Kim's Korner

Shocking, I know!

2012-02-01T13:02:00.000-06:00

Yes, I am still alive!!! Can't believe its been so long since my last post! So just to catch up, Happy Halloween, Happy Thanksgiving, Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year!!!! At least I made it before Valentines Day! Wow, were do I start? Really not much new going on here. I don't know why I haven't posted more often. Sometimes, I just kinda forget about this poor little blog.

We had a great holiday season. Danny's dad and girlfriend came to visit us from Illinois over Christmas. It was his first visit here so we were so happy he was able to make it. We had a great time with them, even though it decided to rain everyday they were here. And, no lie, not even an hour after they leave, the sun comes out and it stops raining. Go figure!

This has seriously been the warmest winter I have ever seen!! Down here its been averaging 65-75 everyday! And it sounds like its been above average everywhere and IL has hardly seen any snow!? CrAzY!! Oh well, I'm sure not complaining!

I'm still working part time at the same job. Its going fine but I've been looking around for full time stuff. I do like spending all day at home with Aydan (and Kenzie when she's not in school).
Aydan turned 5 on January 29th!! We didn't have a big party, just cake and stuff at home for him. He's growing up so fast! He's getting so tall and loosing a lot of his "baby fat" so he looks more like a big boy. This August, he will start Kindergarten.

This is him playing outside on his birthday :)

Kenzie is doing really well too. She's been really into reading (mostly scary stories) and writing her own stories. She so good at it! She has such an imagination!

This was taken on Thanksgiving at my Uncle Jerry's house. I just love this picture of her :)

This is a random picture I found but I love it! Danny was working on a neighbors car and the neighbor is a photographer and he snapped a picture of these 2 working. Its so cute! You can really tell a difference between my phone pictures and his nice camera pictures, lol!

Well, I really don't have much else to report, and Aydan's bugging me to play with him, so I guess thats my cue to finish up here. I will definately try to update more often, I just lead a boring life ;)

Take care! Have a good week!

A few of my favorite Halloween movies.....

2011-10-25T12:35:00.000-05:00

Halloween is right around the corner. I love Halloween time! The weather, the decorations, the scents, all of it. Its also one of the best times of years for scary movies! Below I have a list of just a few of my favorite movies for this time of year. Yes most of them are from my childhood and they aren't very scary but I love that I can watch them with my kids and they won't have nightmares :)

First one up is "Casper." I loved this movie as a kid. Its funny and kind of creepy at the same time. I love movies that have old haunted houses too.

Next, "Halloween" the story of Michael Myers. This one isn't so family-friendly but I'll admit, my kids have seen it. Michael Myers is just scary looking, and the fact that he never moves faster than a snails pace but somehow he always catches up to everyone (and he never dies) is pretty scary.

"Sleepy Hallow" is the story of the Headless Horseman and stars Johnny Depp. I love the setting of this movie. Its not about Halloween but for some reason it just feels like Halloween time when you watch it.

"Hocus Pocus" was definately my favorite Halloween movie as a kid. I just loved it, and I still do :)

There are more movies that I like to watch but they are mostly just scary movies, not necessarilly Halloween-ish.

So what's your favorite movie to watch this time of year?

OK, breaks over!

2011-10-25T10:13:00.000-05:00

Wow! So I didn't intentionally take a break from the blog, but since its been like 2 months since my last post, I need to get my butt in gear and get back on track! Guess I've been in a slump lately. Been busy, but not anything really blog-worthy. Well, I'll get this out of the way first. About a month ago, I lost my job. Obviously I was pretty upset about it. I think I went into depression mode for a few days, maybe more. I didn't even want to get out of bed or leave the house. I felt so lost because it was the only job I've had since we moved here. What else was I supposed to do? In this economy, its not exactly easy to just find a new job (that pays the bills), especiallly without knowing the right people. It was scary, not having my income and not knowing how we were going to pay the bills. I've never been in that situation before.

After a few days of feeling sorry for myself, I started applying for part-time evening jobs so that I could stay home during the day with the kids and not have the daycare expense. About a week later, I applied for a job and they called me the next day for an interview. That really helped boost my outlook. I was starting to feel like everything would be ok and that it wasn't the end of the world. Anyway a few days later, I went to the interview and got the job on the spot. My first day was a few days later. I consider myself lucky because I was only "unemployed" for about 10 days. Its not the best job in the world, but I don't care right now. I work with in the apparel dept. of a sporting goods store. Its actually kinda fun. Everyone I work with is pretty cool. I get to "window shop" all day, as Danny calls it, lol! Plus, I get 20% discount!! Awesome! Aydan LOVES staying home with me all day! If Kenzie is ever sick and has to stay home from school, I won't have to call in and miss work. The schedule works out pretty good for us. I only actually work 2-3 nights during the week, but then I do have to work Saturday and Sunday, which takes some getting used to. I'm not looking at making this my career, but it will work for now, while I figure things out.

They say everything happens for a reason. I got to thinking that maybe I lost my job because its not what I'm "meant" to be doing. Maybe I'm supposed to take a different path than the one I was on. Afterall, I knew that I didn't want to be doing what I was doing forever. Aydan starts Kindergarten next fall, and I started thinking that would be a good time for me to start going to school also. With both kids in school all day, and me only working evenings and weekends, that would leave me all day long during the week to go to school. So Danny and I talked about it and he thinks its a great idea. He's always wanted me to go to college because he knew I had potential to be whatever I wanted but I was always the one that said why bother when I already have a good job. Now, I have a reason to start. Anytime I've thought of different career options, Paralegal is always something that has come to mind. The community college I've chosen is an American Bar Association Approved school for Paralegals, which is preferred when looking for a job and they have an internship program for Paralegals, which could lead to a permanent job once you get your degree. I have to say I'm pretty excited about it. Its definately a new start to look forward too. I won't be able to go full time until fall of 2012 when Aydan starts school, but I may take an evening class 1 or 2 nights a week in the spring to get started. So anyway, thats the drama thats been going on with me :) Take care!!

Cutest 4th Grader Ever!

2011-08-24T14:38:00.000-05:00

School started Monday for Kenzie. Yes, she started 4th grade!! It doesn't seem like she should be that old!! We got to her classroom and she was sooo excited that she got a lot of her friends from last year in her class this year, so that's good for her. Her teacher seemed very nice, and after school when Kenzie got home, she raved about her teacher! She really loves her, so thats good too!! So far, we are off to a great year! We've all been waking up on time, if not early, and getting out the door in time too! Yay!!

I'm crossing my fingers that these good habits continue, but I know how it goes as the year goes on. Oh well, I will enjoy it while it lasts! :)

Pool Time!!

2011-08-24T14:26:00.000-05:00

Kenzie and her friend Rachel, from after-school daycare.

Yay!!! We've finally been able to go swimming!!! Today marks the 24th day in a row (everyday in August so far) of 100 degrees or higher here in Houston!! We are so ready for this heat to go away!! To be in the 90's would be welcoming, lol!! According to the forecast, it doesn't look like its going away anytime soon..... :( But, at least we are still able to go swimming this late in the summer, and probably into fall.

Kenzie used to be a little nervous in the water, especially getting her head wet or going under water. This summer she has really made a lot of progress with swimming. She got some new goggles and now she's swimming under water like a little fish. We are very proud of her!! Aydan just needs his floaty and he's good to go. He loves just lounging around, floating in the pool. He's not real into going under or anything yet, which is fine.

hello August....

2011-08-09T12:19:00.000-05:00

Howdy ya'll!!

Well its definately feeling like August down here in ol' Texas! Everyday this month has been 100 degrees or over and even in July, most days were near 100 or higher. Plus, factor in our major drought we are having, we haven't had a break from the heat! And to think we still have a couple months of this to go....ugh! One good thing is that the renovation at our apartment's pool is complete finally and they should be opening the pool tomorrow...fingers crossed! It has been closed all spring/summer due to the renovation of the entire complex and pool area. I will say it looks awesome and I can't wait to take the kids swimming...soon!! They can't wait either!

Here's a picture of the new paint job on our building. I don't have a pic of the pool area yet, but hopefully I'll get one soon...

Not a whole lot new going on with us. Unfortunately, we've kind of been hibernating in the house because of the heat. Sometimes on the weekends, we'll go to the movie theaters or do something thats indoors.

I'm really getting excited for the fall months to come. It is my favorite season, although we don't get much of the fall weather or the changing colors of the leaves down here. Its usually pretty nice Oct-December though so I'm still excited about it.

Hopefully, this weekend I can get Kenzie's school shopping done. We still need to get most of her supplies (which surprisingly, she doesn't need that much this year) and I want to get her a few new outfits and new shoes. Her first day of school is August 22nd. I still can't get over the fact that she'll be in 4th grade!!!! And, she's 9 years old---thats halfway to 18 people!! Yikes!! Um, I had her when I was 18 years old. Now thats scary to think about, lol!!

No school for Aydan this year. He will be 5 in January so he'll start kindergarten in Fall, 2012. His daycare is pretty much like Pre-K so he learns a lot of things there, which should prepare him a little for kindergarten.

Here's a few random pictures that were on my phone....

All of these, except for the one of the dog, were taken near Kemah. We had gone somewhere to eat and stopped along the water on our way home.

My crazy little boy...

My phone didn't get the best picture of this but you can kind of see the sailboats out in the water. Its so pretty. I could literally sit and stare out into the water all day!

Both of my silly kiddos!

Beautiful Kenzie

This one really could have been pretty if I had a fancy camera to take it with lol!

And, last but not least, the dog Hunter. He's such a good boy! We love him so much!

Well, thats all I got for now...

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great week!

Mexican food, Margaritas, & Live Music!!

2011-07-26T11:38:00.000-05:00

Knee deep in the water somewhere....

2011-07-26T10:25:00.000-05:00

Ahhhh!! We finally made it to the beach on Saturday. I ended up taking the kids by myself; Danny didn't feel like being out in the heat, which was fine. We still had a good time. It was so packed!! I drove around for like 20-30 minutes before I found a decent place to park!

The umbrellas were lined up all along the beach.

Heading out to the water (after I lathered them up with sunscreen!)

Kenzie sitting in the waves as they came in.

Aydan's favorite thing was riding the waves on his sissy's princess floaty....

And playing in the sand with his monster truck.

Only worry in the world is the tide gonna reach my chair.....

Hopefully, we'll be here this weekend!

2011-07-22T10:51:00.000-05:00

Galveston, I've missed you!!

I'm beyond ready to go to the beach!! We were planning on going Saturday but Danny may have to work. Hopefully, he won't have to so we can hit the road and get some sand n' sun!!

Soul Surfer

2011-07-14T15:47:00.001-05:00

This movie has been out for a while but I just recently went to the dollar theatre (cuz I'm a big spender) with Kenzie to see it. WE LOVED IT!!! Its a true story about a young teenage girl, Bethany Hamilton, who is attacked by a shark while out surfing and loses her entire arm. It has some big-name stars in it, including Dennis Quaid, Helen Hunt, and Carrie Underwood (love her!). This is a great family movie with a faith-based feel to it. Plus, I tend to like movies with sharks, even though I have an intense fear of them (I blame Jaws, which is also my favorite all-time movie, LOL). I definately would recommend this movie for anyone to see. In fact, I think when it comes out on DVD Aug. 2nd, I will buy it.

View from our backyard...

2011-07-13T15:12:00.002-05:00

I love sitting outside in the evenings or mornings when its not quite so hot and looking out across the water. Its so quiet and peaceful.

(The pics were taken from my phone so they aren't the greatest quality...)

fireworks, bowling, and trains...oh my!

2011-07-11T11:25:00.000-05:00

I'm so far behind on this blog, its ridiculous!! June was pretty busy for us! Danny's family came to visit on the week of the 13th, which I have lots of pics of that I still need to post, lol! Here's a few random things that we've been up to this past month.

We went to the train museum down in Galveston. We had never been there before and thought it'd be something that the kids would enjoy. It was pretty neat. There were several old railroad cars outside that we could walk through. Some of them were still under renovation because there was a lot of damage to the museum after Hurricane Ike.

Walking through the dining hall.... I don't think I've ever been on a real train before. They make them look so much bigger in movies and stuff than they are in real life.

There were a bunch of statues throughout the lobby that they called "Ghosts of Travelers Past." They looked so real it was kinda scary lol! I kept waiting for them to start moving!

Mail car, which I didn't realize you were able to recieve mail on a train?

While we were in Galveston, we drove by the cruise terminal and there was a cruise ship at the port. We would love to take a cruise sometime and its so nice that we could board right down in Galveston. The ships are massive in real life!

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Another thing we've done recently is bowling. The kids had fun with it :) I forgot just how bad I was at bowling!! We played 2 games and I only broke 100 once, just barely, lol!

Danny trying to show Aydan how to throw the ball down the lane.

Kenzie showing off her skills :) The kids actually did pretty well. Their scores weren't too far behind Danny and I. The bumpers definately helped them (and me too, hehehe).

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This year on the 4th of July, we stayed close to home. There were a bunch of fireworks shows in our area. We decided to go near our old apartment building and watch the fireworks by the water. I think everyone else had the same idea...it was packed!!

It was a decent show but nothing to fancy. The kids thought they were cool and I think this is the first year that Aydan really got into them.

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These are just a couple random pics I had on my phone so I thought I'd share. I got Aydan this styro-foam airplane at the dollar store. He loved it until it broke after the first day....but what can you expect for a dollar I guess, right.

Here's Kenzie giving Hunter some love.

