For grandpa

I talked to my dad the other day and he told me he really like the picture of Carter in his pirate hat. The school where my dad works has the buccaneer as a mascot. He said he wanted to put the picture in his office. Well, yesterday, Olivia got a hold of that hat and put it on herself! Funny, considering she normally HATES wearing a hat. I was so excited to get some cute pictures of her as a little buccaneer. So, these are for you granpa!

But first, this is how Olivia felt about LSU losing to Arkansas this past weekend:

In other words, "Oh NO they didn't!!!"

First {Real} Snow

Last night, the snow finally came. Up until this point, we've only had a dusting of snow. The meterologists are all amazed that it's almost December and this is the first "real" snow we've had here! They say it's not for lack of cold temperatures, but because, as one weatherman said, "It's so dang dry here!" I second that!

When I opened the blinds this morning, Carter was so excited! He really loves snow and asks almost everyday when is it going to snow again. So I promised him that after I picked him up from school, he could go outside and play in it. I had planned on bringing Livie outside too but then I realized I had already packed her snowsuit and it's at the new house. Maybe next time. We have six more months of snow to look forward to.

My big snow angel:



Carter really wanted me to take his picture while throwing snow up in the air:



I don't think he was expecting it to come back down and hit him in the face!


Notice in the background....the stop sign and street signs were blown over. That's how hard the wind was blowing this morning. Olivia, in her momma's fashion, was most certainly NOT diggin it. She thought it was fine at first....until it really picked up and snot was blowing all over her face. I couldn't get her in the car fast enough! Poor baby. She likes to be warm and cozy. We'll save all of this outdoorsyness for summertime :)

Thankful hearts

Yesterday, we celebrated Thanksgiving with some friends of ours. This was the first Thanksgiving since Theo and I were engaged that we haven't spent with his parents. But it was still a wonderful Thanksgiving for us and definitely the most low key one we've ever had!

The morning started off with Theo braving the 17 degree temperatures to go run a 5K "turkey trot" at the Y. Glad it was him and not me! :) There were almost 2000 people there. People here are hardcore about fitness I tell ya!



The rest of the day we spent just hanging out and watching football. Carter was surprisingly good and played by himself quite a bit. This was the first time in a long time that Theo and I were able to lay on the couch together without 100 interruptions.

Once Olivia woke up from her 3 hour nap, we headed to Shane and Kelly's house. They had done almost all of the cooking....we brought a sweet potato casserole along that Theo made. Kelly had a beautiful table set with her grandmother's china.


I thought that was so special. The food was great and plentiful! They even let us take a ton of leftovers home. Carter had a great time playing



(and riled all the other kids up, imagine that!) Olivia was a good girl too.



On our way out of their neighborhood, we saw this:


This year, we are most thankful for our health. It's been a challenging year. We are so thankful that although we were told otherwise, our baby as far as we know is going to be born healthy! God is so good.


We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving too!

Movin on up!

It's that time again! I didn't think we'd be moving 18 months after moving here to begin with but you just never know what God has in store. We know we are doing the right thing and I know the people who own our house are grateful to be able to move right back in instead of renting an apartment until July. I think God will reward us for doing the right thing even though it's inconvenient for us.

This morning, we sign our lease and the moving commences. We are paying half a month's rent for December in our old house so we have plenty of time to get things moved from one place to another. I'm glad we're only going 20 minutes away and not 20 hours away this time!

Carter has been trying (key word here) to be such a big helper.


He wants to pack everything.....and then unpack everything! He's surprisingly really excited about us moving. I don't think he realizes his best friend won't be living across our backyard anymore. But I'm looking forward to hopefully being able to make new friends!

I'm just really excited about all of this! I'm dreading the actual moving part but can't wait to get settled in. I feel like it's a fresh start of sorts. Hopefully I can get more organized. I feel by nature I'm a pretty organized person but somehow having a 4 year old, 14 months old, and one on the way has really taken my organization habits away! Ha!

Ahoy mateys!

Yesterday, Carter said no less than 30 times, "Mom, take a picture of me doing this (running, jumping, crawling, you name it!)

See Carter jump:


See Carter climb:


See Carter look at pictures:


See Carter read:


Tomorrow is the big day! New house here we come!!!!

