Weekend in Temple

We spent the weekend in Temple, Texas with our good friends/old neighbors. Ryan and Casey moved down to Temple awhile ago but just got into their gorgeous new house. It was also Kaylee's 1st birthday party so it was perfect timing to go down and spend some time with them. Boy, do we miss seeing them more often! But, this is the perfect location for them, more country and bambi running through their backyard...totally them!!! Their good friends from Houston also came down that we have met several times so we all had a great time. There were two 5 year olds, two 3 year olds and two babies....so all the kids did great!!! Cole had so much fun he could hardly contain himself.

This is Cole and Reese. She is such a sweet girl and they got along so great.

I didn't get a lot of pictures of Cole and the bigger kids because they spent most of the time outdoors so most of the pictures were of the little girls. The first night we were there was kind of miserable (for me) because I only got about 1 hr sleep combined. The 4 of us slept in the same room and it was a disaster. I guess Finley is used to her quiet room because anytime anyone would cough or make any noise, she would wake up. I brought her into the bed with me, which I never do, and she slept but mom did not. The next night we moved her out to the play room and we all did much better! I guess with me staying home with her, she has just gotten used to her bed, in a quiet room without many disturbances so anything outside of that she doesn't do as well. Guess that's my own fault :)
Oh well, she's still cute :)

Finley also enjoyed all the new toys to play with...the big kids kept pushing the little girls around on this doll jeep, so cute!

Here is Kaylee digging into her first cake. She was so funny, she tore right into it and got mad when mom took it away from her.

We got Kaylee and Finley into the wagon and they loved it. They kept "talking" to each other and flapping their hands in excitement. Times like these are when I'm sad these girls won't grow up together :(

Our last night there, Lexie let Cole sleep with her Minnie Mouse and he was so excited. When I went to check on him this is what I found...he was hugging on them so tight.

We had such a great weekend and loved spending time with the Holler's. We definitely miss having them next door but we will always stay in touch, they are just those type of friends...life-long friends!

Is it really winter?

This winter has been unseasonably warm. Usually this time of year we always have a big snow or ice storm. As much as the ice storms suck, I am a little afraid by this warm weather we are having, does it mean we are going to be at 110 degrees by March?? I sure hope not!
This week has been perfect playing outside weather, with just a light sweatshirt...my fav!
This is what Cole wanted to wear to play outside....yes, my dorky kid :) For some reason, he loves pulling his socks over his pants. Too bad Cole didn't live in the early 90's.

He did lots of running around, chasing the dogs, using the ball launcher...

And using his giant golf club as a bat...

Finley and I sat and watched him, of course she wanted to get down and play with him too, but until dad picks up dog poop and she is out of the eating everything stage, she will just have to hang out with mom :)

Another fun thing going on in our house....my kids are starting to fight. Finley wants everything Cole has, Cole gets mad and takes toys away, Finley cries. Good times, I tell ya!

Cole has also been playing Buzz a lot this week. He got this Buzz towel from Auntie Em awhile ago and he loves wearing it around the house, kinda like a cape.

I also took some pictures of Finley. This girl is so funny, she always has some new funny face.

Besides playing outside a lot and taking funny pictures, Cole also visited the dentist again for a cleaning. I assumed I would go back with him while they cleaned and examined him but he was totally fine without me. I was sitting in the waiting room, laughing because of all the kids that were there, he was the only one I could hear....talking about using his Buzz laser on people.
He had a pretty good report, we do need to do a better job of getting his back molars cleaned but other than that, he's great.
I also started my new bible study this week and loved it! We meet every other Tuesday and I have a great group of girls in my small group for the study. I'm excited!
Well, we are headed outside for awhile....love this weather!

Weekend Recap

Friday morning, I had Mops and Gigi always watches Finley while I go to Mops. I was trying to get Cole out the door to take him to school and he had a bit of a meltdown because he wanted to stay home with Gigi and Finley. In the midst of my panic, because we can't be late for school, Gigi offered that she pick him up from school later and he spend the night at their house. Whew...and that was the only thing that got him out the door, knowing he could have a sleepover at Gigi and Granddad's house :)

Earlier in the morning, Cole had to show me his puzzle skills. This kid works on puzzles ALL the time!! He got one of these for his birthday and because he loves them so much, Gigi went and bought him about 10 more....seriously!!! haha!!! It amazes us how he can put all the pieces together, all by himself.
This is his Super Hero puzzle, but he also has a Cars 2, Diego, Mickey Mouse, etc....like I said, he has about 10 of them :)

Saturday afternoon, Granddad brought Cole back home and hung out at our house a bit. Granddad is headed to London for 6 weeks so he wanted to spend some time with the kiddos before he left.
Of course Cole was too wound up to take a real nap so later in the afternoon, he fell asleep on the couch.

