Some Recent Pics of the Girls

Leslie posing for Daddy!

The Girls Playing in the Box.


Lindsay getting ready for Papa Jim's Boat.

No Tornado For Us

We have been getting calls and messages asking if we had any part of the tornados that killed three people last night. We are about 20 miles South of the areas that had the storms. They were in our county but we are in the south west side of the county and the tornados touched down in the more rural, north east side of the county. We did watch the clouds form before nightfall and saw lightning, but over our heads it was clear and we never even heard thunder. We watched the news all night and knew that we were not in any danger. So no worries, no tornado here.

ROLLS & BREAD

A couple of weeks ago, Katie made bread and rolls from Scratch!!!

IT CAME BACK ALIVE!!

This is of Lindsay last night! She fell asleep reading!

Sad day...

Our camera is dead. We bought it when Lindsay was born so that we would have an easy way to share our pics with family and friends on the net. It has become even more important since moving here. Our friends and family have gotten to see Lindsay and Leslie grow over the past few months from far away. Today it just stopped working. So now we are back to our regular film camera, if we can find it. So when we find the camera, buy film for it, process the film, then scan it into the computer, we will once again post pictures here. Since we won't be buying a new digital anytime soon.

I am really sad about this, pictures have become so important to us lately. :-(

9 Month Update

Leslie has passed the 9 month mark now, can you believe it? She is a big girl and gettting around really well. She pulls herself up on anything that will stand still long enough. Leslie is crawling like crazy now and following everyone around. It seems like the second you put her down she is after something or someone. She has begun taking some steps while holding onto the furniture and we are trying to get her to walk with the baby walker that Lindsay used when she was this age. She now has two teeth on her bottom gum and seems to be working on the top ones now. Much to our agony, Leslie's favorite thing to do is screach. And I mean ear-piercing screaching. We hope that this won't be a problem when we visit everyone this summer.
Lindsay, at 2 years, 9 months is developing her imagination. She is a great storyteller. We often hear her "reading" her books with amazing accuracy. On Easter, she told Sarah the story about the angel being in the tomb and Jesus was gone! I have to tell you what is happening right now. Lance got an extra shirt from one of his orders that is a small child size so he brought it home for Lindsay. She is now carrying it around and talking about how it is her team shirt and now she can play soccer ball and she really wants to put it on right now! It is a little big so I told her she could wear it for bed. She wants to take it with her to the store I asked why, she said, "because it is my shirt!" Funny girl. I will try to post some pictures too.

Kicking the habit.

I think we have at least come close to kicking Lindsay's pack a week habit. Pack of diapers that is. I thought it was going to be a lot harder. We started on Tuesday with big girl panties all day, and before I knew it, Lindsay was down to only one accident a day. Today is the first day she has not had one accident.
Better still, we spent two separate days at the local mall where Lindsay told me she had to go and held it all the way to the family bathrooms. I was extremely nervous about the public bathrooms since I am a germophobe (not sure how to spell it though). After scrubbing down her legs with anti-bacterial wipes, I became ok with the public bathroom thing.
I also had heard that a certain type of big girl was usually a problem for todlers to get comfortable with on the potty. Not Lindsay, no fear there. I won't go into any further detail.
For now, we will keep the diapers around for bedtime, though she has had more dry than wet mornings lately.
One thing that I never guessed about potty training is that now we have to get Lindsay to keep her dress down in public. :-) A little modesty please.

See, no big deal!

I don't know if you can actually see it, not the best pictures.

It's not my fault!!!

Let me start by saying, it is not my fault. Today I was out running errands and while I was leaving Walmart I got bumped in the parking lot. I had already pulled out of my spot when I looked over my shoulder and saw a GMC Denali coming for my car. By the time I honked, she was already crunching my side of the car. I couldn't believe it! How can this keep hapening!!?? The damage is on the driver's side rear tire well. I will post a picture soon. Lindsay got a little scared. She probably saw the rear of that truck comming really close to her. That is what got me, the idea that she could have been hurt. She got over it quickly though. The lady that hit me was very apologetic and I have already filed my claim with her insurance. The damage seems pretty small to me. It is enough that we wouldn't let it go but not too bad, she wasn't going very fast. I should also add that there was no damage to her car. It's just nice knowing it's not my fault. :-)

101 DEGREES!!!

Sarah, Tyson & Doug joined us for lunch as mentioned in the last post. After lunch we all went to the park. The last picture is from our car's dash! Today was our first triple digit day in Texas!

