminder via Facebook!).  I'll do one big catchup post here for the first 5 and then continue with one a day from there.  

I take so many pictures with both my camera and iPhone all the time.  I make great use of Instagram and Facebook but many still never get posted.  To help with organization and time I have decided to make use of Apples Photostream and go through my pictures month by month.  I'll pick my favorite from each month and then 8 more others that I find along the way.  Sounds like a plan right?  Right!  So, here goes.  Hope you enjoy the visual walk back through 2013 with me.  

#1: January

I love this picture of Stella looking at Lucy.  The expression on her face is priceless.  It is what we call her "stink eye".  No one, human or animal, is impervious to it.  It cracks her and all of us up!

#2: February

Amy says I take way too many selfies.  This is one of my favorite pictures I took of myself.  My sister-in-law gave the boys this Stormtrooper helmet that makes a ton of noise.  I have to admit, it was fun to wear!

#3: March

I also take tons of pictures of my kids.  2013 being the year of firsts for Stella I took many of her, but also of all 3 since it was the boys' first time being a big brother to a little sister.  This picture is from Easter and melted my heart immediately.

#4: April

Another thing I take a lot of pictures of is food.  I love to eat.  2013 was the year Amy and I fell in love with food trucks.  We don't visit them nearly as much as we'd like, waistlines and wallets object, but we do like to get to them when we can.  One of our favorites is Bernie's Burger Bus.  This delicious burger was a splurge that Amy and I split.  It's called The Detention.  Instead of buns it has 2 bacon grilled cheeses.  Then there are two patties, more bacon, more cheese, and other delicious toppings.  YUM!  We loved it but definitely something to split, it was huge!  

#5: May

I knew that May's picture would have to be for Jackson.  True, Braeden's birthday is in this month, but with his graduation from Pre-Kindergarten it was a momentous month for Jackson as well.  He looked so grown up and was so proud of himself, as were we.

There you have it.  The first 5 of my 20 favorite pictures of 2013.  So far, so good!  Let's see what the next 15 have to bring!

All is well, picture perfect, in Drosche Land.

  

Lost

So yesterday I learned several very valuable lessons. 1 - back up all of your pictures, frequently. 2- don't keep personal pictures on your work computer. 3 - if you don't follow #2, at least back them up on something personal like an extranal hard drive, the Internet, or DVDs. 4 - if for some reason you don't follow the first 3 rules, have an awesome IT guy who will do everything he possibly can to help, even if none of it works.

Yep, your deductive reasoning skills are sharp and by now I'm sure you've guessed what this is about. Yesterday my computer crashed and I lost a lot. First off though I'll preface this by saying everything could have been avoided if I'd followed the aforementioned steps from above!

See I'd been meaning to back up all of my 4,600ish pictures from my work computer and clean them off of there. At the insistence and advice of my lovely wife. At the insistence and advice of my awesome IT Guru. But laziness proved to be my Achilles heel! See Amy and I don't have a home computer anymore, we have our iPad and her Nook. We have our work computers from Trinity that began our love affair with everything Apple. Since we didn't have personal computers I've always uploaded our pictures to mine and then backed them up on an external hard drive. But I'd gotten lazy with that. I'd been meaning to do so again since it's been a long time since I last did so, and was actually going to do it over Spring Break. Once that was done I was going to take them off the computer altogether. Obviously this did not happen.

Wich brings us to yesterday's tragedy. My computer suddenly said it was running low on space. I have no clue why, it was fine just the other day. It kept going down and down and I panicked! I shut it down thinking that would help but then it wouldn't turn back on. More panicking ensued, along with frantic texts to said IT Guru. Turns out, try as he might, he couldn't get into it and had to wipe it clean. Panic overload. All of my documents were on the school's server so they were safe. I have all of my music on my iPhone and iPad so (hopefully) they'll synch back when I reconnect, at least the purchased music will, I may have to import others from CDs. But the pictures were the greatest loss. Over 4,600. Gone. Well, maybe not exactly that much, I'm not sure when I last backed it all up. Suffice it to say, though, that a lot are gone. I was flabbergasted (isn't that a fun word?). I was depressed and mad but had no one to blame but myself so I couldn't be too depressed and mad. The more I thought of it though, I found a silver lining to the dark cloud, albeit a thin one. Thanks to social media I have a lot of the pictures unintentionally backed up via Facebook and this blog, then there's ones I've uploaded to Snapfish to print (have you tried Snapfish? It's pretty awesome!), I also havetype of my camera's cards full, and Amanda texted me about the DVDs I burned for her so there's a ton there. So, not all is lost, but a good chunk of the last 3 years are.