I was trying out my new phone when I took this picture.

Anyways, thats about all I have for now. Hopefully soon I will post pics from when Danny's family came to visit. Have a great week!!

Maybe its the lucky hat...

2011-06-07T11:29:00.000-05:00

Since our apartment building is right by the water, Danny and the kids have been doing a lot of fishing off the dock. Its so nice because we don't have to load up the truck and drive somewhere everytime they feel like fishing. This past weekend, we were out there fishing, along with a few of Danny's friends that also live in the building. We ordered some pizza's and were having a good time hanging out. Although, as it got dark, bug spray was a neccesity!! Dang Texas mosquitos!!

Anyways, the guys really didn't have much luck catching fish, but Kenzie, on the other hand, caught 4 fish and 1 crab (but he bit the line and escaped). She was so thrilled that she was catching all the fish. She's such a serious fisherman too. She wouldn't even say that she thought she had a bit on her line, she would just reel it in and show everyone. We don't know if it was the hat (which is actually Danny's) or her Hannah Montana fishing pole that was giving her all the good luck :)

Look who's 30!!

2011-06-07T11:08:00.000-05:00

~JUNE 6TH~

HAPPY 30TH BIRTHDAY DANNY!!!

Yes, Danny turned 30 on Monday June 6th :) I've been giving him a hard time about it but really its not that old (well, its not old until its my turn! YIKES!!!). We were bored the other day and so I asked him if he wanted to go check out some retirement homes....he didn't think that was very funny ;). 30's one of those ages where you really start thinking about your life and what you have and have not accomplished yet. Its like the official "grown-up" age. I know I'm NOT looking forward to it but what can ya do. You're only as old as you feel, right?

Anyways, I think he enjoyed his birthday. I brought him chinese take-out for dinner (he loves chinese and I didn't have to cook so thats a win for both of us!) and we had cake and ice cream. :)

Next week, we are looking forward to Danny's family coming to visit!!!!! We can't wait!! We haven't seen them in a year!! Thats way too long!

It's already been 2 years!

2011-05-24T10:12:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, May 23rd, marked 2 years since we made the big move from small town Illinois, to Houston, Texas. This picture was taken shortly after we arrived at our new apartment. I love it! It says so much!

We had no idea what to expect when we arrived. It was a bit of an adjustment at first, just starting over in a new place with new people, new jobs, new schools. A lot changed for us in a short period of time. But, looking back, it has been sooo worth it!! We absolutely love our new home. Its going much better than I could have ever expected. We are doing so many new and different things with the kids. I never could have imagined that I would live so close to the beach. Or that I would live in a town with a population greater than 4000 with more than one stop light. Or that there would be more stores and restaurants nearby than I will ever have time to visit. Or live in a building where we have to take the elevator up to our floor (which I'll admit can sometimes be a big pain in the rear! lol). Or that I would live in a place wear you can almost wear shorts and t-shirts year round. We have definately been blessed and I am so thankful for all that we have and all that we have been able to do.

Theres still a lot that we would like to accomplish. We eventually would like to live in a house or even a townhouse with at least 3 bedrooms and a fenced in backyard (a pool would be great too) and get away from living in an apartment. Danny would like to finish his associates degree and I need to figure out what I want to do with my future career path. There's nothing wrong with banking, but I don't want to be a teller for the rest of my life.

Most importantly, I'm so grateful for how well the kids have adjusted. Aydan can't even remember living in Illinois so he was easy. Kenzie, however, was 7 when we moved so she had to leave friends and family behind that she was close with. That was definately the hardest part of the whole move. But, that girl is so outgoing and friendly she has no problem meeting new people and making friends. She's even had to change schools once already since we've lived here and she did great with the adjustment. She met a girl that lives 2 doors down from us and they have become great friends too. They go to each others houses a few times during the week and they spend a lot of time together on the weekends and have sleepovers if we don't have any plans. Its really worked out pretty well.

So much has changed within the past 2 years; I look forward to see what changes come our way in the next 2 years!

Probably the biggest jerk ever!

2011-05-23T12:42:00.000-05:00

So, if you read my previous post, you know that we went to San Luis Pass yesterday. Its on Galveston Island and basically its the area near the bridge that connects the west end of the island to the mainland. Anyway, thats really not important. You have to drive off the main road and take sand paths/roads to get to the beach and to leave. We drove Danny's truck there because its very handy when going to the beach. When we were leaving, we decided to go a little bit of a different way to get back on the main road than when we arrived. It looked like it would be much quicker. So we are driving along and we can kind of tell that the sand seemed to be getting deeper and more hilly. We were about ready to turn around when we realize that we are stuck. Can't go backwards, can't go forwards, just spinning tires! Great. Wonderful. Awesome. Its a lot like being stuck in the snow. The more you try to get out, the deeper you get! So Danny and his friend get out and start using Aydan's toy buckets to dig the sand out from behind the tires. Just as they started, a dune-buggy jeep with big ol' tires pulled up to check on us. There was a coule guys and a couple girls, all probably in their 30's I would guess, in the jeep. Danny asked the driver if he had anything that he could hook up to our truck to tow us out.

And you know what this jerk says?

"Yeah I'll do it for 40 bucks."

Ummm. No thanks dude. We just need move like 10-15 feet and we'd be good to go. Danny just told him he'd keep digging and save his $40. Then, the guy proceeds to drive past us and turn around and parks. Just parks. And now, they are all sitting in their jeep dune-buggy thing just watching us. Yeah thanks for the help %$@#* (pardon my language but he pissed me off)

Danny and his friend had us loose in just a few minutes, thank goodness, and we saved our 40 bucks, all while they sat in their jeep and watched. Once we were loose and ready to go, they drove by and were waving and clapping. Grrrrrr!!!!!!!

Seriously. I just could not believe they did not try to help us. Not like it was a life or death serious situation but just the fact that he wouldn't help out unless he benefited from it is just wrong. Here we are stranded with our 2 small kids in the back and he's just gonna cruise on by and watch us dig ourselves out. Nice. Real nice. Thats ok. Karma's bound to catch up with you sooner or later.

Just Beachy....

2011-05-23T12:16:00.000-05:00

Danny and the kids have been doing a lot of fishing lately. Aydan caught this fish (I think Danny said it was a croaker?) the other day off the dock behind our apartment. He was so excited! I love this picture so I had to post it :)

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Yesterday, we went to San Luis Pass, which is at the west end of Galveston. Danny and a friend of his wanted to try salt water fishing and had heard that this was a good place to try it. While they fished, the kids and I had fun wading in the water and relaxing on the beach.

Here's Kenzie and Aydan playing in the water. Kenzie mostly played in the sand on the beach making sand castles and shell-hunting, but Aydan couldn't stay out of the water. The water was pretty shallow where they are playing and just a little further out was a sand bar where the water was only ankle deep. In the background you can see Danny and his friend standing out in the water fishing. They are just past the sand bar, where it did get much deeper so the kids weren't allowed to go that far. The sand bar blocked all the waves though so the kids could play in calmer water, which was nice.

An ice cream truck went by and of course the kids were ready for a cold treat! Yummy!

I was walking along the sand bar looking for shells for Kenzie and I saw this little hermit crab swimming along so I picked it up to take a look. Kenzie loved it!! She wanted to keep it but I told her if we kept it, it would likely die so I convinced her that we needed to release him.

We spent the entire afternoon at the beach and we took our grill so we made some hot dogs. The guys didn't catch much but some people next to us caught a small hammer head shark! Kinda scary to think that sharks could be swimming so close by.

I put sun screen on the kids a couple of times and somehow they still managed to get a little sunburnt. Of course me trying to get some color did not put sun screen on so I ended up very burnt and I am very sore today! Well, I guess I did put some on, after we were there for about 2 hours and I could already tell I was getting red. I wanted some color but was hoping for a golden broze color, not bright red....Ugh! I should know better!! Aloe vera gel is my best friend right now!

Overall, we all had a great time at the beach! I'm so glad summer is upon us!!

~Flashback Friday~

2011-05-20T10:24:00.000-05:00

Awwww!! Aren't they so cute! This was taken in our back yard in Illinois I believe the summer of 2008. Kenzie would have been 6 and Aydan about 1 1/2. I was showing Aydan some old pictures taken at our house in Illinois and was asking him if he remembered it. I was a little surprised that he did not remember most of them. One pic was him playing in his bedroom and he kind of remembered his room but thats about it. It shouldn't surprise me considering he was only about 2 1/2 years old when we moved away.

I'll have to dig up some more old pics to post. I just love looking at them and bringing back memories :) The kids enjoy looking at them too and seeing how they looked as babies.

TGIF ya'll!!

hello again :)

2011-05-16T16:11:00.000-05:00

Man, I'm running out of creative titles, lol! (And, first sentences!)

Anyways, things are going just dandy down here in Houston. I had a very nice Mother's Day. Kenzie and Aydan both made me homemade cards and gifts, which I love! They are so precious! I also got a rose :) Kenzie was such a helper, cleaning up the house for me and doing it all with a smile on her face. She also made me breakfast in bed. But speaking of homemade cards, I never know how long to keep them? Or, where to put them if I do decide to keep them? I just hate throwing them away, but if I kept every single piece of artwork I've ever recieved, we'd be buried in paper! I've been keeping a few things from each of them and what I don't keep, I will throw away after a few weeks of it laying around. I ready an article online about how you can take pictures of the items before throwing them away to at least be able to remember it later on. I need to figure out something because both kids bring home lots of papers and artwork from school on a regular basis. I think I'm just gonna get a small tote or box to store some of what I would like to keep.

I tried to organize the kids' closet over the weekend too. They have so many toys with little pieces that end up everywhere and pieces go missing and it just drives me nuts!! I bought some shoe box sized totes with lids and a few other baskets for them. Kenzie put her Littlest Pest Shop and Zooble animals in them, along with Barbies and all her accessories (who by the way has a bigger wardrobe than I do!). We put all of Aydan's Hot Wheels cars in another. Now that their smaller toys have a place, there's no excuse for them not to be put away correctly (well, at least thats the goal). Its just amazing how fast you can accumulate stuff! Our apartment is quickly filling up, which actually can be a good thing, considering we moved here with only 2 carloads of stuff to our name.

Over the weekend, Kenzie and I had some mother-daughter time shopping at the mall. She got a gift card to a store in the mall for her birthday and has been dying to go use it. Actually, I think she was more excited about getting a root beer float at the food court than anything else! lol! I love being able to spend one-on-one time with her. We don't get to do it very often! While we were gone, the boys (Danny and Aydan) went fishing off the dock behind our apartment. Unfortunately, they didn't catch anything though.

On a different note, its hard to believe that there's only a little over 2 weeks left of school this year! Kenzie is ready for summer break. In fact, so am I. It will make my mornings a little easier. I will only have to make one stop in the morning instead of 2 ;) Everythings just more relaxed during the summer, especially the evenings. As of now, we don't have any summer vacations planned. We're trying to save our money since we'll be going to Illinois next Spring for my brothers wedding, and all of us are in the wedding. It would be nice though to maybe do a short weekend trip somewhere. I really would like to visit San Antonio sometime, which I think is like a 3 1/2 - 4 hour drive from us.

Well, I guess thats all I can think of at the moment. Have a great week! :)

Pizza Party for the Birthday Girl

2011-04-30T19:38:00.006-05:00

Kenzie turned 9 years old today!!! She's growing up on me way too fast!! We are so lucky to have such an awesome daughter!

Here she is striking a pose for me before we left for her party. We had her party this afternoon at Gatti's Pizza. We rented a private room and they provide a hostess for the party that helps with decorating and serving the food. Best of all, they clean up the mess; can't beat that! lol! :)
All we had to do was bring the cake and they did everything else.

Getting the party room decorated and waiting the the guests to arrive.

She had a great turnout for the party. I think about 12 kids came, including some friends from school/daycare and her cousins.

The party included lots of game tokens for each child so they got to enjoy the arcade room for a while too. Here's Aydan with a friend of his from daycare, who is the little brother of one of Kenzie's friends that came to the party. They had a good time playing with each other and its a good thing that there was another young boy there for him to play with.

Time for cake and ice cream...make a wish!!! We had to have a giant cookie cake too because those are the best! :)

We had a great time and are glad lots of her friends and family were able to come!

Tonight she's having a friend sleep over and they are having a good time playing. I think Aydan may be annoying them at the moment but I guess thats what little brothers are for ;) They told me they are going to stay up until 1:30am but that they may doze off before that. Thats good because I know I will, lol!

this and that...

2011-04-20T10:22:00.003-05:00

So Easter is this Sunday and I still need to get all the kids' goodies bought. I don't know why I always wait until the last minute for Easter stuff; I seem to do it every year! Well I can say that I do have some clothes for each of them, just need to get them baskets, some snacks/candy, and some smaller toys to put in the baskets. Easter is always like the first sign of Spring, but its been feeling more like summer lately. This week, we are having highs in the 90's and its only getting down to 70's at night. Plus, add humidity on top of that and it makes for hot, sticky weather...and its only April. I just want to be at the beach all the time!! We haven't been there since my sister was here but I'm ready to go back!

Kenzie's birthday is coming up and we've been trying to figure out what we can do for her party. I think she finally decided on Gatti's Pizza. They have party rooms you can rent out and a huge arcade area for the kids to play in. So now we just have to get her invitations sent out. We told her she can probably have 1 or 2 friends stay the night too if they can.

