In Memory of Our Snails and Bailey's New Zoomer

Bailey's Kindergarten year for me will be known as the year of "wanting a pet".

If you remember right before kindergarten Bailey captured a turtle- Princess Perfawna, which after a week we released back to the pond because she wasn't eating and it was too much work to keep fresh pond water at our house.

Next came a lizard she captured, but we released him too so that he would live.

As soon as school started Bailey was quick to notice that her school has a huge population of snails and they have been coming home with her ever since early October. I feel like I have been great about it, but if the weather is nice then I want them outside. Well, guess who forgot to bring them in during some freezing weather. Ooops! We are hoping they found a warm spot when they escaped.

A couple of stories-

Luke accidently threw away what he thought was just empty or broken shells (because those come home too) and one had a live snail in it and climbed his way out of the trash and was stuck to the lid. His name was Hurt Shell.

Another snail called Turbo got loose recently in the house for about a week and we found him in one of my big baking bowl where he had pooped. So gross and hence the reason I wanted them outside as much as possible.

So in memory of our snail collection.

So let me back up to September when Bailey found the perfect solution to her wanting a pet when she saw a Zoomer in her Jr National Geographic magazine. The only problem was that they cost $80- $90. That is alot of money period, but especially so for a 6 year old to have to save up for all by herself!!! Birthday money, lemonade stand money, selling many, many, many pictures to generous family members, chore money and almost 6 months later and she finally has her Zoomer.

Elation does not even describe it. She LOVES it!

I just hope it was all worth it and that the Zoomer lives up to expectations because this is the kind of pet I will let us keep. : )

Beau's Shower

Yesterday was my baby shower hosted by my two friends Danielle and Noelle. It was a very special night because you don't often have most all your girl friends in one place. I also loved all the touches they had like his name on hexagons (!!!), the place cards (can I steal your handwriting Danielle?), the flowers in dump trucks (a perfect touch for a little boy) and a bite size variety of cupcakes (yummy!).

Thank you to everyone who came. I feel very loved and blessed and kinda nervous!

I wish I had taken more pictures, but it was good to just enjoy the time.

Two of the Balcones Woods girls

 And the hostess with the mostesses- Noelle & Danielle.Yes, there is a reason for the picture twice- had to get each of their good sides. : )

And should there be a runny nose anywhere in my vicinity, I got you covered with Boogie Wipes. Thanks Tara!!!

Who's the Messy Mezger?

This picture from Valentine's Day pretty much sums up one main difference between my kids and others:

We hosted an ACS Valentine's Exchange since there isn't school time to have parties and this was the girls decorating their cookies and eating them.

And this was Bailey.

To help me stay cool and calm when there is a big mess that has been made (and sometimes it is even me who made the mess) we sing,

Messy Messy Mezger

Who's the Messy Mezger?

Then we shout the persons name, so in this case Bailey is!!!

Soccer for Blakers

So what does soccer look like for 3 and 4 year olds? Well organized chaos. I was SUPER impressed with the coaches and Blake was exhausted mid-way through. He also has some good buddies out there to play with and his is not "a game" so much as just practicing skills.

And because you know I took pictures...

Playing Chase the Coach

Learning Some Drills

Blake Dribbling

As soon as Blair saw that Blake was doing soccer today she said "Me Ball", which I took to mean "Where's My Ball? I Want to Play." 

She was pretty content playing in the net though.

Or hanging out with Tori and I.

36 Weeks, 6 Days

My appointments are all messed up due to my being picky and wanting the earliest appointments so that I can get in and out, but also all the "bad weather" closings my doctor's office has had. So today I had my 34 week, 36 week, and 37 week appts at the 36 week, 6 days mark. Here was our 4-D sonogram of the little man.

Everything looks good-

• head is down

• heartrate is 145 bpm

• they estimate him to be ~ 7lbs right now, so on track to be another big baby

•  MOST IMPORTANTLY I am 2 cms dilated!!! Hip-hip horray!

I am not much for taking pictures of being pregnant, but because this will be last time I had Luke snap this on Valentine's Day just to document the belly.

