Visitors, Parks, and Zoos

We had visitors the week before Easter. Tyler's brother and family and his parents came from Utah for their spring break. My brother-in-law's family includes 4 kids - a 10-year-old boy, 2 4-year-old twin girls, and a 2-year-old girl. So that filled our house with 6 girls with Abby as the oldest. We had lots of screams, lots of laughter, and lots of fun!

While the boys went golfing, the girls took a trip to the park. Aubrey loved the swings.

And Abby loved drawing with the chalk. We traced all the girls' bodies. Abby decided on her own pose and then colored it in herself. I thought it turned out so cute.

We spent a day at the Forth Worth Zoo.

We saw lots of animals. Aubrey, and everyone else, really liked the white tigers because they came up so close to the glass window. (Can you see he winked at me for the picture? :)

But everyone's favorite spot was where we ate lunch which was right next to a huge glass wall where we saw alligators, fish, and turtles. We spent our evenings playing Rock Band on Wii and watching movies.

Fortunately, the rest of our furniture was delivered about 15 minutes before they left to go home, so they got to see what our living room is supposed to look like. And we got one last picture of all the cousins together.

We had so much fun and we miss them all already.

Tessa Turns Three!!!

Tessa, Tessa

How we love thee

Let me count the ways:

I just have to start by saying Tessa is our "wild child." I feel like as she turns 3 tomorrow she not only is keeping the "terrible twos" strong but she has also just added the "theatrical threes."

Let me explain. Here is our Tessa in detail:

She loves to lock doors whether she's inside or out, and whether we have a key or not.


She loves to run around the house naked, usually with a diaper, but sometimes without.

She has a scream "heard round the world." It's high, it's loud, and it can last for LONG time.


She can throw a fit like the best of 'em. She usually lays on the ground with her face on her arms and her bum in the air, or if standing up her arms are wrapped around her head.

She's like a little tornado leaving wreckage in her wake. As soon as a room is clean, it takes her less than 10 seconds to "replace" all toys back around the room. Her favorite activity - throwing the toys as far as possible.


She's a true artist. We have original Tessa's on the walls, doors, carpets, floors and always her own body. Her masterpieces are created by all different sources: chalk, crayon, pencil, marker. You name it, she's found it and used it.

She loves to sit on, push, hit, and kick her baby sister, lovingly of course. (or so she says)

She's a climber, whether it's the dinner table, the couch, card tables, windowsills, slides. You name it. If it has a ledge or a step, she'll find it and climb it.

We Love our Tessa. Here's just a few more:

She plays dollies constantly so you can always hear her saying things like, "yes sweetie," or "dance with me sweetie."

She hops and skips around constantly with her arms up and bent at the elbow with hands flapping like fairy wings.


She can easily be caught singing Miley Cyrus's The Climb, or Lady Gaga's song "Rah-Rah-ah-ah-ah."


She sings with her hand on her hip while tapping the beat with her foot. She does this when she's frustrated too like when she's waiting for a response from someone. (like a total teenager!)


She still has her evil eye but is always quickly followed by her genuine happy smile.

She loves to dress up and follow her big sister around and do anything Abby says or does or tells her to do.


She gives big hugs and loves to be held "like a baby" and snuggle into your arms and chest.

Tessa:

So energetic, happy, and free.

You keep us on our toes and you keep us laughing. We wouldn't change you for the world.

Happy Birthday!

We had a family party already for her and here's her cake. I decorated it myself. I thought it turned out cute.

And her favorite present of the bunch: The Princess and the Frog.

Spring is Here....Photo Shoot

We have been loving the nicer weather when it's here. And after two and a half years of living in our neighborhood, they finally fixed the fountain in our entrance pond, so we took a walk on one of those warmer days. Of course, I had to take some pictures.

Abby has always been the photogenic one. She loves to smile and "look pretty" for the camera. Tessa is harder to get to stand still long enough for a shot, but once she does I can usually get a cute one. Her mismatched clothes are the eye sore of this picture. It's hard to get Aubrey to smile for the camera, especially when she's so interested in something new to her - like grass.

We also painted our kitchen but the before and after pictures aren't the best representation of how it really looks. The before ones are pretty dark and the after ones don't really show the right shade of purple, but here they are nonetheless.

