Casa de Mayo

moved again!!

2011-05-25T09:09:00.002-06:00

in case you still happen to check this.....1. you're crazy. and 2. you can now find me at

http://leslies-letters.blogspot.com

guess i'll try it again!!

I HAVE MOVED!!!

2010-01-02T23:25:00.003-06:00

I decided to say goodbye to Blogger. It was just stressing me out. So.. for now, I am switching to Wordpress. I would LOVE for you to follow me there and stay updated on our lives. Here's the new site.

www.lesliemayo.wordpress.com

I am still learning lots about it, but it's already easier and quicker for me.

Happy New Year to all of you!

Papa

2009-10-26T10:29:00.004-06:00

I know I am very behing on blogging. I have lots to write about and many pictures to post, but today my mind is elsewhere.

My Papa (Dad's dad) passed away this morning. We all knew that he was nearing the end, but it doesn't make it any less sad. I think that mostly I am sad for my Dad. It's hard watching a parent lose a parent.

But I am mourning my Papa. I have SO many memories of him. He lived out in "the country" in Granbury with a little bit of land. I think I often took for granted when I was little how fun it was going to visit. There wasn't any other kids to play with out there, and he wasn't the type of Grandfather that would run around and play with you or get on the floor and play games. But he made my brother and I laugh SO much. He sometimes, okay many times, used language in front of us that I'm sure made my parents cringe. But Neil and I laughed so hard, it just fueled the fire. He let us ride on the riding lawn mower with him when we were little and by ourselves when we grew up a little bit. They used to have lots of chickens and even a turkey that we would chase around the yard. He would come visit us in Lubbock with the biggest Cousin Eddy motor home you have ever seen. It was awesome. He loved hearing about our school and the things we were involved in. He loved getting into deep conversations with my parents about religion, and I'm sure if I wouldn't have rolled my eyes and walked away, I would have learned a thing or two.

Here are just SOME of the things I loved and want to remember about my Papa:

* He always called Cora "legs." I have no idea why...she doesn't have really long ones, but maybe he liked how fat they were.

* He always preferred to drink a big glass of milk with every meal.

* He always wore a hat. My favorite were the cowboys hats he wore.

* He was in the Navy, was a firefighter, and worked many years on the railroad. I wish I knew more stories from each of these. I know that he was very hard working and dedicated.

* He had a great laugh that was contagious.

* I love that when I looked into his eyes I could also see my dad and my brother.

* He loved being around family. He lived the last few years of his life in an assisted living facility, and he was always so excited to have visitors.

* He got cold easily.

* He would talk to you forever. He loved telling stories.

* His little bird legs were the cutest thing ever.

* I loved watching Kaitlyn get to know him. I hope she will hold memories of him with her.

I know there are many more stories, and things that he said. Hopefully after being with family this upcoming week I will remember many more and be able to record them. Love you, Papa.

Light the Night Walk

2009-09-01T11:43:00.004-06:00

A little over a month ago the three year old daughter of some of our really good friends was diagnosed with ALL Leukemia. Everything happened rather quickly - she was taken to Cooks in Ft. Worth and given about a 2 1/2 year treatment plan. FORTUNATELY, the type of cancer that she has has a VERY good prognosis. Tatum is already considered in remission and will continue to receive chemo treatments to make sure that they zap it all and prevent it from returning. She is back in Abilene now and can receive most of her care here.

On Saturday night there was a Light the Night walk around ACU to benefit the Leukemia and Lymphoma society. Another family from church put together Team Tatum to walk in her honor. There was an overwhelming response in participants and donations. There were over 200 of us out there in our yellow shirts! Tatum is the sweetest, most hilarious girl. I think her and Cora are a lot alike! It was an honor to be a part of this event!

Cora and Tatum back in May...such sweet Friends!

Our new favorite T-shirts!!

They had face painting, but Kaitlyn chose to get a moose painted on her hand. Weird.

This is Kaitlyn with Olivia, Tatum's sister. They are the same age and in the same class this year at school. They had fun kicking a ball around for awhile. Olivia has been so strong during all of this!

They passed out balloons that lit up for everyone to carry during the walk. It was so neat to see all of them when it got dark!

We love you Tater Tot!

First Day of FIRST Grade!!!

2009-09-01T10:35:00.003-06:00

Kaitlyn has been so excited for school to start this year. I feel like the summer just FLEW by. We stayed pretty busy, and the first day of school just snuck up on me! I know I will say this every year, but I can not believe she is in First Grade. We got her haircut a few weeks ago, and now she even looks older! I don't think I needed that.

She got a wonderful teacher, Mrs. M. We go to church with them and their daughter is in our Huddle. This is who Kaitlyn wanted and talked about all summer, so she was excited! There are also a handful of Highland kids in her class. I really think she will have a great year - we feel truly blessed!

She is SO excited about having a locker this year. Their usual Elementary school is being renovated, so they are using a Middle School. It's a little annoying to have to drive over there, but she loves it.

Walking in with one of her best friends, Emma.

My SAD attempt at making Mickey Mouse pancakes for breakfast - at her request.

Wedding!

2009-09-01T08:20:00.006-06:00

I am WAY behind on blogging! This will (hopefully) be the first of 3 blogs today.

Brian and Jennifer......

My sister-in-law Jenny got married on the 22nd. It was quite the party with many out of town family members that we had not seen in SO long. James' parents did a great job planning such a fun weekend for everyone involved. Kaitlyn and her cousin Lofton were the flower girls. They looked precious and had a blast dancing the night away at the reception. The rehearsal was on Thursday night, so on Friday we got to enjoy the day by the pool, ending with a fun cookout for the whole family. It was a tiring, but very fun weekend! Jennifer made a beautiful bride!

Flower Girls.... (notice Kaitlyn's new short haircut!)

This is James' Mamaw from Mississippi. I just LOVE his grandparents. She's like 86..doesn't she look beautiful?!

Kaitlyn ACTUALLY got her fingernails painted for the big day. I was SHOCKED that she agreed to do this. She is normally very against it.

The stretch hummer we got to ride in on the way to the wedding!

Bride and her Daddy....

Sweet girls...

Dancing with her cousin, Graham.

Hello 7 chins...

My Three Girls...

2009-08-05T08:52:00.006-06:00

It's been nice to just be home for awhile! We didn't do too much this past weekend, and it was great! We had some friends move to Abilene (actually right down the street from us!), and were able to watch their boys for awhile on Saturday while they got some unpacking done. It was fun having little boys in the house for a few hours!

Since there is not many activities to write about, I thought I would catch up on the girls and what they are saying/doing these days.

KaItLyN :

She starts First Grade on the 24th. Crazy! She has stayed pretty busy this summer, which has been good. She loves her friends and wants to invite someone over every single day. She is still a little smarty pants and surprises me every day with the things that she says that just seem too old for a 6 year old to be saying. I love spending time with just her. I know she craves my attention a lot because during the day most of time is focused on Cora and Claire. So, she and I go on bike rides in the evenings a couple times a week. We love riding our bikes around campus, or to Cajun Cones for a yummy treat. I love doing this with her and hope she grows up to have good memories of it. I took her to the Drive-In movie the other night and she seemed to really enjoy that. (Even though my car battery died and we couldn't hear the movie as well. Not one of my finer moments) Let's see...some other things she has been into lately:

She loves infomercials. The other day she ran into the living room and said, "MOM! Did you know that for only $19.95 and a snap of your fingers your car and your house can be sparkly clean?!"

She is constantly on the look-out for homeless people, or people in need on the streets. We have given food to a handful of them, but she's never satisfied with just this. She always asks if they can come home with us and spend the night.

When she grows up and becomes a Mom, she wants to name her daughter Madelyn Jane and her son Jonathan Root. You read that right, Root. I have no idea where she got either one of these names.

She used to HATE brushing her teeth, but I bought her an electric toothbrush and now she brushes them like 4 times a day.

She has started wanting to read books by herself, which I am LOVING! She is really into Junie B. Jones right now. I have found her sitting on her closet floor just reading away.

She wants to take Hip Hop dance lessons. James and I have vetoed this for now.

She knows every word to every song and every artist who sings it on Radio Disney. She also loves her Praise music at night.

CoRa :

I am loving the stage Cora is in right now. She is talking so much and her little personality is just so sweet. We have almost mastered potty training, so she should be good to go by the time school starts in a couple of weeks. She has become quite the swimmer this summer! We just strap her arm floaties on and she is off! She will jump off diving boards, so down slides, and can hold her breath for such a long time! She watched Kaitlyn in swim lessons and really picked stuff up I think. She loves her sisters. She has a very "nurturing" side of her. If either one of them are crying or upset, she is quick to comfort.

She has the BIGGEST country accent. It completely cracks me up. My favorite thing that she says is "I THANK!" If you ask her a question, she just thinks about it for a second and says, "I thank!"

If I am having to get on to her for any reason (which doesn't happen often), she will respond with, "Don't worry 'bout me" or "Don't get me in trouble!"

The other day I just picked her up and gave her a big hug, squeezed her real tight and said, "OH, I just LOOOOOOOVE you Cora!" This was the rest of the conversation:

Cora: (looking at me with a little smirk) "Are you gonna buy me somethin'?"

Me: (laughing) "What?"

Cora: "Are you gonna buy me somethin'?"

Me: "Well, what do you want me to buy you?"

Cora: "Chicken."

Cora loves chicken and would eat it for every single meal.

She refuses to drink milk of any flavor and gets her share of dairy from yogurt and cheese.

She stays with me so well when we are out shopping or going places. But she does love to occasionally hide in the racks of clothes.

She is not a big TV watcher.

She's almost completely potty trained!

She loves getting dressed up for church and going to Bible class. She looks forward to it every week. She also makes sure that we remember to pray before every meal.

She still loves her lip gloss and has to have it for nap time and bedtime. She just rubs it on her lips until she falls asleep. It's like her pacifier. She also likes to sleep with her flip flops. Preferably on her feet, but she'll hold them too.

I love listening to her sing. She has the sweetest little voice.

ClAiRe:

Claire requires the most attention these days. She gets into all sorts of trouble. She is an expert climber and explorer. This is where we recently found her - just to give you an example:

She is VERY into music. She loves to dance and sing (or hum) along to songs that she hears. My favorite thing she does is play her harmonica. I tried to upload a video, but I couldn't get it to work. She is SO good at playing her blue harmonica. She even dances along with it. It's hilarious. One sweet story - Claire was born with a little heart murmur. She's had a couple of Echo cardiograms and everything is fine, but the doctor ALWAYS comments about it when they listen to her heart. We recently switched doctors, and the first time the new Pediatrician listened to it she said, " I do hear her little murmur, but it's totally benign. In medical school we were told it is called a MUSICAL HEARTBEAT." How cool is that?! I got a little teary eyed when she said that.

She loves her big sisters, but can definitely hold her own with them and let them know when they are making her mad.

She's figured out how to get out of her crib. Makes going to bed a little bit harder. I'm refusing to believe she is old enough for a big girl bed. She's my last baby!! I can't imagine a day with no more cribs!

She hates her car seat. It's pretty much a struggle every time.

Here are some of the things that she says:

"See-um" (Sam, the puppy)

"Gane?" (when she wants to play her GAME on my iphone)

"Nouse" - (her minnie mouse that she sleeps with)

Anytime you call her name, she responds with, "What." It's hard to describe what it sounds like, but it's pretty cute.

She loves to swing outside. She could do it for hours, I'm sure.

Being the baby, she has mastered the words, "Don't", "No", and "Mine."

I could kiss her sweet cheeks all day long!!!!

My mom asked me one time how I could stand all the sweetness of my three girls. I just love and kiss on them all the time. I don't know how I stand it. I just do! I am blessed beyond measure.

Shower Time!

2009-07-28T18:25:00.004-06:00

I was glad to help host a wedding shower for James's sister, Jennifer on Saturday in Dallas. It was neat to get to meet some of her friends and be a part of such a fun time for her. We stayed up in McKinney so that the girls could take full advantage of the pool at Grandpa and Grandmere's house. Puppy Sam made the trip with us and enjoyed a few dips in the pool as well!
I LOVED watching Jen open this gift. She has always collected Barbies and has SO many of them still safe in their boxes. Her grandmother, who passed away years ago, left this Bride Barbie for her. She was surprised and got so emotional. It was sweet to watch.

Jennifer and her bridesmaids.

With the Bride and Mother of the Bride!

June, me, Jen and Jan. Lots of J's!

Pool time! We found a floatie that Claire would sit in for longer than 1.7 seconds. Kaitlyn is cracking me up in the background.

What fun is a pool if your Daddy doesn't toss you up in the air?!?

Claire...

Cora...

And Kaitlyn...

Girls Trip to Lubbock!

2009-07-28T17:53:00.006-06:00

Last Sunday I packed up the girls and headed to Lubbock for a few days. We really loved being there. We enjoyed a fun back yard with a tree house, a trip to Joyland amusement park, a play date with some friends, playtime at the one and only South Plains Mall (are there SERIOUSLY tattoo parlor's there now?! crazyyy), a fun hour at Texas Water Rampage where we didn't even touch the water because right after we cleared the gate someone saw a slight flash of lightening about 100 miles away and made everyone get out of the water, lots of good food, and tons of love from Mamaw and Pappy. We had a blast!

I was SO proud of Kaitlyn for going down this water slide. I was always to chicken to do it. Even in high school! But, I did it after she did and then we both went on it about 4 more times. Unfortunately on the last time, I flipped completely off my board into the water. I don't think I've ever heard Kaitlyn laugh so hard. I'm so glad that happened right before we left though, instead of right when we got there.

Just wishing they could get in that wave pool. Too bad....

Kid Quest!!

2009-07-18T09:35:00.003-06:00

Kaitlyn has had back to back camps the past two weeks. This week she got to go to Kid Quest at ACU. It was all day Monday through Friday. She has been talking about this camp since about the middle of the school year. Today at breakfast she got a little teary wishing she could go back already! There were over 100 kids total at the camp, but they broke them up into smaller groups. They got to swim, go bowling, do fun outdoor art activities, play lots of games, memorize scripture, learn lots of new fun songs, and learn about how Jesus is the ONLY WAY. Yesterday all of the parents went up there to watch them sing their songs, say their memory verse and watch a slide show of pictures and video from the week. I have to admit, I was taken back to all of the camps I went to when I was growing up and thinking about all of the lasting memories and friendships I made there. I know she will remember this forever, and I hope she continues to want to do church camps every summer!

Kaitlyn and Emma

One of her group counselors..

Another group counselor...

We heard about this sweet little boy, Dakota, ALL week long. His older brother has actually been in our huddle, but they moved to Alaska last year. They came back to Abilene just to do summer camps. Kaitlyn looked forward to seeing him every morning, and was with him every afternoon when I went to pick her up. He is so sweet. Kaitlyn said she wants to be pen pals with him now. How cute is that? This is Megan with them in the picture. She was one of the camp directors and Kaitlyn and Cora are flower girls in her wedding in January!

Art Camp!!

2009-07-10T20:10:00.006-06:00

My friend Summer put on a FABULOUS Art Camp for kids this week. She has done this a few times in the Ft. Worth area, and I am SO glad that she brought it to Abilene! Kaitlyn absolutely loved it. They learned about a different artist each day, and learned different techniques and art styles. I was very impressed with the art work she did! Today was the last day, and there was a little Art Exhibit to showcase all of their work. Summer did a fantastic job and even awarded each child a certificate. I am SO MAD because all of the pictures that I took today turned out blurry (I think my flash was switched off). However, I'm still going to post them - so sorry in advance!

