Funny Story...

I hope to have some Christmas pictures ready to post soon, but in the meantime I thought I would let you know what the kids are up to the day after Christmas. This morning I turned on Haley's new Elmo video for the kids so I could get dressed. I looked around quickly to make sure that there wasn't anything dangerous they could get into, then I ran in the bathroom for a quick shower. Since we had Christmas dinner with all of our family at our house last night, the living room and kitchen are still a disaster. I was almost finished showering when Haley came running in the bathroom completely naked with a cookie and bright blue icing all over her face. I managed to throw on a robe quickly and check on them and I found Kyle hiding behind the couch with a stash of 4 cookies. He blamed the whole thing on Haley! I guess I will have to be careful about what I leave on the counters while I am busy!

Christmas Day

Christmas Day was hectic, but lots of fun. Kyle and Haley woke up at a decent time (around 7am) and where so excited to find their stocking and Santa gifts. I had trouble with my camera, so I don't have a lot of pictures.

Haley was SO excited to find her pink "bike" from Santa.

Kyle got a racetrack from Santa. This is still his current favorite toy! Good find, Santa!

Playing with new Christmas toys. They were giving Haley's baby a bath in her new bathtub. We had to put it away for a little while after Haley decided the bathtub needed real water and soaked one of her cloth babies in the tub. :)


Later that day, we had all of our family over for Christmas dinner. Everyone brought their favorite dish, so we had a delicious and huge meal! It was a lot of work to coordinate all of that, but my parents and Jared's parents helped a ton!

Another baby doll for Haley. I think her face says it all!

Can you believe the chaos? We are grateful for family that loves to give the kids gifts, but we had so many new toys that I put a few away for a cold or rainy day.

Haley is enjoying her Christmas dessert.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve was a busy day for us! We did a lot of baking and cooking to get ready for Christmas dinner here at our house the next day. My wonderful husband helped with the kids and in the kitchen so we could get it all done. That afternoon we delivered some baked goodies to our neighbors and then attended the Christmas Eve service at our church. We made it through the service, but the kids were a little restless. I resorted to bribing them with orange lifesavers to keep them quiet. ;) On the way home we drove through some of our neighborhood and looked at some beautiful Christmas lights. Then it was back to the house to get ready for Santa.

Here they are getting the snacks ready for Santa. We convinced Kyle that Santa loves chocolate milk and double stuff Oreos!

Haley was getting tired and ready for bed. You know me - I just needed to take a few more pictures!

Matching pajamas!

Goofing around...

Haley was trying to be cute and wanted to take a picture with the cookies, but when we turned around she tried to eat them. Sneaky already!

Here is our last picture of the night. Meltdown at bedtime.
(This is how I felt at about midnight!)

Halloween

I know I am behind a little bit (okay, really behind!), but here are some pictures from Halloween. Haley made a cute Minnie Mouse and Kyle a not-so-scary pirate. They both loved their costumes and enjoyed wearing them for several events.

State Fair Fun!

Last Friday we went to the State Fair and had a wonderful time! We ate lots of yummy fried food, rode several rides and Kyle even won a prize at one of the games, but I think their favorite thing was the Frisbee dog show. They were worn out after a long day - Haley took a little snooze in her stroller in the afternoon and Kyle fell asleep in the car before we even left the parking lot. Here are a few pictures from our fun day!

They wore the pumpkin shirts I made for them. It was the brightest color I had.

We didn't want to lose them!

Haley feeding the animals at the petting zoo




Wild driver!

Kyle's dream car!

Yummy corn dogs! Kyle ate all of the cornbread from around the hot dog, then ate the hot dog last. This made for a messy meal!

This is the ride that Kyle chose.

Thankfully, he was tall enough to ride by himself.


Here is our family in front of Big Tex (well, part of Big Tex anyway).

We have now officially entered the real adult world!

As of today, we are now proud owners of a brand new home. Our closing today went smoothly! It was much easier to sign for that huge amount of money than I thought! :) Here is a picture of us today. Also, we will not have internet access for a few days, so call us (instead of e-mail) if you need to reach us.

More House Pictures

Here are the pictures I took after our walk-through yesterday. We are still right on schedule to close next Friday!

Almost Done!

We have a closing date!! Right now, the closing is set for Friday, Sept. 26 and we hope it will stay that way. The house is almost done and we are so excited about moving. Okay, so maybe not so excited about the actual moving part, but excited about getting into the new house and being near our friends. Here are some updated pictures of the house. It is mostly finished with just the little touch up things left to be done. I know I have been posting pictures of the same rooms, but these are the rooms where you see the most progress.

Kitchen

Master bathroom

Staircase

Front entry (I am standing at the front door)

Mommy's moving helper

One thing I did not count on was how hard it would be to pack with two little ones running around. The last time we moved Kyle was the only child and he was only 5 months old. What a difference! I have doing what I can when they are asleep (which is never long enough). I think Haley actually enjoys making things difficult!! Her favorite thing is to pull things out of boxes that are already packed, so we are taping things up as quick as we can. Also, as you can see from the picture, she really likes to sit in the boxes. I think I could pack up all their toys and just give them some boxes to play with!

