Our Busy, but Fun Weekend!!

This weekend, Chris dad came to town for a very quick visit, but we made the most of it! We started off the visit going to Chuck E Cheese, always a winner with the kids. The next morning we did something a little different for an egg hunt. We went to our Rec-Center for an Aqua Egg Hunt. The eggs floated in the pools, and the kids got to collect them. They were set up by age, so Brooke didn't get to participate, but still had fun eating the kids candy after. It was a lot of fun for the kids. Hailey went first and was in the 'baby' pool. Kate was next, her hunt was in the bigger pool, she is definitely our more competitive child, she was stuffing as many as she could under her chin, while having mommy hold the bag for her to stuff them into. After the hunts, we visited the Easter Bunny. Kate didn't have any problems with this, but Hailey was very scared, and as you can see in the picture, was not going to get any closer. Brooke was terrified, but I still managed to get a picture. All in all, it was a very fun event for the girls, and I'm planning on going again next year. After the egg hunt. Papa went out and bought the girls fishing poles. So that evening we went to the lake right here by our house, and went fishing, it was also a lot of fun. The girls were very excited. Kate was all into it, helping put the bait on. Papa taught them how to cast it out and wait for their bobber to move before tugging on it and pulling it back in. Brooke on the other hand, kept us busy!! She decided to go for a 'swim/dive' about 15 min. into the event. So she lost her skirt, and had to be dried off, but she had fun, playing in the water, playing in the mud, getting into anything and everything she could! It ended up being a great time, here's Papa and Daddy watching their little fisher-girls. Finally, after about 2 hours of trying, Papa finally caught a fish, and Kate helped reel it in. It was fun to actually get one! Once we got home with the fish, Kate became brave and was chasing mommy and Hailey, who wanted NOTHING to do with it, around. She thought it was funny. We are planning on eating the fish, which is a first for us. Surprisingly, we are looking forward to it. Well, that ended our weekend with Papa. Like I said earlier, it was a quick one, but a great one! Enjoy all the pics!

Kate's 6th Birthday!

March 13, 2009~The day started out with waking up our beautiful Kate singing, "Happy Birthday to You". Then we got her ready and out the door to school. Then we got ready at home, and went to get Kate Sonic, and brought that to her for lunch. After eating lunch with her at school, we went back to her classroom and handed out birthday cupcakes to her class mates. She had another 2 hours of school left, so we headed back home, and still had a lot to get done (for her surprise party that night). Brooke needed a nap, so Chris was coming home to work from home while Brooke napped, so I could go shopping with Hailey. Well, as I'm at home waiting for him to get home, I became impatient, and I called him saying, "Where are you at?" he said, "I'm pulling into Kate's school", me "What? What are you doing there?", him "I bought Kate a dozen pink roses and thought she might like it if I delivered them to her in class, and I even wrote on the little card, 'To my beautiful Kate, Happy 6th Birthday!", me "Oh....You're amazing! Good job honey! I'll see you in a bit!". I just wanted to share that story b/c it was GREAT, and it melted my heart to see him make his baby girl smile!! Anyways, so then he came home, and Hailey and I went and picked up her cake, bought all the last minute things we needed, and ran back home. Once we got home, we had about 15 min. till she came home from school. We had to decorate the house really quick, b/c that was one of her requests! So we decorated, and literally as I was putting in the last tack she walked in the door! Happy Birthday 6 year old!! Then we told her to get all ready b/c we had to go to 'walmart', Of course we really were headed to Pump It Up for her surprise party. As we got closer, I put a blind fold on her. Here's the video of her once we got there. She was VERY happy!

It was a GREAT party! We had a big turn out, and she had a great time. We went to 2 different jump rooms, then to the party room for cake, ice-cream, and of course presents. After her party, the Duhon's came over to our house till 11:00 that night. So it ended up being a full day of fun for her! I'm SO happy with the way her day turned out, it was a special day I hope she'll remember it for a long long time! Thanks to EVERYONE who made her day special! Enjoy all the pics........can anyone believe we have a 6 year old!!!! I can't!!!