Easter!!!

We had a fun Easter! Lindsay is an Easter egg hunting machine! Sarah, Tyson, & Doug came over for Katie's cranberry roast and then we went to park. Here are some pictures of the girls in their Easter dresses! A funny one of Leslie from the night before too! :-)

POOL TIME

Today we used our apartment pool for the first time. I only had one appointment and because we are in the Bible Belt, it seems like no one goes to work or school on Good Friday! That is pretty Cool!!!

It will be 90 degrees today, 95 on Sunday. Anyway, when I got home from my appointment at 11:00am we decided to go to the pool before the day gets too hot.....it was already 80ish.

Lindsay was so excited to go play at the pool, which got Katie and I excited because as many of you know, SHE HATES THE WATER!

By the time we got to the pool, her attitude changed and there was no way she was going near the pool. Katie drug her! NOT DRUGGED HER, but Drug her to a little cut out that only had about a 8-10 inches of water. She was not happy, but after realizing that it was not too bad, she played there for about 45 min. Right before we left, she got the nerve to join Katie in the pool.

We spent about an hour and half at the pool. Leslie cried and would not have the water at all. Just like Big Sis at this age!

Katie and I got a little crisp, but I think we should have a good tan by the time we come home in May! We need it. You can see our White Pasty Washington bodies!!! :-)

Talk to you soon!!!

Big Girl Potty and a Tooth

Today has been a busy day in our house! Leslie had her first tooth break through and Lindsay is 4 for 5 on going big girl potty!

Diapers have become expensive and it seems we are going through about 3-4 a day for Lindsay! I have started to look at those little white diapers in a new way. They are starting to look green and I am seeing George Washington's face on them! :-) It is no longer fair to Lindsay to keep her in one diaper during the day, they just get too full!

Katie has been trying little girl panties on Lindsay from time to time and we think it clicked today!!!! Hurray!!!

Katie took Lindsay to Target tonight so she could pick out a "LINDSAY POTTY." It only cost $10 which is quite a bit less than a pack of 50 diapers! They came home from Target about two hours ago and Lindsay and her Potty have been inseparable since! Just look at our pics! :-) She has been sitting on this thing for some time now, I am thinking of bringing her some reading material!

Also, I have told Lindsay she could carry her potty around with her tonight. She was bringing it out of the bathroom to play with and I was quick to put an end to that. Well after seeing her disappointment and not wanting to take any steps backwards, I told her she could play with it tonight only (this will mean taking it to bed I am sure), but that it was not a toy and starting tomorrow she needed to leave it in the bathroom. That sounded like a good deal to her!

Enjoy!

A reply to comments.

I was writing this in the comments of the last post and decided that it was getting too big.

It's kinda funny, you would think that we are applying for a job. I guess a lot of people want to go to church to be served. We see it as an oportunity to serve others, while serving God.

Another thing that we have noticed in this Church search is how important webites are. Not in how they look or how cool they are, but in the abundance of information and resources. Right away I look for information on the beliefs, the staff, the ministries. Most websites give me an idea of what to expect on Sunday mornings. Even down to the sunday school class that we go to. It has been very helpful. If you want to see the best church website I have seen so far: www.stonebriar.org . Keep in mind that this church has a huge membership and Chuck Swindoll is the pastor.

I guess I better clarify...

