Our Girls

A few months ago, when I thought I was actually going to start a garden this year, I bought myself a pair of gardening gloves. When I saw a pair of princess gloves, I knew Carrie would love them. Since I never got around to the garden, Carrie just plays with them as toys in the house.

This morning, she found them in her toys, asked for my help putting them on and then told me, "I'm going to go fix the weeds".... She went outside and sat sifting through the rocks. (Which don't have any weeds in them, fyi)

 After only a couple minutes sitting by the grass, she said, "I'm going to go work in the shade..." Smart girl :)

As for Brigette, I had another doctors appointment today and Brigette is being a bit of a stinker on the growth charts! If you remember, a few weeks ago, she measured in the 26th percentile overall. Today, she was in the 18th percentile.... Her belly has dropped off the charts low, and her estimated weight is 3 lbs, 2 oz. So now we get to go see the specialist again! Seems to be a pattern with our kids huh?! It looks like she's going to be a teeny little thing! I had the inkling that she would be our smallest baby!

Tonight Carrie said she wanted to watch a show upstairs. Justin and I were both being lazy and trying to convince the other to go up and turn it on for her. Justin was doing homework on the computer and said, "I'm working". I said, "I'm working too..." When he asked, "Doing what?", I replied with, "Growing a baby!".... He was so quick and witty with his reply of, "Ummm, no you're not!". I had no argument... I said, "Dang! You're right! Fine! I'll go turn on her movie!"..... It was hilarious :)

I'm excited to see our girls together! Carrie is already so cute with Brigette. This morning Carrie wanted to feel Brigette kick, but she wasn't being wiggly and I told Carrie, "She must be asleep". So Carrie proceeded to sing "la la la la" in the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" to my belly. Brigette immediately responded with a slew of kicks! They're going to be so adorable together!

Comparison

I was complaining a bit today about feeling like a whale. Justin said, "If it makes you feel any better, you're definitely smaller than you were with Carrie or Brigham".... So I pulled up pictures..... His only response was, "Oh...."

New Mexico Weekend

We had a great trip to New Mexico for the long Memorial Day weekend! And of course, our weekend can probably best be told through the pictures we took!

We drove over Friday evening and Carrie was awesome in the car! Even though she's not a baby anymore, 6+ hour trips can still be stressful, but this one wasn't! She did great! By the time we got to Justin's parents it was late enough that we pretty much went straight to bed. Early Saturday morning, Justin and his dad went golfing while the girls slept in ;) When they got home we headed to Denny's for a huge delicious breakfast. I love breakfast.... Then my mother-in-law treated us to pedicures at her local nail salon.

In the early afternoon, we headed down to Elephant Butte lake to visit Justin's sister Alysha and her family at their "home-away-from-home" trailer by the lake. The kids had a blast playing on the swingset. Especially with Nana pushing them super high!

 They had fun playing on the little slide

But going down normally soon became too boring... ;)

Popsicles on the porch. Yummy!

And then it was time to bust out the kiddie pool! Don't you love her new hat? 

I don't know if they were playing ring around the rosie, or what, but these cousins sure had fun playing together

Especially once aunt Alysha brought the slide over to the pool!

The adults were kept busy playing cornhole. The wind was quite an interesting factor in our games!

I think this one looks like Carrie and Savannah are making mischievous plans for something...

Watching the grownups play while she dries off

Hanging out waiting his turn. Slowly getting eaten by the sun.... 

And by the time we got back to Nana and Papa's around dinnertime, Carrie was TIRED!

Sunday after going to church, we took a drive up through Winston and headed to "the box". Driving on all the dirt roads got the best of Justin's dad's truck though.... SUPER flat tire... In the middle of NOWHERE. 

While we were waiting for Justin and his dad to change the tire, we hung out in the middle of the road. Who's going to get us? The roaming cows?....

Carrie's little Stonehenge... She was very proud of her rock collection and made me take a picture.

Once we got to "the box", we hiked for about 1/4 mile on a very skinny trail that crossed the creek 7 times...

Before eventually bringing us here. Beautiful natural hot springs. (Though they were definitely not hot)

But Carrie got in anyways

And Justin and I joined her! 

I told you Justin was getting slowly eaten by the sun. His poor red feet....

Hanging out in the shallow water - with lots of dirt and scum and bugs. It was a very outdoorsy experience ;)

Once we got dried off Carrie found a great walking stick and went on a little hike in the meadow

And again, was completely wiped out!