Later that night, we went out with Nick's family to celebrate Nick and Emily's birthdays. We are always a little limited on places to go and the time of day if we take the kids, so we decided to get a sitter and go out with just the adults. It's always a nice treat to be able to eat dinner after 5:30 and to stay out past 8pm :)
We ate at The Oceanaire and our food was amazing!!!!!

Me and the hubs

Emily and Blake

Granddad and Gigi (Dennis and Tracy) :)

The birthday kids

The flaming Volcano....was so yummy!!!

It was such a fun night, but of course when your kiddos wake up early, that totally sucks!!! Ugh! Since we were all up early, we decided to go to early church then come home and take long naps. Except, instead of long naps, they both took short naps and then were cranky. Do you ever wonder if your children get together before anyone wakes up, decide to do anything and everything to drive their parents crazy, like it's their sole mission that day?? I think Cole and Finley did that to us yesterday :)

We also had Life Group last night and we really enjoyed it. I'm also super excited because this week I am starting a new Bible study at church. This is the new study we are doing.I love Beth Moore studies so I'm sure I will be learning a lot!
Well, that's our weekend....now back to the grind of our normal weekly routine.

Finley Update

I took Finley to her 9 month well-check yesterday and here are her current stats:

Weight: 20.3lbs - 73%
Height: 29 in - 86%
Head: 17.5 in - 64%

Even though she is MUCH more petite than Cole was, she is is still a big girl! :)
This was her before she got checked out. She was being a crazy girl, trying to rip and eat the paper, wanting to get down, just all over the place.

I think I've said it before, but what I love about Dr. Naidoo is that he knows this is my 2nd child and unless I have specific questions or concerns, he checks her over and sends us on our way. We are in and out pretty quickly. She did have to get one shot and it's so sad because she was so happy, jabbering to the nurse, laughing and then bam.....the wailing began!!! Poor thing, but she was fine as soon as I picked her up.

I tried to get some pictures of her pulling herself up, but it's with my phone so it's horrible quality. She just all of a sudden within the last week or so started crawling and pulling herself up so all these new things are pretty exciting!!

"I did it!!!!"

Here is a cute close-up video of her talking to me. She is very interested in my phone recently so she always power crawls to wherever it is. You can also see her bottom teeth in this video :)

9 Months

Finley Marie...you are 9 months old!

This has been such a fun month. Your dad and I were just saying that you are at such a fun age right now and we love it!
What new with you this month?? Besides the fact that you are still our bald baby??

Weight and height will be determined on Wednesday when we go for your well-check
Still size 3 diaper but definitely need to be in a size 4, blowouts are coming out the back which is a good indicator :)
Still wearing 12 month clothes, you are pretty true to size
Sleep is still pretty much the same, give or take a few rough nights here and there. Always wake up once for your paci and will typically wake around 5am because you are hungry but will go back to sleep till 7:00ish. Bedtime is still between 7:30 and 8:00pm.
You take 2 naps a day, typically 10am and 2pm...every once in awhile we'll take 3 naps but that doesn't happen too often anymore.
You are now army crawling. Just in the last few days you have been on the move! I thought you were our little lazy baby because you were content just sitting and watching everyone else but now you want in on the action and go to whatever it is you want.

