Sitting Up

Our little sweetness is sitting up by herself now! She still has the tendency to fall backwards, so I try to keep her against the couch or chair, but she is actually content to play now! I just put her little basket of toys in front of her, and she takes her time pulling everything out to ultimately gum on her links :) She's also getting up on her hands and knees and rocking quite a bit--but no crawling yet.

Jus Fi Min-us

This is our usual nighttime activity before putting the kids to bed. They ask if they can play on Daddy for "just five minutes." :) I'm not sure if it actually tires them out a little more or just re-wires them :)

Sweet Girls

MJ wanted some pics with her little sis :)

Mikaela Funny

Today, the letter Mikaela was focusing on writing was a lowercase t, so there was a turtle on the back for us to talk about and color. After coloring, she asked me if she could name her turtle Tee-oder and informed me that it started with t like turtle. Well, she was adding a few more things to her picture--she usually gives the animals earrings and bracelets, etc :) but today, she wanted to color the ground magenta. She asked me what color it was, and I showed her where it was on the color and how to pronounce it. So a few minutes later, she that her turtle wasn't Tee-oder anymore, it was Magenta. She said her turtle (a girl) didn't like the name Tee-oder and wanted to be called Magenta instead :)
______________________

MJ had just read a story to me about Elijah being fed by the ravens--he'd had to run away b/c he was scared of the king. So she wanted to know who the king was; I told her his name was Ahab and that he was very evil, and Jezebel was his wife and that she was even more evil. So as I was making my bed, she kept telling me that we have a nice Jezebel--the baby that was just born out of her (MJ's) tummy. I pretty much forbid her to name her "child" Jezebel--she wasn't happy with me at all and kept telling me that this was a nice Jezebel, not an evil one. Sorry--I don't need any Jezebels in this house :)

Awww!

Well, this is what I walked into the dining room to find this morning! This was TOTALLY a surprise! You have to remember that our home is my domain--a very small (cozy :) ) domain. You don't get by with very much without me knowing about it almost immediately. So kudos to my sweet husband for taking the time and effort to think about when he could actually do this without me 1) finding the receipt :) 2) seeing him put it out :) Thank you baby so much for loving me the way you do :)
Btw, the kids LOVED the balloons (oh, and the gummi bears :) )

God's Grace/Pics

Can I tell you what a wonderful, gracious God we serve? He even cares about about the tiniest, most seemingly unimportant details of our lives, and for this, I am truly grateful.

Well, last night we went to bed around 10pm, but I couldn't fall asleep until around midnight--ugh! Well, as I'm tossing and turning, my mind is wandering on and on about so many random things, one of which actually turned out to be a good thing. A couple of posts ago, I posted about Elijah getting entangled in some red thread and was so upset with myself for accidentally deleting the pics before pasting them into my folder. Well, I started thinking that since we got our new computer, I don't really use the pc very often. So when you copy something, you can usually paste it until you copy something else, right? So, unless something else had been copied, I should still be able to paste the pics into my folder, right?? YES!!! It worked! Fortunately, our computer had not done an automatic shut down or anything! What a great gift for the Lord to bring that to my mind! So without further ado, here they are:

<---- He thought he was in big trouble--until I started snapping all these pictures :)

Mikaela Funny

(Mikaela screaming outside as she stands on top of the slide)

MJ: "That other Mikaela is copying me."
Me: "That's called an echo."
MJ: "Echoes are cool!" :)

Thread

While I was helping MJ with her writing, EM was playing with a spool of red thread he'd taken off the sewing machine. He was right next to us, and I didn't even notice until he had it all wrapped around his neck and body and was totally tangled up in it. I think he was taking the spool and throwing it up in the air so that it would fall to the ground, and each time he did this, more and more thread would come out. Who knows how many times he did this :)

Oh, and this is just how brain-dead I am--I had taken a few pics to post and was putting them on my computer; I copied them, took the memory card out, erased all the pics from it and then went to upload them just to see that they weren't there! I get this major sinking feeling in my stomach any time this happens. Turns out, I copied them, but I don't think I ever pasted them into the folder :( So now they're gone forever, and you'll just have to take my word on the event :)

Bandera Vacation

Last week, we had the opportunity to go on vacation to Bandera, TX. It was really nice and especially wonderful just to have Eric be with us all week and not have to go to work. We stayed at this cute little cabin, and there were deer all over the place. We got there early Saturday evening, got something to eat and then went grocery shopping for the week.

On Sunday, Eric had to do a test for school, so he played with us for a little bit, and then I let the kids play on the swing, seesaw, in the sand on the sand court, blowing bubbles, etc. The main goal was to just let them wear themselves out :)

Monday it decided to rain, so we took our time getting ready and found a mall in San Antonio that had an indoor play area. It was teeny, tiny, but MJ and EM loved it, so that's all that mattered.

On Tuesday, we went to the River Walk--the weather was awesome that day, and we figured it would be all sidewalks--we were trying to escape any mud from the day before :) so we did that for a few hours and then found another mall that had an Inflatable Wonderland. It was totally awesome! MJ and EM LOVED it--too bad there's not one actually in a mall around here--it was quite convenient. The down-side was that it was FREEZING cold inside--and of course, it was the one time I didn't bring my jacket inside--oh, and little man had an accident b/c he wanted to keep going down the slide, and all I had for him to change into was a long-sleeved onesie (he didn't seem to mind :) )

Wednesday, we went to the SA Zoo. The weather was a tiny bit humid but still nice, and the kids loved seeing all the animals. After that, we still had time to end our day with a train ride. It was the perfect thing to lull Elijah to sleep (not that it takes much for him) :)

Thursday, we were finally able to go to a pumpkin patch on an apple orchard in Medina. It was just the perfect size for the kiddos. Mikaela got to dress her own scarecrow, they got to pet turkeys, brush a pony and horse, go through a hay-maze and go on a hayride around the apple orchard. Since we weren't with a school group, we got our own personal tour on the hayride! It was pretty chilly that day b/c the wind was blowing so hard, so after a couple of hours we were done, ate some lunch and then went driving around.

On Friday, I'd really wanted to go to Lost Maples State Natural Area b/c there are lots of maple trees there which were supposedly changing their colors, but we knew the kids would get tired fast and would want to ride--the thought of pushing a double stroller through trails just didn't sound appealing. We'll have to remember to get backpack carriers for next time :) So, we opted to go to Fredericksburg instead--not really a place for kids, but we did manage to find a really nice plaground in the Square--that was the highlight of their day :)

Overall, we had a great time but were ready to get home to get some sleep. Our wonderful little munchkins joined us EVERY night in our bed b/c they were scared :)

Favorite dialogue of the trip: we were in the car a lot--EM usually falls asleep, but this time he was wide awake and kept pointing things out to us; we were getting a little tired of answering him, so he says, "MommyDaddyMommyDaddyMommyDaddyMommyDaddy..." We finally respond, "What buddy?" to which he says, "tra-ter" (tractor) very shortly and matter-of-factly. He managed to crack us up with that :)

Ok--and I'm trying something new--let me know what you think. Instead of using picasa, I'm going to start putting picture albums in a different spot. Click on the picture below to see the album.