Our Second Field Trip

Elizabeth and her class had her second field trip at Double Dave's pizza. Here is Elizabeth with her friend Isabella.

Can you tell she had been crying? It was very strange. She was totally fine and then our class and the other 4 year old class that was there with us all went into the back room to watch how they make pizza dough. I guess she got a little overwhelmed and started crying, not wanting to leave my side. It was funny because one of the other moms thought she was crying because she couldn't see so they were all trying to move kids out of the way so she could get up close...I had to say, nope, she wants to stay right by my side. We had to have a little talk about Elizabeth participating at field trips or else mom couldn't go with at the next one! :) She was much better after that.

Elizabeth's teacher was very smart and brought an activity to keep the kids occupied while they had to wait their turn to make pizza.

Now it's Elizabeth's turn to make pizza. They got to spread their own sauce

and add cheese.

It was so good! ( I should know because I ate a few pieces of it!)

Trying to get 12 four and five year olds to look all at the same time.

They all look when it's time to be silly!

We're In! (and we finally have internet!!)

I realized I have been really bad about taking pictures these past 2 weeks while we have been moving. I've just been trying to move as quickly as possible because I really don't like living out of boxes. This is our house the day after we closed. When we closed we still had all that snow on the ground so we were glad the movers weren't coming until the next weekend.

Here's Tom the night we closed, looking ecstatic - don't you think? Jessica was nice enough to babysit our kids overnight so we had the whole night to ourselves. We didn't spend the night though - no beds or anything - so we just went back to the apartment for the night.

Skip ahead a week and the movers had come and we were all over at our house with my mom frantically working in the kitchen for me. She LOVES to organize so she had fun cleaning and organizing "her" kitchen. She already gave me all the rules when I opened a new box and put things away without her being around. She didn't want me to mess up the kitchen! ;)
Hanging out one day during the week before we got our furniture.

Here's all the work my mom had to do. She washed every dish before it was put away so she was pretty busy! I'll have to post some after pictures but I want to paint some things first! (which will probably not be for a few months, but we'll see!)

Here's the playroom the day after we closed. Tom and I brought some toys over to occupy the kids while we worked. It's pretty bare in this picture.


Here's the after! Crammed full of toys. My sister in law Nancy, niece Maria, and my mother in law all helped me organize and put away all the toys and furniture.


Here's one side of the room.
Here's Cooper and Ben taking advantage of all the toys that have been packed away for 6 months!
My mom and Elizabeth in another corner of the room.
Here's the kitchen area (one of my favorites!)

Jackson can now sit up like such a big boy!
That's the first draft of the playroom. I'm still trying to figure out how to paint it and decorate it. That won't be for a while I imagine!
I just thought this picture is funny. It's Ben in his tiny bed in his new bedroom. Cooper, Elizabeth, and Ben are all trying to sleep and I thought they just looked so cute and little in this room! The room's not that big, but it's pretty empty so they look so little.

As I said, I haven't taken too many pictures. As rooms get a little more completed I'll try to post more. Thank you so much to all of our family for babysitting and helping us move. We also had lots of friends offer to help so thank you so much to all of you! We couldn't have done it without you!

Quick Update

Hi all! We are officially in our new house for good! We still have no internet/phone/or cable (yikes!!) so I won't be posting for a few more days. (I'm over at the apt. gathering a few more things so I'm accessing the internet here.) We also don't have a refrigerator yet (another long story!) but hopefully it's finally coming tomorrow. I'm so used to these creature comforts it's hard to know what to do without them! So, hopefully we'll be up and running and back to normal soon. I've missed reading all of your blogs, I have a feeling I'll have to spend a few hours catching up on how everyone is doing once I have the internet!!

Fun in the Snow

For those of you who didn't know (maybe some of my MN/KS people!) we got about 10 inches of snow here in TX. The following are just a whole bunch of pictures we got in the snow that day. The dog and Ben loved it the best. Elizabeth loved it too, but not as much as the boys did!

Tom got to enjoy it with us for a few minutes before he went to work. Once he got home from work he made us all get back in all our clothes (we had just come in from outside) so we could go out again. He loved it just as much as the kids! (I did too, actually. It was so much fun to make snowballs and snowmen again...I haven't done it in years!)

Snowball fight!

Trying to eat the snow.

