I'm Still Here...kinda

The girls are back in swimming lessons. 4 days a week, 2 weeks this month. The main instructor is teaching their class which is good, because he is a great teacher. He's also a really tough level 3 instructor. It is going to be a challenge for both girls, but especially for Gabbie. I'm glad that he is pushing them, but they are going to have to work HARD! :o)

AWANAs starts back up in 2 weeks! (teachers go back next week) The girls are super excited. I have mixed feelings. I'm excited for them to go back, but it takes up so much of our Sunday afternoon as a family. And we get little of that time as it is with Tony's schedule. Oh well. I have worked in the high school class for the past 2 years and was planning to be there this year as well. However there were some last minute changes to the teacher schedule and I will now be working in the Cubbies. The commander said they could use another "cat herder" ha ha. I'm used to herding cats...so I told them I would move over. I will be doing the wrap up at the end of class every week and presenting awards. Along with the "herding" of course. I'm excited. I think it will be a fun change. I enjoyed being in the high school room before since I heard cats all day long, but I really do think that this will be fun. The guy that I worked with last year was moved to another class, so getting into a smooth routine with someone else would have taken a bit of work anyway. And since we will only be there for part of the year this will be better. There are a lot more Cubbie leaders, so loosing me from that class will be easier then from a class where I am 1 of only one or two other leaders.

School is keeping me busy in the mornings. Gabbie likes doing it every day unlike last year, which is great, but makes me extra busy. And there is also a 1 year old crawling all over the place...mornings are crazy around here.

I am hoping to join one of the PWOC (Protestant Women of the Chapel) groups here this year also. It's a ladies Bible study group that meets at military chapels all over the world. From what I've seen it's a pretty good group, and the one here has some nice retreats! Not sure If we will be here for the one this year or not. It meets on Wednesdays at 8:30. Hopefully I can get 3 kids ready and out the door that early! Our Bible study house has a women's Bible study group that meets on Monday nights...but being out late with 3 girls by myself, and then having to get 3 tired cranky girls to bed by myself is not fun! By the time I get them all to bed me going to Bible study was pointless. ;o) So even though this one is really early, I'm hoping that it will fit our schedule better. I have our school lesson plans set up for 4 days a week. It works well. they get everything done that they need to, but we have a day of flexibility also. I need that.

I guess that's all the updating I can do for now. One of the big girls left the gate open to the playroom and it sounds like Savannah is in there destroying things. And Gabbie is super tired and "Can't walk" upstairs. Sigh....see why no one ever hears from me??! LOL!

A Schedule

In order for me to kinda stay on top of-or at least not fall too far behind on my housework I have to have a daily chore chart for myself. :o) It helps me to make sure I get everything done that needs to be done, and not get too far behind, so it doesn't take very long.

Daily chore:
School (of course)
Vacuum downstairs
laundry (there is pretty much always some kind of laundry to wash!)
clean kitchen and pick up random clutter

Monday:
Clean Downstairs bathroom
My sheets and room
Mop downstairs
Dust (The girls' chore)

Tuesday:
Clean girls' room and wash their sheets (They help)

Wednesday:
My bathroom
mop downstairs

Thursday:
Girls bathroom
Vacuum and dust stairs

Friday:
Mop downstairs
project day (SUPPOSED to be finishing the girls' quilts....)

It is a lot harder to get my upstairs chores accomplished when I'm working around 2 people sleeping/napping during the day. :o/ I'm not 100% successful every week on sticking to my schedule like I should, but I do pretty good.Seems like someone is always sleeping around here! The list helps me fell better knowing that I have most of it covered, and it doesn't take long when I break it up like this.

I've Been Busy...

As usual it's been longer than I would like since I last blogged. However, this time I feel like I have a good excuse. I've been busy. Here's an overview of what has been keeping me from spending more than a few minutes at a time on the computer.

On July 6th, Baby girl #3 joined our family. Savannah Juliet was born at 3:59 AM, and was 6lbs, 8oz. 19in long. I was induced with both of the other girls, and really wanted to experience what it was like to go into labor on my own. I was about to give up on that, as I was told at my 39 week check up that I still wasn't really making any progress in that direction. I was very disappointed, as I was more than ready for her to be here. However I was also measuring smaller than I did at my previous appt, so after a quick sonogram, they discovered that my fluid was low. The Dr came in and said
"Congratulations, you're having a baby tonight!"
Me: "uuhhh, ok. Can I go home and get my husband and bag?"
Dr. "No. You have to go be admitted right away."
I think I had a dazed look on my face, because the Doctors and nurses kept asking me if I was ok. Ha ha!
Induced again. I'm totally convinced that my body does not know how to go into labor on it's own.

Everything went fine, and about 12 hours later Savannah was here. I did learn one thing...you can go from only being dilated to a 5, to holding your baby in your arms in less than 30 min. Surprise! :o) Savannah was over 1lb smaller than her sisters were at birth, so it was so fun to have such a tiny newborn!
She is a super good, happy baby. She is 9 weeks old now, and has been sleeping through the night since she was about 4 or 5 weeks old. Her big sisters adore her, and are huge helps to me.