She stayed asleep all through our stop at "the old place" (a big storage warehouse filled with old keepsakes from Justin's family). We were fortunate to inherit a cute little kiddie sized chair that was Justin's dad's as a kid. It's a very awesome hand-me-down, but it really needs to be cleaned and re-upholstered. As soon as it's done, I'll post a picture. It's not really the highest thing on my priority list right now, as you can hopefully understand.

Monday morning after visiting with Justin's Grandma, we were headed off to the lake to hang out on Michael and Alysha's houseboat.

Waiting on the beach for them to come get us with the boat

Daddy-daughter beach walk

Hanging out on the houseboat roof with Savannah

We all went out on the giant tube they like to call "the island". The bottom is mesh, so the water comes up through a little.

Don't worry, we were tethered to the houseboat so we wouldn't float away!

And before we left, Justin had to try the big jump off the houseboat roof! He said it was fun, but scary!

Carrie's last minute beach art project before we left.

We headed home that afternoon, and boy, did we mis-time potty breaks! We pulled over to the side of the highway three times on the trip home for Carrie to use her little pink potty because we were nowhere near any towns. (I'm SO glad we brought that!)

By the time we got home we were all super tired. We had cold cereal for dinner and Carrie fell asleep before we could even say prayer and read a story. Justin had to get up early to go to work, but Carrie and I thoroughly took advantage of our vacation hangover and slept WAY in! We woke up around nine, but didn't get up and going until almost 11..... Now to clean up the vacation aftermath! We had a great time, and it's not going to be fun getting back to reality!

Radio Silence

I was talking with my mom recently and somehow it came up that I never have the radio on in my car anymore. Never.... My mom said, "That's kind of weird, I always have mine on." I couldn't come up with a real reason why I always left it off, I just said, "I guess it's just quiet in my van"....

Then today, I thought of the real reason... Carrie NEVER. Stops. Talking! :) It's hard enough to hear her and respond semi-appropriately over the necessary air conditioning! If we added in the noise of music, it would be a mad house on wheels!

It's a good thing she's cute and we can carry on a fun, happy conversation while we drive! Hopefully Carrie's endless chatter will be soothing white noise for Brigette ;)

Shark Shoes

Today I dropped off a prescription at Walmart to be filled. They said it would be ready in an hour. I didn't really feel like going home and coming back, so I decided to just walk around the store for a while. Not necessarily on purpose, but we ended up doing some seriously girlie window shopping... We started with purses, wallets (Carrie found a mini one that she fell in love with), scarves, backpacks (she's REALLY excited about getting one for school), baby clothes, crafts, hair accessories,....and then she saw the shoes....

"Oooooh Mommy! Let's go look at the shoes!" We spent at least half an hour trying on shoe after shoe after shoe... At Walmart... :) She kept high-pitched-squealing, "Ooooh! Look at these ones! They're SOOO cute!!!" What a girl!!

The best part though was when she saw a pair of blue baby shoes with sharks on them. She of course squealed, "Oh. My. Gosh. Mommy! These are so cute!".... She surprised me however, when she exclaimed, "We should totally get these for my brother Brigham! He would LOOOVE them!!!".....

Melts my heart :)

Let's Go D-Backs, Let's Go!!

Tonight we got to go to the Diamondbacks game for free! (My mom's school got tickets.) While we were waiting for my family to show up with our tickets, we went to a booth and decorated a sign for Carrie to hold up during the game. Isn't she cute?! Sadly, this moment is the only time she actually held the poster. It got rolled up, put in our bag, and never got taken out again during the game. Oh well!

 Carrie posing with D-backs Mickey Mouse!

Overly cheesy Oreo smile. Snacks are obviously the best part of the game!

She had a blast! We tried to buy her a souvenir T-shirt, but she claimed she didn't want it, and instead, begged us for a toy car- a VW van with D-backs insignia on it. She was thrilled!

Proof that we were there too :)

Sadly the D-backs lost, but at least we had fun and ate some good food- Corn dogs and cotton candy! Funny story though.... Carrie wouldn't even try the cotton candy. It was a strange thing to be trying to talk our three year old into eating straight sugar... ;)

A Little About Justin

We had date night last night! It was great to have a night with Justin! Before our date, though we got to have a quick little check on Brigette. It was a pretty simple, boring appointment. My belly measured 28 weeks (the same as it did two weeks ago. She's starting to remind me a little of Carrie with her growth patterns. It could just be because it was a different doctor this time, but we'll have another ultrasound in two weeks to check on her growth again.

