18 months and (almost) 3 1/2

Can you believe it? Leslie turned 18 months on Friday! Lance and I cannot believe that it has been a year and 1/2 since Leslie was born, not to mention 3 1/2 years since Lindsay was born! When did time start zooming by?

Leslie is growing up so fast! She is really transforming into a little girl, and leaving babyhood behind. In the last few weeks, she has added more words to her vocabulary. She will try to say anything you say, and she has perfected some of her "old" words. Like, shh has become shoe. Some of her favorite new words are up, down, mow(milk or more), dolly, ball, moo(moon). But like I said she will mimick almost anything you say. Diaper is bipo with a pat on the bum. It is fun to try to get her to say new things. Suddenly, she is feeding herself. Quite by accident I discovered that she can use a spoon so this has opened a whole new world. Not to mention, I get to eat my cereal at the same time as the girls! Leslie has also discovered sitting on the stool at the counter is much more fun than the highchair. This can be a problem, however, since she can climb up onto the counter from the stool. This child has no fear. She also tries to take the stool wherever she wants to get to in the kitchen, though she can't climb up it yet. She just pushes the stool to where she wants to be and says up until someone gets the point. We are currently trying to get her ready for taking the sides off of her crib so that she will be in a "big girl bed." I don't know if we are brave enough yet to go through with it yet, even though Lindsay started being in a big bed at 18 months.
Lindsay must be 3 1/2 going on 13. We are finding ourselves dealing with more stuborness than we have had to in the past. She is definately testing the waters, trying to see what Mom and Dad are going to do if she does the opposite of what she is told. She is coming through though and since we know how important this time is for her learning how to deal with us in the future, Lance and I are resolved to be more stubborn than her. I have to say though, it is a bit easier now that Leslie has become more of a playmate for Lindsay. Fun times, for sure! This girl is growing up so fast!! This week we are registering Lindsay for a 2 day pre-school for next year. I am excited because I know that she is going to LOVE school. She is so curious and excited about learning, it will be really fun to do it with a bunch of other 4 year olds next year.

As for Lance and I, things are changing a little for us too. This week, I start a part-time paid tutoring job. I think it will be fun. I am a little worried about how the girls will take it. Lindsay doesn't like me leaving at night for anything. I remember when I was young and when my mom worked at night, it was hard for me. Of course I turned out ok, but it kind of bothers me that I can remember it, it must have been a little traumatic. I don't want to cause problems for Lindsay. I guess we can call it "character building." Oh well, that's mommy guilt for you! It is only a few hours a week and it is going to build up slowly as I gather more students. I will only max out at 8-10 hours a week. The pay is good and I feel like I am using my degree.

Whew! How is that for an update? Hope you didn't fall asleep reading it!

Lance's Birthday and Sickos

Lance's birthday was several days ago now, but I still wanted to post the pictures we took. We made a chocolate cake (Lindsay put the sprinkles on) and sang the traditional happy birthday song. Lindsay got a little excited though, and while Lance was taking a breath to blow the candles out, she was blowing them out herself! It was quite funny and I wish I would have gotten it on video. She realized quickly what she had done and covered her mouth in surprise. So we lit them again so daddy could do it. This time she held her mouth so that she wouldn't make the same mistake.

This week has started off slow. The girls have been nursing colds since Sunday and last night Lindsay woke up with a fever in addition to her cough and stuffy nose. She threw up the medicine I gave her and is just miserable this morning. So if you think about us this week, please pray that these little ones can get better so we can get back to normal life. When the girls are sick we miss our playdates and Lindsay's favorite church activities. Gotta go, I hear Lindsay crying.

Snow in Texas (again!???)

I thought the good thing about Texas was that it is warmer here! Right now, as I am typing I see that our highs for the next 3 days are lower than Puyallup's highs. What is with it? My feet are cold and my hands are colder. Anyway, we woke up to 1/8th of an inch (gasp!) of snow and ice. Maybe we shouldn't have given away our snow shovel. The whole world stopped here in Texas. Every school is closed, as well as the pediatrician I tried to call and make an appointment with for Leslie's 18 month check up. Our church activities are also cancelled tonight. The roads have been pretty bad though. I heard on the news that they are running out of sand and salt south of Dallas. So unless we get some better temps soon, we are going to be freezing for a long time. Not to mention stuck in our house!
So we made a snowman. Don't laugh, we did our best.

Family Date

It had been a while since we had done something fun together outside of the house. So this past Monday, despite extreme cold and ice on the roads, we ventured out for a family date. We went to Wiggly Play Center in Frisco. The first one in the US, by the way. It is a Wiggles themed playhouse with bouncy toys and a huge jungle gym and little kid play area. Compared to the place we went for playgroup recently, it seems a little smaller, but the girls didn't notice. They had fun, especially since their daddy was there. Most notably, Lindsay ran up and flew down a slide so many times she was flushed and sweaty when we were ready to leave. Afterwords, we went to "Old" Mcdonalds (as Lindsay calls it) and had lunch. It was a very fun family day! We accidently left our camera at home so these are pics taken with Lance's Treo. Can you see Lindsay moving a huge foam block and Leslie dancing to the Wiggles? Lindsay was going around playing air guitar too!

Catch up time.

It has been almost a couple of weeks already, since we returned from Washington. So we better catch up a little.
We had Christmas #2 last Saturday when our packages arrived from Washington. We had a little scare on Friday when the tracking on Fedex said that one of the boxes had been delivered, but it hadn't come to our house. It was a great surprise when we heard the doorbell ring Saturday afternoon. The girls got so excited. Lindsay knew exactly what the doorbell meant, CHRISTMAS!! Lindsay and Leslie excitedly re-discovered their gifts.
This week, the girls and I went to play group at a fun place with lots of bouncy toys and a huge fun jungle gym. We had so much fun. Lindsay was brave and tried everything. Leslie wanted to try everything, but there are some limits to being 17 months.
Friday the Guthries came over and brought a cookie cake for Lance's birthday (just like last year!). We played a couple of games and had a great time.
The last two days we have been kind of shut in because everything is cancelled due to possible icey roads. Our trees are glazed with ice but the roads seem fine. Texas can't handle the cold very well, I guess.
Today, we all slept in front of the football game. And though I would have been happy had the outcome been different, Lance and Lindsay celebrated the Bears win with their bears attire and a little Super Bowl Shuffle (a la 1986). So that has been our week and 1/2 since being back in TX. We have been busy!

We're home!

I think that this picture says it best. This is how we all felt when we got home last night. It was a loooooong trip home but we are here and we are safe. Lindsay coughed all the way home, and is still sick today. Needless to say, after 12 hours of traveling, we are happy to be home!