Some pics, and an update

I thought I'd just post some pics for you all to enjoy with a little update on us. They are totally random, but I know those who don't live near us will enjoy them. Let me start with Brooke this time. Brooke is a great kid! Her smile is contagious! Here she is at the library climbing on the kid size chairs, which she thinks are GREAT! She's walking all over the place, and loves to play all day long. She's a very busy 15 month that's busy busy busy! She just watched Brainy Baby the other day, and as you can see, by the few pictures below, she LOVED it! She's reached that age where she's tall enough to see out the windows, and so I captured this shot the other day, and thought it was great! Her & Riley have nothing to look at, but are loving that they can just look outside! She loves to be outside playing in the sand box (as small as it is), which her and Hailey do almost every day together. Notice Hailey's bagged foot....to keep the sand out of her cast! And they also love to have picnics together, which is SO cute to me! Now we'll talk about Hailey. She's growing up SO fast and doing great! We are working on her speech, moving from baby talk to saying things correctly, it's not fun for her, but she's doing a good job with it. Her newest story is this: this last week, Hailey decided to get in the sand box without letting mommy know, and therefore mommy did not know to put a bag on her cast, to keep the sand out, so she got sand all up in her cast. At this point, I'm like, well, you'll have to live with it, b/c she only had 10 days left to go. Then 2 days later she had an accident and wet herself, and yes, that too got down in her cast. Well between the sand and the urine her leg was starting to chafe and burn, no fun at all! She didn't want to walk on it anymore, which I can't really blame her. So I called the doctor, and they told me to call back in the morning and make an appointment to take her cast off and put another one on. At this point she was 6 days away from getting her cast off, and I decided when I called back the next morning to beg them (and I had too) to X-ray it and see if we could just get it off early! So here she is the morning of her doctors appointment, happy as can be, she such a trooper! Well, it all worked out and she is now CAST FREE!! We are very happy! She's still very weary to walk on it, but she's making progress slowly. Here's the pics from her getting her cast off, she was a little concerned that day, and really shy, she said at one point, she was going to miss having a purple leg, ha. But she did get to keep her cast, so we can remember how small she was when this chapter happened in her life, but I'm glad this chapter is over! She said it tickled at first, but then decided shortly after, she didn't like it. She didn't know what to think of it all. She just wanted it to be over!

Finally her leg was FREE! Her leg is all dry and chapped, but still looked great!

A happy girl, all thumbs up! It's all over Hailey! You did it! She was happy to get to wear matching shoes again, and all she wanted to do was go home and take a bath, and that's exactly what she did, a 40 min. bath!

Next we have Kate. Kate is turning 6 next Friday, March 13th! Can I believe it? NO!! There's one quick story to share about Kate. She knew that her birthday was after daddy's, so once daddy's was over, she decided to let me know exactly what she wanted for her birthday. She had it all planned out. I'm expecting, "mom, I want a princess party". I was totally wrong! This is what she came and told me, "mom, I want a surprise party at Pump It Up, I want to show up there and when I walk in, I want all my friends to be there to surprise me!", I'm thinking, holy cow girl, you're only 6, not 16! Anyways, the plan is all ready to go, so look for upcoming birthday pics soon. She's doing amazing at school! She's got friends that she comes home and updates me on almost every day. She has homework, and it's always so easy for her. She's really to smart for her own good! She comes home with her report card every 6 weeks with all excellents and they said she's more than ready for 1st grade. So we are very excited for this! She's truly mommies helper, when she wants to be. She helps me with cleaning, cooking, and taking care of her sisters. Sometimes I think I'm more blessed to have her as a daughter than she is to have me as her mom. I don't have a ton of pics of her, b/c she spends most of her days at school now. But here are a few!

Kate is doing just fine with her Asthma. She takes her 'puffer' as Aunt Mary taught her to call it every day, and hasn't had any problems. So thank you everyone for your prayers!

Kate's proud Valentine Box

Just had to post this story with a picture. As all kids do, at Valentines, they come home from school all excited to create their valentine's box for school, to receive all there valentines from there friends. So last minute, and I mean VERY last minute, the night before we hadn't come up with any ideas, so as we were wandering around the house trying to come up with something. Chris had a great idea, and it turned out to be the best one of the class! Kate was very proud of her valentine box and she wanted a picture with it so she could remember it always! So great!!