So I guess I was a little excited about First Baptist. We have not decided that we are not going back to the first church (Fellowship of Frisco). We actually found out today that something we thought was a pretty significant problem was just a missunderstanding on our part. Please help us pray about this because it is pretty tough trying to discern right now. We are trying to choose between a church that is really like a church plant and an established church. Fellowship of Frisco as it is right now, is not a place we would like to be but may have the potential to be that place. Does that make any sense? It has been extremely hard to get involved and get to know anyone. We are making great efforts, but not much has come from those efforts. The preaching is great, what we hear from the pulpit is not so much what we see now, but maybe a vision for the future. The pastor has been at Fellowship for only a year, and in that time, he has had deal with a lot of pain left behind by the last pastor. So the question is, did God bring us to this church for a specific reason? On the other hand, First Baptist is a church we can see ourselves comfortable in right now. But, maybe just maybe, we are called to be uncomfortable for a while in order to further His kingdom. It is really hard for me because I need a network of friends. I don't expect it to be like it was at home, but I would like a way in, somehow. Right now the only women's ministry is a women's retreat at the end of the month that was too expensive. Since that is the only thing, it left me feeling like I have to wait another year to get to know any other women in the church. That is what we are dealing with here, no community. Lance and I have a strong background in community and we feel that we might be able to help in this area. The question is, does the church have a vision for that or are they just happy where they are? Anyway, God knows the end result. We just have to be patient.

Thanks for reading my ramblings.

Fellowship of Frisco Website: www.fellowshipoffrisco.com

A New Church

We went to a new church yesterday. For many reasons, the church we had been attending did not work out. So we moved on. This church is a little bit of a drive for us now, but if we stay there we will probably make sure our new house is closer. We really liked it. It is bigger than we are used to but around here you almost wonder what's wrong with a church that is smaller. The kids were in a great facility. They have one whole building for kids with an indoor and outdoor playground. Lindsay did a palm Sunday activity and didn't want to go home when we went to pick her up. They are very organized and have a great security system. We had to go through two guys checking parent badges before we got to the kids. I appreciate that a lot, especially with the number of comings and goings. Lance and I went to sunday school which is a lot like the small groups at CCBC. We were able to see them get some business done. which they apologized to us for, but we enjoyed it, it really gave us the chance to see how they work. I think Lance wanted to jump right in and volunteer for things he knows he is gifted in, he held back though. We are excited to join the church in some of the passion week activities, Jews for Jesus is doing a presentation on the Passover connections to Jesus's death on the cross and resurection on Wednesday, we have seen it before years ago at CCBC, but we might do it again, just for a reminder. Friday we will probably attend their Good Friday Service and of course Easter on Sunday. I spoke to a lady in the Sunday School Class that we went to about a Mom's Bible study that she attends, hopefully I can get involved there. We felt very welcomed. These are all things that were extremely lacking at the Church we had been attending. We were waiting to see if God lead us to feel that we were needed at that church. We had some problems with the way they made church decisions also. We felt very alone with everything that went on with Tim too, we had no way to share a prayer request there. No small group, no nothing. I know that we made the right decision. We are excited to see if this new church works out.

If you are curious, here is a link to the church, you can even watch sermons online live on Sunday mornings, creative. www.fbc-mckinney.org

Milestones and friends visiting.

Each girl hit some sort of milestone this week. Leslie surprised me one day when I went to get her from a nap and found her sitting up in her bed. Since then, we have seen her push herself up from laying down a couple of times. Lindsay, quickly aproaching the age of three is starting to show a little interest in potty training (emphasis on little). Tuesday since we were at home all day, I decided to try letting Lindsay wear big girl panties. She had an accident first, then on her second pair, she ran into the room to tell me she needed to go so we rushed to the toilet where she went! It was very exciting. Later that evening, however we had another accident and a toy cleanup. We tried a pull up for going out on Wednesday, which also had a disasterous conclusion. So it will be a long process, I am sure. I just hate spending money on those diapers!!

Wednesday we had a fun but short visit with Kyle Iverson, one of our close friends from Washington. He had a long layover at DFW so we picked him up and took him to a local diner, called "The Local Diner." We had a great meal and it was fun to catch up a little. Too bad the time was short. Kyle's little boy Drew is Lindsay's favorite friend and since he wasn't with Kyle it was a little confusing for Lindsay. She misses her friends very much! Today we expect to meet with the Richardson's, some friends from Washington that are on spring break down here. All of the visits help us with missing home. We are so looking forward to our trip at the end of May!!

