Field Trip

Does U-Pick count for U day? I'm not sure it does, but Tuesday we went strawberry picking for school :-) The berries were a little difficult to get off the pants, so my girls didn't pick many, but I think they had fun and they certainly enjoyed eating them!

The pants were loaded with lots of ripe berries!

Hannah picking berries with Ms. Niki

the coloring continues

I figured I'd post a what I think is finished picture of the the fish Evie was coloring. She's coloring whenever possible and does not like being pulled away from it at all. She'd started taking great care with all her coloring everywhere and people have commented at Sunday school and Bible study about how well she is doing.

A new swing

While at a friends house last week Hannah got on a swing and started pumping and actually made herself go. She has never done this at home before, at least hadn't been able to get herself moving, so I noted the swing was different. It was a flat swing instead of the soft curved ones. I mentioned this to Nathan and he decided to make a swing to see if we can encourage Hannah to do more swinging on her own with less pushing from us. It seems to have worked, at least a little. I think the fact that a flat swing naturally goes forward and back helps with the pumping motion, so Hannah is at least able to keep herself some what in motion. Evie also loves the new swing. Hannah took a big fall off it today, but seems fine and still went on it later....it's the second fall off a swing in the past week.

Nathan starting to build the swing

Evie swinging

Texas wild flowers!

We went to the space center last Wednesday. They had a new exhibit that we had run through a few times but hadn't actually stopped and looked at it. The exhibit is about water and had lots of hands on things to make water flow (all contained so you couldn't get wet, which as you know, especially for my girls takes most of the fun out of it, but it was still a good time) and showed how water got to us and where it goes when we're done with it and how a toilet flushes and all that kind of stuff. After doing that we went to Rocket Park, which is at NASA and the girls had been asking to go to. We took some sandwiches and had a little picnic.

The girls also enjoyed watching the cows. They got to hear them moo and see them poop. Very exciting!

And I attempted to do some pictures of them in Texas wild flowers......

But I couldn't get them to actually look at the camera and smile.....

So these are the best shots I have.....

But it was fun and you can see rockets in the background of some of the pictures :-)

night time chatter

The girls don't seem to want to sleep tonight, so the follow conversation ensued (we were listening on the monitor).
Hannah (whispering): Evie your ladybug is on the floor. Evie, do you see it?
Evie: yes
Hannah (yelling): Mommy!!! Evie's ladybug is on the floor!!!!
Nathan: GO TO SLEEP
Hannah to Evie: What should we do, what should we do?
Nathan: GO TO SLEEP!!
hmmmmm I don't think that was the answer she was looking for.

a picture to go with the bathing

Here a picture a friend of ours took at church right after the girls had washed their hair....

You can see Hannah's pants are wet too...

when I grow up....

Here are some things Hannah has said recently about what she wants life to be like when she grows up. Last night in the bath she said "I want a baby when I grow up" I responded with something along the lines of that might happen, but you know, you could just tell people about Jesus instead of having a baby. She said "I want a boy. His name will be Jake" I asked why, her response "I like boys and I like names like Jake." Hey, she knows what she likes at least. Today while we were at the space center I mentioned something about being an astronaut, as both girls have shown an interest in that field at one time or another, but Hannah has decided she wants to be a "worker and drive a backhoe" :-) We'll see how all this works out for her.

sping is in the air

Ok, maybe it's more like summer, as we've had highs in the 80s, but the girls have been having fun playing outside. Here are some pictures and videos from the past few days.

It was a little windy, so Hannah was wrapped up reading while I mowed the grass.

Jumping off the lid for the sandbox....it's amazing how durable that is.

Evie found she can fit under the sandbox lid

Playing with Daddy on the swings

yes we are those parents

Doesn't it drive you nuts when parents just leave their kids to wander and aren't paying any attention to what the kids are doing? And then when the kids are doing something they shouldn't be doing and the parents aren't even around? And you wonder what kind of irresponsible parent they are......well I was that parent on Sunday. After service Nathan and I went to pray with some friends and let our kids roam. When we finished I went to look for them and where did I find them? Standing next to the baptismal pool "washing" their hair (yes, water was on their hair and shirts and pretty much every where, fortunately not a lot of water). Yep, those are my kids. Especially Evie, if there is water she will find it. They had also dragged their friend into it too. My girls can be a very bad influence, you need to watch out for them! If you ever see my kids doing something they shouldn't and I'm not around please yell at them for me! Thanks :-)

a new toy

Hannah received a gift card from her birth-parents for her birthday and I finally had a chance to take her shopping. Just she and I went to Wal-mart. On the way to Wal-mart I asked what she might want. Her answer? Apple juice. Hmmm........I told her I could probably buy the apple juice and she could pick something else out (I totally forgot the apple juice if you're wondering). Her second answer was a car that she and Evie could ride in together, I had to explain that was a little out of her price range, but it was a nice thought. Hannah enjoyed looking at all the toys and seeing what their was, I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that she didn't want everything, and there were actually very few things she did want. After we had been down every toy isle I asked what she'd like and her answer was the only thing I've always wanted. Which was a cash register, conveyor belt, scale, calculator, bar code reader and credit card swiper. First thing the next morning (we went shopping after Evie was in bed, so it was pretty late) the girls were having a blast with it.

Here's Hannah scanning Evie's groceries.

Here you can see the conveyor belt and Evie is bagging her groceries.

Hannah does a great job ringing up your purchases.