Since she is the 3rd baby, and 3rd girl, things have been pretty easy for me. I am however using cloth diapers for her. That has been a new adventure, and one that I am finding is more fun than I thought it would be! I wish I had started doing it 2 babies ago...but I didn't. I'm loving how much money we are saving! I had decided to CD before she was born, but all the diapers that I had bought were WAY too big for a tiny newborn. So I used disposable for the first 3 weeks until I got smaller diapers. We used $100 in diapers in just 3 weeks. YIKES! That made me feel good about our decision to CD, and made me feel better about the initial investment of buying the cloth. More on this adventure later. :o)

Natalie is officially in Kindergarten! We decided to home school her this year. Hawaii schools are not so good, and she was already way ahead of what she would be learning at school. So that has been keeping me busy as well. We have recently joined a local home school group and will be doing a co-op twice a month. Fun!

Natalie and Gabbie have been taking swimming lessons all summer. Two weeks every month from June-Sept we walk down to the pool in our neighborhood for lessons. They are having a blast and learning a LOT. They have one session left for this summer. Then hopefully Savannah will be big enough that I can keep taking them to the pool so they can practice and keep up the skills that they have learned.

AWANA has started back up. I now have one in Cubbies and one in Sparks! How am I old enough to have one in Sparks??! I am helping out with the high school group again also. That keeps my Sundays full.

Tony's mom was able to come and visit right before, and right after Savannah was born. We always enjoy her visits! We are planning a trip back home to Texas to visit my family at the end of September. We are super excited! At that point it will be a year and a half since seeing any of my family, or being off this beautiful little rock in the middle of the ocean. I am not looking forward to the 8 hour flight (12+ hours of travel time, AND 5 hours time difference) with a baby and 2 little ones...but it will be worth it. :o)

Well, this is a small overview of what I have been up to these last couple of months. Trust me, it feels crazier than it sounds. My days are filled with laundry, dishes, nursing, feeding the other girls, cleaning up messes, cooking, cleaning again and more laundry. I have such a glamorous exciting life, don't I ? :0)


Her very first bath...she wasn't a fan!
My 3 girls.

Savannah on Left, Natalie on right. I feel like I am repeating myself...

It's been...wow

I know that most of you are probably thinking that I have disappeared by now. I haven't. I have just been busy. And stressed. And had more pressing things to do than update my blog. And every time I set down at the computer I have 2 toddlers crawling all over me. Which makes updating a little hard. But here I am. To spare you the very long post of what's been going on the last 3 or so months, I will just hit the highlights for you.

Tony's mom came to visit. We had a blast. Went shopping, and did some new things on the island. She bought me a sewing machine! I love it, and have been trying to find some time to make some simple clothes for the girls. While she was here the girls got sick. Then Tony and I got sick at the end of her visit. The combination of being sick and Gramma visiting made Gabbie regress in her potty training. BAD. We were back to day 1. Aaannnd, it took us over a month to get trained again! Ugh. (That's one of the things that has been keeping me busy, and kept me from blogging)

Tony and I celebrated our 6th wedding anniversary! Sine we were apart for our last anniversary we had a lot of fun celebrating this year. We went to a luau on the beach. It was a wonderful evening. The Air Force ball was in September. It is to celebrate the Air Force's birthday. It also happens to mark Tony's anniversary in the Air Force! He has been in for a whole year now! I can't believe it!! The time is flying! We had a lot of fun getting dressed up and going to the ball. It was nice to have a kid free night! :o) We have also hit the 6 month mark of being in Hawaii! We REALLY can't believe that one. The time has really been going by so quickly! We still love it here, and haven't even done a fraction of all there is to do on the island.

One night the smoke detector in Gabbie's room started "chirping" You know, the occasional beep like when the batteries are getting low? Only ours are wired into the electricity...so no clue why it was doing this in the middle of the night. Well it scared Gabbie. BAD. She was afraid to be alone, especially in her room. Wouldn't sleep in her room. Naps and nighttime involved me sitting in her room for an hour or more until she fell asleep. Then she would wake up in the middle of the night and I would be outside of her room for 3-4 hours trying to get her back to sleep. It was AWFUL! A very long, sleep deprived month. She is mostly better now. We still have to stay outside her room for a little bit when we put her to bed at night, and she still wakes up in the middle of the night. Every night. BUT, I finally made her a pallet on the floor of our room, and so now she just wakes up and comes in our room to lay down and sleep more. So at least I'm getting sleep. We are still dealing with her separation anxiety though. Not sure if us trying a new church set it off, or if it's just one of those normal stages of life. It's annoying. She won't let us leave her in her class at church now, and she does not sit still and quiet to go to church with us. She even gets upset when I leave her with her daddy! I have to sneak out of the house so that she won't have a meltdown. It's really frustrating! I'm hoping that she will grow out of this phase soon as well.

