These are the Days of our Lives

Not much new here. Just a few little snippets from our oh so interesting existence. First, this morning Shawn brought me flowers, props to Shawn. I was telling Elle to make sure that when she gets married one day to marry a man that brings her flowers. Her response was "When I get big, I'm not getting married. I'm going to be a dump truck." What a proud moment in a mom and dad's life. Second, Ava christened the stairs a few days ago with a nice crawl of about 6 steps and an even speedier decent to the bottom of the stairs. Yes, the baby gate was left open, she crawled on up and promptly fell to the bottom, banging the side of her head on the tile below. It left a beautiful bruise on her eyebrow that compliments the one on her cheek from falling earlier in the week on the tile once again. Lovely for birthday pictures...but maybe it will be gone by then. Shawn is still working from home....he's getting the taste of a stay at home mom and I think he might be getting just a smidge cranky...ha ha ha! He is keeping somewhat busy though with visiting, funerals and a bible study with our neighbor! I am working on still getting the house together which is so close to being done. (thank you Shawn!) I am also getting the cradle roll class together for church. It is coming along nicely but it will be nice to just have everything done and be teaching it. Just lots to do to get a class like that together. Sometime I'll post pics of the classroom when I get it finished and all the equipment is in. Elle is not minding at all lately, though she seems to have a good heart, her little body rebels all the time. It is a trying time! Ava is becoming quite a stinker also. If I tell her not to pull sissy's hair, or don't touch that, she immediately touches it and looks at me as if to say "And what are you gonna do about it?" Wow! So training begins with #2. Pray for calm and settling for us in the next week. Hopefully we will have loose end mostly tied up by then. I need that settled feeling! Sorry no picks, but I know you're more interested in the written word anyway ;)

Walk on the Dam

There is a huge dam not far from our house that we pass every day. It's really pretty to look at and we realized there is a walking trail on top of it that a lot of people bike and walk on. We decided last night to go and explore that area and it was really nice. We got to watch the sun setting, and there was a very nice breeze and almost no one around. The girls both loved it. It's nice to have some free outdoor activities to do.

In Training

Before we left Greenville, we realized that Ava's birthday was fast approaching and thought it a good idea to get in a few training exercises in how to really enjoy her cake. Of course this was just plain ol' baby food, but she seemed to get the idea real fast.

Deep Thoughts by Ava: "Are they really letting me do this?"

Put alittle behind the ear for later....

Finger lickin good!

Are you sure I'm not in trouble?

The Buck Stops Here

No, this post is not about how broke we are though we are getting there quickly. This post is in response to being "tagged" by two separate bloggers who shall remain anonymous. I love reading those little tags, but don't like taking the time to do them....but I love random facts and that's what the tag was about. I was suppose to post rules about the tag and then tag 8 other people, but I chose to spare all of you the misery of feeling compelled to follow through. I do ask if you read this to comment with one totally random thing about yourself....that's fair isn't it? Okay so here are 8 quirky random things about me:
1. When I eat any candy that has lots of colors, like M&M's I have always had to separate them all out into their own colored piles...guess I like segregation.
2. I used to bite my toenails when I was a kid.....I have noticed Elle trying it lately...must be a genetic thing.
3. Both of my children have blue eyes and neither Shawn nor I have blue eyes.
4. I secretly dream of being a forest ranger one day.
5. Since I've had kids, generally I get a shower every other day...I really hate this, but it's just not worth it sometimes.
6. I can't stand the way it feels to have painted fingernails.
7. I've been wearing the same necklace for about 5 years.
8. I used to have my hair cut in a "chili bowl" style and that was my nickname....to everyone who knew me back then, I hate you for not telling me how bad that look was. ha ha ha!

So there ya go.....hope that gives you a little laugh and can't wait to hear something about you!
By the way, I won't be posting any pictures of the house until after Ava's b-day because I want all of my family to be surprised by how we decorated....sorry! I will post them eventually though.