For a few weeks now, I've been doing a workout dvd at home. Its "Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred, " which has 3 levels that gradually get harder and each one is only 20 minutes. Its not that I necessarily want to loose the pounds, I'm just trying to get in better shape and tone up a little, which I guess is good since really I've only lost 1 to 2 pounds depending on when I weight myself during the day, lol! Mostly, I just feel better after I exercise. Even though I can't really see much of a difference, it does make me feel better anyway. I started to alternate between the dvd one night and then just running on the treadmill the next night. Well, all weekend I didn't do either. Monday I did the dvd and last night I just sat on my butt watching tv. So basically I feel pretty lazy for not doing much lately and need to get back on track before I stop doing it all together. It can be hard to stay motivated, thats for sure!

whats happening....

2011-04-11T11:29:00.002-05:00

So, now that I've finally updated you all on my sister's visit and our Moody Gardens trip, I can fill you in on more random things.

The weather is really heating up fast here. It feels more like summer most of the time than spring. We've been trying to get outside and enjoy the outdoors before true summer actually hits and its too hot to wanna do much out there. There's a nature trail right down the road from us that we've finally checked out the other day. Its a nice place to go for a walk with dog too. Kenzie caught some sort of beetle that she held captive for a day or too. His name was George. She got him all set up with leaves, grass, and twigs. She watched his every move. We finally talked her into freeing George so that he wouldn't die. She agreed. Once she took him outside to let him free, she brough back in a rolly-polly bug (I don't know the true name for those little things.) She's had him since yesterday. He's either playing dead or his spirit is no longer with us.

April is a busy month as far as birthdays and things. Kenzie has been invited to a birthday party every weekend this month, except for April 30th, which will be her birthday party. Plus, Easter is coming up too! Yesterday, she went to a birthday party at a roller skating rink. She loved it! She can't really skate, but her and another friend held on to the side wall. They still had a good time. Speaking of skating, I finally got some rollerblades. At first, I about fell on my behind. It took me a minute to get my balance and remember how to do it. I can't even remember the last time I actually rollerbladed (is that even a word??). Definately been a while! The only other problem is I ordered them online and I think they are a little to small. I should have gotten a size bigger than my shoe size I think. Oh well, we'll see how it goes. I've only used them once so far.

Danny and I have been trying to decide on what to do for Kenzie's birthday this year. She'll be 9 can you believe it!!! She's mentioned going bowling with a few friends so maybe we'll look into that.

I can't believe how fast time is going! April will be over soon and then the school year will be about over already!! Before we know it, it will be Christmas!

Well, I think thats all I got for now! Take care and have a good week!!

Moody Gardens!!!!!!!!!

2011-04-11T11:00:00.004-05:00

Last weekend, our family went to Moody Gardens in Galveston, TX. We had the best time there!! There's Moody Garden's Hotel and Convention Center that we stayed in for the night and different things to do like the Aquarium Pyramid, Rainforest Pyramid, 3D and 4D theatres, Penguin exhibits, gift shops, and much more.

Heres a picture of the pool/swim up bar. Thankfully, it was actually warm enough for us to do a little swimming. The pool is heated though so that definately helps! This is the view from our window. One of the pyramids is the Aquarium, one is the Rainforest, and the other is the Discovery pyramid. We were on the 5th floor and had an awesome view! I could have just sat and looked out the window all day.... View of the pool area from our room.

Danny and I having a drink during 'happy hour' at one of the hotel restaurants. Mine was a Pomegrate Bay Breeze...it was sooo good!!

I love this view at the water. There were several boats in the water and the weather was perfect.

Here's Danny enjoying the view also.

This is inside the Aquarium pyramid. Its a shark cage that divers would use when going in the water with sharks. Yikes!!

There's one of the sharks in the aquarium. We also saw a bunch of hammerhead sharks too!

Going through the tunnel. I couldn't help but think of one of the Jaw's movies when the great white shark swims into the aquarium tunnels under the ocean and breaks it. Luckily they didn't have any great whites in here, lol! ;) As much as I think sharks are scary, I just love them! Jaws is like one of my favorite movies! Yeah, I'm kinda weird like that.

We saw a 3D movie too. And, go figure, it was called Sharks 3D. That was the first time I had seen a 3D show. It was so cool!! I really does look like the action pops off the screen. Me and Kenzie kept reaching out in front of us to grab everything. Very cool!

It had been a long time since we've actually stayed in a hotel (and I don't count the scary places we've stayed in driving back and forth from IL to TX lol!) We had a great time and enjoyed the room service delivery. I could really get used to that! It was a nice and relaxing time! We definately need to get away and do things like that more often.

Sister's visit

2011-04-10T18:26:00.006-05:00

OK, so I'm a little late posting these pictures from my sister and niece's visit. They were here March 10-17th. Our internet at home is just WiFi and usually its pretty slow. It takes FOREVER and a day to upload pics to my blog so I just haven't made the time to do it until now.

So anyways, we had a great time during their visit. The girls were so happy to be able to play with each other all day, everyday. They stayed with us at our apartment so they had plenty of time to spend together. We went to Galveston a couple times, Kemah Boardwalk, NASA, the mall, and just enjoyed hanging out together. I picked a few of the hundreds of pictures we took to post.

The day they arrived, I picked Kenzie up from school. This picture is from when they first saw each other in the car after I picked Kenzie up. It was so cute to see them so excited. :) We went to Kemah Boardwalk on the Saturday night they were here. It was a blast! Danny's HR lady at his job invited us to come that night because her boyfriend's band was playing. They are an 80's cover band. The kids rode a few rides but it was sooooo busy that night because of it being the first weekend of Spring Break.

Silly girls :)

Showing Hunter some love.

Trying to get a picture of all of them in the atrium lobby at our apartment.

Hanging out by the pool. They wanted to swim but it wasn't quite warm enough yet.

Chillin in the back of Danny's truck.

Here's a couple pics from NASA. We had a good time there too. We were able to watch a high dive show that they put on outside. It was really cool. One diver actually dove from 86 feet in the air. Yikes!!

The Saturn V shuttle. Thats just part of it in the picture. Its enormous!

Another picture at NASA in a space shuttle.

This picture was at my uncle Jerry's. My grandma was visiting also that weekend so we were lucky enough to be able to spend time with her when she came. She split her time up between staying with her son Jerry, and her daughter, Vicki. In this picture, left to right: Aunt Vicki, me, Erin, Grandma, Uncle Jerry, Dani (my cousin). It was so great spending time with everyone!!

All the kids left to right: Aaron (Jerry's son), Kenzie, Melanie, Shawn (Jerry's son), Aydan, Trey (Dani's son), Gabriel (Dani's son), and Christian (Dani's son). The poor girls are way out numbered :)

Well, thats all the pictures for now. I may upload some more later because there's a few more I would like to share.

We had a great time and I'm really glad Erin and Melanie were able to come! Danny's family comes in June so we are really looking forward to that as well!!

So Excited!

2011-03-08T11:03:00.003-06:00

I'm so excited y'all!! I get to see my sister and niece Melanie on Thursday and they'll be here for a week!!! Woot Woot!! Yeah, I've been counting down the days. Kenzie is very excited to see Melanie too! They are only about 18 months apart in age so they have a lot of fun together. There's so much I want to show them and do when they come!! I really hope we have good weather when they are here. Its been a little rainy lately. So far, the forecast is calling for sunny and low to mid 70's for the first several days they will be here.

Another exciting thing I just heard yesterday is that my Grandma Nila (my Dad's mom) is flying in on Sunday to stay with my uncle (her son) for a few days, then staying with my aunt (her daughter) for a few days. So, we'll get to see her too this weekend. I'll try to take lots of pics so I can post them later.

Well, this past weekend, we moved to a different apartment at the same building we were in. I know, seems like we move a lot!! Hopefully now we will stay put for a while. I really hate the moving process!! Ugh!! Our other apartment was great, but it was just a little to small. We were quickly growing out of it. The living room was very small and it wasn't very open. Our new place still has 2 bedrooms/2 bathrooms but the living room area is much bigger with a separate dining area. Our bedroom is much bigger too. The only downfall really is that there doesn't seem to be as much storage space, but we've made it work.

Hmmm, seems like there was something else I wanted to tell you too....?

I can't remember what it was, so until it hits me I just wanted to say what the heck is up with these gas prices lately??? Geez!! Houston usually has the some of the lower prices for gas and its still hitting like $3.34/ gallon! And that was a few days ago! Its probably gone up since I've last noticed. All this drama in the Middle East needs to chill out or something. Better yet, maybe we shouldn't depend so much on other countries for our needs.

And omg...Charlie Sheen! He has totally gone off the deep end! It's like not even funny anymore! This guy needs some serious intervention! But the sad part is people are too concerned with making money off of his antics than they are with trying to get the guy some help! It's ridiculous really!

Well, I can't think of what it was that I wanted to say, so I guess that's all the rambling I'll do for now, lol!

Have a great day folks!

Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY DAD TODAY!!!!!!!! :) HOPE ITS A GREAT ONE!

It's Rodeo Time...

2011-03-03T13:56:00.004-06:00

It's that time of year again for the Houston Rodeo and Livestock Show at Reliant Stadium. This is the biggest show of it's kind in the U.S. Danny got 4 tickets from his work yesterday and since we have never been, we decided to go last night. The performer of the evening was Trace Adkins. Outside the stadium they had a huge carnival and all kinds of food vendors.

We spent most of the time before the concert down at the carnival. When we finally went up to the stadium, the rodeo portion was almost done. We did get to see a few barrel races.

Here is a picture of the concert. My phone didn't take the greatest pics because of all the spotlights and stuff, plus we were pretty high up.

Another pic of the concert and all the lights. It was a pretty good show! The rodeo goes on for about 2 weeks and every night theres a different performer. Some of the others this year include Sugar Land, Lady Antebellum, Alan Jackson, Kid Rock, Janet Jackson, and Brad Paisley.

A picture of the ferris wheel (or "steering wheel" as Aydan calls it, lol!).

Kenzie being goofy. She was so excited when I picked her up from daycare and told her we were going to the rodeo.

They each rode a couple rides before we headed up to the concert. It wasn't nearly as busy and packed as I expected it to be but part of that was probably because it was a week night and people have school and work the next day. We didn't get home until almost 11pm. We were so tired. None of us wanted to get up this morning!

We had a good time though. I'm really glad we had the chance to go and experience it.

the much anticipated new glasses....

2011-02-28T10:31:00.002-06:00

Kenzie's new glasses came in last Friday!! She was so excited! She had an eye appointment a few weeks ago because she had failed an eye test at her school recently. She had also mentioned that its sometimes hard for her to read the board at school.

So she had her exam and picked out her frames. Its kinda hard to tell from the pictures but the frames are a teal blue color and they have peace signs on the sides.

Today will be her first day wearing them at school so we'll see how she gets along with them. :)

Whoever said a dog was Man's best friend.....

2011-02-14T09:31:00.003-06:00

....didn't have a daughter!

"I'm so glad we have a dog! Now I don't have to pretend Aydan's one!"----Kenzie

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Poor Hunter! He puts up with so much!

Birthday Boy!!

2011-02-01T13:50:00.003-06:00

Aydan celebrated his 4th birthday on Saturday, January 29th! He's getting so big so fast! My family was here from IL so that was great that they could celebrate with us! I'll have to write more on their visit in another post.

Here he is with his giant cookie cake. Yes, they spelled his name wrong :( Oh well, I didn't order it ahead of time so I guess thats what I get, lol! It still tasted pretty good!

Holding up 4 fingers to show us his age.

We got him this Mobigo video game for his birthday and he loves it!!!! He's constantly playing it! Between that and our Wii, he is always wanting to play with one of them. At least he doesn't bug me about playing with my cell phone as often lol! We have Super Mario Bros. 3 on the Wii (the old school Nintendo version) and Aydan is really getting good at it. He can pass several of the levels on his own. I like the Mobigo because at least it has educational games that he can play.

He's moved up to the 4 year old class at his daycare, which is basically like Pre-school. He's doing really well. He has such a goofy personality, but he's my little cuddle bug too. The faces he makes and some of the things he says crack us up! I don't know where he comes up with some of the stuff!

Anyways, thats all for now, but hopefully soon I'll post on my family's visit. We had a great time with them.

Enjoying the outdoors...

2011-01-25T11:54:00.002-06:00

When we can, we've been trying to get outside more, if the weather permits. The temps have been changing from day to day. It'll be 66 one day and 52 the next but I really can't complain. Overall, its been great weather, except for the rain. I am just hoping for nice weather for this weekend. Why? Because my family is coming!! WOO HOO! I can't wait! So far the forecast is showing sun and around 62-65 most days! I hope it stays that way! They will arrive Thursday evening and will be here until late morning or so on Monday. Very quick trip, but at least we'll get to see them.

Here's Kenzie wearing her pink hat. She had it for about 3 days and now its lost. We can't find it anywhere. Good thing it only cost me a buck fifty :)
Goofy Aydan being ornery as ever! My little man turns 4 on Saturday!!!!!!!!! WHOA!!

Walking down the dock with the dog at the apartment.

This is at the park where we go a lot to feed the birds. There were a ton of them on this day. The area we live in is called a Bird Santuary and is known for the variety of birds, especially in the winter.

We even saw this little guy! We saw him swimming in the water and he even ate some of the bread we threw in. Then Hunter saw him and barked at him. That scared him so he swam away and hid. Later on we saw him venture onto land. Kenzie knew right away that it was a beaver because he had orange looking teeth. A little known fact I never knew?? But she was right...can you see his orange front teeth? LOL! Weird!

