Frog named Three

Meet Three. (a.k.a. The Frog)

Sam with an ice cream mustache.

Carly and Sam watching a squirrel from Carly's window.

The other day Sam weirded me out a bit when I had to wake him up at 10:30a.m. (he went to bed at 8:00 the previous night) All he wanted was for me to hold him, he didn't want me to put him down, he didn't want to stand up. He was like a limp noodle that couldn't keep his eyes open. I got him to eat some toast and OJ and he perked up a bit. He still took a nap from 1-3 and then went to bed at 7:30. He woke up at his normal time the next day. Who knows that the deal was. It was kind of nice to have a child that just wanted to sit still!

Carly's handprint butterfly (we are reviewing letters A-E this week)

My Halloween table runner that I whipped up last night (never thought I would say that!)

Thing one and Thing two

The closet under the stairs isn't for junk anymore! It's Carly's "New House"

I love it when this happens, just not at 5:00PM
(below) Giving her baby a big hug. I love how passionate she gets and has to close her eyes!

Carly

*Has way too much energy!

*Loves to talk, sing and basically just make noise.

*She loves to watch movies with songs and can have it memorized after seeing it only a couple times.

*She loves to watch Curious George and Clifford the big red dog. Dora has phased out.

*She no longer takes naps but still has quiet time (most days)

*She can write letters A-E and count to 20 but usually skips 16. She knows all the colors and shapes.

*She has begun the art of nose picking.

*She gets excited when she can wear her "puppy panties"

*She hates getting her hair done.

*She is a child that thrives on a schedule.

*She will repeat something until we respond to her.

*She will randomly say "I love you so much mommy (or Daddy) and then proceed to say "and I hope you wisten (listen)."

*Some of my favorite words that she says are:

swim soup=swim suit

wittle=little

wove=love

readymote=remote control

bwanket=blanket

*She likes to dress herself.

*She likes to get into the wipes and clean.

*She likes to talk on the phone whether it's with someone real or pretend. She will make sure to tell me to be quiet if she is talking on her play phone.

*Has to have her door open at night with a night light. Every night I give her a kiss, she has to give me a hug and then I have to rub her back.

Sam

*still getting more teeth. He finished his molars and is now working on his upper side teeth (not sure of the technical name)

*Loves to cuddle but only if he's tired and has his blanket and his binky

*If he hurts his hand he has to have me kiss it.

*He loves to climb on our couch or bed and jump up and down.

*He's not a very vocal guy, he only says "Da-ye" (Daddy), Mom, Boo, bubbles, "Ni-Ni" (binky), ball, sometimes he'll say Carly and I think he's learned how to say his name, it comes out at "Ma" (he'll point to himself when he says it)

*He only takes one nap a day, but it is usually a two-hour nap. He goes to bed for the night in between 7:00-7:30 and wakes up 12 hours later.

*He is still hooked on his binky.

*He has learned to growl and he'll growl whenever he sees an animal toy.

*He has to bark whenever Skipper barks.

*He loves the sound of fast and loud cars.

*He loves to play outside.

*He loves to dance whenever he hears music.

*He loves to try and give Carly hugs all the time.

*He could probably eat more than me if I let him.

*He would much rather eat from the table than in his highchair.

*He will give kisses but you have to earn them.

*He will wave good-bye and say "Da"

"Treehouse" and a yellow duck

Carly got creative and decided to make a "tree house" They've made a "tree house" pretty much every day this week. It keeps them occupied and they actually somewhat play together (which is always a bonus!)

Letter D this week. This is her yellow Duck.

my new sickness...oops...I mean Hobby.

So...you know when you play the game Tetris so much that eventually you start dreaming of the little Tetris blocks? (Okay, so maybe that is just me!)
Anyway....it's to the point now to where I am dreaming of flowers and bows. I think I need help! :) The sad part is.... (I know, could it get any more sad than me dreaming of flowers?!?) this is not even all of them. Some of these little babies have twins!

another week....

We really didn't do much this week. I just stayed home with the kids and did the usually runs to wal-mart or target or the grocery store.

Sambo found Carly's pink cowgirl hat. I think maybe we need to get a few more boy things around this house.
This week Carly and I worked on the letter C. This was her cloud picture that she made.

One year later.....

Well, early (early) this morning exactly a year ago we were listening to winds howling, trees crashing and rain pouring outside the walls of our house. I was laying in bed texting back and forth to my mom who was safe in Utah. Looking back I've realized I've forgotten a lot of details about that night and the weeks to follow (two weeks without power!) But I haven't forgotten to be grateful for the little things. At least I hope I haven't. Having food in my cupboards and foods in the grocery store, gas in the gas stations and most importantly electricity. I'm so glad that we haven't had the same issues this Hurricane season (knock on wood) but I am glad that I did experience at least one natural disaster. As weird as that may sound!

(Meet Hurricane Ike)

(looking out our front door)

(Our backyard)

What we've been up to...