Here is a picture of Lindsay helping me fold the laundry. She decided to try on Daddy's shirt.

Easter egg hunt

Now a tradition in our family (since this is our second year of doing this), we went to the local city Easter egg hunt. This one took place at one of the local sports fields. They also had some little games and bouncing toys for the kids, as well as fire trucks, fire clowns and people dressed up as easter bunnys (I was a little confused because I thought there was only one). Lindsay wanted nothing to do with any of those things. We tried, but no go. She even stood in line for the little golf game and when the lady tried to hand her a club, she freaked out. After waiting for an hour and a half, we worried that she was going to back out of the whole deal. Lance had to drag her into the hunt when the siren sounded. But it only took a second for her to realize what fun it would be to pick up candy, bags of crackers and mini-boxes of cheerios off of the ground. Her hesitation, however, did cost her any chance of getting an actual egg. So next year? We will try again hoping that someday, Lindsay will actually enjoy the big hunt. This was the last year that both Lance and I get to stay in one place, because next year, one of us will be graduating to the three to four year olds group.

8 months

Leslie is now 8 months old. Can you believe it?? Where did the time go? She is now sitting up pretty steady and trying to pull herself up to stand, but only on mommy's legs so far. She is also trying to get herself up from laying down to sitting up, but that is not quite accomplished yet. She is crawling all over the place and gets into things much more than I remember Lindsay doing. Maybe there is just more for her to get into because Lindsay's toys are certainly in the line of fire. Something that Lindsay has not gotten used to, having to share with the baby sister. Leslie has a hard time sitting still for any amount of time, it is often a struggle to change her diaper and get her dressed. Leslie's vocabulary consists of ba ba ba and ma ma ma and her favorite, da da da. She seems to be our serious girl but when she smiles, she lights up the room. She has been a pro at eating solids since we introduced them in January, but she is officially exclusively bottle fed now. We also believe that her hair is going to be on the red side. We get more comments about her red hair and If you see her in the outdoor light, you can definately see red highlights. All in all, it is a lot of fun having a baby around!!
Lindsay, now 2 years and almost 8 months is a typical little todler. She has developed quite an imagination. She often pretends to put on shows, to chase monsters (the seseme street kind), to be a doctor, to go grocery shopping, to cook (like her favorite, Rachel Ray) and to talk on the phone. She is a chatty girl too. She will talk your ear off and does so with mostly complete sentences. She still jabbers a little, mostly when she doesn't know what to say. She is still quite timid, probably always will be. But that is ok with me. Right now she is "reading" a book to Leslie, I will post a picture of it. She is a good sister and and although she can be aggressive with Leslie at times, she usually gives lots of hugs and is protective of her.
There's your update on the girls. Lance got home late last night safe and sound. We are very glad to have him back. We all missed him very much.

Another Storytime

The girls and I went to storytime again today. Usually, at stortytime, Lindsay doesn't venture more than a foot away from me. And that is even a little far for her comfort, she rather sit in my lap. Well this time, when we walked in she quickly found a friend and glued herself to the little girl's side the whole time. She participated fully in the singing and dancing and listening to the story. It was fun to see. She is starting to feel more comfortable.
Lance is still in Edmonton, of course. Right now he plans on coming back Monday, but that could change. Tim is doing really well except for really bad headaches. I guess that they are worse than migrains. I am glad that Lance could go up there, we just miss him a lot down here. I am a little jealous that he gets to see family. But I wish the circumstances were different.
Anyway, the girls and I are missing everyone back home especially today. We can't wait to see everyone in two months!

Sleep deprived today.