We are still looking for a church that is "home" for us. We have found a couple that we like, but just don't feel that connection yet. Hopefully soon. We haven't been able to attend the new one very much lately because of Gabbie though. We started going to that church because it has AWANA's that starts at Cubbies. The chapels on base have AWANA's, but they don't start until kindergarten. Natalie has been going to Cubbies. She loves it and is doing very well.

We have been meeting more great people here. We are very thankful for that. I have a small group of moms (and 1 dad) that get together every week most weeks. Three of us live in the same neighborhood, so that's nice. We like to go to the beach, or the splash park, or just have a play date where the kids can play and the adults can have some time with other adults. Ha ha. I'm finding that to be very important.

Tony finally has a set schedule. He works 12 hour shifts. 3 days on, 2 days off, 2 days on, 3 days off. It's confusing, and has been hard for me to get used to! I never know what day of the week it is. I have to write everything down on a calendar. It's hard but he has about 1/2 the time off, which is nice. He works every-other weekend, which I don't like, but he has some weekdays off which is nice. We like to avoid the crowds when we do stuff around the island. He got Airman of the Quarter, which is a very good thing. It will look good when promotion time comes, and hopefully it will help him get promoted 6 months early!

We have been fighting sickness around our house! We have all taken our turns. Yes, multiple. lol The girls have had stomach bugs, and colds. Tony and I have been passing colds back and forth. I even had a fever with one of my rounds, so not sure what it was. We are starting to all get cleared up, and I hope it stays that way!

While the rest of the country is enjoying fall, things here aren't much different. I planted some new herbs and flowers the other day. I didn't think I would mind warm weather all year, but I am missing Fall! "Winter"is the rainy time of year here on the island, so we have been having a little more clouds and rain than we have been. That helps it to be a little cooler, but not much.
It's hard for me to believe that the holidays are upon us...I still think it's summer! This is strange to me for sure. All the stores have winter clothes like on the mainland though! Are you kidding me?! We don't need fleece, sweaters, coats, and boots! Even gloves and hats! I didn't know this would happen, or I would have bought the girls shoes while summer stuff was still out. It's going to be an interesting "winter".

Speaking of holidays...they are almost here! Yikes! This will be the first holidays that we won't be spending with my side of the family. That will be really hard. However, we are looking forward to starting our own traditions for our little family here. :o) Although...if nothing changes with Tony's schedule, he will be working on Thanksgiving. I'm having a hard time with that. It will be an interesting Thanksgiving...

And another thing that's been keeping me busy...I have started selling Scentsy! If you aren't familiar with the products you should get acquainted! I LOVE it! I've only been doing it a little over 2 months now, but I'm already making a profit. :o) I'm not getting rich yet... ;o) but it's nice to have a little extra spending money.

Well that's probably enough stuff to make you bored. If you are still reading hopefully you can see why it's been so long since my last post and forgive me for it. It won't be that long before my next one, hopefully!

Quick Update

As usual, it has been awhile since I posted last. Every time that I think I get an opportunity to sit down long enough to do this something else comes up, or somebody wakes up from their nap! I hear snoring coming from the baby monitor, so here goes...

Tony got a job and will be leaving for his basic training on July 21st. He will be in San Antonio from then until the weekend of September 20th. His graduation will be that weekend if anybody will be in the area and wants to come. :o) I think it will be really neat. These dates could possibly change...but this is how it should be. After that he will be going to San Angelo, Tx for more training. He will be there for 19-22 weeks. We aren't sure yet which it is, we have heard both. We are thinking it is more around the 22 weeks. There is a possibility that the Air Force will move the girls and I to San Angelo since he will be there for so long. Even if the Air Force doesn't pay our moving expenses, we are still thinking about moving ourselves-it's only about 6 hours from here. It would be a lot harder (I would have to move by myself!) and cost us a little more, but being apart for 8 months when we don't HAVE to be sounds worse to me! Hopefully we can save up the money to make that possible.

The girls are healthy right now. Natalie goes next month to the Dr for a checkup, so we will see how her weight and iron levels are doing then. She and Gabbie love playing together. Gabbie is getting old enough now where they are having more fun. Gabbie is getting a lot more teeth and saying a lot more words. She is all of a sudden changing into more of a little girl. She is good at following directions and picking up after herself. She is still better at making messes though! She loves to throw trash away...but sometimes things that aren't trash get thrown away as well, so I have to check it all the time. She gets the trash and laundry hamper confused sometimes. Natalie is still loving her gymnastics, and Gabbie is going to be my dancer I think. Every time she hears any kind of music she dances to it. She will even put her hands together above her head and spin around. I have NO IDEA where she learned how to do that! Maybe it just came natural?

I am just trying to stay on top of all the housework and other stuff that is going on around here! Some days all I can do is keep from getting too far behind...forget about getting ahead! I am trying to get more organized and scheduled. It looks like Spring may be here to stay...The forecast for the next couple of weeks looks good! (Except for the wind of course) The weather can of course change overnight without warning, but if it holds like this that will get us into May. Our chances of staying nice are a lot better after that point. I am trying to plan our days so that we can have time to play outside, without me getting behind on what needs to be done inside. It is a work in progress! Hopefully I will get something that works for us in the next few days. I promised Natalie that she could play in the sandbox after her nap, so I have to get some stuff done while she is napping. This will be the first time for Gabbie to play in the "box", so I am scared! :o) Hopefully I can keep her from eating too much of the sand, or getting buried by her sister!

