Red Lobster night with the grands!

We haven't taken a lot of pictures lately so I decided to take some random pics. This is what we came up with tonight.


I didn't know that Micah took a picture this close up... hello Kim! haha.


Finger lickin good!



Ketchup is yummy. What cuties!



Goofy faces.

Meemo's goofy face

Micah's goofy face.

Micah's photography.

In the car on the way home I got bored. This is me acting like I'm cool. HeHe.

What a good picture of me and my hubby.

LLLLLICK!

CHEEEEEESE!

What?!?!?

My two cuties!

The grands... beautiful couple! They've been married 49 years! WOW!

Grandpa and Nattie. Eat little girl!

My Syssa Sue with her Meemo.

Busy Busy

So here it is March already and I haven't blogged since January and I have lots of good reasons why. I started doing a preschool/daycare type thing at my church called Mother's Day Out. I teach kids that started in September at 19-24 months old. Now they are all over 2. It's on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9-2 so I'm gone just about all day Tuesdays with the girls' gymnastics class after Mother's Day Out. Thursdays I'm also gone most of the day. In between I do chores water my lawn that I don't want to die and spend as much time with my little ones as I can before they think they're too old for their mom. I am trying to make a better schedule so I'll be able to do the fun things I love to do like scrapbook, cross stitch, blog, etc etc etc. I need to get a lot of my stuff sorted and put away and then I will be fine. Hopefully I can get that done soon. Just rest assured that we are happy here and mostly healthy and are loving life.

I said mostly healthy because I am going to be going to an ENT (Ear, Nose, and Throat) dr on Wednesday because I lost my voice about 5 weeks ago and it still hasn't come back completely. I've been told it can be many different things so I'm going to go and see if I can get it taken care of before it turns into something bad. I'm not nervous at all but I'd really like my voice back completely really soon. I'll post again when I figure out a good schedule. Until then, I hope you live in joy and happiness
:-)

GYMNASTICS

Alyssa and Samara started gymnastics yesterday. They loved it. We went to check it out last Tuesday and while we were watching I could barely restrain them from going to the classes that they would be going to. They went for the first day and bounced on trampolines, did uneven bars, did the floor etc. We are excited for them to start doing something to expell their energy and they are so excited for something new and exciting. I think I've found a piano teacher for Alyssa as well but I haven't contacted her yet. I'll keep y'all (I had to do it since I'm in Texas now) posted on all that we are up to.

Our church also has this thing called Mother's Day Out where you take your kids from 9-2 on Tuesday and Thursday mornings and they get to learn about Jesus and letters etc. They are getting an actual curriculum for next year and are opening up three more classrooms so they need more people to teach. It will earn me a little extra money and get Samara and Natalie in for free and I love to teach little kids especially about Jesus so I decided that I'm going to be a teacher next year for Mother's Day Out. (It starts in August again.) This year though they needed some help because there are quite a few people that are going to be out of town or even when someone gets sick or the like that they need a substitute teacher. I substituted on Thursday and yesterday and I loved it. I subbed for the 12-18 month olds. Tomorrow I'm going to be subbing for the 3-4 year olds (Samara's class). I think Natalie would do better in her class if I wasn't in there with her but I think Samara might do just as well. We'll try it out tomorrow and if doens't work out to have Samara in my class then for next year I will just do a different age group. It's a great opportunity and I'm so glad that the Lord has provided this for me.

Popcorn

Last night I popped some popcorn for myself and didn't eat the whole bag so this morning when the girls got up and Syssa went off to school Nattie and Mara asked if they could have some of the leftover popcorn. I told them, "sure you can each have a handful after you finish eating your oatmeal". Nattie got done and got her handful of popcorn and then Mara got done and wanted her handful as well. She ran over to the popcorn bowl and put her tiny hand in. I said, "no, let Mommy get your handful." I thought she was going to fight me on it but she didn't and quietly sat back down in her chair and waited.

Now this doesn't seem like a "spiritual story". But I thought about something that happens I think quite a bit in my own life. God tells us that he has a great big handful of popcorn waiting for us, but we want to get our own handful of popcorn. We want to do everything ourselves. So in the end we end up with a human-sized handful of popcorn instead of a God-sized handful of popcorn! Wow, how many times do I do that and wonder why the help of God isn't coming. It's because I have stuck my hand in the popcorn bowl and won't let God in.

I just wanted to share that with everybody today and I hope you are all blessed because of it.