I think this was my favorite. I think I'll even frame it.

For this, Summer had a real vase with fruit at the front of the room and they had to draw it. Not bad!

A little abstract art..they paint on one side of the paper and then fold it over to make it identical on the other side.

This is her paper mache (sp?) bowl decorated with tissue paper. She said she wanted to attach some straps to it and make it her bicycle helmet. Yep.

A stepping stone for the beautiful garden that we have. I mean, our front porch that is a slab of cement.

Her self portrait. Hers are to YOUR left. The first is on the first day of camp with no instruction or direction, and the second is on the 4th day with a little more knowledge of what to do.

Kaitlyn and Mara... (btw..aren't their aprons soooo cute? they got to keep these along with their bucket of art supplies)

Also, please note that I dropped Kaitlyn off right after we had been swimming and she refused to let me put her hair in a ponytail....

Summer handing out their certificates.

Thanks Summer for such a FUN week! Kaitlyn is already talking about going next year!

As soon as we got home Cora and Claire wanted to get right into Kaitlyn's art bucket and use some of her new supplies!

Such a serious artist...

And speaking of creativity...I NEED A BLOG MAKEOVER!!! I am so bored with the way my blog looks. Everyone has such cute ones now and I am just not up with the times. Can anyone out there do this for me, or know of someone who can? Do all these fancy schmancy blogs cost money..or is there a free way to do it? I'm clueless..help a girl out.

Top 10 Things (in random order) that made my 30th Memorable...

2009-07-08T14:25:00.002-06:00

10. I was woken up by Kaitlyn who was wearing a Home Depot apron with a note pad in the pocket, and a nice napkin draped over her arm. She said "Good morning, Ma'am. What would you like for breakfast?" I thoroughly enjoyed my fruity pebbles, banana, and Sunny D.

9. Kaitlyn also sang a song for me that she wrote. It was SO sweet and a really pretty tune! She later told me that she heard it on a TV show awhile ago, but I didn't care. It was sweet hearing it from her voice.

8. James got into my Google Reader and emailed everyone who's blog that I faithfully read. He asked them to post a Happy Birthday blog to me...and so many of them did it! I was SHOCKED when I woke up and saw that all of the titles were about me. Crazy...It was so thoughtful of everyone to do that! I will print them out and keep them forever!

7. Cora decided to tell me (many times throughout the day) all of the things that God made. I just loved her list:
* trees
* birds
* coconuts
* Barbies
* Sprite
* lemonade
* dogs
* fish
* lip gloss

6. My mom called me at 9:05 AM. The exact time I was born. She does it every year and I love it.

5. I got to keep Ava and Pierson for the day. I LOVED listening to Ava sing all of her Annie songs. She said some HI-LARIOUS things throughout the day that literally made me laugh out loud. We set up a tent and she crawled in there by herself and just starting singing (at the top of her lungs) "DESPERADO!!!!!"

4. My friend Holly brought me a TON of balloons! I don't remember the last time I had balloons on my birthday! I loved it!

3. I got to spend some quality time with Halsa and left with a great new haircut. (Not much different, just trimmed up a bit)

2. Some shopping time by myself, thanks to a generous gift card from my parents!

1. Got to see The Proposal with a couple of fun friends. Great movie...go see it if you haven't!

It was a wonderful day, and I feel ready to face a new decade! Thanks again to all of my blog friends for your sweet words yesterday!!!

HAPPY 30th BIRTHDAY LESLIE !!!!!!

2009-07-07T07:19:00.008-06:00

Just so you know this is James. I wanted to do something special for my wife today because she deserves it.

As I write this she is watching the Bachelorette.

One of the many things I find cute about her are her little quirks. She has to watch this show on Monday's, it doesn't matter if it's 11:00pm at night. Another thing is her ability to buy barbecue sauce. We must have about 15 bottles at our house right now because she always thinks we're out. I love that because we won't be out till 2020 but its funny to see a new bottle in the pantry.
Diet Dr. Peppers. We love DDP's with a passion. I've had two tonight.

But that's not what this blog is about. It's about how a special women, mother, daughter, friend is turning 30. She has been on this earth and her impact will be felt for generations. I love this. I love that she also thinks I'm checking fantasy baseball scores right now.

She is a special person and God put her on this earth over 10,000 days ago and she has not wasted one of them.

Tomorrow will be no different. I hope she has a wonderful day and I hope she is able to enjoy such a joyous milestone in life.

I love you.

P.S.

Another one of her quirks is reading blogs. I mean big time reader of blogs. However, if I was her, I would check these blogs below out.

Hannah
Kristen
Sara W.
Kara
Meredith M.
Meredith C.
Ann
Alyssa
Summer
Ashley
Sara H.
Jordan
Amanda F.
Courtney H.
Lindsay H.
Martha
Jackie
Brenna
Annalee
Erica
Amy B.
Becky H.
Holly F.

Hope you have a great day.

Angel Fire!

2009-07-05T20:08:00.011-06:00

Do you ever feel like you need a vacation from your vacation?! We have been gone for about 10 days and I am exhausted! We had such a great time though. My parents took us and my brother and sister in law on a wonderful week long get-a-way to Angel Fire, NM. It was so nice to be away from this Texas HEAT and up in the mountain air. We did lots of fun things and had plenty of time to hang around the house and relax. It was the perfect mix. I'll let the pictures tell the story. True to form for my blog, the pictures are not in order of occurrence...or any order for that matter. And, WARNING - there are a lot of them!

Neil and Claire checking out the lake in Eagle Nest.

Mom and Dad. It was so fun to watch my Dad during the week. The mountains truly are his happy place.

There was a really fun little park near our house that we took the girls to play at. Most of my pictures here turned out blurry, but I'm sooo glad this one didn't. Neil had a blast jumping out of the swing! I'm pretty sure he had more fun at the park than the girls did.

Sweet Cora...

One of our deer sightings. This one was just behind our house.

Kaitlyn in deep concentration while fishing.

This is Claire's scrunchy nose face that she has been making lately..

Paddle Boats! Cora loved leaning over and dragging her hands in the cold water.

Neil, Brittany and Kaitlyn. We had a race between our three boats. This was the team that CHEATED!!! They totally turned our boat around.

Claire gettin' ready to get on the boat. I am SO glad adult life jackets don't have the butt crack strap.

We also got to go on a long horse back ride! Kaitlyn was so excited that she got to ride all by herself. She did SO great with it. She only got a little scared on our way back down the mountain. (It was a little steep) But we had a wonderful guide that helped her feel comfortable. I know she will have great memories from this. Her horses name was Willy Wonka.

One night James and I got to go out with Neil and Britt while my parents watched the girls. I'm pretty sure we hit all of the restaurants in Angel Fire. All 3 of them.

"Fine food and LIBATIONS?" Why can't you just say drinks?

We went into Taos earlier that day to shop around the square and eat lunch. We all got some souvenirs and yummy food!

View of the ski slopes.

Our house was awesome. There was a deck outside of every room! One of the decks we had a great hot tub! The girls used it as a heated pool during the day, and at night it was no nice to relax in.

The house all nestled in the trees.

Pappy and Claire checking out some sticks.

It was obvious that other kids play in the woods by the house. Kaitlyn found a couple of forts, a swing, and even a ladder going up a tree.

This was in Taos on the square. (Told ya my pics weren't in order)

My dad wanted a picture with the girls in front of this random gorilla. I just love what each of them are doing. Especially Claire's arms.

The friendly bear on the porch.
Another view of the house.

Thanks Mom and Dad for such a wonderful trip!!

Happy Birthday Sweet Kaitlyn!!

2009-06-25T07:56:00.005-06:00

I'm a little late in posting..but my sweet girl (that just told her younger sister if she didn't leave her alone she would sit on her face) turned 6 last Friday!!! I truly can not believe it has been 6 years since she was born. She was pretty specific on what she wanted to do for her party this year. She wanted to invite just a few friends and spend the night at a hotel here in town. Pretty fun idea! So my mom and I packed into a room with 7 six year olds for the night. We ordered pizza, had cake and ice cream, made bracelets, and did lots of swimming in the indoor pool.

She also asked for breakfast in bed, but when she decided to wake up at 6:00, I didn't get the chance to make that happen. So, I went to McDonald's and got her some breakfast and let her eat it on the couch. Good enough, right?

Oh, she also had her last day of swim lessons on her birthday. Mr. L and the other 2 kids in her class sang Happy Birthday to her under water. She loved this last year so I was glad they did it again.

We had so much fun celebrating her day. She truly is one of the funniest people I know. She makes me laugh on a daily basis.

We love you Kaitlyn. We are so proud of you!

the pics aren't in order, sorry!

Claire definitely enjoyed the pizza....

Meet Sam!!!

2009-06-18T13:53:00.002-06:00

This is what we surprised Kaitlyn with for her 6th birthday! He is sooooo sweet. He is half cocker spaniel, half poodle. The breeder called him a cock-a-poo, but I don't like that name for 2 reasons.

1. It just sounds inappropriate. haha
2. It sounds like the name of a bird.

But whatever he is called, Kaitlyn was SHOCKED. We met the breeders about 40 miles outside of town..she had no idea where we were going. When she saw the man with a puppy, she immediately was like, "Mom! Look at that cute dog!" To which I replied, "Happy Birthday!" She just froze and said, "That's MY puppy?!?!" She was so excited and he immediately took to her. They have been inseparable for the past 24 hours.

In other news.. BRENNA IS HOME! She has been in Egypt working with the youth there for the past year. I could not wait to get myself to DFW to see her! I loved this "hat." Her brother wore that in the airport when they went to go pick her up. Sooo great.

Welcome home Brenna! Come to Abilene soon!!

A Visit with Papa....and nasty feet!

2009-06-15T15:55:00.003-06:00

I'll begin this blog on a good note. This weekend we went to Ft. Worth to visit my Papa, my Dad's dad. He's been in a nursing home for awhile and we hadn't been to see him in too long. One of my cousins that I haven't seen in probably 15 years was in town with 2 of her boys..so we decided to try and all meet there to take a BIG family picture with Papa. Unfortunately, we didn't all get there at the same time for the picture, but we did get a few with just our family. It was great to see him...although a little bit hard to see him the way he his. He is so super skinny, on oxygen, has a really hard time walking. But, he can still tell stories and make us all laugh like he always has.

3 Generations...

Cora was not interested in smiling for the camera, but I'm glad I have this one of me and Papa.

LOVE THIS ONE.

Now for the disgusting-ness that is all 3 of my daughters FEET. Cora's happened first. She somehow got the cuticle part of her big toe infected and it caused the whole entire toe to turn pink and purple and swell up real big. Dr. put her on some strong sulfur-based antibiotics and told us to soak it for 10 minutes 4 times a day until it went away.

Then, while we were in Ft. Worth on Saturday, Kaitlyn parked herself in a HUGE fire ant bed long enough for them to take over her right foot and leave lots of lovely swollen ant bites. They are no longer swollen, but they turned into little bruises literally covering her foot.

And as for Claire...yesterday when she woke up from her nap her right foot was very swollen, VERY red, and hot to the touch. She wouldn't stand or walk on it at all. It didn't look like it had a bite anywhere. With it being Sunday, we headed to Dr. J's Express Care and found out she did get bit by something probably a couple of days ago and it had now turned into some kind of staph or strep infection. We avoided getting a shot, but she is now also on a strong antibiotic and we are keeping an eye out for the dreaded "red streaky line" going up her leg. That would be bad.

Other than THAT.... we are doing great! This week we are busy with Kaitlyn's second week of swim lessons, and getting ready for her 6th Birthday on Friday!! ALSO... my cousin Brenna gets back from Egypt tomorrow and I'm going to DFW to see her. It's been a year and I can hardly wait!!!!!

Celebrating, swim lessons, and more!

2009-06-10T11:18:00.006-06:00

This summer has kicked off to a great start!

We went out to dinner to celebrate the end of the school year - and Kaitlyn finishing up Kindergarten. She is so proud to say she is a 1st Grader now. I just can't believe it! She chose Red Robin...and also chose this enormous piece of cake for dessert!

On Monday she started her 3rd year of swim lessons with Mrs. S. and Mr. L. She is a good swimmer already, but she LOVES doing this and looks forward to it every year. Plus, it's always good to brush up on your swimming skills when the Mom has 2 crazy little ones to keep up with when we go to the pool! On the second day Mr. L said they could get/jump into the pool any way they wanted to. Kaitlyn immediately did a flip off the side and came within about an inch away from cracking her head open. Does this surprise ANYONE?!?

We have already gone out to the water park in Eastland once so far. We LOVE this place and the girls do too. We'll go there quite a bit this summer I'm sure. I just wish Abilene had something similar so we didn't have to drive an hour! (They have cooler slides and other things..but I only had my phone to take pictures with and I was a little nervous having it in the pool!)

We are also SO BLESSED to have friends with pools and friends with memberships to pools that let us go swim. It will make this summer SO fun! Cora is FEARLESS. I wasn't sure how she would do this year with just the arm floaties, but she has totally surprised me. She does great. She will jump off the diving board, rocks, anything. She just kicks those little fat legs and gets anywhere she wants to go. Kaitlyn is still fearless as well and has already gone off the HIGH DIVE at the swim club! She was so brave. Claire loves the water too, and unfortunately I have yet to find a floatie that she will sit in on her own. She hates everything I've tried so far, which results in me holding her at all times. This is also why I don't have many pictures of her in the pool. Oh well! Good thing I love the water too.

During the summer our public library has what is called Young Audiences. They have people that come in and perform songs/skits for kids. The first one was yesterday so we met up with some friends and headed that way! This guy Mark was here from Ft. Worth. He was a really good performer! Kaitlyn and Cora loved singing and dancing with him. I needed a straight jacket for Claire for that hour, but we somehow made it through!

SUPERSIZE UPDATE!!!

2009-06-04T09:56:00.027-06:00

Disclaimer: This is, by far, the longest post I have ever posted. I should have broken it up and posted about 5 seperate blogs, but I didn't. So, it totally won't hurt my feelings if you don't read it all. :)

Wow. I forgot my blogger user name and password. Sad people. Just plain sad. I have thought and thought about where to even begin. An update on each family member? Just pictures? Just forget the past 4 months and start from right now? I finally decided to give a brief rundown of each month that I haven't blogged. Stick with me everyone, it's a long one. Just a note - I started writing this blog on Thursday at 11:00 AM. Lets just see when I complete it.

Here we go.....

FEBRUARY:

James turned 31!! During his birthday weekend he went on a camping trip with his closest friends from ACU. I'm sure they celebrated big time.

James and Kaitlyn went to Highland's annual Father/Daughter Valentines Dance and Dinner. Kaitlyn had the flu last year and didn't get to go, so she was very excited. They had a blast.

Kaitlyn had a huge scrape on her forehead from trying to do a flip out of the swing in the backyard. Probably won't be trying that again anytime soon.

Our Huddle girls went on a retreat. All the way to the MCM Elegante across town. There were only a few girls there, but we had so much fun and grew even closer! I can't believe they are now all SENIORS!! Craziness.

The last weekend in February we went to Austin for a wedding. One of James's closest friends got married and Kaitlyn was the flower girl. It was so fun to catch up with lots of college friends that we hadn't seen in what seemed like forever. Shout out to Jordan for coming with us and hanging out with Kaitlyn so that we could enjoy time with our friends! We stopped at the capitol on our way out of town. Who knew Kaitlyn would be SO into it? She and James also enjoyed rolling down a hill. Jordan and I REALLY enjoyed watching that...

