Kid update

Despite all the craziness surrounding our change of address, the kids keep growing and changing. Imagine that. I need to write this stuff down before I forget it forever, because I do that. The more kids I have, the less I remember.

Emily is no longer a toddler, she's a kid. She loves to run and run and run. She can now swim fairly well and today Joe taught her how to dive. She's kinda bossy and seems to consider herself a second mommy. We've heard her telling her brothers "no ma'am, you can't do that" and Maddie informed us that Emily spanked her a few nights ago. She's always eager to help and even helped me unload a few carloads while I was getting our old house ready to rent. We were reminded that she is still quite a little kid though when she stuck a pea up her nose where it remained long enough to scare Grandma enough to consider taking her to the dr. She is finally making it through most nights with no diapers and without any accidents. She knows quite a few letter sounds and is beginning to grasp the concept of rhyming.

Maddie has her own little personality and she is choosing between being a big girl and hanging on to being a baby. She is either laughing and trying to make everyone else laugh or she is crying to be picked up. She's making jokes and using physical humor to make her brothers laugh. She communicates pretty well but makes a few of the same consonant substitutions that Emily did. She can also swim (which I think is pretty good for a 2 year old) and has no fear of the water.

Will keeps getting bigger and bigger (duh). He now weighs more than Emily did at 15 months. He's got the bruiser personality to match his thick frame. He and his brother have figured out how to knock over the superyard that I was so previously excited about. Its fun to watch them work together. Dad had the privilege of feeding him dinner the other night and found that he couldn't keep up with Will's shoveling. He usually eats as much as his sisters. I think he'll be walking soon, but we'll see. He's a sweaty boy and a drooler, but we love him anyway. So far he only has 2 teeth.

Travis seems to be the most musically inclined of our bunch so far (which may not be saying a lot). He dances to any sound that resembles music or has a beat. This week he learned how to bang the cymbals together and made his first attempts at clapping. He's walking while holding on to the furniture and is experimenting standing by himself. He has 5 teeth. He steals food from Will's tray even when his still has food on it - which is the exact opposite direction I expected the food to flow.

Well I'm too tired to write anymore. I'll probably read this later and wonder how I forgot so much and sound so boring. Ah... well... good thing my kids are cute enough to make up for my subpar writing skills. Guess I should download some pics off my camera and post them

We've Gone Country

LOOK AT THEM BOOTS!

(can you hear Alan Jackson in the background?)

ha ha, I found these cute baby boots at a resale store for a few bucks and couldn't pass them up.

BUT...

It's official! We are moving to the country! We closed late this afternoon and celebrated with a picnic dinner out at our new ranchita. (don't know what to call 12.81 acres, seems a little too small to call it a ranch) The sellers will be moving over the next few weeks, but we are looking forward to moving in mid-August. Anyone want to help?

Its been quite a roller coaster since we found this property 4 months ago. Three appraisals, two lenders, one lawyer, some easements, and many renegotiations later - its ours! Its not your typical property, some may even call it ugly, but to us its a diamond in the rough! Well its not even that rough, but there is so much potential here. More details later, but here are some pics from our evening.

Blue eyes

Look at these 3 beautiful sets of eyes! Can you guess which one of our kids this is?

I've been looking for pics of our kitchen in its original state and I'm coming across all these old pictures. I'm starting to get teary over here...

No more harvest gold!

Yep, there is not a spec left. BUT in these pictures, everything has a yellowish tinge to it. Grr, part of it is my lack of photography skills and the other is that the horrible plastic panels covering the fluorescent lights are old and yellowed.

When we first moved in, we had a harvest gold fridge, harvest gold and brown floors, and the dreaded harvest gold countertops. Click here and scroll down if you want to see old pictures. First, the harvest gold fridge died and Walter was nice enough to give us an old one he had stored in the office. We still have it, its old, but it works and its white. Then last year we replaced the floors and that was the biggest change.

Now, when we are planning on moving out in the near future - we finally get new countertops. We also got a new sink and faucet. Its great to no longer have a tiny mobile home sink (Yes our cheap a** builder actually installed one of those)! I swear I gained 5 inches of room to stack dishes in my sink - not that I would ever do that - sigh. We have a few things left to do like reinstall trim, kickboards, and new outlets. You'll notice that there are no high end choices here like granite or farmhouse sinks. It just doesn't fit the neighborhood and doesn't make sense for a rental property. And if for some reason we stay here longer, those curtains are gonna go!

Anyway, if you've ever been to our house, you'll be able to appreciate the change.

For Emily and Maddie

This post is really for the girls to see themselves with Dora, but if you are welcome to keep reading.
A kid's resale store close to the house, Once Upon a Child was having a big sale on Saturday and to lure us in, they hired Dora to come visit. Joe told the girls that Dora was at the store and we were going to see her. Emily thought Joe was playing a joke on her and kept saying "No Daddy. Dora doesn't go to the store. She's not at HEB". She was half excited and half almost-crying - like how could you tease me about something so serious Daddy?
When we walked into the store, Alvin and the Chipmunks were performing a song and the girls were mesmerized. Until our recent siting of the Chick-Fil-A cow, they really haven't had much exposure to bigger-than-life costume characters, so they weren't sure what to think, but they couldn't look away. After the show, we walked to the store and got lucky to find Dora standing there with no line. We got one pic (kinda hard to manuever in the crowded store with 2 toddlers and carrying 2 infant seats).

Mooooooooo ....... Flutter, flutter

So we are the crazy people who dress up for free food. We love Chick-fil-A and we love free food - no brainer.

We went in as cows...

And the girls left as beautiful butterflies (I was still just a cow. No, literally, I desperately needed to nurse)

Do you think she is a tad bit excited?

Cupcakes again

Once again, we needed something to pass the time and I also need to use up things in the pantry in case we ever actually move. Cupcakes are good, because they entertain before nap when you mix them up and put cupcake papers in the tins (good task for 2 year old Maddie). Then after nap you kill time by icing them and decorating them. I didn't have any butter so we tried this marshmallow-like icing recipe. I was lazy and a little rushed, so we just dipped the cupcakes in the icing instead of spreading it with a knife or piping it. We all liked the flavor but we were a little disappointed to find the icing had disappeared the next day. No daddy didn't eaten it. It was like most of it evaporated and a little bit of froth was left. The leftover icing in the fridge still looked good, so I guess I should've stuck the cupcakes in the fridge too. Who does that? Cold cupcakes - thats just wrong!