Everything is better with Mom around...

Well, we just finished up having my mom in town for 5 days. She is such a blessing. I was able to get so much done, from eye and dentist appointments, to shopping, post office, hair cut, errands, cleaning, and of course, I got caught up on scrapbooking, which I only get to do twice a year when she comes into town and wrangles the kids for me in order to give me a few solid blocks of time. I know she went back home exhausted, but I just wanted to say THANK YOU MOM, I LOVE YOU!!

Anyways (gramatically incorrect, but I had to put it in just for my Dad to get to correct me), we had a fun week, the kids love their Nana and we all took full advantage of her being here, I haven't changed a diaper since last Tuesday afternoon!! I did have to share her with Jason...he was back in town after a long trip to Tulsa, then LA, and then San Francisco. She got a short break by spending some time with him, and the two of us did get to go get pedicures, which I desperately needed...the lady who did mine asked if I went barefoot alot...that is code for your feet are terrible!

We took the kids to try to get their pictures in their Easter outfits, and we did get a couple cute ones...

The remaining 50+ pictures pretty much look like this...

Jacob can ride his tricycle!

Jacob had a big accomplishment this week, he learned to ride his tricycle. He loves it, and it is surprising how good he has become in just a few days. He can go really fast, and even turns really well.

Here are a couple of videos:





Gwyn is not in the videos very much because when we are outside playing she has a mission: she goes into the garage and gets one ball at a time, takes it down to the street, and then goes back into the garage and gets another one. She does this pretty much from the time we go outside until we go back inside. One other thing, she is a little copycat and has started to pray with us at dinner. She puts her hands together like everyone else, it is so precious!

Thirty...

I turned 30 last week! We had a babysitter (who we saw at Pei Wei today and Jacob totally freaked out because his friend Meg was there), and went out to dinner last Sunday evening, and on my actual birthday (Tuesday) we ate Carrabba's takeout wood fired pizzas and Brian got me a cake...he did pretty good!

My birthday was fun, I love spending time with my family, and that is what I got to do. I guess I am where I thought I would be at 30, so I didn't really have any breakdown about leaving my twenties behind. I am excited about my 30's, to me the 30's seem to be a sweet time in the life of a mother, so I'm excited about what these next 10 years are going to bring. Thanks to everyone for the sweet birthday wishes!

We had a pretty exciting week. The firetruck came to my Moms Club meeting, and Jacob loved it. He wore his firetruck shirt, and made sure to show the fireman his shirt. He's big into water hoses, so he wasn't shy at all and went up and touched the hose off the firetruck twice. We also went to Chuck E. Cheese, Jacob runs through tokens so quickly that I have to ration his out...I am getting a taste of what I did to my mom and dad!

Jacob had alot of fun with Brian this weekend, they built a fort in his room (they let Gwyn in for a little while since she brought in a pack of m&m's with her), and Brian and Jacob built a little air trike, something they picked up at Hobby Lobby while I was shopping for some scrapbook paper.

Up close picture of the air trike...

The fort:

Jacob being silly:

Gwyn is starting to become so much fun! Her favorite game is to be chased, she wants someone to be chasing her all the time which can be exhausting, but usually Jacob is willing to do it. She likes to be tickled underneath her chin. I found out that she loves Chuck E. Cheese, thank goodness she doesn't know about the whole token thing yet, but she just wants to walk all around, press buttons, and climb up on the games. She is actually alot of work, I even lost her for a few minutes one time, I could see her head one minute, I turned around to get Jacob another token, and then I back around and she was gone...to be found about a minute later at the entire opposite end of the place! She is a little copycat, she tries to copy any sound or word you say and she loves to make fish faces. Good news - her smashed fingernail fell off this last week and her new nail is growing back!! I'm super relieved and excited, I keep thanking God that her finger has been totally healed!

Here is a picture in Gwyn in the dress that Sue made for her. She looks so cute in this dress!

Strawberries and a Cowboy

This has been a fun week for us. It was Western Day at Jacob's preschool in honor of the Rodeo here in Houston. We're hoping to make it out there this year, because we think Jacob would really enjoy all the animals. He was super excited to wear his cowboy hat and bandanas. I had three for him to choose one to wear around his neck, but he wanted to wear all three, so we put one around his neck, one around his waist, and one around his hat. He thought he was pretty cool. They even brought some longhorns to the school, Jacob was mooing at them on the way inside.

Gwyn is growing in and out of shoes so fast, she got a pair of pink low top converse shoes, and she really liked them!

We also went to the strawberry patch this morning. Our kids go through about 3 cartons a week, so I knew they were going to go crazy, especially Gwyn who can almost put away an entire carton by herself while I'm in the grocery store. Needless to say, the pictures explain it all! There are quite a few, but I just couldn't decide which ones to put in the blog since there were too many.







Gwyn sometimes had a hard time pulling the strawberries off the vine, she just wasn't strong enough, so it made her pretty mad...

But Gwyn found a way around that problem, she would just eat straight from the plants!

There are much fewer pictures of Jacob, but it was because he was running around crazy most of the time and wouldn't pose like Gwyn would, she pretty much stayed in one place and ate strawberry after strawberry after strawberry.

Here they are sharing the loot, we couldn't trust Gwyn to ride in the wagon along with the strawberries, so Brian had to carry them out.

March is here!

I can't believe March is here, I'll be 30 in 9 more days!!! Even though this month means I'll be leaving my 20s behind, it should be a great month. We plan to go strawberry picking next weekend, spend Sunday afternoons at Discovery Green park downtown for the farmers market and "Sundays in the Park" which has a live band, Jacob will have Spring Break, my mom is coming to visit for 5 days at the end of March, and this weather here in Houston is so awesome that we'll be spending LOTS of time outside!

This is the only picture this week where I have captured Jacob looking at the camera and smiling. He is either too busy or runs off and thinks it is a funny game. We did go to the bike store on Friday, and Jacob hopped up on a little bike with training wheels and over a period of 15 minutes he really got pedalling. We were super excited and can't wait to try it out on his trike at home, but it was a big chilly yesterday...maybe this afternoon. He also learned to climb the rock wall on his swingset that Brian built, I couldn't believe he was like Spiderman scaling up it all by himself.

Here is Gwyn in her car...it is actually Jacob's car, but she drives it ALL the time. If you ever can't find her in the house, go look in the playroom and you'll find her in the car, because that is where she sneaks off to by herself. Jacob has even shown her how to buckle herself in, and she does, everytime!

This is a picture at Terry Hershey Park, we meet Brian there for lunch on Tuesdays. Both kids hardly eat any lunch because they are always too excited to run around and feed the ducks (we feed them the kid's lunch that they didn't eat).

I had to put this picture on here even though I sent it out to many people this last week, I just can't believe how grown up she is, and she is turning in to the cutest little girl! We all love her so much!