Lance was off to Edmonton this morning to be with his family by Tim's side in the hospital. Tim is doing much better now, as most of the readers of this blog know. He should be out of the ICU today. Praise God!!!
Anyway, Lance had to be at the airport by 6:30 this morning so we got up at 5:00. Unfortunately the girls had to be woken up, which didn't really bother them much, both girls did pretty well. Lindsay was very observant at 5:00 in the morning when she noticed that it was dark and said "uh oh, it still night!" I responded "yeah?" She said "We need go back to bed!!" Very funny little girl! I had to agree.
I did get Lance to the airport, a little stressed that I was going to get lost on the way home. But it was easier than I thought. Lance gave good directions. Hopefully I will remember them by Monday night when we go to pick him up. The girls slept in the car and I took a little cat nap while Lindsay watched Dora, but I still have some sleep to catch up on. I decided to get out of the apartment since I actually have a car now so we checked out the local Costco and the new Walmart. It is supposed to be a new concept Walmart. I thought it was a lot nicer than the usual Walmart. Wider isles, less clutter and I guess they have organic foods. Still not enough of a big deal for me to drive as far as I did to go there, but better, at least. It is very cold today so no outdoor activities for us. The girls are down for a nap, so I am headed there too.

Playdate

Lindsay, Leslie and I had a playdate yesterday with another mom from the church we have been attending. She has two kiddos, one that just turned 2 and another that is 4 months old, both boys. Lindsay and Cole (the 2 year old) played nicely and Leslie talked in her baby way to Jackson, the 4 month old. Carrie and I (the mother) talked a lot and found that we have a lot in common. It was nice to talk to someone like that. It has been a long time. We found that we have a lot of the same struggles having two kids and staying at home with them. The church doesn't have anything like MOPs at this time, maybe we will have to start it! That sounds somewhat overwhelming right now, but we'll see.

The car

We got our car back, just to let everyone know. It has kind of gotten lost in everything else. We are definately glad to have that thing over with.
Katie

Prayer and Worship

Everyone who reads this blog knows what is going on with Lance's brother, Tim. The last word we got today is very positive. They expect Tim to recover fully in the next couple of days. That being said, I don't know if we have ever prayed this hard. We know that God's answers are not always exactly the outcome that we want, but in this case we do expect that Tim will come out of this ok. It shocked me a little when a friend told me that they were praying for us. I thought, "we don't need it, Tim does." But that is not true, we know it. We have felt the strength that those prayers have provided in the past days. We continue to pray for Tim and that he will recover as they expect.
Worship was difficult today, especially because it is Tim's passion. I kept thinking about him playing the accompiament to the songs that we were singing. Lance and I both said that they should be playing his music in his room. I guess that is what I would want. Can't wait to hear it live again.

Katie

Busy weekend with the future Mr and Mrs Darling

Sorry it has been so long since our last post.
We had a fun and very busy weekend with My sister Heidi and her fiance Bobby. Bobby's band was in town on tour so Heidi flew in to be able to spend 24 hours with Bobby and to see us. We had fun hanging out with them and as you can see from the pictures, so did the girls. Lance and I got to go to Bobby's show while the Lance's cousin Sarah watched the girls. It was the first show I have seen since before Lindsay was born. We had lots of fun, it was cool to see the rockstar in his element. Heidi stayed with us until Tuesday morning so we took her around a little bit. We discovered a really great mall in nearby Grapevine. The weather was pretty hot and muggy so we didn't stay outside too much. We also had our first "tornado watch" This is a step closer then our previous tornado warning which didn't even enclude our county. Lance and I were awakened Sunday night by hail and rain pelting our window. We checked the Weather channel, and sure enough we had been hit with a pretty severe looking thunderstorm. Luckily for us, it didn't get any worse than that, unfortunately for others, it became much worse as it headed east.
The rest of this week has been pretty mellow for us. Lance hasn't been very busy because it has been spring break for most of the schools around here. We had to take back the rental car that we had on Wednesday and our car is supposed to be ready to be picked up today. I will believe it when I see it. Before taking back the van the girls and I went to the park. Lindsay made a friend and played in the sand for an hour. It was kind of sad for me the rest of the day because Lindsay kept asking if we could play with Lauren again. It was a reminder that she misses her friends back home very much. We have a playdate set up for next week with a lady from church and her two kiddos about the same ages as ours. I don't know if it will turn into something regular, but it's a start.
On the house side of things, some of you know that the people that were going to be looking at the house this weekend have decided that they can't afford to buy at this time. So we are back to waiting until the house goes back on the market May 1st. Although this is dissapointing news, we are sure that God has everything worked out. We have been taken care of through a lot of things the last few years and we are constantly amazed each month as he takes care of us in all ways.
Wow, a lot to say today. Hope you all have a great weekend, we are looking forward to watching basketball all weekend.