We moved your mattress down because I saw you pull yourself up on the ottoman the other day, but you quickly fell over. We don't want to take any chances so we decided to move the mattress down in case you learned how to stand in the middle of the night :)

You have been doing much better with eating regular foods. You still aren't a fan of fruits and veggies that I puree but you like to eat them in chunks. You like rice cereal though, so I'm not sure why you like that but not baby food.
Some of your favorites foods are: carrots, zucchini, avocado, peas, pears, apples, puffs, graham crackers, mum mum's, and we even tried some rice pasta this past week. Again, anything you can feed yourself, you love!
I also started feeding you 3 meals a day now and a couple snacks here and there.
Your favorite singer right now is Lady Gaga, because every time I ask you who your favorite singer is you say "gaga" :) ha! In general, you are talking a whole lot more and definitely have a lot to say.
You have 1.5 teeth. Your second bottom tooth is just coming in and luckily that second tooth wasn't as hard as that first one!
You have been a lot better with strangers. You aren't as attached to mom, which makes it a lot easier! Whenever anyone talks to you, you just get a big smile on your face.

I had to try your swimsuit on yesterday to make sure it fits and you looked so adorable!! I think we are ready for Hawaii!!! Obviously without the leg warmers though!
I still want to find another swimsuit with a long sleeve rash guard but I'm sure this suit will still get some cute usage.
And again, here is Cole and Finley, both 9 months. I still can't get over how big he was, but it's so fun to see the similarities too.
Happy 9 months Finley, we love you to pieces and can't believe you are getting that much closer to 1 year!

Our Love Story

Today, I'm linking up with Mrs. Mama for a fun Love Story. Here is mine and Nick's story!

1. How long have you and your significant other been together?
Nick and I have been together for almost 11 years.

2. How did you meet? {What's your "love" story?}
My freshman year at Baylor I joined the rowing team. Nick was one of the coaches and I had a massive crush on him. After admiring him from afar for several months, we started hanging out and eventually started dating :)

These are the girls I rowed with Nick is with us. Don't we look like a bunch of babies? ha!
Spring 2003

3. If married, how long have you been married? If not, is this the guy you hope to marry? {do tell}
We have been married 6 years. December 30, 2005

4. If you are married, where did you get married at? Big or small wedding?
I am originally from Colorado so naturally I wanted to get married there with all our friends and family. I am very much a traditionalist so the big traditional wedding is what we did! I have a gigantic family so we had about 300 guests at our wedding. We were so thrilled that almost everyone from Nick's family came from all over the country too! We couldn't have been more thrilled that everyone made the trip!

5. Do you have any nick-names that you call one another? Do share!
Actually we don't....I'm not really into that :)

6. Name 3 things you love most about your honey.
He is such a hard worker, he is a great provider!
He is a private person...but in a good way. I trust him more than anyone I know!
He is the most un-selfish person. He is always thinking of others before himself.

7. Tell us how he proposed?
I had actually planned a trip for us and both our parents to go to Vegas over Spring Break in March 2005. We are so lucky that our parents like to vacation together :) So, I did most of the planning and got everyone on board and behind the scenes Nick was planning our engagement. I mean, I knew that "hopefully" in the near future we would get engaged since we had been dating for 5 years but we had not talked about it, Nick is pretty tight-lipped about stuff like that.
Anyway, we all flew out to Vegas and Nick had a limo pick us up from the airport. We drove down the strip and next thing I know, Nick is on his knee asking me to marry him. Of course, me being the traditionalist, my first response was "did you ask my dad?". ha! But of course I said yes to him. :)
We met up with our parents after the proposal and of course everyone knew except for me. We celebrated at one of our favorite restaurants and had the best trip after that!!!

8. Is he a flowers and teddy bear kind of guy for v-day, or strawberries, champagne, and rose petals?
Definitely strawberries and champagne guy! Before we had kids, we always did fondue, champagne and strawberries for Valentines Day. Maybe we'll do that again this year....after the kids go to bed :)

9. Are you a sunset dinner on the beach kind of girl, or pop a movie in and relax on the couch?
Well normally just a movie, relax type of girl....but who doesn't enjoy a nice dinner on the beach every once in awhile???

10. Tell us one thing you'd like to do with your significant one day. If you could do anything? Go anywhere?
At this point in our lives, I am just looking forward to when we can go on a little vacation KID-FREE!!! I don't like being away from them for too long but just a few days...anywhere :) We are actually going to Vegas in June and cannot wait!
Buuuut, if I had to choose one place, we'd love to go to Tahiti, Bora Bora...something like that! But honestly, I'm kinda afraid to go that far away from the kiddos :)

11. Tell us what you plan on doing on this Valentine's Day.
We are going on a date this weekend since VDay is on a Tuesday. But on the actual day, probably nothing fabulous, maybe just our fondue night.

