Friday night pictures

Paul, Meghan, & Jimmy. Why do Meghan's eyes always end up like this in pictures?

Max playing peek-a-boo through the doggie door

Meghan peeking through

Max wants to come out and enjoy the ice cream eating fun!

Corry enjoying a mini-ice cream cone

Drew enjoying his mini-ice cream cone

Calyn posing with her mini-ice cream cone

3 ice cream eating kiddos on the back porch. Please excuse the messiness & ripped smoker cover :)

Corry's enrolled in preschool!

Yikes! I enrolled Corry in preschool this evening at The Woodlands United Methodist Church - the same church where Olech & Lindsay got married. She will start in the 4 year old program this fall. She will go on Tuesdays & Thursdays from 9:00am to 1:00pm which will work out perfectly for me. I generally go into work at 9:00am & its only a couple blocks from my office, so I will be able to take a late lunch to pick her up and get her to Grandma Cheb's house when school is over.

My first choice was the MWF program, but it was already full. I kept going back & forth between the T-Th class & the MWF class & ultimately put MWF as my 1st choice, but I was perfectly fine when they told me that one was full. Classes filled with children who are already in the program, then their siblings, & then open enrollment which was us, obviously. They did it based on a lottery system, so each person got a number when they walked in. They pulled the numbers out of a basket & you got to go up based on when you were drawn. Corry & I were pretty near the front, so we didn't have to be wait-listed! We've heard nothing but positive things about their program, so hopefully this will be a good fit for our little princess.

I can't even begin to describe the anxiety I already feel over her being enrolled in preschool. Sometimes I wish she could stay a baby forever, but I know that's not possible, so here's our first big step! I hope she loves school. She's hoping to learn how to read in preschool.

That's our big news for the evening....ready for the weekend!!!

Why?

Drew's favorite new phrase is Why? I'm so exhausted from answering this question to EVERYTHING. Some examples:

This morning when he woke up he said "Where's my daddy?"

My answer: "He's at work"
Drew: Why?
Me: Because he has to make money
Drew: Why?
Me: So that we will have food to eat, a place to live, and toys to play with
Drew: Why?
and on and on.

This evening we went to Lupe Tortilla's to eat at Corry's request. They have a big sand box play area that the kids love to play in. When we left they were covered in sand, so Jimmy told them they needed to take a bath as soon as we got home.

Drew: Why?
Jimmy: So we can get all the sand off
Drew: Why?
Corry: I don't want to take a bath
Me: Okay, then we'll just hose you off in the front yard
Corry: That's a great idea!
Jimmy: It would be really cold water if we did that
Drew: Why?
Jimmy: Because the outside hose isn't attached to the water heater so the water is really cold
Drew: Why?
Jimmy: Because it comes out of the ground and the water isn't heated in the ground
Drew: Why?
Me: Don't kids have a way of making you feel really inadequate?
Corry: Yes they do!

Example 3:
Out of the blue Drew announced that he didn't want to get his hair cut (it wasn't even mentioned, so I'm not sure where it came from)
Me: You don't have to get your hair cut
Drew: Why?

I don't really have much else - I figured he'd hold off on the why's for a little longer, but no such luck. Corry has gotten better with her questions, so I was hoping for a little reprieve before Drew jumped in there. I guess he felt the need to keep us all on our toes!

The food police strikes again

I can't believe I forgot to include this in my stories from the weekend. Friday night Jimmy made steak for our Crown & Coke night. A little later on in the evening Calyn was asking for a snack, so she & I were standing in the pantry together while she tried to decide what she wanted. She suddenly turned towards me, poked me in the stomach & asked "Is that a bunch of steak in that chubby tummy?"

So, even Aunt Meme is not immune to the food police. I guess I ought to heed her advice & cut back on so much steak, especially if I have to get into a bathing suit in another couple months.