Flowergirl and Ring Bearer..

Thanks Jordan for coming with us and being the greatest babysitter ever!

This makes me laugh out loud every time I see it.

MARCH:

We had lots of fun playing outside and having play dates with friends. It was a pretty relaxing month actually. We stayed in Abilene for Spring Break. We took the girls to the zoo, and to Frontier Texas - which totally freaked them out. I had heard that it was going to be kind of loud... that was an understatement. They still had a good time..but Kaitlyn still talks about the mean Indians.

It was also that time of year for the HEB Retreat! We LOVE this tradition. This year was the first time we took all 3 kids. We stayed in a cabin with 2 other fun families and there were 7 kids in all. Bedtimes were a little crazy, but we just went with it and had a blast. Okay, so these pictures are in NO order..other than they all took place in March.

This is how I found them after I had unloaded the dishwasher one day...little stinkers.

Cora and her friend Kate. I like this picture b/c it looks like Kate is telling her some intense secret.

Another laugh out loud picture.

Fun times in the bath....

Frontier Texas Fun.....

Claire the climber. Always up in my business...

Playing with friends..

Kaitlyn's soccer season was in full swing. She had a great season. She still loves to play and does very well! Her team was Spirit and it was so fun to watch her play.

Kaitlyn and one of her good friends Haley Grace..

Future soccer star....

Megan and Garrison came to watch a game on probably the windiest day of the year...we love them! Kaitlyn and Cora will be in there wedding in January.

APRIL:

The first weekend we traveled to Lubbock for a wedding. Its always good and refreshing to go "back home." My dad had finished a tree house that he built for Kaitlyn. It was pretty impressive! We had an early Easter celebration..decorating eggs, hunting them.... we weren't prepared for the chilly weather though!

Getting to ride with Pappy in his big work truck. I used to hate riding in this when I was little, but my girls LOVE it...so now I totally love it.

For Easter we went to McKinney to spend the weekend with Grandpa and Grandmere. Kaitlyn always loves going there because they have a hot tub/swimming pool. She was in there every chance she got! We had fun just relaxing, watching movies, playing basketball in the driveway (I can still beat James by the way), and eating lots of yummy food! Cora was pretty sick all weekend, but we still managed to have a good time. :) Sadly, I didn't take ONE picture the entire weekend! What was wrong with me?!

The third weekend I got to go on a SUPER fun girls trip to Gruene with some girlfriends from church. We had SOOO much fun. It wasn't a group of girls that normally hang out all the time together..and honestly that made it more fun to me! It was great to get to know each other better. We just ate, shopped, ate and shopped some more!

Everything we bought... what recession?

We got a flat tire on the way there. This is Holly crankin the spare tire. For some reason I can't find the picture of the two guys that stopped to help us with SNAKES WRAPPED AROUND THEIR NECKS!!!!

The Monday after returning from that trip..I started a 2 week Bootcamp. It was so hard..but really fun. It was a good kick start to the summer and now I am better about getting outside and exercising on my own. I let my gym membership expire to save money - now I'm all on my own! James bought me a bike for Mothers Day and I have really enjoyed riding it. It's been fun to ride some with Kaitlyn too!

The last Wednesday in April our Huddle kids were SO excited (and we were too) to have Aaron Watson come and speak. He did an outstanding job and really impacted our group. It was a memorable night!

I love this picture of Cora and her boyfriend Todd. So precious.

MAY:

Kaitlyn and I went to the 2nd annual Daughter/Mama Pajama Party! Summer did a fabulous job organizing it and everyone had a great time! It was fun to watch Kaitlyn interact and dance with all of her little friends. I can't wait until Cora and Claire are old enough and I can take all 3 of them!

Kaitlyn and her friend Landry. She LOVES hanging out with her at ACU baseball games!

Look at all those monkeys jumping on the bed! There were feathers flying everywhere!

For Mothers Day weekend, we traveled to Dallas. James's grandparents were in from Mississippi and they hadn't seen the girls in WAY too long. Claire really took to them and let them love on her as much as they wanted too. It was another fun, relaxing weekend spent with family.

The next weekend I went BACK to Dallas to hang out with 2 of my college roomies - Sara and Sara. We Pricelined a hotel and got a great deal on the Westin in Dallas! We just ate and shopped (girls really like to do that!) It was so great to see them both - it had been tooooo long! It was fun to see Sara's pregnant little belly. I'm so excited that she is having a girl! We also went to see 17 Again. Let me just say that I think Zac Efron in the cutest thing ever.

Wow..lots of traveling. The next weekend was TOTALLY bazaar. We had plans to take our Huddle to Ft. Worth for a retreat, and I had also been asked to fly to Tennessee to surprise my BF for her 30th birthday. The retreat was planned first, so that was the obvious choice. However, not enough kids signed up to go, so we had to cancel it. I took a chance, emailed Ashley and asked if the offer was still out there for me to fly to TN. He worked his magic and had me on a plane the very next morning! I was SO INCREDIBLY thankful for this gift! The look on Mere's face when I showed up at her house was absolutely priceless. She had NO idea - and she is a hard one to surprise! They had all sorts of things planned. We got to enjoy a morning at the Spa, a fun downtown dinner with her family, and a surprise party for Meredith on Saturday night. They live in the neatest house right on a lake. It was beautiful. Mere took me kayaking for the first time. It was actually pretty relaxing. I just tried to stayed calm...she is 8 months pregnant. If she would have fallen out that could have been bad news. It was also great to be able to see Kelly and Travis and meet precious Bennett for the first time. I am in love with him. I'm pretty sure (and you can see from the pics) that he loves me too. Oh, he just melted my heart. I can't wait for my next trip to TN to meet sweet CHARLIE!!!!

Sweet Bennett..

We went to the Spaghetti Factory in downtown Nashville for Mere's bday dinner. It was YUM.

Meredith told me to stand with my arm like that because Paris Hilton said it makes you look skinner. I just look ridiculous.

JUNE:

Wow.. it's already June. Today is Kaitlyn's last day of Kindergarten and she is home sick. Total bummer. She's actually feeling fine, but she threw up all yesterday afternoon, so she couldn't go. She wasn't as disappointed as I was I don't think. I can't believe she is a 1st grader! She has learned and grown SO much this year. We have been very blessed by her sweet teacher. Kaitlyn has loved every minute of school. It has been so fun to look through her portfolio of the year, and read through her journals. Such precious keepsakes.

Cora looks up to her sister SO much, and is such a sweet helper with Claire. She loves to laugh and sing songs and tell stories. I just wish I could understand them! Her favorite joke right now is:

"Knock-Knock?"

(who's there)

"Princess!"
(Princess who?)

"I didn't mean to make you cry!!!!" Hilarious.

She loves watching the Wiggles (gag). She has to have her lip gloss with her at all times. She loves to dress up and watch me put on my make up - all three things that I put on. She imitates everything. If I'm crossing my arms, she is too. If I sit with one leg crossed over the other, she tries to do the same. If I cuss, she cusses. Just Kidding!

Little Claire. Let me try to think of something positive. Hmmmm... She is a HARD ONE! She is very stubborn and defiant right now. She screams like a small dinosaur pretty much all day and is constantly looking for something/someone to bite. Hard. I am terrified to leave her with people when I'm not there! Hopefully this too shall pass. She can be very sweet. She loves to look at books and color. She LOVES to be outside. She could swing for hours. She's a great sleeper, which I am very thankful for. She is a Daddy's girl for sure. Probably because he has way more patience than I do!

Kaitlyn and 3 of her friends on the last day of school. (Even though she was sick yesterday..I still took her up there at the end of they day so she could see everyone and say bye!)

I was too lazy to get the pool out the other day so I just filled up a plastic tub with water..the girls had just as much fun!

Word.

Playing on a statue on our walk around downtown.

Cora is such a water girl!! She LOVES to swim and totally doesn't mind the floaties, which makes it easier on me!

James and I are doing well! I am looking forward to having my summer off from teaching. We have lots of fun things planned! Vacations, camps, swimming lessons, Kaitlyn's bday, I turn 30!! Yikes! We also signed up to teach 5th graders at church on Sunday mornings. Definitely a new age group for us, but we are really excited.

Okay, I really do plan on being more consistent with the blog. I am better at Facebook..but I really want to get back into blogging. Hopefully I'll still have a few readers!

I'm finishing this at 9:35PM!!! 10 1/2 hours later it is finished. Wow.

My last First Birthday party...

2009-01-12T08:25:00.009-06:00

SIGH. I can't believe Claire is one already! Let me just say that Kaitlyn's first birthday party was really huge (lots of friends came, money spent, etc.), Cora's was kind of middle of the line..just a few friends; but Claire's was just us and my mom and dad with a cake home made by her proud big sister, Kaitlyn. But I loved every minute of it.

Here is how much she has changed since last January 11th. Man, time just flies by way too fast.

JANUARY

FEBRUARY

MARCH

APRIL

MAY

JUNE

JULY

AUGUST

SEPTEMBER

OCTOBER

NOVEMBER

DECEMBER

JANUARY..."I'M ONE!!"

Happy Birthday sweet girl. You are so very special and have our hearts completely. I love to watch you grow and learn new things. I love seeing your big smile and scrunched up nose in the mornings when you wake up. I love how much you love your sisters and already try to do everything that they are doing. I love watching you walk around with your cute little legs and arms up in the air. I love that you can whistle. I love when you talk to us. I love when you get upset and you scream like a high pitched sounding dinosaur. I (sometimes) love that you are a night owl and use that special time to hang out with mommy and daddy one on one. I love that you might have red hair! I LOVE that God blessed us with you - surprise or not, you are a joy to me and make our family complete. I love you sweet Claire Elizabeth!

Here's to 2009!

2009-01-03T08:42:00.005-06:00

New Years Resolution #1 = Be a better blogger! I know that because of Facebook many people (including myself) haven't been blogging as much. Honestly, it has become more of a chore for me after blogging for 4 years. However, I don't want to view it that way. I need to be keeping a better record of what my girls are up to so that they have something to look back on. I SURE haven't been good about scrap booking or keeping up with baby books. So, hopefully, 2009 will be a well documented year.

With that said, if you want to see Christmas pictures - please look at my Facebook account.

This morning is a quiet one. Kaitlyn is in Lubbock with my parents for a few days, and James is in Dallas visiting some friends that he hasn't seen in awhile. Cora is walking around the house putting lip gloss all over her face. I can also tell by her arms that she had a fun time with a black sharpie marker while I was in the bathroom. Claire is sleeping now since she hardly slept at all last night. She and Cora both have double ear infections and bad coughs. Tis the season I suppose.

Since it's my first post of the new year, I will share some of what each girl is up to lately.

Kaitlyn Anne: It's so hard to believe that she is half way through Kindergarten. She has done so well this year. Her goal at school is to get "Student of the 6 Weeks." She is a VERY smart girl, but I'm afraid a little bit too social! :) Many times her prayers at night include the phrase "and please help me to not talk so much at school so that I can get Student of the 6 weeks." Bless her little heart.

She has lost 4 teeth so far. Her bottom 2 are about half way in, but the top two don't even look close to making an appearance. She looks so cute with her little gap in her mouth.

Things she likes to do: ride her scooter, play Wii, go see Gus the cat next door, play games, her Leapster, create cards and pictures - any kind of craft really, listen to music, play with friends, play/bug her sisters. Make up stories. We've talked a lot about telling the truth. She also likes to say "Raise your hand if you.." to ANYTHING. Raise your hand if you want to go outside! Raise your hand if you like me! Raise your hand if your bored! Raise your hand if you like ketchup! Raise your hand if your tired of the raise your hand game! (Okay, that one was mine)

Things she doesn't like: anything girly, no dress up stuff, no lip gloss, purses, etc. She has no desire to learn how to ride her bike. A few months ago she practiced for a couple of days and did really well. I know she could do it with no problem - she just doesn't want to. This drives me crazy! She doesn't like spicy foods. I have to pick the "red things" out when I make chicken spaghetti. Brushing her teeth. This is a fight every night. Taking baths - she much prefers showers.

Cora James: She is also just growing up too fast. She turned 2 on December 21st. We just had a little family (Elmo) party. We are going to have to figure out a way to really set her birthday apart from Christmas. It was okay this year though.

She is talking non stop. She can pretty much say anything she wants too. Her most common phrases/words are: Hi Sissy! Hi baby! Thanks, Mama. Apple juice? Lips? (lip gloss), Purse? I want to watch it. I a silly goose. I wanna draw. No. No. No. No. Yea. Bible. Pray? I see you!

Things she likes: ANYTHING girly. She has a purse that she carries everywhere. She only wants her lip gloss in it, nothing else usually. I don't wear that much make up, but she loves watching me put it on. She loves dress up clothes and making lots of noise with her dress up shoes on the hard wood floors. LOTION. She loves eating yogurt and nutrigrain bars. For as big as she is she really doesn't eat that much at all. She loves to play outside and swing. Rearranging furniture. The girls got a little table and chairs for Christmas and she is constantly moving them around the house. Any kind of toy that you have to put things in - shape sorters, puzzles, etc. She has a big plastic piggy bank with huge plastic coins that you put in the slot. She could do this for hours. She loves going to school and bible class, chewing gum.

Things she doesn't like: Her feet or hands getting dirty, too many foods to list, sharing - we are really working on this. She will not get out of the car until she buckles the straps on her and Claire's car seat. A little OCD maybe? When car alarms go off, or when the dryer buzzes.

Claire Elizabeth: I feel so bad that I haven't been keeping up with when she has done things for the first time. I really have no idea when she started crawling. I know that she really started walking around Thanksgiving, so that would make her about 10 months old. She really gets around well now. She wants so bad to do whatever Cora can do! She can wave bye-bye and mimic any kind of sound or facial expression you can make. It's hilarious. She can curl her tongue all sorts of ways. She is definitely skinnier than Kaitlyn or Cora were at her age. She puts everything in her mouth. She will literally crawl under a table or reach as far as she can under a dresser for the TINIEST piece of paper to put in her mouth. We have to constantly watch her. Her words: daddy, mama, bye-bye, thank you, uh-oh, book, sissy (sis), and lots of jibber jabber!

Things she likes: her bottle and paci. Her pink lovey. Her sisters making her laugh, sleeping with James on the couch, any toy that lights up or makes noise, pretty much any food that you give her, taking baths - she is CRAZY in the bathtub. Lotion. Playing with my phone.

Things she doesn't like: when Kaitlyn or Cora take something away from her, green veggies, when she gets woken up from a nap before she is ready to.

Well, there is a good starting point. This was probably kind of boring for most -but I needed to get that recorded! I'll try to make the next post more entertaining!

Okay, okay.. I'll add a few pictures.

I just loved this one of my Papa.

Thanksgiving is over and I can barely move...

2008-11-30T20:06:00.006-06:00

I. ate. so. much. Seriously, I'm starting this week with no cokes (including diet) and no sweets for a month. Who's with me?! Hang on, let me finish my Mint Oreo.... ok - now I'm ready.