I know what you're thinking. How can a techno-savvy genius like me NOT back things up? I'll shamefully admit again that it comes down to laziness! Yikes, that's a tough pill to swallow. I just never made the time to get around to doing it. Trust me though when I say that I'll never make that mistake again. Ever.

I'm truly grateful to the two people who could have given me a load of "told you so", Amy and my IT Guru. But they didn't, at least not too much! :) Amy just reminded me of our backup plan, which I hadn't followed, and let it go. My IT Guru busted it to get my computer up and running again in less than a day and I owe him big (if you're reading this, trust me, I'll pay up!)!

So, in conclusion dear readers, learn from my mistake and back up your stuff! Do it now! Hopefully though, you already do and are shaking your head at me in disbelief! I know I am. This weekend I undergo the task of finding, organizing, and backing up everything we do have and getting a system in place so this never happens again! Hopefully it'll be done in time for the Sunday Snapshot. That or I'll just have to use my iPhone and Dropbox to upload via the iPad. Wish me luck!

All is well, lesson learned (the hard way), in Drosche Land.

Sunday Snapshot - The Shower

Ok, so our the family friend of ours who took pictures during our shower yesterday posted some of them to Facebook this evening! I selected a few to include here for this week's Sunday Snapshot. There are many more and she is compiling them all for us. So, I may have more shower pictures to post at a later date, we'll see. But here are just a few. It's only been a day but these pictures bring back the fun memories of the shower and give us the first pictures to include in Stella's baby book/scrapbook/memory box! We are doubly lucky because not only did she capture moments from the shower, but she also followed the kids around outside as they played. She was able to get some great shots of the boys and their cousins that I am in love with. So, it's Sunday but they're not my snapshots. But they are my memories. On with the pictures! Enjoy!

 My beautiful wife with the sweet treats!

 I love this one of Amy and I laughing!

 This is an awesome shot of the cousins!

 Amy and I cutting the cake!

 Love this one of my boys!

 Amy and I with one of our gifts!

 Another great shot of the cousins!

LOVE these shirts for the boys and Stella!  I cannot wait to get them all in them and take some pictures!

The Sweet Smell of Success

So, I will take this post to brag on Amy.  So, you have seen via this blog and Facebook, just how much her Scentsy business is booming and how much she is loving it.  However, yesterday she got some confirmation on just how well she is doing.  Her name appeared in the Scentsy Spotlight Newsletter because she made a crap load of sales this past month!  Ok, so that's not exactly the terminology they use, but you get the gist.  We knew she had been doing well because she just got her first paycheck (which was awesome!).  Plus you know Amy and her spreadsheets (she has several for her Scentsy business!), they have provided evidence as well.  I have to say I am so proud of her for getting her name in the publication. She works her butt off and has been enjoying every minute of it.  I am just so glad that she has received some validation for her hard work and her love of the business!

In addition to that great news she is also excitingly close to having her own team!  One of her girls from work, Braeden's teacher Julie, is considering becoming a consultant and we had lunch with some good friends, Robin & Michael, yesterday and Robin is hooked as well!  So, in a few days we will see about their decisions to join the Scentsy family.  Not only is Amy bringing people into the company and supporting this awesome product, but she is also super excited about starting her own team and having team meetings and parties!  

