Home Sweet Home

Since we can't afford to get Elle a real playhouse, we improvised. When we got the dishwasher a few weeks ago, I set the box aside so we could make her her very on house. She has a light in it, a poster on the wall, "carpet" and a pillow and books. There are 2 windows, and the door has a peep hole and a handle. She really likes her new playhouse.

Ava and her twin

Bluebonnets

There is a garden at one of the churches here in Greenville that is open to the public. On the way to church last night I noticed that they had a good size patch of bluebonnets. So, this morning I loaded the girls up and headed over there. I got some GREAT pictures of them. I couldn't stop smiling when I saw them on the computer :) Hope it puts a smile on your face too...maybe it will brighten your Monday.

More Condensing

Condense

That's the word for the day. How do you condense 198 pictures and 3 short videos into one post? Thursday we left for Searcy to be with our niece during her 3rd birthday. We had such a wonderful time! Elle and Riley just loved each other and were pretty much inseparable the entire time. They did so good playing with each other with almost no fighting. Though it was a long road trip, we were SO glad we went. Ava also did quite well considering she had to do lots of sitting and keeping herself occupied. She actually ate something tonight that she couldn't get enough of. We were at McDonald's eating dinner and I pinched off a piece of my wheat bun from my chicken sandwich and she LOVED it! She ate quite a bit of it and even took a few drinks from a straw. Maybe that will wake up her taste buds a little. Anyway, here's a few pictures from our fun weekend.

A few more pictures

Our bradford pear tree out front. It was so gorgeous! As the flowers have started falling off, it looks like it's snowing in our front yard.

The old dishwasher went kapoot, so Elle and Daddy installed a new one. Shawn had never done this before and decided to just do this one. It turned out perfect! Way to go Shawn!

The blue stuff all over her face is cotton candy icecream. I guess she REALLY enjoyed it! That's my girl!

Our Daily Life

Hi everybody!

Future's so bright, I gotta wear shades

What a big girl, sitting up on the couch.

Working on her balancing skills

Well, it may be a little while before I post again because we are leaving Thursday morning for 3 days in Searcy, AR. Our niece is turning 3 and we are headed that way to help her celebrate. We are really excited because we are going to be seeing a lot of family. It will be a nice little mini-vacation also. Hopefully the car ride will go smoothly. The DVD player for our car helps a lot for Elle. Ava.....we'll see.... Both girls are doing well. Elle is really getting braver every day. She is climbing and jumping on lots of stuff. She is really excited about her pink party that is coming up. I just can't believe that she's almost 3! As for Ava, she's doing well also. She is such an easy baby. She takes two 2 1/2 hour naps a day and a 3rd shorter one and she's just easy! What a blessing. She is still working on sitting up and is starting to babble alittle more. Still not wanting anything to do with food. She seems very interested in the food on our plate, but when we give it to her, she can't stand it. She's a toot! Well, Shawn said I REALLY needed to update so there ya go. Now you can go on and have a very productive day. Have a great one.

Day 5 Day 5

If you ever had a child in Sunday school, you can finish that sentence. But, I'm not really talking about that song. Today is Day 5, as in 5 days in a row that Elle has watched Cinderella. I think she's taken it on as a personal goal to get in the Guiness Book for watching a movie the most times in a row. She sure is going to be excited at her birthday because she's getting a few other really classic Disney movies....I'm a little excited too! Disney movies really are good!!!
Keeping with the title, Ava went to cradle roll for the first time Wednesday night. She seemed to really enjoy all the chew things for her :) She played with the little boys' ear who sat next to her most of the time. It was exciting to start her in that class because I know how much Elle has always loved her bible class and hopefully Ava will be the same. It was a FULL class, 7 babies and a few were missing! I am suspose to start teaching it on Wed. nights in May so it should be pretty wild!
Ava had a weird night last night. I gave her a bath and she loved it and then afterwards, she just started puking and couldn't stop for about an hour and a half. She was really not doing well. I got pretty worried but she did nurse and then went straight to bed and slept all night, so who knows. I did try to feed her squash yesterday so maybe that didn't agree with her. So far every food I've let her try, except for a lick of big sister's lolly pop, she has turned her nose up at it and acted like I was feeding her lemon juice. Who knows....she'll get the hang of it one day.
Well, nothing else going on. We are probably headed to Rockwall/Mesquite tonite for a little Friday night relaxing. Oh one more thing, if you know of a good college fund that doesn't cost a lot to upkeep, let me know about it. We are thinking of switching Elle and Ava's college fund to something that doesn't charge so much. It was charging $20 a year plus a few other percentages and we aren't adding enough at this point in our lives to make that worth it! It needs to be usable anywhere in the US and possibly usable between the two girls with no name changes needed. Okay, hope you have a great Friday! Life is Good

1/2

Ava is 1/2 year old today!!! I think I'll celebrate with some cookies! ha ha ha She is doing great. We took her for her 6 month check-up and shots. She weighs 15 lbs and is 26 1/2 inches long. So, she hasn't gained any weight and gained 1/2 inch. She's still storing it all in her cheeks. She is rolling on her side, but won't go to her tummy and if you lay her on her stomach she flips straight to her back. She sat by herself on the bed yesterday for about 10 seconds. She is really livining up. She has such a special place in our world and we are so so so fortunate to have her in our family!