Well, I guess thats about all for today. Not much new going on, just wanted to share a few pics.

title changes

2011-01-12T12:09:00.003-06:00

Just an FYI, if you notice my blog title changing often, please disregard. I've been wanting to change the title for a while, mostly just to get my last name out of the title, but I can't seem to come up with a name that I like. Its not a big deal, but I want the 'perfect' title. Weird, I know. So anyways, I may leave the one I have now, or change it again until I'm satisfied. Who knows. If anyone has any ideas, leave me a comment; I'd love any feedback! :)

Monster Jam!

2011-01-10T09:24:00.003-06:00

Saturday night we went to Monster Jam at Reliant Stadium. This was the kids first time and they really enjoyed it-thanks to their ear plugs, lol! Along with monster trucks, they had 4 wheeler races, stadium trucks, and flip contests, which is where they had these street stock cars drive up a small ramp to see how many times they could flip the car. Only about 3 or 4 cars were actually able to flip over and I think the winner flipped twice.

Before the event started, they let people down in the stadium to look at the Monster Trucks and get autographs from the drivers. It was so packed down there so we didn't stay down long before we went up and found our seats.
This is the view from our seats with everyone still down in the stadium. This is the same field that the Houston Texans play NFL football and the crowd makes it look small!

Here's one of the trucks out on the track. The Monster Trucks raced and they also did freestyle performances, which is the best part.

Having a snack before everything started.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and whatever else I'm behind on...

2011-01-04T11:43:00.002-06:00

Hope everyone enjoyed the holidays! We sure did but kinda glad everything is back to normal, although I loved my time off that I was able to be at home with the kids. Christmas was pretty laid back. We just stayed at home, ate good food, and the kids played with all their new toys. I have pictures, but not on the computer yet.

New Year's Eve, we hit up Chili's. We got a gift card for there from my sister for Christmas so we thought that'd be a good night to use it. We got there pretty early because I figured it'd get busy they later it got. The food was great (and so were the marguaritas! It's ok, I only had 1). Once we left there, we went home and hung out. We played the Wii with the kids most of the night. I think we were actually in bed before midnight because we're just cool like that.

Kenzie is still off from school. She doesn't go back until tomorrow! She was out for like 2 1/2 weeks, I know, crazy right!

Other than the holiday stuff, not much else has been going on. This Saturday, we are going to Monster Jam (monster trucks) at Reliant Stadium so that should be fun. Aydan is into watching them right now so he'll love it. Definately going to have the kids wear ear plugs though because it gets pretty loud and both of them don't do well with loud noises.

The last weekend in January, my brother, his fiance (oh yeah, my brother got engaged!!! Woo Hoo), Mom, and Dad will be coming down for a few days. The Houston Marathon is that weekend and my brother was going to run it however it was already full so he's just going to run the 5K race. I had thought about running it too but I haven't been able to go run in a long time and I'm feeling very out of shape so I don't think I'll do it this time. So anyway, we are looking forward to having visitors again. No one has came since we moved into our new apartment and its always exciting when people come visit!

That weekend is also Aydan's birthday so we will be pretty busy that whole weekend. I can't believe he will be 4 years old! I don't want him to grow up because right now he's so cuddly and lovable! When he's like 10 or 11 he won't be coming up to me all the time saying he loves me and giving me hugs and kisses. So sad! I guess all I can do is enjoy it while it lasts! :)

Well, that's about all I know right now! Hope you all have a great week!

Shots and x-rays....Yuck!

2010-12-22T10:19:00.002-06:00

I took the kids to their check-ups at the doctor last Friday afternoon. They ended up getting flu shots, which Kenzie was not happy about. Apparently, she's very scared of needles. She hasn't had shots in about 3 years, so I think mostly she forgot about them. Aydan did ok with them, but he went first so he didn't really know what to expect. Here are their height and weight stats:

Mackenzie-8 yrs old- Height: 47 inches Weight: 57 lbs

Aydan-3 yrs (4 yrs in Jan)- Height: 40 inches Weight: 43.5 lbs

Well, they were a little concerned about Kenzie's height. They said she wasn't even on the charts for her age. She was well below average height for other girls her age. She asked me if we noticed that she was short. Well obviously we did, but I told her I thought she would eventually have a growth spurt. Kenzie has said that kids at school tell her she is short and she is aware that she is a small girl, but we tell her not to worry, that she is cute just the way she is. The doctor said that she wanted to run some tests on her blood and take an x-ray of her left wrist, which will give them her 'bone age.' I never knew there was a difference in bone age compared to actual age but I guess there is. She said if her bone age is less than her actual age then they would consider growth hormones for her. If the bone age was the same or older than her actual age, then she said the growth hormones wouldn't work.

So, Monday we headed off to get the blood work and the x-ray done, and of course we had to go to 2 diffrent places for each one. She had never had her blood drawn so she was pretty nervous about it but she did really well, considering they had to draw it from each arm because the first arm wasn't giving enough blood fast enough. Poor girl! She only shed a couple of tears. The x-ray went alot better! Fast and painless! We went out for lunch afterwards and got milkshakes to cheer her up.

So now, I'm just waiting to hear back from the doctor what, if anything, they found out. I'm not sure what to think about the growth hormone idea. I don't want her to grow freakishly large either ya know! I'm sure they wouldn't do that, but its just scary. I think its just a genetic thing. Danny and I are both fairly short and so are our families so who knows. Aydan, on the other hand, is a big boy so maybe he didn't get the 'short gene.' :) So, we are trying not to make a big deal out of it because I'm sure it will be fine.

Well, I will keep everyone updated on what we find out.

P.S. I finally got all my gift wrapping done! Oh yeah!! :)

Santa and snow on a 75 degree day...

2010-12-13T11:07:00.006-06:00

No it wasn't Christmas in July but I was beginning to wonder. This Saturday was the Christmas festival at the park by our old apartment building. The weather was awesome, although it didn't feel one bit Christmasy. They had a truck come in and make a couple of patches of man-made snow for the kids to play in. The kids around here just think its the greatest thing ever! It never snows here (at least not enough to amount to anything.) I'm surprised the snow lasted as long as it did with it being so warm out. They also had cookies, lemonade, hot cocoa, popcorn, face-painting, and crafts for the kids to make. Best of all, Santa made his appearance.

Aydan, being shy at the moment, wouldn't stop making faces with his hands as you can see in the picture. Kenzie talked to Santa a bit but she did say that he kept pushing up his beard and she could see his gray mustache underneathe. I let her know that he was just one of Santa's helpers because Santa is too busy at the North Pole right now. I think she bought it, for now. Phew!

Well, these pictures are out of order but there was a boat parade in the evening along the water. All of the boats were lit up and some were playing Christmas music. It was very pretty. It was a calm, clear night for it, unlike last year when it was so foggy you could barely see the lights at all.

Before the parade began, there was a short fireworks show, which was also very pretty.

More boats.

More fireworks.

The kids had a great time throwing snowballs at each other, although they ended up being more like ice balls-Ouch!!

I'm so ready for Christmas to get here!! For one, maybe the kids will play with their new toys and stop asking to play with my iphone :) Aydan has figured out how to download more apps and one night while he was playing a game (or at least, I thought he was) he ended up downloading $4 worth of new apps. I'm just glad they weren't the expensive ones. I told him he owed me $4 and he looks at me with his eyes brows narrowed and says "Seriously?" I about died! Maybe you had to be there, but it was hillarious. I think I was just surprised that he even used that word. His vocabulary is definately expanding, lol!

Well, thats all for now. Keep checking back for more updates :)

******Merry Christmas to you all!******

bunk beds, stockings, and other things I accomplished this weekend......

2010-11-15T14:32:00.004-06:00

The kids got a new set of bunk beds-Finally! I put them together all by myself, except for the beams that go across the bottoms. As you can see, Aydan helped out a little too! He is obsessed with this drill now! He did a pretty good job :)

Here is the finished product. They can be switched to 2 individual twin beds too, which will be nice when the kids get their own bedrooms eventually.

I'm a little bit leary of Aydan being on the top but we will see how he does-so far so good. Kenzie wanted the bottom so she can hang up blankets from the top bunk and have her own little "tent." They love the beds and so do I. They still have lots of room in their bedroom to play. Hunter likes the new beds too, as you can see he's made himself comfortable.

We tried something a little different than we've done before and I bought some plain Christmas stockings and some craft supplies and let the kids decorate them themselves. Well, I ended up making Aydan's because he lost interest after a while and went and played, but Kenzie did her's entirely on her own. Aren't they cute? ;)

Kenzie and I decorated one for Hunter too. Santa might bring him some treats this year.

~Have a great week!!~

completely random pictures.....

2010-11-09T14:02:00.002-06:00

So I don't really have anything exciting to blog about so I thought I'd share a few random pictures from my phone.

Here's Aydan with his BFF Hunter. Hunter is so good for putting up with Aydan :)

The Ballunar Festival was Halloween weekend so we didn't go but we still got to see some balloons out our window as they were headed over to Johnson Space Center. It was quite a sight. Danny and Kenzie counted almost 40 balloons in the air at one point.

Aydan at the park being goofy as usual. There's a dog park we've been going to (with the dog of course, lol) and next to the dog area is a playground that the kids like to play on.

This is so funny! I took the kids to dollar theater (yeah like the best thing EVER!) to see Despicable Me (great movie by the way.) They found these fake mustaches in the little quarter machines. Kenzie's looks more like a caterpillar on her face , lol! Nice!
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Other than that, we haven't really been up to much at all other than then normal stuff. I'm so ready to put up my Christmas tree but I'm forcing myself to wait until after Thanksgiving! I just love Christmas decorations so I can't wait! Plus I have a full size tree this year. Last year I just had a small 3 or 4 ft tree that we set up kinda last minute so I'm looking forward to this year. I even got a head start on my Christmas shopping-whoot whoot!

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Well thats all I can think of for now! Hope you all have a great week!
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Oh and just a side note, I'm thinking about changing the name of the blog to get rid of our last name-it just seems to be too personal. Any ideas please leave a comment. Thanks!!

Happy Halloween!!

2010-11-03T09:40:00.005-05:00

Hope everyone had a great Halloween!! Ours was pretty good. Our apartment building had a Halloween party with food and games for the kids on Wednesday night so we went to that. They also let the kids go trick-or-treating within the building. The pictures above of the kids were taken there. Aydan was Bumblebee the Transformer and Kenzie was a Witch.

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Then on Saturday night, we went to the Halloween festival at the park. Most adults and kids were all dressed up and they had music playing. There was lots of food and games and they even brought in a mobile home set up as a walk-through haunted house.
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We didn't go trick-or-treating this year. Some neighborhoods did theirs on Saturday and some on Sunday so it was kinda confusing. Plus, I really don't feel comofortable going to strangers' houses.
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Now that Halloween is over, I am getting very excited about Thanksgiving and Christmas coming up! I can't believe how fast time is going by! I've started a little bit of my Christmas shopping so I'm pretty proud of myself.
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Meet Hunter!!!!!!!!!!

2010-10-27T11:07:00.003-05:00

This is our new little buddy, Hunter. We adopted him from a local shelter. Hunter is the name he's had his whole life so we thought it'd be best to just leave it so we didn't confuse him. He's a 2 year old pug/daschund (weiner dog) mix. We picked him up Tuesday night after waiting since Saturday to see if we were approved. He had 3 applications turned in on him and they decided to pick us since we had small children and they thought he would do best with a family our size. Woo Hoo!!

We couldn't have asked for a more well-behaved dog! He doesn't jump; he doesn't bark; he doesn't beg for food (much, lol). At first Aydan was a little leary of getting close to him because he'd never really been around dogs much and he gets scared when they bark at him. Eventually he warmed up to him and now he won't stay away. He wanted the dog to sleep with him in his bed. Kenzie loves him and didn't want to go to school today because she wanted to stay home and play with the dog.

He does great on a leash. They weren't sure if he was house-trained but he must be because he's been doing awesome at "going" outside, not inside.

When we sat at the table to eat supper, he layed by the doorway and didn't try jump up at the table or anything.

He loves his stuffed animals.
Kenzie and her new sidekick.

Now the big question---What can I dress him up as for Halloween??? LOL!!

Outdoor pics

2010-09-29T18:26:00.000-05:00

Pictures from our museum tours....

2010-09-29T18:13:00.004-05:00

Giant eyeball at the Health Museum.

Giant brain at the Health Museum.

Riding the metro on the way up to Museum District.

The rest of the pics are from the Natural Science museum......

time flies when you're having fun.....

2010-09-29T09:39:00.003-05:00

I can't believe its been so long since my last post!! September is almost over and it seems like just yesterday it had just begun!

We've just been busy keeping up with life. Our days are not long enough! Danny goes to class 3 days a week, which didn't sound like much when he first signed up, but now that he's doing it, its a lot. Its going good though. He's in Math and Comp. 1 right now and needless to say, he's been busy with homework and studying. He's doing great, especially considering its been like 12 years since he was in high school :) I've thought about going back myself but there's no way we could both do it at the same time so we'll have to see what happens.

Kenzie's doing well in school so far. She had to memorize the Pre Amble to the US Constitution! Can you believe that! I don't remember having to do that in 3rd grade; I thought it was more like Jr. High? Yesterday, she came home and said that they moved her to a different classroom. I guess her school got a new 3rd grade teacher and they took 5 students from each of the other classes to fill up the new teacher's class and she happened to be one of the students. So hopefully she likes her new teacher as well as she liked her old teacher! I guess we'll find out today.

