Fun stuff

Since we moved into our house here we've used an antenna to get local channels. But pretty much the only thing we could get in without alot of static and alot of work with the antenna was ABC and PBS. Which was really okay because as long as I can watch General Hospital (on ABC) I'm a happy camper. But since the digital transition I haven't been able to get my antenna to pick up ABC. I can get the other channels that I could never get in good before but I can't get the one that came in best. Weird. Anyway, I found out that Suddenlink has a limited cable package for $10/month that will give me all the basic channels with no static. Tomorrow we'll have ABC back! YEA! :)


My father-in-law ordered us a new computer cause our laptop is super super super slow. I'm really excited. :)


We took the kids to the Dallas Zoo on Saturday and my parents came with us. We had alot of fun until it got way too hot to be outside. Ugh. Pictures:


Grammy with the kiddos and elephant fountain:

Kyler really liked watching the penguins swimming:

Daddy and his kiddos:

Mommy and the kiddos. I like our shirt colors all together. :)

Daddy was being silly and posing with Melissa like the statue of the gorilla and baby:

Melissa with Grammy and Pawpaw looking at a picture that Pawpaw took:

Melissa looking at the flamingos:

Kyler really likes the hotel here in town where my in-laws stay when they come because it has a water wall. As a matter of fact, he calls the hotel the-wall-of-water-hotel so he was quite pleased to see a water wall at the zoo. :)

Daddy and Melissa on the baby elephant statue:

Kyler's FOUR

I can't believe he's been four for over a week now. I kept meaning to update this but I've been super busy!


A few of Kyler's 4 year pictures - he did amazing for this session. We got great pictures!

A couple shots from his birthday party - more on Facebook, of course.

Kyler loved his cake - and loved even more that the Lightning and Mater on his cake were toys he could take home and play with (as if he needed more - he already had like 5 Lightnings and 3 Maters. :))

Kyler with his cousin, Heath

My funny kids

Yesterday morning Melissa was hanging out with us in bed after she woke up and she started a conversation with me about gender.
Her: Daddy and Kyler are boys.
Me: That's right. What about Mommy and Melissa. Are we doggies?
Her: No, we're girls!Me: Oh! What about Grammy and Aunt Kate. Are they kitties?
Her: No, girls!
Me: OH! Well, what about Pawpaw, Uncle Chris and Uncle Zach? Are they elephants?
Her: No, they're a hippo!

I just cracked up laughing. She's hilarious. :)


Yesterday evening Kyler was playing with all his new birthday toys and I guess Melissa was driving him crazy trying to play with them, too. But my little one is learning diplomacy, apparently. He turned very nicely to Melissa and said, "Melissa, you can sit in my new Cars chair, if you want to." Success! She thought that was a grand idea and it got her away from his new train track (for about 5 seconds). Later she was bugging him again so he said, "Melissa, you can play with my big Thomas train. It's in my room." HA! And then last night while Brian was putting them to bed while I was at the grocery store Kyler gave Melissa a big hug and said, "Thank you for playing with my train track with me today!" Such a sweet, SMART boy. :)

Pictures from his party coming ASAP. I can't believe I have a 4 year old!

Does it ever end?

Just FYI - this is a whiny post because I'm frustrated and feel like WHINING. So there. Read at your own risk.

Okay. Several weeks ago our dishwasher went out. Since then we've been washing dishes by hand until we could get someone out here to look at it. Not too big of a deal, but annoying.

Melissa has been sick 2 of the last 3 weeks. Thankfully we didn't have to pay to take her to the doctor the first time but we did last week. Plus a prescription.

Last week or the week before I noticed that our pipe was leaking under the sink. Not really something you can ignore. So a plumbing visit and over $100 dollars later, the leak is fixed.

I thought maybe we were done for awhile. Nope. Yesterday my washer went out. Can't really live without that one. Well, I COULD wash the clothes by hand, but I'm not that Little-House-on-the-Prairie, thank you very much.

So I called yesterday and made an appointment to have a guy come look at both of them Friday, hoping it would be an easy fix and by this weekend I would be able to wash dishes and clothes again. I can wait a few days, right? We have plenty of clothes.

