We Heart Cousins

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Happy Girl!

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Gracyn Super-Duper Late 9 Month Post

Time seems like its flying and I think I was in-between homes for Gracyn's actual 9 month post so I wanted to update with all her new accomplishments:

- this girl is solely on table foods. i guess she thinks she is way too old for baby food because she honestly spits in out, all over you. So table foods it is. Makes me remember how hard it is to find suitable food for kids this age.

- she is speed-crawling little stinker. she moves everywhere and she goes fast!

- she hasn't really stood by herself much more but she pulls up to stand, and lowers herself really easily, with lots of control. it would not surprise me if she was to begin walking in the next month or two.

- she had her 9 month appointment on monday, with her new doctor who i LOVED, and she weighs 17 lb 11 oz (25%) and is 29 in long (95%). I was shocked to see her measure so tall because she has always been 25-50 percentile for height so I guess baby girl must have had a growth spurt if she is now in the 95th percentile for height. She may give her super-tall big sister a run for her money.........

- this girl has it bad for her momma. she crawls after me everywhere i go and is never any happier than when i am carrying her around on my hip.

- still stuck on 3 naps. its exhausting and i am going to try to take it down to two longer naps soon.

- she "barks" at the dogs by saying woo-woo, says mama (not consistently), says dada (consistently), and waves bye-bye

- such a happy, easy-going little sweetie and such a fun, spunky little personality. LOVE this little baby girl!!!!

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Questions with Avery- Age 3

I thought it might be cute and a fun memory to periodically ask Avery and eventually Gracyn a few standard questions and see how she answers and how they change over time. Here was our first attempt. None of these answers are prompted. I directly asked her every question as its listed and these are exact answers, word for word. Pretty hilarious and adorably sweet. Love this girl.

What is your name: "Avery"
How old are you: "Ummm, three" (holds up 3 fingers)
What's your favorite animal: "Giraffe"
What is your favorite color: "Pink, and purple and red and purple"
Who is your best friend: "Ummmmm (thinks for a while) Julie. No wait she is my cousin. Campbell."
What do you want to be when you are all grown up: "A princess"
What is your favorite movie: "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs"
What is your favorite book: "Rapunzel"
What makes you happy: "When my family is here"
What makes you sad: "When somebody hits me"
What is your favorite food to eat: "Hot Dog"
What is your favorite song to sing: "The Little Mermaid. (Proceeds to begin singing). Look at this stuff, isn't is neat. Don't you think my collection is complete......"(sings entire song from memory)
What is your favorite game to play: "Princess"
What is your favorite sport to play: "Basket"
Where does Daddy work: "At his work. he dos computers and.....thats all."
Where does Mommy work: "You don't work any work. You just play with me all day."

Keeping Our Cool

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The DMV

6:00AM- alarm goes off so we can wake up and get dressed and ready before the girls wake up

6:45- girls wake up. rush to get them fed and dressed

7:15- we are in the car, pulling out of the driveway- on the way to DPS office to get new licenses made

7:45- Gracyn projectile vomits all over herself, her clothes, the carseat, and the back seat. We pull the car over and I realize I have zero burp cloths and NO clean clothes to change her in to. We wipe her down with Avery's blanket since it's the only towel-like item we can find. Avery starts to cry about her blanket. The only clean piece of clothing I can find is a size 2T shirt of Avery's so we try to put it on Gracyn and pretend its a dress.

7:50- start the car back up and continue heading to DMV. Avery still crying. Gracyn looks like a mistreated child is barely wiped-off vomit, and a 3X too large dress/shirt.

8:00- Arrive at DMV. The line is out the door, around the sidewalk, and out to back parking lot. We are probably the 50-75th people in line. The place just opened. We contemplate leaving since A. Gracyn is possibly sick AND she is barely wearing any clothes and B. I did not pack nearly enough bottles, snacks, and possibly diapers to last us the amount of time it's going to take for us to get to the front of this line. But we decide to stick it out since we got up early, made the drive, and are already here. In hindsight we should have turned the car around right after Gracyn barfed.

8:15- Gracyn decides she is tired and wants to nap but refuses to fall asleep with all the fun people to look at. Avery starts to get whiny. Thank God for "Make Me A Princess" game on the Iphone because she started playing that and was a piece of cake afterwards.