We had a very relaxing and fun time in Lubbock over the Thanksgiving break. My brother and his wife were there too - so we had a house full! I bet my parents were ready to get their house back in order! We did lots of fun stuff: ran the 2 mile Turkey Trot, did some shopping, saw TWILIGHT!!!!!, ate, ate, ate, relaxed, had our annual bowling tournament, Cora got her first haircut, went on walks, took trips to the park, watched movies, got to talk to BRENNA on Skype!!!, enjoyed the cool weather, and ate some more! Here are some pics... I hope everyone had a fun holiday! Now it's time to unpack and get out all the Christmas stuff!

family pic...

crazy claire...

me and brenna (who is in Egypt) just hanging out...

kaitlyn and daddy breaking the wishbone. that girl always wins!!

turkey trot. it was freezing!!

neil and brittany... they finished MUCH faster than me and dad!

she was NOT too happy about this. but she looks so much better with out the mullet.

all ready for bed!

kaitlyn was so excited that she saw "The REAL SANTA" enjoying his lunch with Mrs. Clause at McAlisters.

kaitlyn's fancy photography at the bowling alley..

Happy December!!!

Long overdue update....

2008-11-10T08:23:00.007-06:00

I feel like I have had a lot of fun with Kaitlyn the past few weeks. I was able to go with her and her Kindergarten class on a field trip to May Farm.. the sweetest little place ever. Kaitlyn has been talking about this field trip since the summer. I don't know what she was more excited about, the actual farm - or riding a school bus. She absolutely could not wait. And, it did not disappoint! We had a great morning! She loved the bus ride, and had a blast seeing, feeding and holding lots of animals. We even got to take a hay ride and have a picnic lunch out there.

Kaitlyn and I also took a trip to one of my very favorite places - the HEB retreat. The Highland Family retreat is twice a year. We usually all go, but this time James had to work, so I sent Cora and Claire for a fun weekend in Lubbock with my parents, and Kaitlyn and I headed out. It was so fun, and very relaxing! It's just such a pretty place, especially in the Fall when the leaves are changing. We went canoeing, hiking, wading in the Frio river (BURRRR). This year it fell on Halloween weekend, so all the kids had a costume parade and then got to go Trick or Treating to all of the cabins. I already can't wait to go again in the Spring.

Cora and Claire have been doing great too! Claire is just growing so fast. She is 10 months old already! She has taken a few steps - which I am completely not ready for. She only says a few "words." She says da-da, uh-oh, and Boo! She's finally become a pretty good eater, and she always sleeps good! Cora can get the best smiles and laughs out of her.

Cora is at the most precious stage/age right now. She is talking ALL of the time, and most of the time I can actually understand her. It's crazy that she will be 2 next month! She is still my girly-girl. She loves having her fingernails painted, walk around in my shoes, carry my purses, wear lip gloss, put bows on, etc. I love it!

I have started teaching again at the Mothers Day out at our church. It's the same 2 year old class I taught last year. I am really enjoying it! Cora and Claire love their classes -so that makes it even better.

James is still doing his thing at work.. enjoying it and coming up with new ideas for the ARN. We are so proud of how hard he works to support our family! We got to go on a date on Friday night, and had so much fun!

Well, that's that for my update. Enjoy the pictures - out of order. I've become pretty lazy in blogging. I hope everyone has a great week!

Playing in the leaves... Claire is NOT a big fan.

Silly girls with their empty fruit cups!

HEB Retreat. Seriously one of my favorite places on earth.

Kaitlyn had a blast wading in the Frio River. Not me though. They call it the Frio for a reason!

Digging for treasures with Taylor...

Kaitlyn and I hiked to top.. this is the view.

Big girl! I was so proud of her! It was about a 2 hour hike!

View from half-way up.

I seriously hope she didn't smile like this for picture day at school. She's still cute though... :)

Having a little early morning heart to heart with Preacher Mike.

May Farm field trip... holding the baby chick.

First time on a school bus... she was SO excited!

My crazy girls...

2008-10-29T13:31:00.004-06:00

cora and her silly nose during music class at school

i just love those ears...

princess, some girl from Camp Rock, fairy.....

girls night out...

UNO!!!

this is the blue wrapping from the newspaper. every morning cora puts it on her hand. strange...

sweet face...

Playing catch up...

2008-10-07T10:46:00.007-06:00

So, here is what we've been up to - pretty much in backwards order. I'm too lazy to switch them all around! :)

We went camping with our Huddle. It was a blast! Here's some of the girls...

About to "joust.." This was HILARIOUS to watch.

After the shaving cream fight...

Kaitlyn and I got up early one morning and went to Balloon Fest... It was so cool to be so close to the balloons as they were aired up!

The red, white and blue one was Kaitlyn's favorite. My little patriotic girl...

She lost her third tooth! Sorry, I just realized that it's still a little bloody.....

I got to go with her Kindergarten class on their first field trip to the fire station. My camera battery died, so I didn't get too many good pictures... I actually learned a lot on this little trip!

My mom came down and took the girls to Sesame Street Live. It was so fun! Cora was a little scared at first, but by the end was dancing in the aisle.

One of my roommates from college, Cortni, came down to see her little sister in Freshman Follies and was able to stop by for a little visit! Claire got to meet her future ACU roomie, Avery.

Cora and Claire have been learning how to get along. Cora is a little bully and Claire is the most dramatic, sensitive girl of the three. Not a good combination. But they sure are cute!

Cora tried corn on the cob for the first time. I'm pretty sure she loved it.

We've had a lot of fun the past few weeks! I've just been bad at updating!

Sisters

2008-09-25T09:02:00.003-06:00

I have lots to post about, but no time. For now, just enjoy a sweet picture of my sweet girls that I took a couple of nights ago. I just love them.

Smarty Pants...

2008-09-16T16:06:00.002-06:00

So, I just had my Gmail open and Kaitlyn said she was going to check on her Webkinz. About 5 minutes later, she asks me to come "see her email." Interesting.... here is what I found.

This is an email that she wrote to James.

Subject: the is kaitlyn saeg i am so mad (this is Kaitlyn saying I am so mad)

Email: i am so mad at mi mom fo not let eg me tac off the cusins love kaitlyn (I am so mad at my mom for not letting me take off the cushions. love kaitlyn)

That would be the cushions to the couch she is referring to. I am such a mean mom.

Tennessee!!!!

2008-09-08T19:23:00.007-06:00

(for all of you without Google Reader, there is another post below about my special mom!)

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My best friend from college, Meredith sent me the greatest present for my birthday. A plane ticket to go visit her in TENNESSEE!!! I have seriously been counting down the days since July. I left on Thursday and got back yesterday. We had an absolute BLAST. I haven't laughed that much in a looooooong time. It was so great to see her - it had been about 2 years. Let me just recap what she had planned....

THURSDAY NIGHT: I got into Nashvegas pretty late that night. After we pretty much attacked each other in the airport, we headed back to her BEAUTIFUL house to veg out. We stayed up late eating and talking and then it was off to bed so that our weekend of fun could begin!

her gorgeous house...

view from the back porch...

FRIDAY: I got to sleep until 8:30!!! That is super late for me. We took our time getting ready and went into town for some fun shopping at the cutest stores ever. Then she took me to eat at a really cute cafe called Puffy Muffin. SO GOOD. For dessert, we went to this place called GiGi's that had the biggest cupcakes you have ever seen. The icing was like 7 inches tall. Y.U.M. From there she had set up massages and facials for us - which were amazing. Two hours of being pampered is good for anyone, but we REALLY enjoyed it. After that we hit Target to get a few essentials. We bought the movie "What Happens in Vegas" to watch that afternoon. It was hilarious. After watching the movie, eating Twizzlers and Hot Tamales it was time to hit the town for a fashionably late dinner. We went to this awesome restaurant called J. Alexanders. Keith Urban and Nicole Kidman eat there all the time..too bad we didn't run into them! The food was to die for, and the best part was Mere knew the manager, and he totally took care of the bill. Thank you! We headed back to the house and watched a few episodes of The Office and then off to bed to rest up for another fun day!

at j. alexanders....

SATURDAY: This was supposed to be a restful day, but MJC doesn't know how to do that. We were, however, pretty lazy that morning. Then she suggested that we go walking. Okay, sure! I didn't know it was a freaking 6 mile trail! BUT.. the trail was so beautiful it truly did not seem like we walked that much. I love the beauty of Tennessee. After our walk, we headed back to the house for my first wake boarding experience. They live right on a lake with an awesome boat. Mere and I took the boat out so she could teach me how to wake board. How hard can it be right? Ummm, hard. It took me about 10 times to even get up, and once I got up I could only stay there for about 10 seconds. Okay, let's be real. 5 seconds. It was fun though! I wish I had longer to practice! That night we put on our comfy clothes and headed to the Drive-In movie to see "House Bunny" (do NOT waste your money on this one) and "Dark Knight" (VERY good). This was my first time to a Drive In and I loved it! We had a blast! I'm pretty sure we ate an entire pizza and a funnel cake. Oh, and some peanut M&M's. Y.E.S. That 6 mile walk went right out the window. Anyway, we had a blast and didn't get back to her house until almost 1:00AM.

out on the water... only 2 girls on a boat = dangerous!

after wake boarding...

we got so lost on the way to the drive- in, we asked this random guy for directions, and all he cared about was showing us some deer on the side of the road..

so we like to eat. so?

SUNDAY: Our fun weekend was coming to a close.... We watched a few more episodes of The Office before heading to church (where I got to meet one of Carrie Underwood's songwriters), and then to lunch at Opry Mills mall, followed by a little more shopping and then off to the airport.

i love you meredith! i had sooo much fun!!!

Happy Birthday Mom!

2008-09-08T18:49:00.005-06:00

I am super late in posting this blog! We had a great time celebrating my Mom's 50th birthday last weekend in Lubbock. My dad went all out and planned a really fun party for her. He invited all of our family and their closest friends to a dinner out in their backyard. He hired a chef (a family friend) to cook and cater the meal, and it was wonderful! The weather was perfect, the company was a blast, and it was so great to get to celebrate the greatest mom/Mamaw ever.

Mom and Dad

The fabulous chef and his wife.. and Kaitlyn

A great group of friends and family..

Kaitlyn has been obsessed with climbing trees lately. My dad built her a little platform to stand on and rails to hang onto. He even had breakfast up there with her! She LOVES her new little place to hang out.

Testing the remote control boat out on the pond...

Grandmama (my grandmother) Cora and Claire...

The newlyweds!

In case you were wondering how a snail reproduces...

It just lays a bunch of eggs and keeps on moving!

Happy Birthday Mom! We all love you very much and had a blast celebrating with you!!

And then there were two....

2008-08-29T12:40:00.004-06:00

One week down! Kaitlyn has really enjoyed her first 5 days of Kindergarten. She is super tired at the end of the day though. And by tired I mean extremely hyper, loud and overly energetic. W.O.W. I guess she just has to be on her very best behavior all day at school, so when she comes home she feels safe enough to just let it all out. Maybe this will get better as the year goes on.

So, until 2012 - I now have 2 kids at home during the day! I thought I would write a little about what each of them are up to these days. We'll start with Cora...

The four words that she says the most right now are: draw, doll, video and bubbles. She LOVES scribbling with crayons on just about any surface. She is also usually carrying around or pushing her baby dolls in their stroller most of the day. She loves watching her videos. She says bubbles anytime she is about to take a bath. Bubbles is probably my favorite word that she says. It just sounds extra cute when she says it.

Oh- and she also says, "Don't like it" about pretty much anything that she eats. She still is a VERY picky eater, and really just doesn't eat a whole lot at all.

Which leads me to her bottle. She decided she wants to be in a contest with Suri Cruise to see who can require a bottle the longest. I'll let you know who wins.

She is also very into shoes, lotion, dancing and jumping.

She used to HATE having her picture taken, but lately she has been cheesing it up for the camera.

Now that Kaitlyn is gone, most of the day she walks around saying, "Sissy go? Sissy go?"

She can sing most of the words (or words that sound like the real ones) to "Jesus Loves Me" and "Twinkle Twinkle."

She has her Daddy's sweat glands. She will start sweating after just walking to the car from the house. Bless her...

She attracts mosquito bites like none other. Her poor little (fat) legs look horrible right now!

She is the most beautiful girl and we just love her!!!

And baby Claire......

We predict that she will be the tallest of the 3 girls. It's a little freaky how long she is. However, she is the skinniest of the 3.

She is up on all four's crawling around everywhere! Her little hands are evidence of how dirty my wood floors are. Yuk!

She grinds her teeth. Let me rephrase that. She grinds her 2 bottom teeth against her top gum. This has caused it to actually start bleeding on more than one occasion. I'm not quite sure what to do about this!!

She is already pulling up on the couch and has even pulled up on one of Cora's push toys. This girl is crazy!

She loves her "Johnny Jumper" thing. She can go crazy in there! Cora and Kaitlyn like to spin her around and swing her in it - so it does require pretty much constant attention.

She also loves Baby Einstein videos. And the TV period.

She doesn't really have much interest in baby food. I really hope she doesn't develop Cora's eating habits. Seriously, what's wrong with my kids? Eat already!

When she is drinking a bottle or if I am rocking her to sleep, she always reaches up to play with my hair. I LOVE this. Even when she pulls it.

She is still the most serious. She really doesn't smile or laugh all that much. She'll come around - you can't NOT laugh at our family sometimes.

She LOVES her sleep. She can still easily take 3 naps a day and sleep great all night. Just like her Daddy....

We love her so much. She has been the perfect addition to our family!

First day of Kindergarten...

2008-08-25T08:13:00.005-06:00

August 25th came too fast!! Seriously. Where did the summer go?

Kaitlyn has had a "Count-down to Kindergarten" paper chain hanging up in her room for the past 15 days. Today, she was SO excited to throw the last link away. I didn't think I would be emotional at all, but I was wrong. Just the little things got me this morning.

She hasn't been that excited about the dress that I picked out for her to wear today. All week she has been complaining about it. When I bought it she said, "Mom, that is SO 70's." WHAT?! Don't even know where she heard that. Anyway, this morning I was making her lunch before she got out of bed. I look up and she is walking out of her room all squinty eyed trying to button the last button on her dress. She just said, "I changed my mind. I really like this dress."

When we got to the school, we had to park kind of far away - so we had a ways to walk. Kaitlyn NEVER wants to hold my hand. But she reached up to hold it the entire way to her classroom door.

Just watching her sweet eyes look around her classroom and take it all in. Who will she choose to sit next too? Who will she talk to first?

A sweet little girl came in a few minutes after us, wearing the exact same dress as Kaitlyn. She thought that was the greatest thing ever.

A few more pictures with her sweet teacher, Mrs. W and Kaitlyn was ready for us to go.

Dear God,

Thank you SO much for entrusting me with Kaitlyn. I pray that you give me peace as I now put my trust in someone else to take care of her and teach her during the day. Thank you for Kaitlyn's outgoing personality and sweet spirit that made leaving her today a little bit easier. Please keep her safe. Please guard her heart today, and everyday that she is at school, for kids can sometimes be cruel and hurt feelings. I pray that she will reach out and make friends and be the sweet girl that you created her to be. Thank you for all three of my precious girls....

See you at 3:00 baby girl!!!!

Summer days.....

2008-08-05T10:24:00.010-06:00

Our summer was busiest at the beginning. Now, we have just been hanging out - enjoying the last few weeks before school starts. We have gone to the pool (more than a few times), gone on early morning walks, enjoyed Tuesdays night kids night at Chick Fil A, visited the Jump Around a few times, played games, watched Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus 3D concert about 37 times, ran through the sprinkler, washed the cars outside... just a whole lotta nothin' really! We did travel to Dallas this past weekend to see James's family. I took Kaitlyn to see Kit Kitterege (sp?). It was really cute, but I wasn't prepared to answer a lot of the questions she asked when the movie was over. It was all about the Depression... But we both enjoyed it! We also spent time in the pool, at a water park in Allen, playing fun games at Nana's, and walking around Stonebriar Mall.