I had my Golden birthday on Monday; 27 on the 27th. Now I'm just one year closer to 30 :( I'm freaking out about that age!! On Saturday, the museum district had its annual free day for 17 different museums so thats what we decided to do. Well, I think everyone in Houston had the same idea because it was absolutely crazy! We went to Natural Science museum first. Aydan loved to see the big dinosaurs! There was just so many people that we couldn't really stop and take our time looking at things. After that I really wanted to take the kids to the Childrens Museum, which was a few blocks away from the Natural Science museum so we walked. Well, the line to get in wrapped around the corner so we didn't even try to wait in line. We went across the street to the Health museum. And again, it was so packed you really couldn't see much. It was pretty neat though because there was a tour of inside the human body which was cool. After we left that museum we decided to call it quits. The kids were tired, bored, and hungry by then so we went and had lunch.

This week we've finally enjoyed some fairly cooler weather. Its been in the low 80's during the day and around 65 at night so I can finally open the windows and let some fresh air in. Its been nice not have to run the A/C much anymore. Hopefully this cool trend continues because I'm so ready for it!! :)

I'm looking forward to Halloween coming up next month. I've been trying to think of some costume ideas for the kids. When I ask them what they want to be Kenzie says she wants to be a princess or a witch and all Aydan says is that he wants something with a mask.

Well, thats about all thats going on in our lives right now. Keep checking back for more updates :)

Labor Day Weekend Recap: Grillin', fishin' and relaxin'

2010-09-07T11:53:00.003-05:00

We enjoyed our long Labor Day weekend but they always end too soon. We did a little fishing and on Sunday we went to the park to grill out.

This is just Aydan being silly.

Walking down the dock with his new fishin' pole. Now he's ready to catch some big fish!

After we ate our dinner we of course had to make s'mores. Yum Yum!!

Sorry, these pictures are not in any special order.

Danny and Kenzie went fishing one morning at our building and he caught a catfish, well actually he caught 3 catfish. This is a picture of one of them.

Aydan getting ready to cast his line out. The kids never did catch anything but they had a blast anyway.

Happy September 1st!!

2010-09-01T09:44:00.002-05:00

We're getting closer to my favorite season....FALL!!! Other than Christmas time, Fall is my favorite time of year!! I love everything about it! The pretty changing leaves, the cooler weather (although down here its not much cooler but...oh well), Halloween, apple cider, fall decorations, PUMPKINS; you name it, I love it!

I've already noticed some leaves changing and falling to the ground. It's definately not as pretty as it is up north because there's just different types of trees here (like palm trees) that don't loose their leaves or change colors. So far its still been in the upper 90's but soon enough it will start to cool down, and by cool down, I mean low 80's, which will seem a LOT cooler.

I'm really looking forward to the Halloween party that the town hosts at one of the parks we go to. We stopped by last year and it was a lot of fun! They have Halloween music, games, hay rack rides, candy, food, and all the kids wear their costumes. It's a very family-friendly atmosphere, which is great for all of us to enjoy!

I need to start figuring out Halloween costumes for the kids. I've also been thinking about having all of us dress up this year but I don't know if I'll be able to convince Danny of the idea, lol! If anyone has any suggestions for theme-costume ideas for all 4 of us to wear, please leave a comment and share :)

Thats all for now!! Hope you all have a great week!

just one of those mornings....

2010-08-26T15:19:00.003-05:00

This morning was one of those mornings that you could tell was going to be bad from the moment you woke up. After my alarm went off, I shut it off as usual to try to get a few more minutes of sleep in (every second counts ya know!) Well a few minutes turned into about 23 extra minutes! Ooops! So I jump out of bed, hope in the shower, then try to wake up the kids.

My kids are not morning people, in fact, they are far from it! I know it doesn't help when Aydan won't stay in his bed at night when I tuck him in. He will sneak out of his room and slowly walk into the living room (or wherever I am at) and say, "Um Mom, I need another hug and kiss."

Cute, yes.

But we he does it over and over again, yeah, not so much. His antics effect Kenzie's sleep since they share a room, so by the time everyone gets settled in, it's way past their original bedtime. I'm thinking I need to come up with a better routine of getting them in bed and staying in bed a lot sooner.

So anyway, back to this morning. I finally get them woke up (or at least in a zombie-like stage.) Aydan's first words are of course, "I want some fruit snacks!" When I told him no he couldn't have them for breakfast, he threw a major fit. At that moment, I probably would have given in just to get him moving but they were all gone-bummer! So while he's throwing a fit, I tell Kenzie to get up and get dressed so she has time to eat if she wants to. Well she's not the most cheerful ball of sunshine in the mornings either and throws the blanket over her head. I finally just say, "You better get up and get moving or you'll be late for school," and head back to my room to finish getting myself ready at least.

Aydan finally staggers into the kitchen and says he wants PB&J toast so I get everything out to make his toast. I go to the pantry and grab the peanut butter. "I WANTED TO GET THE PEANUT BUTTER DOWN!" I said, "Aydan, it was too high for you to reach." "BUT I WANT TO GET IT DOWN."

Whatever.

I go back to the pantry and put the peanut butter back on a lower shelf so he can reach it and get it down for me. He goes over to get it and is mad that I put it lower so he climbs up a shelf just because. *sigh*

I get his toast made finally. In the meantime, Kenzie finally crawled out of bed and got dressed. She comes in to get something to eat. I got her some cereal and of course since Sissy (thats what he calls Kenzie) is getting cereal, Aydan thinks he needs cereal too. He finished his toast so I give him a little bit of cereal too. While they are eating and arguing back and forth, I go back and try to finish getting ready.

Once Kenzie is done eating, I tell her we need to do her hair. I brush through it trying to be careful because she is very tender-headed, but somehow it hurts her anyway so she gets mad at me.

Then, I get Aydan's clothes out and tell him we need to get him dressed. He sees what clothes I have for him and gets mad. "I WANT TO WEAR A BUTTON SHIRT!" I tell him that he just wore his button shirt on Monday so he cannot wear it again until I wash it. He continues to throw a fit about it. I get him dressed while he's crying, grab his shoes, my purse, and my lunch, and I tell Kenzie that we gotta go. I have to pick up Aydan and carry him because he's still upset about his clothes (since when do boys care what they wear anyway?)

So he cries all the way out to the car as I try to carry him, my purse, and my bag of lunch down the hallway, down the elevator and across the parking lot.

By the time we get to Kenzie's school, everyone has finally calmed down and gotten over it. So I get her dropped off and head to the daycare to get Aydan dropped off. Luckily, he did good at daycare at doesn't throw a fit in his room (you never know with him, sometimes he does great and other times he cries and doesn't want me to leave.).

Whew!!! Talk about being exhausted before my day even begins, lol!!! Oh well, I am sure everyone (mom's especially) have days like this. And I wouldn't have it any other way! (well maybe with a little less crying :)

Here's to a better morning tomorrow!

oh yeah....

2010-08-24T21:22:00.003-05:00

I forgot to mention that we got our computer up and running again!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We had guessed it was a hard drive problem from the way it was acting so Danny picked one up the other day, brought it home and popped it in. We ran our recovery disks and it worked!! So thrilled! We lost all the documents and pictures that we had saved but at least we are back to the basics.

Also we get free Wi-Fi at our apartment so we have internet again! I just uploaded 386 pictures from my camera so I'm back in business!! Wooo Hooooo!!!

Ok, I'm done for tonight!! Good-bye!!!!! :)

Back to school....

2010-08-24T21:10:00.002-05:00

Kenzie started 3rd grade (crazy, I know!) on Monday. She was so excited to be going back finally. I'm so thankful that she enjoys school as much as she does! I hope the enthusiasm continues all year! Since we moved over the summer, she did have to change schools unfortunately. It's in the same district, which is great because its one of the best rated districts in Texas.

I think I was more nervous than her about her new school and having to meet new kids. She makes friends so easily.

Here she is Monday morning before we headed off to school. Isn't she so pretty :)

So far this week, she has loved it! She's made friends in her class and she really likes her new teacher. She said next week they will start having homework-"the best part!!" as she put it! And yes, she was serious! She can't wait to be given homework! We'll see if she's still so excited about it come spring after the new-ness wears off ;)

Houston Texans Training Camp

2010-08-19T11:05:00.003-05:00

A couple weekends ago, we went up to Reliant Stadium to watch the Houston Texans training camp. It was soooo HOT that day! There was a pretty large crowd to and of course the bleachers were already full so we were stuck standing.

Aydan with Toro the Bull.

We hope to go to one of their games sometime. It's hard to believe football season is starting already! That makes it really start to feel like fall and winter! (although its probably not going to feel like it temperature wise with our hot weather lasting until October/November-ish.)

Girl Time (a.k.a Shopping!!)

2010-08-17T09:58:00.002-05:00

Last weekend Kenzie and I had some much needed girl time. I wanted to take her shopping for some new school clothes. I can't even remember the last time just her and I went shopping together We left the boys at home and headed out. There's so many stores and shops in our area; I just love it!! It's very similar to the Bloomington-Normal area (for all of you IL readers to picture what I mean)

We made several stops, including Burlington Coat Factory, a few stops at Baybrook Mall, and last, but not least, Walmart. We had so much fun! Kenzie had such a unique sense of style. I loved watching her pick out her clothes, showing me what she likes and dislikes. Like, seriously, why didn't they make cute girls clothes when I was growing up? Well, I guess it wouldn't have mattered because I was such a tom-boy.

I love spending time with my little girl, but sadly, she's growing up way too fast! She'll be starting 3rd grade next week and is in love with Justin Bieber. She tells me about her friend drama and who likes who at daycare and school. I just hope that we can remain very close and that she feels comfortable talking to me about what's going on in her life as she gets older.

She's such a good sister to Aydan. She puts up with playing cars and trucks with him; she comforts him when he gets in trouble; she reads to him; she's just the best. Most of all, she puts up with having to share a room with him while we are still in a 2 bedroom apartment. Once in a while, she'll complain that he's making a mess, but for the most part, she makes it work. She loves keeping her toys and stuff in order and is always willing to help clean around the house.

Hopefully, we can have another 'girl day' sometime soon. I'd really like to make it something we do quite often. If not shopping, then just going to a movie or something.

New Ride

2010-08-02T13:30:00.004-05:00

We had seen this bike at the store a while back and Aydan just loved it and had been talking about it ever since. We finally went back and got it for him and he's been riding it non-stop all weekend!

Taking it for a cruise. VROOM VROOM VROOM!!

Making one of his typical goofy faces... :)

Notice the button-up shirt he is wearing. The kid LOVES button-up shirts! He only has a couple of them but he puts one on over whatever he's wearing as often as he can. He says he looks cool like Michael Jackson when he's wearing one...lol, but thats a whole 'nother blog post :)

Kenzie taking a ride on her bike too.
Both kids have a blast riding their bikes around outside. Now I need to get a bike so we can go on bike rides!

Waffle-Headed

2010-07-30T12:59:00.003-05:00

Kenzie: "Mom, you know when two people get married and there's a guy there with a Bible?"

Me: "Yes you mean the preacher?"

Kenzie: "Yeah. Well, why does he call the girl Waffle-Headed?"

Me: "Waffle-Headed?" I thought for a minute and then it hit me; then I laughed.

Me: "He doesn't say Waffle-Headed Kenzie, he says 'lawful wedded.' He says 'Do you take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife?'

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Ah, to be a kid again!!
Was there ever a word or phrase that you said totally wrong as a kid?

Taking the plunge...

2010-07-29T09:28:00.003-05:00

Well, its a start anyway. Ever since Kenzie was little, she'd been a little weary of water. She liked to play in water as long as it wasn't too deep but absolutely hated if she got water in her face. We've been trying to work with her at home and trying to get her more comfortable in the water. When she was in IL earlier this summer, she actually did learn how to doggy-paddle and she does that really well. Our next step is trying to get her to put her head under water so she can start to swim under water. After much cohersion (and seeing that her brother was doing it), she put her head under water. Yay!!!! She was very happy that she could do it and after realizing that she wasn't going to drown, she did it more and more.

We were going to have her take swimming lessons this summer but summer is about over already.
We'll keep working with her and hopefully before long, she's swimming like a fish.

Just Chillin'

2010-07-28T10:42:00.002-05:00

I found Aydan in his room like this the other day. He was just chillin' in the intertube with his dogs having a conversation with them. I thought it was so cute.

A Few Park Pics

2010-07-26T12:57:00.004-05:00

I love that this park had covers over the playground equipment. It kept everything from getting too hot to touch and kept the kids cooler that being out in the sun!

Hard to believe that there's only about a month left until school starts back up! I need to think about getting Kenzie's school supplies! Ugh!

~Have a good week!!~

Our weekend update

2010-07-19T11:05:00.005-05:00

Is it just me, or did the weekend fly by? They never last long enough!

Saturday, we decided to go to the Galleria Mall. Now, why we would choose to fight the traffic and spend 15 minutes looking for a parking spot just for something to do, I have no idea. But, it was indoors and out of the heat.

We walked by the Claire's store and I whispered to Danny that we should get Kenzie's ears pierced. To keep it a surprise, I let them walk on and I went in to make sure they even did that in that store and to see what was involved. After finding out that they did do piercings, I went back over to Danny and the kids and we asked her if she wanted to get it done or not. At first, she was hesitant and didn't know if she wanted to or not because she didn't know how much it would hurt. I admitted that yes, it would hurt a little bit, kind of like a shot at the doctor's office and she didn't have to get it done if she didn't want to. After a few moments of consideration, she agreed to have it done.