WELL. This morning Kyler woke up throwing up. So. I NEED my washer! Brian stayed home with Kyler so I could go to work and we called and got the guy to come today instead of tomorrow. I thought, hey, he'll fix whatever's wrong and by the time I get home from work I can get all of this vomit-covered stuff washed. Is my luck ever that good?

Dishwasher - apparently had a leak we didn't know about for a while. Thankfully didn't mess up the floor or the wall, but it shorted out the motor on the dishwasher. Not worth paying to fix so we'll have to buy a new one. Great.

Washer - the transmission is dead. Not worth paying to fix so we'll, again, have to buy a new one. Fabulous.

Oh, yeah, I forgot. I think I might have pink eye. Praying that it's just allergies. I don't want to go to the doctor. It costs too much money.

Silver lining? Well, I didn't much like my washer or dishwasher anyway. Now I can pick out some I actually like. Even if I can't really afford it. At least I waited until the washer died and got both appliances checked out at the same time so I didn't have to pay for two repairman visits.......

Amazing sense of timing

I really don't know how she does it. Melissa managed to be sick on yet another holiday. Crazy child. Saturday night she started running a fever. I thought it was teething b/c she's cutting her two year molars. Sunday evening her fever shoots up to 103.5 and she starts having diarrhea. Yeah, more than teething. So I took her to the doctor today. Apparently it is some teething - and the beginnings of an ear infection (in both ears, actually). So the doctor gave me a Rx for antibiotics to fill if her fever continues through tomorrow.

Today she only napped for an hour and woke up crying so she's already in bed (I put her to bed at 6:15 - she was a grouchy little thing). What's funny (annoying) is that when we were at the doctor she had no fever and she was her regular little happy chatty self. Why do kids do that? I remember my mom complaining that we used to do that when we were kids, too. Weird.

Just a random side note. I used the abbreviation for prescription earlier - Rx. I don't understand that abbreviation. Where did it come from? I guess I could look it up but I'm lazy.

OH! Mother's Day! Almost forgot. I got to order my own, basically, b/c there was a picture I wanted to get to hang in our bedroom and new sheets for our bed so I ordered those. And then Brian and the kids got me a card and some Milano cookies and Blue Bell ice cream. :) We had a good time hanging out with my family and Brian's parents. Would have been better without a sick Melissa, but it was fun regardless.

Weddings

I've been in a few weddings over the years. I was the flower girl in my parents' wedding when I was 7, I was a bridesmaid in my cousin's wedding when I was 18 and I was a bridesmaid in my friend's wedding when Kyler was only about one month old. And, of course, I was the bride in my own wedding almost 6 years ago!

But I haven't even been to any weddings in almost 4 years but this year we're going to be overrun with weddings! Okay, there's just two, but when you add the bridal showers and bachelorette party and rehearsals, that' alot of wedding! One of my very best friends is getting married in August. Less than 3 months. Chara, you're crazy! Anyway, I'm a bridesmaid and Kyler and Melissa are going to be ring bearer and flower girl (how cute is that?). Plus we're having her bridal shower at my house.....

And then in October my brother is getting married and Brian's going to be a groomsman and Kyler's going to be a ring bearer. I'm trying to convince them they need two flower girls (their daughter, Hannah, is going to be the flower girl) because of course, by then, Melissa will have experience. :) But maybe I shouldn't convince them of that because at this point I'm wondering if we're going to need to take out a loan for wedding clothes and wedding/shower presents!

Kyler and Cars - and Melissa's pictures

Kyler loves the movie Cars. He has since before he turned 2. As a matter of fact, he had a Cars birthday party when he turned 2 and is having one again this year. In the past week or so the Cars obsession has risen to a new high...or low.

Our family members have become Cars characters. Seriously, he calls himself Lightning all the time. When I call him Kyler he corrects me.

Melissa is Sally. She sometimes even calls herself Sally. And the other day at Brookshire's the checkout lady asked Melissa what her name was and before Melissa or I could answer Kyler pipes up with, "She's Sally....and I'm Lightning!" I looked at her and told her I did NOT name my child Lightning. And that Melissa's name isn't Sally. The lady looked kinda confused.