Gift Exchange

Every year we do a Christmas gift exchange with my siblings and my neices and nephews so that it cuts the cost of what we would be spending on everybody. I have 7 siblings with 3 married and my mom has 10 grandchildren so you could imagine what that big bill would look like if we didn't do things this way. This year we decided to do T-shirts. Melissa had Micah, Jack had Kim, and Chantel had Natalie. Here is what we got this year. They are too fun.

It fits Micah perfectly

Pie, Ice Cream, and a bath

Today for dinner we did something new. We had a rather late lunch so for dinner we decided to have apple pie and ice cream and that's it. Believe it or not the girls didn't eat much... I guess it was too sweet... but when we asked them if they wanted anything else they said no. I'll bet the ate too much for lunch. Even though I didn't think it was a good idea at first the girls loved it! They were so happy that they were allowed to just be kids. After that of course they were a mess. In our new house we have quite a big tub in the Master bath. I love it so I thought I'd share it with my wonderful kiddos. They had a great time splashing around. They did get a little too out of hand so I had to tell them to stop splashing so much. Then, after that we got to play Disney's Scene It with the girls. Nattie didn't understand that she wasn't supposed to take the pieces off the board so we tried to remember where we were. We had a great night. I hope all of you had a great night too.

Box fun

We are moving into our new house so of course we have a ton of boxes! Alyssa had a good idea to color on the boxes. They made snowmen and houses and lots of scribbles. I didn't happent to take any pictures of the decorated boxes but they were really cute.

Back tracking.

For those who don't believe it snowed in San Antonio a couple weeks ago I have pictures. Now I know it's not a lot but there was snow. I know it was a while ago but here you go.

Ears

I meant to post this picture with the other post. This is Alyssa's beautiful ears... pierced.

Grandma Sue's bought dresses

Every year Grandma Sue gets the girls Christmas dresses. These are the dresses that they got this year. Thanks Grandma Sue they are so adorable.

Alyssa got her ears pierced

I have been wanting to get Alyssa's ears pierced for a really long time and Micah was really nervous to get them done because she is so young. Mama Jay, Grandpa Ozzie, Auntie Erin, Alyssa and I all asked Micah if it would be ok to get them done for Christmas this year. Yesterday for Christmas Eve day Micah finally said that she could. But not after Micah telling her that it was going to hurt really bad and that she was going to bleed all over the place. He has never gotten his ears pierced so the girls in the family who have gotten their ears pierced comforted her and told her that it would probably hurt but it usually doesn't bleed at all. She was so brave yesterday as she sat really still so that the ladies at Claire's could pierce her ears both at the same time. She cried a little but I was so proud of her for being so brave. She got to pick out her earrings and they are small yellow gold balls. They look so good on her. She's growing up too fast!! She loves them and says that it was worth it.

Not a lot of Pictures

I know I haven't been posting a lot lately but there's really not a lot to post about right now. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving... there's so much to be thankful for... and Micah's sister was able to come spend it with us which was really nice. We close on our house on Friday which I'm extatic about! I know I will have a lot of pictures to post after we get in our house and get our other computer set up and get the pictures uploaded to it. I hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I can't believe Christmas is just around the corner! My next post should have pictures, but until then stay safe!

Church

We are looking for a new church home since we moved. Last week we went to a HUGE church. I don't know how many people go to it but to give you an idea they have a Saturday 6:00PM service and 3 Sunday morning services. We have never been members of a big church before, we went to Brownsville where the revival was going on for about a month but no more than that. So we had to park in the dirt which we don't have a problem with. We walked in and they had 4 nurseries, one for the infants, one up to 16 months, one from 16-24 months and then one for 2-3 years old. It was amazing. Then we kept walking and they had a coffee shop and like a small cafeteria. They then had where you register your kids for children's church and nursery. It was a huge registration area. Once you register your kids and get a picture of your kids you get a number and a sticker that has their name and information on it which you have to have when you pick them up. There is also a separate whole youth building and grades 3-6 meet in the HUGE gym. Then, when we got to the service, we went at like 10:00, the service was packed so we had to sit in the balcony. Natalie didn't have a good time so they called me and she had been screaming. We started back for the balcony when somebody told me about the "wiggle giggle room". It's a room that just has a window in front for a wall and a speaker inside so you could still hear and see the preacher. It was quite cool but a little overwhelming. We might go back for a Saturday service to see how that goes but we just felt lost.

