Easter and Other Adventures

We travelled to Indiana for Easter so we could be with family.....it will probably be our last Easter with family for a long while :( It was a lot of fun despite the rain. Good food, fun crafts and great company!

The rain stopped - the eggs were hidden - and then it started raining again. This was the quickest egg hunt ever!! The next day the sun was shining brightly so we put a just a few eggs and had the girls go look for them. My card for the camera was full both days so I only got a couple pics.



Prior to leaving for Indiana we said goodbye to our really good friends whom we are going to miss so much! Here are the girls being cheezywho knew that Avery knew how to make a silly face! Now whenever I ask her to make a silly face she tries to mimic her sister's silly face.

We got to have Adeline hang out with us for a day - the girls had so much fun. Playing at the sand table, playing at the park, geocaching!!


The weather has been gorgeous (except for today - rain) so we've tried to take advantage of it as much as possible. We went to Young's Jersey - fed the goats, played around, and watched a mama goat struggle to push her newborn baby out.

Videos

I don't take enough video of my girls....now that we're moving far away I hope to do a better job of it and post them often. I love watching videos......and the girls do too...especially of themselves!

The Things Kids Say (and Do)

I always loved the show Kids Say the Darndest Things. The honest thoughts coming from those kids mouths always produced some side stitching laughter.......now that I have kids of my own it's even better!

Allie doesn't forget anything. I really wish I had her memory! So, yesterday we were out and about and Allie sees something, well.......a little unsightly we'll say. She looks at me in shock and starts singing, "pants on the ground, pants on the ground. Lookin' like a fool with your pants on the ground. Pull em' up!" I couldn't help it.....I laughed so hard! She doesn't sing this song all that often.......it was so catchy for me on American Idol I went around singing it for about a week after it aired........she obviously caught on. The funny thing is, though, she only sings it at the "appropriate" times!

After I put Avery down for a nap today I came downstairs and I could hear Allie in the study saying "whoa" over and over again and then "orange, green, purple" I thought she was going crazy! I came in and she was staring at the ceiling in amazement........this is what she saw...
It kept expanding and eventually grew a "baby" rainbow. She'll probably know all about ROY G. BIV now!

Avery is a hoot! Here's our little spitfire telling us how old she is.

Playing Catch Up

I have lots of pictures to share from the past couple weeks so here they are!

Meeting up at the castle park on base with friends one last time.

Gap Clearance Center one last time. I love this place! We went with our friends and we just dropped off the guys with our kids at the Cincinnati Children's Museum so Nicole and I could shop till we dropped! Lots of good deals.....all for $86 (1 Mens's Jeans, 2 Men's shorts, 4 pajama sets plus a pj bottom, toddler dress, 2 toddler jeans, 1 toddler sweat pant, 4 toddler shirts, 2 pair of tights, and toddler shoes!) I'm really going to miss these great deals!
Our last visit to Boonshoft :(

Avery filling out the paperwork for her pet at the vet clinic
Innocent until your sister tattles on you
St Patty's day
On the car ride to Indiana
Indianapolis Children's Museum - BARBIE reception area
Here's your ice cream!
Going Away party for the Barkers - four families here all with 2 girls a piece! Too cute to handle. We're gonna miss everyone.
Little Besties
Grandma & Grandpa Huber came for a visit (to see Derek graduate, but that's another story). Allie was so excited to see them....it's been a year since she saw them last. We bowled Friday. Grandma was a PRO!
Grandpa with the little ones.
Avery didn't feel well the whole time they were here. She is coughing like crazy and had a really runny nose. I think she's feeling better now, but her voice is really hoarse. Anyway, Thursday night she was up ALL night with a fever and just tossed and turned. I stayed up with her until 5am and then brought her down to Derek. Of course she fell right asleep then.
Allie said, "This is our pretend bunkbed!"

Avery ~ 19 Months

I have failed to document Avery's last few months! So, to catch up a little bit, Avery had her 18 month well baby visit last month and they were a little worried that she's too small. Her percentages were all below 20........her weight was in the 6th percentile. She doesn't look that tiny to me but then again when I compare her to most other babies her age she's definitely smaller than most. Luckily the doctor didn't give us too hard of a time about it and just chalked it up to genetics instead of labeling her as failure to thrive or something.

It took this girl forever to get her teeth in. For the longest time she was stuck with just four. Then a couple months ago she finally got two more. Since then she has slowly been getting the rest. It's made for some looonnng days for me because she's been extremely whiny through this process. On top of all that, she's been a momma's girl. I mean, she always has been, but for a while she wouldn't go to anyone else (except Tami and Nicole....which she LOVES both of them!) I don't know if it was just a phase or if it had to do with teething or what..but I think she's getting over that now.

Her newest words:
bankey (blankey)
kay (for okay or yes)
peas (please)
Avey (Avery)
joo (juice or any drink)
more (not that new, but she says it all the time!)
color (she loves to color!)
cracker (been saying this awhile but one of her favorites)

She is getting better at making animal noises when we ask her what a certain animal says. I feel like we've neglected her with her learning! Luckily she has a big sister to learn from and I hope to do a better job once we move and get settled again.

Avery is a riot! She likes to make people laugh and does a pretty good job of accomplishing that. When asked how old she is she'll get a cheesy little grin on her face, hold up one finger and say TWO! What a ham! I love this little stinker so much and as I always say she is just growing up too fast.

