Garage Saling, Braums, and Sandbox Start

We started off our Saturday with pancakes and smoothies to-go and headed out for our first garage-saling trip of the season. We were hoping for patio furniture (no luck) but had a few other special finds. We enjoy going as a family and getting a few treasures. Lorelei was particularly thrilled for this trip, because she had $2 from Nana she had saved we told her she could spend. (Where else are you going to stretch $2 this far!? :)) She only spent 25 cents on two My Little Ponies, so I guess she will have to see what she comes up with next time. :) So fun.

And just when you think you have no room for any more toys...your husband decide he needs the most gigantic Legos ever. (Hey, I did talk him out of the popcorn machine he REALLY wanted.) They will be stored in the garage...if we can ever get them to stop playing with them. Gotta admit, the $7 has already been worth it with all the fun they have had.



We also still owed Lorelei her treat on Sunday. (On the paci front, it has been two weeks, and we are still working out the kinks. I think she took at least a week and a half before she finally quit asking for them every day. Now our challenge is that she is not sleeping as well. It takes her FOREVER to fall asleep, both at night and at nap, which equals out to nearly 2 hrs less sleep than she was getting before. This is after she wakes up early each morning now also. We are trying to get her to bed earlier, since she talks for nearly an hour some nights before crashing. And as you can imagine...this results is a crankier three year old all day. Hoping it will get better soon!) We have been counting the days until Braums (the super-amazing ice cream store) opened near us. It has been open a few weeks now, but thought this was a great chance to check out the new store and get Lorelei her long-awaited treat. She and Makin both picked birthday cake blue ice cream. It was sooo yummy!

We also got started on the sandbox. It is taking much longer than we thought. (Big surprise.) So may stretch over a few weeks to be completely done, but will be well worth it in the end! And have a I mentioned I LOVE that Brad can do this!? :) Not going to give you any sneak peaks...you will have to wait till its done! But man, they are gonna love it!

Grill Friday

Grill going. Drinks in hand. Kids playing. Love it.

Around The House

Seems like we have been around the house more lately...not sure if we have, or maybe I'm just trying to get more done while the kids play since they do SOME on their own now. :) Anyway, a few ways we have been keeping busy...

Lots and LOTS of Play-Doh. One thing they do very well on their own if I need to get something done.







They are very into being helpers lately. Washing the walls with Magic Eraser and dusting are top of the list. Lorelei's favorite is to help fold.







Water, water and more water. We have been able to enjoy tons of water time lately. In the top picture, Brad was just getting the sprinklers set to run more often and they were already in their suits so he wanted to see how Lorelei liked it. They are wanting to play in the water pretty much every day. So far its mostly the hose and sprinkler. Recently Lorelei made a water slide putting the hose on the slide with the play-house.
The other latest thing is to give the car swing, play house, etc a wash.

She is also loving twisting as high as she can and spinning in her swing.



Watering plants is now a daily group chore. I am usually just reminding them 100 times not to fill their watering cans too full and wiping up what they spill on the way to our plants. The plant count is now up for Spring when we got two pots of flowers...lets hope they last a while! The kids definitely love it.

Love my days.

Kites!

We surprised the kids with kites over Brad's lunch break on Thursday. We had planned to go to a park, but it just seemed easier to try it out in the backyard instead. The wind did not cooperate, but they had tons of fun anyway. They were so excited to have their very own! Can't wait to try them out again soon!

Lor's quote from the event: "Good job panda. I so proud of you!" :)

Terrific Tuesday

Another fun beach day! Sand and water is just the best combination to keep kids content. :) Love it! Loved the three kids in the parking lot as we were getting cars loaded up. They were singing Ring Around The Rosy over and over with giggles and smiles. :) I wonder how long it will be until Makin passes Kaitlyn up?! :) She is at least 2 in shorter than Lor!

The Burke family runs a little later schedule than we normally do. It was nice having some good down time in the morning before heading there at 10:30 AM (Ha, late for us!) and then both kids, Mom and Dad (we brought him one) were thrilled we hit Happy Hour at 2 pm so we could get Sonic drinks on the way home! Even kid's lemonade is better in a Styrofoam cup. ;)


And the BEST part of our day? Jerry and Joyce came to visit! They have had a LOT going on the last few months so we have been trying to get together for a while and were so glad we finally got to see them. The kids just love spending time with them and of course, we do too! Makin is usually a bit more hesitant than big sis but he ran out and gave hugs right away when they arrived. He also loved Patty Cake and Itsy Bitsy Spider. They ate up getting read to before bed. I was blessed to have a couple of wonderful "Non-Grandparents" like this in my life and it meant the world to me. So glad my kids have some too. Love having such special family friends!