We haven't had a camera for awhile (thank you Cora), but we were finally able to get one last week. So now, for your viewing enjoyment, our update in pictures....

I wasn't aware that I had a 13 year old, but I guess I was wrong...

Ms. Cora LOVES to talk on the phone. She just jabbers away. Anytime she sees me on the phone she says, "Hewwo? Hewwo? Hewwo?" Over, and over, and over again until I give in and hand her the phone.

Claire's new trick! She still doesn't last long sitting up, but we're getting there. She just loves to be on her tummy. Anytime she is on the floor, that's how she wants to be. She is VERY close to crawling. I'm not quite ready for that yet.

I just love her blue eyes. Mr. Mayo must be all worn out...

Sweet girl. Her hair is still looking a little red!

Just in case you were wondering what the longest tongue ever looks like..

This doesn't even look like Claire to me, but I thought it was the cutest smile!

I'm beginning to think they will look a lot alike when they get a little bit older..

Kaitlyn had to ride the carousel at the mall. The last picture I took of her on this was when she was about 2....

Kaitlyn found one of James's books from when he was little. It was actually called "Jamie's Quiet Book." Awww....

Cora and Nana (or Nannie as she calls her) stringing some blocks...

We had fun at Grandpa and Grandmere's pool! Kaitlyn loves for James to throw her up in the air so she can do flips!

Funny hair! I used to love doing my hair like this in the pool when I was little. Or every time I get in the pool actually...

Kaitlyn perfecting her dive...

Cora loves the water!

Cora also loves bath time. Pretty much anything with water makes her happy.

Baby Claire. Already 7 months old!!!
Peek-A-Boo!

Claire's new favorite thing. She especially loves it when her sisters either spin her around in it, or push it like a swing. Parent supervision ALWAYS required....

Cora's new favorite thing. She is still my girly girl. She loves pushing her babies around in the stroller. And she still always has to have some sort of a necklace on.

That's all for now! I'll write later about what each girl is into these days........

Wedding Weekend!

2008-07-16T11:55:00.004-06:00

Well, my brother got hitched. We all headed to Dallas - right in the heart of downtown Dallas - for all of the festivities. Thursday night, I enjoyed hanging out with Brittany (my new SIL) and the rest of the bridesmaids. We had fun out on the town in Addison. Friday, we just hung around the hotel and let the girls swim for awhile. We didn't have too much planned until the rehearsal, so Kaitlyn and I headed up to Plano to visit my sweet friend Meredith who is spending her days (and nights) in the hospital until her sweet babies arrive. It was so fun to see her and visit for awhile. Friday night, we did the rehearsal thing. Neil and Brittany got married outside at the Avanti Fountain Place. It was SO pretty. The rehearsal dinner was at Eddie Deens - also downtown. It was VERY good food. It's one of George Bush's fav's actually. They just catered Jenna Bush's wedding - in case you were wondering. The wedding day was fairly relaxed also. The girls swam some more, and took some naps to gear up for the long night ahead. The wedding was beautiful. It wasn't too hot outside. Kaitlyn and Cora looked so sweet in their flower girl dresses. Cora ended up NOT wanting to walk down the aisle, but Kaitlyn did a good job. The reception was a blast and everyone hit the dance floor! Kaitlyn has got some moves that she DEFINITELY did NOT get from her mother.

I'm so happy for Neil and Brittany. I'm so excited that she is a part of our family now!

Me and my dad. He performed the ceremony and did an awesome job.

Sweet Claire. She was passed around to SO many people throughout the weekend. She's a trooper!
Gettin' their groove on...

The happy couple!

Mom and Dad, Neil, and our little fam...

It was fun to get all dressed up!

I just have to brag...

2008-07-09T12:00:00.002-06:00

I have the greatest husband ever. He went above and beyond this year... and although I have no pictures - here is what I got to do on Monday - my 29th birthday.

8:45AM - I left the house for a hair appointment that he made for me. Yay!

10:15 - My friend Holly shows up at the hair salon. I just thought it was a coincidence that I saw here there. Nope! She shows up with a card from James saying to have fun shopping with Holly -but to be warned! At 11:45 my phone would ring and I just needed to do what they said and not ask questions (unless I needed directions).

10:15-11:45 - Had a blast shopping at Kohls and Target - two of my favorite places. I was SO EXCITED to find a pair of black satin shoes for the wedding this weekend on sale for $4.49!!!

11:45 - My phone rings and my great friend Ann calls to say that James has set up lunch plans with her and two other girlfriends that I usually have lunch with on Mondays. Fun! So, we go have lunch at one of our favorite's - Little Panda. There, I receive another card from James saying my next appointment is at 2:00.. then gives me an address. So, I had time to enjoy a leisurely lunch with 3 of my favorite girls.

2:00 - I show up at some lady named Shirley's house - no clue who she was or what I was doing there. Turns out James had set up an HOUR AND A HALF massage with her. This lady was very highly recommended to me a long time ago and I had told James about her. I guess he just filed that away in that smart brain of his. So, I enjoyed the best massage I have ever had, BY FAR. I seriously don't think it was safe for me to be driving after that.

3:30 - I was told to just go home and relax for awhile. James had taken the girls over to a friends house to play so that I could just enjoy a bath and a book for an hour or so. This was awesome!

5:00 - The girls came home and I felt so rejuvenated - I enjoyed playing with them for a little while before James said it was time to go to dinner!

6:30 - Arrive at my favorite place - Olive Garden. We were being led to what I thought was our table when I hear a very loud "Surprise!" There were about 20 of my friends already there! James had set this up - so he and the girls left to go to Gatti's and I enjoyed a night of fun and laughter with pretty much all of my favorite people.

8:30ish - I got to enjoy the remainder of the night at Lindsay's house watching the Bachelorette finale (Jesse, WHAT?).

It was one of my favorite birthday's ever - and one I won't ever forget. He put so much thought into it and planned it so far in advance!

Thanks, James for such a wonderful day!

BTW...my little brother is getting married this weekend!! YIKES!!!!!!

Birthday post!

2008-06-24T19:59:00.004-06:00

We had fun celebrating Kaitlyn's birthday party at the "water park" in Eastland with a few families from church. She has been talking for a long time about having her party here. I hated asking friends to drive an hour (especially with gas being ridiculously high) - but we ended up having a great turn out and I think everyone had a fun time!

Enjoying some birthday pancakes when she woke up...

At swimming lessons her sweet teachers led the class in "Happy Birthday"... under water!

Kaitlyn,

It is so hard to put into words how special you are. It doesn't seem like that long ago that I was rocking you to sleep to Nora Jones. All those old ladies are right...time does go way too fast. You bring such an enormous amount of joy into our lives, and to the lives of so many others. You are so smart and beautiful and funny and just a BLAST to be around. You make me smile on the hardest of days. The love you show to your sisters is a beautiful thing to watch. They already look up to you. It's so fun to see Cora try to do the things you do. Watching the two of you sing and have dance parties, enjoy tea parties in your room, play under the covers on your bed, chase each other around the house... you are such a great big sister. You love to be a little momma to sweet Claire. She laughs and smiles at you every time she sees you. You love to cuddle with her and hold her and keep her safe.

We pray for you every day. We pray that you will always be just you. We pray God's protection over you as you start Kindergarten in the fall. We pray that you stay healthy and grow strong both physically, and in your love for the Lord. We pray that He is always a part (the biggest part) of your life.

We are so humbled and proud to be your Momma and Daddy.

Happy Birthday sweet Kaitlyn

2008-06-20T10:29:00.002-06:00

I can't believe you're five.

More to come on yesterday's celebrations!

Sea World!

2008-06-16T12:29:00.018-06:00

We got back Sunday afternoon from a fun, family weekend trip to Sea World in San Antonio. We left baby Claire with my parents and just took Kaitlyn and Cora. We had a blast! This was our first time to go and the kids loved it. We were there during two very hot days, but the girls did great. I'll just let the pictures tell the story. By the way, I'm pretty sure this is the most pictures I've ever posted in a blog.

James and Kaitlyn checking in. They upgraded us to season passes! James was super excited. Next time we have $700 in gas money though, we'll let ya know.

Happy Birthday!

Cora loved the huge foam pit she had all to herself. She visited this spot on more than one occasion.

Ready to start a fun day!

The first show we went to was the water ski show. Kaitlyn really liked this girl the best. She was so excited to have her picture made with her at the end. She also made it very clear that she wanted NO boy skiers in the picture. Check, and check.

One of the first rides.

The Beluga whale show...

Feeding the dolphins. This was probably her favorite thing while we were there.

My favorite thing was watching their faces as they watched the shows.

Oops.. this one got out of order. More dolphins...

This was called the Atlantis. She couldn't wait to ride it, and ended it up riding it 4 times. She would ride anything that she was tall enough too. The girl still has no fear. She and James were riding it here... (at the very top about to go down)

Big Splash!

All Smiles...

Getting a hair wrap thing. They just took a few strands of hair and wrapped colorful yarn around it. She's very proud of it and can't wait to have it in Neil and Brittany's wedding. We made it VERY clear that would not be happening.

Shamu show! Confession: I totally cried my eyes out watching this. Anything put to music gets me every time. It really was cool, but again - the coolest thing is watching Kaitlyn's face see something like this for the first time.

Friday night we went to Joe's Crab Shack for dinner. Nothing like eating fish after looking at them all day!

Kaitlyn tried crab for the first time and seemed to like it.

Cora wasn't too sure about the crab, but REALLY liked the margaritas.

They also had very different views of the Sea Lion show.

But, both enjoyed the water park!

Fun in the hotel room!

Cora loves her Shamu - or "moo" as she calls it.

Feeding the Sea Lions was also fun! Cora wasn't too sure of the loud noises they make though.

Saturday night we went to the Riverwalk for dinner. We were going to eat at The Rainforest Cafe, but there was a 3 hour wait. No thank you.

But, we did walk around to watch other people eat and we just took pictures!

3 of my favorites..

Kaitlyn getting a quick history lesson at the Alamo...

Happy Fathers Day James! Thank you continental breakfast for making breakfast in bed for James really easy!

The sleeping (or not so much sleeping) quarters for the girls. We did not get much rest while we were there. But Kaitlyn had a blast making her couch down into a bed each night!

Yes, Cora still drinks milk from a bottle. I'm still not ready to fight that battle.

Worn out from a fun weekend!

We sure were excited to see this precious face on Sunday! Thanks Mamaw and Pappy for taking such great care of her!

Just a Random Blog...

2008-06-04T12:31:00.005-06:00

~ Two weekends ago we took our huddle group to Hurricane Harbor. It was SO FUN to go to a water park without our own kids. Is that bad? However - staying up all night + eating junk for 2 days + riding in the church vans listening to the guys sing 100 bottles of beer on the wall (the entire way through) + getting home extremely late = a LONG recovery. Seriously. It took me a few days to bounce back. But I wouldn't have traded it. It was a great end to our second year with them. I can't believe they will be juniors!

~ This past weekend we went to McKinney/Allen/Dallas to visit James's side of the family and to check out my brothers new place. Also a very fun trip, but lots of time in the car. We went to celebrate James' step-dad's 60th birthday. His mom planned a really fun surprise dinner for him. We really had a lot of fun! We got to spend a lot of time up in McKinney as well. I'm pretty sure we were in the pool 90% of the time we were there. The kids loved it - and we did too! Thanks to all the grandparents for being so hospitable!

~ While we were in Allen, one of James's family members was outside smoking. Out of nowhere Kaitlyn just walks up to her and says, "You need to go to smokefree.com" That girl does not hold back.

~ Cora is as cute as ever, but the girl can throw some fits. She is very into saying "NO", and she all of a sudden decided to start being jealous of my time. If I am holding Claire or playing a game with Kaitlyn, she gets pretty upset. And by upset I mean biting and hitting. She has done so good for so long - but I guess the "middle child" is starting to show up a bit. I'm slowly figuring out how to handle her. Other things she likes... brushing her teeth, putting lotion on, putting on chapstick or lipgloss, carrying around bags or purses, putting the Connect Four pieces in their slots, looking at books, looking at herself in the mirror....

~ Kaitlyn also seems to be needing more attention lately. She rarely plays by herself. The two things I hear her say the most are: "I'm starving!" and "I'm bored." I try really hard to give her things to do, but I don't have all the time in the world. Any suggestions for this one would be greatly appreciated. She loves to write and try to spell words on her own. I love watching her do this. She is so smart. She really tries to read more and more as well. She is very proud of the gap in her mouth where she lost her tooth and will show anyone that will look. She starts swim lessons on Monday and is SO excited to do this again. This will probably be her last time for swim lessons - she is really becoming a good swimmer. Just growing up so fast!

~ Claire is about one week shy of 5 months old! That is crazy to me. She rolls and scoots everywhere. She spits up constantly - in large amounts. This is really getting annoying to me. I really wish we could make it stop. Kaitlyn or Cora never did this as much. She loves to kick her legs around in her bouncer. Actually, she only kicks her left leg - it's pretty funny to watch. She is starting to babble and talk a little bit more - saying da-da, na-na over and over. She smiles more, but is still the most serious of the three girls. She will almost always smile at her sisters though.

Okay, now for my part of the blog. Disclaimer: I am about to let it all out. This is not a cry for help with my kids, myself, a job, or anything else. I am not looking for comments. I'm just simply venting because I want to and this is my blog. Hopefully, I'll just look back on this time as a hard season of my life and later reflect on how I made it through.

I've just been in a rut! Every day seems longer than the one before it. Not quite sure why God chose me for the job. An almost 5 year old, 17 month old and 5 month old is harder now than I ever could have imagined. I know I could be such a better mom than I have been. I'm gaining weight by the day and I have no motivation to exercise or eat right. My face is completely broken out. I need some kind of a job, but don't know what and how I would even justify it. A part time job would be ideal, except for my check would go to daycare. Call me selfish, but I don't want to work full-time. We didn't have good experiences with Kaitlyn in full-time daycare, and I just don't want to walk down that road again. I'm not being a very good wife to James...bless his heart he has no idea what to make of me right now. My time spent with God is pretty much nonexistent - it sure hasn't been a priority. I do have long fingernails finally...but I'm only using them to pick at the zits on my face.

Okay...rant is over!

I'll leave you with a few happy pictures.....

She LITERALLY lost her tooth.

2008-05-28T18:21:00.004-06:00

So, Kaitlyn lost her first tooth today! It has been loose for quite awhile. By rest time today she could literally twist it around. SO, I offered to pull it out for her. I didn't think she would go for it, but she did. With one or two wiggles it was out! She was so excited, she just yelled "CONGRATULATIONS!" Haha. She found a special container that she wanted to keep it in. (I think it previously held play-do) This afternoon, she just HAD to go show her friend Kelly next door. I specifically told her to be extra careful with it, don't drop it, don't let anyone hold it, etc. Well (shocker) the tooth didn't make it home with her. I kind of made a big deal out of her losing it... she felt horrible. She cried and cried all through her bath. I finally decided that if she wrote the Tooth Fairy a letter apologizing for losing it, maybe she would still leave her money under her pillow. She quickly dried it up and said, "That would be awesome." So, here is her letter that she wrote, exactly how she wrote it:

I aiym so-so-so-so sory that I lost mi tooth.

frum,

kaitlyn

You know you're from texas when you spell "am" "aiym."

P.S. Sorry I don't have a picture of it. Cora broke our camera last week.