A Great Day!

Today was probably the most fun since the girls and I arrived in TX. Unfortunately, Lance was out of town so he missed it, but we had fun. We went to story time, as usual on most Fridays. They had a puppetshow which was really good, considering that about 30 todlers were absolutely silent the entire show. It was simply the three pigs, but captivating, aparently. The fun started when we went to the park for a picnic lunch afterword. The weather was amazing, it felt like a breezy summer day in Washington. When we got to the park we discovered that they had turned on the play fountain that had been off for the winter. So we ate our lunch (only a couple of bites for Lindsay, who wanted to run and play with kids), and then ran through the water and made footprints on the dry pavement. We had lots of fun, as the pictures show.

Summer Plans

We are currently making plans for our home visits over the next few months. We are hoping that our house will sell quickly once it is put back on the market so that we can come back to get all of our stuff. These are our current plans, noting that they can be chaged by the sell or no sell of our house.
We plan to be in Puyallup by Memorial weekend. We are currently planning on driving. Lance will have to come back to TX for three weeks in June for a seminar week for work. And a little bit of business the other two weeks. The girls and I will be in Washington during this time. Then we are planning on leaving for TX July 23rd, with a tentative stop in Kulm, ND to see Lance's Grandparents.
The next trip will be in October, for Heidi and Bobby's wedding. The girls and I will probably come up two weeks before the October 14th wedding. Lance will only come for the weekend of the wedding and then we will all leave after the wedding.
Finally, we are planning to be home for Christmas, not sure on the dates for that yet.
All of this will be much easier once the house sells. Keep praying! In some ways it will be the saddest day of our life, in other ways, it will be one of the happiest. We just won't think about the sad things. :-)

See y'all soon! (I don't really talk like that)
Katie

We have Giants!!

If you've paid any attention to the national weather today you may have noticed some severe weather in our area. We actually had Tornado watches in the counties west and north of us. All we have seen though is a little thunder and lightning. Lindsay was a little concerned when she heard the first thunder tonight. She looked up at me and with a concerned look on her face, said "I not like giants." I told her, as my Grammie told me when I was little, that God was just bowling up in heaven. Later when Lance was home, Lindsay heard some more and said "that not giants" Lance told her that God made Thunder and lightning like he made other things. She said, "like rainbows, and clouds, and TV, etc. etc." She listed several things.

Also- we don't expect to get our car back this week now so we are getting a rental car so that we can drive around this weekend. We have a very busy and exciting weekend with Heidi and Bobby coming to see us (and eachother).

Katie

Still no car!

We were supposed to get the Passat back today. But they called and said that some sensor is not cooperating so they had to have the VW dealership look at it. We should be able to get it tomorrow. If not, then we will be renting a vehicle for the weekend. Lance is traveling to Oklahoma on Thursday and then bringing Bobby back with him Friday night. Then we pick up Heidi from the airport on Saturday morning. So not having two cars is out of the question. Hopefully, it will be our own!! Just another bump in the road, not a big deal, sure would like the car back though!

Story Time

Katie has been taking Lindsay to Story time at the local library. They go either Tuesday or Friday at 10:30am. I have been working my schedule so I am working from home, so they can go and I can watch Leslie.

Every week they get to make a craft that goes with the theme of the story. Last week they made a Yellow Visor because they read about Curious George. This week they made a hat that had Cat Ears because the story was about a cat.

Each week Lindsay also gets a stamp on her hand. The kids stand in line and when it is their turn, they hold out their hand to get it stamped. Last week when it was Lindsay's turn, she was not satisfied with just one hand getting stamped. She held out both hands! That a girl!