Marriage Conference 2009

I haven't really had a lot of time lately, but I wanted to write a few updates. Chris and I went to our first ever Marriage Conference at our church. We enjoyed it so much that we are planning to make it a yearly tradition! Thanks to Grandma Robyn, we got to go for the whole overnight process. We went Friday night to the dinner and dance, (this was the first dance I've ever been to really...and it took me a while to warm up to the idea, I'm not much of a dancer...ha) then that night we went swimming and relaxed in the hot tub. It was a WONDERFUL break to just be with each other and not have to be 'mom' and 'dad' for 24 hours. The next day we got up and went to the conference part of it all, and it was a WONDERFUL conference! We heard from Anna and Fred Kendall, Ted Haggard, and of course our amazing pastors, Keith and Sheila Craft. The talks were a great encouragement and we learned A LOT!! Anyways, we are VERY thankful for Robyn and her willingness to take on the kiddos for 24 hours while we got a much relaxed, and needed get-away. We got all dressed up and enjoyed the whole event. We looked great huh?

Prayer for Kate

I wanted to write a quick note, for those of you who read this, please keep Kate in your prayers. She had really bad strep throat 2 weeks ago, took all her medicine, and it went away. Then about 24 hours after that medicine ran out, she started wheezing coughing a lot!! So yesterday, we went back to the doctor and b/c she was wheezing and the doctor said she has asthma, and put her on 5 medicine, and wanted us to come back 24 hours later for a follow-up, hoping the wheezing would be different/gone due to the medicine. So this morning back to the doctor we went, and the wheezing was still there, so they had her do another breathing treatment, and then they sent her to get a chest X-ray to make sure it wasn't pneumonia. We just got the call and it's not pneumonia, PRAISE GOD!! This is something she can grow out of, and I'm believing she will! Please keep her in your prayers as we go through this together. I have a lot to learn about, b/c I know nothing about asthma. But I'm going to learn. Thanks for all the extra prayers!

Daddy/Daughter Dance 2009 ~ Valentines

So the girls got to go to the Daddy Daughter Dance this last weekend, and it was GREAT!! We went to the Little Elm Dance this year instead of the Frisco dance, which Kate and Daddy did last year, hoping that Kate would have more friends at the dance (b/c this is the school district she's in), and she did! We didn't want to spend the extra money on dresses and hair this year, so we used the fancy dresses that Grandma Lorel bought the girls for Aunt Mary's Christmas wedding this year. I did their hair, and makeup, and sparkles. Chris took them out to eat, then off to the dance they went. Hailey was very excited to go this year, b/c she was too young last year. Hailey was a bit nervous going with her cast on b/c she wasn't sure how much she'd be able to dance, but it turned out great! Once they got there, they got pictures taken, and then Kate was off to socialize with friends. She's a little social butterfly! Hailey danced with daddy, and has a great 'cast-dance' move. They had an amazing night, and it was a great time for all of them. Next year Chris said we'll have to do 2 different dances, b/c it's hard to slow dance with 2 girls. Before they left, Kate helped Hailey spice up her lip-gloss, it was precious. She wanted her to look perfect! And they both did! Finally, they are off to the dance riding in daddy's car, and all thumbs up. It was a great Valentines Memory for us all! The next day Chris and I got to go out kid free for 8 hours, thanks to Grandma Robyn, who watched the girls for us. We also had a great Valentines together.

Cast Day

Today was cast day for Hailey. I thought I'd post a bunch of pics to tell the story. As we were driving to the hospital, she told me, "Mommy, I'm ok, I'm not scared, b/c I'm not getting any shots, so I'm ok", it was so cute. The first pic is of her right before her X-rays. Then she got to let her leg breathe for a few minutes, I know this felt good for her. As you can see she's wearing headphones in most of the pics, she had her daddy's I-pod and was watching Peter Pan through most of the appointment. Here she is starting the process. She was SO brave! You'll have to excuse the undies in the pics, but it's just how it ended up. This next pic is SO cute, I LOVE it, but her eyes are closed, but I still had to put it up, she did such a great job! Then she had to pick out her color, and that was an easy choice for her. I was surprised with how many choices there were, but she went with her favorite, Purple! Even the doctor said she did great, she sat so still, and just let her do her thing, Hailey made it seem easy, and even a bit on the fun side, she just about smiled in every picture....she's GREAT! Then it was all over, and back home we went, it went very smoothly, and we are just happy that the countdown is on. I'll end this post with this last pic, she's doing a good job, and handling everything really well for a 3 year old. Continue to keep her in your prayers as we push through these next 4 weeks. We are looking forward to this Friday, the girls are going to a Daddy Daughter Dance, and it will be interesting with a broken leg. I'll post pics from that event next week. Thank you everyone for your support!