Our Trip and Our News

So before looking at the next picture what would you think these two girls wearing big sister shirts would mean? Any guesses? Ah, your right! I'm pregnant! We are both very excited and we were very surprised too because it seemed my body was not working the way it should have been and then, all of the sudden....pregnant! Due date is December 17th and I am 9 weeks right now. That is why I haven't updated this blog in so long. I have been so tired and napping every time the girls have so I haven't had time to come on here.

I thought these shirts would be an obvious give away to new we wanted to share so I had the girls wear them on the plane to NY so my parents would see them when they picked us up. Happy to report that my mom picked up on it right away. It took the rest of the family a little longer and some prompting needed, "Hey guys, did you see the girls shirts?" But eventually everyone got it and everyone was really excited for us. Now I am just trying to get my sister in laws to jump on board themselves!!

P-test pictures. I never had one or peed on one that was positive with the girls so it was kind of cool to see it work. I knew for two days before I went to NY. It was hard not telling my mom over the phone but I made it. Luckily we got to tell the Williams family right after I went to the doctors so it was nice to be able to tell some people!


NY was a lot of fun as always. It was so great having everyone there together, except Eric. He stayed in TX and worked. I flew by myself with the girls and it wasn't that bad. Thank goodness for car seats! I still dread doing it again but it's do-able!

The first five days were beautiful weather and all we did was play on the trampoline, swings, and sandbox. They loved the trampoline and I couldn't get Livy off of it most of the time.

On top of the roof with Rich, Hannah, and Josh. Hannah does her flips off of the shed roof onto the trampoline so of course they wanted to go up there too. Thanks to their uncles they had a fabulous time!

Helping them maneuver and jump off to Grandpa.

Rachel dressed in Erin's clothes! She went down to Erin's room with her to get changed from church and this is what she came up in.

Jumping off the roof.

Hannah contemplating her flip.

And there she goes. She landed it by the time we left. Livy loved to sit on the trampoline and watch her and count to three for her to jump. They loved following Hannah and trying anything she did. Luckily they didn't care about flipping!

And at last the teams, Rachel and Grandpa vs. Livy and Grandma, were broken! Livy spent a lot of time with Grandpa this trip and vice versa.

More jumping.

Rich and Erin.

The girls having pancakes for breakfast on the couch one morning. Whatever Hannah does! Hannah got to stay home from school for a few days with the girls. They went to the aquarium one day and other than that we mostly hung around, went to the park and ate!

Uncle Dan and Uncle Rich. It was so nice having so many people around to entertain the girls. I think my brothers and sister in laws are ready for kids. They are so great with the girls and seems to love playing with them. I can't wait for them to have kids too!

Rachel getting some up close time with Izzy. She will be 17 in October and is kind of grouchy towards kids. They usually can't pet her because she growls at them but they love following her around.

Uncle Charlie facilitating Danny as the horse, Rachel as the rider!

I think that is the only picture of Charlie I have in here and none of Michelle. Sorry guys. I'll make sure to get some this summer! We did have fun with you two, just not on film!

Aunt Katie loading Livy up on some treat. Cookie dough I think. The girls non stop asking their aunts and uncles for cookies and candy. And they got it all night long. They were up until 10 every night running like crazy and getting in on our treats every night! So unfair, right Charlie!

Up in Dan's bed saying good night to him. He has these balls that have stringy things all over it and Rachel doesn't like them. Her big line was "I scary that ball." She eventually grew to not mind them or be scary of them!

Dan ate ice cream for the first time while we were there too! Yeah for Dan. Just recently we found out that he has no more food allergies, nothing. He has been on such a restricted diet because of allergies for 16.5 years that he doesn't like trying new foods. Richie tricked him into the first bite of soft ice cream and then he ate the whole cup. He loved it! Glad he gets to enjoy some good tasting things now!

The girls took over where ever they wanted. Livy loved laying in Josh and Katie's bed and watching TV.

Play time. Late night play time. Everyone gets silly.

Ring around the rosie.