So, this week has been a weird one. One minute I was happy, relaxed and the next I would be freaking out at Carly or Sam for something! This could be a "ladies days" problem (hilarious episode from Everybody Loves Raymond BTW) At times all I wanted to do was close myself in my room and be selfish and do something that I wanted to do. I'm sure most of us get those days. (not so much fun for the kids I'm sure) Today has been a better day, I tried to start off with a positive attitude and so far it's been going smooth!
Here is my first quilt that I made. It's very small. I didn't want to do a big one for my first one. I am really proud at how it turned out. Thanks to my friend Tasha ,who got me started, and the world of You Tube I finally finished it last night.

Here is one of the clips I made for Carly. I saw some on Etsy and thought I'd try it out. I am pleased at how well they turned out. She was excited to wear her "new bows"

This week I've been doing the letter B with Carly. It's a bit tricky for her to write, she's almost got it down but here is our Blackbird puppet we made.

Kitten, A friendly bug, and the Letter A

My cute Kiddos before church. (I know, we still have a binky face. We're working on that....just waiting till his molars come in, we don't want to make things worse than what they are!)

Sam discovered the kittens.

As we were playing outside this afternoon Carly and Sam discovered this little guy crawling around in the leaves. I think it was injured because it wasn't flying and after Carly got through playing with it, it probably wished it was dead! At one point I thought she was going to kiss it. She proceeded to talk to it (like it could understand) and she said "oh....your my best friend!" (should I be worried about that?)

The first of the month I started doing pre-school with Carly. She absolutly loves it! We are doing a letter a week with other activities based off of that. This is her proudly showing the letter "A" that she wrote all by herself.

not much....

Sam found one of Carly's old hats.

Cute Kitties

Well, these are the only two kitties we have left (other than the momma cat) We gave two away and one of the orange girl kitties left the other day and we haven't seen her since. Sad. She was so cute! But these two brothers are hilarious together! They play constantly and are pretty much inseparable.

Tom and Bob

videos

A couple more videos for your viewing pleasure. As you can tell by the last video, Sam is just like his father when it comes to cars.

Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhjV6DmrpQQ

For some reason my computer is picky and doesn't let me upload videos straight from the blog sometimes. So Ihave to resort to You Tube. This is a cute video of Sam, it's kind of long, the best part is towards the end if you don't feel like watching the whole thing. I've tried to download a cute one of Carly but for some reason it keeps coming up with an error. Who knows?!?

This girl loves the kittens!

(She is holding Tom. I know, if you name them you get attatched. We don't know if he's staying or going.)

Colorado

This was looking down from our cabin. We stayed at the M Lazy C Ranch in Lake George, CO. It was a really cute place. I'm mad I didn't get a picture of our cabin. They served breakfast everyday and we ate dinner there twice. It was fun and relaxing despite all the rain they had and the unusually cold weather.
We towed up our buggy to ride around.

There were so many wildflowers out. I had to get a picture of them! Carly loved picking them.

Sam and Myreel (only a week apart) had fun playing with each other.

Mimi took Carly for a horseback ride. She LOVED it!

This swing set was right outside the cabin we stayed in. It was great, Carly loved to just go outside and play on it.

We went to a little town called Manitou Springs. They had a bunch of little shops. We found a cute little arcade area with a ton of little 25 cent rides. The kids LOVED it!

No, this is not food on his face. This is what I call a dirt mustache. Sam had so much fun playing outside that by the third day I decided to stop trying to keep him clean!

The girls went horseback riding one morning. It had rained off and on pretty much the whole time we were there but one morning looked very promising, So we headed out. We were riding for about an hour when we heard thunder in the distance. (It was already pretty cold outside) Less than 10 minutes later the rains started to fall and the thunder started to crack. I am not a cowgirl, I don't ride horses very often, in fact I can count on one hand how often. I was a little nervous riding with all the thunder and lightening. We pulled through and by the time we made it back to the ranch we were soaking wet and freezing. ( I could not feel my toes) Plus, my horse (not pictured) wanted to stop every chance he got to eat, kind of annoying when your wet and cold. Actually, I had a blast, it was definitely something I had never done before and I really had fun, despite the cold and the rain! (Carly didn't go with, she just posed for the picture)

The three pictures above were taken on top of a mountain. It had a great view and the kids loved playing up there!

We went exploring many times, Sam (and Myreel) loved riding in the back! Sam fell asleep a couple times.

After many days of riding in the car and man days with naps all out of order the only way we could get our kids to sleep (during the day) was riding in the car. We were lucky at night, they fell asleep so easy because we tired them out during the day!

Carly and Chad trying out their ropin' skills!

We took these pictures right outside the building that we ate in. They served very delicious food!

We finally made it home today. We followed Chad's sister and bro-in-law home. (They were nice enough to tow our buggy behind their Tahoe so we could drive a little faster) It was fun, but it's always nice to be home.