Now, back to the point of this post. For our date, we grabbed some Chick-Fil-A and went to see The Avengers. Even with my very minimal knowledge of the recent movies (I've only seen the Iron Man ones), I thoroughly enjoyed it! VERY action packed, but it was still funny and entertaining. We had a great time :)

Today Justin is at an instructional reffing camp. Apparently there's only 11 or 12 people there so it should be very good for him. He'll be able to get a lot of one on one and be able to actually talk with the instructors and get advice. Hopefully this will help him network a little more and he'll be one step closer to getting on with JUCO! 

Who's Coming Over?

Almost always if I tell Carrie she needs to get dressed or clean up, she asks "Who's coming over?"... And it drives me crazy....

It's really my own fault though. Sometimes on a bad, lazy day, I'll tell her we need to hurry and get dressed because Daddy's almost home (horrible, I know). Or my piano students are going to be here soon. It's basically the same kind of thing with telling her she needs to clean up her toys. It's like she wonders "Who are we trying to impress?"... It makes me want to scream, "NOBODY! It's just us! We need to get dressed because it's daytime! We need to clean up because I don't like it when every toy you own is scattered all over the room! Getting dressed and cleaning up does not necessarily mean someone is coming over!"

Although it did today.... ;) We babysat for a friend this morning while her mom hosted preschool graduation. When Kaitlin (19 months old) got here, Carrie wanted her hair done exactly like hers. So we did.... They had a blast playing together. This is Carrie giving Kaitlin "piano lessons".

I've been trying to tackle my monster to-do list lately, but I don't feel like I'm making much progress. (Truly, it's monster.... It fills the entire side of a piece of paper, double columns, small writing). I have several big projects on there like Brigette's blessing dress (still not even started), or clean the blinds (never been done in the two years we've lived here, gross)...but mostly, I keep adding the little things to it, like eat breakfast, or shower..., just so I can cross something off. Hopefully I'll get at least a few real things done before Brigette comes!

And a random, just because picture... Carrie eating spaghetti last night.... She was so proud of her "noodle mustache" and her super messy hands. When she requested I take a picture, I couldn't resist. :)

A Day for Mom

Happy Mother's Day to me! We got a picture of me and all 3 of my kids. I think this will become a new Mother's Day tradition for me :)

And of course Happy Mother's Day to my own mother, mother-in-law, sisters, grandmas, aunts, friends.... EVERYONE!

Random Bits of Our Lives

 A few random things from the last few days. First of all, Carrie went into the kitchen a couple days ago to get a snack. When I checked on her a few minutes later, I found her munching on a tomato.... A whole tomato.... Just eating away at it like an apple! What a goofy kid!

I spent part of last night and part of this morning turning a prom dress shawl into a vest and tie combo for my little brother to wear. I wish I could say it turned out perfectly... Sadly it was a bit too small (he wasn't there for me to try it on him while I made it) and in order to wear it he had to cut it down the sides. He said he just left his suit coat on all night and it looked perfect from the front. I'm glad it worked out (kinda) ;) I also made his date's corsage. Pretty huh? Maybe by the time Carrie goes to prom I'll be up to the task of making a dress, not just a vest and tie.... Maybe ;)

We finally got our van back from the repair shop a couple days ago! This was the rental car I had for almost 2 weeks while they worked on it (paid for completely by the other driver's insurance, hallelujah!) Thankfully, they didn't total our van! Though the repairs were over $3600! That's ridiculously close to "the line" of to-total or not-to-total?.... We were definitely blessed!

A couple of days ago Carrie called out to me from her room first thing in the morning, saying, "Mommy help! I'm stuck!" I panicked a bit and went rushing in... to find her like this..... She'd gotten herself stuck in her laundry basket!

And yesterday she found my knee-high boots in my closet and wanted to put them on. You can't even call those thigh-highs on her! If they were any higher, she wouldn't be able to stand up! (Don't you love her little pose?)

Justin's grandma was on her way home to New Mexico this weekend and since we're on her way from Phoenix, we insisted she come visit us first. She was wonderful and took us out to dinner at Carrabbas for a late anniversary present.

She also took Carrie to the park. In the horrible heat! What a great Gigi!!

There Be Treasure In These Parts!

This morning we had a random fun moment. I had a piece of backing from some iron-on vinyl and Carrie saw me rolling it up and immediately said, "Oooo, a map!" So we drew a treasure map!

A very detailed treasure map! I had a ton of fun drawing it and now she's having a blast playing with it! She's been leading me all over the house today in search of "whatever". Going over the "rickety bridge", into "rainbow bluff", through "shipwreck beach", and around "mermaid island"..... LOVE the imagination this girl has!