Brian is Mack. And I'm Flo. He doesn't really call me Flo much, maybe because I don't respond to it. :D

Anyway, tonight...Brian was telling Kyler to do something and SERIOUSLY called the kid Lightning without even thinking about it. REALLY? Please, Lord, no. My children are named KYLER and MELISSA. I'm all for pretending. For a brief time. And then can we go back to real life?

Melissa's 2 year pictures:

Birthday Time!

I can't believe my little girl is 2 years old. Her birthday (burs-gay :)) was Friday and we had her party yesterday. It was supposed to be at the park but it rained (bleh) so we ended up having it at our house. I was a little worried about that cause my house isn't very big but it wasn't too crowded.... :)

Pictures!

A couple of pictures from the bluebonnets

I had to bribe my kids with ice cream to pose for me. :) They were good sports, though. Think I actually snapped about 75 pictures. They definitely earned their ice cream!

So on Friday Melissa got a runny nose and that night she woke up once during the night. Bad news. She NEVER wakes up unless she's sick or getting sick. I should have expected it, though. I mean, it was a holiday weekend. In case you haven't been reading my blog long, let me explain. My daughter apparently hates holidays. She had RSV her first Christmas and pneumonia her first Easter. She got sick this past Christmas on the 23rd and was doing breathing treatments all throught the holiday. So, naturally, allergies hit her yet again right before her second Easter. Shocker. She had a fever Saturday night so I missed the Easter church service for the second year in a row - ironic, isn't it, since that's the day when more people actually get up and go to church even if they don't regularly? Anyway, she didn't have a fever Sunday so we decided to go ahead with our lunch plans with my family. I was glad we did. We all had a good time. But apparently Melissa doesn't like Easter dresses either. Last year, when she had pneumonia, she threw up all over her dress. This year she fell and got a bloody nose and bled all over it. Poor kiddo, she just can't get a break!

Pictures from various Easter celebrations:
Waiting to get eggs at our MOMS Club Easter egg hunt.

Dyeing eggs. I put them in the bathtub to do it because then the mess just goes down the drain. Easy clean-up. In a couple years Kyler will be too old to let me take pictures of him in his underwear so then we'll probably dye eggs outside! :)

Church egg hunt:

Easter morning - checking out what the Easter Bunny brought....

Sick again

*Sigh* I wonder if Melissa is ever going to be well for Christmas or Easter. She is now officially sick - tonight she has a fever of 101 degrees. That means she's been sick for her 1st two Christmases and now her 1st two Easters. Geez Louis.

There were two in the crib.....

So my kiddos let me sleep until almost 8 this morning! Right about 7:50 I heard Meli chattering in her bed and then I heard Kyler's door open. So I started dragging myself out of bed. :) When I finally made it out of my room this is what I found......

As soon as I walked in Kyler stood up and looked at me with an uncertain expression - he thought I was gonna be mad cause I've told him not to get in Melissa's bed. But I just had to laugh and ask if I could take a picture! :) Did you notice that Melissa had already taken off her pajamas? I'm just glad Kyler went in there before she took off her diaper and wet her bed!

Scary movie and funny comments

So Disney's matinee movie club is doing this thing over the next couple months where every few weeks for one week they are showing an older Disney movie club every morning at 10 am. A couple weeks ago they showed Mulan. This week it's Tarzan. I loved Tarzan the one time I saw it when it came out. I thought, hey, Kyler would like to go to the movies! I'll take him to see it! Yeah, not a good idea. He was terrified of Sabor, the leopard in that movie. We had to leave about 30 minutes into it. If I'd really remembered how the movie went I probably wouldn't have taken him - it was pretty intense and made me a little nervous. No wonder he was scared.....

Oh well, we'll try again when they show Cars in April. He's seen that one about 20 million times so I'm sure he won't be scared of it on the big screen. :)

Recent comments I've heard from my goofy almost-4-year-old:

"God found my other shoe, Mommy. I prayed and He found it for me."

(Melissa's blowing razzberries) "Melissa, we don't spit in the house or the car. You know better." (She does it again) "Okay, that's a spanking!" (yeah, we had to have a talk about how he doesn't spank his sister even when he's pretending to be the Daddy and besides, since when has Mommy or Daddy ever spanked them for blowing razzberries????)