Dining Room View - BeforeDining Room View - After Back Door View - Before Back Door View - After

Next step - Paint the arches wall between living room and kitchen. It will be a darker blue color and hopefully pull the two rooms together nicely. Oh and finish the curtains I bought fabric for, for the living room. Yeah!

Before and After Pictures - Living Room

So we've started our renovations of the interior of our home. I was excited to get some gift cards for paint supplies for Christmas so we got started a couple weeks ago by painting our living room. Adding to the changes was the deal we got from Rooms-To-Go where you bought the living room set and got a free big-screen tv, so Tyler was all over that. We were supposed to get our tv before the SuperBowl but there were some complications and it has not arrived yet (don't get us started on that). However, our first delivery of the main couch came last week. We still have a loveseat, ottoman, and tv console (and tv) yet to arrive. But here are a few before and after pictures so you can get an idea, with more to come as more furniture arrives and more painting is done.

Before we painted:

After we painted with new couch:

Another angle of couch:

We LOVE the couch and can't wait for the rest of the living room to get here!

Aubrey's Walking & She's ONE!!!

Aubrey's ONE!!!!

What a diva!!
So I've been working on getting a video of Aubrey walking for a couple weeks, but either Aubrey hasn't cooperated, or I recorded it funny on my camera. So after many attempts, I finally got a decent clip of her taking multiple steps. She's actually been doing this for a couple weeks now, but this particular video was taken on her first birthday (yesterday).




We've also had multiple celebrations already for Aubrey's 1st birthday, with more in the works. My family came into town for a little party last weekend with cake and presents, so we let Aubrey dig in to her very own cake. I took lots of pictures in hopes of getting some good ones, so here a few of my favorites.

She's not sure about that flame.

I think she's thinking, "Mmmm... it's good"

Yep, here's the first birthday picture I was looking for - messy face and fingers.
And here's a few more on her actual birthday. She finally looked at me...almost. There she is! Complete with the pearly whites! (3 to be exact) Happy Birthday Aubrey!

Our Late Christmas Gift

Tyler got his Christmas gift a couple weeks late.

Rock Band for the Wii. The girls love to play with us which isn't too surprising. Abby is actually really good at singing. What did surprise me was how it wasn't just Abby and Tessa. I was in the bathroom and heard noises through the wall and came around to find this: She found the drums back in this corner all by herself, and even got the drumsticks out of their holding place before starting to rock out.

Go Aubrey!

It looks like the drummer genes have found their way down to you from your grandpa and uncles.

Christmas Time

We have spent the last couple weeks enjoying the holidays. Here are the highlights of our holiday season. The girls spent many days dressing up as Mary and Joseph, which I thought was super cute because it was all their idea. We spent a field trip day with Abby's preschool at The Village in Allen where we met some of Santa's reindeer, played in a miniature town, and discovered a Texas-shaped maze. The kids had fun even though it was pretty chilly. The girls also enjoyed their visit with Santa at the Ward Christmas Party. We were very sad that the party was on Saturday this year because Tyler had to miss it due to work. Such is life.

Our Christmas festivities started off with a Christmas Eve party with friends. This was our first year to be home for Christmas morning, which I was excited about. However, Tyler did not want to sit home by ourselves Christmas Eve, so we planned an evening of food, fun, and entertainment that included a reading of the Christmas story complete with kid actors, singing carols, and a pinata. All of these are activities from Tyler's family traditions, so we were very excited to include them in our own evenings' events.

We woke up Christmas morning to snow on the ground which Abby loved. After waiting for Aubrey to wake up, we opened presents. The girls must have been good this year because they came away with a huge Christmas gift haul.

We then decided to drive to my parents, but it took us an extra 3 hours due to icy road conditions. We finally made it and enjoyed the weekend with family. Even though it made rough driving conditions, the girls loved the snow and wanted to play in it constantly. This is like a 1 in 10 years worth of Texas snow by the way!
My brother, John, finally made it from Utah two days late since the airport in OKC was closed. We were happy to have him finally arrive, and the girls loved having him there to play with.

And the favorite gift of this year?
A "Hannah Montana" guitar as Abby calls it. She loved to play along with the rest of us who spent most of the weekend playing Rock Band on the XBox. She also loved the fact that the one song the guitar plays is one she LOVES: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. How awesome is that!?!

All in all, it was a great Christmas and we celebrated a Happy New Year with family as well. Hope all of yours was as merry and bright. Here's to a great 2010 sure to be filled with more excitement and adventures!