We love Em and Grace!

We had a great visit from my best friend from college, Emily, and her daughter, Grace. Grace is 7 months younger than Jacob and both Jacob and Gwyn LOVED having them at our house. The kids played and Em and I got to hang out, she is due 2 days after me, so Brian had two pregnant women and three kids under the age of three at the house!

Pretty much anything Jacob did, Grace would then try to do, and then pretty much anything Grace did, Gwyn would try to do. The kids played well together and after they left Jacob said "I want my Em and Grace." It was pretty sweet!

Gwyn got her toenails painted for the first time (Grace had hers painted). She sat really still and wanted the other foot painted after I finished the first one.

Jacob has a few toads that live under these rocks in a hole by our walkway. He likes to go out every night and see if they've come out before he goes to bed. He's started to place these little plastic bugs that he has for his sandbox out front each night so that his toads can play with them. Each night, Brian goes outside after Jacob has gone to bed and moves the bugs around in different positions so that when Jacob goes out to look at his bugs the next morning, they are in a totally different place because the toads played with them so much the night before. Brian has had them trying to crawl up plants, sitting on rocks, under leaves, and even hugging each other. Jacob thinks it is the coolest thing that his toads like to play with his bugs.

Gwyn has started to say quite a few words and is obsessed right now with babies. She's constantly carrying one around with her, pushing a doll or stuffed animal in the stroller, and now has to take one in the car. She even had to carry one in to Jacob's school last week when he went for a few days of Summer Fun Days that they had. She's pretty cute with them.

Green Day

Jacob and Gwyn are really starting to play so good together. He's starting to really take care of her, as well as get her into trouble along with him. He usually calls her baby, since he couldn't say Gwyn for so long, but sometimes he still calls her baby Gwyn or Sissy, but lately, it has been shortened to Babe. He'll say, "here, babe" or "come here babe" or "like this, babe." It is pretty funny to hear him call her that. She goes along with whatever he says.

Jacob is still our picky eater, and sometimes it will seem he will have a few bites of something and that gets him through the day, who knows where his energy comes from?!?! Gwyn is our little eater, the other night she finished her plate, Jacob had gotten down to go play and she walked around to his chair, wanted up in it, and then proceeded to finish off his plate (which had barely been touched).

Another funny thing is that I love these Dove chocolates (I'll claim it is due to pregnancy that I HAVE to have at least two / day) that I put in the freezer, and I don't give them to the kids (I know, I'm selfish). Anyway, I had gotten two out and eaten one, and then Gwyn got up from her nap, so I went and got her up and came back in the living room and I had to sneak the other one in my mouth so she wouldn't see it. Well, she didn't see me eat it, but she saw me chewing and came over to try to pry my mouth open to see what was inside because she wanted one...I ended up giving her an m&m.

Jason came over Saturday night to watch both kids (for the first time) so Brian and I could go out to dinner to celebrate our 9 yr anniversary. We left him at 8, and I think Gwyn went to sleep at about 8:30-8:45 and Jacob finally was asleep by 9:30 or so. They did pretty well with Jason, they both love him so much, but Jacob did manage to get Jason to feed him pizza at 9 and get two drinks of Dr. Pepper. He also tried to get him to sleep with him, but Jason said no, and he eventually went to sleep.

Jacob is still all about the color green. Everything in his life is about getting as much green stuff as possible. From the moment he wakes up he wants a green straw, green lid, and green cup for his milk. He wants to wear a green shirt, green shorts, green shoes, and if he had them, green socks. He wants green m&m's for potty training. He wants a green bowl for his snack. He wants a green juice box, he wants a green fruit roll up. He wants a green plate for dinner. He wants to play with the green legos, he wants a green bike, everything is GREEN! Brian taught him to say "Green Day" when asked what his favorite band is.

The kids got some matching pjs, Jacob still loves monkeys so they both got monkey ones and of course, Jacob's are green!

On another note, we're getting excited about our summer. We've got a trip planned to Oklahoma to visit family and friends, a trip planned to Florida to visit John and Claudia, we're celebrating Jacob's 3rd Birthday in July, along with Brian's birthday. We've got visits planned from Rick, Sue, Stacy, Justin, and Brian's Grandpa, as well as Emily and Grace.

Summer Fun has Begun!

Playing in the pool is a daily event at our house. The neighborhood pool opened up a couple of weekends ago, and will FINALLY open up during the week on Monday. For now, we've been having our own fun in the backyard. Here are the kids waiting on Carter to come over to play outside in our pool:

We also took a trip over to Noah's Ark last week. The kids LOVED it, Jacob went down the slide all by himself several times, if you notice in the picture he's got that Katterhenry tongue sticking out whenever he's really concentrating on something.

Gwyn had fun too, she just likes to splash, and plop down.

Jacob was napping and Gwyn and I were putting laundry away, she was sitting with her back to me on the floor in the bathrrom just kind of bobbing her head around and I just thought, whatever she was doing was keeping her busy and out of trouble while I was putting all the laundry in our room away...well, she wasn't really staying out of trouble:

Duplo legos are still a daily hit at our house, and Jacob is into building his own creations...this one he was really proud of because the giraffe had food to eat!

Here are a couple of videos that I thought were cute:

Summer is here!

We have had a busy week. We started the week off with a birthday celebration for Jason...Brian made Jason a cake with Jason's oil company name and logo on it...LongBow. We had a good time.

