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!

Open Carry of Handguns in Texas Petition

Open Carry of Handguns in Texas Petition