We only have 3 months until Tony leaves, so we are also going to be cleaning out and getting rid of a bunch the junk that we don't need anymore. It's funny how your perspective can be changed and what you thought you just had to have a year ago, now is not important to you. Thinking about moving around a bunch of extra junk helps a lot with that!

We have something going almost every week until July. Another reason for me to get our days organized! We will have family visiting 2 different weekends in May and some family here in June as well. I am glad that we are busy, it will help the time pass until Tony leaves. I am not looking forward to his leaving, it's just the sooner he leaves, the sooner he will be back. That's how I am looking at it any way. I don't know if it is logical or not. :o) I plan to stay pretty busy all Summer. I don't want to summer to go by fast necessarily, but I am ready for September and October to be here. I have heard that it is better to stay busy while Tony will be gone, so that is what I plan to do.

That's it for now. I know I kinda rambled but I am trying to get a lot done in a short amount of time this afternoon. I hope that you are able to make sense of all of it! :o) I have some pictures that I will try to put up soon.

COLD!!!!

Right now it is 26 degrees, the wind is 30mph, and it's trying to snow. By trying I mean a few tiny flakes are flying around in the air, and if you look really hard in the low places of the ground you can see a little white. It's pretty miserable out there. Yesterday was in the 70's! It is not unusual for there to be a big difference in the temperature from day to day here, but I don't remember an almost 50 degree difference!! That's crazy. For those of you that don't live where the weather is crazy like this, I'm sure you can imagine! It is a bit of a shock. At least the cold is making it feel a little more like Christmas time. It was hard to get in the spirit with the 60 degree weather we had been having. My parents and sister live where it is still in the 70's and 80's, so they are really having a hard time!!

Thanksgiving was a great time. Most of the food turned out pretty good! In an attempt to fit all that we needed to in the oven at once, and trying to get it to all cook a little faster, a couple of the casseroles got a little dry, and the jello salad froze in the extra fridge that we were storing it in. Surprisingly the Jello turned out fine when it thawed! We ate it all anyway, and had a great time! My first time cooking Thanksgiving was not a disaster, and I learned some things for next time. I plan to redo some of the dishes that didn't turn out so great when everybody is here for Christmas.

Gabbie took her first steps a day or so after Thanksgiving!! She now walks about 50% of the time. She gets so excited when she does, and she always tries walking first, before she crawls. She can walk for a long way before she falls, and when she does fall, she can stand back up all by herself. She can walk while carrying a toy as well! I think she will be walking 100% by Christmas. I can't believe she started walking at 10 months. I can hardly remember her being a tiny baby. I don't know if it is because I had such a hard time recovering after she was born and I didn't get to enjoy it like I wanted to, or because she has grown up so fast! I told Tony that I can still call her a baby until her birthday, even though she is "toddling"!

Natalie is really getting into being a big sister, sometimes a little too much. Gabbie was messing with the DVD player the other day and Natalie tried to put her in time out and talk to her about what she did, like we do with her! I had to tell her that only Mommy and Daddy can get onto Gabbie. Natalie does pretty good at trying to keep Gabbie out of stuff too. Gabbie was getting into the cabinet with the pots and pans, and Natalie went over to her and said "No,no Gabbie. Can't touch it." Then she put them all back in the cabinet and came and told me what Gabbie was doing! Like I said, I think sometimes she may be a little TOO helpful!
The other day Natalie was talking to herself. I wasn't really listening, until I heard her count to 7...in Spanish!!! I guess Dora gets most of the credit for that one, we really haven't been working on that yet!
Natalie loves to do things by herself, especially getting dressed. She can even button her own shirt. Cooking is one of her new favorite things too. I was hoping that if she cooked the food, she would want to eat more of it. I was wrong. The last two days she has wanted to cook something, so we did, then I asked her if she wanted to eat some of it and she said "No!" and ran away! So much for that plan! She has slowed down eating again, after she was doing do good and gained some weight. I am hoping that she doesn't lose all that she has gained now! I guess we will see.

I have almost all of my Christmas shopping done! I have 3 more to buy for some family members, and a few stocking stuffers for the girls and that is it! I do have a couple of homemade gifts that I need to finish, but I don't have to do any shopping for those. I really want to wrap some and put them under the tree, but I don't think that would be a very good idea. I don't think they would last very long!! I guess I will just have to wrap them and put them back in the closet for now. I even have Christmas cards ready to go in the mail tomorrow. I don't think I have ever really done cards before, so I feel like I am really on top of it this year!!
For now anyway! I know better than to be too proud of myself. I managed to get the girls' Christmas pictures done the other day. That was no small feat let me tell you!! That was all I got done that day and I was not in a very good mood by the time I got finished! I didn't really get any good ones of the two of them together. I decided that it is pretty much impossible to get the two of them still at the same time! I did get some that are pretty good of them separately so I guess those will have to do.