Today while we were at the movie he told me needed to go potty so we went out and he told me he didn't like that movie. He said, "I hope that movie is over for me but not for the other kids!" I guess he knew that the other kids liked it even if he didn't! :)


By the way, I am sitting here listening to my country songs playlist while I'm on the computer. Just have to say that I absolutely love "I'm Still a Guy" by Brad Paisley. Have ever since the first time I heard it. So hilarious.

My trip

Well, I've been home from Atlanta for two days and have now found the time to sit down and post about it. Let's see....highlights of the trip....almost missed our plane from DFW to Atlanta, that was exciting. Oh, and on the way home there was a Dallas Maverick on our flight. Have no idea who he was - just overheard a woman ask him if he played basketball and he said he played for Dallas.

Went to see Confessions of a Shopaholic and loved it. This is considered a highlight of the trip because I was really glad to get to see it while I was in Atlanta - Amanda was the one who got me into reading the books so it was fun to see it with her!) We got to go to a hockey game, which was really fabulous. Thanks, Amanda, for thinking of that idea! I like hockey. :)

Went to Medieval Times. That was fun even though our knight didn't win and wasn't very cute. Our server was REALLY cute, though. Really should have given him Amanda's number......

Played games and painted a picture (a tryptic (sp?) so that we could each take a piece home with us) Just have to figure out where to hang mine up.........

Enjoyed alot of girl time with my friends who I never see nearly enough. Lots of laughs and talks. Some light-hearted, some very enlightening.

I really loved seeing so many of the places that Amanda spends her time - now I'll know where she is when she says she's at home/work/church. :) Thanks for letting us come, Amanda! I had a great time! Thanks for going with me, Chara! I love you both so much!

Missed my hubby and my kiddos. They missed me, too. Kyler didn't want to leave my side after I came home and they both clung to me when I dropped them off at their classes at Mother's Day Out on Tuesday!

In exactly one week I will be at the airport preparing to board a plane with Chara headed to Atlanta to visit Amanda! I'm so excited to get to spend almost a week hanging out with my two very best friends! We haven't all three been together since the night before Melissa was born, which, unbelievably, was almost 2 years ago. I will miss my babies and my hubby, though, of course. I haven't slept away from him that many nights in a row since we got married. :)

In honor of my upcoming trip, pics from the last time we were all together -

Chara and Amanda painted my toenails that night - to give me something to focus on when I finally delivered Melissa (none of us realized it would be the next day!) Can you tell which feet belong to which face? Chara's are easy....... :)

And a picture of my 9-month-pregnant self that night. I can't believe that little girl who looked like a basketball under my shirt will be 2 in about a month. That's insane.

Conversations with my kids

Last weekend Kyler colored on the seat of my car while we were driving home from a visit with his grandparents. Yeah, I thought he knew that he was only supposed to color on the paper, but I won't make THAT mistake again. Anyway, yesterday we went to pick up my sister and when she looked back at the kids she said, "Who drew all over your seat???"

When I told her Kyler did it she asked him why he did it and if it was a nice thing to do. He just looked at her for a minute and then said, "Daddy already told me this."

She said, "Well, I'm telling you again. Was it a nice thing to do?" And he comes back with.....

"Only one grown-up can tell me about it!"

I don't know how he thought up that rule but it didn't fly with Aunt Kate! :)
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A couple of weeks ago we were at church and they had donuts in the lobby. I had already shared one with the kids before the service but after I picked them up from the nursery, Melissa wanted another one. My dad was holding her and she asked me for a donut. I told her she didn't need another one because we would be eating lunch soon. She scowled at me and turned to my dad with a sweet expression, "Donut, Pawpaw?"

Of course, he told her that Mommy had already told her she couldn't have another donut.

So she scowls at me again. And then....

She leans over and whispers in my dad's ear, "Donut, Pawpaw?"

Clever little thing but still....no donut for Melissa.

Matching

Melissa and I are really going to have to work on her fashion sense....I put an orange and white striped shirt on her this morning. She then comes to me with her pink house shoes and yellow socks wanting them on. I told her the yellow socks didn't match and she needed white ones (b/c she doesn't have orange ones) so then she says, "Wear purple socks!" I said white and she said, "Wear pink socks!" I said white and she then wanted blue. I laughed and asked if she wanted a different shirt on....she said, "Wear orange shirt!" So she decided she would wear the white socks....

