A tiny detail

Well on my last post, which was Patrick's 8 month birthday, I left off one tiny detail. I just wasn't ready to spill the beans, but you guessed it, I'M PREGNANT...AGAIN! Yes, that's right, we are having another baby, due 12/21/10. Everything seems to be going well so far. I've had one sono and another one is scheduled for next Thursday to check for a heartbeat. Please pray for a healthy baby. I just want to be able to love and take this one home with us. I know the boys want their little brother or sister here too.

So with that said, no sinus surgery for me, but thankfully, I'm feeling ok. Just a little nausea in the afternoons. I've been super busy sewing diaper wallets. They are now for sale at Kid to Kid in Arlington. I'm working on getting some other stores to carry them and selling to friends for now.

We are all doing well and I'll update some pics soon!!

Hugs!

Lisa

8 months ago

Today is Patrick's 8 month birthday. Just a reminder to say hello to our angel in heaven. He's been on my mind a lot lately and I'm missing him more now than before.

We've had another busy week. Since Brayden's birthday and Easter, we have started many house projects (and finished them, I might add!) :) Brayden caught another virus, but thankfully his ears were fine and no strep. I also got another sinus infection, went back to the doctor and was told that I needed to go to an ENT since I've been on antibiotics for a month.

Our retaining wall/flower bed has finally been landscaped. Alleluia!!! We went to The Plant Shed in Mansfield, picked out all the shrubs and plants, had 3 yards of dirt and 3 yards of mulch brought in, and thankfully had some help planting and filling it in. It looks awesome! At the same time, we had all the outside of the house painted, some cracks inside fixed and now are having the main living area painted too. The only thing we still want to do is to have a gate installed across the driveway, but it'll have to wait a little bit longer.

This is down the driveway. The rose was given to us by our friends Brian & Courtney as a memory bush for Patrick. We planted it next to St. Francis statue since he is buried at the St. Francis cremains garden.

Oh, and Jackson is finally potty trained! (He's been since Spring Break) It's so nice not having 2 in diapers. Brayden has to go sit on his potty every time Jackson goes to the bathroom. It's cute and I'm hoping he'll be ready soon.

Tonight, Brayden made a huge mess. Jason heard the water running while watching tv and assumed it was me doing the dishes. 5 minutes later, it was still running , so he got up and found B in the bathroom sitting in the sink. He decided to take all of Jackson's flushable wipe and put them in the sink, clogging it and create his own waterfall. There was an inch of water on the floor and down the hall. Thankfully, Jason's dad brought us a shop-vac for Easter. It was put to good use tonight. The only thing Brayden said when Jason walked in the bathroom was, "Hi Daddy!" Too cute.

Spring Is Here

Here's a little update to our Spring season. We had a great Easter. The boys loved hunting for eggs (inside and out) and we had a great Easter dinner with family. My parents, my sister Kathryn, and her husband Joel, and Jason's brother, David, his wife Susanne and my neice Rylee and nephew Joshua. We not only celebrated the resurrection of our savior, Jesus Christ, but it was also Brayden's 2nd birthday!

My sister made some cute rice krispy treat eggs and we had plenty of candy. Then on Monday, we celebrated Brayden's birthday with a small party at our house. Here are the pics of the cake that I made with the help of my mom. I can't take credit for the whole thing.

A long time coming

Some of you probably thought that I had forgotten to blog anymore. Well our lives here in the Banks household has been busy for the last couple of months.

I began working as an online tutor at the beginning of February, as well as tutoring some students in their homes. This is also in addition to being President of AECPTA, attending bible study on Wednesday mornings, working in the SMG nursery on Thursday evening, and being a wife and mother to a 3 and almost 2 year old. Needless to say, I think about the blog daily, but haven't put forth the effort to update it. I apologize to all of you who continue to check in on our lives.

With that said, there has been another huge project in our lives that I'd like to share with all of you. We have now officially launched www.pswithlove.org. Although we are still in the beginning phases of our new business, we are very excited about all the new opportunities that we can see in our future. PS With Love (PS stands for Patrick Steven) has been in the works for a couple of months now. We were approached by the founders of Conception Is Life to be their North Texas distributors for their pro life products, which include bracelets, rosaries, and pins. We new that this could potentially change our lives and we are definitely up for the challenge. Please check out our website to view and purchase the products and also to see if there is a group of people that I could come share our story with and offer products to them as well.

Thanks for your support and I promise to try and do better with the blog!

Love and peace,

Lisa

An Amazing Sight

Today is a somber one for Arlington Police Department as they buried one of their own who died last week on his motorcycle while doing a traffic stop. I was planning on attending the funeral with Jason, but due to the school holiday, Jackson and Brayden were home from MDO. I couldn't find anyone that was available to watch the boys, so we decided to head to Colleyville to spend the morning with our friends, Laura, Alexander, and Grant. My drive up 360 was uneventful on the way there, just noticed the traffic heading southbound from the construction. As we were headed home going south on 360, traffic started to slow down right around I-30 near 6 flags. Jackson was in awe of the roller coasters and as we cleared the bridge I saw the most amazing thing I've seen in a while. A vision of police cars lined up single file with their lightbars on as far as the eye could see. I was overwhelmed with emotion at the sight of such camaraderie. Of course as we all sat patiently in traffic, I think we were in awe of what was taking place on the other side of the median barriers. I don't know if everyone knew what it was, but it hit home for me. I was probably a bit emotional anyway, since yesterday would have been Patrick's 5 month birthday, but knowing that Craig's wife in now a widow, his 2 yr old John, is without a father, and their unborn child will never know how brave his dad was sent me balling down the road. Not safe, I know, but I couldn't help it. I just balled for them, for APD, for all the children without parents, for widows, and for thanking God that my Jason is still here with me and the boys. Please keep the Story family and APD in your prayers as they heal from this terrible loss.

