Ava the Butterfly

We are took a butterfly to church. May God bless her cute little heart.

No Snowman...

Uncle Tone was in Ovilla and sent a beautiful picture of the snow...

The girls immediately asked him to build a snowman.  Ava even sent him a video asking him to build a snowman.  He was quick to send her an emoji of a snowman.  When I showed it to her...this is what she did...

 

Seriously how could you resist?  But the Texas weather saved Uncle Tone and the snow turned to rain and melted away.  Thankfully the promise of ice cream from Pa was distraction enough to let Uncle Tone off the hook!

 



Sending Love

Pa was in Tucson this week and with a snow day we were all anxious to get out of the house.  So we met Grammy and Uncle Tone at Legends before church on Wednesday.  We usually hit up Legends on Friday nights and Pa spoils the girls with ice cream.  It's kind of their thing.  So when Pa did not walk through the door with Grammy the girls wanted to know where he was!  When we finally got them to understand he had gotten on a plane and was in another state, they wanted to send him some love...so we did via text msg.

Snow Day 2015

The girls had a blast on their snow day!  Even Daddy got to stay home.  After digging and searching and failing to find the girls gloves and hats, we put them in some of ours and had a blast outside!  We made great use of the hill on the corner of the house, and using our plastic see-saw we had a make-shift sled.  We all had a blast! 

We made snow angels...

And then more sledding, with Sadie...

All smiles!!

And not to give up...more sledding!

And it would not be a snow day without building a snowman!

 

 

Our Japanese Counterparts

About once a year we meet up with our Japanese counterparts.  This year we met at DFW. 

 

Weston's Birthday Weekend

We had plans to go see cousin Weston and help him celebrate his 3rd birthday last weekend.  We were all pretty excited b/c it had been awhile since we had gotten to go visit.  Plus Cousin Dionna and Ron were lending us a lot of little boy things to use with baby Drew! 

Turns out Conroe's hotels were all booked b/c of some car conference in town so we had originally had to get a hotel in Montgomery over 45 minutes south of Dionna's house.  But Uncle Danny rescued us and got us a cabin at the Silverleaf resort for FREE!!!  Plus it was literally only 10 minutes from Dee's house.  Sweet!  What a blessing.

We were all on cloud 9 looking forward to an awesome weekend, when on Friday at 2 pm the school nurse called.  Carli had a low grade fever and a red throat!  NOOOOO!!!  Off we went to pick her up and literally walked into the doctor's office and refused to leave until a doctor, we didn't care who, saw us and did a strep test.  Bless our pediatrician's heart.  We waited just an hour (not bad for a walk-in on a Friday afternoon) and were seen.  I almost walked out and went home b/c Carli did not have a fever any longer and was literally bouncing off the walls.  But we stuck it out.  They did a strep test.  The doc came in and said you know, I really thought it was allergies b/c she had no fever, or white spots on her throat but her strep test is a raging positive...again.  :(  We were pretty bummed b/c it seemed like our planned wkd was doomed.  But the pedi said we caught it so early that if we got her the antibiotics ASAP she would be confident in letting us go ahead to the party which was scheduled for 3 the next day.  Done!!

We loaded up Saturday morning and were off.  We made a stop at Ava's favorite donut shop for her blue Elsa donut, stopped by and gave Pa some farewell kisses and hit the road!

We made really good time and met Dionna and crew at the park and were able to help them set up for the party.  The girls had a blast!  Carli spent a lot of time pulling the smaller kids in Weston's new wagon and Ava loved playing with the bubbles.

And of coarse, who doesn't love cake and cupcakes?!  How cute is this three year old?!

There was another group having a get together under the pavilion and Carli and Ava made a new friend.  While we were helping clean up, they were investigating the pond with their friend and found a duck egg.  Which I'm pretty sure will never hatch now...

After the party we went and got checked in at our cabin and met up with Dionna and crew for some dinner.  Ah, just love these kids...

The girls had a blast at the cabin.  They had their own room and it had it's own TV.  They let Keith and I sleep til 8:30 b/c they just laid in bed and watched Disney Sunday morning!  :)  After church, we enjoyed a yummy lunch at Five Guys Burgers with Dionna, Ron, Weston, Aunt Betty and Uncle Cleaon.

