New house pics!

Here's a few pictures updates of the house!  This was done last week.  This week we hope to have the kitchen cabinets painted white, the island will be black, granite installed, tile started, stone on exterior completed.

We finally have finished all of our selections (except carpet - that's tomorrow).  Everything in the house is handpicked so if we don't like it, we have only ourselves to blame.  If you don't like it...uh...just don't tell us.  From the fluorescents to the sinks, to the knobs, to the flooring, to the toilets, every single light, lantern, uplight...need I go on?  There is a budget of course but we could pretty much go anywhere and pick anything so while it seems to be a blessing, there comes a certain point where I just wanted to say "YOU PICK IT ALREADY!!!"

One of our biggest concerns was the exterior stone.  We found a house here in Cinco that we really liked but had no idea of the manufacturer or name so Mike's stone guy just did a drive by and tried to match it the best he could.  Luckily - we love it!  Because really - how do you return 4 tons of stone?  (actual amount may be exaggerated...or not)

Updates on all things!

I know I know I know...it's been 9 months since I wrote anything on here.  Unbelievable!  But life is just busy busy busy so finding time to actually download the pictures that I took onto my computer - well that's just an accomplishment in itself!  So - I'll catch you up on what is going on around there here parts of Texas.

Most of you know we are building a house.  We are so excited and feel so incredibly blessed to have this opportunity.  We bought an acre a little further west of Katy in a town called Fulshear.  It's a great very small town that is growing and growing.  We put our house on the market last May and after about 5 weeks received a good offer and went with it!  We were supposed to close on June 15th and then leave for Disney on the 22nd so in panic mode we moved out of the house and into an apartment but then the house didn't end up closing for another 5 weeks... but it was good to go ahead and get moved out. 

Construction began on the house in August. Our plan is to be in the house by Thanksgiving - or sooner if possible.  We start sheetrock today and that will take almost all week to complete, then they'll texture, start flooring, put in cabinets...lots to do still!  Here are a few pictures...

 Our lot before construction began

The back of the house when they were roofing.  This is not our whole lot. I took this from the house that is behind us.  

The front of the house - almost ready for stucco

The living room - big windows!!!  lots of light.

Avery is 3 (will be 4 in January) and is still my baby.  She loves to sing - she's always singing something.  And she is the family entertainer.  A total goofball!  She is in preschool 3 days a week at our church again this year and loves it!

Avery helping make daddy's birthday dessert

Avery with her friend Lily on the first day of preschool

Kendall is 6 and will be 7 in December.  Since we will be in the house in the next few months we were able to get her started at her new school at Huggins Elementary so that she won't have to change schools mid-year.   It took a couple of weeks for us to adjust.  School this year starts at 7:45 am so we have to get up pretty early.  I'm not a morning person.  I like waking up AFTER the sun is up and my children are following suit, so that in itself was a challenge but we are starting to get used to it.  Kendall is such a friendly and sweet girl.  She loves making new friends, reading, drawing and dancing.  We just started the girls in gymnastics so I'll try to get a few pictures of that in the coming weeks (or next year). 

 Kendall and her new friend, Kate, at a skating birthday party this weekend.

We celebrated Mike's 35th birthday on September 24th and we went to dinner with his side of the family the night before.

Family picture!  Happy Birthday daddy!

And perhaps our biggest news yet...we're expecting!  Yep - we decided last spring that maybe we were finally ready to add one more kiddo to the crew.  Below is my ultrasound from 7 weeks and as of today I'm 11 (and a half) weeks.  My due date is April 26th - hallelujah for a baby that is NOT going to be born in the holiday season!!!!   The girls are so excited (as is Daddy).   And according to our plans - this will be the LAST baby.  Three is enough!

The baby is the tall thing in the picture. I think it looks like a Storm Trooper standing next to a hamburger.

Kendall's Dance Party

This is a hilarious video from the night of Kendall's birthday party of the girls doing their "talent show" which was really just dance and acting goofy.  You can't hear the music very well.  Mostly you hear me herding them, trying to keep them from falling into furniture and getting bloody noses from flailing body parts...

Kendall's 6th Birthday Party

This year for Kendall's party we decided to do a Pajama party (not sleepover - made sure to stress that one the invitation!).  When it comes to 6 year old girls there is a huge difference between 2 and 3 hours, let alone an entire night.  The thing about 5 and 6 year olds is that well, they are still just so little.  There was a lot of goo-goo-gaa-gaas going on.  They aren't yet old enough to really have that in-depth imagination, so there were times that they were literally just being insanely silly. And what one does, the others ALL follow.  It was more than entertaining.

All in all there were 8 girls that came over and whew - wow it was loud.  It was our first drop-off party so the parents left which was probably good because there was so much commotion in this house with all of these girls!