Boys don't have pony tails

Busy weekend as usual - Mom was kind enough to keep the kids for me all day on Friday which gave me the opportunity to go through the playroom & do a major over-haul. We had toys out the wazoo, the biggest majority of them the kids never play with. I had several big tubs full of toys to take to Goodwill. I also had 2 high chairs, a jumparoo, an exersaucer, and various other baby items. Jimmy loaded up his truck with the red couch, my old daybed, & an old full sized bed frame that used to be his parents. I stopped at my office with my carload of stuff to see if any of the people I work with that either have kids, know someone with small kids, or have grandkids wanted anything. They were able to use quite a bit of the stuff that I had, so I ended up only taking a few things to Goodwill. As long as its going to good use & isn't in my house anymore I didn't care where it ended up! I'm just glad someone was able to use it all. It made me a little sad to see all their baby things go, but at the same time its a good feeling to be able to clear some of it out!

Friday night we booked our cruise for our 10th anniversary in May. Deachi & Matt are going with us. It will be so romantic. :) We're excited to have them go along with us. That way when Deachi & I want to crash early, the guys can stay up and entertain each other. Matt's been on a cruise before, but none of the rest of us have.

Saturday the kids had gymnastics, then I had a massage & pedicure which was wonderful. When I got home we cleared all the furniture out of our bedroom & ripped out the carpet & pad. Jimmy spent the evening scraping the glue off the floor.

Today Jimmy vacuumed all the dust & bits of carpet pad out of the bedroom & then we put a sealer on the slab that has to go on to help the leveler adhere better. While it dried we took the kids to eat at PF Changs by the mall. Our waiter's name was Edward & he had really long hair pulled back in a pony tail. Towards the end of our meal Edward was boxing up our stuff. As he walked away Corry said "Daddy, boys don't wear pony tails." Fortunately Edward wasn't at our table when she commented on his hairstyle of choice. Jimmy & I got a chuckle out of it, and explained to her that there are some guys that prefer to wear their hair long. She just didn't quite understand that one.

After lunch we walked around & looked at the water fountains & then they got to ride the carousel. Corry chose the kitty cat to ride & Drew chose the Frog. After the ride we had ice cream & then headed home.

Jimmy poured the leveler on the floor of the bedroom. After it dried we checked for additional low spots. Surprisingly, the bedroom is pretty level. There are only a couple places that need some work. Hopefully he'll be able to start on the baseboards early this week. They should be a lot less challenging than the dining room - only one outside corner!

While we were checking for low spots the kids discovered the greatest toy of all times as you will see below in the video clips. These kept them entertained for a good hour.

Hope everyone had a good weekend! Mine went WAY too fast!

Meghan in the bedroom after all the furniture had been moved out, but before the carpet was ripped up.

And our insanely cheap babysitters we hired for the evening in the 3 video clips below.

A fun but very busy Thursday

First off, my apologies to Grandma - I forgot to bring my camera today, so the only pictures I have are from after the outing when we got home, so none of Calyn & Max.

We started off the day with a tour of the Catholic school & church with all 4 kids & Grandma Chebs. Corry was so excited to see what "preschool is all about." We got to see the computer lab, the 4 year old PreK classroom, the library, the gymnasium, the cafeteria, & the playground. The school is small, but very nice. I'm having a little bit of sticker shock, however. I'm going to call around to some other church preschools in our area to get comparison prices. I was really only wanting to do a Tuesday Thursday or Monday Wednesday Friday program, but the Catholic school PreK4 program is 5 days a week and the only available spot is in the afternoon from 12:15-3:15 which would be really inconvenient for Mom becausee of the time the other kids would be napping. I'm just not sure Jimmy & I can swing leaving work every day of the week to get her to & from school. I've looked at the schedules for the Methodist preschool (the church where Olech & Lindsay got married) and they do have a T/Th & a MWF schedule available & the times are a lot more in line with what we could more easily accomodate. The price was quite a bit less as well. We'll see.