A Reflection

As another decade ends, I can't help but reflect on what has happened in the last 10 years. I moved from Austin to Dallas for a job, met my best friend, Dwanna and that was just the beginning.

I made some wonderful friends through my job at S&P. Then off to TXU/Atmos Energy where I worked until I decided to follow my dream of becoming a teacher. In April of 2002, I met the love of my life, Jason. We got engaged and then married in 2003. Then we built our first home together.

In 2004, Jason began his fight against cancer. As of today, he's been in remission for 4 1/2 years. Woohoo!

2005 brought the end of chemotherapy with a diagnosis of Jason being in remission. I also left my job at TXU to begin my student teaching in Mansfield ISD. Jason was injured in a softball game and underwent surgery to repair his Achilles tendon. In the fall, I began my first year of teaching at Icenhower Intermediate in Mansfield and Jason was an SRO for APD. In August, most of my family was hit by Hurricane Katrina. For those of you who don't know, my Dad's family is from Biloxi, MS and my mom's family is in New Orleans. Needless to say, we had a houseful of family and some of my cousins friends from college staying with us while they waited to hear the outcome. In December, I said goodbye to my grandma. Once her home was destroyed in the hurricane, she never fully recovered. We traveled to Biloxi to say our final goodbye. It also allowed us to see first hand the devastation that my family endured during the hurricane.

In January 2006, my brother got married. We were able to be in Houston for this wonderful celebration. In February, we experienced the joy and sadness of becoming pregnant and then loosing our baby. Thankfully, in March, I became pregnant again with Jackson. He was born November 10th at 36 weeks after some pregnancy complications that required me to be induced. Our lives were changed again when he was born under great duress but again we were blessed by having the best doctors and nurses by our side taking care of our little boy. I also left my job to stay home with him which was a very hard decision. I'm really glad I have had these last 3 years to be home and watch him grow.

2007 started with Jackson's heart surgery to repair his pulmonary valve stenosis. He had a successful procedure and after our hospital stay, he came home on Jason's birthday. Everything was fairly uneventful until July. I found out that I was pregnant again and was overjoyed to be having another baby. I was also glad to still have a baby who was a good sleeper which helped me to get through the 4-5 weeks of morning sickness. Jackson turned 1 in November and Jason decided to go back to patrol and worked midnights.

In April 2008, we welcomed our second boy, Brayden. Life for us became super busy with 2 small boys and Jason was now working day shift which was a huge help. We quickly realized that we were outgrowing our home, so we put it on the market and were fortunate to have it sell within 3 weeks. We moved to Arlington in August to our new home and absolutely love it. We couldn't be happier with our new house and neighbors!

January 2009 started with Jason's birthday and the news that I was pregnant again. It was really surprising since we weren't trying for another baby quite yet, but we were excited. We were thankful we had moved already since we were filling up bedrooms pretty quickly. In April, we found out that our baby would never live to be brought home because of Potters Syndrome. It was the saddest day of my life up to that point. In May, my sister got married, so I traveled to Charleston, SC to be there with my family. We had a wonderful weekend and I enjoyed some alone time. Jason stayed home with the boys so I could attend the wedding. Now, I'm happy to say that I'll be an aunt again in April. I can't wait to meet baby Hester. In June, I was asked to teach summer school, so I did that for 3 weeks. I was glad to get back in the classroom and didn't realize how much I missed teaching. July was just another month, and then on August 18th, we welcomed our 3rd son, Patrick into our family. He was stillborn at 34 weeks, exactly 17 weeks after we decided to carry him full term. He was just perfect and saying goodbye to him was the hardest thing I have ever done. In October, we decided to start remodeling our kitchen and after 4 weeks, it was done. We are so happy with it. I also started sewing diaper wallets and selling them at craft shows. It has been a success so far, so I'll keep doing that throughout the year.

That is a lot to process in 10 years, but what doesn't kill you will only make you stronger. I am so grateful to my family and friends, to have a loving husband, and 2 healthy boys to share my life with. Here's to the next 10!

A White Christmas

Who would have thought that we would have a white Christmas in Texas. I guess if you consider it is Texas weather we are talking about, it's not as shocking. Yesterday it was 71 degrees and today, snow.

Jackson is so excited for Christmas. He keeps bringing me presents asking to open them. We decided to start our own tradition of opening family/friend gifts on Christmas Eve and Santa would come on Christmas morning. It gives us a chance to spread it out since we are home for the holidays. With no family around to share the holiday with, it's nice to have our own traditions to do with the boys. Brayden doesn't really understand what is going on, so he just likes to do what big brother is doing.

We had a busy week last week. Jason has successfully recovered from sinus surgery and went back to work today. It was so nice to have him home for a week and the boys loved it too. Jackson and Brayden were both sick with ear infections and swine flu and I battled an upper respiratory infection. Thankfully, we are all well and able to enjoy Christmas. The boys and I may be going to Houston for a few days if the roads are safe and we all stay healthy. Jason is going to be working some long hours this weekend, so I thought it would be nice to get away and visit family. This would be Patrick's first Christmas and he would be 4 months old. I think the boys would have enjoyed showing him their new toys and he would have loved to watch all the festivities. I know he's watching down on us and sending us this beautiful snow!