Playset

Our super generous parents decided to give James & Elizabeth a playset for their birthdays. After much research and some serious shock over sticker price, we decided to go with a kit from Home Depot that has all the hardware that you need. You just have to buy the lumber and accessories.
So, we bought all the stuff. Last weekend we cut most of the lumber and today we started building it.
Here's what the area looked like this morning. My parents came over to help us build it. James was all about helping us build it.
I took most of the pictures, so I'm not in most of them. I had my mom take this one to prove that I really did help build it. The kids did great just playing in the backyard, so I was able to help pretty much the whole time.
Elizabeth wasn't too interested in helping with the building, but she did play with the water hose, dig for worms, swing, and some other good backyard activities.
Here's where we are at the end of build day 1. Elizabeth actually took this picture. Pretty good, huh?

Sleeping and Stepping

Well, we made it through the night with no seetsaw. Whew. Glad the first night is over.
She did ok, although Dave brought her into our room where she slept on the floor for part of the night. I'm not sure why he brought her in there, I haven't had a chance to talk to him about it yet. This morning when she woke up she was pretty grumpy - seemed a little bit mad. I didn't expect this whole mad thing. Maybe I should have, but I never thought about it. Hopefully every day will get a little bit easier. She has been taking Toombies everywhere with her, so that's nice.
And James took his first step this morning. I stood him and he took 1 step towards me. Then he started to take another step and fell.

Elizabeth's Blanket

I made Elizabeth this blanket for her birthday. Well, I actually started it a long time ago - I think I bought the fabric in March - but her birthday was a good deadline for me. It turned out really cute. I'm really happy with it. It's pink and green minky dot squares on the front with pink minky that has stars imprinted on it on the back. It's SO soft. It's a good thing it doesn't match our room because I might not have given it to Elizabeth. Elizabeth asked me to embroider a bee on it, so there it is.

Giving up the seetsaw

Elizabeth has been using a pacifier to sleep up until today. She LOVES her pacifier, or as we call it her seetsaw. I know this isn't the right spelling, but it's the best I can do. Seetsaw is the polish word for pacifier. It's what Dave's family used when he was little, so it's what we have used. And it's not actually pronounced seetsaw, more like seetsa, but we're Texans, so seetsaw is how we say it. :) She loves it and sucks on it the whole time she sleeps.
Anyway, I would have loved to get rid of it when she turned 3, but James was only 1 month old and the thought of having to get up during the night with her as well as him was just a little too much for me at the time. So, Dave decided we would wait until she turned 4. So, today was the day. After reading a tip in a parents magazine we decided that we would take her to Build-A-Bear and have her put the seetsaw into the bear before it was sewed up. So, that's what we did.
Here she is waiting for the Toombies (the name of the puppy by her choice) to be stuffed. She never actually put the seetsaw in her mouth, even though it looks like she is in some of these pictures. Toombies is being stuffed.
Seetsaw is in, Toombies is sewed up and now she "cleans" him. She didn't seem to have issues with putting her seetsaw in.

And she carried Toombies around all evening. She went to sleep tonight with no problem. Dave said she was moving her mouth funny, but she fell asleep. She's been up twice in the last 2 hours. The first time she went right back to sleep. The second time she was mad. I went up there and she was kicking and crying and not a happy camper. But, she eventually went back to sleep. Hopefully the night will get better from here.

Elizabeth's 4th Birthday

Elizabeth woke up this morning with balloons on her door.

We went for a special breakfast birthday to get muffins and mini screamer dogs at the "bagel place" - her choice. We decided to bring the food home and then Beto (who was off this morning)came over and had breakfast with us.
Granmama took Elizabeth to lunch at a tea room. They said it was fun but apparently Elizabeth was so tired that she didn't talk much which is VERY unusual.
This afternoon we took her to the mall to go to Build-A-Bear (more on this in a later post). Here are some pictures of her at the little outdoor waterfall at the mall.And "washing" her puppy named Toombies.Then to dinner at one of her favorite restaurants EZ's "because they have really good grilled cheese sandwiches." Then home to open presents. She got a blanket I made for her (more on this in a later post).
Several books and cds.
An easel and a new area that will become her craft area - we didn't get it all set up by today.
She got some other craft supplies, an outfit for her new puppy from James (a football outfit that she picked out), and a dustpan and broom - she loves these kind of things, I promise.
Then we did cupcakes and candles.Beto was out of town this evening, so Granmama joined us for dinner, presents, and cupcakes.Happy Birthday, Sweet Pea. We love you!

