Chirstmas lights

Down in a valley is nestled a farm that produces the largest Christmas lights display with a hint of cow manure I have ever been to. In nearly every display there was a running train, wooden train, or picture of a train. Nevertheless, E loved it!

The first stop inside the gates was the outdoor train display. I was a little nervous that we might not be able to pull him away from it in order to see the rest of the gazillon lights. Fortunately we got cold standing still and were able to walk or run through the rest of it.

Texas was the only state represented. Of course it was a highly stylized cowboy, Indian, cacti with lights kinda deal.

 

Little houses held mini displays, this one was the Reading railroad, Pop's train setup is much better than this one.

 

It wasn't freezing, but it was cold! L was in her purple people eater, under two blankets, and three extra scarves. This is a shot of her at the indoor train display.

 

Just this past weekend my Uncle and family came to visit. I love the way L reaches out with her hands to touch your face. It is so sweet!

 

 

A classic

It was brisk outside, but it was fun! E had energy to spare this morning so I thought I would wear him out on the big hill. Unfortunately, it is nap time and Eli is still banging around playing. So much for tired! We climbed a "high high high" mountain, grunting the whole way, rode wild horses (playground toys in the backyard), and then constructed, deconstructed, moved and reconstructed a pile of leaves. Then inside for hot chocolate milk!

Family

The cousins. So cute.

 

 

snow

It was snowing the other day. I know you can't really see it, but it was. E loved to run around in it! We had a little stick overnight, but nothing to sled in yet!

 

 

 

Zacchaeus, you come down!

5 months old

Button is 5 months old today! She loves her toes and to twirl her little feet in circles, when they aren't in her mouth! Spitting, arm flailing and smiling are some of her favorite activites. She is also a screecher, happy sounds but you usually have to check her face to make sure! (I'll try to get a video). I decided it was time to introduce a little cereal into her diet. E is such a good eater so I really want L to be one too. Below is one of her first bites, and she loved it. She opens her little birdie mouth and most of it gets swallowed right away! I am taking it as a good sign she'll be a good eater like her brother. She eats about a thimblefull and washes it down with mommy milk, and I am so proud of her!

Man! Look at that hair. We need a brush!

 

We are up for residency interviews and it is a lot colder north of the Mason Dixon Line. L looks so cute in her big purple body warmer.

 

A Prayer

"Mommy, pray o God."

"Ok honey, why don't you say this one."

"Pray o God. Thankum crayons, Jesus, Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamen."

This was E's prayer before he pretend ate the crayons he put on plates for me, L, and himself.

Button

She really put her foot in her mouth this time...

 

Melting

 

She just melts the heart.

I was just scrolling through my posts and when I passed the picture of E and C looking at each other, I wonder what they were thinking. Perhaps it went something like this:

"There's C with some crazy white things on her head, and that bow is totally not in her hair. I wonder how it stays up there? Does she know it's there. I bet she doesn't even realize that I am dressed like a train conductor, or does she? She sure is squeezing my hand hard. Can't I just go running around again? Maybe Dad will toss me up in the air. How do I get another lollipop?"

Or maybe it just was a mutual thought of:

"Pictures...not again."

Button

 

She missed out on the Halloween post, but here she is in her "Cutest Little Girl In The Whole World" costume!

Halloween

Halloween comes early when you have the wee young ones. Although we are not big Halloween celebrators, we do enjoy the season of Fall and how cute those same wee ones look in their costumes! A couple of nights ago, we met some friends at the local Y for some seasonal socializing. None of the adults wore costumes, unless you count those of us in orange shirts who could have been masquerading as pumpkins, but the kids looked adorable. I was a little hesitant that Eli would fight me on his costume and not want to wear it, but I explained the idea of pretending and our last minute costume was one he could really get into! Here he is with his good friend Clara. She was Hello Kitty, can you guess what Eli was?