12. Are you asking for anything this Valentine's day?
Nope, Nick is lucky that I'm not much into presents. I'd rather just spend time together.

13. Give us one piece of advice of keeping a relationship strong and full of love.
It is very hard this season of life, but keeping Nick my #1 priority is important! Again, with kids hanging on you constantly, always needing something, it's hard...but we try to always make time for each other.
Always being his #1 fan and telling him how much I appreciate what he does for our family. Men like to feel appreciated and needed :)

14. Show us a picture of what love means to you.
This has always been one of my favorite pictures. It was before Finley was born but it just melts my heart. I especially love the licorice :)

Weekend and a flashback

This weekend was filled with lots of time with great friends!! Before the weather got a little rainy and chilly, we made a trip to the park to burn off some energy. This is Finley's second time in the swing and so far she loves it! However, it is getting a little tricky following Cole around the park, making sure he doesn't fall off the monkey bars or the climbing wall and also trying to keep Finley entertained :) It will be so fun when they can run around together!

This video was from this weekend, just a funny clip of Cole trying to put Finley's bow back on
(sorry about the cheesy music in the background, Cole loves listening to disney music on Pandora at night...haha)

Friday night, we did nothing....it was fabulous! :) We put the kids to bed and literally watched a little tv then went to bed ourselves.
Saturday, Nick helped Pete with some internet issues at their house and then that evening we went to their house for dinner so they could finish up playing with all the new "toys".
Here is Finley and James enjoying their date on the floor. They are starting to be so cute with each other, and James is definitely not looking that much smaller than Finley, he sure is catching up to her fast! I didn't get any pictures of Cole that night....he's always so busy going up and down their stairs and exploring their house :)

Sunday we went to the Fish's to watch the Super Bowl. They have such a fun house and Cole was in HEAVEN playing with all their stuff!!! They have 3 young boys so you can imagine the amount of "boy toys" at this house. He only stopped for about 2.5 minutes to eat a little bit of dinner then he was off again. They have a great media room that was great to watch the game in.
Of course it's kinda hard to watch much of the game when you are trying to keep a baby entertained and making sure your son isn't jumping off the top bunk bed :) but Nick and I took turns checking on kiddos so we could sit for awhile but we really didn't get to watch much of the game till after the kiddos went to bed.

We so appreciate the Fish's having everyone over, we had a blast!!! There were 13 kids, 14 adults, it was pretty crazy...but so fun!!!

As I was looking through some pictures, I decided to see where we were exactly a year ago. It's always fun to see how things can change in such a short amount of time and how different things can be. So this is where I was, 6 months pregnant and feeling large!
And this is kinda a classic picture in our house. This was Cole 1 year ago...being a typical boy. :) This is what we found one night after checking on him and of course we got a good laugh. That seems like it was just yesterday, it sure is crazy how the years are short...but boy, do the days seem loooooong sometimes:) haha!!!

Happy Birthday Nick!!!

Today is Nick's birthday!!! This is about how excited Nick is to celebrate his birthday...

Not really....he actually says he feels really old and that 31 isn't anything special....boooo!!!! Of course it's special! :)
I just can't believe he's already that old :) These last 11 years have gone crazy fast. I remember celebrating his 21st birthday like it was yesterday. Boy was that a crazy night! Makes me really miss college :)
With everything we have been through, I still have a pretty big crush on him and definitely love him more each day...truly!!!

(You don't have to wonder where our children got their lips from!)

One of the kids present to him was this little picture frame thing I put together.

Of course trying to get a 3 and 8 month old to cooperate and not eat the paper or fall off the couch is a little tricky, luckily we have our new camera that takes the pictures fast!! But of course we had some funny outtakes :)

And just because she is the cutest girl ever, I took some cute pictures of Finley this morning. I could just eat her up!! She has been so smiley and cheesy lately...what a ham!

She was trying desperately to get the iPad from Cole. She pulled herself from one end of the couch to where Cole was so she could see what he was doing. She wants everything brother has and it sure annoys him :) I can't wait till she's bigger and they are constantly stealing toys from each other.....gonna be so fun :(

We are now going to go enjoy Nick's birthday and play outside....this 70 degree is so weird for February, of course we love it but hopefully that doesn't give us any inclination on what our summer will be like!