I can't believe that Christmas is just two weeks away!!! Wow! It sure is coming fast. I need to get organized and plan what Christmas cooking I am going to do. Things are going to be crazy this year as Kaleena is getting married on Jan 3rd. We will have family in town for over a week, from Christmas until then, so I probably won't do too much fun stuff since I will be feeding a bunch of extra people.

I need to get back to the house work. I have had projects going on all week and I haven't gotten the normal daily stuff done, so I am a bit behind.

Backtracking

Not much new is happening, so I thought I would post some pictures that have been taken over the past month or so today. I have been meaning to post them for quite awhile now, but just haven't made myself do it.
I am now on my 5th straight day of not leaving the house. I am cleaning the floors today and well...doing this! I am starting to feel a little shut in, and I'm sure Tony is tired of me calling him and saying, "Oh, can you stop by Target and get some diapers?" "Oops, we are TOTALLY out of toilet paper." "Ummm, Natalie needs more milk". Three different items, three different days! I am having trouble collecting myself. :) Natalie has a birthday party to go to tomorrow, so I will finally have the car and I can get out for a little while. Sometimes having only one car can be a little tough. I need a few things at the grocery store, but they will have to wait until Monday, when Tony gets paid. Tomorrow is SUPPOSED to be payday. but since the owner's wife is the one that writes the checks, and she doesn't like to work on Saturday...Payday is pushed back 2 more days! That really gets to me. If your bills are due on the first, you don't get to wait 2 more days just because it is Saturday! The bad thing is his other payday for Nov is on Saturday also, so we will be waiting AGAIN! Anyway...I had to get that off my chest.
Natalie seems to be eating a bit better now that she is on the appetite stimulant. We still have days here and there where she doesn't eat too much, but they are not as often as before so I am happy. Maybe between the medicine and bribing her with stickers we can get a little bit of weight on her.
That's mostly it for now, so here are the pictures that I told you about... The Beautiful flowers my wonderful husband brought me for no reason!
Natalie playing in the shop with Pawpaw and his saw dust.


Natalie trying so hard to get the wagon out the gate.

I'm not really sure what that face is all about!

Natalie being such a good big sister and pulling Gabbie in the wagon.
I think Gabbie may be a little worried! Molly chewing on a stick that is bigger than she is.
Going for a pretend ride in Mimi's car
Mimi is so funny!
Story time with Mimi.

Story time with Auntie Neena.


Natalie wearing great-Papaw's boots that she put on all by herself.
Gabbie pushing the car/walker toy. It is her favorite thing to do now. She is getting so big!

Fun sister time in the tub!

Big smile!


There's a Natalie in the ducks!

A Taste of Fall

Like last time I wrote, much has happened since my last post. I am only able to get on here when Natalie is napping, otherwise she is on my lap the whole time pushing buttons. She knows all her ABC's so she gets really excited when she sees them. Usually during her nap time I do housework, but I am fairly caught up today. It is dark and rainy outside and about 62 degrees. Yay! I am so excited for the cooler weather. It has still been in the mid to high 80's most days so I am ready for the change. The high on Monday is only supposed to be in the low 50's!! Burrr! I need to get the girls some warm Pj's. Since neither one of them sleeps under the covers too much, they will need then with the nights getting down in the 30's and 40's this week. It seems that fall is here for now! It may or may not be here to stay though, you never know about the weather around here. The nice thing about Amarillo is we get to experience all 4 seasons. Sometimes we get them all in one week though!

The family came to visit for a few days at the beginning of the month, so that kept me busy. We had a lot of fun as always. My parents were on their way to a different city for work and stopped by to get my mom's car as it looks like they will be at this post for quite awhile probably. My sister has been laid off from her job in Houston due to a combination of the hurricane and the economy, so she came to visit as well. The girls as always had a blast. Natalie is still saying that Neena went home to be with Clint, and she is still thanking Pawpaw for the smarties that he brought. The visits usually leave quite an impression.

Natalie is getting so big. She loves to help me cook. She was helping me the other night when Tony came home from work and when she saw him walk in she said "Dada, I'm cookin!" She was so excited to be big. She often says to me "Nat Nat big girl!" when she is doing something that makes her feel big. Just so I don't forget I guess.

Gabbie is changing so fast. She is doing great at feeding herself finger snacks, and going and getting into whatever she wants, (or whatever Natalie is getting into of course.) She pulls up on everything, which of course results in lost of bumps and cries for "ma ma ma". She will eat anything she finds on the floor, no matter how tiny or edible. The other day I fished a teeny tiny rock out of there. Her coordination is best when she is putting something in that doesn't belong. I doubt that she could have gotten a piece of food that small in there! I sometimes catch her in the process of putting something from the floor into her mouth, so I say "Gabbie stop!". That just makes her jump, and then she rushes to cram the thing in as fast as she can before I can take it from her! How do they learn that kind of thing so young?! Last night she was up twice, the first time for close to two hours, and the second time she was screaming for 45 minutes! She has been sleeping through the night since she was 2 months old, so I am not used to this. I think the scream session was because of teeth, or lack there of. She is almost 9 months old and doesn't have a single tooth! I really don't mind that she doesn't have any yet, but I am very afraid that we have 4 trying to come in all at once! That will not be fun. Natalie had 6 come in all in one week right after her first birthday. It really wasn't too bad though, and we got it over with all at once. We will see how this goes.