 

Am I ready? 

To be done with being pregnant- YES!

To have another little person completely dependent on me- as much as I can be ready.

Here's to being Full-Term tomorrow!

My Little Adoption Advocate

Bailey has a classmate who will be getting a sister through adoption in the next few weeks, which has only encouraged her to want to help more kids get adopted. The questions concerning adoption are sometimes endless and if she ever see a kid out in public that is not close to a parent her thoughts immediately go to "Do you think he/she has a mommy & daddy?". She drew this and made copies on Luke's printer and wanted to hang them all over our neighborhood and send with the family from our school so that people would just go adopt a kid. I wish it was that simple, but I do love her heart on the issue.
 

Soccer For Bailey

Soccer started up this morning and my heart is just so full. We have been blessed twice now with soccer teams- last spring when we got to play with Emmy & Owen and now getting to play with Will, Morgan, and Mia from school.

This spring it is 3 on 3 & Bailey is on Team England. 

Will, Morgan, and Bailey played as a group this game.

GOAL!

So sweet holding hands.

Good game hugs.

The future ACS soccer team.

What a good Nana setting her alarm at 7:45 to come watch!

And John and Blake doing construction site. Blake's soccer starts up next week, so stay tuned for more soccer scenes from next Saturday.

No More Training Wheels!!!

So I was away subbing for Bailey's kindergarten teacher today and I come home to find out that Luke took off the training wheels and after only three tries that Blake was riding all by himself!!! Mommy was so proud!!!

Way to go Blakers!

We Have Come a LONG Way

Bailey has been asking to go to "big" church with Luke & I for a couple of weeks now and we have done a lot of hemming and hawing about it, but we finally said yes this past Sunday. My biggest reservation was if she was going to be a distraction to us or others, but I think she did great, which is where the title of the blog comes in because for me to say this means she has come a long, long way. (No technology, nothing to do other than sit and listen or look at my Bible and no snack.) Some of her convincing arguments were that she knows how to sit still and pay attention thanks to chapel at school and she know that when you sing you stand up. SO, did she learn much from the sermon, probably not as much as if she was in Sunday School, but she did observe how people worship and at one point she knew the hymn and was belting it out. : ) We also had a good discussion about the offering baskets and she pointed out that the money was everyone's "give" money from their piggy banks. Honestly though the smiles from her getting do something big and special with mommy & daddy would have been worth it, plus I couldn't help but think of her more as my sister in Christ when she was with me than when I drop her off at KIDS. Just wanted to remember this moment.

The Day to Day of January

This is my post to try to put together all the random day to day pictures I have taken from January, but it's a good snapshot of our life.

In early January Bailey found out about the Guiness Book of World Records and decided she would build a tower that she would like to enter as the tallest block tower. As you can guess we googled the tallest block tower and it is almost 30 meters high.

 

Also in early Janurary, it was Blake's turn to go hunting and Grandpa sat in the blind with him. His toy rifle and some binoculars were must haves for the trip. Grandpa's description of Blake was "constant motion".

Grandpa even whittled him this slingshot.

All this hunting has been a build up for "Meat Retreat" where Luke and his brother Kyle and friends Joel and Trey go out to the ranch for a long weekend to hunt, but mostly process meat for the year. Luke would say it is one of the highlights of his year and all the boys even read Bringing Up Boys for a book club discussion on the topic. Funny story is that Luke read it thinking that James Dobson (the author) was the guy on the 700 club (Pat Robertson), until he saw the author's picture at the end of the book and realized he might shouldn't have read it at arm's length.