Since Jason could not remember ever having carved pumpkins, and I have fond memories of backyard pumpkin-gunk scooping, I bought a pumpkin to initiate the boys. Once I cut the top off, I scooped out the innards and offered Eli a turn. "No, no , no, no, no," he said while emphatically shaking his head and pushing the pumpkin away. I did NOT expect my two year old to be grossed out by this! He overheard me tell Jason that you scrap the sides with a spoon to really clean it out so he ran into the kitchen and would only touch the pumpkin with the ice cream scoop.




Having never carved anything more that triangle eyes and gaped toothed smiles (which my dad did), I decided we should go big. How about carving Nemo? Eli would like that right? So Jason got online, sketched someone else's brilliant work and I transferred it to the pumpkin. Voila!

Deep breath

The days are beginning to run together. Sickies have taken over the house and if I have to blow my nose one more time (which I will) I will cut it off (which I probably won't). I can’t think straight, and with everybody grumpy, the days loom large. It is on days like this that I wish I could channel my inner animated character. I wish it was something I could call upon whether after a sleepless night, the five o’clock hour before dinner, or the last hour before bed.

Like all good animated characters I would be slightly over-weight (and perfectly fine with how I looked), have a voice that always sounded musical, my lips would be perpetually in a smile, and my creativity, spontaneity, and humor would be limitless. All my ideas would thrill my children, a song would pop into my head at the most appropriate moments, and I would never have to run to the store for last minute craft supplies, ingredients, or batteries.

Of course, if my inner animated character were to emerge, it would by default cause my children’s to emerge as well. They would find all my ideas to be extraordinary, see the goodness in sharing and willingly clean-up after themselves. There would be no crying at bedtime, no whining about going to the potty, and Leah would be joyful as she tried to steer her hand to her mouth (because she would get it every time). When it was time to come inside, change activities or settle down, everyone would be full of smiles and enthusiasm.

Alas, I still sing in severals keys at once, dinner isn't always planned ahead, Leah cries and Eli whines. And that's my life...most days I love it, a few days take a little more convincing.

Impromptu Vacation

This picture has nothing to do with our impromptu hurricane vacation, but I find it hilarious!

"Can you believe what Eli got to do?!"

The lake was extremely smooth while we were there, so we took advantage and spent time in the water. Eli does not mind wearing his life jacket while on the boat and is pleasantly surprised by everything he can see and hear while on the water.

After some time spent admiring the lake from the boat, it was time to get in! A while ago we found a cute life jacket/wet suit at Goodwill for only 50 cents, he can still fit in it and it doesn't crowd his head like a regular life jacket.

Jason and I took turns riding with him in the tube while Grandad pulled us at speeds much below Eli's excitement threshold, but just right for his mama!

While Eli's tubing prowess spread rapidly around the lake, some of Grandad's friends invited us to use their jet skis. He's two, so why not!

Eli does a great job respecting the rules while tubing and jet skiing. While he is thrilled to do it all, his excitement manifests itself it utter disbelief and holding himself very still. Except for his head, which whips around taking everything in! He actually rode the jet ski with Grandad.

Poop Cake

This is what we ate last night in celebration of Eli's successful visit to the toilet. We are still in the training process, and I just love the way he enuciates the word toilet, it is almost like he is British, even though I think they say loo. It took a story read on the potty to make it all happen, but we are one giant step closer!

Disclaimer: Poop cake is just a box cake mix with chocolate icing. Yummy!

What happened at our house...

Here are some pictures Jason took when he got back home.

A huge tree at one of our neighbor's houses snapped in half, luckily falling away from the houses.

Our fence didn't used to have such big gapping holes in it, and we left those two tree standing upright.

Our neighborhood was fortunate to get power back pretty soon, and so did the corner gas station.

Sleeping Beauty

just like her mamma used to...

More Hurricane Ike

Jason headed home and found out we had power. He's not sure about work this week, but he is headed to the hospital anyway. We were very fortunate that our damage was minimal. The fence took the brunt of the wind and lost, our newly planted trees didn't stand a chance, and some shingles flew off. Some pictures to come whenever Jason gets back, power but no internet. In this day and age no internet is almost as bad as no power, but we are by no means complaining.

