November before Thanksgiving

Painting on the back deck is something the kids love to do! Kevin does eventually start causing trouble by trying to paint on Ellie's picture. But she loves for him to paint with her, so she only complains a little!

A visit to The Woodlands was really fun, but I didn't take many pictures. Yes, Mom, I will add more once you send me the pictures!

Kevin loved the dog crate, and both of the kids loved the dog! I kept waiting for Ellie to get tired of the dog, but she never did. She really loves animals!

We went to a tree lighting at Market Street, and Christmas festival as well. At the festival, there were ballet and Irsish dancers. Ellie loved watching them dance. She was fascinated!

We also had a tea party with Ellie's two grandmothers, one of her great grandmothers, and of course her mother! She loved the cake and was very cute! She has decided that she wants a tea party for her 4th birthday!

Trial run at Christmas card photos. The lighting was terrible, and I was the only adult around. I was testing out a silly idea for the Christmas card.

Halloween leftovers!

After Halloween, we had a bucket full of candy! We decided to help Ellie realize that she didn't need all the candy! So, we planned an activity. We had a bowl full of "sometimes" and "anytime" foods. She took each item out of the bowl and placed it on the green paper if it was an "anytime" food (healthy) and on the red paper if it was a "sometimes" food (unhealthy). We talked about how the food on the green paper makes us healthy and strong, and too much of the food on the red paper can make us feel yucky.

Then, we brought out the candy bucket and asked her where it would go. She correctly placed it on the red paper. So, we asked her how she would feel if she ate it all. She said yucky, and then said, "So I shouldn't have all of it, but I could keep just 3 pieces and then I wouldn't feel yucky." We agreed! So, she picked out three pieces and the rest of the candy was tossed - without a struggle!

I doubt this will work again next year, but we'll certainly try!

Ellie Reads to Kevin

I think she is more excited about this activity than Kevin is!

Longhorn Pancake!

Chris's dad is the pancake King! Ellie loves for him to make her pancakes in the mornings! She usually requests animal shapes, and mine are usually just round. But one morning, I was in for a treat - a longhorn pancake! Pretty impressive!

Halloween

Here are some pics from Halloween. Ellie had such a great time. We went to a party and went trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. Ellie was Supergirl and Kevin was Winnie the Pooh dressed up as a bumblebee (so he could steal the honey). During the trick or treating, Ellie fell down and spilled her candy about four times as she ran from house to house! She was so excited.

I carved my first Cinderella pumpkin. Ellie painted the smaller pumpkin and was so concerned that something would happen to it while were gone trick-or-treating. I assured her it would be fine, but oops! Some Halloween pranksters stole her pumpkin, and she was so upset about it! She wanted to "have a meeting, and ask everyone if they are the one who took my pumpkin." The cute part about the meeting is that she actually thought everyone would come and that we would find the pumpkin theif!

Hidden Villa Flashback!

Ellie made this spider web for the spiders to live in. She actually believed they would!

I dont know if I ever posted these. I found these a folder labeled "for blog", but I dont remember ever posting them.

This was our last trip to Hidden Villa before we left CA! We loved that place! Great hiking, great slugs, great animals!

This reminds me that I never posted Chris's graduation pics! I need to do that since this blog eventually becomes my photo album / memory book for each year. Several of my friends have used this site to do it... www.blurb.com

I think I will use that site next time! You can download their software for free. It downloads your blog to your PC and then you create a book. Then they print and bind it for you!

Kevin Fights Back

Kevin and Ellie both love to stand on these stools to help me in the kitchen. In these pictures, we only had one stool in the kitchen. Kevin is sitting and crying in the first one because Ellie got to the stool first. Then, he decides to just pull her down!

Ellie Sleeping

I just love sleeping kids (especially mine)!

Ellie Prepares Dinner for Kevin

Ellie was helping me with dinner a few weeks ago. I gave her three containers with food for Kevin and asked her to put some on a plate for him. She made this for him all her own. I had no idea she was doing it until she was done! I've done something similar for her before, but this is the first time she's done it herself! She was so proud of it! (I know this plate is missing a protein. I don't remember what he had, but I know we gave him some protein. So, don't worry grandparents! He is well-fed!)

Room Makeover

For Chris's 30th birthday, my neighbor convinced me to "remodel" our room. Our room has always been the junk room of the house! I hated our furniture and so I never even tried to make the room nice or clean. It was the one room of the house I could ignore! We are waiting to buy new furniture until we buy a house so that we can buy what fits in the room and won't have to move it multiple times (at least for a while anyway)!

The remodel was a surprise, so we completed the transformation in about 8 hours. Well, we painted the night before, so Chris knew about that, but he had no idea about the rest of the room until he came home!

So, we redecorated the room and did it all for about $200. Not bad! Most of it can be reused when we move and get new furniture, so it wasn't a waste at all! Every day that I have woken up in the newly clean and pretty room, I feel so relaxed. I just love the new look! It's not perfect, but it's 100 times better than what we had before!





My favorite part of the remodel is this picture. This is not the best photo of it, but it's good enough! We bought this print in Italy more than 2 years ago for about $10 from a street vendor. It has traveled with us from Italy to Houston, to our first apartment at Stanford, to our second apartment at Stanford, and to our current home. It has been rolled up and smashed so many times. Once, I thought I'd lost it but found it behind the dryer! Chris tried to throw it away at almost every move. He said we'd never do anything with it!


Well, I bought this open frame at Michael's for $40. Then, we bought some glass at Lowe's for $6.50 (Michael's said the glass would cost $44.00, but they would frame it for free. How kind of them to offer such a great deal???). In the end, I decided not to use the glass anyway because the picture has a little texture, and the glass took away from the look. To frame it, I placed some cardboard behind the picture, and used nails to secure the cardboard and pic. It looks great with our bedding!