And in the spirit of Thanksgiving, a Thanksgiving Carterism: We've been really talking about what we are thankful for. Every day, usually more than once, we go around and talk about what we are grateful for. Ya know, the usual stuff...family, friends, a nice warm house to live in, the new baby, etc etc. Well, at first Carter was telling us that he was grateful for those same things. But then all of a sudden, he switched it up on us. So now it's "I'm thankful for Roxy....and Roxy's tail!" Well, as long as he's thankful for something I suppose!

Moving countdown has begun!

Wow, in two more days, we'll get the keys to our new house! Can't believe it. I have already packed about 6 boxes. We had someone come today and give us an estimate for moving our furniture....$1500 just for the furniture! So, I'm still looking for a moving company. We'll see. Maybe that's the going rate. Just to move our swingset is another $600. That's more than what we paid for the thing (it was the previous tenants and they sold it to us for a "used" price).

This is going to be an expensive month for us and I'm so thankful we have savings! It's still a lot cheaper than it we were paying closing costs on a house. It's all goin to work out. It's just that anyone who knows me, knows I hate to be unsettled.

We're more than likely going to have to rent a little storage unit as this house has no basement. It has some indoor storage and a little garage storage. But going from a 3 car garage house with a huge unfinished basement to a 2 car garage with no basement is going to be a little difficult! I can NOT believe how much stuff we have. But truthfully, most of it is stuff we can't get rid of until we decide for sure we're done after baby #3. But that is still up in the air at this point. Theo has a lot of office/work stuff. I have a lot of medical books (which cost way too much to get rid of) and crafty stuff. But other than that, we don't have much that we don't need or use.

Our plan now is to make the 4th bedroom a guestroom/office and put the baby in our room for a while. Depending on the baby's gender and how well he or she sleeps, we'll then decide where to put him or her when they are a litle older. The house has two built in desks (really just a counter top made out to look like a desk) so I'm going to use the upstairs desk for my scrapbook/computer stuff and hopefully my desk filing cabinets will fit under there. We'll just have to store the top of my desk. It should just fit under our bed. Theo will hopefully put his desk in the 4th bedroom. We'll see.

I'm including a link to the
virtual tour. I'll leave it up for a few days but then take it down later this week. This is almost our exact house except the yard is a little smaller and the outside color is different.

Let me know what you think about our new crib!

And just for kicks, this is what our little ones looked like this time last year!


What a difference a year makes.....especially for Olivia!

Nose Dive

Yesterday, we had MOPS. So I put Olivia in the umbrella stroller, only halfway strapped in. She has George in her hands. We're rolling along and then she drops George. Well, I run over him accidentally as she bends down to get him and she falls out of the stroller face first onto the concrete! I was horrified!


She cried for a few minutes, was fine by the time we got inside, but then started screaming when I went to drop her off. Needless to say, I just kept her with me during MOPS.

Oh, this was all after I came down stairs to a floor full of water....AGAIN! I don't know what is going on with our house here. The plumber came back that afternoon but didn't have any answers for us. Thursday was an AWFUL day for us.

Good news is, we found a house. We are moving closer to where Theo works and where we do our grocery shopping if you catch my drift. It's a brand new house. Theo went and saw it and I'm going today. It's a 4BR, 2.5 bath, a separate formal living and dining room, two built in desks, hardwoord floors, stainless steel appliances, and utilities are included! Can't beat that.

We take possession of the house next Wednesday, have someone coming Monday to give us a moving estimate, and hope to be mostly all moved in by December 1st! No, I'm not smoking crack but it must seem that way with how fast we're having to do things. I'm excited though. I never felt a peace about any of the houses we were considering buying so this a great option for us at this point. If we end up staying here longer, we may consider buying a house at that point. But there are too many uncertainties right now!

On another positive note, Olivia made her debut in her Thanksgiving dress Tuesday night when we went to McDonalds with some friends for an evening playdate. She looked so cute!



And so not to leave brother out:

Happy Anniversary!

Omaw and Papaw are celebrating 22 years of mariage! Congratulations to you both. Thanks for being such a great example :)

Gobble gobble

Seeing as how Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away, I finally got on the ball with (almost) finishing Olivia's Thanksgiving dress. I'm happy with the way it turned out. It is by NO means perfect, but I made it all by myself (said in my 4 year old voice) and I'm proud!

In this picture, I still have to hem it and the ribbon is not crooked as it looks here.




I can't wait for her to wear it! She'll be the cutest lil' turkey ever :)

PJs and Playtime

More pictures from Saturday....