Moving In Day

So Tuesday the movers showed up around 9:30 and began packing like Tasmanian Devils. We left around that time and headed to Georgetown to drop off the girls and then head on to Austin to sign closing papers. Everything went wonderfully smooth. The movers showed up around 8:30 that night and began unloading. They were finished around 10:30 pm. We unpacked enough to have a bed and all conked out....oh but wait....there was one minor little incident that first evening. Around 10 pm we were all getting very antsy and tired and the movers were too. Elle was still awake since we didn't even have the bed put together yet. She was getting a little overtired which made her do annoying things and just get into everything. So to be helpful to my mom, who didn't really need the help, Elle went and got her 44 oz. coke to bring it to her. As she walked across the living room floor with our brand new virginal carpet that was so so clean and pretty she proceeded to spill the entire 44 oz. of brown syrupy substance all over the carpet. I immediately screamed and ran around like I'd gone mad...mind you the movers are now stopped to watch the incident and see what's going to happen next. I run for the kitchen to get some towels....but oh yeah, everything is still in boxes. So, I grabbed all of Ava's blankets that I could find and began dabbing it up. (I think I would have used my shirt had I not found those blankets...thank you blankets!) My mom and husband in the mean time were putting Elle in the witness protection program so that I didn't hurt her. I dabbed for what seems like forever and had never soaked up so much stuff out of one carpet before! The movers left while I continued dabbing since they realized they weren't going to witness a murder. Well, I got it up the best I could, Elle was put down for bed time and my husband and mom timidly came back down the stairs to see if I had calmed down. I think I sat with my head in my hands not moving an inch for at least 10 minutes. I was just sick. The next morning Shawn called a friend from church to see if he knew of any carpet cleaners and it turned out that one of the members worked for or owned a big carpet cleaning business and he came out immediately and did an amazing job cleaning our carpet. Don't lecture me about how it's going to happen a hundred more times, or how it's just a material possession that I shouldn't care that much about....I KNOW! But, I still don't have the money to fix all the boo boo's that can be avoided! So, I still love Elle and my carpet is all clean so the world can keep rotating....and we have a new rule....food and liquid stays on the tile!

Wow, that was a long story but here's the rest of what has been going on this week. We had all boxes pretty much unpacked and everything put away by Saturday. We still have the garage to do, which we'll do tomorrow and we haven't put up the pictures only because we have a lot of large framed pictures and we need to really think about placement. Everything else is done! We are pleasantly surprised at how all of our furniture fits so nicely in our new home. We will need to get a round kitchen table that we can put leaves in, but everything else works quite well. I will post pictures of each room later...that is a monumental task in and of itself.

Today was Shawn's first official day as a preacher and neither of us were a bit nervous...it was weird, but we just didn't feel any nervousness. He did a great job on both sermons and the girls did pretty good with just me taking care of them during church. Along with getting our house all together, I'm also redoing the church nursery to make it a cradle roll classroom too. It is going to be really cute and I'm ready to get it together so I can teach Ava! :)

So that is life right now. It is good and we appreciate all your prayers. We still miss our friends in Greenville pretty bad and hope they will come see us....we need a fix already! Please continue to pray for an easy transition, more for me and Shawn than the girls as we settle into what we hope is YEARS here in Georgetown.

Signing our life away.....I mean closing.

Getting ready to go in our house for the first time.

Elle found her room...she was just rolling around on the floor and running in circles with all the space!

Elle and Ava in the indoor pool...a.k.a. the master tub.

Elle breaking the new house in....stairs are a novelty to her.

Dinner time when there's no furniture yet.

This was taken this morning before our first official day at Gabriel Oaks. If you look close Ava is yawning, not screaming....it was early.

Early Bloomer

I only post this because the story is too funny not to share. The other day, Shawn and I were getting ready to go somewhere and Elle acted like she was going to go also. She was in my room and yelled back at me as she was running to her room "Oh wait, I have to go put my boobs in!" Shawn and I looked at each other in disbelief...."Did she really say what I think she just said?" Well, she had because when she came back in the room, she had 2 plastic golf balls and was attempting to put them down the front of her shirt. We laughed so hard and truly don't know where this came from but it was too funny not to share!

