Naggy Had a Birthday!!

And we didn't forget! Actually, we made her cupcakes for her birthday...

But when she failed to show up by 3 pm, Carli decided enough was enough and she would eat them! :)

Yes, our Naggy had a birthday last Saturday (the 22nd) and I didn't post...I'm so sorry. It is not from lack of love or admiration but merely lack of time and organization! :) We love our Naggy dearly and we hope she knows that we appreciate her and all she does for our family!

We can't wait for Feb when Naggy gets to come stay a WHOLE WEEK with us! Woohoo!!

Ava has changed so much since we last got to see Naggy and Pappy in December! Then she could barely sit alone and now she is lunging at toys and maybe, just maybe, might be interested in crawling! Maybe Naggy will help her in that endeavor in Feb! We get to skype with Naggy and Pappy at least once a week, and Ava just grins at them the whole time! Can't wait for them to see her again soon!

Carli loves chocolate...and thus loved Naggy's birthday cupcakes! :) We pray ever night for Naggy and Pappy and she is going to be so so excited to see them again and even more so when Naggy comes home with us!

Happy Belated Birthday Naggy! We love you very much!

Ouch! I Need a Band Aid!

Last Sunday, Carli and her Daddy were wrestling - which is a frequent occurrence in our home - and Carli bopped her nose on his knee. Not hard, but hard enough that she stopped playing and needed someone to kiss it to make it better. She then disappeared out of the play room and when we finally caught up to her, this is what we found...


Really, a bopped nose is nothing an Elmo band aid can't fix! :) And yes, she did unwrap the band aid and stick it on her nose all by herself.

Sometimes the Best Toys...

Are not the high priced (or in our case, bargain Craiglist find) toys with all the gadgets, sounds and lights...nope, the best toys of all are probably the items that Daddy or Momma are trying to keep you from playing with in the first place!

Grocery Shopping

Last Friday we were out of milk, juice, yogurt, paper towels...and pretty much anything essential. So, we made a flying trip to the grocery store before we met some friends for dinner. Turns out Brookshires has these cute little carts for kids and we finally found one not being used and Carli went to town!

She took her job very seriously - I am thinking this is going to be a mandatory thing from now on. If there isn't a child's cart available, I am going to just have to come back later!!

She even was determined to unload her cart all by herself, but accepted Daddy's help after her items kept falling down on top of her!

Sick - but Maybe Not!

Last week was a whirlwind for us. I had to work in Alto three days in a row, and was in meetings with folks who flew in from out of state so the girls couldn't really spend the day with me as they usually do. So, we though ahead and recruited Aunt Betty and Aunt Carolyn to help us out two days and sweet talked Cari into spending all day with us on Wednesday! All in all, the girls did really well and our babysitters survived too! Ava refused a bottle all three days, but God bless the patience of those who took care of her! They used a straw and even spoon fed her a whole bottle! :) She was happy and that's what counts!

In between all the chaos, Carli had a cold the first part of the week and graciously shared it with her sister the last half. It was just a snotty nose and nothing to worry about. Carli was doing much better by Thursday just as Ava's nose started running like a fountain but they were both happy and good to go. Saturday morning came and Carli was a bit sluggish, but didn't give any other sign that she may not feel well until midday when I came into the living room and here she sat...

Yes, she sweet talked her Daddy into getting her pillow, paci and blanket from her bed and there she lay on the couch watching Minnie Mouse nursing a high fever. Poor baby. To top it off, she is a horrible medicine taker, so after failing to get her to drink her juice where we hid the medicine we gave in and it took both Keith and I to get some ibuprofen down her to bring her fever down. It was a long night.

Sunday morning came and she seemed a lot better. She didn't have a fever, but we didn't let her go to church b/c we weren't sure what may have caused her fever. So Ava and her Daddy went off to church and Carli and I stayed home. She was fine. We made cookies, had our own little Bible Class and decided we were okay to meet Daddy and Ava for lunch. She was good the rest of the afternoon too...then at 2 am that morning Keith woke me up saying Carli had fever again and he needed help to give her medicine. Weird. Monday morning - she was fine again.