We picked out her studs and the woman explained the procedure to us. She gave Kenzie a teddy bear to squeeze while she pierced both ears. After the first one was done, I could tell that Kenzie thought that it hurt a little bit but she didn't cry. When she was all done, she looked in the mirrow with the biggest smile on her face.

{piercing the first ear}

{after}

She picked out some cute earrings to wear after the 6 weeks of wearing the studs were up. She was so excited to show them off! I told her that about the time school starts up again, she'll be able to wear any kind of earrings she wants. She's just thrilled and so am I to be able to go earring shopping with her :)

After we left the Galleria, we headed downtown to Discovery Green park. The kids brought a huge gallon container of bubbles that they played with for a little while. The park was showing a movie that night on a big projector screen but we had already planned to go to Miller Outdoor Theatre that night to watch a play of "Little Shop of Horrors." The play was starting at 8:30 pm so shortly after 6 pm we headed over to the theatre.

I had been wanting to go see a show at this theatre for a long time. All events at the theatre are FREE which is totally awesome! They have a huge stage set up and a big seating area. Behind the regular seating is a huge hill that people sit on with blankets, chairs, and coolers. You can bring your own food and drinks and have a picnic if you want but they also have a concessions stand too. Here's a picture of what it look like-

So anyways, we get there and we're all set up on top of the hill with our chairs, blankets for the kids to sit on, drinks, food, and toys to occupy the kids. It was about an hour before the show and we noticed the sky getting darker and clouds moving in. Before we knew it, it started to rain...and rain...and then pour!! So, we packed up our chairs, blankets, and toys and started running for the car (which of course is like forever away!) We were drenched when we got to the car! We thought about waiting out the rain but it didn't look like it was going to stop anytime soon and even if it did, we didn't want to sit on the wet ground afterwards.

So, I was pretty bummed but we'll definately have to try to go back to see another show.

~~Have a great week!~~

Family picnic in Illinois

2010-07-09T10:17:00.003-05:00

Wow, its been a while since my last post! Still no home computer but I stole some pictures from my mom's facebook page from our visit to Illinois. We had a bunch of family and friends get together at North Park in Fairbury with lots of food. That way, it was much easier to see a lot of people at once since we were only in town for a few days. It worked out really well!! Here are a few pictures.

Kenzie and Aydan playing in a tree.

My Grandma Sally and Great-Aunt Sue :) Me sitting with Grandma Sally, Aunt Sue, and Grandma Nila.

Family picture

The 4 Miller siblings-Jarrad, Me, Erin, and Leon.

Kenzie and cousin Melanie. They were able to spend a lot of time together during the kids' visit, which was great! They missed each other quite a bit.

My kids and my sister's kids-Melanie and Kendall. Aydan and Kendall are quite the little stinkers!! They are only about 3 months apart.

Me and the husband.

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We loved seeing everyone that we hadn't seen in a very long time! Our time went by very fast-we were only there for about 3 days.

The kids had been there for about 3 weeks so needless to say, they missed us and were ready to come home. 3 weeks was definately too long and if they go back next summer, I'm thinking a week or so would be plenty! I am very thankful that we had family that was willing to care for the kids during there stay and spend lots of time with them. The kids really loved their time together! Thanks to all of you!!!!!!!!!!

8 years strong

2010-06-15T10:31:00.004-05:00

June 15th, 2002, Danny and I were married in the company of our closest friends and family. Looking back, we were just kids ourselves; I was 18 and Danny had just turned 21, but we were ready to commit to each other for a lifetime. At the time, I don't think I fully understood what was about to happen. I didn't know about all the teamwork, trust, understanding, patience, compromises, and forgiveness it would take. But, I also didn't know that it would bring me so much happiness and comfort knowing that we would be spending the rest of our lives together. We are each other's best friend. Like any marriage, we've had our bumps along the road, but we are able to work through them together. We've helped each other become the people we are today.

I wanted to share with you 8 things (for 8 years) that I love about Danny.

This may seem petty, but I really love when he helps me around the house. Heck, there's days that he cleans the entire house and does ALL of the laundry and it just totally makes my day!! I probably don't tell him enough how much I appreciate it.
Another one that may seem small but I love it when he decides to pick up the kids for me after work. The bank I work for transferred me (supposedly temporarily) to a branch about 30 miles (aka 1 hour in Houston traffic) away so sometimes it is a rush for me to get back home in time to have the kids picked up from daycare. Danny also drives just as far as I do from work but sometimes, he'll drop by and pick up the kids if he beats me home. I love it when he does. It saves me so much time and I can get home sooner.
I love that he sends me random emails or texts throughout the day when we are at work that let me know he's thinking about me. Or, he'll leave me a note at home before he goes to work. Makes me smile every time :)
I love that he is always trying to do the best for our family.
I love that he cherishes his time with me and the kids. When we aren't working, he's always wanting us to go to stuff together as a family. We're always going to the park or playing outside with the kids. We also love just sitting down at night and watching a good movie and eating popcorn.
I love that he is so motivated to always trys to improve things. He sets his mind on something and doesn't stop until it gets done. When we wanted to move to Texas, he was always keeping me encouraged that it could be done and that we weren't crazy, lol! A few months ago, he decided he wanted to get into better shape so he joined the gym and went on a strict diet and so far has lost a good 35 pounds. This fall, he will be starting college for business adminstration so he can better his career options and in the long run help our family. It will be a long road but I know he will get it done. I'm so proud of him!!
I love that I can be myself around him. When you first start dating someone, you try your hardest not to do anything wrong and be on your best behavior. I never wanted him to see me without makeup on or my hair perfectly done. Well, after you've been married for a while, nothing is embarrassing anymore. You learn each other's little quirks and you just get used to them. He knows more about me than anyone.
Best of all, I love that he is such a great Dad. I think being a Dad brings out the best in him. Kenzie is such a Daddy's girl! She looks up to him so much! Aydan is still so young but I know as he gets older, he will be Danny's little shadow and want to go everywhere and do everything with him. I'm so glad that my kids have such a great Dad to look up to as they grow up!!

a few apartment pics...

2010-06-11T10:35:00.002-05:00

Here are a few pictures of the new apartment. They aren't the greatest because they are just taken from my phone. Our home laptop is still kerplunk so I had to upload these to my work computer. The first one is of the kitchen. You can't really tell from the pic how big it is but its big enough for all of us plus our kitchen table. They had the countertops refinished (as shown) a couple days after we moved in and it looks a lot better.

This picture is from the walking trail behind the apartment. It goes down by the volleyball court and down around by the water. They have picnic tables and benches that you can sit on . Its very relaxing down there.

This is the view from our apartment on the 6th floor. You can see the boat slips and the water and a few buildings sticking up in the background. Now, we just need a boat!! LOL!!

This is the atrium inside the building. There's sitting areas down there so you can just hang out and read or work on your laptop or whatever.

Thats basically all the pics I have for now. I would have more pics of the inside but I don't think you want to see our boxes and stuff that we still need to organize :) But, hopefully soon I'll post some more pics.

First Flight

2010-06-07T10:42:00.003-05:00

Well, its official. The kids are now experienced flyers.

Friday night my sister-in-law and aunt-in-law flew down from IL to pick up the kids to take back to IL for 3 whole weeks. They flew out Saturday morning.

To put it mildly, I was SOOOO FRIGGIN' FREAKED OUT about the whole kids at the airport/flying in a real airplane thing. I was especially upset that we couldn't go wait at the terminal gate with them until they boarded the plane. Darn you 9/11!!! I really wanted to wait with them and watch them board their first plane. But....nope. We dropped all of them off, visited for a minute, then left. It was probably easier that way though. I mean, I'm sure I would have been crying like a baby if I would have watched them board. I may even have not let them go at all.....Ok, I would have, but you know what I mean.

They were so excited about it though. Both of them have been talking about it for the past few weeks. My son was especially looking forward to his first plane ride. I so wanted to see their faces at take off. It would have been priceless :)

They did really well on the plane, which I was glad to hear. I was kinda worried that Aydan might throw a fit on the plane and I would hear on the news about how they had to kick 2 young kids and 2 adults off the plane for unruly behavior or something crazy like that. (LOL)

So they arrived in IL Saturday afternoon and, from what I hear, they are having a blast seeing all the family from both sides and enjoying themselves. Do you think they are going to be just a little spoiled when they come back home? :)

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Back home, Danny and I were busy moving out of our old apartment and into our new one. Finally finished up Saturday evening and we couldn't be happier with our new place. Maybe its because what we came from was just so bad but we LOVE the new place. We have elevators that actually work, a fitness center that actually has usable equipment in it, and a clean pool/hot tub. The apartment itself feels so much more cozier and a lot more like home! My new kitchen is a lot bigger. Its an eat-in kitchen which is great. Danny and I can both be in there at the same time without being in each others way and I can open the dishwasher without taking up the whole entire walkway!

**********************************************

Its so strange with the kids being gone. This is the first time in over a year that either of them have been away from us for longer than a day. I'm hoping they don't get home sick after the first couple of days. I know I miss them already!! But, I know they are with family and having a great time seeing everyone. I told Kenzie before they left that I was going to miss her a lot and she goes, "Oh Mom! We'll be fine, geez!!" I guess I'm more worried about Aydan since he's only 3 and he's away from us the least. I think as long as he's busy, he'll be fine.

Danny and I have a long list of things we want to do without the kids but I don't know how much of it will actually get done. We shall see.

Well, I think I've bored you enough for now. Hope you all have a great week!

Interesting Conversations

2010-05-11T08:56:00.003-05:00

When I got home from work and picking up the kids last night, Aydan wanted to watch Shrek the 3rd (as usual). So I put the DVD in for him and sat down in the chair with him to watch it for a few minutes before starting supper. I love getting Aydan talking because he says some of the funniest things.

Me: Princess Fiona is going to have a baby. Shrek is going to be a daddy. She has a baby in her belly, Aydan.

Aydan (pointing at the tv): She has a butt.

Me: What? You mean she has a belly?

Aydan: She has a butt.

Me: Umm, yes, I guess she does.

Aydan: I'm gonna shake my booty with Fiona!!

Me: (pause...then dying laughing!!!) What!!

Aydan: I'm gonna shake my booty with Fiona!

Me: No, Fiona only shakes her booty with Shrek.

Aydan: I am too big? (raising his hand up toward the ceiling)

Me: Yes, you are too big. She only likes Shrek.

*******************************

A little later, Kenzie joined me in talking to Aydan. She tells me she thinks Aydan has a girlfriend in daycare. I think there is only 1 girl in his class; the rest are boys.

Me: Aydan, who is the little girl in your daycare class?

Aydan: Legacy

Me: Legacy? Do you like her? Is she nice?

Aydan: (smiling) Yes.

Kenzie: Is she your girlfriend?

Aydan: Yes.

Kenzie: Do you kiss her?

Aydan: (making a grossed-out face) No! Thats yucky!! I don't kiss friends in my class!!

Things my 3 yr old son can do in 3 minutes (or less!)

2010-05-10T10:25:00.003-05:00

Anytime Aydan is being quiet, I know he is up to no-good. He is the complete opposite of his sister. She was (and still is) so good; we didn't have to worry about her getting into anything. Here's a few examples of what Aydan can accomplish when I turn my back:

unpack all of the boxes in his room that I had just finished packing.
go into my bathroom, climb onto the sink, get into the cabinet and find my favorite lotion, and have it rubbed all over his entire body.
sneak into the kitchen in the middle of the night, climb onto the counter, and eat a whole bundle of bananas.
find where we hid the crayons/pens/pencils, dig them out, and color on the walls.
have his toy box completely emptied out and be hiding in it.
eat the whole pack of gum that was in my purse.

I wonder if he has super powers? I wish I could get as much done in 3 minutes as he can...my house would be super clean!! :)

CrAzY 8!!

2010-05-03T11:43:00.002-05:00

Friday, April 30th was Mackenzie's 8th birthday!! I know, I can't believe she's already 8 years old!! She's not a baby anymore. We are half way to 16!! OMG!!

On Saturday, we had her birthday party at the park across the street from our apartment. We were hoping for no rain and we were blessed with a nice day! It was a little cloudy and overcast but that worked out well because it was already hot enough.

Danny had a great idea to surprise her with a moonwalk (bounce-house) so we got one for the day. We invited our family and she invited some friends from school/daycare. Well, I had sent a few invitations with her to school and told her to pass them out to a couple of her friends. Well she ends up asking her teacher to make copies and she gives one to every girl in her class!!

She was thrilled to see the bounce-house set up at the park. At first, she didn't think it was for her. Once she figured it out, she ran up to it and jumped in. Aydan was pretty excited too!

After everyone showed up, the kids played and then we did cake, ice cream, and gifts. She had a really good time. It had been a long time since Kenzie had a BIG birthday party with people other than us so we were glad that she had a good time with her friends and family! :)

This is the bounce-house we got for the day. We thought the space rocket was appropriate since we live so close to NASA.
Here's the birthday girl riding the new bike we got her for her birthday! She loves being able to ride a bike again.

**HAPPY 8TH BIRTHDAY KENZIE!! WE LOVE YOU SO MUCH!**

Upcoming move...

2010-04-13T10:37:00.003-05:00

We finally picked out a new apartment complex to move into when our lease is up in June of this year. This is a picture of the new building. We are so excited to get out of where we currently are and move on to something else. The new building has a lot more amenities and we will be a lot happier there. Without going into too many details, our current apartment building is not so great. We found it online and moved in sight unseen and have not been very happy about a few things. So, needless to say, we are all pretty happy about moving on.

