Breakfast Cereal

This is probably about as mundane as you get... a video of my kids eating cereal. Lia insists on doing everything her siblings do - especially when it comes to meal times. So if David has cereal, she wants it too. And don't even think about putting it on the table or spoon feeding it to her. Lia wants it in a bowl and will use the spoon all by herself. What a big girl!

We are praying for the Best family tonight.

Every day is an adventure. Every day is a gift.

Fountain play... random thoughts

Chris is at a wedding in the Outer Banks so the kids and I have been hanging out on our own. Friday after school, I treated them to a picnic dinner at Clover Park. We picked up Sonic as a special treat. Kids are easy to please and you can't beat $1 corn dogs... The desserts cost more than the food. Anyway, they enjoyed it and there were lots of neighborhood kids to play with. Emily actually got to play hide and seek with kids who knew what they were doing.

Today we went to the Waterway fountains and all three kiddos had a ball running through the play fountains for the kids. I was thrilled to see they put in public restrooms. They are very nice as you would expect in The Woodlands... granite countertops and all!

Interesting Notes:
Emily call David, "Dave" all the time now. Such as, "Come on Dave, Let's go!" It is pretty funny.

David plays non-stop with these stretchy bugs I got for $1 at Target. They are neon colored... he liked them so much I got him the stretchy worms and lizards to add to his collection. Such a boy!

Monday Update, Rainy Saturday, Beautiful Sunday!

I promised my Mom I would post pictures of Lia in the dress she sent her. She looks very sweet in these pictures. About 30 minutes later she was covered in mud... as were her siblings. Luckily, mud washes off clothes very nicely and she will wear this dress many more times!

My dishwasher was installed on Friday. It is beautiful and I am enjoying simply loading it and turning it on... washing dishes by hand is a BIG chore. We also had the disposal replaced and it is working nicely as well.

Emily got her hair cut. It is short and very cute. She is able to brush it herself after bath which is great! I'll take all the help I can get these days.

We had a very rainy Friday and Saturday. The Woodlands Earth Day fesival was cancelled due to the weather and that was my big event for Saturday. Since it rained all day we spent the day indoors taking it easy... Emily helped me make a poster of the Easter season timeline since it was my turn to help with the reflection for the children's liturgy. We enjoyed our project and learned a lot about the Easter Season. She will happily tell you Easter is 50 days long beginning with Easter Sunday and ending on Pentecost. Since it was rainy, we had lots of time to find great works of art to illustrate the resurrection, the ascension, pentecost, and even divine mercy Sunday (which was yesterday). It was a great project for us and we put together an awesome presentation.

Sunday could not have been more sunny and beautiful. Our presentation to the kids went very well at church. We felt we earned our lunch at the bagel place and ate outside to enjoy the weather. I cut Chris and David's hair out on the driveway that afternoon. I've said it before, but those two guys grow hair like you wouldn't believe. We went ahead and used the size 2 guard and went really short to avoid having to do it again any time soon. David screamed bloody murder and seems to be even more traumatized by the clippers than ever... but the end result is really cute and I am hoping he will learn to tolerate it one day. And finally, we enjoyed concert in the park that night with our friends the Harvilles. A great day!

Some neighbors out walking there new puppy. Lia can say dog now and is very interested in all things furry.

She is also waving. Daddy especially likes this when he is off to work for the day. Who wouldn't...?

Here is Emily's new cut. We all like it a lot.

Smith Family Visit

Lowell and Cynthia brought their family to The Woodlands for a visit. Emily was so excited to see her best friend Abram. Here they are right after they arrived on Friday. Emily couldn't wait to give him his Easter gift. :-)

Here are the kids painting in their Mickey Mouse books. I think Gabriella liked the bunny ear headband Emily picked out for her. They sat and played nicely like this the whole weekend...

Pretty Gabriella. It was really fun to see her and David together. They both have so much to say these days!

Sweet Emory and Lia. They are 6 weeks apart and almost exactly the same size. Don't they look cute in their little wraps?

The bouncy castle... huge hit!

We stayed at home on Friday and let the kids play. Chris treated us all to grilled lobster for dinner. Don't I have the best husband...? We took everyone to Creekside park on Saturday and then to Market Street for lunch at Cafe Express. The kids played in the fountains after lunch even though it wasn't quite warm... A few of them got very wet (Emily, Abram, David and Lia) and were cold but they sure did have fun!

Quick Update... pictures to come!

As usual, life has been busy for us. This blog is such a good indicator to our level of business... I can just log on and check the last day I posted! Anyway, since I posted that our David was so sick I will update on that first. And if Stacey reads this, I owe you a phone call. Thanks for calling to check up on our little guy!

The shot that David received in his hip was some potent stuff. He was so sore and sick the next day that he couldn't walk. He did not get off the couch for the entire day! I carried him to the potty when he needed to go and tried to get him to eat... and he slept a lot. The next day he was in better spirits and wanted to be outside but didn't even try to walk until late in the afternoon. By that night, he was back to his old self. He walked with a limp for a few hours and then it didn't seem to bother him after that. A consult with our doctor in the school parking lot (Dr. Haggerty is the best - it is awesome to have a pediatrician you see after school every day!) informed me that the shot does cause soreness which becomes worse if not worked out by walking... who knew! And of course a little Motrin would have worked wonders but David refused all medicine. Ah... kids! So I am happy to report he is all better!

Our wonderful friends, Lowell and Cynthia came to visit Easter weekend and I was so glad that our kids got along so well with theirs... because it allowed us to get in a great visit with them. The bouncy castle was put to good use (thank you Tony!!) and was used non-stop Saturday morning and afternoon. I will post pictures from all that soon.

And finally, I am busy because things are breaking all over our house! The nice man who fixes our appliances is coming to replace our disposal which broke over the weekend.... I am also learning about all the obstacles to replacing our dishwasher. The motor on that broke last week and I have been washing all my dishes by hand.... It takes a long time to wash all your dishes by hand. I am hoping our new dishwasher can be delivered and installed this week... it is still in the works. Chris unclogged the toilet upstairs.... Emily put a ton of toilet paper in the toilet and Chris had to completely remove it to get it all out. Yes, it was nasty. Very nasty. And finally, the toilet in our guest bedroom cracked and will need to be replaced as well. Chris thinks I broke it because I stood on it to get the linens out from the shelves above it. Goodness.

And of course, Happy Easter!!!

Emily was so excited to sing at Easter mass. She has been practicing the latin and her Daddy has said it has been like having an angel singing around the house. So glad she loves choir so much!

sick...

Poor David has been all out of sorts. He was in quite a bit of pain last night and so upset he couldn't communicate at all to tell us what was wrong. We guessed ear infection because the pain meds seemed to help and the numbing drops seemed to provide almost instant relief. After a long session at the pediatrician's office, we found out he has a nasty ear infection and strep throat. Poor guy! Dr. Haggerty suggested we give him a "cure-all" shot rather than run through 10 days of antibiotics. I said a one time shot was defintetly the way to go. Let's hope it does the trick. :-) Momma wants to sleep tonight!