After the tour of the preschool we had to stop & fill up with gas. The pay at the pump feature was not being kind to me, and just as I began to swear at the pump the gas station worker came around the car to help me out. Apparently he sensed my frustrations because he said "It's pissing you off, isn't it?" I asked him if I could just pay inside, & he said yes that he would go turn on the pump for me. When I went in to pay he asked me if I was feeling better. As I was walking out the door he told me to "try not to hurt anybody." I guess I must have looked really mad or something.

We then took the kids to Taco Bueno for lunch. Calyn managed to spill 90% of the contents of her crispy beef taco onto the floor under our booth. That along with some wrappers, napkins, & plasticware it was quite a mess, so I told Mom that I was going to crawl under there and at least try to get it into a pile so it wasn't as huge of a mess for someone to clean up. While I was under there, Drew took it upon himself to dig my keys out of my purse & proceeded to try & use them to "unlock" the door of Taco Bueno. While Mom was rounding him back up, I came out from under the table to find Miss Calyn standing in the middle of the table playing with the light fixtures overhead. I immediately starting cracking up, but tried to quickly stiffle it and let Calyn know she needed to get down and that it was unacceptable to be standing on the table top. Of course she knew I thought it was funny, so she was grinning from ear to ear. When Mom saw what was going on she said "I think we've lost control here." I don't know what would make her say at thing like that. It was quite an adventure. I'm sure the other diners in the restaurant thought we were completely unsuitable guardians for these 4 little munchkins!

After lunch the kids went back to Grandma Chebs house for naptime & I went & picked up Jimmy to get passport pics taken & then to apply for our passports. I thought it was going to be a long drawn out process, but I picked him up at 12:40 & had him back to his office at 1:23 & we even went into Popeye's Chicken so he could eat some lunch. Much quicker process than I had anticipated.

After I dropped Jimmy off I went to take our stuff to the tax man. He did an interview to find out everything he needed to know - I gave him all the stuff, and as he was entering everything into his system he lost the network connection & could never get it back. He's going to mail me a copy of everything & is supposed to call me with the verdict once he gets back up & running. I was really hoping to know what kind of a refund we are looking at, but oh well. Hopefully he'll give me a call in the next couple days.

This evening we went to dinner & then came home. Jimmy & I moved all the dining room furniture back into the room & I put the china cabinet back together. He hasn't gotten the transition piece cut & put on yet. I'm guessing that will come tomorrow. We'll start in on our bedroom this weekend which means we'll be moving upstairs for awhile.

Here are some pictures from this evening:

Corry giving me a big cheese while holding her best buddy, Milo.

Corry & Drew kicking back, sucking a little thumb, & watching some cartoons.

A really blurry picture of Drew, but I thought it was too cute of a smile to just delete.

And the dining room all put back together

Finally off for Christmas

I wasn't able to take time off at Christmas because things were so chaotic at work. So, I decided to take the rest of the week off. It will still be crazy busy, but at least I'll get some things accomplished.

Tomorrow we are taking Corry to tour preschool. As I was putting her to bed tonight she said "I can't wait to see what preschool is all about!" She's so cute. Hopefully she'll continue with her enthusiasm when its actually time to start preschool. This will be her first activity where Calyn isn't there too. Since Calyn is born past the cut-off, she & Drew will actually be in the same grade even though she & Corry are closer in age. It will be good for them though.

Jimmy & I are also going to go get our passports & I'm going to take all our tax stuff to the tax guy tomorrow afternoon.

Friday I plan to gut the playroom. We have soooooooo many toys and no place to put them all. A lot of the toys never get played with anymore, so they are going to goodwill. Mom has offered to keep the kids at her house so that I can tackle without them around. Whenever I try to go through things with them there we end up keeping everything. Wish me luck!

All that's left on the dining room now is for Jimmy to cut & install the transition piece between the tile & laminate. Then we can move the furniture back in & start in on our bedroom. We're getting there, slowly, but surely.