The new building we will be in is a 7 story building and our apartment will be on the 6th floor in the back facing the water.

I will post more details after we actually move in, lol!

Planned move in date: June 5th :)

A Walk in the Wildflowers

2010-04-13T10:11:00.003-05:00

Sunday afternoon, we went with my uncle and his family up to the wildflower fields which are about 60 miles northwest of Houston in what is known as hill country. He said its a Texan tradition to take pictures of your kids in the flowers so now we are officially 'Texan.'

We really didn't think that much of it until we got near the fields and cars were lined up all along the road. I didn't really think that there would be crowds of people in these fields taking pictures but oh yes, there were!

As soon as we got out of the car we could smell the flowers. The kids did have a good time running around and playing. I got a lot of good pictures with my camera but UNFORTUNATELY, our computer is still broken so I can't upload any of those pics. I uploaded this picture at work from my cell phone.

After we left we ate at this neat little place called "Little Bitty Burger Barn." It looks like basically a run down shack on the outside. On the inside there were pictures all over the walls of people from all around the U.S that had eated their famous 'Fire Burger' which is a 2 lb. very hot burger that they dare people to try. The man from the tv show "Man vs. Food" is also supposed to be going there sometime to have a shot at the burger. Its always the little hole-in-the-wall places that have the best food; places that I would never think to try on my own. I guess it just goes to show that you can't judge a book by its cover :)

update...very random!

2010-03-23T10:35:00.005-05:00

Hey everyone!!

Spring is finally here and I'm so excited!! We had a chilly weekend; it was getting down into the 30's at night but this week is going to warm up again and be in the mid 70's. Just in time for Danny's parents and family to come! They should all be arriving on Saturday and we can't wait! We're looking forward to seeing them all again!

The picture above is from my cell phone, but its Trail Riders that come through Houston every year from all around Texas. The come through on the freeways with their horse and buggies and campers. Its pretty wild to see them going through the city looking like they are from 100 years ago! Anyway, they happen to go right in front of where I work so we all went out to watch and I got a few pictures with my phone. They camp along roads and at parks until they actually get to the rodeo grounds, which is at Reliant Stadium. We didn't make it to the rodeo this year but I would like to go sometime. They have a carnival and livestock show, which is the biggest livestock show in the world. There's different performances too (Keith Urban, Black-Eyed Peas, Justin Beiber, Brooks & Dunn, etc...) Sounds like it would be fun and something different to see.

Anyways, hmmm, lets see... oh yeah, our laptop crashed so that pretty much stinks!! It won't even boot up. It just says "Operating System Not Found." We tried our recovery disks and that didn't work so I'm thinking somethings broken in hard drive. Grrrrr!! I'm just upset about losing all of the pictures I had saved because stupid me didn't make any CD's or anything. I barely have any prints! I don't know if there's any hope for it! Needless to say, it might be a while before I can post any pictures. (I'm at work writing this post! Shhhh!!)

The kids are doing great. Kenzie was on Spring Break last week and enjoyed it. Her daycare did a lot of fun things with the school kids. They went to a farm and picked strawberries one day. They also went to the park, went to a play, and went to the movies. Aydan is still Aydan :) He's growing fast and learning so many new things. He's just the goofiest kid!! I love them both so much!!

Well, that about does it for my random little update. Hope you all have a great week/weekend!!

Miller Visit 2010

2010-03-04T20:09:00.006-06:00

For anyone who still checks up on my blog, I apologize for not updating in over a month!! Seriously, where did February go? Seems like we've just been so busy lately!

Well, my parents and youngest brother came down to visit us a couple of weeks ago. We were so happy to see them!! We hadn't told Kenzie that they were coming so when we walked in the door with them the night they arrived, she was just thrilled to see them! It was so cute!

Luckily the weather turned out to be pretty good, although I was hoping it was going to be a little warmer. It was around 60-65 everyday and no rain so that was nice!!

Here we are at the park feeding the ducks, geese, and birds.
Feeding them some more. Eventually the sea gulls started to swarm us for food!

Aydan on his new 'ride,' a birthday gift from Grandma, Grandpa, and Jarrad! Thanks guys; he LOVES it!!

We went to Kemah one of the days they were here. Here's my Dad and Aydan in front of an old Kemah Police car.

My brother Jarrad with Aydan. Kenzie wasn't able to be with us on this day because she had to go to school.

Then a few more poses with the Shark.

This is in front of a lighthouse in Kemah.

We also went to the San Jacinto Monument and Battleship. Here's Danny and Jarrad posing with Sam Houston (the founder of Houston, TX) Jarrad standing proud with his Texas flag, lol!

Outside in front of the monument. It was too tall to get the whole thing in the picture and still be able to see people.

We were going to go to Galveston for the day but the day we had planned to go was a windy cooler day so we thought we'd enjoy it more if we went to the zoo instead so thats what we did. The kids had never gone and Danny and I have only been once so it worked out well.

A baboon. I love all the colors on his face! He was so funny too. He'd just sit there and stare at everyone then he'd give us a huge grin! So cute!

Kenzie in front of the elephant exhibit.

This chimp was funny too. He seemed to know that he was supposed to entertain everyone. He'd do a trick then sit, scratch is head like he was thinking, then walk over and do a different trick. He was quite the show off :)

That Saturday, the day before they headed back to Illinois, we went to my Uncle Jerry's for a cookout. It had been a long time since everyone had been together like that so it meant a lot to me for all of us to spend time together. Jerry and my Dad are brothers, then their sister, who is my Aunt Vicki was there too, along with her husband David, her daughter Dani, and her 3 sons. Yep, it was a full house!! The picture above is all the kids. Yes, its impossible to get a perfect shot when there's that many kids involved! This is as good as it gets! lol! The 3 boys on the left are Dani's sons, then the middle two are Uncle Jerry's kids, then mine of course.

The 3 siblings: Jerry, Vicki, and my Dad. They all look so much alike!

My dad, Jerry, and Danny.

Earlier that day before we went to the cookout, we were looking around at a store and my Dad and Danny saw these shirts that were U.S.A. (United Space Alliance) shirts, which happens to be who my Uncle Jerry works for here in Houston. So they thought that was pretty neat and they both bought one to wear over to the cookout. Then Jerry put on one of his U.S.A. shirts too so they all matched.

We had to get a picture of all the ladies in the house.

Me, Mom, Kenzie, Aunt Vicki, and my cousin Dani.

We had a great time along with great food. It was great seeing everyone together.

Well, that about sums up their visit to Texas. We loved having them here and it was sad to see them go back home but we're glad they were able to come visit for a few days!! It was great that they got to see where we are now and to see that we are doing OK. It really helps calm any fears or worries that they may have had about any of that. We love it so much here and are so happy anytime that we can share it with people we love.

We're looking forward to our next visiters later this month; Danny's family!! :)

A day in the city...

2010-01-30T16:36:00.004-06:00

I just realized that I had forgotten to post these pictures last week. They are from last weekend when we took the metro rail up to downtown Houston and then Herman Park.

Getting ready to get on the train.
Poor Aydan looks like he is holding on for dear life!

Kenzie preferred to stand up.

Downtown Houston

We were walking around but stopped to get a couple pictures.

We stopped to eat at Subway for lunch. After we left, we were walking around at Discovery Green park and Kenzie realized she left her backpack at Subway. We weren't sure if it would still be there but we walked back to anyway to check. Surprisingly enough, someone had took it to the lost and found so Kenzie was so excited to get it back. She didn't have anything important in it; just a few of her smaller toys and a notebook and pen, but it was still nice to know that no one took it.

We got back on the train downtown and headed to Herman Park for the kids to play some more. The weather was awesome that day so we wanted to get the most out of it.

Managed to get them both to stop for a picture.

A view from Herman Park. You can see some buildings downtown in the background.

I think he was mad about something but I can't remember what. Makes a funny picture though!!

This is a giant ball of granite that is on display at the park. There's water trickling down underneath of it so you can spin it around.

Ahoy matey!

Sitting at the train stop waiting for the train after a long day.

Aydan's 3rd Birthday!!!

2010-01-30T16:02:00.004-06:00

On Friday, Aydan turned 3 years old! I can't believe how fast he is growing up! Here is he on the day he was born--January 29th, 2007 at 7:05 pm. He weighed 8 lbs 1 oz and he was 20 inches long. Its hard to imagine he was ever that little!!

Here he was on his birthday 3 years later, weighing in at about 40 lbs!! Its amazing how much kids can change in 3 short years! I think he will surpass his big sister pretty soon!! Some of the things he says just crack me up, and at times, get him into trouble!! His personality is in full swing! He's such a little character.

His daycare teacher made him his 'Birthday Crown' that he is wearing in these pictures. She also got him the remote control car that is next to him. He loves that thing.

We got him another Thomas and Friends train set. This one has a farm theme and pulls a trailer with a cow. He has so much fun putting the track together and watching the trains go around and around.

Here's his cake that I made; please ignore the ugly looking pizza pan that the cake is sitting on!! I was going to do a train theme but couldn't find a train that would work for the top and I didn't want to use his toy train so I just did red and blue to match the Spider Man cups, plates, and masks we used. Nothing fancy, but it worked.

Here's the birthday boy waiting patiently for his cake.

Spider Mama and Spider Aydan. I don't know why I was trying to smile for the picture with my mask on?? Habit I guess.

Spider Daddy with Spider Aydan.

Hope you enjoyed your birthday little man!! We love you so much!!!

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Gloomy Galveston

2010-01-16T14:32:00.002-06:00

Saturday, we went down to Galveston and got some lunch. We thought it'd be neat to eat along the seawall so we found a Mexican restaurant called Salsas. It was a gloomy day. The waves were very big and choppy. To our surprise, there were actually a bunch of people out in the water surfing!

We could see the ocean from our seat at the restaurant, but its hard to see in the picture.
Another view from our window.

They had these horses in the lobby of the restaurant.

Here's a pic of one of the surfers. The waves were bigger than him by far! That water had to be cold too!

Feeding the birds...

2010-01-03T16:53:00.002-06:00

Saturday we took the kids over to the park. We had some bread and cereal that we took to feed the birds and ducks.

I just love this picture of Aydan.

Posing by a palm tree.

Tossing some bread out to the ducks.

Aydan's turn to pose in front of a palm tree.

Aydan watching the birds as the swarm the food.

Christmas Unwrapped

2009-12-28T20:23:00.003-06:00

Here's some of our Christmas pictures; yes I'm a few days behind. We had a nice relaxing Christmas at home with the kids. The kids were thrilled that Santa had come. Kenzie woke us up at 6:45 am, which is longer than we waited as kids!! ;) I ended up waking Aydan up at about 7:15 am because Kenzie was ready to get started and I figured Aydan would be excited too once he knew what was going on. As Aydan gets older, he is starting to really enjoy opening his gifts. It took him a little longer than it did Kenzie because after he opened each gift, he wanted it out of the package so he could play with it. We had to keep telling him he had more to open.

Kenzie passing out all the gifts.

Still trying to get woke up.

Aydan's new semi/car carrier from Grandma Judy.

Kenzie and her BFC (Best Friends Club) doll. It came with a journal and lock & key. I think that was her favorite part ;)

Playing with his robotic dinosaur.

This Thomas the train track was definately one of Aydan's favorite toys. He played with it almost non-stop practically all weekend. The train is battery powered and goes along the track by itself. He just loves to watch it go around and around. We've already been to the store to purchase more track and another train (and lots more batteries!!!)

Kenzie holding up her bath and body stuff she got in her stocking. I think it makes her feel so grown up! She's my big girl!

Wearing his new safety glasses and flashlight. He's ready to go to work. He loves to play with our flashlight so this works out perfectly!!

After the kids opened up their gifts, they spent the morning taking everything out of its packaging!! LOL, not really but I can't believe how much wire and tape and cardboard is used on kids toys! I about had to cut Barbie's hair to get the wires and rubber bands out of it! But anyway, that morning the kids were able to just lounge around and play with all of their new things.

For the first time ever, I made our Christmas dinner. It turned out pretty well. We had honey baked ham, corn casserole, cheesy potatoes, green bean casserole, fruit salad, rolls, and pumpkin pie. Yes, it was a lot of food for us but we ate leftovers all weekend!

We ended up having a very nice, relaxing Christmas at home. I hope you all had a Merry Christmas too!!

Sun, sand, and shells......in December

2009-12-22T21:04:00.004-06:00

This past Saturday was such a nice day and we didn't really have any plans for the day so we decided we would run over to Galveston. Since it was off-season, of course there were no huge crowds, which made parking a breeze. There were some people walking the beach and others jogging on the beach, but overall it was pretty quiet, which was nice!

It was about 68 degrees with a slight breeze coming off the water. It was really calm and relaxing.
Kenzie hunting for shells. She has quite a collection at home.

Walking on the rocky fishing pier. Yeah, I slipped shortly after I took this picture so then we all moved to the sidewalk on the left ;) Note to self: Do not wear sandals while walking on rocks!

The water was very calm and the tide was low. The water was back further than normal but gradually started to come up on the shore more.

Caught her in her pitching pose throwing a shell :)

Aydan was covered in sand by the time we left! He just loves digging in it and getting dirty!

I just love going to the beach and I hate to say it but I think I'm ready for summer again!!