This week she was standing in line behind a boy who lifted his shirt and wanted his belly stamped. Lindsay followed right in step. When it was her turn. She got her hand stamped and then raised her shirt! See the picture below. It is kind of hard to make out, but there is a stamp there! :-)

SHOPPING LIST

Today, Katie was making out a shopping list. Lindsay took notice and asked Katie to draw with her. Katie told her no, because she was making out her shopping list. Lindsay disappeared for while. Next time Katie saw her, she looked like this picture. She has drawn lines with marker on her arms and face. Katie asked her why she wrote on herself. Lindsay replied, "It is my shopping list." :-)

Some things to do.

It seems like there is so much to do in Washington. A short drive in any direction and you can be on an adventure. It doesn't take too long to figure out that there are no mountains here or puget sound or Nisqually flats or Ocean Shores or Pike Place Market or many other places that we took for granted at home (though I never took for granted my mountain, which I miss every day). Anyone who has come to Washington to visit the Bauslaugh's has often gotten the "grand tour" a whirlwind trip around the state to various sites and attractions. I've been trying to put together some ideas for our own tour of Texas. The problem is, that this has to be a virtual tour since I am stuck with out a car for the time being. So I have put together some links, hopefully these ideas will entice some of you from up north to come visit us.
50 Free things to do in Dallas: http://www.dallascvb.com/visitors/50free.php
A time and place that Dallas would like to forget: http://www.jfk.org/
OK so this is where the girls and I go when the weather is not good to play outside: http://www.shopstonebriar.com/html/index4.asp
Downtown Mckinney, looks fun: http://www.downtownmckinney.com/frameset.asp?aid=144
We can't wait to try this out: http://www.sixflags.com/parks/overtexas/index.asp
And this is part of sixflags: http://www.sixflags.com/parks/hurricaneharbordallas/
One of the best water parks in the country, but we would have to make a trip of it because it is near San Antonio: http://www.schlitterbahn.com/default.htm

So, come to see us so that we can try some of these things out!!


Katie

March comes in like a....

?? In gradeschool I remember learning that March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb. Does that only apply in Washington?? Today the expected high here in Frisco is 88. We started the day at 60. Last night at 11:30, the temp was 70. While it is nice, the girls and I are still waiting for our chariot to be fixed so no parks or other fun in the sun!! (The car should be finished Friday at the earliest, Monday or Tuesday at the latest. )
We are making the most of it. Here are some pictures of Lindsay and Leslie from this morning. I put Leslie in her pack n'play for a nap and Lindsay was watching Wiggles while I took a shower. I was almost done when Lindsay came in to tell me that she and Leslie were sharing books. So I had to quickly end my shower and go see what was going on. Here are the pics. Harmless enough, I guess.

The Escape Artist and The Next American Idol

Leslie has recently developed Houdini-like skills. If you turn your back for a second she can be in a completely different room! I have submitted this picture as evidence of a recent escape attempt. Leslie started in the middle of the room to the right of this picture. I went to get something and when I came back, She was almost to the door of the apartment. Where was she going to go when she hit pavement? Maybe the Mall?


Lindsay has been watching American Idol with us lately. She quickly becomes bored with the amateur performances on TV and begins to perform her own American Idol audition. In these pictures she is giving a dramatic performance of Eiou Farm, also known as Old McDonald's farm. We are sure that Simon would say that it was the best performance he has ever seen.

A fun weekend

Last weekend my mom (Katie's) came to visit us. She gets free passes on Alaska Airlines so she can come down almost any time. She arrived on Thursday and stayed until early Monday morning. When she got here on Thursday, the temp. was a balmy 81 degrees, the next day, the temp. fell to a very chilly 40. The rest of the weekend was very icy. We had fun despite the frigid weather and got to show mom around town a bit. It was really nice to see someone from home, even if it was for only a short time. Our next visitors will be my sister Heidi, her friend Melissa and Bobby (Heidi's fiance) who will be in town the second weekend in March. Bobby's band will be coming through Dallas and Heidi is going to take advantage of the free lodging and we are going to take advantage of getting a chance to see them. We look forward to it!! Here are some pics from Last weekend. The one in bed is not my favorite, but I guess it is a cute snapshot of life in the 'partpent' (in Lindsay's words). We don't always sleep in the living room, just when there are visitors. :-)

