James and the angry eyebrow

I don't know if you've ever seen the VeggieTales about LarryBoy and the angry eyebrows, but today James was messing around near the fireplace. He looked at me and this is what he looked like. Pretty funny.

I know you can't tell too much from the pictures, but he has ashes on only his right eyebrow making it look much darker than the other one.

Pictures from my parents house

My dad sent me some pictures recently from some different times at their house. Dave and Elizabeth playing on the slide.

James with Aunt Amy.
Elizabeth in the pool.
James in the pool.

Sandbox

The kids in the sandbox last week. James thinks Elizabeth is hilarious.

Pictures of kids with Mike & Joyce

Here are some pictures of the kids with Grandma & Poppy when they were in town last weekend.

Are these 2 boys related?

Mario Kart

We got Mario Kart for the wii today. Lots of fun. We mainly got it so we could play an online game with my brother and his wife. Unfortunately Amy was grading papers tonight, so she couldn't play us, but we are playing with Evan right now. It's pretty cool to be playing someone in Houston while we're in San Antonio.

Clean House

Now I know you think this probably refers to the inside of our house, but actually I am talking about the outside. Dave and Mike pressure washed our house this weekend to get it ready to paint. They will paint it in a few weeks. Oh how I will hate to see that lovely dusty rose color gone. Sniff sniff.

Tea Party

Elizabeth and I had a little tea party with her porcelain tea set that her Mimi (my grandmother) gave her when she was a baby. This was the first time we had used this set. We had chocolate chip cookie bars and hot chocolate served with cream and marshmallows. She told Dave later that we had a tea party with real tea. :)

Sick

Well, both kids have been sick all week. James went to bed Sunday night with the highest fever he's ever had. Took him to the doctor Monday morning and he had an ear infection. His fever started going down Monday and by yesterday he seemed all better.
Got a call from Elizabeth's school Monday telling us to come pick her up because she had thrown up. If that doesn't tell you how bad she felt - when Dave got there to pick her up she was asleep in the office. For those of you who don't know her very well, she is not the kind of kid to just fall asleep. She RARELY even falls asleep in the car even when she's exhausted. So, she came home rested all day - had a fever and just generally didn't feel good. But, by Tuesday she seemed much better.
So, I thought we were pretty much on the upswing - I was looking forward to getting back to normal life. Then Wednesday morning Elizabeth went into her room at 8:30 AM and fell asleep in bed - this NEVER happens. She hasn't taken a morning nap in over 2 years, literally. She slept for 2 hours and continued to be tired and fussy yesterday.
Then James had an incredibly rough night last night and woke up this morning with a fever again.
The good news is that is seems Elizabeth is pretty much better. At least for today.

On a side note - Elizabeth and I just measured how tall she is using these MegaBloks that she has. She's 49 MegaBloks tall just in case you needed to know that. :)

Spurs Dress

So, the Spurs are in the playoffs again this year - woohoo! I got this brilliant idea to make a t-shirt dress for Elizabeth with Go Spurs Go on it. I'm starting with a t-shirt, some fabric, and some ribbon, so we'll see how it turns out. I'm going to try to finish it by Sunday - we'll see. I have the idea in my head and my task list written out, now I just have to do it.

Storyteller Elizabeth

Elizabeth has gotten really into storytelling. She is always wanting to tell Dave or me a story. This is something primarily brought on by Dave who is always telling her stories. I tell her some stories too, but I'm not as creative with mine as Dave is. She and Dave now have a ritual every night before she goes to bed where they tell stories to each other. She usually starts her stories with options - "do you want to hear a story about a dog, a frog, or a duck?" Let's hear a story about a duck. "Ok, do you want to hear a story about duck goes to the playground, duck rides a bike, or duck goes swimming?" Duck goes swimming. "Ok, duck goes swimming with dog, duck goes swimming with her friend, or duck goes swimming with frog?" And then she will tell you the story about what you decide on. Sometimes these stories can go on for a LONG time. Here's a video of part of one of her stories.

Gone Fishin'

We got up Monday morning and went fishing at Mike & Joyce's pond. This is Elizabeth's other favorite activity to do at the farm, besides riding Savannah.

She's an old pro.This was James' first time fishing. Well, he didn't too much casting or anything, but he did enjoy being outside. Now that's a fish - Poppy estimated it at about a 2 1/2 pound catfish.Ok, I'll touch it, but only just for a second.

Feeding the Goats

Poppy took Elizabeth and Dutch to feed the goats at the neighbor's house.

Elizabeth at Poppy's party

Elizabeth with her Aunt Ali.Blowing out the candles on Poppy's cake.
Playing ponies with her Great Aunt Sara - Dave's aunt.