We received the bedding as a wedding gift but have rarely used it because I never felt that our room was nice enough for it! I bought the curtains and curtain rods from Ross for a very good deal.



The pics above the bed were a recent addition. I just put them up there for fun as they were leftover from Chris's party. He wouldn't let me put them up for the party, so I put them up in our room. Before that, the walls were bare!



My neighbor and I painted the furniture, and she bought new drawer pulls from Home Depot for about $25.







We bought one extra curtain panel and cut it in half. Then, we laid it across the night stands to pull the room together even more.

Notice Chris's "manimal" trophy. Something silly his friends did... Lots of manly competitions and somehow Chris won first place overall. I know you're surprised he won because Chris is really not competitive at all! (note the sarcasm there!) His friends made this trophy and engraved his name on it. Now we use it for clean, mismatched socks - seems like an appropriate use for a manly trophy! It didnt fit with the new theme of the room, so we moved it to the closet!

The new picture above Chris's dresser is a drawing of an outdoor Italian restaurant. Chris loves restaurants, Italian food, and Italy!

Chris Turns 30!

I love this picture! They are all so happy!


Kevin helps with the birthday challenge as a dessert taster!



Chis decided to do a birthday challenge this year! He's nuts! He completed all of the following except eating 30 desserts. He ate 23, and then quit. He said it was just too disgusting!!

Run a 30K

Play as many Par 3 golf holes as possible in 30 strokes

Spend 30 minutes playing in the pool with Ellie and Kevin

Make 30 3-point basketball shots

Catch 30 touchdown passes from the 10 yard line

Call 30 friends

Do 300 push-ups

Watch 30 minutes of Longhorn football

Read 30 chapters of the Bible

Clear 3 racks in pool

Hit 3 bulls eyes in darts

Eat 3 hamburgers, 3 Chick Filet sandwiches and 3 pieces of pizza

Drink 30 ounces of Coke

Drink 30 ounces of coffee

Drink 30 ounces of beer

Eat 30 different desserts

Do it all in 30 hours beginning at 6 p.m. on October 3 and ending at midnight on October 4!

We ended the night with a party at our house! We had so many desserts that we delivered them to the neighbors after the party and still had leftovers!

Kevin - 14 Months

Halloween Preview! I wouldn't have picked this out at the store, but I found it for a good deal at a consignment sale! So, he'll be Winnie the Pooh dressed as a honeybee for Halloween!

Kevin loves to pretend like he's talking on the phone. Almost anything can be a phone, but he especially loves to talk on the plastic, chocolate doughnut!

He has begun to make the kiss noises periodically throughout the day! And when we ask if he wants to go "night night", he'll start making the kiss noise and opening his mouth! Before he learned this trick, he would just lay down and go to sleep at night. Now, after I put him in the crib, he'll stand up and make the kiss noise! So sweet!

He loves to roar at all animals!

He walks around the house looking for Ellie and saying, "Eh Eee. Eh Eee. Eh Eee."

He loves to feed himself with a spoon and has gotten really good with it! He won't allow us to feed him unless he is really, really hungry!

He cries when I drop him off at the gym, and he is always waiting for me at the gate when I return. Yes, this does make me feel guilty. He's got my number!

e is as happy as ever!

Mischievous Cousins - Ellie and Pug!

They had a great time! They were mischievous!

They poked holes in the air mattress with some tacks they found. They cut holes in Ellie's sheets and her Dora air mattress sheets. Ellie threw a block in the ceiling and busted a light bulb in the living room! It was an expensive trip.

Ellie decided to sell her tricycle to help pay for all the damage. Well, she did have a little help in choosing a toy that was expensive enough to help pay to replace the items. Chris did most of the talking during our "little talk" with Ellie. She agreed to pay for the damage and even seemed a little excited that she could help fix what she had done. But when it was all over, she said, "Mommy, what was Cinderella's Mommy's name?" Somehow it made me wonder if in her little head she was comparing me to the evil stepmother!

We also told her that we wouldn't buy her any dessert this week because we were going to save her dessert money to help pay for things she destroyed. We went to dinner at Macaroni Grill for Chris's birthday. They brought a big, complimentary piece of chocolate cake to the table. Ellie looked at the waitress and said, "Does that cake cost the family money?" Cute! Our neighbor offered her some ice cream, and she said, "Will that cost the family money?" I think she's getting the idea!

Cleaning the Windows

One of Ellie's favorite things to do is clean the glass door!

Kevin Talks to the Lion

For the last few months, whenever Kevin sees an animal - especially dogs, bears, lions, tigers, or cats - he will make this grunting noise at it! I finally got it on video!

My Cell Phone is Broken but Clean!

PLEASE send me your CELL PHONE and HOME PHONE NUMBERS!
I dont know any of them by memory and there is no way to get them from my phone!


Ellie decided to wash my cell phone, so now it doesn't work. It actually hasn't worked since last Thursday, so I hope you haven't called!

I've used this opportunity to switch providers and to get a local number. Bye, bye Sprint, my carrier of an entire decade!

I've switched to Verizon and should receive my new phone in the mail in a few days. I made way too big of a deal about trying to decide between Verizon and AT&T! Thanks Shannon for trying to help me, and for laughing at me! I deserved the teasing, but now I think you told me to go to Verizon because that's what you use. Conflict of interest???

After several hours of seriously fretting over the subject, I realized that it's just not that big of a deal!! Sometimes, I get so caught up in the details that I forget how small the issue is!!

Anyway, I'll send you my new number if you'll send me yours!!