This post took me 2 hours, so see ya next year when I decide to post again...

2008-05-19T22:24:00.011-06:00

It's been too, too long. I even had to get James to help me remember things that have happened since the last time I posted. So, here is a basic rundown of the things that have gone on around the Mayo home....

James ran his first 5K!! He ran the whole thing and did a great job. Kaitlyn even ran the last few yards with him, and they crossed the finish line holding hands. It was pretty darn cute.

James also successfully hosted the 2008 Spotlight on Teachers. Teachers in Abilene (at all educational levels) are recognized by fellow teachers as being the best in their field. James organized a fun evening handing out awards, showing an entertaining video, and showing off his master "emcee" (or M.C. or however that word is spelled) skills. He made a lot of people laugh and did a great job. He is looking forward to hosting again next year.

Claire is 4 months old! W.O.W. She is CONSIDERABLY smaller than my other two girls. Let me rephrase that. She is equally as long (26 inches to be exact), but not as fat. She is 3 pounds less than Cora and Kaitlyn were at 4 months. However, she is still 16 pounds, and still in the 90th percentile. She is rolling over, smiling a lot more, blowing lots of spit bubbles, reaching for things, kicking the tar out of her kick and play bouncer, spitting up WAY too much,and she is not a fan of the Bumbo (which makes me sad). Her eyes are still blue and her hair still looks kind of red! She loves her sisters, but let's be honest... Cora kind of freaks her out. Her face has been sat on a few times. And Cora is 33 pounds of l.o.v.e.

We enjoyed a nice weekend in Lubbock for Mothers Day. I love spending weekends there. It's so relaxing. It used to be much more relaxing pre-kids, but it is so fun to see the girls playing in the backyard that I grew up in. We visited the Science museum with Kaitlyn, my Mom and I got pedicures and manicures, James and I got to go on a date - we went out to eat and saw "What Happens in Vegas" with the Bowmans (holla!) Very funny movie, we thought. It was a great weekend! For Mothers Day from the girls and James, I got a fun pair of running shorts, a watch and and Old Navy gift card. Thank you! It was a great weekend.

Kaitlyn and Cora finished up Young Children's World for the year. I actually cried when I picked them both up on their last day. What is wrong with me?! Kaitlyn had her end of the year program and she did GREAT! She even had a few lines that she said all by herself. She was front and center on stage and proud of it. That girl is full of drama I tell you. I don't have any pictures from that night - just lots of video... but I can't get that to post. Erica if you have those pics would you email them to me? :) However, I do have a picture from 50's day. I can't figure out how to rotate this picture, but it's worth it to turn your computer (or your head) around to see this. This picture completely sums up Kaitlyn. There are no words.

Cora is talking more and more all the time. Her most recent words that she has learned: keys, go, goin', shoes, juice (these sound very similar), sissy, baby, bible, bow, hi and bye (pronounced hi-eee/byeeee), night-night, and Shhh (she says this basically anytime she goes into her room b/c she thinks Claire is always asleep in there). I think she is cutting her fang teeth and she is NOT happy about it. I seriously thought something horrible had taken over her body this afternoon. All I could do was put her in her crib until she wore herself out. Bless her little heart. And what's the deal with blue eyes? Most of the time I can look into Kaitlyn's brown eyes and stay strong, but if Cora wants something, all she has to do is just look up at me and it's hers. Bad Mommy.

BIG NEWS!!! I have not bit my nails in 16 days!!!! I've even had 2 manicures to keep me on the right track. Maybe I have broke the habit for good. I can't even imagine. This has been a lifelong struggle people.

Also. Has anyone tried the new Orbitz Limited Edition Pomegranate gum? It's fabulous. Hurry and try it before it's gone!

I love ACU baseball games and I am very sad that they are over. It was so much fun to walk across the street and hang out with friends and watch a free game! Kaitlyn loves the freedom she has there, and Cora likes to just sit and actually watch the game. This is very exciting for James. Kaitlyn has also learned to successfully eat and spit sunflower seeds. That Kaitlyn. She makes us so proud.

And FINALLY...the girls and I had some fun pictures taken on Sunday. I just have to put a plug in here. My good friend Hannah Vickers (you can check her out on my links over there) is a photographer here in town. She is great! She had twins the same week that Claire was born. She has been doing photography for awhile, but is just now taking it on full time. If you are in the area and need some pictures - she's the one to call! Here are a few of my favorites. Keep in mind that Cora was not a happy girl. I don't think she was feeling too well. And she did have a matching bow, but refused to wear it. But I love these!

Just a picture update...

2008-05-05T20:30:00.006-06:00

Come to the water, refresh your soul
Jesus is able to make your life whole
Come drink your fill of Him
Water that lives
Into your weariness
New strength He gives

These are the words to one of Kaitlyn's songs in her program coming up next week. I LOVE listening to her sing this. It seriously brings tears to my eyes! I have been so impressed by her teachers and the hard work they have put in. She has learned so much - I am just so proud of her.

Here are a few pictures of the past couple of weeks.

Road Trip!

2008-05-01T08:42:00.005-06:00

I remember when I was growing up, my mom would take me to do special things - with just me, not my brother. I really want to be good about doing this with my girls. (As they get old enough to remember it). So, Tuesday when James got off work, Kaitlyn and I hit the road. My cousin Abby was trying out for cheerleader in Midland, so I thought it would be fun to go down a day early, stay in a hotel and just have fun - Kaitlyn style. This particular style included:

* Jamming out to Hannah Montana the entire 2 hours there and back.

* Choosing to eat at McAlisters for dinner. (I may have had a slight influence on this)

* Swimming in the hotel pool until 10:15 pm and then again the next morning.

* Getting to eat chocolate chip cookies and milk in bed before going to sleep.

* Not sleeping at all during the night. Seriously. Every time I woke up the girl was moving around. She was up for good at about 6:15.

* Practicing cheers with Abby before try outs started.

* Lunch at Rosas.

* Going to see "Horton Hears a Who." This was a way cute movie!

* Getting the best shaved ice ever at Bahama Bucks.

Our conversation in the drive thru:

Me: "Kaitlyn, what flavor do you want?:

K: "What kinds do they have?"

M: "They have so many! They will probably have any flavor you want. You just name one and they will probably have it."

long pause.....

K: "Cornbread."

* Crashing in the car on the way home. She was SO tired.

Here are some pics...not in order.

I loved this time with her. She is growing up so fast, but she is still just a little girl. I had a sentimental "moment" the other day. I had taken her to get hot chocolate at Starbucks. I just look over and see her holding her cup with both hands, and I noticed that she still has little dimples where her knuckles will be. I totally started bawling. Poor girl thinks there is something wrong with her hands now. I had to explain that one.

A little Beyonce....

2008-04-21T09:39:00.003-06:00

This was Kaitlyn in September of last year. I don't think I ever posted it. Enjoy!

Shout Out...

2008-04-14T14:19:00.003-06:00

Everyone. Stop what you are doing right now. My cousin Brenna has started a blog. She recently started working at Home Depot, and she writes about all the crazy people that work there and visit there as customers. It's hilarious. She is one of the funniest people I know, and I'm SO excited that she has finally started a blog. It will seriously change your life. Check it out now. Click on brenna over there to your right.....

Oh, and leave her a comment or else.

Oh, and that is her Siggie composite picture in case you were wondering just how awesome she really is.

A little bit of catching up....

2008-04-08T08:55:00.006-06:00

I didn't feel like proofreading this, so please forgive any spelling mistakes! (Or grammar ones - Katie H)

These are the blogs that totally stress me out. I feel like we've done a lot since I last posted, but I can't remember anything! But, I feel like I have an obligation to my three faithful readers to post something. So, I guess I'll just cop out and go down the list of family members....

Kaitlyn:

She is doing great in PreK. She is reading and writing better every day. I believe that she has a strong passion for learning. I hope that continues as she gets older. Her teachers asked her to have a speaking part in their program in May. She initially said that she didn't want to do it. But she had the 4 line part memorized in like 10 minutes. A little Cold Stone Creamery bribery, and I bet she'll do just fine in the program. She is still playing soccer and doing well. She had 5 goals in the game on Saturday. This is the first season that I have noticed her being considerably taller than the girls on her team. My first baby girl is growing up way too fast. Kindergarten registration is May 10th. W.O.W. The girls is in love with coloring. She has so many coloring books and colors for at least an hour every day. She has to color with markers though. I'm not sure why. She says that she is hungry every second of the day. This drives me insane. She has a loose tooth! Her front left tooth is definitely wiggling around. She has been asking me lately when she will lose a tooth. I told her probably not until she is 6 years old or so. This happened a little earlier than expected. Until... I heard her talking to my mom on the phone and she told her that she fell and hit her tooth on her knee and knocked it loose. I called the dentist to make sure we didn't need to take her in. He said that it would probably just set itself back in there. I can't stop her from wiggling it though. So it may come out sooner than later. It's so funny to imagine her with no front tooth!

Cora:

Oh, Cora.. Cora.. Cora. This girl keeps us laughing. She is the sweetest, squishiest, most fun little thing in the world. She loves her sisters. If either of them get upset or start crying for any reason, Cora will run to them and give them a kiss. She calls Kaitlyn "sissy" and Claire "baby". We're working on their real names though. Cora is a BIG girl (weighing in at 32 pounds) and she can hold her own! She likes to play rough with Kaitlyn and her Daddy. She thinks it's so funny if one of them are laying on ther floor, she will walk backwards and sit - plop down - right on them. On their face usually. If anyone around her is laughing, she will start laughing. With her mouth WIDE open. She loves to dance. She loves being outside. Especially in her swing. She loves bubbles. And baths. She is getting much better about eating. She has now added grapes, strawberries, chicken nuggets, lazagne, green beans, bread, mac and cheese, and french fries to her menu. Oh -and jello. She can put away some jello. She can scream really loud. She rarely says yes. "No" means yes to her. She still won't drink milk out of a sippy cup. Only a bottle. She has the biggest blue eyes ever and I love them. She loves to give kisses and I love that too.

Claire:

She will be 3 months old on Thursday. Crazy. She is soooo chill. She is a very serious baby. You have to really act stupid to get her to smile. Her cheeks are getting bigger and bigger. They just sag down, it's hilarious. She looks like a little bit of everyone. She has Cora's blue eyes, but Kaitlyn's eye shape. She has more red hair and looks a lot like my baby pictures. She has a long face like James. She's a cute one! She has rolled over once from her tummy to her back, and once the other way. But she doesn't seem interested in doing it often. She spits up ALL the time. She sleeps all the time as well. I'm not complaining too much about this. We put her to bed around 8 or 8:30 and she'll sleep until 8 or 8:30. She still sleeps all the time during the day too. I love when she is awake though. She just seems to soak everything in. Her hands are always up by her mouth. She will suck on a paci, but she ususally knocks it out and sticks her hand in her mouth instead. She likes to cuddle. I don't have a lot of time to do this, but I cherish the times that I do. She's my baby girl!!!

James:

Still enjoying his job at the ARN. He's doing well and coming up with lots of neat ideas for the paper. He is also playing softball right now with a bunch of guys from church. The "Highland God Helpers." Or HGH, as they call themselves. You sports buff's should know what HGH is. They think they are pretty funny. Last night was their 3rd game. They could have been 3-0, but some guy on the other team broke his knee cap. They had to call an ambulance and everything, so they didn't get to finish the game. Pretty exciting stuff. He's also been running some. He is planning on running in his first 5K in a couple of weeks. Go James! I hear his fantasy baseball team isn't doing so bad either...

Leslie:

I'm just trying to keep it all together. Every day presents new challenges. I love raising three girls and I'm doing my best to do a good job. I have great girl friends that keep me going and a good husband that encourages me. (Most of the time!) I'm getting ready for a garage sale at my house this weekend. That should be interesting! I'm looking forward to cleaning out a bunch of stuff and hopefully making some extra cash while I'm at it. Thanks to my good friend Abbey, I'm beginning to study a couple of books with hopes of getting into Medical Transcriptioning. I am looking at doing this at home part time - if it all works out. The books seem pretty interesting, and it's always good to learn something new!

Here's a few pictures to end this way long post!

Just a little bit of light reading....

Go Stingrays!

Cora helping me with garage sale stuff. And by helping I mean taking out, unfolding, and taking the stickers off of things that are ready to go.

I just think these two pictures are funny.

Got a little excited with the blue marker.

Tummy time...

Hippity Hoppity....

2008-03-24T15:22:00.012-06:00

We had fun celebrating Easter in Lubbock with my parents this year. Me and the girls began our holiday on Wednesday and James came down and joined us Friday after work. Here is a rundown of our days there...

Wednesday:

I successfully made it to Lubbock by myself with the girls - without stopping once!! Granted, it's only 2 1/2 hours, but I was pretty excited about it. When we got there Kaitlyn wanted to go straight to the park to play and feed the ducks, so off we went. Later that night when Pappy got home, he built a fire outside and Kaitlyn roasted marshmallows.

Thursday:

Mom and Dad both worked and the girls and I just hung out at the casa. My dad ended up coming back at lunch to pick up Kaitlyn. He took her with him to run a few errands in his "big work truck" and then to Walmart and Home Depot for the materials to make a sandbox. I did not think Cora would enjoy this because normally she has a complete melt down if her hands get dirty. But, I forced her to sit in it, and in about 15 minutes she was throwing sand everywhere.

That night we ordered Double Daves pizza (YUM) and put the girls to bed. My parents and I got comfy on the couches and watched "Into the Wild." Has anyone seen this? It was VERY good - I highly recommend it.

Friday:

Hung out around the house that morning, then went to lunch at one of my favorite places - McAlisters. Cora ate an entire bowl of Mac and Cheese which completely shocked me because she never eats anything. After lunch we went to Putt-Putt. Not a very stroller friendly place. We had to carry Cora and Claire in the carrier from each hole. It was quite a sight, but we all had fun. The girls took naps while my mom and I went shopping for white sweaters for the girls (not an easy thing for us to find). It was supposed to be really cold and rainy on Sunday, and I was not prepared! I'm glad we found them though, because it turned out to be FREEZING. James made it in Friday night in time for us to cook out hamburgers.

Saturday:

James and Kaitlyn got up and went fishing. Kaitlyn caught her first fish!! She was so excited about catching her first "porch." (Perch). They literally fished for over 3 hours. I love that she loves to do that with her Daddy. Mom and I did some more shopping. That afternoon my parents took Kaitlyn to see a movie about monkeys at the Omni. She loved it, of course. One part that she really liked was when they were talking about baby twin monkeys. Usually if twin monkeys are born, one - or both won't survive. But this pair had an older sibling that was 4 or 5 years old that helped take care of it, and they both survived. I thought that was pretty cool.

My parents best friends came over - they were test driving a new "slug bug." It was even a convertible. Kaitlyn was so excited to see one up close and not just as we're driving down the street. Randy even took her on a ride around the block.

We attempted to take the girls to have their picture made in their Easter dresses. They all looked so cute. Kaitlyn even let me curl her hair. Everyone was in good moods...until we got into the studio. Cora had a complete meltdown every time we tried to set her down for a picture. I think the photographer kind of freaked her out because she was wearing glasses. She's not a fan of glasses. We were able to get 4 pictures - one of which we ordered. It turned out better than I thought it would.

Dinner from Rosas, more marshmallows roasted, dyed Easter eggs, ironed clothes for church, set out the Easter bunny stuff, and off to bed...