While Luke was away both Tara & family and Tori & roommate came down for a visit at hotel Mezger where there was no more vacancies for sleeping places. Tori's visit was a surprise and so the kids went to bed knowing Rob & Tara were coming, but not here yet, but had no idea Tori was coming. Tori & her roommate Katie took Blake's room and I moved Blake (asleep) into Bailey's bed for the night. He woke up around 4 a.m. and went to try to go back to his bed only to find someone in it. He grabs some of his toys he went to bed with and goes to Luke & I's room and crawls in on my side of the bed (which is where Robby is). Not sure how much time passes, but Robby wakes up holding what he thinks is Colt, but since Colt isn't crawling that could not be possible. He asks Tara about it and she identifies him as Blake. Blake wakes up and says "I'm Batman. I have a utility belt and cape." and goes right back to sleep. He wakes up a few minutes later and comes and finds me in the living room. So I make a bed for Blake in the chair & ottoman while I am on the couch and Blue is in the other chair in the living room. Like I said we were a FULL house.

Thought this was a cute one of me & Colt.

This was the kids chasing Aunt Tori off.

Blair is so funny about having a toy with her if she can. Our preschool had a Grand Opening of the new playscape and she had to have baby Gigi with her. She also needed to be hands free to play on the playscape so her hood was the perfect place for baby Gigi. Baby Gigi is named after our real Gigi who got it for Blair.

So what happened to the old playscape at the preschool? Well it's in our backyard! We offered to take it in exchange for saving the preschool the money they were going to pay to have someone remove and haul off the lumber. This was back in November...

Luke disassembling

The reason they were getting rid of it- lots of water and termite damage that Luke fixed.

Back to January- It's always fun capturing all three of your kids playing together.This is happening more and more lately!

We love lunchdates or any hang out time with the Turkeydogs. Didn't mean to cut Danielle off, but I had to hold the camera above my head so I could get everyone in.

So that's the kind of picture I get, but here is the kind of picture she gets-

Sooooo sweet!

 

Speaking of friend's getting cute pictures...

 Can't you just see Blake & Blythe in high school!

Tori visit #2 & Hiking the Shoal Creek Trail from Seider's Spring Park to Pease Park. It was a fun trip down memory lane (because I use to walk that trail all the time when we lived down there) and a good 5 mile walk.

 Some driveway fun at Franny's.

While Blair was riding her bike, Blake was looking at wall pictures and ask if the picture on the right was him. It does look like him, but that is Luke at age 5.

Also, have I mentioned that Luke introduced Bailey to Star Wars? We decided that Kindergarten is the year each kid will get to watch it and Blakers is catching little tidbits here and there. One of the coolest things right now at Franny's house is this Darth Vader head that holds little Star Wars figures. We are so glad she saved it from the boys childhood days. Blake saw Rebecca do this on Christmas day and has wanted to copy her ever since. I should also mention that Bailey and Blake are already talking about Halloween costumes 2014 and who should be who.

We finally found time to get out our new slackline that was a Christmas gift from Uncle Kyle & Aunt Ali and it was a huge hit!

In case you don't know what that is, it's basically a tight rope (but think 2 inch band) you walk across and work on balance, except ours also has the beginner's safety line to hold onto at the top.

FYI- Blake is wearing his creature power suit with peregrine falcon power so that he can fly away in case he falls.

Blair just loved to bounce!

A little rocky at first, but then she got the hang of it and was doing heel to toe.

 Franny's Birthday

 One smiles and one silly one with Nana for her birthday.

Two fun ones of the kids playing.

Deep in imaginary pony land.

I was proud of his creativity using his Incredibles suit to help him complete his Ironman creation.

 

Two silly ones of Blair

So this is how you unload the groceries from the car when you forget the reusable bags....again.

 

And one night/morning (not sure) Blair woke up early and I guess seeing that no one else was up just put herself back to sleep on the couch.

Tori Visit #3- Pharmacy School Interview

I thought she needed a sweet treat afterwards.

And we went to our second Frozen birthday party! The first was Emmy's 6th birthday party and Katie got some adorable pictures that were on my camera card, but then the card got corrupted. : ( Thank goodness I am good about transferring pictures over to our computer, so those were the only pictures I lost. It was pretty adorable though and Bailey has regularly ask to get her hair braided like Anna's ever since. Ms Katie also sewed these beautiful princess capes and the kids decorated crowns that Bailey accompanies with the braids. The second was her friend Mia's party. I love that we are at an age where Bailey picks out the presents and boy does she take pride in it.