The next highlight was the kids got their new shoes! Both got new crocs and both got new tennis shoes. We had to take Gwyn's back because her little foot was just a little too thick for the shoes. Jacob LOVES his puma shoes, they make him super fast. The kids grow in and out of shoes so fast, it is amazing how fast their little feet grow!

Here is how Jacob eats his apples:

Here is Gwyn being sillly:
We went to a bounce place on Friday with some friends, the kids had alot of fun. Gwyn isn't interested in the bounce houses, she just wants to play on their indoor play houses. Jacob likes to bounce, or climb, or whatever the bigger kids are doing.

Jason took some pictures of us at a park, and here are the results. He did a pretty good job, it is hard to get everyone to look at the camera, and we don't even try to get them to smile because that is NOT going to happen.

We finished out the weekend with having Brad, Erika, and their daughter Maddy over for Memorial Day. It was fun seeing the kids together, they used to play together every week during their first year, and now we just don't get to see them that often.

Oh, and we did get our new TV, so no more double vision!!

Birthday confusion and pigtails

We have had a pretty good week. They celebrated all the summer birthdays during chapel at school on Wednesday, so Jacob got to go up with all the kids and have them sing to him. He thought he was pretty cool in his birthday hat and birthday button, which he has wanted to wear every day since then. He got a little confused about all the birthday talk, and he told a couple of people since then that he was 3. He also talks nonstop about his Wall-E cake, which is what he wants for his third birthday...he has pretty much mentioned something about a Wall-E cake every single day for the past 6 months, so Brian has alot to live up to!

I put pigtails in Gwyn's hair for the first time today. She was SOOOO cute!

My car is having lots of problems, from the transmission, to alignment/balance issues, to a couple of funny different noises that sound awfully similar to what Brian's old probe did just before it caught on fire! So, this next week we are hoping to get it all taken care of so that I can have a reliable car. Besides that, Jacob and I were watching Little Einsteins on Thursday and our TV screen went all green/purple and funny, it started showing two people instead of one person??? I just called Brian laughing, to tell him the good news, that we have to also get a new TV....when it rains, it pours!!

I'm thankful to be a Mom this week

Well, we had a good week and a good weekend. Mother's Day was nice, Brian steamed some king crab legs for me on Sunday evening. Oh, and when I say king crab legs, I mean KING crab legs...each leg was about 3 ft long. They were awesome, and made me wonder what Deadliest Catch boat they came off of...probably the Wizard.

I am very thankful for my two precious kids this week, and the third on that is on its way...October will be here before we know it! Jacob made me a couple of things in school for mother's day, he was pretty proud of them:

Here are just a few pictures from this week. We've still been playing outside alot, but the weather seemed to have went form the 70s to 90s (not sure where the 80s went), and it gets hot and muggy pretty fast when we are outside. So, we've been taking advantage of our little pool outside, and we are hoping to start making regular trips to the neighborhood pool in the next week or so.

My book group is reading The Shack this month, I know lots of people have read it and recommended it, and it will be good to hear what some of the other moms have to say about it. I plan to start it this week.

Gwyn had her 15 month appointment this morning. She screamed bloody murder when they put her up on the scale to weigh her...just like any girl! She was 95% in height and 75% in weight, she is growing fine. She is starting to repeat pretty much anything you tell her to, her regular words are mama, dada, bubba, Jay, ball, nana, papa, G, hot, and cheese.

April showers bring May flowers

I can't believe it is already May. We got SO much rain here in Houston this last week, we are ready for the May flowers to come and the rain to go away! Brian's main route to work is still under water, so he's having to go alternative routes which really extends his commute. We didn't flood, but several people we know in surrounding neighborhoods flooded, we just go so much rain in a short period of time.

This should be a fun month, I'm looking forward to Mother's Day next weekend (yes, I put that in here just so Brian would remember!), my brother's birthday is the following weekend, we'll have a three day weekend with Memorial Day, and the weather here in Houston is still really nice, so we're planning lots of outdoor activities. The kids have just really started playing together all the time, Gwyn is still a little young to hang with Jacob, but she tries! I took this after we had come home from Costco, I was putting some other things away and then found the kids making a tower out of Kleenex, toiletpaper, and papertowels.

This has been a pretty fun week, Jacob's preschool class went on a class fieldtrip to the zoo, and I got to go with him. Jacob had so much fun, and LOVED his mommy being with him. His favorite animal is the giraffe, but he could have spent all day in from of the meercats. We had a little free time, which he chose to get a red icee and ride the carosel three times.

Gwyn, in the meantime, was getting some one on one time with her Uncle Jason, who volunteered to watch her while we were gone to the zoo. Jason had never changed a diaper before, and apparently God answered his prayers because he only had to change one wet one while we were gone!

Stacy had bought both kids slippers at Christmas, Jacob got some green crocodile ones, and Gwyn got these little snowmen ones. Well, both kids this week have decided that anytime they are in the house, it is slipper time, so they have worn them constantly. The fun wore off for Jacob after about three days, but Gwyn is still demanding to have her slippers on ALL THE TIME! This was today after we got home from church.

On Saturday, I attended a MOMS Club State Luncheon here in Houston. There were over 200 stay at home moms from Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. It was great to get away for the day, here some stories from other moms, hang out with my moms club friends, have a couple of meals without having to entertain kids, etc. Brian took care of the kids all day Saturday and took them to church on Sunday. Jason came over to give him some help for a few hours yesterday, and apparently they managed just fine. Gwyn didn't miss me at all, but Jacob was ready for me to come home, but not as much as Brian was!!