Escape!!

Our children are truly gifts from God, however sometimes we're thrown a challenge! Tyler has been that challenge. He is very determined, very crafty, and will always find a way around any obstacle.

The latest obstacle is his crib. I had put him down for a nap one afternoon, and had gone to my room to get some laundry sorted. As I was headed downstairs I checked on Tyler to see if he was asleep, and to my surprise I see an empty crib and no Tyler. I called Amanda downstairs and asked if Tyler was down there she said yes. Hmmm, I wonder how he got out so I grab the camera and put Tyler back in bed, and a few seconds later he was back out as recorded below. Enjoy, because I sure did.....

.....Tyler now has a toddler bed.

Splish Splash

We all know why we should never leave our children unattended in the bathtub. Our child could slip and fall, hit head on spigot and need stitches, or even worse. But on occasion we step out for just a second, and this is what happened to us one fateful day.

Brent was running the bath water for Amanda, while I finished up the dinner dishes downstairs. As the bath water ran I heard the following:

Amanda: "Dad, Tyler's in the tub!!"

Brent: "Get him out!! Hurry get him out!"

Oh no, this is not good, so I grabbed the camera and ran upstairs. To my surprise I found.....

....Tyler happily playing in the tub.

Yes, fully dressed shirt, pants, diaper, socks and shoes all on and thoroughly soaked!

Halloween

Its Trick-or-Treat time!! In years past I had made costumes for the kids, which I enjoyed especially the Cinderella and Snow White costumes. I thought about doing it again this year, but Matthew wanted to be Batman...I can't make a Batman costume!! So we go looking for Batman costumes, you'd think every boy wanted to be Batman this year because we had a hard time finding one in his size! After searching every rack at several store we finally found one

that fit!!

I thought that if Matthew is Batman I guess we'll dress Tyler up at Robin! Great, we have the boys squared away! Tyler was the easiest since he didn't have much of an opinion on what he wanted to be. And he looks so darn cute in that outfit!

Amanda, wanted to be a kitty cat, a black one with pink in the ears, but then she wanted to be a fairy, then a kitty-fairy (yeah, I don't know either). Well we could find a black cat with pink in the ears, and she didn't like the fairy costumes. She went as Ariel instead.

They all had a blast Trick-or-Treating, even Tyler got the hang of

holding out the bucket for candy!

Pumpkin Carving

For Halloween this year we got a pumpkin for everyone in the family. Two big ones for Mom and Dad, and three small ones for Amanda, Matthew, and Tyler. We each picked out our own pumpkins, at our local pumpkin patch (aka Kroger). Since no one and I do mean no one is brave enough to gut the pumpkins for carving, it falls to mommy to brave the orange squishyness.

Amanda wanted a princess pumpkin. I carved hers with a pretty smile and round eyes with eye lashes.

Matthew wanted a scary face on his pumpkin. Daddy carved his with fangs and mean eyes.

Tyler wanted nothing to do with the pumpkins. Mommy carved a silly face on his.

Daddy did an awesome Haunted house on his with a tree on the side and a moon and clouds. All free hand I might and NO pattern!! All the trick-or-treaters were impressed with the pumpkin.

Mommy carved out "Happy Halloween" with a witch on hers. I'm not sure about daddy but my hand sure hurts after all that carving!!

Corgradulations Scott and Marquee!

On September 12th we got to witness the marriage of Brent's youngest brother Scott get married.

They were married in the Dallas LDS Temple, it was awesome, seeing them there reminded me of my wedding day. Hearing the vows I had made eleven years ago to Brent, gave me goosebumps and touched my heart. I now know why people cry at weddings. I cried more at their wedding than at my own!


It was a beautiful reception, filled with family, friends, and lots of love.


The whole gang was there! For some family it has been years since we had seen one another, and even some I had not met before. Amanda got to meet some of daddy's aunts and uncles. Even great grandpa was there, I think she was two years old the last time she saw him.



Brent's older brother Brian and his family stayed at our house, and the kids had a great time with each other. (Durning all this hurricane Ike was headed for Brian's house is Houston! No serious damage done at there house.)








The girls all wore lilac colored dresses and the boys had lilac bow ties. I made the dresses for Amanda, Nicole, and Jera, they were beautiful "princess" dresses as Amanda put it.


Jeri (Nicole's mom) made the hair bows for the girls and found the bow ties for the boys. Those boys sure looked sharp!!







It was a grand evening of fun, laughter, and dancing, but in the end it was too much for Tyler. Luckily grandpa (my dad) was there to lend and comfy place to nap.


Some may this wedding was overdue for Scott, but hey he had to wait for her to move to Texas!