I'll try to take some pictures of the kids tomorrow to post. They are looking forward to having an adventure in the morning (touring the preschool & church).

Fixing the Rules

Over the weekend Drew took his balloon into the kitchen & knocked over Aunt Deachi's wine glass which shattered all over the kitchen floor (just a cheapie wine glass, no big loss). So the kids were told no more balloons in the kitchen. Last night while we were filling nail holes & caulking Drew waltzed into the kitchen with his balloon & announced "I breaking the rules!" Jimmy asked him why he was breaking the rules so he walked back out of the kitchen and said "I fixed the rules!"

I guess if you're gonna break them, you might as well fix them too!

A witty little 3 year old

Corry has been cracking me up the last couple days. She continues to amaze us with her vocabulary while also making us realize how important it is to really watch what we are saying, because even if we think she's not listening, or doesn't understand, that's not always the case.

Yesterday afternoon she started sniffing my shirt. When I asked her what she was doing she told me she was checking to see if I was any good. When I asked her what the verdict was, she told me I was "delicious" and then started cracking up.

Last night I accidentally pinched her finger in her carseat. Lots of tears were shed & when we got home she insisted on having a bandaid. Even though there was no blood, a bandaid seemed to make her finger all better. Today she asked Aunt Deachi to take the bandaid off because her "wound" was feeling much better. I don't even know where she picked up that one.

Lastly, this evening her leg brushed up against mine and she said "Ouch! That feels just like a prickly thorn bush." I guess that tells you something about the condition of my legs :)

I just can't believe my baby isn't a baby anymore. Every day she turns into more and more of a big girl.

Drew was up to his usual tricks this evening. He's decided its a fun game to keep coming out of his room after we put him to bed. Its so exhausting. I hate getting onto him because he flashes that great big grin of his & starts dancing around, but the bedtime ritual seems to be getting longer & longer. I really hope this is a phase & he outgrows it soon. He is just so different from Corry in every way. I know that's a good thing - I want them to be their own unique individuals, I just wish he was a little more of a people pleaser like his big sister.

Well, enough of my rambling on - it just seems like most of my posts lately are all about our home improvement projects & not so much about these precious little people in our lives! Hope everyone has a good week!

Mostly Finished!

Well, the dining room is now mostly finished. The floors are down, the baseboards are on, now all that's left is caulking, filling nail holes, sanding, painting, & putting down the transition piece. We should be finished within the next couple of days. While I contantly give Jimmy crap for being so slow, he is extremely meticulous, & this dining room had many challenges. Not so much for the flooring, but the baseboards. We have rounded corners in our house, so at each corner there ends up being an extra piece of baseboard that has to be cut, and they are very small pieces. Jimmy said we have 24 rounded corners to deal with in our house, & 12 of them are in the dining room. So here are some pictures of the almost finished product.

This is the part of the dining room that was most time consuming

The floors all completed

Corry & Drew playing with their Dominoes in the study

Cute little Drewski

Drewski practicing some piano. Don't you love his new Wonder Pets cape?

Drewski's favorite internet link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rYXmWY9HY4

Drewski prefers to watch this over and over. He knows most of the words :)

Happy Birthday Great Grandma Bullard!

Grandma Chebs, Great Grandma Bullard, & Auntie M got back from their cruise today. The kids were happy to have everyone back. Tonight we went to dinner to celebrate Great Grandma's upcoming 81st birthday. Here are some fun pics from the evening

Uncle Olech & Baby Max

I couldn't decide which pic I liked best, so both of them made the blog today.

Baby Max having some fun with an enormous serving spoon. Doesn't take much to entertain them when they're this age!