As an update to my last post, we have been trying to get the van fixed. So far we have spent in the neighborhood of $500 dollars just to find out that it is going to take another $1900 to actually get it running. Stupid computer stuff! Since we don't have that kind of money laying around, and it is hardly worth spending that on it, we are probably just going to sell it at the auto auction. We just have to get it towed for the fourth time! We need to sell it before it totally sucks all the life out of us! :) It is hard to know what the best thing to do is, but right now it is just costing us a lot of money that we don't have to spend on it. So it looks like we will be going down to just the Expedition. Thank God gas is going down! We can make it work, I don't need to go anywhere all that often, and if I CAN'T go anywhere, I can't spend any money! There is the plus in that! I will just have to plan all my errands ahead of time and take Tony to work that day. Then I pray really hard that no emergencies or anything important comes up at the last minute. I will be quitting my Wed evening child care job. It doesn't work very well with me having to pick Tony up and be at work at the same time. Plus now I am barely breaking even or even loosing money on gas by keeping it. That doesn't make very much sense does it? They knew from the beginning that it may not work out for me to do it, so it shouldn't be a problem. I will probably have to stay until they find another teacher though, we usually have 20-25 kids,(only about 5 or so speak English) and only 3 teachers. Fun times!

I better run, our couples life group from church is meeting tonight and I still have a bit to do before I am ready to go, so I better hurry!

New Additon

These last couple of weeks has been a crazy stressful time, and I wonder if my life will ever be what we hope and dream for it. These weeks have shown me that it doesn't do much good to plan around here.
Long complicated story short, we had to get a new (to us) car. The Van broke down, and while my car was still in great dependable shape, it was a bit small for all of us. ( I bump my head and usually at least one of the girls' every time put them in their car seats.) You can forget about room for groceries, or anything else by the time you have all the stuff that goes along with two little girls in there. The original diagnosis on the repairs for the van cost more than it is worth, so we decided that the best thing to do was sell try to sell the car, and get something else that is dependable and gives us enough room. We decided that we could survive on one car for awhile, since my mom's car is here for use in emergencies. We listed the car for sale on Craigslist, and started keeping our eye out for something else. We decided that whatever happened would be what was supposed to happen, and we didn't really try hard to sell the car, or find a new one. In less than a week we had an offer on the car, and found another one that we could buy without having to finance. SO... after a miserable weekend of car shopping with a baby and a toddler we are finally done with all of it! I'm so relieved to have it done. I have had my fill of used car salesmen-that's for sure!


2001 Ford Expedition


We may never know what the right thing to do was, but this is what we chose to do-no looking back. I miss my car, I have had it since I was a Senior in high school, but I do really like my new one. From what I know anyway! Tony has been taking it to work, so I have had little time to get to know it.

The second we walked in the door from buying the Expedition, the phone rings and it is my mom. Turns out she is needing her car, so it will no longer be here for emergencies. So much for our one car plan! I don't mind only one car, but if one of the girls gets hurt, or Tony is in a wreck or something, I have no way of getting to where I need to be. That makes me a little nervous! The good thing is, the price on fixing the van will be a lot lower than we were originally told. The bad thing is, we still don't have the money to get it fixed yet...hopefully in a few weeks. Then Tony can drive that to work, and save the miles and gas on the new car. That's kinda the plan anyway...but like I said, plans don't really work out very well for us lately!

The girls are growing so fast. Gabbie can crawl anywhere she wants, and she pulls up on everything! She wants to be big so badly! Anything Natalie does, she wants to do too. It is sad for me, because she is still my baby! I am not ready for her to be a toddler too!
I gave Natalie a haircut last night. It was only supposed to be a trim, but it was pretty uneven (It's only been trimmed once before) and with her wiggling, it came out shorter than I planned. It looks cute, but that was a sad moment for me too. It has taken her almost 2 1/2 years to get that much hair! It looks thicker now though.
That's most of the new stuff for now. Gabbie is awake from her nap and wants a snack, so I better go.

Lots Happening...

So it has been a LONG time since I have posted last. First it was because nothing much worth posting about was going on, then because TOO much was going on for me to get a chance to get it done! Go figure. So anyway, here is a few highlights of the last few weeks.
Here is a Horney Toad that we found in the yard. We actually saw two different ones over a couple of days! I was excited, I haven't seen any of these since I was a kid. This was actually Tony's first time ever to see one in real life! I guess they don't live up north.