Bench pressing children.

Some more bench pressing.

Livy playing cards. It's the game Sequence that my parents have set up in their living room and we play a lot. Livy just likes to put the chips around and "play cards." I never lost so many games of Sequence as I did this trip. We are all convinced Rich and Erin are cheating some how. I'll figure it out this summer.

The last night at Grandma and Grandpa's. Just relaxing in their pretend bed under the dining room table! Well one of the last nights...my original flight got cancelled, moved it to the next day, went to the airport, waited two hours, rain delay for 5 hours, I don't think so with 2 two year olds, moved it to two days later. Made it home on Saturday, originally supposed to leave on Wednesday! No one believed us when we said we were really leaving this time!

Just some shots of new bathing suits that I thought looked so cute on them in the pictures.

Well our trip to NY was great. And perfect timing. I felt pretty crappy most days and everyone was great. Especially my mom. Thanks mom. I got to go back to bed most mornings. I loved hanging out with everyone. It's fun in the summer too but when we have the reunion it is just crazier and busier too so it was great to have not schedule and just do what we wanted. The girls loved everyone and had so much fun with all their aunts and uncles. Hannah was so great with the girls. She always took care them, played with them, shared everything with them and was so patient. Thanks for being a great aunt Hannah.

Saba

For those of you who have eaten pizza with Livy you know what this word is. Saba. That is what she calls pizza. And we ate tons of it in NY so we heard it all the time. "Mmm, good saba, hot saba, blow on the saba, yeah saba!" I don't know where she came up with it but it is pretty funny. Even when I out right ask her to say pizza she says saba. Your guess is as good as mine! So next time your are in NY get yourself some good saba, not hard to find, it's all over the place!

A Rainy Weekend

It was a long rainy weekend here in Houston. We didn't go to San Antonio for our anniversary like we wanted to because it was supposed to rain there too all weekend. Don't know if it did or not but it doesn't matter because Eric was sick all weekend so he would have laid in bed the whole time like he did at home, or on the couch! And it poured on Friday afternoon and almost all day Saturday so we kinda were stuck. Friday was our anniversary and started out good. Eric stayed home from work and let me go get a massage. How sweet. It was great. Then when I got home the girls were in bed and we left for our early date night just when they got up! I did see them in the morning until 11, don't think I went all day without them!

In an effort to kill time during the rain we made freezer jam. My first time trying and it came out pretty good. Not as good as my Grandma Barbara's but I will have to try again some time. I put a little too much fruit in and so it didn't' get as gelled as it should have but it was still good.

The girls helped me make it and then eat it too. They loved it as you can see and kept saying they wanted to drink it so that is where most of the mess comes from. They started with bread to dip in it and then went to their hands after the bread was gone.

Searching for more.

We also went puddle stomping on Saturday after the rain finally stopped. The girls had so much fun it was adorable to watch them run back and forth a hundred times through the puddles.

I know I put up a ton of almost the same pictures but usually only one of them is looking or smiling so I just like get a bunch up.

Hugs :) They are so happy when they hug!

Don't bother asking, I don't know why?

Picture from our anniversary night. Happy 5th to us! We got to go out for dinner at our favorite restaurant, P.F. Chang's, and a movie and all before 7:30. That is all the babysitter could stay for so we had an early date night and then put the girls to bed and got to spend the quiet night at home! It actually worked out great and I think I would like to do more early date nights!