 

With our bellies full, we headed over to Dee's house and she loaded up our truck with a baby bed, changing table, high chair and lots of baby clothes and accessories!  Wow.  Can you say blessed and so thankful!  The girls and Weston spent the entire time outside playing in the sand and riding his John Deere motor. 

 

We had an awesome weekend.  It sure seemed short but we were so glad to have the time we did.  Carli did great all wkd.  She never ran fever or complained of not feeling well.  We were really glad we got to go!

 



Will you be my Flower Girls?

Uncle Tone popped the question to Holli this weekend and the girls got asked a very important question...would they be flower girls in the wedding.  This was the response we sent back:

 

If a picture could capture the squeals of delight along with the smiles, it would have been perfect!

 

21 Weeks

Oh Baby Boy...I am really not doing well having baby bump pictures taken.  I carry you so differently than I did your sisters and well, I feel HUGE!  :)  But alas, if you are anything like your Uncle Tone (who was Grammy's third baby) you will be very sentimental and though I struggle with getting things documented in this pregnancy it has nothing to do with lack of excitement and more to do with having to choose between sleep and productivity! 

With the girls help, we took a 21 week (just over half way there) baby Drew bump picture this weekend before church.  We were in Conroe for Weston's birthday celebration so we used the back patio of the little cabin we stayed in for our background.  :)

 

A Date with Pa

Ava's favorite restaurant is Taco Bueno.  If she is asked where she wants to go to eat, it's a Bueno date.  She takes any and every opportunity to go.  So when Pa said he'd be in town this week, Ava wanted to know if he would go on a Bueno date with her...Pa said YES! 

Ava was so excited about her date.  The night before she asked me to curl her hair so she would be so pretty on her date for Pa.

I let Ava pick out her own outfit...thus her flip flops do not remotely match her dress but it wasn't my date!  She was so excited to get ready to go.  Pa will have a hard time resisting this cute little face!

At first I was told this was an Ava and Pa date and I could not sit at their table, but Ava had pity on me and decided it was okay for me to sit with them.  Shew!  She LOVED her date with Pa.  Ava said, "It was the BEST date ever!  My favorite part was eating with Pa and feeling the raindrops on my head!"

Such a simple thing but a very special memory!

Thank You Notes

One of the things my Momma insisted on growing up was that we HAD to write thank you notes at Christmas to everyone that gave us a gift.  I can tell you as a kid, that really was not much fun.  But it really did serve a purpose.  And I was thankful for the lesson that she taught when I got older and it was second nature to make sure a thank you note was sent after graduation gifts and wedding gifts. 

The way we see it is someone just spent their time and money on you and they did not have to - so what better way to show your appreciation for their kindness of the simple act of giving them a note to thank them.  I know when I get a thank you note from someone it puts a smile on my face and thus when I send someone a thank you note I can just imagine the smile on their face knowing that they are appreciated.

It took the girls about a month to write about 15 thank you notes each after Christmas.  We'd do about 3-4 a week.  I made a template so all they had to write was the persons name, what they gave them and sign their name.  On the other side of the template we made a page the girls could color or decorate with their own taste.  They put a lot of effort into their notes and maybe a little whining.  But they are only 6 and 4, they wouldn't be normal if they didn't whine!

We talked a lot about what it means to be grateful and why it is important to make sure others know you appreciate them.  I am appreciative to the teachers at the girls schools for inadvertently helping me "preach" this lesson.  We gave out a lot of pumpkin bread to the teachers over Christmas break and when they would send back a thank you note, the  girls literally beamed with pride.  It was awesome. 

Carli got down to her last thank you note and realized that Ava had colored one too many and she absolutely refused to use a thank you note that SHE did not color herself.  So I gave her the choice of using the extra note and maybe adding to Ava's coloring OR she could write the whole note herself on the last thank you note we had leftover from her birthday.  She opted to write it herself.  I thought she did an amazing job.  Notice the extra curly q's on the letters.  :)