I tried to explain to Ben what a snow angel was. He kind of got it! :) It was hard to see once he got up and kind of stepped all over his angel!

He was trying to do somersaults!

Now both of my kids want to go to MN next winter so we can have more of this white stuff! We might just have to do that!

We Have a House!!

We were able to close on the house on Friday, and we are so excited! We aren't moving until next weekend (thank goodness since there was a foot of snow on the ground yesterday) so we have just been spending some time at the house sealing grout, cleaning bathrooms, and moving car loads of stuff over - really fun, exciting stuff.

Earlier in the week I made some treats for the kid's teachers and then let Ben and Elizabeth go to town with the extra icing in the bags. They made a huge mess but had a ton of fun.

These are the finished products. They are cake balls made to look like truffles. They don't look so cute all spread out here but looked really cute in the little candy boxes (picture above).

Elizabeth also had PJ day at school this week and thought it was very cool to be going to school in her pajamas.

I'll try to get a picture of the house up soon but it really looks the same as all the others, no furniture yet! We're so excited!!!

Playing in the Apt

Not so sadly, this will probably be our last play date in our lovely apartment. My friend Allison and her daughter Emily, and Jessica and her kiddos all came over last Thursday to play. Unfortunately Elizabeth had school, so she missed out on all the fun.
Emily was very infatuated with baby Jackson.
She wanted to be right next to him and didn't care if he was all over her. (He looks as big as her in this picture!)
Cooper and Ben were having their own fun time in the this photo!
This photo kind of reminds me of something my kids have been talking about recently. I guess in Elizabeth's school it's all the rage to talk about who they are going to marry - isn't that great! Elizabeth will say, "I asked such and such if they would marry me, but they are already marrying someone else, so I asked someone else instead and he said yes." I can't believe they talk about stuff like that! The reason this picture reminds me of that is the talk has filtered down to home and now Elizabeth and Ben say they are going to marry each other (and she must have said that to one of the boys at school and he told her that she couldn't marry her brother! :) They also say I am going to marry mom, dad, etc... The latest is Ben saying he's going to marry Cooper. I love it that they are so innocent and will go on and on about stuff like that. I am not looking forward to the day when all that innocence is gone and they know it's not ok to marry mom, dad, brother, or cousin!)

Back to our play date. The kids had fun playing cars, which is always a favorite around our house.

And more fighting over baby Jackson.

Later that evening, after everyone went home, Ben discovered mommy's shoes. It wasn't the first time!

Daddy would love this picture! Now all Ben needs is some red toenails!

"Sick" Day

So I haven't posted in a while because we're pretty boring around here! Even when we do go somewhere or see friends, I seem to keep forgetting my camera. So, I finally snapped a few shots around the house the other day.

Elizabeth stayed home from school Tuesday because she was "sick". She did have an actual cold and when she woke up Tuesday morning she couldn't quit coughing and was kind of crying, just not acting like her normal self. I called school and told them she wasn't coming and by then she was pretty much done with the coughing and seemed great (of course). I think she just had that early morning cough/phlegm that didn't want to come out. So, we had a fun day lazing around. I told her she still needed to rest so she would feel better.

Ben enjoyed all the resting too, that meant he could watch TV too!

The next day the kids had gymnastics/dance and Ben just had too much fun and conked out on the way home. Check out his messy face. I had to take his picture with the chocolate all over his face. We had ice cream sundaes on our way home. We have started incentive charts at my house because Elizabeth has to wear a patch on one eye every day for 2 hours. It started off not so bad and recently it became a huge chore to get her to wear it. She hates it! So she now gets a sticker every day and once she wears it for 7 days we go get a treat. I knew Ben needed something to work towards also so his has to do to with going potty by himself (without his mom accompanying him every time!) It's working so far - not so much complaining when it comes time to put our patch on - so I guess that's successful!

As you can see when we got home Ben did not stay asleep but only wanted to be held. When I put him down so I could make dinner he screamed and cried like this on the floor for over 20 min. - until I picked him up. A little tired I think?!?

(I know the pictures are turned - I was too lazy to go back and fix them!)

Then I started tickling him with my foot and those screaming tears turned instantly into laughter. As soon as his mommy is there to hold him he is a different kid :) What a mommy's boy! So, not much going on here but we close on our house in one week - yay!