Update on Leslie and Lindsay

Leslie has grown quite a bit in the month that we have been in Texas. Leslie began rolling over the day before the girls and I left, begining the road to independence that I am not ready for. Since then she has developed a little bit of mobility. Though she is not yet crawling the way you would imagine crawling, she is scooting around and getting into trouble. As I typed that last line, Leslie was getting into Lindsay's toys. Between rolling and scooting, Leslie can get around pretty quickly and anything in her reach is game. She has also begun sitting up pretty steady in the last week or so. Leslie's personality is coming out more each day. She is adventurous and definately a little demanding. At the same time, she seems to be developing a sense of humor. Since moving to Texas, Leslie has had a hard time developing a sleeping pattern. We had both girls in the second bedroom, but I was worried that leslie waking up at any time of the early morning would wake up Lindsay so we had Leslie set up on blankets in our room and then the living room. So instead of waking up Lindsay, she woke up Lance and I. Recently I discovered that Lindsay wouldn't wake up to a bomb, so we put Leslie in with Lindsay again and it seems to be working better. Leslie slept through the night last night for the first time since moving here!!

Lindsay has adjusted to life here. She had a hard time at first, we all did. But she has settled in to the new routine. She looks forward to Church and story time at the library. We are hoping to get into a playgroup soon. There are a lot of activities for kids her age here but most of them are expensive for us at this time. Unfortunately, since my accident, getting around is hard so we haven't been able to go to the park as much as we would like. Lindsay is watching the olympics with us and often pretends to ice skate. She loves to dance as well. This past Sunday, they made friendship tea in Sunday school, so as soon as we got home, Lindsay HAD to have a tea party. (Grandma Sandy, she was pretty upset that we couldn't go to your house and have a tea party) We set up a blanket and her plastic tea set and she and leslie had tea. Lindsay misses our friends and family a lot. Though she won't really talk to people on the phone she often calls John & Cole, Drew, Miss Kathy and Miss(she hasn't figured out mister yet) Kyle, Brooke and Payton and the grandparents and aunts and uncles on her "cell phone." She misses everyone as much as we do.

Old but Funny!

Last month when the Guthries were over, Lindsay said something funny! I remembered to post this so you all can laugh.

We had put the girls down to bed and started to play a card game. After a little while.....Lindsay was not sleeping, so we let her get up and sit with us. There were no chairs left, so we put her in the high chair.

She was sitting there minding her own business as we played our game. After a little while, I heard a noise. I asked her if she tooted? She said, "No, I toot in my bed!" :-)

We had a good laugh!

So Sad Are We

We join our hometown peeps in our sadness over the Seahawks loss. Next Year? Let's go Superbowl XLI? Is that fourty one?
In other news... Lindsay delt with the stomach flu all week last week, starting Monday night and finally coming out of it on Saturday. I (Katie) came down with the flu Thursday night and started feeling better today. We are in constant prayer that Lance and Leslie have avoided this yucky stuff. So far so good!
Looking forward now to the Olympics starting this week!! Go USA!!

Katie

WHOOPS!

I am only posting this so you can see what is going on in our life. Please pray that we can find another mode of transportation for our second car.

If the car ends up getting totaled out! Then I think we just set a record for the shortest amount of time for license plate use!

It may be a long couple of months in our Jetta until the house sells! :-)

That was Lance, now Katie will fill you in a little more.

I was the driver of that mess up there. Surprise, Surprise! It looks all too familiar. Thankfully, it was not a roll over, just a rear-ender. Lindsay and Leslie were with Lance at the apartment another blessing! Don't worry, the broken glass was from the airbag, both of which were deployed. I am just a little sore. Thank the Lord that no one was hurt. Just my pride.
Katie

Today was a big day as we made our cars street legal in the state of Texas. Our tabs expired in Washington yesterday, so it was time to get Texas Plates! Here they are!

By the way! Tonight I ran to the store at 7pm.
It was low to mid 70's and I wore flip-flops, shorts and a t-shirt. :-)

Ask me in July how I like it!