Here is a one antlered deer that came up to graze in our yard. I figured the more it ate, the less we would have to mow. It wasn't afraid of anything, it just looked at us and went on with what it was doing.


This Is Molly. While Pawpaw was in town he found a puppy that he thought the girls needed. Molly is a nine week old, 3 1/2 lb Beagle. She is great with the girls, and Natalie loves her to death. She carries her around with her all the time. Once she catches on to the housebreaking than it will be even better. She loves being outside, so while the weather is still nice she is spending a quite a bit of time outside as well. I think she will be a great pet.




We had family in town for the holiday weekend. My parents, sister, and future brother-in-law were all here. I always love it when everyone is in town, but it always seems to take me a few days to get the house and schedules put back together! :0) It's totally worth it though. It took me a little longer this time, with two kids- both of them mobile- and a puppy. Plus I had several errands and appointments that I had to do, so that is why I am just now getting around to posting. A week later. I am finally pretty much caught up on the extra stuff, so now I am just doing the daily never ending stuff. The girls are on totally opposite naps right now, as soon as Gabbie wakes up from her morning nap, Natalie goes down for her nap. I miss having the break from them, but I guess at least I get time with just one instead of two.
I have gone back to working at Paramount Baptist in their childcare dept. This time I am working for a few hours on Wednesday nights. It is barely worth it with the gas and all, since we live a ways from town. I told them that I would do it through Christmas and see if it was worth me working longer. I don't think it will be, but I figure any little bit extra will help with Christmas and Birthdays coming up. Plus the season is changing, and both girls need new clothes.

All of us together.



Natalie with Auntie Neena, Uncle Clint and of course Molly.





Natalie in the tree.


Natalie, Pawpaw and Molly on the swing.


I guess that's it for now, I have to get back to the laundry and floor mopping.

My Favorite Time of Day

This is my favorite time of day. Both girls are napping, (this happening at the same time is RARE!) and I get a chance to get caught up on some of what I want to do. The clouds have built, and it is thundering! I LOVE THAT! Hopefully it will rain, right now the clouds aren't big enough, but hopefully they will keep growing.

I am in the process of rearranging some things in the house. I think Natalie is big enough to play with her toys in her room, so after some cleaning out and arranging I have managed to fit most of them in her room and closet. She took well to the change, she walked into her room and said "Wow! Toys!" It was almost as good as Christmas, you would have thought they were all new toys! She spent the rest of the time before her nap playing in her room, by herself. Gabbie even played in there with her for awhile. They were so happy, and so was I! Now my living room looks like a real adult room! I still need to finish organizing some stuff and vacuum though.

Gabbie is six months old now, I can't believe it. The time has gone by so fast. She had her Checkup today, she weighs 16 & 1/2 pounds. She had her Cardiologist appointment earlier in the month, to follow up on the murmur and abnormal EKG that her regular doctor performed. The EKG done by the cardiologist came out normal, and he said whatever was wrong before had corrected itself. She only has a "Functional Murmur". She is getting very good at sitting alone now, although I still put a pillow behind her to catch the occasional falls. She is always busy, and always has to have a toy or something in her hands. She is always doing something! She is trying out the crawling muscles, although I think we are month or away from that still. (I don't know if I'm glad or not! :) )

Natalie is still a challenge, in more ways than one. We are still trying to get her into the idea of potty-training, and not having much success in that area. She can count to 10 all by herself. She knows several shapes and colors, and is now getting into the alphabet. She knows A-F in order pretty well, while recognizing a few others, just not in order. Last night she brought Tony a piece of paper and said "Dada, A Bs." She wanted him to write the alphabet for her. She can recognize most of the letters when they are written down.
When she was saying her prayers last night She said " Dear Jesus, I love you,... R,S,X,Y...Amen!" I guess she had the alphabet on her mind. Her prayer usually goes, "Dear Jesus, I love you. Thank you for Mommy and Dada and Gabbie, amen. She loves saying her prayers at night.
She loves shoes, and usually ends up wearing 3-4 different pair every day. She does great at putting them on by herself, and gets them on the right feet most of the time. When she doesn't, all I have to say is "Other foot", and she switches them. She likes having a say in what she wears and especially what hair bows she wears. Usually the shoes and bows don't match the outfit when we are at home, but it makes her feel like big stuff. She says please and thank you almost always without having to be prompted.

Natalie and Gabbie still get along great, Gabbie is showing more of an interest in Natalie's toys, so sometimes we have trouble, but for the most part they adore each other. Any time Gabbie is unhappy or cries, Natalie is right there to comfort her. Natalie wants to carry Gabbie around, but since there is only about 7lbs difference between the two, that is a little difficult to do. So she will just grab her by the legs and pull her wherever she wants her to go! (I have to watch out!) I can always tell if Natalie is nearby by watching Gabbie. When Gabbie sees her big sister she gets so excited and smiles so big. Today both girls were playing alone in their room together for quite awhile, as happy as they could be. Gabbie can push herself up when she is laying on her tummy when she is in bed too see over her crib bumper. When she does this she can see Natalie's bed, and I often hear them talking and Natalie playing peek-a-boo with Gabbie when they first wake up. That's one of my favorite sounds!