Great Grandma getting ready to blow out her candles

Uncle Matt making a silly face with Corry & Calyn on his lap

Uncle Olech & Drewski Brewski

And last but not least, my personal favorite from the evening. I was attempting to get a picture with both my babies in it, and Drew felt it appropriate to show everyone the results of Grandma Chebs breast reduction surgery from last year. I think Grandma's face says it all!

Dining Room & Kiddo Update

This week Grandma Chebs has been on a cruise, so Grandpa Bob stepped up to the plate & has been watching the kids for us. I did take off Tuesday morning so that I could help get kids to dance class. According to Grandpa, they've treated him pretty well this week. Drew has even peed on the potty for Grandpa & for us a few times. He's really good at peeing on command....we just have control issues :)

We finally got the rest of our flooring in this week, so there's a big stack of it once again, and the kids see it as their own personal playground. Daddy doesn't help matters as you can see in the video below. We have 3 rows of flooring down in the dining room - not much, but getting started is the toughest part. The wall where we are starting is not straight (wavy), so Jimmy had to make several cuts on the first row. We are to a point now where we should only have straight cuts until we get to the opposite end of the room, so our progress should speed up a bit.

Not much else going on with us this week. Kids have been pretty good. I apologize for Corry's lack of clothing in the pictures & videos. She still prefers to be nudie all the time. She's getting a little better about keeping her clothes on, but sometimes ya gotta just be free!

Corry & Drew playing their game on the boxes & one of Corry demonstrating how she learned to "shake it down" at dance class.

Busy Sunday

The weekend didn't turn out as I had planned (does it ever?) Friday night we had dinner at Olech & Lindsay's to say hi to Grandma Bullard & Aunt Marta before they left on their cruise with Mom. Much to my dismay, Jimmy decided golfing was more appealing for Saturday than working on the dining room. I thought I was going to blow a gasket. So, the dining room has had the floor leveled, gotten new baseboards & has the moisture barrier & track for the transition piece installed. Jimmy's doing the calculations now to determine how wide the first row of flooring needs to be. Here's the picture of the dining room in its current state. I was really hoping to reveal a completed room, but that just can't happen with only one weekend day of work.

This morning didn't go as planned either - Jimmy never leaves his truck outstide overnight, but last night I guess he was too worn out from his golf game to move the saws and everything out of his parking spot, so he left the truck out. This morning when he opened the garage door he thought he had been egged or shoe polished. Ends up we had either a massive flock of birds that decided to use his truck as a restroom or possibly a couple of those big ass birds that eat dead things on the side of the road. He had crap all over the front driver's side. Our cars both desperately needed to be washed, but I really hadn't anticipated spending my whole morning cleaning them.

To keep Corry & Drew entertained this morning we got out the playdough. They love making creations. It doesn't seem to bother them in the least mixing all their different colors together into one big blob. That just makes me nuts.

I'd better go get bathtime started. With mom on the cruise this week, Grandpa Bob has babysitting duty. I'm sure the kids will be fine, we'll see how Grandpa holds up :)

Raiding the Pantry

We had just finished eating dinner, but the kids felt they needed a snack. Here's some pics of them raiding our pantry.

Hugs for Drewski

Drew trying to get back into the pantry

And a funny picture of Max from the other evening. He didn't want to eat without his golf club.

Slow week

This week is dragging. It hasn't really been a great one, so I'm ready for it to be over. We've made no progress on the dining room. Corry, Drew, & I are all getting over the snots, and I've had to deal with bank issues. Someone decided to use our checking account at T Mobile to either buy new phones or pay bills....to the tune of $240. As soon as I saw the charge I called the bank & had Jimmy's debit card blocked, so fortunately there were no additional charges. We don't even use T Mobile. I'm still not sure how it happened since his debit card is never out of his possession, but it happened none the less. Our bank has fronted our account the money & we have to fill out an affidavit of fraud & then they will do an investigation to determine if we really did make the charge or if it is in fact fraudulent. If they determine we made the charge they'll take the money out of the account, but if they can determine it was fraudulent we can keep the credit.