Bubbly

My girly girl
My ornery daredevil
I really need to change my blog background to something other than the winter wonderland background so I figured I'd go ahead a post pics from today. It was absolutely gorgeous out! I don't know what the temp actually was....but the car told me it was 70 degrees! The girls were in t-shirts and we probably could have even been in shorts! Love it! Anyway, we just ran some errands and then came back home and played outside (bubbles, running around, slide, sand table). It was fun. I love watching the two of them interact. After that we met up with their cousins for some play time at the park....


Allie is such a good helper!
I guess it rained at some point this morning and it rained some last night so it was pretty muddy in our back yard and at the park. Needless to say, the girls definitely needed baths tonight. I surprised them with pink water....it would later turn to another.
{CAUTION}{CAUTION}

Avery kept saying something and motioning that she needed to go potty and I could tell by the look on her face as well. So I asked her if she needed to go potty and she gave a nod and said 'kay. I got her out and sat her on the toilet and she grunted and said 'kay. I said are you done....she gave a nod and said 'kay. That's her new favorite word! So, I put her back in the bathtub and she proceeded to stay in a squatting position and had that look on her face...."Avery, do you have to go to the bathroom?" Nod, 'kay. I get her out again and we do the same thing over. Still nothing. I get her back in the bath and hurry up and scrub her down. She smiles and I say okay, ready to get out? NO.......it was because she felt better! Hmmmmmm, GROSS!! Allie gave her a lecture about where to go potty. I was really surprised she didn't jump straight up and scream!!

Wonderful Weather

The weather has been absolutley beautiful that past 4 or 5 days!! I'm loving it and am sooo ready for spring. Unfortunately, I think it's going to rain for the rest of the week, but at least it's starting to warm up.
We've definitely tried to take advantage of the warmer weather by going on walks, going to the park and we even went to the zoo! It was busier than I thought it would be, but I guess it was a Saturday and the sun was finally out so I'm sure doing something like that was on a lot of people's minds. There really weren't a whole lot of animals out, but enough to satisfy the girls. I was just happy to be out!
riding in the "dragon"


Today we went to the outlet mall. There were some pretty good clearance deals! I probably bought more than I should have considering we're in the process of packing up and don't need more stuff........but Allie is starting to run short on shirts that fit her (and it was a good deal).

Well, we've got a lot we want to get checked off of our "to-do" list before we leave on April 30th so Bring On the Sunshine!!!

What Do You Think?

We're faced with another dilemma, well several actually....but we'll just leave it to this for now. Okay, so when Derek went down to Texas to look at the other house it obviously wasn't going to work for us. He took advantage of the time he had while he was there and looked at TONS of other homes. We narrowed it down, weighed our options and decided on one that fits us pretty good according to our main wants (which are good schools and safe area). We signed a contract and everything. It's another bank owned property, but in good overall condition so we wouldn't have to do a lot to it. The bank is taking their sweet time in getting everything finalized so it's not officially ours yet (but they accepted our offer and we signed all of the paper work and what not.) It's not our favorite, by any means, but we do like it.. A little bit about this house:
1. 2700 sq ft
2. 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, HUGE game room
3. big fenced in backyard
4. close to shopping
5. community is NOT gated, but seems to be safe
6. community has club house, pool, basketball courts, tennis courts
7. school is rated a 10/10 and is right down the road from the house
Here are some pics of this house:






Anyway, so in the mean time Derek has been looking at other homes. He came across this one which is on the lake. Before we even knew where we were going we were looking at homes on this lake because we knew we wanted to go to San Antonio and would like to live on the lake, but figured it could never happen because the prices were just too much for us. Well, this home is in our price range and just 6 grand more than what we are going to be paying on the other home. We plan on going to the lake a lot anyway....and it's only a 10 minute further drive to work for Derek than the other home.
Here's a little bit about this house:
1. 3200 sq ft
2. 4 bedrooms, 3 baths
3. no garage, but a carport
4. no fenced in yard, but it's an acre so no wonder
5. community is gated so we know it should be safe
6. schools are 8/10
7. community has clubhouse, pool and fitness center
8. community also has it's own drop in access for the lake (so we won't have to pay every time we go)
9. HOA is about $100 cheaper here too.
10. we'll be in the "country" which we like the idea of this, but it would also mean a further drive to all of the conveniences of shopping/groceries etc (about 15 min)
Here are some pics of this house:





For pics of the community, pool, clubhouse, lake etc you can go here to look: http://www.dancingbearranch.com/texas-hill-country-photo-gallery.php

Overall, I do like the lake house better but there are also perks to the other house as well. (being closer to everything is just convenient...but we do like seclusion as well) The biggest perk is just that we already have a contract in and do we trust our realtor to take good pics of this lake house and give us a good description of it. He's already failed us once with doing this. The bank that we signed our current contract with also is in charge of this lake house and so we've already talked with them about everything and they said we would probably lose our earnest money ($500) which we don't really think is fair since they haven't finished the paperwork yet or taken the home off of the market.
What do you think??

Missing Daddy

Derek has been crazy busy with his thesis, soccer, scouts, basketball etc so we see very little of him. I'm probably selfish in thinking he should cut an extracurricular activity to be able to spend more time with his family, but I know he needs a break from school too. Anyway, it's almost done, THANKFULLY! It really has felt like he was deployed or I'm a widow so I'm excited for the change....he defends March 11, I think. When we do see him at home he's usually asleep on the couch. Last week, the girls and I went grocery shopping and when we came home he didn't even budge when we were making all of the noise bringing the groceries in. After Allie and I put everything away I jumped on the computer really quick and came out to find her up on the couch with her daddy, fast asleep! Note the sticker that she gave him as well!