Random thoughts from yours truly.......

This weekend we celebrated my dad's birthday by going out to lunch at Johnny Rockets. I posted a video of him being sung to below. Anyway, I think he was very proud of his free icecream sundae and balloon they put on his wrist. No one can wear a balloon like good old Papaw! My mom, my brother, and my nephews all joined us for the occasion. We had a great time!


We really enjoyed the beautiful weekend. There were only two instances that I nearly had heart failure. The first one was when our computer ended up getting a virus on it somehow. To make a looooooong story short, we took it to Stephen's cousin (who is like a computer genius) and had him look at it. He said there were actually several viruses on there so he took them all off and installed some new anti-virus protection and a bunch of other anti-somethings to help keep it from happening again. He had it fixed and ready to go Sunday afternoon so we were so grateful - thanks Ben! One day without my computer was pure torture........torture I tell you! No facebook, no emails, no blogging.......what is the world coming to? Just kidding.....
Moving on......the other thing that nearly gave me heart failure was the $13, 000 bill we got from Tomball Regional Hospital. That is where Leah had her arm surgery last month. And of course, I open this lovely piece of mail Saturday night when no business office is open for me to call and have it cleared up. I just kept telling myself it was a mistake. Well, I called first thing this morning and sure enough....it was an error! Huge sigh of relief! Yes, I was on the phone this morning
with the insurance company as I'm driving like the Mad Hatter to my house......I had to leave school during my planning time to go home and turn the alarm off so our precious cleaning lady, Margarita, could get in without setting it off! I forgot to remind Stephen that she was coming today so of course he set it this morning without thinking. In the words of sweet Margarita....Aye. Aye. Aye. No me gusta!
God bless her!

Oh, one more thing! Stephen and I are participating in this new Bible study through our church called The Relationship Principles of Jesus. It's a 6 week study written by Tom Holladay and Rick Warren (the same pastor who wrote The Purpose Drive Life). It's kind of the same thing except it focuses on all the relationships you have in your life (mostly with your spouse though). Last night was our first session. The weird thing is that the small group we are in is with all of our friends that moved with us from our old church to our new church. It is nice to have those connections already - it definitely makes it easier to open up and participate in the Bible study. We have a book to go along with the study and we're supposed to read one chapter a night. Stephen has already predicted that we are going to be the "bad students" and not do what we're supposed to, however, I'm determined to prove him wrong. I guess it would help if I got off the computer and went and read today's chapter. Luckily for me, the chapters are REALLY short. I'm more of a writer than a big chapter book reader. For example, I want to read Twilight, but fear I will never finish. I still need to borrow the book from you Amanda! Edward is calling.......

Enjoying the sunshine

Yesterday we joined up with some friends for a stroll in the neighborhood and to the park after school. It was the perfect day for it - the weather was great! We even stopped to pose for a picture. It was nice to get out and enjoy the fresh air and sunshine instead of just going straight home to do things around the house. We're going to try and start doing this at least once a week.......How does "Walking Wednesday" sound?

Here's Logan and his buddy Kooper - his mom and I were pregnant with our boys at the same time and our due dates were like one day apart. However, Logan came a little early and Kooper 2 weeks late!!!

Just a swingin'

Happy Valentine's Day, but beware of the sugar rush........

I just had to post this video of the girls tonight after their "sugar-filled" day of valentine treats at school. Then, to top it all off, I made the mistake of letting them eat some pieces of candy (something they usually do not get to do very often) and they went beserk! The whole "sugar 'em up and send 'em home" teacher philosophy takes on a whole new meaning when you have school aged children in your own home. Beware of the sugar rush - the repercussions are dangerous!!!

Happy Valentine's Day (one day early). It seems as though it was today since we celebrated at school. It actually wasn't as wild as I thought it would be. Today was also the 100th day of school and I was able to get a quick picture of the girls as they trotted by this morning during the parade - I was so proud of them both! They did it!!!! We managed to get out the door and off to school this morning with minimal meltdown dramatics so that was pretty good. However, I still had my doubts that they would participate......especially Leah. Well, they did it with a smile!!!! Hold that thought.......Leah just walked in here and saw the pictures I'm posting and said, "Mommy, when you took that picture today, I was about to start crying because I was scared....... but I did it anyway." God bless her little heart!



100 year old Lauren - she was
actually walking hunched over
with the cane - loved it!



100 year old Leah

Tomorrow we're going to try to sleep in, enjoy a yummy breakfast together, and then all the girls are going to get their nails done as a special Valentine's treat! The boys are going to get the oil changed in the car. Hmmmm........I think the girl's outing will be more fun for sure!

The cast is off.......again!!!