Sunday:

Like I said, freezing cold and raining. Kaitlyn was excited to see her basket full of treats. Cora enjoyed playing with the plastic eggs. We got all ready for church at 8:15 that morning. We even had a few minutes to spare to snap a couple pictures. The girls did great during church. Cora slept through most of it, Kaitlyn colored, and Claire just looked around at everyone. It was good to see a few familiar faces there that I hadn't seen in awhile.

Ate a DELICIOUS lunch made by my mom, and had an indoor Easter egg hunt. I numbered all of the plastic eggs 1-20 so Kaitlyn could line them up and put them all in order - just to make sure she found them all. We enjoyed as lazy of an afternoon as we could with 3 kids around. It started to clear up a little bit, so my dad took Kaitlyn and they hit golf balls around the park for awhile.

We packed up and headed home around 4:30 or so. We had a very fun weekend!!

These pictures are not in order.. I didn't have time to do that.

indoor easter egg hunt.....

before church sunday morning....

these two are also from sunday morning, but this is what most of our pictures from the studio looked like on saturday

dyeing easter eggs...

catching her first fish. please excuse her hair.

the "slug bug"....

playing putt-putt...

cora enjoying time on the hammock with pappy...

sandbox.....

putt-putt again...

sandbox.... (i love taking pictures from the back for some reason)

Some of you may remember our silly picture from Easter last year...

here we go again...

Hope you had a good one!!

PS... A big high five to whoever can come up with the best caption for this picture:

By Kaitlyn Anne Mayo...

2008-03-18T09:23:00.011-06:00

For lack of a better post right now, here is what I told Kaitlyn to go do while I swept and mopped the floor this morning.

Go find (and take a picture of) 3 things that are RED:

3 Things that are BLUE:

(she made me take this one)

3 Things that you LOVE: (she had to do four)

her soccer trophy....

baby claire...

one of her webkinz, chelsea....

her barbie guitar....

Her 3 favorite books...(she had to pick 5)

she has seriously LOVED this norman rockwell book since she was 2 years old...

There were more categories, but I won't bore you any longer. She had a blast doing it though, and it was fun for me to see what she chose to take pictures of.

Fun Weekend!

2008-03-10T12:37:00.003-06:00

We had a fun, but busy weekend. Friday night I got to enjoy a night out with some of my girlfriends. We went to paint pottery and then went for chips and drinks at Abuelos. Yum! It was so fun to get out and be with a bunch of friends.

Saturday, Kaitlyn had two soccer games! Crazy. I had to take her to the first one at 10:00 by myself with all three kids. That was interesting, but we managed. James was in charge of the city wide spelling bee, so he wasn't able to go. Kaitlyn did so good! She scored 4 goals in the first game, and 1 in the second. This is her second season to play and she is still really enjoying it.

Saturday night Kaitlyn and James went fishing. This is becoming one of their favorite things to do together. I think this was their 3rd time to go in about 2 weeks. She really enjoys playing with minnows. Yuk.

Sunday morning was little Claire's baby blessing at church. It was fun to go up to the front as a new family of five and once again realize how blessed we are to have 3 beautiful, healthy girls. I love our church family at Highland. I was doing good to just get us out the door on time (with the time change and all). So, unfortunately, I have no pictures of this event. We went to lunch at Rosa's with our class from church and enjoyed good fellowship there. I love watching Kaitlyn play and interact with all of her church friends. It's so fun to watch them all grow up together.
Here is just a funny picture of Claire and a recent one of all three girls.

I went to get Cora up from her nap the other day and Kaitlyn had put every single toy from her room in her crib, and on top of those, all of Cora's dirty clothes.

A couple more cute pictures from our snow day...

We just got back from a trip to the mall with 3 of my girlfriends from church and their kids. We went to see the Easter bunny and the lady working there said, "Is this the daycare?" Umm, no. Just four moms and 8 kids, thanks.

Abilene Weather

2008-03-07T08:47:00.003-06:00

Here's a link to what happened in Abilene yesterday.

Yes, its the old intramural field. No, I don't know these people

http://www.reporternews.com/videos/detail/acu-students-build-snowman/

P.S. its supposed to be 64 degrees tomorrow

Circus and Snow!

2008-03-04T10:08:00.004-06:00

The circus was in town last weekend and Kaitlyn absolutely could not wait. It wasn't even the big time circus - just Circus Gatti. She didn't have anything to compare it to... this was her first circus experience. She had a BLAST. My mom was in town and her goal was to make it the best time ever for Kaitlyn. This is why she was able to enjoy:

The $8 elephant ride.

The $10 snow cone. (Don't worry, the cup lights up)

The $3 coloring book. Not too bad actually....

And although it doesn't look like it in that last picture, she had the time of her life. Her eyes were glued to the show the entire time. I think mom and I had more fun watching her than watching the circus.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And because we live in Texas, we got to enjoy snow yesterday! This was Cora's first time to "play" in the snow. She loved it and cried her head off when I brought her back inside.

I have more fun snow pictures, but blogger is done with me I guess. I'll try again later. Happy Tuesday!

A few things I want to Remember

2008-02-22T09:33:00.005-06:00

All about Kaitlyn...

* Anytime we are in the car she loves looking for "slug bugs" and "cruisers." (PT Cruisers) She is very good at spotting them. If she sees a slug bug, she also has to say the color. My favorite is when she sees a yellow one, she says "Slug bug! Yeller!

* She is absolutely in love with her sisters. She is such a big help around the house. She can even almost change a diaper by herself. This is a new thing we are working on. She is good at feeding Claire. And she loves to read to and play with Cora.

* She is a VERY big help around the house. She loves to clean the house with me - especially anything that requires dusting or Windex.

* She loves cinnamon toast.

* She actually enjoys shopping and trying on clothes. I don't know where she got this from, because I hate it.

* She is learning to read and doing very well! She reads a couple of B.O.B. books every night. She asks about Kindergarten frequently and when we can go sign her up.

* She is very into Webkinz. She has two of them that she is very good at taking care of. Chelsea and Wolfie are two of her favorite things in the world. (Even though Chelsea the Koala bear is currently missing)

* She has to color every night while I dry her hair. It has to be with a marker.

* She has started a snow globe collection. She calls them snow glows.

* She is just growing up so fast and we are so proud of her!

All about Cora......

* She also loves her sisters. She gives Claire kisses on the head all of the time. (I have a cute video of this that I need to try to post)

* Her words now are mommy, daddy, baby, sissy, Pappy, Mamaw, Nana, No, Bye-bye, please, thank you, pat-pat, Brenna, uh-oh. Not all very clear, but understandable!

* She loves to curl her tongue and chew on it.

* She is very good at taking off her socks and shoes in the car.

* She loves to "brush" her teeth, or have her teeth brushed. Or just chew on the toothbrush.

* She is getting a lot of teeth right now.

* One of her favorite things to do is take a cushion (always the same one) off of the couch and jump on the couch where the cushion was.

* She LOVES looking at books. She will bring a book to me (or anyone) and then just turn around and sit on my lap and wait for me to read it.

* She loves to sit on her pink bean bag and watch Baby Einstein movies.

* Her favorite toys to play with are a Tylenol bottle and a teething tablet bottle.

* She is still taking 2 good naps a day, which I LOVE.

* She loves to play chase around the house - this makes her laugh really hard. Her little laugh is so cute.

* She is the pickiest eater. I don't know how she stays so fat. She really only drinks milk and eats yogurt. Vegetables are the hardest to get her to eat, and she really won't eat fruit that much either. She does like Nutri grain bars and gold fish and bread. I hope she learns to like other things soon! What does/did your one year old like to eat?

All about Claire.....

* Little miss Claire got SPOILED rotten in the hospital. She was pretty much held for 6 days straight and now she thinks that's the norm. She doesn't like to be put down too much. Once we get her to sleep it's about a 50/50 shot at getting her to stay asleep once we do put her down.

* I think she is going to have big blue eyes like Cora.

* She sometimes likes her paci, but she is not, by any means, attached to it. She has also found her thumb a couple of times.

* She is a tummy sleeper - just like Kaitlyn.

* She is starting to smile more and more. It's funny to hear Kaitlyn talk to her in a real high pitched voice. She smiles a lot at that.

* She's a good eater! She is eating about 5 ounces every 4 ours or so. Her longest stretch at night so far has been about 7 hours. Not too bad.

I love our girls so much, but I am one tired momma. I did start back at the gym last week, so I'm hoping my energy will start to pick up. I've got some serious weight to lose before my brothers wedding in July.

The past few weeks we have enjoyed play dates with friends, Kaitlyn has started playing her second season of soccer, lots of trips to the doctor, a few shopping runs with all 3 kids, a couple of ACU baseball games, basketball games, and family walks on Sunday afternoons.

Sweet girl...

The fake cry...

kaitlyn reading to cora.. I love the expression on her face

what kaitlyn can do to cora when i'm not looking. she is ready to go with her backpack, her necklace, her lipgloss... and oh yeah - the laundry basket.

Baby Claire..

Happy Valentines Day to my FOUR Valentines...

2008-02-14T14:49:00.001-06:00

There's no place like HOME....

2008-02-13T16:03:00.002-06:00

We have all enjoyed having Claire back home with us. That was a long six days! She has been doing very well the past 24 hours. We will take her for a follow up appointment on Friday and then enjoy the rest of this flu season from the comfort of home.

Her sisters were especially excited to see her....

We think she may even have some red hair! This picture doesn't show it all that well, but what do you think?

Enough of this!

2008-02-11T11:01:00.000-06:00

Claire has decided she has had enough of this stuffy room. Hopefully - if she continues to do well, we can go home this evening!!!!

She had a really great night and has been off of the oxygen since early this morning. If she can go through all of her cycles (resting, eating, awake) and stay in the mid to high 90's, then we are outta here. Praise the Lord!

I have to admit - as much as I want her home, there is a slight level of fear of having her there. My prayer now is that I can just trust that God will take care of her and I won't have to stay awake and watch her every breath.

Yay for 100%!!!!!!

End of Day 6

2008-02-10T20:13:00.000-06:00

Claire and I are just hanging out watching the Grammy's...

There hasn't been much change today. They went ahead and did another chest x-ray this morning. We'll get the results of that in the morning. Hopefully things are starting to look better.

Her respiratory therapist was just in and said she's not going to take her off of the oxygen again until tomorrow. UGH!! The doctor wants it to be 94% or higher when she is off oxygen. Today she has been sitting at 95 or 96 while receiving oxygen. So... again - we just wait for her little lungs to clear up.

Good news: Her feedings have gotten much better. She hasn't thrown up since 11:30 last night. We had to stop her formula for awhile and just give her Pedialite. Now we are just watering her bottles down and she seems to be tolerating that pretty well.

Kaitlyn is feeling much better today. She has her appetite back and is not coughing quite as much. Sweet Cora's just been walking around wondering what the heck is going on. She has walked over to Claire's swing a few times and rocks it saying, "baby, baby...."

Hopefully she'll be swingin' again soon.

Day 5

2008-02-09T16:09:00.000-06:00

It is such a beautiful day outside today! I am sitting on my little bed in the hospital room with the sunshine spilling in on me.... I kind of feel like I'm outside! Little Claire is asleep next to me in her Pappy's arms snoring away. Or maybe it's congestion. I don't know.

This floor of the hospital is completely FULL of sick babies with the same stuff Claire has. It's so sad to walk down the hall and hear all the tiny little cries. It's just not right I tell you!

The doctor made rounds today and things are a little bit better (I think). Her chest is beginning to sound less "crackely." She is just on a tiny bit of oxygen - I think the lowest setting. But still, everytime they take her off her level drops within the hour. It's so strange to me that 1/16 of a liter of oxygen - hardly anything - can make such a difference to such tiny lungs.

She is also struggling with her feedings. After every other feeding she throws up. And I'm not talking about a little spit up on my shoulder. She coughs and coughs and coughs and then throws up everything in her little tummy.. until there is just nothing left. Not sure what this is all about...

So, we wait. I have taken some really sweet pictures of her up here (I think her hospital gown is really cute), but James won't let me post them on here... you can take that up with him.

Thanks for thinking of us!

Day 4, Going on 5...

2008-02-08T13:32:00.001-06:00

Claire has decided she is just going to take up residence here at the hospital. She must really like it. She seems to be doing a little better though, which makes me very happy. However, they didn't even attempt to take her off of oxygen yesterday because she really wasn't ever at 100% even with the nasal cannula. This morning they tried taking her off of it, but that only lasted for about 10 minutes until they had to put her back on.

We also got the results back from her Echo cardiogram. Forgive me - I can't remember the technical names for anything. Basically, Claire has a hole - not in her actual heart, but in one of the passageways where blood travels to and from her heart. The doctor said it is possible, but not likely, that is affecting her current condition. If all of her flu/bronchitis symptoms go away and her oxygen levels remain low - then they will possibly do more testing.

Most likely this hole will close on it's own as her heart grows. If it doesn't, then there is a simple surgical procedure that can fix it.

We really have no idea how much longer we will be here. Hopefully just a couple more days. It really is draining, and I feel pulled in so many directions with two other kids at home.

Update

2008-02-07T12:16:00.000-06:00

Well, we are still here. We're not going home today. Claire is still about the same. Her little lungs just still can't get the oxygen that she needs yet. It doesn't sound like we can go home until she is completely off oxygen for 24 hours. The doctor is pretty sure she has the flu and bronchitis. Not too fun for a 2 1/2 week old. Today they have just still been giving her breathing treatments and sucking out her nose and throat (not a fun thing to watch). We are still waiting on resuls from the Echo-cardiogram that they did yesterday. Thanks for your prayers!

Kaitlyn and Cora are doing okay. Kaitlyn is still running a fever and threw up a little bit this morning. Hopefully she will start feeling better soon. My mom and grandmother are here helping out - I seriously don't know what I would do without them here!

BTW - James turns 30 today. I wanted today to be really fun for him, and I'm not sure how that will happen. So, leave him a birthday wish!

Prayers for Claire

2008-02-06T18:38:00.000-06:00

We had to take Claire to the ER last night because she was having trouble breathing. They went ahead and admitted her and we will be there until at least tomorrow. They have run all sorts of tests on her lungs/heart and so far everything has come back okay - but we are still waiting on a couple more results and for her oxygen levels to stabilize.

She gave us quite a scare, but I think everything will be okay. I just ran home to take a quick shower and then I am back up there.

Oh, and James had to take Kaitlyn to the doctor this morning as well - she has a full blown case of the flu.

When it rains, it pours.

More updates later...

Yada, yada, yada

2008-02-01T14:50:00.000-06:00

All three girls are asleep right now. WHAT?! I know. I'm trying to enjoy every minute. So, instead of putting on a load of laundry, sweeping the floor, or washing out bottles - I'm blogging. Oh well. I just uploaded a bunch of pictures from the past couple of weeks.....

This is what we did to some of our Huddle girls last Wednesday night. I'm sure there is a spiritual application there somewhere.....

A couple of weeks ago, James took Kaitlyn and Cora to visit his friends at an "Activity Center for old folks." That's my name for it at least. This guy is literally 100 years old. He had fun pushing Cora around in his walker. I'm sure Kaitlyn just talked everyone's ear off. I think they had a good time.

I chopped and donated 10 inches of my hair. You can't see it really good in this picture (Kaitlyn took it), but I guess you can get the idea. It's way short. Yikes.

Just a few pictures of my three girls...

These little "stacking dolls" (not sure of their real name) are Cora's favorite thing right now. She will literally play with them for an hour straight.

Happy Friday!

Our family just keeps growing!!