11 months...about a week late

Ava turned 11 months old the day before we moved and I was not so addicted to blogging that I felt the need to post her picture on that day, hince you are getting it all a week late. We are on the 1st birthday countdown at this point...22 days and counting. So, here are her statistics: she weighs 18 lbs 6 oz which is a 1 lb 2 oz gain in the month! and she is 29 1/4 inches long which is a 1 3/4 inch gain in the month! I can definately tell that she is in a growth spurt. I can not seem to get enough food in her at each meal. She could eat all day! She now has 4 teeth and can chew just about anything. She is crawling fast, pulling up on everything, and has added old gum, a dead bug, hair, twigs, lint, and anything else her fingers touch to the evergrowing list of objects she has put in her mouth. She is curious about everything. She can wave at people and says "Dada" while pointing to him, "Mama" while looking at me and putting her hands out, "Biba" while looking at the bible, "Nana" when Nana was with her, and "Bye Bye" while waving goodbye. She can blow kisses and make the noise on command. She knows what "no" means and will obey.... sometimes. She scrunches up her noise and makes a snarling face when she doesn't like something. It's quite funny! She loves to play in Elle's room more than anything and Elle is the only one she will always kiss when asked to. :) She is loving the new house with all the extra room to roam. If we leave the baby gate open ever, she heads straight to it and starts her way up! That's all for now. Hope that updates you on little Ava who is not going to be so little in a few weeks!

Ava--this picture was almost impossible...she would not sit still and definately didn't want to smile!

Elle at 11 months

As good as it gets

This is as good as it gets...we are here, we are moved in, we are unpacked, and we are exhausted. I will write more when everything settles down alittle and I'm not so tired but I just wanted everyone to know that we are still alive and we LOVE our new home.

Something Fishy

I think I actually went on a date last night. I'm not for sure because it's been so long that I'm not totally sure what one is. Our friends Ed and Kimberlee wanted to get together one last time before we left and offered their daughter as a babysitter..free of charge! Of course we said YES! So last night they picked us up and we headed to Rockwall and the Bass Pro Shop. Sounds weird I know, but it has a great restaurant inside with some yummy, not-your-average-type-of-restaurant food. It was so nice to be with other adults in an adult restaurant. I ordered something way out of my comfort zone: salmon and mahi mahi. I will have to say that both were delicious! We all also ordered this sampler platter that had alligator, coconut shrimp, and conch. The conch....gross, the alligator, good but too spicy on the outside (that could be fixed) and the shrimp a no brainer....delicious. Shawn ordered Cajun pineapple talipia. It was really really good too! We were so proud of ourselves for trying something different (seafood at that!)and we haven't died from eating fish yet so I think we'll be okay. Afterwards they had an outside area that looked like a beach and overlooked the big lake there and we sat and talked for a while. Then we headed back inside to look around and did a little target shooting with this fun game. Ed scored the highest....but I was right behind him thank you very much. The last thing we did was head to Starbucks, which I haven't had in close to a year...it was marked off the list when I decided I had to lose weight! But I caved just once last night and it was DELICIOUS! We headed home and Desi, our babysitter, said the girls did great! Elle cried for an hour after being put to bed saying she wanted mommy to do it, but she survived and fell asleep. She better get use to it because Grammie is putting her to bed tonite....yes, that's 2 nights of babysitters! Shawn and I, the youth, and anyone else from church that wants to go are headed to a Frisco Roughriders baseball game tonite and Grammie (yeah!) is coming to stay with the girls. Well, now your caught up on the rare but very enjoyable times of the mons without the kids.

Alittle less Slumpish

Things are seeming to be better now. Shawn is home and not going anywhere without me for a while so my nerves have calmed down a bit. My patience has returned to some degree and I can breathe again! Too much of taking care of the girls alone and I short circuit. Yesterday Shawn took the trampoline apart and today we work on the garage. Even though someone else is packing us up we don't want to leave them with a major disaster to sort through...that means longer before they unload at the new place! So, we will be going through the rooms and just doing a little bit of prework such as taking down curtain rods and shelves that are attached to the walls. It's kind of like straightening your house before the maid comes...though I personally haven't had ANY experience with that in my adult life! :)

Lately we have noticed God really helping us financially. It has been so interesting but I wanted to share the stories with you and give God the glory so He knows that I truly am appreciative!