From Point A to Point B

And my 400th post! Can you believe it?

Anyway, we've had a pretty good weekend. Theo and I enjoyed our date night Friday night. We just went to the mall and walked around. We had some pizza and just enjoyed being able to cruise around without the kids! Carter and Olivia were both asleep when we got home which was great :)

Saturday, we didn't even get out of our PJs until 3:00. Well, truthfully, the kids never got out of theirs! We just hung out, house hunted online and played with the kids.

Olivia is discovering how to walk around behind her little shopping cart we got her for her birthday. As long as she stays off the hardwood floor, she does really well! She gets so excited when we clap for her.








Today I volunteered at church with about 100 1st and 2nd graders! I have a new appreciation for my parents who work in the education field and all teachers. But I am always so overwhelmed with joy to watch these young kids worshipping Jesus. It makes me tear up to hear them singing, seeing them clap and raise their hands, and praying to Jesus. I'm trying to instill that same thing in my own kids.

For the rest of the week, I am taking an internet fast. I would fast food but don't think that's a good idea being pregnant and all. I'm not sure how long I'll do it....probably for a few days but I really need to seek the Lord and hear from him regarding our housing issue. I don't feel a peace about any one decision and since we're running out of time, I am taking some time out to pray and seek God's direction. I am going to schedule some blog posts to spread out over the rest of the week but tonight, I'm shutting down the computer!

I hope you all have a great week.

Stuck in a rut chair

The other day, Olivia was crawling through the kitchen. She crawled right past the sweet potato fry (seen on the left) and was headed for a vanilla wafer (seen under her high chair). Well, she got stuck. But she was using her arms to pull herself and along behind her came the chair. It was hysterical! Again, I wish I could put video on here because this picture just doesn't do it justice!

I haven't taken hardly any pictures this week. We are in full-blown house-hunting mode. Truthfully it's pretty stressful and I honestly wish we weren't having to do it right now. I'm ready for it to all be over with. I've been consumed with it and feel like it's taken over my life! I guess because we only have such a short window to do it that I feel like I have to devote all of my waking hours (and apparently half of my sleeping hours) to taking care of this.

Tonight, though, Theo and I are going out on a date! This may sound lame, but I think we're just going to go to the mall. I can't remember what it's like for the two of us to shop without the kids. We'll probably go to the bookstore too and have some coffee and maybe see a movie if there is anything worth seeing. I don't even have anything in particular to shop for...I just want to walk around, hold hands with Theo, and look through stores without hearing any whining or crying! Plus, it's supposed to be in the teens tonight so we want to stay somewhere where it's warm!

Tomorrow, I don't think we have any major plans. Theo has a paper due Sunday so I'm sure he'll be busy with that. I'm going to try and do something fun with the kids because my attention has been focused elsewhere the past couple of weeks.

Sunday is my day to volunteer! I'm looking forward to it. I absolutely LOVE my church! That is one good thing about us staying here. I'm glad I don't have to leave New Life!

Hope you all have a good weekend.

First snow

Finally, it's snowing here. I can't believe it was November before seeing the first flurries. Carter was excited and then had a meltdown when I told him we were not going out in the dark to play in it. I'm praying some will be left by the time he's done at school or I'm going to have one ticked off little boy.

I'm also hoping the weather won't delay Theo's coming home tomorrow. Lord knows I need my husband home this week.

Sadly, (ok, not really) but my favorite house we've been looking at is no longer on the market. Bummer! I guess it's okay because it was probably a little more than what Theo wanted to pay. Now I can at least stop dreaming about it at night and hopefully get some sleep! Just means we better move on a different one and FAST!

Planning ahead

Carter has already decided on his next year's Halloween costume....underwater scuba Diego!

What can I say? He is his mother's child...always planning ahead!

We have water back in the house now. The plumber finally came at 3:00 yesterday and said he thinks the seal on the master bath faucet is broken and the water was going back down around the pipe causing the leaking. I never noticed any water leaking. And as much water was on the carpet, I don't know how I would have been able to fill up the bathtub. But oh well...he's the expert I suppose. I just feel awful for the owners. Lord knows they don't need all this to deal with! I talked to Jeri last night and she said they were going to pull up the carpet and replace it with flooring anyway. Carpet in a bathroom is a terrible idea!!!