8:30- Our nice, kind new neighbor calls Matt to inform him that one of our dogs, Marley, has gotten out of the backyard and is now barking at him and won't go back into the backyard. After about 5 minutes of coaxing she finally goes back in the yard.

8:45- A lady in front of us in line at the DMV decides she is tired of watching her 1 1/2 yr old girl and 7 yr old son, so she starts her car and puts the baby girl in the drivers seat to "play" and the son in the passenger seat, while she continues to wait in line, about 25 feet away from her car. Everyone looks around like "is she really leaving her little girl in this car, where she could possibly hit the gear and throw it into drive and/or reverse and run someone or something over???" We all watch in horror for about 5 minutes before one of the kids turns the car off. Its a bad decision to put the kids in a car that is running, but it is a FATAL decision to leave kids in a car that is not running, so I decide to tell her that her car has been turned off. The lady in front of me in line finally confronts the terrible mother and tells her she better get her kids out of that car or she is going to call the authorities. Mother removes the kids.

9:20- We are finally at the front door of the DMV, where a DMV employee is making the rounds and tells us that you need about 15 forms of identification, as well as already have your car registered in Texas in order to obtain a Texas drivers license. We have none of those things so we all pack back in the car and head home.

9:45- arrive back home. Gracyn smells like puke, Avery is whining that she is hungry and we have accomplished absolutely nothing. Awesome way to start the day :-)

Impossible

It is apparently completely impossible to take one good picture of my beautiful family.

Family Pics

It's Good To Be Home

Stander!

Guess who stood independently for almost 5 seconds today???? What a big girl! I can't believe how quick time is flying.


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Officially Residents of Texas!

Sorry to leave you all hanging a few weeks ago but I am sure you have figured out that we are FINALLY moved into our new house! Yay! They ended up being 7 days late which was beyond annoying but I guess at the end of the day I am just grateful that they showed up at all. But we are slowly unpacking and getting stuff organized.

It's taking a little bit longer than normal because 2 days after the movers came we had to leave town to go to Houston for a baby shower that I was helping throw for my adorable sister in law. {She threatened me with my life to not post any preggo pictures of her....which i think is crazy because she is so cute!} Baby Winston (they do not know the gender and aren't revealing names) is due in about a month and I CAN NOT wait to see this little munchkin and spoil it rotten, like any good aunt is supposed to do :-)

After the baby shower in Houston, Matt and I had already booked a small mini-vacation to celebrate our anniversary (which was back in June) and my upcoming 30th birthday (yikes!). It was a much needed vacation after the chaos of the 2 previous months, but it was the very first time we had ever left the girls. Ever. I know its sounds crazy because Avery is 3 years old, but we have never lived close enough for family members to take our kids over night. It was pretty hard for this momma and I definitely shed some tears as we were leaving but they had a blast at Grandma and Papa John's, and Mommy and Daddy got some much needed relaxation time, so it all worked out for everyone.

We went to Horseshoe Bay and it was so beautiful. Honestly the view was breathtaking.






We toured a few of the wineries around Fredricksburg also and that was SO much fun! The second day we just layed around the pool, drinking beergaritias and relaxing. It was amazing. We were both ready to hug our girls after 2 nights away and rushed back to College Station to scoop them up and head back to Dallas so that we could begin trying to get settled in our new home.

So now we are back home trying to unpack, hang up pictures, arrange furniture, and get settled. We have taken a few rest breaks along the way..........





But overall we are living out our dreams right now and could not imagine being any happier!

Happy 9 months Gracyn!

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Don't Let The Smile Fool You

Don't let Gracyn's smile fool you.

We are NOT all resting comfortably in our new house.

Our truck, with all our belongings on it, is apparently having "issues" with another delivery and now will not be making it to Texas until July 7, at the earliest.

As you can tell by Gracyn's face we are pretty ticked. Mostly because nobody called to inform us of this date change for our move. We had to call ourselves, only to be told that they were not completely sure when our moving truck would arrive. My poor mother-in-law and brother-in-law drove all the way in from College Station to help us with the girls so we could get all moved in to the new house, and we didn't find out that the truck wasn't going to make it until they had already driven the 4 hours to get here. So frustrating.


Of course we are disappointed because we are beyond ready to be in our own space again, with all of our own things, but at least we are all together just soaking up all the family time we can and enjoying our visit with Grandma and Uncle Kyle. And eating all the ice cream we can get our hands on, because ice cream helps in every situation.

So cross your fingers that our truck makes here sometime in the near future!