1. I took 600 or so pictures to be developed at Walmart a few weeks ago. It was going to cost $107 to develop them....that's a HUGE amount to us, but more important than lots of other things to us. So anyway it was a 2 day send off and somehow even though the computer at the store registered that I had loaded all the pictures correctly, they floated off into outerspace. Well, we talked to the Photo lab after 2 weeks of waiting and they said that since it was Walmart's fault, they were going to develop them in a few hours in store and give them to us for FREE! I was so excited!

2. I have been looking for a new carseat for Elle that she can use until she no longer needs a carseat....they are sort of expensive, but once again at dear ol' Walmart, I found the PERFECT seat for her...it had lights on the sides that she could turn on and off for when we are driving at night....she always wants us to turn on the car lights so she can read books after dark. Anyway, it showed the price as being $49 so I snatched it up...what a deal! When I got to the register, it rang up as $65 so I told the lady what the sign said. She sent someone to check it out and what had happened was that they had just put those carseats on the end display and had forgotten to change the price so I got a nice carseat for $15 cheaper! Rock on!

3. The church is having a going away party for us on Sunday nite and is doing a money basket which was totally unexpected and will help DRASTICALLY with all the little moving incidentals like hook up fees and little stuff you need anytime you move into a new house!

4. We are going to need to purchase a water softener when we move because down in central Texas, the water is pretty hard and can ruin your pipes, dishes, and glass showers if not treated. Prices were averaging around $500 for a new one....that is A LOT OF MONEY! Shawn's dad happened to have a really nice one that they won't be needing anymore and they bought it brand new a few years ago, so....you guessed it...they are bringing it down for us to have.

These are just a few examples of how God is taking care of us right now. We know he is always taking care of us, but sometimes it's nice to actually see examples. Anyway, I hope this post is MUCH more encouraging than the last....everybody has their days!

My grandmother is doing better. She is off the ventilator, awake, and alert and knows what's going on so that in and of itself is delightfully unexpected.

I have sent out my new info to everyone in my address book so if you didn't receive it and want it, you need to email me and let me know.

Have a great Thursday...the weekend is almost here!

Good morning mommy...come and get me out!

Slump

Okay so if you haven't noticed I'm in a slump...a blog slump. I will say that I've been gone for a few days so that's part of the excuse but also, I just haven't really wanted to update lately. There has just been so much going on that I'm a bit overwhelmed at this time. Shawn came home safely on Saturday evening and had a wonderful and uplifting time in Wyoming. As I get older and now that I have 2 kids, I get a bit more nervous that I used to about these long distance trips that he takes without us! But, I am itching to go right now just from the pictures he showed me.

We are coming up on one week until moving day. We planned to move the 14th but there is a chance it won't be till the 15th because of the movers guidelines and it conflicts with us being in Austin to do closing. I'll keep you posted as we figure stuff out. This whole ordeal is like an intricate 1,000 piece puzzle that has been thrown in the air and must land with all the pieces fitting perfectly together. I am sure this is normal but it's overwhelming when you haven't done it before. I need to feel settled and I haven't felt that for a long time. I am ready to put roots down and stay FOREVER!

Anyway, I'm restless right now so that's a big reason I haven't blogged. Shawn has been gone since 5:30 this morning to Georgetown to do a walk thru of the house, which he says is great and also finalize a few things with our new elders. He should be back around 7ish tonite so today is another day all day alone with my kids. I feel for any woman who's husband travels often. It is not the life for me. Well, pray for us.

Along those same lines, pray for my grandmother, my dad's mom. She broke her hip this weekend and isn't doing well. Before the accident, I think she had kind of decided that her desire for living was fading, for lack of a better phrase, and in breaking her hip, we feel that this could be the death of her possibly very quickly. It is touch and go right now. She is on a ventilator because she is too weak to breathe on her own and they attempted to take her off of it and she just couldn't breathe good enough on her own so they put it back. I will keep you updated as things change. By December life will be calm, but right now it's tumultuous.....nice word huh?

This caption reads in a British accent ala Super Nanny : "You've been very naughty"