I need to go get busy now. Tony just called and he is off work now so I need to get started cooking supper.

Family Blessings

It is 11:03 am, still morning to me, although some of you don't really see it that way. Natalie is still asleep, partly because she went to bed very late last night and partly maybe, because of the heavy cloud cover outside. Because of the clouds it is only 67 degrees outside! I thank God for that. The A/C is not running at the moment!
Gabriella is awake and in a great mood jumping and talking in her jumperoo...after spitting up all over my CLEAN pants before I even had them on for 30 min! I Thought she would have waken Natalie up when she woke up but when I went in to get Gabbie, Natalie didn't even stir. I think I hear her waking up now though.
Yesterday my great-grandmother was put in Hospice. Apparently she had a heart attack on Sunday night, and will not recover. So I have family in town. I love having the family around, my mom is flying in today, and my dad is driving in from where they were in CT, so he will be here in a couple of days. I hate that the family has to be here under these circumstances though. My other Great-Grandmother passed away in March of this year. I knew that these days would come, but I never expected them to be within 4 months of each other. I am very fortunate, these are the closest relatives to me to pass away. I also have had the privilege of knowing 3 great-grandmothers. (The other one passed away when I was little, but I still remember her.) My girls have had the GREAT privilege of having 2 living great-great-grandmothers (on my side, there may be one alive on Tony's side, but we aren't sure.) when they were born!! I told my husband that is a lot more than most people get, so we are very blessed. I was not as close to this grandmother as my grandmother that passed away in March, for several reasons, but I will still miss her. I have many happy memories of her.
Today is payday, which means I need to make out my grocery/shopping list of what we need for the next two weeks. Then I have to narrow it down to what we can actually afford, and then figure out how I am going to make that work!
It may be a few days until I can post again, with all the family stuff going on, so until then God Bless you and remember to look for your blessings.

Every Day Life

I haven't posted in awhile, because not much has been going on. We finally got the ac fixed, after almost 5 days. It's amazing how much you take that thing for granted.

My sister came from Houston for the 4th of July. I always love it when she comes, she is 10 hours away and that is hard for me. The girls and I miss her. Natalie loves playing with her auntie Neena. We didn't really do much for the holiday, just went to the park to see the fireworks. Natalie loved them. She would clap and say "Yea stars!" whenever they would go off. The mosquitoes were so bad at the park. Kaleena said they are worse here than in Houston. That's got to be bad!

Things around the house are pretty much the same, I am just trying to stay caught up on the housework which is a never ending battle, and waging major ant wars! I am still finding them at the strangest places.

Natalie has hit the terrible twos big time so every day is a challenge! She has learned to say "I'm Sorry", so that is helping a little bit. Gabbie is learning to sit alone, I can't believe that she is big enough for that already. She will be 6 months old next week!

Natalie loves watching that frogs at night. They come and sit by the lights on our deck. They are pretty smart, the lights attract the bugs, and they have all they need without having to hop anywhere. We saw one frog eat 7 June bugs in just a few min. Natalie says "Rog, RIBBIT RIBBIT! Hop, hop." She would watch them all night if I would let her.

I'm having a hard time getting the pictures where I want them on my post, so they are kinda all mixed up. You can read part of the post, and then match it with the picture it goes with! There is a little project for you!

Oh Mondays...

I usually get behind over the weekend since Tony is off on Sundays. We usually just relax after church, and I have to get busy on Monday getting caught up on the laundry and cleaning. We didn't make it to church yesterday since the girls have been sick. (They both have ear infections.) They are feeling better, but the antibiotics make them cranky. I didn't think it would be very nice to make a nursery worker have to deal with that, so we stayed home. The good thing is, we can listen to the sermon online, so we don't miss to much. It's a good thing we did, Natalie was better, but Gabbie was the cranky one. She had a hard time going to sleep for her naps, and when she did would only sleep for 30 min or less, so she just cried. She was so tired. She is on her 2nd nap of the day today, so maybe she will do better.
I actually got a bit of housework done yesterday since Dada was home to play with the girls,(so nice!) so I am not starting out behind today! That has turned out to be a good thing since I started getting a sore throat last night, and my grandparents from out of town stopped by for a little bit this afternoon. I don't feel too sick, just stuffy in the head and a little tired. Maybe it's just allergies? Who knows. My sister has strep, and the girls have had the ear infections. I know I'm not as bad as either of those.

Right now I am at that wonderful part of the day where both girls are down for their naps. Natalie isn't asleep yet, she is telling me now that she has a dirty diaper. I know, what you are thinking, she needs to be potty trained if she can do that! I used to think so too. We are working on it, but she won't tell me that she NEEDS to go, only that she HAS gone. Past tense. URGH! I guess I need to go take care of that. Then I need to make some banana bread with the black bananas that are on the counter before the fruit flies and ants find them. After that I will try to work more on getting this site up and running, and hopefully put something interesting on it.