Elizabeth's tricycle

Dave's parents had a new driveway put in recently. It's really big with a lot of room to run around or ride around. Elizabeth spent a good deal of the weekend riding around it on her tricycle. This was her favorite spot. She would ride up the hill then roll down it really fast yelling "WHEEEE!" She had lots of fun until she fell over her handle bars and got some boo-boos. She asked Dave for 4 bags of ice - 1 for each hand and 1 for each knee.

James hanging out at the party

James spent most of his time at the party in other people's arms. He was passed from one person to the next without giving Mommy and Daddy much thought, or so it appeared.

James with Terry Ferguson. Terry is one of Mike & Joyce's good friends. Her son, Joe, and Dave went to kindergarten together and have been friends ever since.James with Grandma - Dave's mom, Joyce.James wearing Poppy's hat that says "In Dog Years I'd Be Dead".Finally at the end of the party, James decided he needed us, so here he is with Daddy.

Riding Savannah

Savannah is Mike & Joyce's (Dave's parents) neighbor's horse. Elizabeth LOVES to ride her. Sunday was James' first time on her. He rode her with Elizabeth, and seemed to like it ok. Elizabeth also rode with her cousin Dutch (Dave's cousin, Tracy's son). Elizabeth and Dutch

The family - Joyce (Dave's mom), Allison (Dave's sister), Elizabeth, James, Mike (Dave's dad), me, and Dave - and Savannah of course.James says, "hey, this horse riding thing is fun!"

Video of Elizabeth and James on James' first horse ride.

Poppy's Birthday Party

This weekend was Poppy's (Dave's dad, Mike) birthday. We had a kind of surprise party for him at his house. I say kind of surprise because he knew about it that morning when he started helping Dave cook a case (about 20) of whole chickens. Anyway, it was a success and a lot of fun. Dave's parents have a farm about 40 miles outside of College Station and the weather was perfect. It was such a pretty day. Most of Mike's family was there, some co-workers, and some friends. So, all in all a great day and we hope Poppy enjoyed it.

Elizabeth helped me decorate Poppy's birthday cake.
This is the cake. The thing in the middle is a dot for where the farm is - Bedias, TX - and then their brand for the MJ Ranch.Elizabeth and Poppy with the birthday cake that she helped decorate.

The Blushing Brides

Elizabeth and I played dress up for a few minutes yesterday. Here are some pictures of us in our get-up. Note: Elizabeth took the picture of me and of James - not too bad.

And James says, "just please don't put that tiara on me."

Major Progress

Just in the last week we have noticed some real milestones with Elizabeth interacting with other kids. I think Kid's Day Out is helping and of course she's growing up a little bit every day.

Thursday night we were at a playground and she was playing on the equipment while other kids were playing. Normally if other kids were playing, she would be standing by me or just playing off on the ground somewhere away from the other kids. But, Thursday she was going down the slide and climbing up onto the thing right beside several other kids. Hooray!

She also started talking to a girl who came up to her while we were there.

Sunday we went to a birthday party for a friend's little boy. She got in the bounce house with the other kids, hit the pinata by herself (in front of about 40 people), and then went and grabbed candy when it was on the ground with a bunch of other kids. These are all things she definitely would not have done a year ago - maybe even a month ago.

Yesterday when I picked her up from Kid's Day Out, her teacher told me that she never talks to them (the adults), but that she is talking to the other kids a lot more and that she talked to Mercedes (one of her friends) a lot that day.

Video of James crawling

Well, the boy is seriously on the move now. He crawls anywhere he wants to go including up stairs. (He went up 4 by himself at my parents' house yesterday.) And now he pulls himself up to standing. Saturday night at church, he climbed up a step, pulled himself up to standing against a wall, then looked up at Dave, smiled, and tried to walk to him. As soon as he took a step he fell over, but I can't believe that he's already trying to take steps. He's a little adventurer.
Here is crawling a couple of weeks ago.

We got a Wii

YAY. I started on a mission to buy Dave a Nintendo wii for Christmas back in November. Little did I know that they are super hard to find. Who would have thought that they would still be in super short supply even after being out for at least a year??? Crazy. Well, I didn't get one for Christmas and then couldn't find one for his bday in February, but we finally got one last Sunday.

We are having lots of fun with it. So far we have Wii Sports which comes with it, Wii Play, and Mario Party 8. Elizabeth loves playing the golf game on wii sports. Her favorite thing to do is hit the ball into the water. She gets sad when there is a hole with no water and says, "hey, where's the water?" So, she may not be Annika Sörenstam, but she is having fun.

Here are some pictures of Dave with his Wii. He was very excited as you can tell.