Here at the lake we were enjoying the comfortable and still gusty breeze. Eli helped pick up the fallen leaves in the yard and then relaxed in the hammock swing.

Hurricane Ike continued

We got a report on the status of our house. Fortunately we were spared any major damage. Our fence took a beating and we might have lost some shingles, but not major damage to the house. We don't know if any water came in or not, but it seems like we were spared.

Thanks everyone for your prayers.

Hurricane Ike

Hello friends and family.

We decided to hightail it out of the city yesterday afternoon and made it up to Dad's by dinner time. We didn't have any traffic or problems making it up here (except Eli stood in a fire ant hill when we stopped to feed Leah, he's ok now). One of the few slow parts was as we were approaching the huge Sam Houston statue on I-45, people were rubber-necking. It was weird, not to mention frustrating with two small children not loving their car seats in the back!

We are just starting to get wind and rain from Ike this morning, Saturday. Not expecting anything close to what our friends and house went through in Houston.

I was able to get through to some of our friends. The worst part of the storm came over the area between 2 and 7 am. Everybody is reporting minimal damage and frustration at the loss of power and the cooler weather outside they can't go enjoy.

We don't the know the state of our house, but someone volunteered to try and drive by, just to give us an idea what Jason will drive back to. The plan is for me and the kids to avoid the power outage and hang out up here with family and Jason to go back and deal with the house. We don't know if we can get back in the city, or how long Jason will stay there without power. Hospitals and our church have generators and he could stay at either one I guess.

Keep checking the blog for updates. Know that we are safe and sound, emotionally exhausted, and still a little worried about our house. All the important things are together and safe though. Praise the Lord!

Eli didn't want to sit still, but he really is happy to be at the lake!

Cutes

Our two adorable children!

We're back home now, getting back into the daily grind. Hurricane Ike is spicing things up a bit. We have not been ordered to evacuate, but have been told to batten down the hatches. My house will have boarded up windows. That's weird. Is there a place in the United States where weather disasters don't pack seriously high winds and the ability to move the ocean onshore? I want to live there.

Two neat (if you ignore the scariness of them) facts about Hurricane Ike:

1) It is one of only five storms (3 of which were this year) that can fill the Gulf with its wind and cloud cover
2) Hurricanes are conglomerations of hundreds of tiny thunderstorms. Just like fish swim in schools and cows travel in herds, thunderstorms travel in Hurricanes.

What's in a name?

Eli's vocabulary is expanding rapidly now. He surprises us all the time with words we didn't even know he knew! One of my favorites is when he talks about Grammy's german shepherd and says, "Big dog...big dog walkin'." It's also very cute the way he rolls his whole mouth around the word uncle. He seems to say it with an 'o' instead of an 'u'.

The silliest thing he says are his and Leah's names. They always come out the same way, but without this post you wouldn't have any idea what he was saying. He sat in the living room and said the first and middle name of his cousin, but when you ask him to say 'Eli', he says 'Audi'. Even when you slow it down and ask him to say 'E' he will say it correctly, then you ask him to say 'li' and he says 'Audi'. Eeeeeee....audi is how it comes out. Every time. It is so weird and cute. When you ask him to say Leah, and if he doesn't insist on saying Baby as her name, he will say Waudi. I just don't get it. Even when he is absent-mindedly repeating what he hears, if his name is in it, he'll say Audi not Eli.

Airplanes

Some reasons why Eli likes airports:

1) Big airplanes
2) Big windows



3) Baggage cars which hook together and look like trains!

Mom and I packed a days worth of activites to keep him busy on the plane. He used some while we were waiting but on the plane both kids were as good as gold. Since carseats go only by the windows, Mom and Eli sat behind Leah and me. No screaming, whining, crying, or painful ears...amazing!

Cousins!

more to come...

It's coming!

Her smile is almost here!