Floors and Cousins

We placed new floors in our home! It was a crazy, crazy week but goodness was it all worth it!

 Here is a snap shot of our old flooring in the kitchen. Mike tore this up, the carpet in the living room and hallway and broke up the tile in the foyer.

 As with most house projects, I'm not sure what we were thinking. I imagined it to be no big deal to keep the kiddos here in the house. I saw us going on with our normal lives. About midnight on the second work day after pulling up nails I realized I can't keep the kids in the house!

 So....the next morning after our picnic breakfast the kids and I packed up and drove to Oklahoma City to spend time with the cousins :) Duh!!! Why didn't we do this sooner?! While daddy worked away (now this is the kind of house work I can do ;)

The kid's were in heaven! 

 We love being with the cousins!!

 They even have an Oklahoma City Thunder bathroom!! What??!! This caused for some MAJOR excitement each and every time B had to go potty :) The rule was no shooting hoops until the toilet lid is closed ;) 

 Stayed up late, woke up SUPER early, got to watch TV, can life really get much better for a 2 year old?

 We had a blast while daddy worked away! Hmmm....what other projects can we start on now.. :)

We returned to the most beautiful home we've ever lived in :) Mike did WONDERFUL!!! We love our wood floors, love them, love them, love them! I love only having carpet in the bedrooms. I will never again have carpet in the living areas, never! A huge pet peeve  of mine is shoes on the carpet, I mean huge! Really, I cringe every time I see it and my heart does a tiny heart attack. I still cringe when I see shoes on my floors but the great thing is I can get on my hands and knees and scrub those shoe germs up! :) It's just beautiful :)

Camping! We had a blast! We just went to a cute state park about 15 minutes from our house and planned it to be simple. Simple as in one night, hot dogs for dinner and lunch and warm up pancakes for breakfast :) Couldn't have had a better plan.

 The reason for just a simple overnight is the stage Aubrie is at, crawling. She just doesn't have much fun being confined to a blanket, she wants to be doing what we are doing. So until the chica is walking, we will do over nighter camping adventures close to home ;)

 Brody loves, loves, loves being outside, so of course he was in heaven!

 Trigger kept thinking the blankets we layed down for Aubs were for him :)

 I know this pictures is blurry, but I love the true joy and everyone's face :) I love being with my family and making these great memories with them. We stay up way to late and wake up WAY too early ;)

I'm not sure if we are going through a mid life crisis or what but Mike and I planned a CRAZY camping trip for September. We are heading out to Zion National Park, Arches National Park and Bryce Canyon. Yep, all 4 of us with our camper. Are we crazy?! Surely not, right??

I'm so behind! We FINALLY got the camper out last week and I have pictures but I haven't figured out how to get them off my phone. So stay tuned, because they are really great :)

 Grandpa's old hair cutting cape has received a new customer! :) It was time for B's summer cut, one which I'm very comfortable giving. Nothing says summer more than a buzz cut on a 2 year old ;)

 I love these pictures above! To the left is Aubrie and the right is Brody when he was Aub's age. They aren't allowed on the dishwasher but once (to get a picture). The funny part is it took B maybe 5 seconds to get the nerve to climb up the dishwasher and it took Aubrie about 10-15 minutes! I absolutely love how different the two are. It definitely keep us on our feet and never knowing what we are doing ;)

Another post, mainly for the adorning Grandmas :)

 Forgive me, I just can't get over how adorable Brody is in his big boy undies! His little bottom is oh my word just too much cuteness!!!! Especially when daddy walks into the room and B yells, "I need to tackle!" So daddy assumes position and B becomes a spider monkey :)

 Then Aubs girls discovered what a puddle was. For the amount of princess she is, I'm shocked how much she LOVED getting wet and muddy :)

Brother eventually joined in on the fun, however, he was a very naked J-Bird which means I can't post those pictures ;)

We are safe from the last two days of horrific tornado outbreaks. With extremely heavy hearts we are thankful to have, yet again, escaped the devastation a tornado brings. The F-4 from yesterday that hit Moore, Oklahoma was 2 hours south of here. We had our shelter (our bathroom) ready for the second day in a row, if the sirens went off. Gosh, the clouds did look scary. I'm trying to write something profound and encouraging but the words aren't coming. It's really even difficult to find words to pray because I just simply don't know what to say. I will say this. In these moments I find the most comfort from opening my Bible and reading. That's it, just reading. There is something so extremely powerful and comforting about having my Bible open and being wrapped up in the words of God Himself! 

Mike's brother lives very close to Moore and they also are safe. Mike is already busy at work figuring out dates to take teams to help with the cleanup.

