Playing Catchup Yet Again

Well, maybe when we move to Oklahoma I'll be better at blogging.  Hopefully. 

We had a good Thanksgiving, a little weird.  Both my parents and Aunt Mollie and Uncle Tim were gone, so it was smaller and quieter than usual, but still nice.  Tyra and I cooked for one of the get togethers, so I was too busy to think of taking pictures.  

Other than that we've mostly been trying to do some work on the house and yard to get it ready for renters.  Dan and Veronica bought our playset from us, so it's gone, which makes it easier to work out back.  We don't have to watch Neely as closely.  But when they were taking it away, I got pretty sad.  I didn't expect it, but I have good memories of staying up super late putting it together with Jess, and of watching the kids have fun on it.  But like I said, the kids can play safely without me having to watch them like a hawk.

 There's been artwork.  This one was a drawing by Paige, FOR Cason.  Outer space, with the Iron Giant and the cutest astronaut dog.

 

There have been sleepovers with cousins.

Playing with/fighting over the kindle.  On this occasion I heard Neely say "OH!  Dangut.  I miss again."

 Another common cause of arguing in our family is Neely's desire to hold on to Paige's seatbelt while we drive.

Also, she would rather die than keep her arms inside the straps of her own carseat where they belong.  I have to stop the car 20 times a drive to put them back in.  It doesn't matter how tight I make it, she will force her way free.

She's also mastered the pouty face.  She abruptly crosses her arms, puffs out her lips, scrunches her eyes and eyebrows angrily, and says something in a naughty tone.  This one is fake, so she's not doing the eyes, but it's close:

She's quite sweet, but quite naughty at times, telling her brother and sister off.  I blame Cason.  He spoils her rotten.  We try to teach her to share, and to ask nicely for things, but Cason gives her whatever she wants, no matter how she's acting, because he's golden hearted.  We keep trying to tell him why it's important for her to ask nicely first, but he doesn't care much.  

The other night at Grama's, she was cuddling me and yelling at the other two not to try and cuddle with me too.  They wouldn't give up, so she told Cason "Cason wanna cuddle Grama." and pointed him over to Grama on the couch next to us.  Haha.  Smartie.  Using redirection on him.  :)

This picture is from dinner tonight, and just makes me laugh, the way she's drinking from a mug onehanded, wearing Paige's watch.  She looks like a tiny grownup.

She's in to singing lately.  She'll just make up a song about what she's doing or what she wants.  But most often she sings one of two songs:  She learned to sing Ring Around the Rosie from Caillou, but she just sings "Pocket Rosie!  Pocket Rosie.  We all sit, we aaaall sit, we...all.....fall....DOWN!"  The way she sings the "Pocket Rosie" part is unbelievable.  She sort of gets a spanish accent, rolling the "r" and making the "s" sound really hard.  Every time she sings it, which is 100 times a day, Jess and I look at eachother in disbelief at how cute it sounds.  I think I have video of it, which I will post if I find it.

Her other favorite is "Rockabye Baby".  She sings "Rockabye baby bobot!"  No clue why she thinks it's about a baby robot.  Haha.  So cute.

iPhone Pics

It's going to take me a while to get used to having an iPhone.  I forget how many of my pictures are on my phone now, and most of them are because it usually takes better pictures than my camera.  So I just realized how many pictures I had that I would have put in past posts if I'd remembered to get them from my phone.  So here's some catchup:

A few weeks back Neely had her first braids:

This is a cute one from the pumpkin patch:

 A sweet one of my 2 littlest holding hands in the car:

 Count Bananula, who I made for Paige on Halloween.  I wanted to put something fun in her lunch in honor of one of our favorite days, that would surprise her and make her smile.  So I cut a quick cloak out of felt, and almost made her late for school sewing elastic to it and making his face out of white felt and melted chocolate.  :)

 Neely being weird and having a wagon handle as a hat:

 Neely enjoying birthday cake:

 Paige enjoying birthday cake AND cupcake:

 The boys enjoying being together:

 A sweet note from Paige:

 (I've since found exact copies of this letter with other people's names(and titles) swapped out for mine, like Daddy, Cason, Neely, and even Gia)

Neely flexing in her constellation shirt from Grammy and Grampy:

 Looking (and feeling) pretty in her outfit from Grama:

 Being incredible at Arby's on Paige's birthday:

 Paige enjoying her birthday dinner. She chose Arby's:

 Neely being a weirdee:

 Pretty in another outfit from her birthday, this one from Grampa and Grama Trudi:

 Sleeping and looking cute:

 Looking lovely:

 Boys at Bayleigh's soccer game:

 Neely noticing Devynn for the first time:

 Paige at her last soccer game.  It was a chilly one:

 Visiting at Misty's, and Cason bonding with Uncle Jordan while helping him start a fire:

 Devynn enjoying the warmth of said fire:

 Cason holding newest cousin for the first time:

 Enjoying my new sweatery blanket.  We love that thing.  He stayed in bed until I finally woke him up at 9:45!

 Neely and I are sick, but she's starting to feel better.  She told me "I wide a horsey Gia."

 Gia's the sweetest.  Except when she blatantly steals food from the table or tears into a garbage bag right in front of me.  No respect at all.

Now I'll try to be better about posting these as they happen.

Thought We Meant More To Her

Jess comes home tonight.  We can't wait.  The kids have handled it a bit better this time, only one meltdown from Cason because he missed daddy.  Neely goes a day or so and then asks "When daddy come back?"  I was very happy that this time I could say "TONIGHT!" 