THEN I told her she couldn't wear her house shoes because we were going outside and they are only inside shoes. So she picks her boots to wear. That's fine.....

And now her socks are completely covered by her boots so it wouldn't really have mattered what color socks she picked.........Hm.........

:)

Lazy Monday

We're apparently having a very lazy day here today. It's 10:45 and Melissa is still asleep and Kyler's been playing (mostly) quietly in his room since about 9. It's almost the time I normally give them lunch and about an hour before Melissa's usual naptime. Guess our schedule will be a bit off today. Oh well, what are Mondays for, anyway?

We had a very busy weekend and Melissa only got naps in the car - which means only about an hour each day cause that's the longest she'll nap in the car - so that's why she's sleeping so late today. I really really really wish Kyler was still sleeping too so that I could still be sleeping! The past three nights I've gone to bed way too late (around midnight - which is really late for me because I am one of those I-need-more-than-8-hours-each-night kind of people) and 2 of those nights Kyler woke up in the night crying about something or other. And LAST NIGHT he did that and was awake for about 2 hours. Good grief. He kept getting up and turning on his light (He turns his light on anytime he wakes up - even just to go to the bathroom. We're working on that....) and crying. Well, fake crying. It was more a screaming wail than anything else. He's always been a much better sleeper than this...at least since we got rid of the pacifier and he didn't wake up several times a night because he lost it and needed us to find it. Don't know what's going on with him right now but it has got to end because I'm too tired to deal with him in the middle of the night!

Good news - I'm down to the weight I was when I got pregnant with Melissa! Only 5 more lbs to go and I'll be back where I was before Kyler.... and then I can enjoy that for a while before I decide to put on more weight with baby #3. But my goal with baby #3 is to watch what I eat more closely so I don't gain as much as I did with the first two. We'll see how that goes - not sure I can give up my pregnant woman license-to-eat-whatever-I-want. :)

Different topic. Every year Brian does Lent. He's given up sweets a couple times because he has a huge sweet tooth. This year I think he's doing sweets and cereal (he would eat cereal for every meal if I would buy that much). And he wants me to do it with him. He wants us to both give up eating out. Ugh. That would definitely be a sacrifice....I love eating out. So much so that over the last 2 months I'm pretty sure I spent at least 75% of my Christmas money on eating out. I'm thinking about it.........

Valentine's Day

It's taken me a while to get around to posting, but here it is. We had a good Valentine's Day....the kiddos loved the gifts we got them. Usually I would just get them a little candy and maybe a little bear or something but they both found something at Wal-Mart last week that they LOVED and I couldn't resist. I knew they wouldn't play with a stuffed animal, anyway... We got Melissa an Elmo that blow kisses and says he loves her and that she's a sweetheart. It's cute. Not like she needed another Elmo (she now has FIVE) but she loves it, so it's okay. :) We gave Kyler a Disney Cars track that when you push a button, Lightning races down a track and "tips" tractors. And it has "Frank the scary tractor" so Kyler was in heaven. He played with it ALL weekend long.

Brian and I had a home date Saturday night. Got pizza and wings and watched a movie and just snuggled together for a while. Rented Nights in Rodanthe. It was okay, book was better, of course. :) And then Sunday Brian surprised me by having Kate come over to baby-sit and we went to lunch at Chili's and went bowling. But I bowled a 60. Are you kidding me? A 60???? It was horrible but not really my fault. The bowling place had crappy balls. I'm weak so I needed a light one but all of the light ones had holes that were too little for my fingers/thumb. And I have small fingers! Anyway, it was fun regardless..... I think I'll stick to Wii Bowling though...it's easier and WAY cheaper. I can't believe how much bowling costs!

Oh, here are a couple pictures from when Hannah was over...

It went pretty well but there are alot more things to think about when you have three kids! At least when I have baby #3 I will be starting with a newborn and my kids will be older - not adding a 14 month old in with my almost-2 and almost-4 year olds! I took the kids to Wal-Mart with me because I needed a few things and I swear people were looking at me and thinking, "Wow, she's been busy!" Come on, people, it wouldn't even be possible for the girls to both be mine!

Okay, I've really gotta get ready to go to work! Have a great day!