More Fun in Texas

Here's some every day fun from our Thanksgiving trip to Texas.
A wagon ride...

Shootin' with Gov...

Playing down at Granana and Gov's pond...

And paintball!

The Stockyards Train Ride

The day after Thanksgiving it was rainy and cold, so we decided to do something fun and indoors. We headed out to the stockyards in Fort Worth to ride the train. It's an old fashioned retired passenger train that is used for tours now. The ride lasted about forty five minutes and we had a great time! We'll have to remember that for next time.

Blue Steel or Magnum? You Decide.

On Thanksgiving day we were all goofing around and all the guys flashed me their best Blue Steel expression. Or at least they tried to. Even Ethan got in on the posing!

The Barbie House

Hailey and Lauren have played non-stop with the Barbie house since Santa brought it for Christmas. It is so big that they have to stand on stools to reach the top story! Hailey has started using the house for her animals more so than for her Barbies. I often times find a giraffe or a tiger in the bed or even in the doll sized bath tub. It's so funny seeing these girls use their imaginations!

Christmas Weekend in Idaho

We didn't think we'd be able to make it to Idaho like we had planned. On Christmas day a terrible blizzard blew in and most of the inerstates closed down. So we spent all day in Christmas lazying around instead of driving to Idaho.

But by some miracle, parts of the roads opened again on the 26th...but only parts. We had to be very careful and sneaky as we made the trip that afternoon. What should have been a 3 1/2 hour drive ended up taking us eight hours. What a day! Grandma and Papa we happy to see us and we were happy to be out of the car.

Grandma was especially excited for the kids to open their present from her. She made the most adorable and beautiful piggy banks for the kids! They are ceramic and have their names painted on them. Now this has really motivated us to get shelves put up on the kids walls (a project that has been on our list since the house was built!) They have collected some very beautiful keepsake items over the years and we are in desperate need of safe places to display them.

The kids had a lot of fun making a mess with the packaging surrounding their piggy banks. I'm still finding shredded paper in shoes and bags!

Aunt Bree and Uncle Cam gave Hailey a princess purse set. She was in Heaven!

And Daddy looked smashing in Hailey's new glasses.

But we think Hailey looked better.

Ethan approves of his pig!

SNOW SNOW SNOW!!! Everything was covered in white and the kids had fun sledding on the hill outside the house.

It was a short and sweet weekend, but thankfully the roads were in better shape for the drive home. We had some tuckered out kiddos!

A Musical Resolution

Music has alwasy been an outlet for me. Whether it's blasting a sappy love song on the stero to heal a broken heart or sitting at the piano and playing hymns. It soothes me. Ask my husband...when I'm sitting at the paino and am engrossed in something, don't bother me because I'm probably in a foul mood or in deep thought. Lately I've been at the piano a lot and I've found comfort in it as I've grieved the last two months over our baby. For me it really is true that when words fail, music speaks.

As I've spent time at the piano recently I've decided that I'm good, but I'm not nearly where I'd like to be. Here are some places I'd like to get to.

1. Master playing and singing at the same time. This may sound easy, but it's like patting your head while rubbing your belly. It can very difficult but I want to get good at it. Not so I can be a lounge singer, but so I can say "I can do that". I guess for bragging rights if for nothing else.

2. Master every single chord, and gain a better understanding BEHIND chords. I understand some of the theory, but I want to know more. Right now I'm at the point where I can play most songs as long as I have the music in front of me. But if it's not written on a staff on the page, I can't play it. I want to be able to see the written music and then automatically know how to jazz it up with better knowledge of chords.

3. Improve my sight reading ability. Enough said.

4. Get to the point where I can play by ear. I know this is years and years down the road, but I have always envied people who can do this. Recently I said to myself "Why can't I be one of those people? No reason that I can't".

5. Have the money to one day buy a good piano. Right now I have my grandmother's piano and while I'm grateful to have one at all, it is in pretty bad shape due to age. It is so old that it won't hold a good tune anymore because it's been tuned so many times and the peg holes are stripped. And like I said I"m grateful to have it and it does the job to let me practice. But one day I'll have a new one- I WILL!!!

By the way, yes those top two pictures are of me. That is me at age seven at my grandmother's house- same piano I have now. Love how stupid I look? And then there is me in 7th grade. I miss the cumberbun days!