I did get an e-mail from my sweet husband today. It has made my morning. He had gotten an e-mail about a service request on our LA house. I didn't mention the ordeal we were having here. I don't want to stress him out and plus, 1) there is nothing he can do about it right now and b) I think it's taken care of! He'll hear about it soon enough when he gets back tomorrow. I'm trying to learn to be a big girl and just handle things myself. My tendency is to run to him (or mom!) with every little problem hoping he can solve it. But I'm a 30 year old pretty educated woman. Surely I can handle this! I think Theo will be proud of me :)

Theo has Thursday and Friday off and I'm so excited! We have a date night planned for Friday night. It's only been since August since we had some time to ourselves. Long overdue I'd say. Also on the agenda for this long weekend is to do some serious house hunting. We'd ideally like to make an offer on a house by the end of the month, close by the end of the year and be settled in late December/early January. The sooner before baby comes, the better as far as I'm concerned. I won't have mom here to help me unpack this time :( Theo's parents are planning on coming for the baby's birth so whatever I don't get done before then, I'll have them help me with! It's funny because when we moved up here and I was 34 weeks pregnant with Olivia, I swore I would never move and be big pregnant again! God has a sense of humor doesn't he? Ha!

Please keep us in your prayers that God would give us wisdom and guidance to make the right decision about buying a house. Theo and I are both a little nervous, especially since we already own one house and as of now, don't have anyone to rent it come December 1st! We are most likely going to hire a property manager this go round and hopefully they can help us find someone to rent the house.

We are heavily relying on God and trusting him to help us through these stressful times. All of this was taking it's toll on my relationship with Theo. But I'm learning to fall in line and submit to what he wants (of course I am offering strongly my opinions!) and since then, we have not had any disagreements about the house thing. God's way of marriage truly is the best way. And yes, I've often wondered if submitting to my husband would cause me to be a voiceless doormat. And yes, I am very opinionated about certain things. But there is a reason God instructs wives to be submitted to their husbands....because in the long run, at least for us, it works out the best and we get along much better because of it.

Man, I sure took a turn with this post! But blogging and getting all of my feelings out is quite cathartic for me. The kid's pictures are for you :). All of my rambling is for me! Have a good week. We're off to hit the gym this morning and then the library.

And the hits just keep on comin'

Remember yesterday I blogged about our hot water heater breaking in our house in LA? Right. So meanwhile back in Colorado, fast forward 12 hours. I had just given the kids a bath. I walked in the kitchen to get Carter a snack before bed. I looked down on the floor and saw water that looked like it had been sprayed everywhere. I said "Carter, did you spill water all over the floor?" Then something told me to look up. Sho nuf, there was water dripping from the lights in the kitchen. Well, above the kitchen is our bathroom. So I went upstairs and part of the carpet was soaked! I'm talking squish squish when I walk on it. I couldn't find any obvious sign of a leak. At first I thought it might be coming from the ceiling since everyone and their grandmas have had their roofs replaced here. But no such luck. I had taken and bath in there that morning before church and I always let Carter get in the tub after me. He didn't let the water out so I thought maybe there was some type of leak around/in the tub but the carpet around the tub was dry. Our little toilet room was also dry as was under the sink.

So now what do I do? Theo is like I said unavailable until Wednesday night. Our landlords live in Germany where it is 3:00 in the morning. Then I remember I should probably turn the water off to the house. I go to our neighbors house, pound on the door (because I see the tv on) and no answer. Then I go to call a friend of mine but the cell phone number I have for her in my phone no longer works. Figures! So I trek through the backyard in the pitch black and knock on another neighbor's house whom we've only met once. Fortunately they were home and super sweet. The wife and husband both came over and she showed me how to shut the water off.

Our lease we have says to call some friends of our landlords that just live 5 minutes away. Wouldn't you know I called several times and didn't get an answer. So finally, I just called Steve in Germany. By this time it's a little after 4 a.m. there but what else could I do? He said as long as the water is shut off then wait until the morning to call a plumber.

Literally, as soon as I hung up the phone, his local friend calls back. He ended up coming over to take a look and to make sure the water was indeed properly shut off. He pulled up the carpet in the bathroom and the pad underneath was SOAKED!!! He thinks a pipe underneath the floor is leaking.

While he's here, I get a call from Steve's wife, Jeri (who is living in TX right now for medical reasons). I immediately feel bad for calling and waking up Steve but would have felt worse if their house flooded, right? She was very sweet and said she would call me in the morning with the name/number of a plumber.