I decided to go ahead and try to get her into the pedi and as an afterthought asked for an appt for Ava too, since we would be there, wouldn't hurt! And off we went at 11 this morning...fever free and a little snotty...

Well, poor Carli was subjected to a flu and strep test which both came back negative and her ears were clear. Nothing was wrong that could explain the fever. Had her fever not been so high we could have attributed it to teething. The pedi told us that perhaps it was a virus and if she still had a fever by Thursday to come back. *sigh*

Then sweet little Ava cooed and gurgled and grinned through her little exam. She is 17.5 lbs! And she has an ear infection! Really? Sheeze. No fever, happy baby, and she got an antibiotic. Carli walked out with no meds.

Carli woke up from her nap Monday afternoon with a fever and her cough has gotten pretty nasty. blah. Here's to hoping the fever will go away so we won't have to suffer through blood work at the end of the week!

Excuses

A couple of weeks ago I got an iPod integration put in my car - and it is awesome. And because I now can listen to whatever is on my iPhone without headphones while I am in the car, I have listened more to the music I have on it. My brother gave me all the Acappella worship songs he had awhile back, so I have been enjoying them all over the last two weeks. There is one song that I think is really awesome and says it in simple English. :)

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Excuses by In His Image

Excuses, Excuses, you hear them every day.
Now the devil, he'll supply them,
If from church you stay away.
When people come to worship God,
The devil always loses.
So to keep those folks away from church,
He offers them excuses!

In the summer it's too hot.
In the winter it's too cold.
In the spring time when the weather's just right,
We'll find some place else to go.
Well, it's up to the mountains,
Or down to the beach,
To visit some old friends,
Just stay home and kind of relax
And wait for the kinfolk to start dropping in.

Well those church benches their too hard,
That song leader's way too loud,
Well you know nervous you get,
When your sitting in a great big crowd.
The doctor told you, you'd better watch those crowds,
They'll set you back.
But you go to that 'ol ball game,
Because you say it helps you to relax.

A headache Sunday morning,
A backache Sunday night,
But by work time Monday morning,
Your feeling quite alright.
Well one of the children has a cold,
Pneumonia do you suppose?
Why the whole family had to stay home,
Just to blow that poor kids nose!

Excuses, Excuses, you hear them every day.
Now the devil, he'll supply them,
If from church you stay away.
When people come to worship God,
The devil always loses.
So to keep those folks away from church,
He offers them excuses!

Well the preacher his too young,
Or maybe his to old.
His sermons their not hard enough,
Or maybe their too bold.
His voice is much to quiet,
Sometimes he gets too loud!
He needs to have more dignity,
Or else he's way too proud!

His sermons their too long,
Or maybe their too short!
He needs to preach the word with dignity
Instead of stomp and snort!
Why that preacher we got must be,
The world's most stuck up man!
Why one of the ladies told me the other day,
"Why he didn't even shake my hand!"

Excuses, Excuses, you hear them every day.
Now the devil, he'll supply them,
If from church you stay away.
When people come to worship God,
The devil always loses.
So to keep those folks away from church,
He offers them excuses!

Carli's Got a Job!

Our new nanny started last Friday. In preparation for her being here to watch the girls for 3 hrs in the mornings on MWF - we put a baby gate up and Grammy made a curtain to hang across the office door so that if Carli decided she needed to come help me this might would discourage her. On Friday she did come to the gate several times and ask for me, but Cari handled her well and told her that "Momma was working" and distracted her. Monday, Carli didn't come to the gate once! I think she really enjoys having Cari's undivided attention and I get my work done so that the afternoons are much less stressful and we can enjoy our time together much more.

So, Friday when it was time to get ready for bed, Keith told Carli to go get ready for her bath and she promptly ran into my office, pulled the curtain shut and told him she couldn't she was working. When we pulled the curtain back, there she sat just a clicking away!