All of the girls!
From L to R: Hannah, Cambree, Lainey, Hayley, Kendall, Kinsley, Alex, Avery F., Lauren and our Avery

Kendall doesn't really like cake so we decided to do a donut party.  One of our local stores happened to have some cute fleece pajama pants with donuts on them and then we actually found a shirt at the same store that said "Donuts are the new cupcakes".  It was perfect!!!

We made our own bubble bath, painted nails, played "Sleeping Beauty" ate chicken nuggets and filled up on sweets, opened presents, played dress up...  Oh and at one point the girls wanted to have a "talent" show which mainly consisted of them CR-A-ZY dancing in the middle of the living room.  But then there were too many girls so we made the take turns and oh. my. gosh.  It was HILARIOUS.  My sister in law got video of it so I promise to post it as soon as I can.  The look on Kendall's face - I'll never forget it!  It was AWESOME.  She was so intense and I have no idea where she picked up those moves.  We were trying to not cry laughing because it was funny.  The best entertainment of the night.

The girls playing Sleeping Beauty game

Avery being Sleeping Beauty.  She was the last one to go so she was really ready.

The girls had a wonderful time. However I made the mistake of making it a 3 hour party, thinking that the last hour we'd wind the girls down with watching a movie.  Yeah, they laid down for all of 5 minutes and then were up again, playing, laughing, and running.

Taking a break.  For five whole minutes
See Hayley in the bottom left covering Avery's mouth when she was coughing.

At one point Mike heard girls at the top of the stairs so he went to check on them and 2 of them were trying to figure out a way to carry Avery down the stairs.  Most of these girls weigh 40-45 pounds and Avery is 30 pounds.  Tragedy. Narrowly. Averted.

Luckily I had reinforcements and Grandma Nancy and Aunt Becca came over to help.  And I was shuffling the girls out of the house my sweet husband cleaned up the whole kitchen.  I am truly blessed!  Although it might have been more him trying to stay out of the way of all of the screaming girls.  Needless to say we were exhausted after all was said and done though.  We exchanged exasperated looks and heaved sighs as the clock slowly crept towards 8 pm.  Kendall had a really great time which was our main objective. But all in all it was a wonderful time.

And I am so so so glad I don't have to do anything else until next year.

The spread.
All on top of my grandma Lenore's beautiful lace tablecloth that fits my table perfectly.

Oh donuts...how I doth love thee...

The birthday girl about to blow out her candles

my sister in law has a better picture from the side...without the girls head in the picture

Opening presents

Thanksgiving

And on we go to Thanksgiving!  The girls only get Wednesday through Friday off so right after school on Tuesday we drove up to Dallas.  Traffic was awful.  That stretch of 35 from Waco to Hillsboro is a death trap but we made it and had a great time as usual.

The first day my sister and her boys Nick and Ryland came over.  Mom sent them out to rake leaves and they had so much fun jumping and playing in them.  I'm not sure that they actually ever picked any up, but well, we got some good shots of the kids anyway.

Avery had a great time in them

action shot!

Avery climbing the tree.  Well, kind of.

Best picture ever of my girls!

Kendall can finally climb the tree all by herself and she's quite pleased as you can tell by the look on her face!

Crazy kiddos.  They were supposed to look like turkeys with leaves as their tail feathers

action shot of Ryland and Kendall

I took some time to take pictures of my sister's family so we grabbed a quick shot of the grandkids.
Minus Piper but maybe someday we'll get one with all of them!

Grandma Tori and her grandkids

Thanksgiving dinner - the kiddos table

helping Grandma Tori decorate her Christmas tree

So behind!

I'm so behind on blogging I don't even know where to start!  I think I did the pumpkin patch - not sure about Halloween so I'll start there I guess!  I'll mostly just do pictures as there isn't time to be quippy and funny.  Is quippy a word?  Guess not since there's a red line under both of them...oh well.  you get my drift!

As usual, we just did a little party at the end of the cul-de-sac.  It was fun and there are a lot of neighbors that come out that we don't usually see (and they don't really speak English either - we have a lot of Chinese neighbors!)  But we all enjoyed the camaraderie anyway and just nodded and said "Hello!"

Kendall and Catherine

Pat Letson and Holly Price

Daphne, Leslie and Holly

Holly and her sweet TALL son Daniel

Avery and one of her favorite girls on the street, Grace

Some of the kiddos just playing!

Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

We have a local church that does a quaint little pumpkin patch every year with loads of pumpkins.  We debated taking the girls to the huge 70 acre one that is out of town but I keep hearing what chaos it is (not too mention how pricey) so last Saturday evening we just decided to keep it simple.  We let the girls dress up in their costumes and headed out.

They had so much fun just walking around and even let me take some pictures.  I know!  EVEN AVERY if you can believe it.  Of course in most of the pictures she had a spaced out look in her eyes and "the camera smile" plastered on her face but its better than last year when she just ran away and pouted.  She's really getting into it this year so it makes it a lot more fun.