Scott you've married an awesome girl, we wish you the best and years of happiness!

First Day of School

August 25th, the first day of school! Amanda had waited all summer long for this day and was ready for school in record time, she still had 15 minutes before it was time to leave when we took this picture. Matthew wanted to go to school too but he still has two more years before he starts Kindergarten.

Amanda found out the week before school started that she would be in Ms. Spence's 1st grade class, along with her Elizabeth who lives a few houses down and some friends from her Kindergarten class as well.

At the end of her first day of school Amanda said, "I like first grade better that kindergarten!!" and she wanted to know when she will get homework!

For mommy its hard to believe that my little girl is growing up so fast, but she makes me proud. She is learning so much and is eager to learn more!!

Keep it up Amanda, don't rush the homework thing you'll get plenty in the years to come!

Watch out world

Tyler has made the move from quadruped to biped, well close anyway. He is taking more and more steps and with this new movement is into more things. His favorite thing to get into is mommy's bathroom cabinets, and pull everything out. Dumping roller, hair dryers, boxes of soaps any thing he can lift is tossed out so he can climb in. He also enjoys pulling items from trash cans and the shredded! But its hard to get mad when he flashes that big toothy grin and giggles.

Matthew is great at the potty, a few oopses here and there but really likes the no diaper freedom. Matthew's poor tricycle has really been loved and used, and it really shows. He rides it almost non stop and rides it to get Amanda after school everyday, but he has worn the treads right of the wheels. So it looks like we will be bike shopping soon.

Amanda is very determined when she puts her mind to it. We (mom and dad) have been trying to get her to ride her bike more. But she didn't like to, it was to scary. Well that all changed when a friend down the street was riding her bike and with out training wheels! Amanda wanted to ride without training wheels too. We took them off with the warning of "they are not going back on". Well she pretty much taught her self how to ride, mom and dad tried the old running behind holding on, but Amanda would get scared and stop after a few feet. So we gave her some pointers and she practiced on her own and now she can ride down the street and to the park!

We got new back doors to replace the old leaky, paint holding things together doors. I love them but it has added to my UFO (UnFinished Objects). To prepare for the doors I took the wallpaper off around it, since I wasn't to fond of the existing wallpaper. It sounded easy enough, but after scraping off the 5 layers of paper liner, I have exposed the lovely drywall. What do I do? Scrape the rest of the kitchen and repaper? Scrape the rest of the kitchen and texture and paint? Hmmm, either way I think I have a lot of scraping to do....bummer. Oh, did I mention I have to paint the new doors (inside and out)! *sigh* And no I haven't finished the stairs yet, although I did paint most of the stair well, 3 out of 4 walls, not bad, right!

Easter

Happy Easter, everyone!

This year Amanda wrote a note to the Easter Bunny telling him where to hide the eggs. She was excited about the chocolate fairy bunny she got. The Easter Bunny even got her the stuffed Ballerina bunny she told mommy she wanted!



It was hard to take turns hunting the eggs, and let Tyler have a chance but Matthew did pretty good. He really liked the chocolate race car bunny.



Tyler was pretty oblivious to the whole thing and wasn't sure what was going on. He did like the eggs, the made a neat rattling sound when filled with candy.



Mommy got a little crazy and made matching outfits for the kids this year. The boys vests were surprisingly simple and didn't take long. Amanda's dress was easy enough once I was able to understand the pattern, and get that darn zipper in. Amanda even helped pick out ribbons and buttons for her dress. They all looked very cute at church on Sunday.

Pet for a day

My sister recently got a new dog, and let us puppy sit for a day while she showed a friend around town. His name is Chaco, and he is a Shar-pei /Retriever mix, a strong, cute and fluffy dog. I tried to take Chaco for a walk but he wanted to check out all the new smells, and the kids arguing over who gets walk him, and trying to push a stroller is was too much for me so we headed back inside and played some more in the back yard.

Amanda and Matthew loved throwing toys and sticks for Chaco to fetch, and possibly undoing all the training my sister had done. It was a challenge to puppy proof the house, but we closed all the baby gates and closed off the play room. It seemed to work and everyone was happy. I will say it was nice having an instant clean up crew around at lunch time there were no crumbs left on the floor. Maybe having a dog around wouldn't be so bad...(oh no, what am I thinking!)

While the kids had fun with Chaco Tyler perfered the from and distance and looking through the glass approach, otherwise it was to close. That and Tyler didn't like the doggie "kisses". Amanda says the wants a dog too, and wants it tomorrow. Hmmm, we may need to puppy sit some more!

Snow!

It snowed today!! All be it a light dusting, but it's snow and exciting to us here in Texas. Its the begining of March and it our first snow of the season, and it won't even last the day.