 

Anyways, Meghan graduated a week ago! My dad, brother and sister were able to make the trek down here :)

We had a fun lunch party afterward for her, complete with this yummy, yummy cake!!

It was really neat, toward the end of the party we all prayed for Meghan and this next adventure in her life.

So Brody ADORES his Uncle Spencer! ADORES! They are inseparable when together :) Above I'm pretty sure Brody is stealing Spence's nose and eating it ;)

We celebrated Mother's Day a few days after. Mike wanted to celebrate the whole day instead of just 1/2 the day with church. He blew my mind as he really did have the whole day planned! We went out for breakfast, then a picnic lunch at the park, an afternoon nap and then a date (just us 2!) to end the day. So fun! This was Aubrie's first picnic and she loved it :)

 We brought leftover cake for dessert and forgot forks. Brody thought it was the coolest thing that we dug in with our hands to eat it ;)

We even got to feed the ducks. For our animal loving boy, this was the greatest thing! He did really well and wasn't even scared one bit. He made me scared with how close he would get to them though.

Have I mentioned how much  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE being a momma!?? I'm still not sure when I became an adult or why in the world the Lord trusts me enough to raise kiddos, but goodness I LOVE it! :) And we do make pretty cute kids, right?!

10 months!

 10 months!!!! The Girlfriend is 10 months old! In 2 months we will be celebrating her 1st birthday and goodness in one year (I'm sure it will feel like!) Daddy will be walking her down the isle! "Enjoy EVERY second, don't blink, keep snuggling my babies as long as they let me" is what I find myself repeating often times because I look at them and can't get over how quickly life is flying.

 These monthly pics become more and more difficult. This month was the hardest...because....AUBS GIRL IS CRAWLING!!!! Her very last night of being 9 month old she decided to do it :) She's memorized by our house :) Mike and I keep singing the Aladdin song, "A whole new world, a dazzling place I never knew" hehe. This newest accomplishment as brought so much confidence about herself. Not only is she crawling but pulling up on everything :) She's adorable because she continues to be way, super cautious about every move but yet she does what she needs to do :)

 

• Continues to wear size 3 diapers 
• Sleeps from 8pm-8am (is the goal, lately big brother has been known to tickle her awake in their room at 6:45am!!) Then 2, 2 hour naps a day at 10:00am and 2:00 pm
• Eats really whatever we are eating, which makes us eat super healthy ;) Then eats from me 4 times a day.
• Received her first discipline this month. She threw food from her highchair to the ground, deliberately, yea it was really sad :( She definitely does not carry Brody's strong willed personality because she really has never done it again :)
• Is jibber jabbering all the time :)
• Sleeps with Rain the Monkey and Molly the Monkey :)

 Brody painted with water colors over the weekend. What fun! I'm not sure what was more fun though; the water colors or getting to put on an old shirt of daddy's as a paint shirt :) Cute, cute, cute!!!!! He is in for a rude awakening, I think, with his sister being mobile now :)

I go on spurts where I blog almost every other day and then sometimes there are a couple weeks between. There's no reason to my madness! Mostly I've been working lots which I'm not a huge fan of, but that extra does put more of a dent into my dream car fund! I'm such a mom because my dream car is a Honda Odyssey. I find myself drooling almost when I see one on the road or in the parking lot. I do enjoy my Pilot and I really enjoyed it with no kiddos. However, I'm so short that my shins are constantly bruised from putting kiddos in their car seat. So one day....I will have my prize and may never get out of it ;)

 My sweet Brody is getting so big! Our newest routine of the morning has been "Coffee and Milk Time". We both get our most favorite beverage, B picks out a book, and we sit on the couch snuggling, reading and drinking! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this newest tradition! :)

We celebrated Mike's 21st birthday (ha!!! do you believe me?) last week! We surprised Mike while he was teaching at the college. We walked in with balloons and donuts which made for some really happy college students ;) The day before B helped me make daddy's ice cream birthday cake. His job was to place Peanut Butter Cups into the blender. He's so my child because once they were unwrapped he would say, "Oh, it broken" and then eat it! How can I get upset with a child who is simply doing what is modeled for him? :) Brody had so much fun with the birthday day that for days after when we would have some cake he thought he needed to sing "Happy Birthday" all over again! 

The kiddos have begun playing with each other! This is how I found them the other day playing with Brody's cars :) They are just best pals!