Skype Games

My girls have really been getting into skyping. We skype with my grandparents weekly and have been doing it for well over a year maybe almost two? Anyway, besides the classic favorite game of peek-a-boo, we've been getting creative lately. Since Debbie is out the country we've skyped with her recently and played hide and seek. I bet you didn't know you could play that over skype! It was pretty amusing as we'd be directing Debbie where to look for herself :-) It worked much better for Hannah to hide and Debbie to find her, as I was able to move the camera. Also, Hannah has become quite good at interacting with those on the computer, from giving drinks, to doing doctor and dental checkups for them. Yesterday Evie was taking pictures of my grandparents and I snapped a few shots through skype.

Here's my grandmother smiling for the camera as Evie took her picture with a play camera

And here they are being scared by monsters coming to get them! (Evie and Hannah under blankets)

lack of pictures....

The past few weeks we've been keep busy, very busy, but I've managed to not take any pictures! Last Friday we started a PE class with some friends, the group I taught swimming to last year. Evie was a little nervous at first, but then got into it. Hannah just sat and watched pretty much the whole time. I'm hoping tomorrow will be better. This week has been spent mostly at parks, as it's spring break and other places have people at them. I've gotten spoiled as a stay at home mom going to the space center, children's museum, even the mall and having very few people there. I brought the kids to the mall last week and they had a grand time playing on a large interactive mat that is projected from the ceiling, we went again last night (and I had my camera, but didn't end up taking pictures) for fun, but the mat was crowed and there really wasn't enough room to run and have fun on it. We didn't stay long at the mall and decided to go pick up things for cone head Sundays instead. Do you think I remembered to take a picture of those? No. Of course not. Well, at least this is a little update as to what we've been up to, hopefully I'll remember to take pictures again sometime soon!

Hannah eye update

Hannah had an eye doctor appointment on Tuesday. She tested 20/20 for vision! Now if she can do that again in September we will only have to go to the eye doctor once a year. The problem? She REALLY does not like getting her eyes dilated, this was the problem last appointment which created another appointment in six months instead of year because she did very poorly on all her chart readings. We'll see how September goes, hopefully well. Since the eye doctor was on Tuesday we moved school to Wednesday. The girls did S day (we're doing S day three weeks because there are so many good S subjects!) and were at Ms. Niki's house. Since they did well they received suckers (ie lolly pops) at the end of the day. On the way home Hannah was telling me about the lolly pops and said "I forgot to tell Ms Niki I already had a lolly pop. I should have told her because you shouldn't have too many lolly pops." The last time she had one was a few weeks ago, she went on about how it's bad to have too many lolly pops and it makes your tummy hurt if you do. :-) It was pretty amusing. I guess she's learning some good things.

a little artist

Evie has been diligently working on the same coloring page for several days now.

She started Saturday and spent at least an hour on it that day and since has put in another few hours coloring it. As you can see she's attempting to stay in the lines and fill in the spaces completely. Some times she gets side tracked and adds her own pictures to the original page none of the large random spots of colors are accidents (the smiley face in the upper corner I did, she asked for an egg with a face), all the coloring has been VERY purposeful. I can't believe the effort and concentration she's put into it. It's been fun to watch her focus and stick with something for so long!

This is a second page she's been working on and I'm sure will probably get added to once the first one is complete.

how you get to Heaven

Yesterday the subject of Heaven came up with Hannah and I mentioned we'd fly to meet Jesus when he comes.....this apparently lead to processing in her head through out the rest of the day until Daddy prayed and mentioned dying and being alive again with Jesus, which resulted in Hannah bursting into tears! She doesn't want to die and wanted to know if dying would hurt and when she dies if she'd have her car-seat on the plane to go to Heaven :-) It was a good discussion and you can tell that she is definitely listening, learning and processing everything she's hearing and asking about!

one fussy kid

Evie's been out of it for awhile, I figured she was just going through a fussy/clinging phases....then I stopped on Tuesday to try and figure out what was really going on, why she hadn't been napping well, was sleeping less and generally not too happy...it struck me as I was listening to her cough while napping that she had been doing that every day while napping...and when she first fell asleep....and when she first got up in the morning....for well over a month. Hmmm, I could be on to something here, so I called the nurse to find out if there was anything I could do to help her stop coughing, she suggested bringing her in since it had been going on for so long. So I did. And before the doctor told me what he thought the issue was, asked if I had any ideas and by that point I did. A sinus infection! It had started as a cold and the cough never went away....he said "Bingo" she's been on antibiotic since Wednesday and today is starting to show definite signs of improvement. Now if I could have just figured that out a little sooner we'd be in good shape.....
And just for randomness did you know side ponytails are back in style?

Sun burned already....

A week ago we went to the park, hung out for the morning and had a picnic lunch there. Ally (and Niki for part of the time) came with us. Niki mentioned when I invited her to come that I should put on some sun screen, I remembered at one point in the morning before leaving, but forgot to actually do it. AH! I ended up with a nice burn on my face, the girls of course were both fine...I think I even ended up with a little more of a burn on Wednesday, as I didn't even think about it at all that morning and again we spent several hours at the park.

The girls enjoying their lunch

Evie liked watching the fish as they jumped (some were jumping really high!) and the boats.

Space Shuttle Discovery launch

Last Thursday after nap we headed over to Space Center Houston to watch the launch of space shuttle Discovery. It was fun to watch it on a big screen with a large crowd of people. We also got sticker mission patches and a poster they were giving out. Evie was thrilled to see the shuttle and whenever they panned away and then came back to it would say look Mommy! There it is, there is the shuttle. It was fun and very cute. When it launched and everyone cheered Evie jumped and looked at me like what's going on and I said the people were cheering because it went in the air and she could cheer and clap too if she wanted, she then started clapping very enthusiastically.

The sticker patch for the flight (along with a lei from aunt Debbie)

Holding on to all the goodies and watching the excitement

This is our view...not bad.

Watching intently

After the launch they put up a flag signifying that the Discovery Shuttle is in orbit