My big fall at P.F. Chang's: I was doing really good on not eating sweets until two weeks ago. I hadn't had any in 11 weeks. Even since I caved, a blue bell ice cream sandwich, two weeks ago I was still good. Didn't eat Easter candy and was still okay. But I had decided I was going to eat dessert at P.F. Chang's because they have one of my favorites there and I passed on dessert on v-day, my b-day, the girl's b-day and a few other things in that 11 weeks so I figured on bad night would be okay. Well it would have been if I had any self control left. The dessert we get is the "Great wall of chocolate," not kidding that is it's name. And rightfully so, a six layer chocolate cake covered in yummy chocolate frosting and mini chocolate chips with some fruit and raspberry sauce, and of course a huge bowl of vanilla ice cream on the side. And we ate it all. I was very surprised that we did since Eric has been eating so good lately and I wasn't planning on eating the whole thing but that is how it goes. And it was superb. I want one now just thinking about it. Anyway, point is that after that I was a mess. I was digging through old Easter candy and scrounging for any bit of sugar and chocolate I could all weekend long. It set me on a bad course again. So today I am back to the no sweets for a while. I wish I wasn't an all or nothing person. I'm working on it. One day maybe.

Happy Anniversary

Today is our 5 year anniversary! I really can't believe it has been so long. I don't feel old enough to have been married for 5 years. I am so happy to be married to this wonderful man. Yeah we get on each others nerves sometimes and definitely don't see eye to eye on many things but he is my perfect fit. I just couldn't imagine anyone else who I would go better with. He gets me and deals with me, and still loves me! He works harder than anyone to provide for our family and loves our little girls with all his heart. After 5 years and 2 kids we are very happy! I love you Eric and I am so grateful we get to spend eternity with each other! I can't wait to see what the next few years bring us!

Note to Self

These are just some things I wanted to remember. No picture of them but just wanted to jot them down quick so I wouldn't forget.

And so the blame game begins.....

Rachel was eating a can of peanuts the other day and I saw her dump them on the floor. A few minutes later I asked her who dumped the peanuts on the floor as I went over to clean them up. She looked at me and said "Pebbles did it." I told her I don't think Pebbles did it, did she do it. Again blamed someone else, "Niny did it." At last I finally told her I saw her do it and asked her to come help me clean up, and she did. This was the first time she has blamed someone else for something. At least she blamed Pebbles first so Livy didn't get the blame right away!

Every morning I get Livy out of her bed first because she likes to run in and tickle Rachel. Some days Rachel loves it and some days she doesn't. But Livy gets so excited to do it to her.

Today Rachel was feeding her doll and the conversation went like this: "OK baby, here's your food. It's spicy. Chew it all. Mmm, that's yummy." She talks the whole time to her babies. I need to start listening more carefully so I can catch what she says. And I don't know where she got spicy from. I think we have only said that once to her about salsa?

Leap Frog Letter Factory DVD. Best alphabet teaching DVD. It was my sisters and my mom gave it to us to use and they love the DVD. They learn the sounds of the letters so well and already know all the letters and sounds. I can't believe it. I knew that they knew some of them but they demonstrated their skills in the bathtub the other night. We have those ABC's that stick on the side of the tub. Rachel started picking them up and telling me the letter and the sound. So then we lined them up and I asked Olivia where certain letters were and she picked them out correctly every time. We did each letter but not in order. I was amazed because I had no idea they knew them so well. Some times they can't tell you the name of the letter when I ask what is this, but they can for sure tell you the sound the letter makes. And a few weeks of Dora and they are counting in Spanish too! We didn't even practice that!

And just while I was typing this I heard a cabinet shut, I thought. So I went out in the kitchen a looked around, maybe something fell? Nope, I heard it again and realized this time it was a door. So I went up stairs and there the two little monkeys are, out of the cribs and both in Rachel's room. Rachel was crying a little so I guess she fell out of her crib and Livy must have figured how to climb out without hurting herself. She is the more physically inclined one and Rachel the more verbally inclined so it makes sense. Livy knows how to do the door knobs too and Rachel doesn't yet. Well, this is a first. They haven't ever tried to climb out yet and they both did it today. Livy must have gotten out, went into Rachel's room and then she climbed out too. I would have know all this if I would have turned the monitors on as soon as I put them down but I forgot. Whoops. I missed out on the escape from our beds conversation!

New York

I forgot to mention that we are going to New York on April 25th!!! I am so excited and can't wait to see everyone. It will be my first solo flight with the girls so if anyone has any tips I'm all ears! See all you New Yorkers soon!