And their next visit? A Columbus, Nebraska reunion at the end of June with our wonderful Volker family too! Cannot wait!

Sandwich of A Saturday

Saturday was sandwiched with fun/frustration/fun. :) As always, I had an ambitious list for us to get through, but it looked doable. We also had quite a bit of fun planned as well. One of the things I love about being a parent...no matter how crummy your day is with unfun adult stuff, usually the kids can brighten it, which was definitely the case today.

Fun: Pancakes and smoothies!

You may not know this about me, but I can eat my weight in pancakes. If we had a pancake eating contest, I would win. :) My kids have this same ability! :) We love em! We finally made a trip to Sams and got our favorite smoothie bag of fruit too! And even more exciting is that Makin actually drank his first one! (He usually doesn't like them.) Yay for another breakfast fruit option for Mr. Picky!



Frustration: Car troubles

As Brad was taking our car in to get new tires (this was part of the plan) he ended up basically blowing out a tire (no loud pop, but it was a totally useless, dead tire) on the way there. Amazingly, when he got there they moved him to the front of the line since he had been in to speak with them the day before and made an appointment (which he was obviously late for because of the tire change). Love them! Other good news along these lines...this did not happen to ME with two kids in the backseat. Brad told me there was no way I could have changed it myself as he could barely get the nuts off.

And then more bad news...when they had his car up to change the tires, they said it looked like he had an oil leak and suggested he get it looked at right away. Good news, they suggested a car place and apparently mentioning the managers name at Discount Tire scores you big points at car-fix-it place. Bad news...they had to order a part which was not in until 5 pm. Yep, all day at the car place. The good news is he got a ton of his computer stuff etc posted on Craigslist while waiting on the car. Other good news? Easy and cheap repairs included the filter (which was the thing leaking) and two things with the transmission. Again, Elizabeth not broken down with dead transmission with two kids in the car. And the last bit of good news along those lines? I now know how to spell transmission. :)

Fun: Camping!

Ever since Lorelei mentioned wanting to see a falling star, I had this date jotted down on the calendar to stay up late to try and watch the meteor shower. We had also been planning on her and Brad camping out sometime in the Spring. It seemed like a great idea to combine the two.

The girl was as excited as you would expect a kid to be going to Disney World. If you can imagine how loud and wound up she is normally...imagine it times ten!

What camping is complete without roasting marshmallows and making s'mores? Can you tell Brad picked up the marshmallows? They were the biggest I've ever seen. Lorelei gathered her own sticks for the campfire a few days before.

Silly Faces!

We had such a great time looking at the stars (by this time Makin was a sleep of course) but did not get to see a falling star as we had hoped. I went back out and checked at midnight and didn't see any either. Not sure if it was the timing or too much glow from the city lights. Guess we will have to plan a trip to the country to see one someday and be ready to stay up really late! Lorelei was not phased at all by not seeing one and loved looking and finding shapes in the sky. She made it until 9:45 before saying she was ready to go to sleep in the tent. Brad said it took her about 20 minutes to wind down before she finally fell asleep.



And they made it through the night! And yes Brad was grunting and groaning when they came into the house Sunday morning. Hard, hard ground and not much extra room in a kid-sized tent! What a good dad he is! Just loved how excited she was and making fun memories like this.

Suppertime Chatter...And More Chatty Notes

And some more notes I already jotted down...

Lorelei:

(Flipping through the songs on our Frig DJ, which is kids songs about numbers, letters etc.) "Mom! I can't find Crazy Girl!" (And for more explanation...I love country music, so we listen to that in the car some of the time, and for some reason the song Crazy Girl by Eli Young Band has become "her" song. She recognizes it and always asks me to turn it up for her. :))

She is very big on saying telling us she is so proud of us. One of the things Brad and I say often that I'm actually GLAD she picked up on. :) I was pretty amused the other day when I swatted a fly and she said, "I so proud of you!" :) I'll take the encouragement where I can get it! :)

She has also picked up on our list making. A couple of fun examples are when we were at the zoo and she was looking at the zoo map, which had pictures of animals on it. "Tigers - check! Zebras - check! Monkeys - not check!" When we were heading out the door the other day she said, "We've got shoes! Check!" :)

She is very big on Berenstain Bears books and now the few shoes we have seen as well as her My Little Pony Book. As we were looking at pictures from the pony book of Ponyville she said "Maybe that Witter Jones' (BB character) house. Maybe she has a pony."

