Who?

This morning, Aydan and I were getting ready to leave so I could drop him off at daycare. I put his shoes on and we were ready to walk out the door. I said to him, "Lets hit the road, Jack." He stops, and looks at me. Then he says,"Not Jack...Aydan, Mommy." It caught me off guard because I didn't even think about it when I said it. He cracks me up!!!

Kids really do say the darndest things!! Love it!

Things My Toddler Has Taught Me

The best time to act up is in public or at someone else's house.

Eating meals is over-rated. Its best to just snack around all day.

Getting your own snack from the kitchen is easy; just wait for Mom and Dad to go to bed.

Annoying your siblings is top-priority.

Just scream at the top of your lungs to get what you want. It works. Trust me.

If it ain't sweet, I ain't eatin' it.

Just make a cute face to make someone forgive you.

Jumping on furniture is great fun.

Be bold; run around the house naked.

Show your artistic side once in a while and color on the walls.

My Little 2nd Grader

Wow!! Kenzie started 2nd grade today! She's growing up way too fast! Everything usually goes pretty well the first day as far as getting up on time and getting ready without complaining. She was up and in a good mood and cooperated when I told her to get dressed. And, she let me do her hair! Now, if only her excitement will last throughout the school year! I won't hold my breath.

Anyway, she had her Meet the Teacher night last night, so we were able to find her room and everything. I took her to school today but from now on, she will be riding the bus to school and we'll see how that goes. After school, the daycare will pick her up for me, which is really helpful.
Here she is this morning before we left for school:

Here she is when we arrived at her school. The school she goes to is a newer building; it was built about 3 years ago.

She did great when I dropped her off at her classroom; she barely said bye to me as she went straight to her desk with the biggest smile on her face.

Things Texas Has Taught Us

We've been living down here in the Lone Star state for about 2 1/2 months now and I must say there's some things we have learned in our short time here.

1. It gets ridiculously HOT and HUMID!!! Like, you walk out the door and you are instantly sweaty. We had hot weather in IL, but this is different.

2. The wonderful weather mentioned above lasts from May through September. The seasons are as follows: Chilly, Warm, HOT, HOTTER!!

3. Numbers 1 and 2 are why we can't wait for WINTER :)Yeah, never thought I'd say that! The average temp. throughout the day is in the 50's and it usually only gets down to 40's and maybe into 30's overnight!! Wooo Hoooo!!!

4. People down here are really nice. You always hear that people in the South are friendly and its seems to be true from what we have experienced (well, except for when you are driving down the freeway rush hour traffic). Strangers smile at you and say hi. There have been several times that we've been at a park, and people we don't know come over and strike up conversation. In fact, thats how we found the church we currently go to.

5. Its not "How are you doing,", its "You doin Ok?"

6. People really do say "Y'all"

7. Its 'soda', not 'pop.'

8. Not everyone wears cowboy hats and boots. In fact, I don't even remember the last time I did see someone wearing either of the 2.

9. A lot of people we have met have either moved here from IL or have family in IL.

10. People love to eat, especially BBQ.

11. Palm trees grow like weeds, and the people that are from here hardly notice them. When we first came down, we were like, "oooh look! A palm tree!!" We still love them and have 2 on our balcony.

12. Galveston Beach is not the cleanest, but people go there and enjoy it just the same.

13. Always lock your car door and house doors. Well, duh, you might think, but back in IL I will admit we didn't always do that. Our area is very safe, but you can never be too careful.

14. Everyone isn't tan. Yeah I thought when we came down that everyone would be so tan and we would stick out like sore thumbs. Well that isn't exactly the case. Many people hate being out in the sun, and when they are, they are sure to lather up with sunscreen.

15. When there's a hurricane, you'd better be ready. Everyone keeps drilling that into our head. Hopefully, we won't have to worry about that this year.

16. Traffic is pretty much heavy, no matter what day it is.

17. People that live here are proud to call themselves 'Texans.' Its really great to live somewhere that people are proud to be a part of.

18. There's no shortage of restaurants. We love having all these restaurants so close by. We no longer need to drive 30 miles away to enjoy Chilis or anything else you could think of.

19. Bugs are prevalent all year round, and the mosquitos are terrible!

20. We are thinking about decorating a palm tree this year for Christmas....
haha, just kidding, that would be kinda funny though :)We just love it here!!!

Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar?

It seems we have a cookie thief in the house.

