Impromptu Trip to Galveston

We had a lovely holiday weekend, but I am still editing photos for that so I thought I'd post some cell phone pictures from our impromptu trip to Galveston the day after Easter. J.R.'s best friend, Jayson, and his son, Caiden, joined us for Easter this year, and we thought it'd be nice for him to go on the dolphin tour that we discovered a little over a year ago (while Reid was still growing inside my tummy). We spotted more dolphins this trip, and had a lot of fun riding on a boat with a very excited infant and seven year old.

And just in case it isn't evident in the pictures how hyper Reid was on the boat:

IMG 1234 from Jen Dokos on Vimeo.

St. Patty's Day Recap

Don't worry, I am not going to start this post off with another promise to keep it updated more regularly. These past six months are a true testament to the fact that "life happens." I had hoped to keep it more current after Reid's birth, but that has not been as easy with the afore mentioned losses we experienced at the end of last year, the constant traveling (can you believe in his eight short months of life Reid has made seven plane trips? seven!!), and researching long-term care for a parent with early onset Alzheimer's disease. 

These past six months have also reinforced the fact that taking a little time out to relax and enjoy a holiday (say St. Patty's day for instance) isn't such a bad thing;). Here are a few pictures of Reid celebrating his first official day of green:

The tongue permanently resides outside of his mouth these days. Pretty sure it's genetic.

Would you like some pictures from the last few weeks? Yeah, I thought so...

I cannot believe that the Texas bluebonnets are already out in full force in our area. We stumbled upon this lovely patch at sunset last Friday and were able to snap a few pictures. The next night we visited the patch again (this time with Reid's Easter attire), and were able to get some great shots. I will post those very soon. Of course no promises, just very soon:)! 

Happy Vday Week!

Here are a few pics from our Valentines Day photo shoot:

And here's a quick (not always in focus) video of what I consider pure joy to watch: 

Hello neglected blog, remember me?

I have not forgotten our faithful blog readers, although it may appear so. It turns out caring for an infant monopolizes more our your time than you realize:). Add the holidays and the losses we are still dealing with from 2012, and to the back-burner our little blog goes. However, I hope that you precious few readers will bare with us, as I intend to finally hammer out a good layout for this thing and get it up and running on a weekly basis again. In the meantime, here are some "lately" pictures to tide you over...

8.27.2012

9.12.2012

9.14.2012

 9.25.2012

9.28.2012

10.3.2012

10.6.2012

 10.21.2012

(meeting my mom)

10.31.2012

(meeting J.R.'s dad)

11.10.2012

11.26.2012

(first trip to the Tetons)

12.6.2012

12.17.2012

12.23.2012

(Christmas with my dad)

12.25.2012

(Reid's going to have a cousin! My sis is prego!)

 12.31.2012

I will hopefully add all of the Christmas pictures in the next few days.

And in case you can't quite grasp how much Reid has grown, here's a monthly chart complete with a furry giraffe to measure by...

The boy is a weed I tell you:)!

Finally, while we were waiting on Dad to return from his guy's trip, 

Reid and I had some fun on the playground yesterday:).

 

Thanks for not giving up on the blog just yet. We will be back for another post soon!:)

Faith and Healing

You may have noticed my absence on this blog recently and there is reason behind it. October was the hardest month of our life to date. Reid, JR, and I have all lost a grandmother in a matter of three short weeks. We are still very much in shock, because although JR and I had expected that our beloved grandmothers would eventually go to be with The Lord, we were much less prepared for the sudden and unexpected passing of JR's mother/Reid's grandma. It is hard to understand why these three extremely significant relationships were taken from us in such a short period of time. We are grieving over our losses, and especially for our little boy who will never be able to know his grandmother like we were able to know ours. She truly loved him more than anything in the world (she glowed the entire week she was here in Texas, meeting him), and JR and I intend to make sure he knows how incredibly special he was to her.

Although we cannot always hope to understand God's plan, we continue to seek healing through our faith that they are all in a much better place, and will be watching over us. Please pray for our families during this difficult time, especially J.R., his Grandma Ethyl, and his Aunt Susan and Dad, as well as my Dad and Aunt Susan.

Great-Grandmother Dokos (JR's Grandmother)

Great-Grandmother Nichols (My Grandmother)

Grandma Dokos (JR's Mom)

Some newborn pictures

 

*Family interested in printing these pictures: Please let me know which ones you want so I can either send you the file or get them printed for you at a professional photo lab. The picture quality is dramatically reduced once these are loaded into blogger, and the pictures will not look good if printed off of this blog. Also, I have several more I can share with you!:)