"That Mama spit?!" (When I wipe her face.)

Makin is into saying "Hi" to people in the store now and I commented that he was being friendly. She followed up with, "I think I friendly too." :) Ya think? ;)

She is very into Jeeps. Brad and I got quite a chuckle today when she kept saying "Jeep jeep jeep!" She was insisting it was right next to us and we were insisting that it was a van, not a jeep. She said, "But I see the tire!" Apparently the tire on the back is what makes a vehicle a jeep :)

Makin:

He loves circles.

He always picks the color "boo" but does not know what it really is. Every color is "boo."

He is a major copycat. Especially copying Brad...well his sister is the obvious one, but he loves to copy Brad too. Coughing, folding his arms, whistling...:) Quite fun.

As mentioned, now says "Hi" to people in the store.

Most common word used currently is "Mip" (Milk) which he says all day long and over and over until you put his cup in his hands! :)

Lovin The Lake!

Another Wednesday at the lake! So far keeping our once-a-week plan. We met up with friends Kaitlyn and Hailey. They are both October birthdays right after our Sept ones, so the same age as both kids. AND their dad is a software engineer. AND they lived in North Carolina (I think) and have been to Virginia Beach because her sister lives in Newport News. And we met at Hobby Lobby because both girls wanted to play in the stuffed animals section. :) Small world! Kaitlyn is also a big fan of talking stuffed animals and playing puppy, so it is fun to watch the older girls together. So far the babies just mostly stare at each other of course. :) Again, they lots of time in the water, but a bit more sand this time mixed in. Loooooove it.

Arbor Hills Nature Preserve

Oh my goodness. I cannot say how glad I am that we ventured to this special spot! One of the ladies who runs Divine Consign mentioned it a while ago on Facebook, and I have had it jotted down planning to go for months now. Today was an absolutely gorgeous day with a high in the mid 70s. Perfect, perfect.

One of my new favorite pictures. :)

We saw tons of butterflies, Rollie Polies and a worm. They loved petting every dog they could that was walking on the main trails. We even got to check out some dog prints in the mud. So much fun exploring!

Lots of little hidden areas and loved the stream. There was one part of the trail where all you walked on was a rock across the small stream, and as you can see, down a hill and up a hill. So of course, had to take one kid at a time. Then, they both wanted to stay there to check out the water up-close. :)


Just had to show our little man. (Who looks so grown up in today's pictures. My goodness!) He had me carrying him the last part of our trek (Thank goodness not TOO long before we found our way to the car, since I had no idea where I was going. My sense of direction did save us a bit, thankfully!) and he suddenly squirmed out of my arms and ran to this spot on the sidewalk saying "Em! Em" :) Love that he knows HIS letter. Then, not only was I supposed to carry him, but he also needed my sunglasses. Guess I know to pack his next time!

I also told Lorelei the next time we go we will pack a backpack with lunch so that it doesn't matter where we are, we can just stop and eat. We were there a bit over two hours but Lorelei definitely would have liked to stay longer. Loved our morning.

Goodbye Pacis

Well, at 3 1/2 Lorelei finally said goodbye to her pacis. We were aiming to do it at age three, but for many reasons it got put off. We decided things have settled down and we have a couple of months before any trips, so now was ideal. It was a little heart-breaking for me...hard to describe but its just part of her that was still "little" with our girl who is getting so grown up.

We gave her about 5 days notice (although we had been mentioning it since she turned three, just not the exact day) and started talking about the paci fairy coming. She picked out her own box at the store and then drew on the inside and out with markers, then covering it with stickers as well.

Friday night was THE night. Since she had to package them up, she got to pick out stuffed animals to sleep with in place of the pacis. Because her stuffed animals were currently taken away for punishment, this was an extra-special treat. I told her she could pick out any she wanted. As she went into the laundry room (the taken-away toy area) she said, "Hi guys!" to her bagful of stuffed animals. She picked up as many as she could possibly carry and took them to sleep with. Since she has so many of these already, we had a hard time justifying getting a new one for the occasion, and this seemed to be fine with her.