I took them to McDonalds for breakfast this morning and on the drive home we passed Lily's school.  Paige said "Lily's soooooo lucky.  She gets to go to school FIVE days.  I LOVE school and I only get 4."  Cason asked her "Do you want to LIVE at school, Paige?"  She goes "YEAH!" So I asked "You're going to leave us and live at the school?"  She goes "NOOOO!  I just waaaant to."  Haha.

Couple Things That Made Me Laugh

In Vegas Cason was shooting for an "I'm so hungry I could eat a horse" kind of thing.  He told us all "I'm so hungry, if something smelled so good I would just eat a tree."  Paige goes "I would just eat the thing that smelled so good."  Haha.

I was going through the papers Paige brought home from school on Thursday.  She had made this little book, and had her first inappropriate misspelling.  Haha.  It makes me laugh every time I picture Mrs. Arnold grading it and noticing the mistake.  :)

She Toooold Me

On Friday Tiffany texted, asking if we wanted to come down to watch Bayleigh's soccer game and then leave Cason and Paige to spend the night with Kayson and Bayleigh.  She's a heck of a nice mama, letting her niece and nephew spend the night when she has a 10 day old baby.  Cason found out right away, and was SO happy.  He's been DYING to stay the night with Kayson.  I picked Paige up from piano and told her as we were getting home.  She ran through the house screaming excitedly.  So we drove down to the game, where apparently I took no pictures.  :(

But then we all went to Wendy's after the game, where I got this PERFECT picture of Devynn smiling.

 Grampa thinks it's because he was holding her, but she could sense me nearby.

Then the older two went home with their cousins, to decorate cookies and keep Tiffany up late.  Jess and I took Neely to Target with us.  Cason and Paige know how awesome Target is so trips there are really chaotic and it's hard to really shop.  So this was nice, getting to shop there with only one of the kids.  Neely was really good.  She also got to pick out a toy with her birthday money from Uncle Randy and Aunt Mindy.  She picked out this shopping cart.  She was so cute, pushing it through the store.  She tried to put about 10 lbs of Hershey's Kisses in it.

She's been so funny lately, busting out these little phrases I didn't know she knew, out of nowhere.  Like when we were in the kids' clothes, and she spotted a picture of a scarecrow on a display.  I was on the other side of it so when she said "WOOK!  A scarecrow!"  I said "Oh there is?"  As I walked around the display, I saw it and said "Oh yeah!" and she goes "I toooold you." in the funniest voice.

Thanks Aunt Mindy for her shopping cart!  She loves it.

On our drive home she was saying cute things about everyone.  She goes "Mama when Cason come back?"  I told her he'd be back tomorrow and asked her if Cason's her best friend.  She said "Paige my bes' friend.  Daddy my bes' friend.  Mama my bes' friend."  Then she talked about baby Devynn for a while.  She said something about "my baby Devunn."  She looked at a picture of her and said "Aww, baby Devunn TOO CUTE."  :)

This morning we're getting ready to leave for Las Vegas.  Jess is flying out to Oklahoma City for the week, to work there, sign all his paperwork and everything, and then get his laptop to work on from home until we leave in January.  I was packing, and Neely asked me "I have a baf?(bath)"  I said, "No, you can have a bath tonight baby."  She goes "Aww.  Too bad." 

Woodland Creatures Party For Our Girls

Sorry, it's been a crazy couple of weeks.  After Halloween I realized I had like 2 days to plan the girls' birthday party.  Usually I do a good job of planning well beforehand but this time it seemed like Halloween and their birthdays snuck up on me.  Plus Paige changed her mind on what kind of theme she wanted for the party only about a week before.  She saw these forest animal cookies we could make in a magazine and decided she wanted a woodland creatures party.  I couldn't find ANYTHING to go with that theme except for some cupcake toppers on Etsy.  They were REALLY cute though, so we ordered them. 

Other than that we made those cookies and pretty much just bought plates and balloons and things in foresty colors.  

 

I just plopped the cookies on top of the cake and she was happy. 

I was torn between inviting lots of friends now that she's in school, and just keeping it small with family and close friends since it's their last party before we move.   In the end we kept it small and intimate-partly because I procrastinated so badly.  Ha.  Grama was kind enough to let us use her house. 

Even with just close family and a few friends there are always lots of people who love them.

Even Matt and Tiffany bravely came with their family-including their 3 day old angel baby girl.  She visited with everyone.

I figured this would be the year that Neely would be in to opening presents, but she opened MAYBE 1 or 2, and I did the rest.  She only payed attention to a couple of gifts at all, until we came home and she realized it was all hers.  :)

They had a nice party.  It was ON Neely's actual birthday, so she really was 2.  Paige's actual birthday was 3 days later.  She was turning 6 on the 6th, so it was her golden birthday.  We woke her up to the usual chocolate muffin breakfast, and had gold balloons all over for her.  She ate her breakfast, opened a couple of small gifts, and fielded birthday phone calls.  :)

She couldn't wait to go to school.  She got a flower from Grama, and we dropped off a balloon for her.  She was DYING to get home and get her big gift though.  We had told her she was going to LOVE it and that it was such a big one it was for her birthday AND Christmas.  So she couldn't wait.  We got her a Kindle Fire.  I felt a bit weird about it at first.  I knew it was a good idea for her, as smart as she is and as much as she loves to read and learn, but I felt like those people who get their 9 year olds a cell phone.  Ha.  But like Jess said, most kids get and Xbox or whatever, and this is something that can be educational AND fun.  She of course LOVED it, and in fact only had it for a day before having it confiscated for a couple of days.  She's going to have to learn not to be TOO possessive of it.  ;)

Can't believe our girls are SIX and TWO!  We're so blessed.  Both of them are so sweet, beautiful, smart, funny, and a tad feisty and stubborn.  We love them like crazy!