Four Years Old

My baby girl turns 4 years old today. How in the world has the time gone by so fast? Unbelievable. She brings such joy to our lives every day. I feel amazingly blessed that God has entrusted her to us.
She is always making me laugh. Like today when she said "this apple is so good, it's making me laugh."
She is a precious big sister to James. She loves to play with him, make him laugh, comfort him when he's crying, and talk to him in the exact tone of voice and the same words I use with him.
She has a heart for God. While our biggest prayer for her continues to be that she will come to a saving knowledge of Jesus, she has started to show real interest in spiritual things - loves listening to worship music, prays before meals, lines up her animals to worship God, wants to go to church.
She is so sweet and tender and likes to cuddle. She will come get in bed with me in the morning and cuddle with me - rub my back, put her hand on my face and just lie there. I love it. She has started holding my face in her hands sometimes and just looking at me. I don't know what's going through her mind, but I treasure times like this.
She loves music, animals, her family and her friends.
She is a joy to be around and we love her so much.
Happy Birthday Sweet Pea, hope you have a great day!

Looks Who's Talking

Well, we think James is saying a few words now. You would think this would be something that we know for sure, not just think, but it's kind of hard to tell. I mean he's definitely saying things, the question is whether he's saying them with meaning or just babbling. In the last 2 weeks or so, he has started "talking" a bunch. He will look at you and babble with expression. You can tell he's telling you something, we just can't quite understand it yet.
But, we do think he's saying 3 things - Bubbo (a nickname Dave calls him), Mama (when he's talking about me), and hey (when you come into a room and he sees you).
He's also starting to stand a lot more these days. And he will stand up on his own from the floor now. He hasn't taken any steps yet, but it seems like it will be soon.
He had his 2nd day of school today and they said he did great. I was a little worried about how he was going to do now that he knew I was leaving him for 5 hours. He did cry when I dropped him off, but they said he did great - he ate and even took a 45 minute nap. Wow!

Playing in the Rain

One

The number of days it took at school for James to get sick. I think he just has a cold, but it didn't take him long to get sick from the other kids. I think it took Elizabeth 2 days last year. Let's hope her immunity is built up enough that she doesn't get sick at the beginning of this year.

You can never be too prepared...

...for the grocery store.

Uncle Hunter & Aunt Lolly

My aunt & uncle were in town recently for a visit. Here are some pictures of them with the kids.

Spaghetti...Yummy

Elizabeth at the Park

Elizabeth taking a picture of herself at the park.

