Ben & Taylor Time

Well...we got to keep Ben and Taylor last night and we had tons of fun with them both. Chris decided that he wanted Ben & Taylor to have the joy of building a bird house as well so they got right to doing that when we got to the house. Ben designed it and then they both painted it.























They also like to dig in the sand or dirt...and we planted seeds with them as well. Ben insisted on us planting some soy beans that we had ate earlier in the day. But we planted peas and bluebonnets too.






















Ben and Chris built a tent in our living room for them to sleep in, which was definitely exciting for all. Here is a picture of the tent and then when they were getting ready for bed

















Taylor requested that I paint her nails (toes and fingers!) and she quickly decided on both orange and pink, explaining to me that "orange is my favorite color, pink is my favorite color". And she also specified which foot would be pink and which would be orange. Her nails were done the same, one hand pink and one orange. We added butterfly details to both the nails and toes.

















Then here is a super cute picture of them ready for church. They love each other.

And Ben also enjoys the chalkboard door. Here is a pic of him making a mean face like his T-Rex that he colored.

And last but not least, Taylor is full of funny stories and I just happened to get her to tell me one of her "bedtime" stories underneath the tent last night...let me know what you think of this funny girl. I think she must have some disturbing dreams...

Crazy Girly Weekend

This past weekend, Chris and I had all of our girls for the weekend. We kept both Jules and Mia on Friday and Saturday night. Atlee stayed with us as well on Saturday. We had an exciting and event-filled weekend with our girls.

Chris says that girls are a lot of work and I said, NO, that is just KIDS in general...not just girls!! I love my little ladies, so I can't let him think that little boys are so much better, because that is just not the case...I have babysat before in my younger years and let me tell you there is an equal mixture of orneriness in each gender, it just depends on the child itself.

Back to the original subject. On Friday night when we got Mia and Jules I picked them up and we came back to our house to which Chris had all kinds of fun stuff planned for them. A couple of weekends ago they started building a bird house and so Chris had plans of them finishing it this weekend. So Chris had gathered up a ton of sticks from the front yard to glue to the rooftop of our bird house. The girls were interested in the sticks just not so much on the gluing them on part, so I did most of that myself. Spencer is way more entertaining than gluing a bunch of sticks on a bird house. It turned out really cute with the sticks on the roof though. Chris grilled hot dogs for our little ladies and then he thought it would be fun if they got inside the pool and played in the sand, so that is what the girls did until it got too dark outside. They had such a blast making sand angels and building things in the sand...it was hilarious.





















































Saturday Morning: Chris had to be at work at 5:30 AM and so I took the girls with me to work the Bridgeport Cleanup. They thought that it took entirely too long to get there but were excited to see the Lake (Yake according to Jules) . We had a caricature artist, a face painter and balloon artist, so the girls were extremely excited about all of those (well Jules wasn't too fond of the caricature artist, but I got her to sit on my lap for it anyways). The thing that was the "hit" of the day was these small red bags that were first aid kits that the Lake Bridgeport Fire Department gave out. After I took out everything that might be harmful to a small child, they had a ton of fun playing with them. They both ended up with multiple band aids on their legs because they had to "doctor" each other for fictitious booboo's. I was exhausted by the time we got back from the clean up, both of the girls had small naps during the drive home, but they were not long enough. I declared a quiet time when we got back, but neither of them fell back asleep. Atlee came around 4:00 and then we did the second part of Chris' plan and we painted the bird house. This was interesting to say the least...little Miss Atlee was not too good at following directions and kept painting on her body rather than the bird house and then I just gave up with her rinsing her brush out when she wanted to use a different color. I just started having a clean brush ready for her each time and changed brushes with her. We did finally get it painted though and even though Levi said that most birds would be too frightened to live there, I think the girls had fun and did a good job painting it. Then Chris decided that since they love to dig in the dirt so much we were going to let them plant some flower seeds. My dad and my grandma came over just to hang out on Saturday night and Dad assisted the girls and Chris in planting their little flower seeds. They put little flags with their names on it to show where their seeds are planted.

















Sunday was more of a free for all day where we just played all day. There were two cute photo opportunities this day. One, all the girls were hiding in my closet trying to scare me and they come out looking like this:




















Two, they all had to have one of Chris' hats to wear and this is what they chose:















OH and I forgot to mention our newest renovation in the house...we painted the door to the garage in the kitchen with chalkboard paint and the girls love it! A great idea by my mom-in-law!



















And now for a video of the little cowgirls...I found this very amusing.

Springtime...

Well I got the idea to take some pictures of some pretty girls with some pretty springtime flowers and here are a few of my favorite results. (Connie helped me play with photoshop and I enhanced several of the pictures...haha, fun!)

Rose "Garden"

I have a rose garden (or at least that is what I am going to call it). This all started when our wonderful friends Chris and Anjolee gave us one knock out rose bush for a house warming gift. We decided that it would be pretty to plant outside our dining room windows, so when they went on sale at Chris' Lowe's we bought two more. I am hoping that one day they will be tall enough to peek in through the windows and be beautiful for all to see! Here is what they look like now...I just pruned them this morning.

I know they look tiny, but they are growing suprisingly fast.

Here are some that I picked to put in a tiny vase on our dining room table. Aren't they beautiful?!

Levi's Birthday

Levi's birthday was fun as usual...with his request of crab legs and steaks for those who don't prefer crab. It was funny when Mia decided to be so polite and said "I will start with the crab first"...as we all sat in shock, I did as requested and put a crab leg on her plate to which she sniffed and decided she wasn't going to eat. Then we all laughed and she got embarrassed which resulted in this:

I don't want to eat that crab leg

Getting ready to blow out the candles

Atlee actually did say Cheese!

Jules and Chris with their crazy faces on

Close UP!

Sorry to disappoint, but I have no birthday song for Levi's birthday, since we aren't any good at it, I am sure you are not that upset. My camera decided to wig out (well maybe it was an accidental operator error) right around the time of the birthday song.

One more video...

And here is the last video from Saturday March 30. Atlee and her "clubhouse"



Ok, so if you didn't pay attention to Jules the first time around, watch Jules...you can see her in the curtains with a flashlight at the beginning and then mid-movie she shines the flashlight right in the camera and gives a very serious look...I am cracking up right now!!