Happy Birthday Joe!!!

Today is Joe's birthday... the big 38! And to think he was only 30 when we met! Where has all the time gone??? yikes!

On Monday we went to the mall and there was a play area for the kids... It was kind of like pump-it-up but most of the bounce houses were cartoon characters. the kids had fun running around and wearing themselves out. It was a good escape from the heat!

Who needs a pool when you have a big tub of water. I think Caroline kept calling it her "hot tub".

Little miss playing in her favorite spot...

I guess a hairbrush makes a pretty good chew toy when you don't have any hair to comb!

hi!

Molly

Here's a little clip of Molly doing her favorite thing these days... climbing in and out of the little rocking chair we have...

More pics...

A few pics of the kids bedrooms. We haven't found the pictures that go on Nicholas' walls and after taking these pictures I realized how really bare the kids rooms are, or I should say, Nicholas and Molly's..


Caroline's room.. My Aunt made these beds and gave them to Courtney for the twins. BUT, my Aunt lives in Palm Springs so while we were driving through on our way down, we picked them up for Courtney so we are "storing" them until we get close enough to her to give them back! The bed on the right (according to Caroline) is Emma's and the bed she is currently sleeping in. The other one is Madi's. She stared off in that bed, but decided that she needed to go back and forth......
(and no... that's not a real dog between the beds... just a stuffed animal that my uncle gave to Caroline while we were visiting with him in Palm Springs)

Little Molly's room.... She shared a room with Caroline back in GH so she doesn't have much to decorate her room with yet.. It has been SO nice with her in her own room! Although, last week Caroline thought it was great fun to get up with Molly and get her out of her crib before I heard her... not good!


Our play area..... I thought this picture was pretty funny of Nicholas.. he looks like he's doing a jig! Total goof ball!


The kids relaxing in the pool on our patio. Nicholas is crying because he just scraped his knee.. he got over it pretty quick though.

The last week...

This is the little park by our house. It is in a little pocket of trees so it stays a little cooler in there, but if you don't get there by about 10 it starts to get WAY too hot out to walk to it.




Molly's new favorite activity is climbing into the little chairs or rocking chair that we have. She's finally figured out how to get out of the rocking chair but it usually involves falling on her face... ouch.


We went down to the Riverwalk for our friend's daughter's first birthday. Molly got her first taste of chocolate ice cream.... she takes after her papa... she LOVED it!


We sat right by the river for dinner at a little mexican restaraunt and the kids thought the ducks needed their dinner more than they did....


Molly and Kaitlyn. Everyone walking by thought they were twins...

Sea World

Not sure if we really knew what we were getting ourselves into, but this morning we decided that we needed a break from the boxes and the house and that we needed an adventure. It was kind of cool this morning, only 80 at 9 am... so we decided to go to Sea World. I think the kids had a lot of fun. They actually did pretty good with all the walking around we had to do. We got to see the Orca Whales and Shamu right after we got there and fortunately the area was covered so it was a little cooler inside. We saw the Sea Lion show, the dolphins and the sharks. At the end the kids got to go into a little water park area and play. It was a fun day, something we'll do again once the weather cools down in the fall. But for now, the kids are all sound asleep!


the kids had to get their height checked to see what rides they could go on. Nicholas is still a little too short for anything really fun.




Shamu


watching the sea lion show... it was a good break for the kids














Caroline was trying to get the dolphins to come over and say hi. We didn't have any fish, so they weren't very interested in her.


I didn't even think to pack their swimsuits, but fortunately we had some extra clothes...

Boxes Everywhere!

We got our stuff delivered last Friday. On Wed. the movers called and said our stuff had been sent to Houston, not San Antonio. We thought it would take a couple days to straighten it out, but they got it all here to us on Friday. Only one day late. :)

I HATE moving! It is just pure craziness around here and there are boxes EVERYWHERE! Here are some pics of our downstairs. The kitchen is probably the only room that is 90% done. There are boxes stacked by the door to the garage that need to stay packed.

Our living room looking back to the playroom (kitchen is off to the right of the playroom)


Kitchen


playroom off kitchen (you can see the window that looks into the living room)

Happy Birthday Nicholas!!!!

Yesterday was Nicholas' 3rd birthday... We had a party back home a couple weeks ago with all his little friends (i don't have the pics, they're on my mom's computer... oops!) So yesterday we had a small party with just the family and grandma. Since the last party was Superman, this one was Spiderman.... the kid is totally into Super Hero's.

Grandma's House

Caroline was in heaven when we got here... she got to do her favorite thing... plant and play with flowers. Grandma had bought a bunch of flowers that needed potting and they sat outside for a couple hours keeping busy.



The kids and Mudpie...




On the swing in the back. This is the best little spot in their backyard. It stays in the shade most of the day and even though its been about 95 everyday there is a nice little breeze. You can stand to be out there for about 15-20 minutes before wanting to come back in to the AC.

OOPS!!!

I learned a few things while we were in PS....
1. Molly doesn't like bananas
2. Not a good idea to give Molly bananas on a ceramic plate.

I gave her cut up bananas on a plate and walked away for a minute and came back to this......



3. Not a good idea to put laundry soap in the dishwasher!

We came back from the pool and found our dishwasher overflowing with bubbles!

Our Adventure to TX

Not sure how many pictures this program will let me upload, but we'll see.... I should have done this along the way, but never got around to it.

One last light saber fight between Matt and Caroline... :(

We started our adventure on Thursday, May 22nd and left GH around 2:30. We made it to Portland and visited with our friends Jen and Roger. The next morning Joe and Roger rearranged the trailor (i think all in all we rearranged it about 6 times!) and we finally left Portland around 1. We hoped to make it to Sacramento but ended up stopping about 2 hours away. When we stopped for dinner we found this great kids play place that had all kinds of tubes and slides for the kids to go through. Joe even got to go in the tubes and play with the kids. After dinner the kids finally went to sleep and around midnight we found a hotel room and stopped. We got up early the next morning and headed to Palm Springs.

The kids were so excited to get there! Finally a place to get out of the car and swim for a couple days.

Nicholas got a set of Spiderman swim stuff and this little hand thing squirts water... he loved it!

I have some family that lives in Palm Springs. One night we went over to my Uncle's house and had dinner. We didn't bring anything for the kids to swim in so they swam in their underwear. The pool was freezing, but they didn't care.

At one point my uncle even jumped in and swam with them!

At our hotel there was a "lazy river" or the round pool as Caroline called it. It had a current that just swept you around the river... it was fun.. Caroline especially enjoyed it with her floatie and water wings.

We stopped for a picnic at a rest stop and when I got back to take pictures the kids were on their way to the car.

We didn't make it very far the day we left Palm Springs. We only go to Tucson. We did get there in time for the kids to jump in the pool with Daddy before bed.

Originally we had the big kids in the 3rd row of the car, but when stopped in Palm Springs we picked up some furniture from my aunt and it took up a lot more room then we expected it too. The big kids ended up in the middle row with all their stuff. They are both zoning out a little watching a movie (best thing ever for long car rides... DVD players!)

When we left Tucson we drove from 7:30am and arrived in Fort Worth at 3:30am. It was a LONG day to say the least. We stopped quite a few times to let the rugrats free and once they finally fell asleep it made things a little bit easier. It was nice to finally get here.....