2008-01-30T14:25:00.000-06:00

I am so excited!! My brother Neil and his girlfriend Brittany got engaged on Friday night. It was so fun talking to him throughout the week as he bought the ring and made the proposal plans. After he proposed, he had planned for all of their friends and family to surprise her at a restaurant for a little engagement party. I hated missing it!

They are hoping to get married sometime this summer. I can't wait! I love Brittany and am so excited that she will be joining our family.

I should be getting more pictures soon, but this is when they first walked in to their party and everyone started cheering...

Our Little Squeaker

2008-01-25T15:11:00.000-06:00

Since day one, we have nicknamed Claire "Squeaker." She just always squeaks. She squeaks when she is awake and when she is sleeping. Her breathing even sounds squeaky sometimes.

Yesterday we took Claire to her 2 week doctor's appointment. She weighed 9 pounds and was 22 1/2 inches long. So, she has grown a pound and a half and an inch and a half since she was born.

The strange thing was, after he listened to her heart (for a really long time), he said, "Well, she has a little SQUEAK in her heart." He didn't seem too overly concerned about it right now, but if it is still there at her 2 month appointment, we will have to take her to a cardiologist for more tests.

So, pray with us that next time we go to the doctor, the only squeaks he will hear will be from her sweet little mouth!

Ready or not, here I come!!

2008-01-22T09:49:00.000-06:00

So, here's how it all went down. If you don't care to hear about the whole delivery, feel free to skip this post! Shanta - this may include you.

We checked into the hospital at 5:00 AM on Friday, January 11th. Actually, the story begins at 4:45AM when David Pittman brought breakfast to our house. How awesome is that?! It really was a great start to the day. Who knew that the banana I ate would later interfere with my tubal surgery....

I have no idea what time everything happened. But this is the order:

* Check in, change into the fabulously stylish hospital gown. Get all comfy in bed and answer about 1000 questions.

* Make small talk with the nurse while she sticks me 3 times looking for a good spot for the IV. Finally is successful in my right hand.

* Pitocin is started to get the contractions going. Thank you.

* Dr. comes in to break my water. This was WAY painful. He literally had to move the baby out of the way to even get to the bag of water. After he was through, he kindly said "Your tonsils look great too." W.O.W.

* Nursing shift change at 7:00 AM and Caroline walks into the room. I was so excited. She was the best nurse ever - we had her with Cora and were so excited to see her again.

* Anesthesia comes to give me an epidural. I wasn't even feeling anything at this point, so I was getting very excited and hopeful that I would not feel one thing throughout this entire delivery. I was really nervous about the epidural this time b/c I got a spinal headache last time, and I didn't want that to happen again. It went in fine - not too painful. It worked great for about 45 minutes.

* During those 45 minutes, my parents brought the girls up to see me. We enjoyed visiting and hanging out for awhile before things got crazy.

* Played the electronic 20 Questions game with my fabulous nurse Caroline and James for awhile.

* 45 minutes is up.. start feeling the contractions. We let Caroline know ASAP and she begins to call for Anesthesia to come up my epidural.

* Long story short - he got there too late. I went from a 3 to a 10 in like an hour and a half. The epidural never could catch up to that - and I felt every single thing that happened.

* Fortunately, I only had to push about 5 times. That was the worst pain I think I have ever felt.
* I forgot all about that pain a few seconds later when I heard Claire's little cry.

* I was reminded of the pain again when the Dr. tells me I have to push the placenta out.

* Pain goes away quickly again. We get to hold our third baby girl and are overwhelmed one final time with the inexpressible joy that comes with seeing your baby for the first time.

* Family comes in to see Claire. Cora is not sure of anything... Kaitlyn can't wait to hold her. I'm still trying to just hold it together.

* About an hour later, they tell me it's time to head to the O.R. for my tubal. By this time my epidural has kicked in.

* As they are wheeling me down to the O.R. they find out that I had eaten a banana at 4:45 that morning. This means they are unable to put me under for the surgery, and will rely on the epidural that has just decided to kick in.

* With a little more medicine, I am completely numb from the shoulders down and they proceed to cut my belly button open and formally complete our family of five. During the surgery they discover that I had a hernia under my belly button and and a small cyst (later turned out to be a benign tumor on one of my tubes) that he had to remove.

* I hang out with Caroline for a couple of hours in the recovery room before I'm finally wheeled to a regular room and am able to spend some time with Claire.

So, there you have it. It was a very long day, but a most wonderful one.

I just think this is a really cool picture with our doctor, and the light coming into the room and everything.

Caroline and Claire

One week down!

2008-01-20T09:12:00.000-06:00

Well, we have managed to survive one week and one day as a family of five. With the help of both of our mom's however. Today is our first day with just us. James took Kaitlyn and Cora to church this morning, so Claire and I are just hanging out. I thought I would post some pictures of our first week at home. It has been so sweet watching Kaitlyn and Cora love on their new baby sister.

As soon as I gave Claire to Kaitlyn she, very loudly, "unloaded" if you know what I mean.

Claire Elizabeth

2008-01-13T19:48:00.000-06:00

Well, we made it home today! I'm sorry it's taken us awhile to update on her arrival! I'm too tired to post the entire story, but after a very NON EFFECTIVE epidural, Claire made it safely weighing in at 7 pounds 8 ounces and a whopping 21 inches long. She was the lightest of the 3 girls, but tied with Kaitlyn for the longest. She is just as sweet as can be and we are so blessed and honored that God chose us to be her parents. Kaitlyn is being a great Big Sister just as she was/is with Cora. Cora, however, is having a little bit of a hard time adjusting. She wants nothing to do with me right now. It doesn't help that I can't pick her up or hold her - because of the surgery to have my tubes tied. Hopefully over the next couple of weeks she will adjust! It just kills me to not be able to pick her up and squeeze her!

Enough about that! Here are a few pictures of sweet Claire. Thanks for your prayers! I'll write more about the "birth story" later.

Just one more night...

2008-01-10T23:00:00.000-06:00

Well, we have to be at the hospital in 6 hours. I might as well just stay up and blog, right?

Tonight I had a really fun "Girls Night Out" shower at the Olive Garden. It was so fun! I am so blessed with such wonderful girlfriends. For some reason I have been really nervous about this delivery. I don't know if it's because I'm having another little surgery (tubes will be getting tied tomorrow as well) or what. I've just been a little on edge this time around. You would think by baby #3 I would just be shooting the breeze!! Anyway, after spending just a couple of hours with friends (and my mom!), I just feel a sense of peace. I'm not sure how I will feel when we get to the hospital in the morning, but for now - I feel peaceful.

I can't believe I am actually posting this picture, but here I am. Please excuse the slicked back ponytail and the no makeup.

We'll keep you posted as the events of the day unfold tomorrow. My goal is to have a baby by lunch time. We'll see if I'm right or not.

I'll leave you with a picture of my other two beautiul girls:

James took this picture last night and titled it, "LL Cora J"

Poor, poor, pitiful me....

2008-01-08T00:30:00.000-06:00

Seriously. It's 12:30 AM and I've been trying to go to sleep since 9:15. My legs will not be still and my ribs feel like they are about to poke out of my body. So, now I have retreated to the couch and am watching Intervention on A&E. Does anyone watch this? It's so fascinating to me for some reason. It's really a sad show, but right now I just wish this girl that is addicted to pain medication would be kind enough to give me some of her stash.

Friday.... come soon!

By the way - 34 comments?? I totally did not see that coming. Uh.. I'm working on a surprise to email out. Unfortunately, I don't think I have all of your email addresses - but I'll do the best I can!

You must be really bored if you read this entire thing.

2008-01-02T16:41:00.000-06:00

Wow. Way too long in between posts. I have no idea where to even start. Since I last posted, we have celebrated Cora's first birthday, traveled some, had Christmas, taken down everything Christmas, celebrated New Years, had doctors appointments, re organized my whole entire house, and I'm sure lots of other fun things.

My "baby" is ONE!! Her actual birthday was on December 21st, but we celebrated it the weekend before. My cousin graduated from ACU and some of our family was in town, so we just decided to have a small family/a few friends party. She had just woken up from a nap when the party was getting started, so she was a little shy. She did NOT like wearing the party hats. She cried huge tears whenever we would put one on her. She loved her little toys that she got. She wasn't too sure about the cake. She didn't want to touch it with her hands, she would just lean over and take bites out of it. It was pretty cute. Here are some of the things my sweet Cora is doing at one year:

* Her vocabulary consists of mommy, daddy, sissy, Pappy (my dad), baby, diaper (biper), pat-pat (she does this to my fat tummy and to her baby dolls), night-night (ni-ni), no-no, bye-bye, yay (she yells this when Kaitlyn is driving her around in her Jeep), more (mo), and please (pees). She talks all the time - just in her own little language. But she is rarely quiet!

* She LOVES baby dolls. Kaitlyn never really had an interest in the, but Cora has quite a few! She loves to hold them and rock them and give them kisses.

* She loves Kaitlyn and anything Kaitlyn does. It is the sweetest thing to see them together.

* She is a very picky eater. She loves her bottle. She won't eat anything chunky. Or green. She doesn't like milk. We have been making her bottles half water and formula and half milk and she hasn't noticed a difference. But, she won't drink milk out of a sippy cup. She will drink juice or water out of a cup though. Any suggestions on how to break her from her bottle are greatly appreciated.

* She loves to kiss everyone and everything.

* She is beginning to show a little bit of a temper when things are taken away from her, or if she is being redirected from somewhere she shouldn't be. She either screams really loud, or she gives you the saddest face ever, covers her mouth with her hands, lays down on the floor and cries.

* She loves bath time. And splashing. Lots of splashing.

There are many more things, but this post is going to be very long as it is. So, here are a few pictures of our precious Cora James:

Christmastime!!! We traveled to the Metroplex the weekend before Christmas to celebrate with James' side of the family, and some of my extended family in Ft. Worth. We had a wonderful time and drove home with a van full of goodies. We are so blessed with such an awesome family. I am notoriously bad at taking pictures at Christmas for some reason. But, here are a couple from that weekend:

We were back in our own house again this year for Christmas Eve/Christmas Day. Last year I had just had Cora and this year we were just a couple of weeks away from having Claire. Crazy. My parents and brother drove in and spent the holiday here, which was so nice. I think we are beginning to like waking up on Christmas in our own house. It will probably become our tradition. Kaitlyn got a new bike from Santa, and Cora got a little "sit and learn" chair that, believe it or not, she is completely obsessed with. This year Kaitlyn decided to leave Santa a cookie and she threw a piece of cheese out on the front porch for the reindeer. How thoughtful. I'm sure they loved that.

New Years!!! James and I actually got to go out on a date on New Years Eve. Thanks again Mom and Dad! We went out to a nice dinner and then to see Juno. I thought it was a great movie. Then we just drove around for awhile and stopped by our good friends David and Amanda's house. We thought for a second about ringing in the New Year with them and Ann and Derran, but being the completely miserable 9 month pregnant wife that I am - we were home by 9:30. I was the only one up at mid-night - and not by choice. I am just SO ready for this baby to be here.

So, that leads us to the arrival of Ms. Claire Elizabeth. She is now due to make her appearance NEXT FRIDAY!! January 11th. There is an end in sight. My doctor seems to think it could even be before then, so we will wait and see! I am so anxious to meet our third baby girl. I can't wait to see what she looks like. Mom and I finished getting the nursery re-organized with another crib, more closet storage, and a little re-arranging of furniture. I am a little overwhelmed and nervous to say the least. If you think about it, send up a prayer for us as we begin life with a 41/2 year old, a newly one year old and a baby!

Annnd..... if you are one of the 2 people still reading this, leave me a quick comment and I'll email you a surprise!

Happy New Year!

Getting closer to Christmas!!

2007-12-12T14:11:00.000-06:00

We traveled to Lubbock this past weekend to visit my parents and do a few fun "holiday" things. We got in Friday night and Kaitlyn could not wait to help Pappy build a fire outside. This is one of her favorite things to do with them in the fall/winter months. This time we even roasted marshmallows, which she loved.

On Saturday my mom had set up a massage for me at my favorite place. It was SO great to be able to lay on my stomach! It was wonderful and just what I needed! We did some shopping on Saturday afternoon, and then we took Kaitlyn to see Enchanted. She really enjoyed this movie. She got a little scared when the mean witch turned into an old woman, but it didn't seem to bother her for too long. I thought she would remember the fun songs, the pretty dresses, the princess stuff - but the only line that she keeps repeating is: "Man, I've got to lay off those nuts." Some squirrel or chipmunk says this and she thought it was the funniest thing in the world. She says it ALL THE TIME.

Saturday night we braved the freezing cold weather and went to a fun Winter Wonderland that an awesome neighborhood puts on. We didn't stay for long, but we got a few fun pictures, Kaitlyn got to see Santa, and we took a little carriage ride. I don't think I've ever been that cold in my life - but it was a fun memory to make!

Sunday was great. Church, a yummy home cooked meal, an AWESOME Cowboys game on TV, and making a gingerbread house with Kaitlyn. It actually turned out to just be a huge gingerbread cookie because we weren't prepared for how long it would take to get the house to stand on it's own. So, we gave up and just let Kaitlyn decorate the different pieces. She still had fun and that's what matters!

It was a great, relaxing weekend!

Side note: Cora is walking! She wants to go really fast, so she still loses her balance quite a bit, but we are way excited! I've been trying to post a video of her up here, but it's not cooperating. We are celebrating her 1st birthday this weekend - crazy!!

Surprise!

2007-12-06T00:31:00.000-06:00

I have a really sneaky husband and the best girlfriends ever!!

So, tonight after church James said he needed to run by some guy's house from work to pick up something. Not a big deal. We start driving over there (a place he's never been) and he decides to call his mom and ask about Christmas details - while looking for this house that is out in the middle of nowhere. Cora - in the mean time - is hungry and fussy and I'm trying to mix up a bottle that she can feed herself from her car seat. Kaitlyn is getting upset that she can't watch a show when she gets home. The cars behind us are all frustrated because James is driving 7 miles per hour, looking for a house, and talking to his mom about travel plans. We finally get to this house and he has the audacity to ask me, his 8 month pregnant wife to get out of the car, go up to the house and get whatever it is that he needs for work. WHAT?! He's still on the phone with his mom and just says, "Just run up there and get it, it looks like a CD." Wow. I sit there for a second and try to let all of this sink in before I just roll my eyes and get out of the car. I get to the front porch to find absolutely nothing waiting for him. Unless he was talking about the really cute mini lit up Christmas trees lining the patio. I turn around to go back to the car and I hear the door open and some girl say, "Hey, come here." Ummm... okay. I turn around and saw my friend Holly peering out through the front door. She opened it a little further and like 7 of my friends all jump out and yell SURPRISE!!! I was seriously in shock. It's only about 7 months until my birthday. I had no idea what was going on. I turn around and see James (still on the phone) start to drive away. See ya.

My sweet friends gave me the sweetest little mommy-to-be (again) shower! I was so surprised - usually I figure these things out, but not this time. They had the best desserts ever to eat. And they all pitched in and gave me a day at the spa!!! Manicure, pedicure, massage, facial - the works. I am SO truly blessed with such great friends. Thank you so much Kat, Hayley, Johnna, Amanda, Lindsay, Rachael, Katie, and Holly!!!! It was so fun to just relax and hang out with ya'll!! It was just what I needed.

A Little Christmas Cheer

2007-12-04T18:57:00.000-06:00

Happy Holidays from the Mayos!!

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