This morning when I got up, I walked by the kids' room and peeked in. They were still peacefully sleeping. I did a double take at Aydan and saw that he was holding on to a half-eaten cookie. I know he didn't go to bed with it so he must have gotten up at some point and helped himself to a cookie from the kitchen. I just had to laugh! I should have got a picture of it; it was just too cute.

We have caught him several times lately trying to sneek into the kitchen after we put him to bed to grab something to eat. Usually we will hear him open his bedroom door and go get him and put him back to bed. This time, it was too late.

A while back, the thief struck again, only this time it was for for bananas. I had just bought a bundle of bananas that day. When I got up in the morning, I discovered that all of the bananas were gone! The evidence (all of the banana peels) was still on the floor.

We have learned that we need to keep all food up in the high cabinets otherwise its fair game for the Eating Machine. He can apparently climb onto the counter because he was able to reach the bananas and he can also open the refrigerator and help himself to whatever is in there.

Maybe we should consider getting a gate for the kitchen (or a door with a dead-bolt lock?)

What can I say, kid likes to eat!!

The Excitement Never Ends

Its been quite an eventful past couple of days. Yesterday Danny ended up going to the Emergency Room because he was having very bad stomach pains and he was so dizzy he could barely walk. Turns out he had appendicitis so they called a surgeon in so they could remove his appendix. He went into surgery around 8 pm and we were able to see him again around 9 pm. Everything went well. The appendix was very inflammed but luckily it hadn't ruptured yet. He should be able to come home later today (Tuesday 8/11/09). They also discovered he may have gallstones, but they will look more into that later on, after he's recooperated from the appendicitis surgery.

He has had a lot of stomach problems for the past 5 or 6 months so this really explains a lot of it. He had gone to the doctors in IL but they could never seem to figure it out. First they thought it was an ulcer, then they thought gastritis. At one point they even told him that his appendix was slightly thickened, or enlarged, but they didn't do anything about it. They should have removed it then and just got it over with. Anyway, I am just so glad that they got it removed before it ruptured and that everything went well. Hopefully he will be back to normal in a few weeks.

I felt terrible that we couldn't spend the night with him at the hospital. I knew Aydan would not do well because he was already driving me crazy running up and down the hallways like a maniac. Mackenzie wanted to stay with Daddy by herself but the nurses didn't want her there without another adult to watch her. Its times like this that we miss having family or friends really close by so that we could get help with the kids. One great thing that I will say is the hospital he went to is just a block away from our apartment so it just takes minutes for us to be there. That part is very handy!

You have to get out now!

Yesterday started out like any other Sunday. We got up in the morning and went to church. After church we came home, and relaxed. Eventually, we all took a nap, which does not happen very often! Anyway, we had all been up for about half and hour or so when all of a sudden there a knock at our door. I was a little hesitant to answer the door because its a little unusual for us to have any visitors. But, I opened the door and there was a guy standing there and he told us that there was a fire in the building and we need to get out now! I could smell the fire and could see the smoke so I knew he wasn't kidding. There was also a female police officer knocking on peoples' doors insisting they get out. I rushed back to the back of the apartment and told Danny that we had to get out because there was a fire. He thought I was kidding but I assured him that I was serious and he came out to the living room and also smelled the smoke. We frantically grabbed up the kids, my purse, the car keys, and rushed out the door. We are on the third floor, which is the top. The fire was also on the third floor, and the smoke was quickly filling up the hallway.

Firetrucks from several other areas were there and lots of police cars as well. We didn't know how long we would have to be out of the apartment so we ended up leaving for a bit, but we didn't stay gone very long because we were curious as to what was going on. Would the building still be there when we got back? Once we got back, everything looked like it was pretty much under control. As far as we could tell, the fire didn't spread very much and the firemen said everyone could go back in soon.

We were so thankful that it wasn't any worse than what it was. I don't know what we would have done if the whole building was destroyed. We didn't have enough time to grab all the stuff we would want to save, like pictures and other things that you cannot replace. Kenzie and Aydan did manage to grab one toy each, Kenzie had her stuffed monkey and Aydan had his monster truck. The kids did really well, they didn't seem scared at all. Danny and I were pretty scared at first just because we didn't know how bad it would get. We expected the worse. But, luckily everything ended up ok and we were able to get back into our apartment within a couple of hours. It really makes reality hit though that something like that could happen. You always think that it will never happen to you but it can happen to anyone.
********************************************************
I just wanted to let everyone know that I have tried several times to update my blog with pictures but our computer has been giving us a very hard time lately. Its been really slow and it won't let me upload my pics to the blog. Sorry, I will keep trying.