Amanda was the most excited about it as she has seen it before, even if it was at least a year or more ago. She and daddy had fun throwing snowballs around and at mommy looking out the window. Amanda really wanted to build a snowman, but there was not enough. But there was enough to eat!

Matthew was a little less impressed with this white stuff. He has not had a chance to see snow, as the last time it snowed he was just a baby. So what would any boy like to do in the snow? (No, not that!) Matthew wanted to mow it, and he did so until his mower got clogged.

Potty Time

Time sure flies by, especially in an already short month. Matthew turned 3 at the begining of the month, and I still can't believe how big he is getting. We started potty training Matthew this month, and all has gone well so far. At first Matthew wanted nothing to do with the potty, even bribbing him with "cool" undies to wear. So one morning after he woke up dry, I told him no more diapers. Matthew did not like this idea and after refusing to sit on the potty I let him run around in underwear knowing full well what the next result would be. Two hours later it happened, he peed all over himself and the floor, so I asked Matthew "Did like getting peed on?" I got a sheepish "No." reply, "Can we try to pee in the potty next time?" "Yes." "Ah I've got him now", I think to myself, two hours latter I ask Matthew "Wanna go potty?" "NO!" is his reply. "Well we're going anyway." (insert toddler tanturm here) I put Matthew on the potty kicking and screaming, then he suddenly stops, then says "I peed!" "Really?!" YEAH!! He did it and has been doing great since. Now lets get Tyler potty trained, what? what do you mean he's only 8 months old?! Ok ok...I guess I can wait a bit. Speaking of Tyler, he has moved up to pro crawler and pulling up stage and loves to get into things. Especially likes getting into Matthew's cars and Amanda's Barbies. No place is safe, well at least anthing within two feet above the floor. Amanda is still loving school, and I'm blown away by how much she can read now! I need to find some things for her to do this summer to keep her occupied and keep those boredum bugs away!

Its my Birthday!!

Look at me I'm THREE!!!!!

So what do you give a boy who loves cars? Anything with wheels! Some of his favorite things he received was his toy mower, Cars PJs, Cars t-shirt, car launcher, and those awesome tees from Aunt Evonne!

Sick, Sick, Sick

What a month! It seems as if we caught every bug that was going around! I had Strep and then a nasty cold, Brent had a cold and an upper respiratory infection, Amanda had an ear infection and caught my nasty cold, luckily Matthew and Tyler we spared the illnesses. But the boys had their own set of problems. Matthew decided he didn't want to poo anymore so we had to put him on some laxatives to get things moving and move they did! Tyler cut three teeth so he was just plain cranky, and he started crawling! Needless to say we didn't get much done in January. I'm still trying to catch up on laundry and get ahead start on spring cleaning to destroy any lingering germs!

During periods of wellness I have been tearing up the stairs. The previous homeowners had put laminate flooring on the steps and they squeak horribly. About two months after we had moved in I slipped on the stairs while carrying Matthew and cracked a rib, so you might say I have some animosity toward the stairs. I have had my revenge and the laminate is gone! Now I'm in the process of scraping the drywall mess off the stairs so they can be sanded then painted. In the mean time I am enjoying the less squeakiness of the stairs (they are stairs and will always squeak!).

A New Year

Ah a fresh new year!! The time for change and new adventures to begin. This site is going to be one of my new adventures. I'm not much of a writer but I am willing to give it a try and hopefully keep everyone up to date on the happenings in our family. To get things started I will give a slight background on all of us.

Brent - He is kept busy at work selling blinds, window treatments, and ceiling fans and still seems to enjoy it. At church he is the Scout Master, although he doesn’t like the camping aspect of it much he does enjoy working with the guys.

Dixie - I'm surprised I have time to write this! With three kids time is a precious commodity. But I enjoy being a stay at home mom. At church I am the 2nd counselor in the Relief Society (our women’s group) it has been a challenge for me but I am adapting and starting to enjoy it as well.

Amanda (age 5) - Started Kindergarten in the fall, and has loved school. She is starting to read, write and spell things on her own. (I love you mommy notes are the best!) Amanda loves princesses and all things related, a true girly girl!

Matthew (age 2) - Well what can I say he is a boy! Loves cars, trucks, trains, and anything with wheels. He also enjoys pestering his little brother and big sister, and ridding he trike.

Tyler (6 months) - He is our wiggly, squishy, baby. He loves to watch the kids play, observe everything, and eat. He just cut his first tooth two days after Christmas. Tyler is desperately trying to crawl, the arms and legs move but not the belly, I'm sure it won’t be long before he's scooting around!

Well I hear someone calling my name, dishes, laundry, kids! - Bye for now!