So, business is booming here in Drosche Land and we are loving it!  The boys get almost as excited about each new Scentsy delivery as Amy.  I love watching them sit down, unpack, and smell all the new items!  I have countless pictures to prove it.  So, what is Scentsy to Drosche Land?  Additional income?  Yes.  A second job?  Kind of.  One thing is for sure - Scentsy makes Amy joyously happy and she is great at it!  That's all I need to know about it!  Now, what's love and a blog without the ability to shamelessly plug and promote something I love?  Visit here for more info, to buy, or to join Amy's team!  :)

All is well, and smelling good, here in Drosche Land.

         Isn't she AWESOME! 

Wii Love Sports!

Well, as you can probably tell from the title of this post we have been playing the Wii a lot now that summer is in full swing.  The boys are finally old enough and to the point where they can play by themselves and they love it.  Right now their favorite thing to do is to play Wii Sports - baseball in particular.  This is the easiest for them since it does not involve button-pressing and moving.  Braeden, however, taught himself how to work the remote in order to pause, restart, and select.  So it may not be too long before they are broadening their athletic video game abilities.  They really want to try bowling, but I must confess, I do not have the patience yet to try and teach them how to use the remote for that.  I know once they get it they will have no problem, it's just the probability of a frustrating learning process that has me holding out.  But luckily for now they are content with baseball only.  They are actually really cute when playing, Jack especially.  He has a funny little grunt when he pitches and spends most of the time he plays yelling "Yeah Baby!" and "Did you saw that?!).  I would love to say I have pictures, which I do, but they are trapped on the camera since we still do not have any replacement batteries.  However, there are some, as well as an adorable video on Facebook.  Ahhh, I love Facebook, but I digress.  We did finally have the bright idea to set a timer for them, 30 minutes, when they play.  This keeps things in order and makes for way less drama when it is time to stop!  It may also be time to bust out the Cars game again since we had dinner at the Lytle's house on Tuesday where the boys played a Mario racing game and loved it.

My favorite part of the Wii you ask?  Well, I would have to be honest and say using it to access our Netflix and watch the instant movies/TV shows.  That is why I am totally addicted to Weeds now!  Plus I just love watching movies and now the ability to do so whenever I want is almost too much joy to withstand, but I manage! :)  Although I do enjoy Wii Sports as well, particularly bowling and tennis.  I'm not too terribly bad at either actually.  Of course I have put off starting up Wii Fit again.  I'm not ready to confront the little guy that runs it and get on the board/scale just yet.  I know I have about 10 pounds to lose but that little computer is a taskmaster and I have a tendency toward laziness (you're shocked I know!).  Hopefully next week I will begin again.  We'll see (Amy is now rolling her eyes!).

So, now that summer is here we actually have the time for the fun and recreational things that the school year tends to unintentionally forbid.  Wii time being one of them.  It is fun to watch and play, although I have to admit it is kinds of bittersweet to watch the boys play because it makes you realize exactly how fast (too fast!) they are growing up!  But for now we will focus on the fun aspect of it.  That and of course me working up the courage to face my Wii Fit Instructor!  Yikes!

All is well, Wii are loving summer, here in Drosche Land.

Play Ball!

Well, these past two nights have been quite late for us here in Drosche Land.  In fact, we have not gotten home before 8:00 p.m. either night.  What could be keeping us out and about so late you ask?  Baseball.  Well, actually Little League Baseball to be exact.  Both of our nephews are on teams through Spring Branch and they both had games this week.  Monday we traveled out to see Austin play.  Prior to that though we did get to drive around one of the neighborhoods we are looking into since it was quite close to the fields Austin's game was at.  This is the Spring Shadows area and we were quite pleased.  The area we were looking in was nice and quiet; the houses were well maintained, and the prices reasonable.  The only drawback was the high schools they were zoned to.  We really would like the kids to go to Stratford.  However, there is really only one neighborhood we can afford to move into that is zoned to this school so we will see what the future holds for us.  But it was fun to drive around and actually look at the houses.  We would also like to start going to open houses just to get a feel for the insides, yards, and layouts.  But I digress again, back to the topic at hand: baseball.