The reason I didn't call the plumber myself was that in our case with our LA house, we have a home warranty. It should cover the replacement of the hot water heater. If our renters decided to take it upon themselves to call a plumber and/or fix anything themselves, then we have to pay all of those expenses ourselves. So I didn't want to do that to Steve and Jeri just in case they did have a warranty.

Whew! What a night right? Why do things like this happen only when I can't talk to Theo? Seems like this runs in the family because things like this always happen to my mom too! Now I'm trying to figure out how we're going to use the bathroom all day since we can't flush the toilet. I can't wash Olivia's bottles or diapers but thankfully I always keep a supply of disposable diapers on hand. Just not sure what to do with the bottles. Yes, she still uses bottles because she outright refuses to drink milk out of anything but. But that is for another post. I'm also supposed to watch Amy's boys at my house this afternoon. Maybe we'll have to hang out at her house instead. What a pain all of this is. I can't WAIT to talk to Theo. He probably won't even believe me.....granted with the luck we've been having, he probably will!

Who's chasing who?

There is game the four of us like to play pretty frequently. I've named it "who's chasing who?" Now that Miss Priss crawls with lightning speed, we all get on the floor and start crawling around. Before long, it's hard to tell who's chasing who. Both of the kids (and usually Theo and I too) start laughing hysterically! I wish I could put a video on here because these pictures don't do it justice!



On some different notes, I got a call at 6 a.m. from our renters in LA saying the hot water heater is broken and there was water pouring out of the overflow pipe outside. Really? Today of all days. Theo is unavailable this week and without internet or cell phone access. Fortunately we have a home warranty so it was just a matter of putting in a service request. But still, today of all days? And now they have to be without hot water all day because it's not considered an emergency!

On a brighter note, the kids and I went to the America the beautiful park yesterday evening with some friends. The weather was gorgeous and we were trying to soak up the 70 degree air. There were sooooo many kids there! I was a little nervous I might lose Carter but fortunately he had on his bright orange Diego shirt so he was easy to spot. Afterwards we tried this new place to eat downtown. It was cool because they had a play area for the kids. The downside was that the food made me very sick! Now I remember why I gave up meat to begin with. Maybe I'll go back to that after this baby is born and I'm done nursing!

When I got home, I watched half of the tivo'ed LSU game! Geaux Tigers! I was thrilled they beat Alabama!. But when I saw this article this morning, I was a little disturbed. I've heard of wearing the same dirty socks for good luck, or letting one's hair grow out for good luck, but this takes the cake!

So, we're off to church this morning and then to circle store (aka Target) to get some much needed food. Other than that, we don't have any big plans for today.

Olivia and her first love

Well, besides her daddy....Curious George (hand-me-down from Carter) is the one thing she can't live without these days. She will NOT go to sleep without him. I've tried to substitute other animals but she tries to throw them out of her crib. Thank the LORD Omaw sent us a spare George because I left hers at MOPS today. Oh, nightime would be a disaster tonight without it!

On a different note, I'm so thrilled because I got to see/hear Stasi Eldredge speak at church today. She and her husband, John, are Christian authors and live here in the Springs. I read her book Captivating a few years ago but started reading it again today. I LOVE it. I think every woman should read this. How differently we would live if we truly believe we are who God says we are!

Have a great rest of the week!

Trick or treat Swick oh sweet

My precious son, he loved going trick or treating but since there are certain sounds he can't pronounce, it came out as "swick oh sweet". We started off our Halloween by going to church. Surprisingly, Carter let me take him without his costume on. Olivia wore her candy corn jumper and was the cutest thing ever....well, at least until that night when she wore her ladybug costume!

We went and looked at a couple of houses that afternoon before hitting the streets with Amy and company, and Jill and company. Carter was loving every minute. Olivia lasted about 25 minutes in the wagon and then had enough. Unfortunately, Theo didn't make it with us...he is so overwhelmed with everything that's going on that I gave him the option to stay home and he took it! So I was glad we were able to go with some friends.

So, without further adieu, it is my pleasure to introduce you to costume Diego and Little Ladybug....


Help! Get this hat off of me!


Diego, is that really you?



Mom, I told you I really wanted to be a wolf so I could howl at the moon!





This picture was so funny! They walked up to their first house that was decorated and I promise, they all stood there for several minutes before getting the courage to ring the door bell!



Hope you all had a great Halloween!