Where has all the toothpaste gone?

So, today I solved a mystery that has been bugging me for several weeks. It seems like every time I brush the kids' teeth, there is less and less toothpaste. I knew that we should be using twice as much toothpaste since we have two that brush everyday, but how in the world do we go through two tubes in several weeks? This question was answered this afternoon when I found Kyle is the bathroom (he was supposed to be washing his hands) eating the toothpaste! Luckily, it is the toddler kind that is harmless. I guess it just tasted good.

MYSTERY SOLVED!!

Pee-Pee

Potty training advice anyone? On Tuesday Haley said "Pee-Pee" over and over, grabbed my hand and very insistently led me to the bathroom. She then put the potty seat on the potty and managed to get her shorts mostly off by herself. She didn't actually do anything, but she was so proud of herself. I love this picture because it almost perfectly captures her personality!

Since I took this picture, she has asked to go "Pee-pee" several times this week. She also tells me (most of the time) as soon as she has a dirty diaper. So... does anyone have any success/failure stories or advice for potty training one this young? She is 21 months. I still haven't decided if I want to even try it, so I thought I would see what some of you have to say.

By the way, she will hate me for this in about 10 years (maybe sooner!) but it was too cute to keep to myself!

Visit with Micah

I had a wonderful visit with Claire, Carl and Micah last week. I really missed my own kiddos, but it was hard to leave! Micah is such a beautiful, sweet baby! She is so content and rarely cries. She does like to eat though! Carl had to work some while I was there, so Claire and I enjoyed some fun girl time. We did some shopping, went to the park, took a long walk to the library and went out to eat twice! Micah did great and slept through most of the errands and both restaurant trips. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the trip.

House Update

The house is coming along well! We just set our closing date this weekend for September 25 and we are so excited! Here are some pictures to show some of the progress.

I was a little unsure of the dark red for the kitchen when I first picked it, but now I really love it!!

Our bathroom - Hopefully this will give you an idea of the blue color in the bathroom. It has a very light and relaxing look.

Also, I drove by today and they have done most of the landscaping (no grass yet), put up the fence and stained the wood floors in the front of the house. The floors are beautiful! It is so much fun to see all of our design choices come together. It was hard for me to see the big picture when I was picking out paint colors, flooring, etc, but as I watch them put everything in I am so happy with all of the choices we made. Thanks to Joanna for helping me so much!

Most of all, I am getting more and more excited about finally being close to all of our wonderful friends! It won't be long!

Picture of Micah

Here is one of my favorite pictures of Micah. As I write this I am sitting at the computer holding her while Claire and Carl run an errand and take a much-needed coffee break ALONE. Micah is an absolutely beautiful baby and I am really enjoying being here with her.  We have been pretty busy. Claire and I took Micah to her two week check-up yesterday and she is doing great! She is now 8lbs, 1 oz and 21 inches long. Then we did some shopping, went out for lunch and did some more shopping. Micah did great - she slept the entire time (with a few feedings in there too). We had a quiet morning at home with her today and a lady from their church brought by some spaghetti for our dinner. I hope you enjoy the picture. I will have more when I get home! 

Bike Riding!

Thanks to some wonderful friends of ours, the Trigueros, Kyle now has a bike to ride! Lucas got a new bike for his birthday, and they let us borrow his old one so Kyle could learn how to ride. He has had so much fun and is really getting the hang of it. He has only had one fall and landed in the dirt so thankfully he did not have any scraped elbows or knees. Kyle really likes to go fast, so if you are in our neighborhood, watch out!

House Update

Here are some pictures of the house that we took this weekend. It is really coming along well! The brick & stone is finished, all of the cabinets and wood floors are in and the staircase is in. None of the wood has been stained yet. We love the brick/stone colors! I hope you enjoy seeing these pictures.

The kitchen

Our little construction workers!

Baby Micah!

More family news...

Baby Micah Grace was born today and I am definitely a proud aunt! She arrived today at 1:06pm and weighed 7 lbs, 7oz and was 20 inches long. I am so proud of my sister, Claire, who labored a good 12 hours and delivered with no epidural. Yikes! She is tired, but they are all doing well.

Congrats to the new parents - Claire and Carl!!!

Pictures will be coming soon.

Bricks and Walls!

Here is a picture we took today of the house. They put all the sheet rock up this week, so we now have walls! Then, in the last two days they have started the brick and stone. We were really excited to see how the brick/stone combo that we picked would actually look on the house. They had to make some substitutions on the stone because they were running out of a certain color. Highland told us that they would make sure it would match the brick okay, but I was still a little nervous. Thankfully, Jared and I both love it, even though it doesn't look like what I had pictured in my mind, and I think I might even like it better than what we picked in the first place. Below is a close-up picture so you can see the colors better.

Standing at the front door. What a difference!

Pink Toes!

Yesterday I painted Haley's toes for the first time and she loves it! She sat perfectly still while I painted them and couldn't stop looking at them all day. She showed Daddy her toes as soon as he walked in the door from work - before she would even give him a hug!