Best Friends

It was one of those moments tonight that tugged at my heart strings as I watched them play in the tub. Few things in life are sweeter than watching these girls become best friends. Only twenty months and two days separate them in age. Lauren was a surprise and we thought Hailey would be our last child. After an incredibly eventful and complicated pregnancy with Hailey, we had been warned by doctors not to have more children. But what do doctors know anyway? Lauren is living proof that the Lord is in control and He does things in His way and His time. We can't imagine life with out sweet Lauren and I know Hailey can't either. I hope they will always be close like they are now. I feel so blessed.

The Pee Pee Princess

In the last year, I have attempted potty trainging Hailey on a few occasions. I've read three books on the subject and I know the theories, but each time I approached her with it she was very hesitant. So I would back off and we'd try again in a couple of months.

On New Years Day, I was putting Hailey in a dry diaper that morning and she said "Mom, I want to wear my pony underwears." So I said okay and I let her run around in it, fully expecting an accident. But since Santa brought us a really good carpet cleaner, I wasn't nervous at all.

Well, the morning went by and no accident. Near lunch time Hailey marched herself right into the bathroom climbed up on the toilet, and TINKLED!! Not only that, she wiped herself and pulled her pants back up all on her own. The only thing I had to do for her was reach the soap so she could wash her hands. The rest has been history since then. She even POOPED in the potty by herself!! That shocked me beyond belief.

It goes to show that two kids (siblings at that) can be polar opposites. It took months to get Ethan to even sit on the potty. God has taken mercy on us this time around. We are so proud of our Hailey girl!

Bowling With Friends

Every time we pass the bowling ally Ethan and Hailey ask to go. They have white trash running through their veins! Cody suggested we go bowling on Saturday and Ethan asked if Tommy could go. It turned out Tommy and his whole gang could go! It was a lot of fun hanging out with Emma and Mike. They are so fun and very down to earth (our kind of people!) Tommy ended up riding home with us and stayed at our house the rest of the day. Even after hours of play, Ethan and Tommy still had a hard time saying good-bye. Gosh, you'd think they live a thousand miles away from each other or something!

Recycling

Christmas left us with a lot of trash. Besides the fact that it wouldn't all fit in the trash cans, I more so felt bad about throwing perfectly recyclable goods away. So I spent a few hours sorting through what could be recycled and what couldn't. And it was a good opportunity to talk to the kids about ways we can be good to the earth. I figure, why throw away something so reusable if all it takes is loading it up in the car and driving it a few miles to the recycling center? All of this is still crammed into the back of the van, but in the next day or two it will find a new home. (Don't worry people, I haven't turned into a tree-hugger or anything. But we as a family produce way too much garbage!)

Christmas Day

This was a really good Christmas for us. Not because we got a lot of "stuff" but because we were at our own house and it was just our family. I love spending Christmas with our extended families, but it was nice to get to be by ourselves this once. We did everything exactly the way WE wanted without having to accommodate a million people. Ethan and Hailey woke up at about 7:30 and Ethan was actually in our bed. I wasn't ready to get up yet so he asked if he could turn on the TV. I had to remind him that it was Christmas and Santa probably came. So he dashed into get Hailey and I had to hold them off from running downstairs before I could grab Cody and the camera. I snapped a picture while Cody got Lauren up. They were all so excited when they saw the living room!

Santa even left the kids a letter, thanking them for the milk and cookies. He also told them to be very good this next year.

Each of the girls got My Little Pony. I had no idea a 15 month old would be so into them, but she is carrying her new "collection" everywhere.

Lauren unwrapped our new Christmas book!

The kids got dad a stress relief kit to keep in his desk drawer at work. He got a kick out of it.

Ethan with a few of his new Transformers. The kid got way too spoiled with them this year. He hadn't even opened them all when I took this. Thanks Granana!

Lauren was mainly interested in candy bracelets.

Granana, Hailey looks so cute in the pink outfit you got her!

I wish Santa would take back this new toy. It drives Mommy crazy!

His Spiderman web shooter that he has brought on some overly good behavior the last few weeks.

She is all set for her princess party in January!

The Gov gave Daddy a fishnet stocking for his leg lamp. They are such pervs.

...and he gave him bullets for his pistol.

This mess took several days to clean up!

Daddy found a present that Santa had hidden away. Mommy loves her new carpet cleaner!

This little stinker fits perfectly on that second floor and we're always getting her out of it.

What a fun day! We all stayed in our PJs the entire day. When we showered, we went right back into PJs. A terrible snow storm blew in that night and since our house faces north, the entire front was purely white. Our front door was frozen shut. What a perfect day to snuggle up inside!