And the paci fairy came! And she even left "farkles"! :) It was so fun hearing Lorelei on the monitor completely surprised and saying in a whisper of excitement, "The paci fairy came!" After she called us into her room she made sure to show her dolls and said, "Look Christina! (Only named that because she was my cabbage patch doll. If Lorelei named her it would probably be Braidy Braid. :) ) The paci fairy came! And she left farkles!" Lorelei got an official certificate along with a note from the paci fairy that she was to have a fun afternoon celebrating with bowling and a treat for being such a big girl!



Saturday nap was very rough with her crying for her pacis.

Bowling that afternoon was a lot of fun. Both kids were ecstatic. They loved cheering for each other. Makin loved raising his arms up and yelling, "yeah!" When Brad would bowl Lorelei would say, "Remember Daddy, hit lots of pins, okay?" They used a children's bowling metal ramp thing about half the time and then rolled it the other half. There was also a laser lights show for part of the time and they loved dancing and running around chasing the lights. Brad was glad it only lasted about 10 minutes as they were a bit distracted from the bowling. :) Lots of fun to take them both for their first bowling ever!

Since it was already late, we decided to save the treat for another day.

Saturday night she did great. Sunday she did very good also, still asking for them each time for bed and sometimes during the day too, but no crying...so assuming we are going to make it through just fine. On Sunday morning we were talking about it at breakfast and she said, "I hope my pacis are okay." :( We reassured her that the paci fairy would take good care of them. But, broke my heart a little.

Power Outage

We woke up to Lorelei screaming her head off around 4 AM, letting us know the power had gone out. (Her room is as bright as day with her lamp on, so she noticed even in her sleep!) There was a LOT of rain and heavy winds. (Thankful no tornado as lots of people had north of us.) Although they estimated it to be fixed by 8 AM, it was not back on until around 1 o clock. Boy are we spoiled with electricity! :) And we were still spoiled, as we simply had to go pick up pizza for lunch since Little Elm had no problem with their power! :)

We kept busy with shadow puppets and puddle splashing. :)

Shopping Date Night

Who doesn't want to go swim suit shopping for date night? ;)

We only made it to the third date night before I made it into a shopping trip! :) April's date night was swim suit shopping. :) I have not gotten a new one in 7 years and decided I was due for a new one. Lucky for Brad, I had done my research online so it was relatively painless. We did stop and get drinks at Sonic on the way for a treat! :) A little over 2 hours of uninterrupted talking was quite a treat too. :)

(We asked Lorelei to take our picture. She was super-excited since I never let her touch my camera. :) Just need to work on centering the people in the picture. ;) )

Tidbits

There are so many moments with Makin that make us smile and it so much harder to jot down his cute little quirks than to write down Lorelei's quotes! So here is my best shot...

When Lorelei is sent to her room or something similar he just started giving me this big sigh like, "what are we going to do with her?" :)

He is getting quite exasperated at the fact I still don't understand him as much as he thinks I should. "Fork" for instance, is one I usually take FOREVER to get. "Ka" ?? Who wouldn't know that was fork? ;) Anyway, he points to the cabinet as he says it and as I said "oh fork!?" He nodded his head with a huge relief that I got it so quickly. :)

After some one-on-one I noticed he is pretty good at puzzles! :)

He loves to pretend to be a puppy, especially with big sister.

He loves to run charging at our legs and give us a big leg hug.



And of course, our girl keeps us smiling constantly as well. A few of her latest quotes...(some from probably over a month ago...ooops)

"Uh oh. We can't play in my room. There was a tomato, Mommy." :) This was before all the tornado drama. Apparently I have used the term, "looks like a tornado hit here" a few times!

As I was cleaning up their room and complaining that they weren't helping me with their mess Lorelei just said, "You can put one sticker on my sticker chart."

(As Brad was working to hang frames up...) "We not supposed to draw on walls!"

She starts many sentences, "I have exciting news..."

A few weeks ago we were talking about watching Dancing With The Stars and let her watch the first few minutes of it. She was extremely disappointed and kept asking where the stars were... :) Then I was telling her about watching the meteor shower next weekend and how we could watch the stars fall. She said, "Just stars? Not people?" :) I don't know...people falling from the sky would be pretty interesting too. ;)

Her other favorite phrase right now is, "He is so CUTE." May try to get a video of this one. Fun to watch her playing with how she says things. This mostly applies to Makin, dogs and babies.