Garage Sale

Well, we did it. We had the garage sale yesterday and it couldn't have been a better day. You know how there's that first really good Saturday of Spring and everyone is in a good mood, and working outside and all the garage-salers who have been waiting all winter for warmer weather and lots of overstuffed garages are finally getting their day? Well, that was Saturday in Greenville. Not only did we sell the old king size bed!, but we sold just about everything else we had put out. I'm telling you, stuff that has been in 2 previous garage sales sold yesterday! People were in the mood to spend! We made $530!!! We absolutely couldn't believe it! This will really go far with the new mattress that we bought! Within 1 hour of selling our old mattress, the new one arrived and I got really good sleep last night! It was nice to wake up not hurting and not too tired. Hope your Saturday was a success too! Here's a picture of the "before" of our garage and this doesn't really do it justice because a lot of stuff was out in the driveway. p.s. if you see something in this picture that you gave us, just think.....you helped us pay for the mattress we had to get!

Our little Family

The other day Shawn and Elle were Play-dohing and they made a family. According to Elle they are (from left to right) Ava, Mommy, Daddy, Elle, Gramme, and Max....with a really great tan!

19 minutes...and counting

Our calling card has 19 minutes left on it. I went to add more minutes and they've started something new with in-state calling. If I make a long distance call in the state of TX, I will now be charged 5 minutes for every one minute I talk. That means that if I wanted to talk for 10 minutes, it will charge me 50 minutes. That's astronomical! It would be so so so expensive to keep minutes on that card. So, what that means is that you won't be hearing from me as much on the phone unless you call me. I'm not the best about calling anyway, but now for sure I won't be calling because we can't afford that. I can still use Shawn's cell phone on nights and weekends, but that doesn't help too much since sometimes I have something to say before nights or weekends.....you don't need to comment on that sentence, thank you very much. Just wanted to give you the heads up so you didn't think I was intentionally not calling just because I didn't want to!

Alfonzo

Yes, we met someone by that name yesterday. I didn't really think I would ever meet someone by that name. I remember Fonzie from Happy Days, but that's it. This Alfonzo, sold us a new mattress....yep, we finally did it. We went to Rockwall yesterday, found the exact mattress we wanted and bargained the guy down to 1/3 off the price of what it actually costs. We were so proud of ourselves. It is a VERY comfortable bed and has a 10 year full warranty. It should be here this weekend. It took us quite a while to find the bed, haggle over total price, set up credit (so that we get 12 months, no interest, no payments) and set up delivery time. Elle had the best time while we waited. No one else was in the store the whole time we were there so she got the run of the store. The funniest part of the whole process was at one point her and "Barbie" were playing tag and running after each other. All of the walls are mirrored so to a kid that can be a little confusing. Have you figured out where this is going??? So, "Barbie" is running after Elle and Elle stops about 1 foot from a wall and turns around to see if "Barbie" is still chasing her and then Elle turns back around a runs smack dab into the wall, face first. She ended up with a minor bloody nose and lots of tears. It was sad but funny. No broken nose and she was fine within 5 minutes. Anyway, we are counting down the minutes until we get this new bed. I am really hoping a lot of my back and neck problems go away as well as my headaches. I am also planning on having a garage sale this weekend. Wasn't going to do it for another week, but I got A LOT done today...way more than I expected so that's a go for this weekend. Hopefully we make lots of money to help pay for this mattress. We'll see...

Bored

I'm bored, but that's a good thing. It means there's not much to do, which doesn't get said too often by me. Both girls are napping, Shawn has gone to get a Coke, and I'm just sitting at the computer. I worked on garage sale stuff this afternoon and got a lot organized. I mainly need to tag the clothes. There are SO many clothes. I love to purge and it was time. We haven't had a garage sale in a few years so it was time. I hope I make a decent amount of money so we can work closer to that new mattress. I just want to sleep good! I go to bed every night dreading the night of sleep I know I'll get.

Anyway, in other news, I got 3 of the cavaties filled on Friday. It wasn't a real pleasant experience, but at least my teeth won't rot out now :) I kept my eyes closed the whole time so I wouldn't see what they were doing. Shawn really thought it was funny when I came home and couldn't move half of my mouth. ha ha

I have bought just about everything I need for Elle's bday and figured out the invitations yesterday. THEY ARE SOOOO CUTE! They are exactly what I had in mind. YIPPIE!!! Maybe one day my invitation business will take off and I can make our family a little extra money. I absolutely love doing that.

Well, nothing else going on. Bought the girls easter dresses that match yesterday and they are FABULOUS! I am planning on taking them close to Easter and having their picture made. Should be a show stopper.

Oh, one last thing. Started Ava on veggies...we started with sweet peas and to say the least, she was underwhelmed. She just doesn't really like the whole food thing. Maybe one day it will click. No big rush. Have a great new week!

Not to be nosey but....

Have any of you gotten Elle the Alice in Wonderland DVD or the cookie cutters off of her Amazon List??? If not, I think we might get her those things for her birthday. Let me know in the next day or two if you have so I don't go and get it. If I don't hear anything soon, I'll just get them. Nothing much new here. I am just slowly working on her birthday stuff. I love to throw a party. Also I need advice: We are wanting to take a super cheap vacation for a couple of days and of course we'll have a 3 yr old and an 8 month old (we're going in May hopefully). It will need to be something pretty close, but we just need a little getaway. Got any ideas? Can't really do camping in a tent with Ava yet.