She's a pretty good little co-worker! :)

3 Kids, 3 Adults and a Day of Work

TeraGanix, the company I work for, just bought a new office down in Alto. And I got assigned the awesome task of buying new furniture, etc for it. Woohoo! Yeah, right! If you now me, you know I HATE to shop - actually, I love to bargain shop, but am not a big fan of big spending...so this task was hard and stressful for me. But with my Mom's help we conquered IKEA and got it done. With the help of the Bruces, we got it all back to Alto and on Saturday my husband sacrificed his day of "rest" to come down to Alto and help us start putting it all together.

We had our girls, and Logan with us, plus Grammy. I think considering all the "help" we had, we made a ton of progress.

See, even Ava gave us a hand...wow, you can really see her red hair in this picture...

Carli and Logan did so well all day. They played hard...really hard and neither had a nap. They didn't start picking at each other until the end of the day when enough had been enough and Grammy's lap wasn't big enough for two!

They worked hard at moving the paint cans back and forth...and playing drums too!

They even shared without much prompting the infamous car! Aunt Chelle would be so proud!

With Grammy's help, they even made a choo-choo train from all the boxes!

Logan helped Grammy carry boxes into the office...he took his job very seriously!

We were all very pleased with our progress and very relieved that all the kiddos did so well!

Bonding with B-Ava Boo

The other night Keith called me to the bathroom. I thought maybe Carli had actually gone potty again, but instead this is what I found...

How could I not resist this picture? :) Carli finally named her bedtime/bathtime baby...B-Ava Boo. :) They were jumping in the water and afterward we brushed their teeth before heading off for lotion and pj's.

Grammy bought B-Ava Boo for Carli so that Carli would have a baby to bathe while Momma bathed Ava. So far it has worked wanders, no more attempting to dunk Ava under the water, or pouring cupfuls of water over her head. Instead, B-Ava Boo gets a good scrubbing, dunking and teeth scrubbing every night instead! Thanks Grammy, from the bottom of Ava's little heart! :)

Daddy & Ava Chase Carli

Carli loves to be chased and last week, Ava and Daddy were chasing her around the house. The girls got the giggles and it was just too priceless to not attempt to get it on video. If you listen closely, you can hear Carli saying,

"I'm running."
"Again Daddy!"
"I fall down."

And all the while Ava is just giggling away! And Daddy is getting his exercise!

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Snow Day 2011

It snowed yesterday! Woohoo! Carli was excited to see snow and kept asking to go play. We finally dug out her coat from last year, a hat, some gloves and bundled her up - smart girl, she choose to wear boots! :)

She wasn't too sure about it at first. She told me that her slide was all icky with snow!

This was Ava's first snow. Poor baby didn't really have any super warm clothes either. But we made due in our mismatch effort. She thought we were nuts!

It took Carli awhile to even think about touching the snow with her hands...she finally decided it was okay for the snow to fall into her hands and it took even longer for her to bend down and touch it!

We sit Ava down to get her picture and Carli told her to get up! She was getting icky! Ava was still not impressed! ha!

Afterward we came in and made some hot chocolate...

This morning as soon as Cari got here, Carli announced they were going outside to play in the snow! I think she warmed up a bit more to touching it but then decided it was super cold and came inside to put her mittens on and take her coat off...makes complete sense!

King Grandkids Yearly Pictures

Grammy has a goal every year - have the grandkids pictures taken every year. Since Christmas is the easiest time to do this, we've successfully gotten their pictures done the last three years. This year we had the pleasure of having one of my friends from college take the kids pictures. She had quite the challenge, but I think she did an awesome job. Jessica is based in Houston, but she just happened to be in Tyler when we were planning to do the photo shoot. Check out her website if you get a chance: Frugal Fotography.

We also got lucky and got to do the photo shoot at Teaberry Farms - which is where Keith and I got married. Rickey and Cindy Richards were very kind to open their home up to us so we could get some really neat shots.

It was hard to pick some favorites, so there are more than a few here!

Ha ha - this one just made me laugh!

Loving our Grammy!

Absolutely LOVE this pic of Aunt Chelle and Cousin Logan

Thanks Jessica for taking the time to snap some awesome shots of our kids. It was great to see you again and you did an amazing job!