Matching Owies

These two are so tight, even their owies match! ;) Same owie on exact same finger. Weird right?! :)

Beach At The Lake

Great way to spend our Wednesday morning! So much fun. I expected a little water and a lot of sand play this time...but the water was not that cold and they were pretty much all water! Hoping to go at least once a week until it starts to get too hot. :) So glad we are so close to the lake!

Happy Easter Again!

Early morning craziness. :) Lorelei and Brad loved eating the eggs for breakfast. She loves them like her dad! Of course, that was after she ate her entire chocolate bunny. :) They loved hunting for their baskets! After the candy they loved playing with the new play-doh as well!



Just trying to get a few cute Easter shots! :) We stopped at a little gazebo on the way home from church.

While we ate lunch it started to downpour! It rained for several hours and turned our yard into a river. We all got a nap in so that was wonderful!


Finally the rain cleared up so they were thrilled to take out a few of their new bubbles! The bottom right pic of Makin just cracks us up! :) They loooooooved lots of bubble time.

Then we ventured out into the swamp-like yard for about 5 egg hunts. Loved it!

The Easter Bunny brought crosses for each room which they were very excited to get hung up tonight!

Hope you all had a wonderful Easter!

Happy Easter

Easter Eve

Since a full day at the Dallas Arboretum didn't seem like enough, ;) we got home and immediately started dying Easter eggs. And after that I made cupcakes and Jello, but that was it as we had a very low-maintenance Easter planned for the next day.

Lorelei was super excited for dying eggs. Brad and I got to practice our patience for sure, but we ended up being thankful for only having 15 eggs to dye! :)

Lorelei made sure to set out some carrots for the Easter Bunny next to our baskets.

Dallas Arboretum

I have been looking forward to getting to the Dallas Arboretum to check out "The Dallas Blooms" since last spring. We thought the Saturday before Easter would be a great chance to go. They had special events for the occasion, as well as it would be something special for us to do rather than being sad we were not seeing our families. (Both have requested summer visits, which we are super-excited about!)

It was an absolutely perfect gorgeous day. The only down side was that we took a risk taking the kids to the Good Friday service the night before. We knew it might give us some problems, but thought it was a good priority to try. (I was quickly reminded why we have not gone since kids...but glad we gave it a shot.) The kids were extra-prone to melt-downs and there were a few kinks on knowing the timing of the events...but we will leave it at that. :) Overall we enjoyed it and were so glad to get some extra-fun family time.


Just a few pretty spots.

Its Texas...so everywhere you go has some other version of a Texas town. They are so in love with themselves here. :) I actually loved this part. It gave us a chance to show Lorelei some history! It was such fun explaining the covered wagon and farm equipment etc. to her now that she is old enough to learn about it! :)

We enjoyed our picnic lunch as we waited for the petting zoo to start. I was laughing so hard at Makin, who saw an ant climbing the tree and immediately picked up Brad's shoe to smash it. :) I train them well!

The petting zoo. They loved it so much!!! As you can see, we were right in there with the animals. There were goats, sheep, and a horse and chicken that were in their own pen instead of roaming around with the rest of them.

Then we waited to get a picture taken with a live bunny! This was one of the things Lorelei was most looking forward to. Since it was with professional photographers, we don't have a copy of the picture yet. She loooooved getting to pet it and they were miracle workers getting Makin to stop crying, so we are excited to see the pictures when they are ready. Guess we will have to post them separately! And we were just thankful they were not as expensive as Santa pictures. :)

Brad spotted a caterpillar on the sidewalk! They were so excited to see it. After he got it on Lorelei's hand with a leaf, Makin was dying for a turn. When it was finally his turn...well you can see his reaction. :) Then they put it down in some plants so people wouldn't step on the poor guy!


And the last big event...face painting! There was a long, long line for this. But, we lucked out that it was right next to a fountain water play area! The kids were happy to splash around and play while Brad and I took turns standing in line. :) Yay! Lorelei chose a panda and Makin was not thrilled with the idea of some stranger painting his face, so he got a star on his arm. :) Lorelei was soooo proud of her panda face. :)

Then we took a walk around to check out a little more of the gardens before calling it a day around 2:40 or so. And neither child slept in the car...which means Makin had a 20 min nap on my shoulder and Lorelei had none... :)

Sunny Morning