Since we are in the process of buying a house we decided to go to a church that was closer to it. It was an okay sized church and they announced today that they broke 400 people for their 2 services. We went to the 11:00 service but decided that if we picked this church as our home we would probably go to the 9:00 service. They are building a new building that is supposed to be done Spring of 2009. We really liked it but again we want to go at 9:00 and see what it's like for that service. There is one more church that I want to go to before we decide on a church anyway so we might be checking out these churches back and forth until we feel God pulling us in one direction or another. Pray for us to find a church quickly so we can start making friends quickly. Oh, and we met somebody today who has all blonde little girls that are 6, 4, and 1. I thought that was a sign. ;-)

Wake up Daddy

This morning the girls attacked Daddy in bed. How can you get mad at those faces waking you up in the morning?

Ozzie was making fun of me for taking dark pictures and I couldn't get pictures of the backyard because it was too dark last time we were up at the house so I decided to take a picture of the front of the house while it was light out and then a couple pictures of the yard and the back of the house. Now Ozzie you can find something new to complain about.

Notice the sold sign in the yard. We are not taking a picture in front of it until the day we close so that we don't jinx ourselves. ;-)

New House?

The search is over!!! After looking at 75 houses with our poor realtor and our kids going in and out of houses for almost a week straight we finally found the one we've been waiting for. We wanted to look at as many houses as we could before deciding on one and Micah has to go back to work soon so we were trying to find what was going to work best for us. WE FINALLY FOUND IT!!! We were trying to stay away from new homes since most of the homes that are new are going to be hard to resale in the future since they will be building in that area for 8-10 years so we decided we'd go with a preowned home which was fine with us. On the final house that we had to look at we decided that we wanted to just look at a new house so our realtor said there was a neighborhood that was new that would be building for only about another year and a half so resale would be good but it was farther away from Micah's work than we originally wanted. We took the drive and it's going to be a long drive to and from work but for the location and the schools that our girls will be going to, I think it will be worth it. Something about this home just feels right. Now you know that anything can happen before closing so it's not definite yet but we've started the paperwork and we're on our way to our first home! Those that know me well know that I've been longing for this day for a VERY long time. Check out the pictures. There will be more backyard pictures and even some front pictures coming soon, hopefully.

The outside. It has a front porch.

Tilt your head to the right and this is our front door.

When you walk into the house and turn to look at the front that's where this picture is. It's probably going to be where our computer goes.


This is on the other end of the computer room and it will be our formal dining room at some point. I'm not sure what it will be until that point yet but I'll figure something out I'm sure.

The family room and the windows looking out to the back. I know some of these pictures aren't the best. I took them at night. I will be getting more pictures later in the daytime though.


The downstairs bathroom. There is also a bedroom downstairs that we are going to use as the guest bedroom and when I get my treadmill that will go in there too.

The garage door has what's called the I-Drive. It doens't run off of a chain so it's not as loud and it gives a little chirp when it has opened all the way. It's actually quite cool.

Another one of my very favorite things about this house are the appliances. They are black and stainless steel which I'm in love with.

The dishwasher is one that has the disposal at the bottom of it so you don't have to worry about rinsing your dishes until they are clean before cleaning them in the dishwasher.

I love the microwave above the stove as well and there is the splash tile on the wall above the counter. The counters are made of laminate which I've never heard of but it has the look of granite but is easier to take care of. I hope I like it because I've never heard of it.

The kitchen. Look at all the outlets on the countertops! Look at all the counter space! Also there's an outlet on the island which I'm also thrilled about.

The breakfast nook. In the window, you can't really tell, there is a little bench where I could put some pillows to sit on and look out. Also there are no blinds in the house but part of the deal with buying the house was that they will put in white faux wood blinds. I'm really excited about that because they normally cost between 60 and 130 dollars.

The pantry.

This is upstairs. The balcony and railing instead of a wall.

This is taken out of the gameroom facing the Master Bedroom.


Looking into the Master Bathroom.

The master tub.

Double sinks! Yeah!

Separate shower. It also has a separate toilet but I didn't post just the toilet.

The utility room, washer and dryer hookups, are upstairs which I really love that too.

The upstairs bathroom.

The closets have these kind of doors not sliding doors.

This is Micah and I pulling the Available sign out of the ground. They put a sold sign in the ground but I'm not taking a picture in front of that until the day we close.

So that's it. Wish us luck with the paperwork and our move. I can't wait for everyone to come see us and see our house when we get it.