Aww, Cute Picture

Let's Have A Ball

For James' first birthday, we had a bouncing ball party. It was lots of fun. Here are some highlights of the time. I think our camera had a fingerprint or something on the lens, so the pictures are a little bit blurry. It couldn't be from the fact that Elizabeth loves to take pictures and manhandles our camera in the process. :) Oh well.
The party was relatively small - Grandma & Poppy, Granmama & Beto, Uncle Evan & Aunt Amy, Uncle Richard & Aunt Ali, Richard & Lynn (very good friends of the family, kind of like surrogate grandparents for Elizabeth & James), and then some friends - Nova & Karen and their little boy Aidan. On a side note - Aidan is about to turn 2 and when he talks about Elizabeth he calls her "the big girl". Pretty funny now, but I'm guessing she's not going to like it in about 10 years. :)
So, we decorated the house with balls - toy balls, paper lanterns, a string of paper balls that I made with fishing line, polka dot tablecloths. We also brought out the ball pit that we got Elizabeth for her first birthday. The party favors were bags of balls - a rubber ball and a beach ball. The food went along with the theme - donut holes, grapes, sausage balls, melon balls, round crackers with round slices of cheese, round chips with salsa. Dave was very patient with me as I did all the ball things I wanted to do. But, when I started talking about cutting the cheese slices into circles, I think he thought I had lost it. Here was the conversation:
Me: Do you think it's worth the time to cut the cheese slices into circles?
D: No.
Me: But then they will be the only thing that won't be round. It will mess up the theme.
D: I don't know what it's like to be OCD, so go ahead.
Ahh, what a great husband he is. :)
I made the cake the night before and it cracked during the night. It didn't really turn out as cute as I would have liked, but oh well.James wasn't really sure about the whole candle thing, but Elizabeth helped him blow it out.He didn't need any help eating his cupcake though.When we were able to get him interested in opening presents at all, it was only for a few seconds, and pretty much only to eat the wrapping paper. Elizabeth helped him open presents too.When I was little my grandfather got me a "hoppity horse". It's a big rubber ball with a horse head on it that you can hop around on. It's pretty fun and Elizabeth has enjoyed playing with it at my parents house, but it's not super safe, especially when the kids are young and don't have much control. So, my parents bought James this safer "hoppity horse". Elizabeth had to try it out also.James enjoyed the ball pit, but wasn't nearly as excited about it as Elizabeth when she first got it. But, he did enjoy diving into it a time or two as seen here. I feel like we didn't get that many pictures. For more on the party you can visit Uncle Evan & Aunt Amy's blog about it.

First Day of School

Today was Elizabeth and James' first day of Kids Day Out. Elizabeth went last year 2 days a week and did pretty well. Her first day last year was very tough for her and for me. She cried quite a bit when we dropped her off and I cried quite a bit all day long. She grew a lot during the year last year - made some friends, got some confidence, things like that. The one thing the teachers told me at the end of the year is that she talked to the other kids, but she never talked to the teachers. So, that's our goal for this year - get her talking to the teachers. I've seen some major growth even since school finished in May, so I was hopeful about how this year would be. Well, it started off on a good note. She walked into her classroom today with no issues and no crying. When we picked her up, the teachers' said she did great. I asked whether she talked to them and Ms. Kay said a little bit - only when necessary. But, that's still better than last year, so hopefully that bodes well for the year. When we picked her up, she was under the table playing with her friend, Erin (from last year). She started to come to us when she saw us, but then turned around, to give Erin a hug and tell her bye. Dave and I were very encouraged by this.

Elizabeth on her first day of school. She's ready. And that's her lunchbox she's carrying, not a purse. This is James' first year of Kids Day Out. I wouldn't have thought that we would put him in this young. But, he loves kids and we thought he would really enjoy it. So, we took him today, not at all sure how he was going to do. Just in the last 2 weeks he has started having some separation issues, so we were a little bit concerned. We made sure the teachers knew that we are doing this for him to have fun and if he was miserable, to please call us and we would come pick him up. We took him into the class and set him down - got him a few toys to play with, told him bye, kissed him and left. He did not start crying when we left, which was nice. It made it easier for me to leave him. When we went to pick him up, he was sitting across the room, sitting near a couple of kids. He saw me and started laughing which almost immediately turned into a cry. It was pretty funny. Ms. Phalysha said that he did great. She said he didn't sleep (we figured this would be the case) and he didn't eat (what? no clue what that is about, he's a great eater), but other than that he had a lot of fun. So, I guess he'll go back next week. He goes once a week and Elizabeth will go twice a week.

James on his first day of school.
James and Elizabeth ready for school.

So, Dave and I decided that since the kids were going to be occupied for 5 hours, Dave would take a vacation and we would spend 5 hours just us. Woohoo! So, what did we do with our 5 free hours with no naps, no feeding kids, no helping E with the potty, etc? We worked on cleaning the garage, Dave washed the car in the rain, went to lunch, and then did a little bit of shopping. It was a fun and profitable day. We thoroughly enjoyed it and thoroughly enjoyed spending time with the kids after we had all had a break from each other. :)

Our garage before we started working on it.
Our garage after we worked 2 hours on it. It seems like it's still pretty messy, but we made HUGE progress.Dave cleaning my car in the rain.