Charlie Brown Christmas Tree

2009-12-22T20:50:00.002-06:00

Since we didn't bring any of our Christmas decorations down when we moved, we had to start from scratch this year. I didn't want to spend a bunch of money on a big new tree with all the ornaments and stuff right before Christmas so we decided to just go with a small tree for Christmas this year. Plus, at our current apartment, we really don't have all the storage space we would need to store everything until next year. The kids made all of the decorations and ornaments; they thought that was the coolest thing! Besides, its not really the tree that makes Christmas great.

Isn't it cute?

Say it ain't snow

2009-12-22T13:04:00.002-06:00

Hey! I know, its been a while since I last posted. I like to keep you waiting :) I have a lot more things I need to post but first I need to find the time! Christmas is just around the corner so we've been pretty busy lately it seems.

I had this picture on my phone so I thought I'd share it. A couple weeks ago, there was a little Christmas festival at the park across the street from our apartment. I walked the kids over to check it out. They had hot chocolate, cookies, popcorn and other treats for the kids. Santa Claus even made an appearance. I think the biggest attraction though was the snow. Its real, but not. It didn't fall from the sky; it was brought in by truck. But, hey, whatever works right? Plus, this didn't affect the roads or sidewalks! They had 2 different little sections of it and all the kids loved it. They were throwing snowballs and just having a ton of fun! Unlike my kids, some kids rarely get to see snow, let alone play in it! Even when it snowed here after Thanksgiving, it never stuck to the ground so the kids didn't get a chance to play in it.

Ok, more posts & pictures to come soon.....

~~~~Merry Christmas!!~~~~

Snow, rashes, and other unpleasant things...

2009-12-07T14:46:00.005-06:00

OMG!! Did you hear the news!! It snowed down here in Houston on Friday!! I couldn't believe it! Early in the week, the weather forecast predicted that we may see some snow but I thought for sure that it would be wrong because come on---snow in Houston---ridiculous, right?

Wrong!

Sure enough, Friday morning it started snowing, and it was coming down pretty good! The flakes were surprisingly huge! I have to say it was very pretty and it made it feel a little more like the Christmas season was upon us. I'm only happy that it DID NOT stick around and I WILL NOT have to shovel it or scrap snow and ice off of my car!!

People react to snow alot differently down here than in IL. The weather channel issued Winter Weather Warnings and Advisories for the area because they forcasted 1-3 inches of snow. Inches....not feet...and they issue warnings. Schools let out early and the bank I work for even closed at noon. A record low temperature of 29 degrees was set and another record for snowing for 2 consecutive years in a row was set. At our apartment building, people came outside excited to touch the snow as it fell to the ground.

And this week, the temperature is supposed to get back up into the 60's and 70's. I'll take it.

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In other news, poor Aydan had scarlet fever last week. If you are like me, you probably didn't think that was even still around. Thats what you get when you mix strep throat with a fever and rash, which I did not know. He had gotten a fever of 103 on Monday and I had to pick him up early from daycare. On Tuesday, his fever would come and go with medicine, but it didn't get as high as 103 again. He would tell me that his mouth hurt so I didn't know if he meant his throat or something else. Wednesday rolls around and fever is still coming back, and now he is getting a rash on his legs and back. So I call the doctor and get him in that morning. He tested positive for strep throat and thats when the doctor said he actually has scarlet fever. He got a prescription for antibiotic and is doing fine now. It did take a few days for the rash to go away. I am so glad that no one else in the family got it (knock on wood!!) because he was very contagious.

Well, that about sums up our past week. Now we need to get everything ready for Christmas. I can't wait until we get our Christmas tree up; it just doesn't feel like Christmas without it!

~~~~~~~Merry Christmas to you all!~~~~~~~~~~

Thanksgiving 2009

2009-11-28T15:43:00.003-06:00

This year was our first Thanksgiving away from our hometown and the traditions that we are used too but luckily we have family nearby that we were able to celebrate with. Aunt Vicki hosted this year's Thanksgiving dinner and we had a great time. Here are some pictures of our day; they are in the wrong order but you get the idea :)

After we ate dinner, the kids made smores in the fireplace. Yum yum!!

Kenzie with her smore. She almost passed up pumpkin pie so she could have a smore (but we let her have both.)

Gabriel taking his turn at roasting a marshmallow.

Uncle Jerry slicing the pie with his sons Aaron and Sean.

Aydan just had to help Aunt Vicki whip up the whipped cream. I asked him what he was doing and he said, "Makin punkin pie."

Fun on the trampoline before dinner.

Kenzie and her cousin Gabriel.

Aydan and his cousin Christian having fun in the clubhouse.

Christian, Gabriel, Sean, and Kenzie.

Uncle Jerry's homemade pumpkin pie. The pumpkin on top is so neat!

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We really enjoyed our Thanksgiving. Although we might not always think about it, we do have so much to be thankful for. When we moved from Illinois to Texas, we only brought what we could fit in our cars. We left many of our possesions behind and it really made me realize that its not the material things that matter. Having a happy, healthy family means more to me than any possesions I could ever have.

Hope everyone had a happy Thanksgiving and now the Christmas season is upon us! It doesn't seem possible that its that time of year already!

ideas?

2009-11-10T12:50:00.001-06:00

I want a new title for this blog.....Any ideas???

Grilling out in November

2009-11-07T19:40:00.006-06:00

Have I mentioned how nice the weather has been lately? I'm not trying to rub it in or anything but I just can't get over how different the weather is down here. It was almost 80 degrees out on Saturday and its November! I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever be able to use my winter coat!

Saturday evening we loaded our grill, our lawn chairs, and some food and headed over to the park. We thought it would be neat to grill out there and let the kids play.

We brought along some marshmallows too for dessert. Yum!

Kenzie grabbed the camera and said she was taking a picture of Aydan, but this is the picture she took! I think its awesome! She gets the award for "Best Photo."

Roasting some 'mallows. Kenzie said she like them all black. When Aydan tried to do his own, he mashed it around in the coals so we decided maybe he shouldn't make his own! :)

They are so good, but so messy!

Picture of the sunset.

With the time change, it gets dark so much earlier now! There was a nice, cool breeze coming off the water and as the sun went down, it actually got pretty cool out.

Something New

2009-11-07T19:08:00.002-06:00

Friday night we got invited to go out to eat with some friends we met from church. Its always nice to get out of the house and spend time with other people our age, although we did have the kids with us. We decided to go to Ichibon's that is right down the road from us. We had never been there but the couple we went with said it was very good. Here are a couple pictures we took, but I posted them in reverse order.

The kids enjoyed some ice cream after their dinner.

The coolest thing about this place was that a chef prepares the food right at your table. They make it very interactive and fun. He put oil on the stovetop and lit it on fire. I think it scared the kids at first, but then they seemed to enjoy it. He did tricks with his knives and made different things out of the food. Its hard to explain; you just have to see it because it was really cool.

In this picture, he had just finished making the fried rice and was handing out everyone's bowls.

The food was so good and it was neat to be able to see it prepared before your eyes. Can't get much fresher than that! It was definately a different experience than we are used to and if it weren't for the friends of ours suggesting it, we probably would have never tried it just because it was different.

Enjoying the fall weather!

2009-11-04T19:14:00.003-06:00

It's technically been Fall for about a month and a half, but for the most part, it had felt like summer here still. Finally, though, the past couple of weeks have been wonderful, in the mid 70's, so we have been really enjoying doing this outside. It's been great not to have to run the air conditioner and just have the windows open! Here are some pictures of the kids at the park.

Our Halloween-2009

2009-11-01T14:53:00.006-06:00

Halloween was a little different for us this year. I hadn't really tried to come up with costume ideas because I didn't know if we were going to do the trick-or-treat thing this year since we don't know very many people in the neighborhood. I knew our town, Nassau Bay, was having a Halloween festival at the park that night and we planned on going to that. Well, we did decide on taking the kids trick-or-treating so at the last minute we had to come up with costumes. Aydan already had a Darth Vader mask that his cousin had given him, along with a matching shirt so that ended up being his costume. For Kenzie, we really weren't sure what to do, but Danny came up with the idea of her wearing a wetsuit that we found at Goodwill for a few bucks and have her be a surfer girl, which I thought was a pretty unique idea. So, thats what we went with this year.

All dressed up, ready to go.
Showing us her surfer pose. Cowabunga Dude!

We drove around our area, looking for a place to start and at first we didn't see any trick-or-treaters in sight. We were beginning to wonder if they even did trick-or-treating here. Finally, we started seeing people out and so we parked the car and got started. We managed to hit several places and the kids got quite a bit of candy. In the picture above, they are making their way up to knock on someone's door.

At around 7 pm, we went to the park to check out the festival. They had all kinds of things going on. Hay rack rides, hot dogs, nachos, popcorn, haunted house, games, music, cupcakes, and more...all free for everyone! Adults and kids were dressed in costumes. I told Danny next year we will have to all dress up. They had costume contests and dancing contests for different age groups.

Standing in front of a glowing black cat inflatable.

Scary witch

Inflatable headless horseman decoration

This is the entrance to the Haunted House that was set up on the tennis courts. The kids did not go in; it was geared more towards older kids.

Painting a pumpkin.

Just a picture of the crowd and surroundings

Getting ready to go on a hay rack ride.

We had to get a picture of this costume. Some guy was dressed as Dorothy from Wizard of Oz! He walked pretty well in those high heels! His wife, who is not in the picture, was dressed as the Cowardly Lion. There were a lot of creative costumes there.

Our first Halloween in Texas ended up pretty good. I'm still trying to get used to the weather. I'm used to being freezing cold on Halloween but the weather has been great so far.

Ballunar Liftoff Festival 2009

2009-10-25T15:41:00.008-05:00

Every year at NASA/Johnson Space Center since 1994, there is a Ballunar Liftoff Festival and ever since we heard about it, we were looking forward to going. Well, it was this Friday-Sunday so we decided to go over on Saturday.

When we got up in the morning, we looked out our bedroom window and we could see hot air balloons rising up. There were several of them flying around the area. Since NASA is only about 2-3 blocks from us, we could also see the skydivers coming down in their parachutes. It was quite a sight to see.

This is what we saw out our balcony.

More balloons in the distance.

We ended up going over to the festival mid-morning, but we ended up missing the balloons at first. They take off from there early morning, land somewhere else, then they don't come back to the air field until later that evening. There was a bunch of other things going on until then though, so we just checked it all out. There was live entertainment on stage, food vendors, craft booths, and rides for the kids.

This is a model airplane that they were flying around. When we first saw it in the air, it looked real. They had model planes along with model helicopters.

All day long they would have a team of skydivers land in the air field. There were 3 teams total and each team took turns going up in the plane, then jumping out. When the plane dropped off one group, it would head back to Ellington Air Field about 10 miles away, and pick up the next group, and thats what they did all day. I couldn't imagine jumping out a plane once, let alone doing it several times in one day!!

Kenzie and Aydan holding puppets from one of the vendors.

Also at the festival, they had a salute to law enforcement and there were some police cars, firetrucks, and ambulances from nearby towns. Here is Kenzie and Aydan in the back of a police truck. The officer said they use it mostly for water rescues.

Here they are in front of a police Hummer.

Sitting in a firetruck.

One of the fireman offered to take a picture of all of us.

Kenzie in front of a fire rescue boat.

After another skydiving performance, Kenzie was helping this skydiver pack up his parachute. She thought that was pretty cool. He said he has had triple by-pass surgery and skydiving doesn't bother him a bit! Yikes, you would have to push me off the plane. I couldn't do it!

This is the entrance to Johnson Space Center. We were until mid-afternoon then went home for a bit because we were all getting pretty tired and wore out. We headed back in the evening when we knew the balloons would be coming back and we could see them landing on our way back.

They landed in a parking lot, then each one was packed up into their truck or van and brought back onto the air field. Here, everyone unloaded their balloons and got them ready to be inflated again.

Here they are starting to get air into them. It took a while before they were all up and ready.

You can kind of see the Energizer Bunny balloon. Its ears are sticking up behind the Curves balloon and you can see its white tail. I think that was the biggest balloon there.

They gather all the balloons at night as part of what they call the Balloon Glow where all the balloons light up at once. It looks pretty cool when they do it.

We took this one from farther away so you could see more of the balloons, but this still doesn't show how many there were. There's a bunch more behind all of these. It is one of the biggest balloon festivals in the world.

We had a good time. I'm glad we went; its not something you get to see everyday.

Check out the post below for pictures from the NASA open house we went to.

Johnson Space Center Open House

2009-10-25T15:19:00.004-05:00

Part of the Ballunar Festival, was an open house at NASA/Johnson Space Center. We were pretty excited to see Johnson Space Center since we hadn't been there yet. Once you were inside the gates of the space center, you could get on a tram that was taking people around to different buildings and each building had a tour.

They called this robot the Spidernaut.
Mock up of a shuttle

This is a mock-up of the space station that they use for astronaut training.

This is actually a small piece of a meteor that hit the Earth.

This is the back of one of the rockets. There's so many different tubes and pipes I don't know how they know what's what!

Another picture of the back of a rocket. These engines are enormous in real life!

This is the front of the rocket that detaches from the rear part after liftoff.

A few different rockets at Rocket Park.

A woman offered to take a picture of all of us. It's very rare for us all to be in a picture together so we really appreciated that.

There was a lot to see there and we didn't get a chance to go to all of the buildings, so we will definately be going back sometime. Separate from Johnson Space Center but in the same area is Space Center Houston, which is more kid-oriented with different activities for them to do and they also have an IMAX theater. We had a great time, and luckily the weather was great for us to be outside.