Leah's cast came off today and the doctor was very happy with how her bone is healing and all the new growth around the bone. She has a brace that she will wear to school, but she doesn't have to wear it at home - yeah! No more baths with a garbage bag wrapped around her arm!!! Her arm still looked pretty "gory" to me as you can see in the pictures below, but we washed it really good tonight and put lotion on it so it will slowly get back to normal. I also included a few pictures of them cutting her cast off - the machine they use is pretty intense. I actually didn't take any pictures of the machine in action.....I didn't want the camera flash to distract the nurse from what she was doing. I just got a few of her cutting it off with the scissors after the machine had cut through most of it. It basically looks like it's going to slice right through their arm....and amazingly Leah just sat there like it was no big deal. However, I have to remind myself that she has been through this before. The people at Texas Orthopedics and Sports Medicine are phenomenal and I would highly recommend them to anyone!

The Little Old Ladies......who lived in a Shoe??????

Tonight the girls put on their outfits for the 100th day of school this coming Friday. Stephen and I were cracking up at how cute the girls were. My friend Melanie at work let us borrow some of her daughter's tea party stuff which fit the girls perfectly! All of the kindergarten students will be dressing as if they're 100 years old and are having a parade as well as other festivities throughout the day. We wanted to have a "trial" of what it would look like......mostly in hopes of avoiding all meltdowns on Friday morning. We even tried putting the baby powder in the hair to see how it would look. They weren't exactly thrilled by the fact that we were sprinkling Logan's "butt powder" in their hair, but they let me do it anyway. You can probably tell by the looks on their faces in the pics below that Lauren is WAY more into this than Leah is. Leah has made several comments already about not wanting to dress as an old lady, but with alot of coaxing I think she will do it. She refused to walk in the perfect attendance parade earlier in the year, so we'll just have to see how this goes. She is the type that does not like alot of attention on herself and people staring at her. However, she has done well with all the attention from her cast (which by the way she is supposed to get removed tomorrow if her x-ray looks good). Anyway, enjoy the pics!

Logan was not quite sure what to

think of his sister's new apparel.

He wanted the glasses OFF!!!

Misc.

I have had such a fun day today following a fun night out with the girls (Bunko night). I went and got my hair and nails done this morning and did a little shopping at Target. I somehow found myself over in the valentine candy aisle and couldn't seem to maneuver away! I had to buy valentines and treats for the girl's class at school plus my own students as well. Here are some pictures below of Lauren helping me put the treat bags together after I got home. We had a lot of fun doing it! Stephen took Leah with him to run another list of errands that needed to be done. We try to split the girls up like that when we can so that we can get some alone time with each one and they can get some time away from each other as well.

Last night before I left to do Bunko with the ladies, the girls asked if they could go outside and ride scooters with their friends. This is one of their favorite things in the world to do. I told them yes and I began to feed Logan. Next thing I know, I hear all this commotion in the backyard so I go to the window and look out and see half of Kaufman Elementary back there! They were having their own talent show or something like that so I tried to get a few pictures while Logan was eating in his highchair.

Evidently, our backyard is becoming the neighborhood hang-out, which is funny to me since my girls are so much younger than the rest of the kids on the street. However, they love to be around older kids and play very well with them. I don't mind it because I can monitor what is going on by keeping watch out the window.

Logan didn't like me going out there to take pictures so he was making these funny little faces and grunting at me when I came back in.

It seemed as if he was telling me he wanted to go outside too. So, after he finished making a mess (I mean...... eating), I took him out front and let him walk around. I was determined to capture him walking on video. It took several tries, but I finally got one. Isn't he so cute?

On a side note, Stephen was in Chicago this week on business and the office he was working at was only one or two blocks away from Harpo studios which is where the Oprah show is! I asked him if he went down to check it out and he said he would have if he had been there longer. He said it's just like an ordinary building.....it just has a ton of satellites on top of it. We had actually thought about going to Chicago next month for our anniversary and trying to get tickets to see her show, but then we started thinking that we might want to go to New York instead. Neither one of us has been to New York and we both would really like to go.

100th Day of School . . .

The 100th day of school is approaching quickly and both girls have to dress as if they are 100 years old for the occasion. All of kindergarten is doing the same and they will have a parade and everything. I have been helping the girls this weekend come up with ideas for what to wear and how to make themselves look 100. Nanny brought over some "old lady stuff" for us to browse through . . . .old jewelry, hats, canes, dresses,etc. The girls had fun goofing around with it all......and, as you can see from the pictures below, Logan had a bit of fun with it all himself. He got into some of the stuff this morning and had a time!

The 100th day of school is still a couple weeks away, but I will definitely be posting pictures of the final "Old Lady" outfits. The girls were also excited to tell me on Friday that they both had made the 100 club at school. That means they were able to count to 100 unassisted for their teacher. They have been able to do that for a while now, but had to "officially" do it last week. They have also started bringing home their weekly "take home" books that we read throughout the week. I have found that it is hard to sit down with one and read while the other waits their turn and while Logan demands my attention as well. Last week I put Leah on the computer (Starfall.com - love it!) and she played games and read books online while I read books with Lauren. It worked out pretty good until Logan realized what we were doing and kept trying to rip the books out of our hands. Speaking of Logan, I've been trying to get some good video footage of him walking, but just haven't been able to do it yet. He actually took his first steps on January 23rd, but he's still not walking all the time yet. He does go a little farther everyday though. Anyway, I'll post some video hopefully this week when I can catch him in the act.