Aubs girl has her 9 month appointment today (even though she's days away from 10 months old!)! She weighs in at 18 something pounds placing her in the 47% tile and her height is the 76% tile. She is one tall girl :) The biggest news here is that she has a room mate! Big brother moved into her room yesterday officially to make room for Auntie to move in next week. Their room is a cute mix of pink flowers meets Lightning McQueen :)

Tiny side note. I'm sitting here eating the Mega Stuffed Oreos (I promise you the Lord wanted me to have them because while at Wal-Mart they pretty much jumped out at me, really!). Anyways, they are SOOOOO good!! Oh my it's really difficult to exhibit self control and not eat the whole bag!

 I'm pretty sure if you asked Brody what he wanted to be when he grown up he would answer, "I want to be daddy!" He does everything Mike does. He wants his hair to look like daddy, he wants to go to work like daddy, if Mike has a hammer in his hand Brody needs a hammer in his hand. It's super cute. Over the weekend Mike was raking with our only rake. Not a problem though the broom worked just fine for the boy :)

 It was a gorgeous day to be outside! Aubs loved sitting on her blanket while watching her boys :) Sweet girlfriend had a rough night last night with a cough and lots of congestion. This morning I took her to the doctor to find out she has another ear infection :( She does weigh 17lbs 15 ounces though :) Poor girl even vomited twice today. Hmmmm.....maybe she has a bit more than an ear infection.

This is how dude a lude looks lately at our house. A shirt and just undies on. Yep you read correctly. Big Boy Undies!!!! Randomly we decided to toss the diaper thing and it has worked!! He has even been taking his naps with undies on and stays dry. Yahoo!! Him and I went grocery shopping this afternoon and he stayed dry! So proud of him! And his little diaper rash bottom has never looked better :) Isn't that big boy undie bottom just the cutest thing!!??

Funny story. I was in the process of putting Aubrie down for a nap this morning when she vomits ALL over herself, me and the carpet. You know those few seconds you just stand in one spot trying to figure out your next step when something unexpected happens? Well I was smack in the middle of those few seconds when low and behold Brody run into the room yelling, "I have to go poopy mommy!" Of course, right!? So me and my puked covered girl (who was very happy and content by the way) walked big brother to the potty (did I mention we were dripping puke in the hallway?). The life of a mom! Gosh I love it and wouldn't  trade it for anything :)

And finally my little nugget of Truth . I read a few verses in Romans today. What stuck out to me was this, "faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ." Romans 10:17. How is your faith today? Have you been in the Word (the Bible) to get to know God more? This is the only way to really get to know Him and have a relationship with Him. So open it up, learn from Him and be encouraged today!

 Oh my! Those eyes!! I just can't get enough of those big, juicy, brown eyes! (And that trail of drool dripping down her face ;)!!!! Yesterday Aubrie wore an outfit that had a small tutu around the waste. As soon as Brody saw her he said, "Oh, Aubi! Your a pincess. So petty" Melt my heart into a big old puddle! Miss girlfriend has also shown some desire to crawl! Whohoo!!! She gets up on all fours and sport one big smile before the face dive into the floor ;)

Brody (and daddy) the sharks! BIG breakthrough yesterday! We've adapted to the slow potty training way. When we are home Brody will wear his undies and the timer goes off every 30 minutes to remind us all it's time for B to use the potty. Last night Brody ran up to be and said, "Mommy, I need to go poopy!!!" We ran to the toilet, he put on his poopy face and splash! My boy went poopy in the potty!!!! Yahoo!!!

We got Brody a step stool that would help him to be able to reach the sink to wash his hands and brush his teeth on his own. Well, he has a little bit more growing to do yet to reach the sink. Don't worry though! The step stool doesn't go to waste. He's brilliant! B carries this thing around the house and doesn't let the frustrations of being a bit short get him down. He says, "I ne to cim" (I need to climb) and gets what he wants. Very self sufficient :)

 

Miss Aubs girl is now a 9 monther! Goodnight! She sleeps from 8pm to 8am and two naps a day. She is busy rolling all over the place but her favorite place continues to be in my arms or at least in sight of me :) She loves attention and hates, hates, hates to be alone! The second she is left alone you would think she cracked her head open with the type of cry she lets out.

 

Girlfriend loves to stand. We all think she may just skip the crawling stage and go straight to walking. She shows not one bit of interest in crawling. Still just the two bottom teeth. Eats as if she will never have another meal again ;) She is beginning to transition to feeding herself! We might just get to put away the food processor :) 

And again, the same from day 1, has one special relationship with her brother! Lately during family devotion time as we are all sitting on the couch, the two simply give each other googly eyes :) Brody tickles Aubrie's cheeks, Aubrie giggles and goes after B and it all happens again. Gosh, we have one good life. There has been some big disappointments that have come the last couple weeks, but really, what do I have to complain about? God is good and His blessings are beyond what I deserve!