It should come to no surprise to those of you who know me that sports is not exactly my area of either expertise or interest.  Amy on the other hand is different.  She enjoys watching sports and grew up playing team sports (I only played basketball for on year in 5th Grade but that's a topic for another post).  Braeden was super excited to be seeing Austin play, although slightly disappointed that he himself would not be able to play baseball with him.  But he enjoyed the experience of being out there and at times was glued to the game.

Tonight was Jared's game.  Once again Braeden was enthralled the entire time.  I spent the time talking, on Facebook, or just taking pictures of the kids (see below).  As much fun as I know the boys would have playing sports, I am still quite leery.  I mean some of those dads are uber competitive - I am not.  Those dads are sports fanatics - I am not.  Those dads know the game and get involved - I do not.  Did I mention that some of those dads are crazy competitive and really get into the game?  So I don’t know.  I'm not sure I want the boys yelled at or pushed so hard.  Then again, maybe I'm just being defensive.  But there is also the time (not to mention monetary) commitment you must make.  I mean seriously?!  Practice and games on weeknights means not getting home before 7:00 or 8:00 regularly.  I don't know how I jive with that.  Right now it would be nearly impossible to handle with our Masters courses and living out in BFE.  But in the future it is still going to mean late nights and hectic schedules.  So hmmmm. . .

I know there are also many benefits to the sports.  Reinforcing concepts of teamwork and the whole physical health of it all but I just don't know.  Maybe I am being biased since I am not a, how do you say this, athletic person at all?  But that shouldn't mean holding my kids back I know.  So I guess I already know the answer and outcome to this debate - get the boys involved in organized sports and let them choose (except for football - that’s a no-no per Amy).  Luckily with our Masters and living situation we (I) don't have to make a decision or commitment any time soon.  However, we are only about a year out from having to do so.  So, time will tell, as it does for many things.  In the mean time, getting together and hanging out with the cousins is fun and entertaining.  So that's good, gives me time to open up to the idea and get over myself!  :)

All is well, while weighing the pros and cons of team sports, in Drosche Land.

  Jack loved playing on the dirt mound!

 

 Austin & Braeden had fun playing together

 

 Audrey enjoyed relaxing and watching the game

Looking Back

Well, the rare event of having a little free time actually occurred today and I was finally able to back up all of our pictures from our ginormous, useless, Dell.  It had been quite a while since I did so and it took about an hour to transfer about a year's worth of photos onto our external hard drive.  Then I backed up the photos I have on my Macbook from work.  Needless to say, working with the Macbook was much easier.  iPhoto is awesome and I was just reminded that I am done with PCs forever!  But I digress, again.  The reason I did this was to have access to all of our photos for use in my Wednesday posts.  Who knew we had so many pictures?  I mean, I love taking pictures and it has tapered off a bit since our lives have grown so busy, but there has got to be over 10,000 from mid 2003 to now.  So, rather than get any homework done tonight while Amy was out at her Accreditation meeting for Christ Memorial, I just sat around looking at pictures.  Pre wedding photos, wedding photos, NOLA photos, Katrina photos, Braeden photos, Jackson photos, and everything in between.  It was fun reminiscing but I have to admit I do feel a bit older now having done so, as if the impending big 3-0 wasn't already making me feel that way!  Especially after creating a photo album on Facebook of our time in NOLA.  Man did we look young!  But then again I guess we were, after all we were only 22 and 23 years old.  We look like little kids playing house!  Great memories.  I am attaching to this post some of the pictures I was going to save until next Wednesday, but I couldn't wait!  So, I will post some here and then will choose new ones for Wednesday.  I'm looking forward to going over them all as I choose the lucky ones that will be included in future posts.  I love looking at old pictures, old cards, old memorabilia, etc.  Sometimes I think it drives Amy bonkers, but it makes me happy to look back and see the amazing events that have happened on our journey to where we are now.  It also makes me excited about taking more pictures, making more memories, and then looking back on them in the future.  Especially with the adoption!

All is well, backward, present, and forward, in Drosche Land.

     Moving into our 1st apartment in New Orleans!