The same day all that happened I decided to move money from savings to checking to pay our annual homeowners association dues, but instead of transferring the money to checking, I transferred it to a credit card which has no balance. So now I'm trying to get that money back from the credit card. Fortunately the credit card had no balance, so they will just put the money back into our savings account, and then I can try again to pay our homeowners dues.

Tonight Jimmy's going to buy the supplies we need to do the rest of the baseboards in the house & to level the slab so that we can try and make some progress this weekend. Other than gymnastics I don't think we have anything going this weekend. That's a first in a long, long time.

I guess one funny thing that has come out of my banking fiasco & a lesson learned for me - After hearing the automated bank guy tell me for the 15th time what my current balance was I yelled at him and said "I don't care what my stupid balance is!" And he understood me! He answered back with "Each time you call I will begin by giving you your balance. If you do not want to hear your balance please say "no" now." Yikes. So be careful what you say to those machines. From what Scott tells me, many of them are programmed to pick up on cuss words & respond appropriately.

Kids are having a good week - at least someone in our house is!

Bangs

A couple days ago Corry asked what the hair hanging down on Dora's forehead was called. I told her it was called bangs. She said she wanted to have bangs like Dora. When I told her she could, but it meant she would have to get her haircut she was completely uninterested. For some reason yesterday she changed her mind and decided she wanted bangs like Dora. So this evening I took her to get bangs.



She was such a chatterbox the whole time. She was showing the girl cutting her hair her Dora Crocs, then told her about her sparkley jeans and how they are pretty. At one point her nose started to run & she started coughing. She told the girl that she "has the chokies & the snots." I was so embarrassed.



Anyway, here's a couple pictures and a video with the new hair cut. She looks so different with bangs. It will be nice not having her hair in her face all the time. I'm sure Grandma Chebs is going to be devastated that we got bangs. I couldn't have them until I was 10 or so. Sorry T-Dawg!


Corry right after the hair cut
And another shot after bathtime. How cute is this little lady bug?

Here's the video of her talking about her hair cut.

Happy Super Bowl

Tonight we went to Grandma Chebs & Grandpa Bob's house for the Superbowl. I'm feeling pretty under the weather & could care less about football, so most of my evening was spent entertaining kids & being a referee.

Grandma Chebs bought Go Fish & Old Maid to teach the girls this evening. Go Fish started out pretty rocky since Corry & Calyn both spotted a rainbow trout and both wanted it. They were "no-ing" each other back and forth & Corry's finger ended up in Calyn's teeth. Deachi was holding a crying Calyn, Grandma Connie was holding a crying Corry & they were both still shouting "no" at each other. I guess Drew felt left out so he started shouting "nos" to each one of them as well. I don't even think he knew what he was saying no to. They finally calmed down and we started the game. Corry was kicking everyone's rear at Go Fish and she blurted out "I'm done with this game." We tried to convince her that she was about to win, but she didn't care....she was off to other adventures in the playroom.

Below are a few pictures from today.

Corry in her polka dot dress. She always dresses herself in these clothes, but she only puts on the shirt & tights. I had to convince her that before we went to the grocery store she needed to put on the dress as well.

Corry & Drew posing in the dining room. We got the carpet & pad ripped out, the tack board up & the old baseboards off. We were too busy to accomplish anything else in the room this weekend. Like Drew's shades?

We fixed the shades and got another cute shot. Corry's in love with her new Dora jacket that we found at Kohl's for 80% off. I'm sure it will become a staple in her every day attire.

Drew getting ready to give Corry a smooch

Grandma Chebs reading the Alphie book to Calyn

Grandma Connie working puzzles with Corry & Drew

Max coming after the camera

Grandpa Bob & Papa Charlie & Carlie who was taking up valuable space at the Super Bowl party

Drew working a puzzle.

Hope everyone had a nice weekend - we had an abundance of snot at our house this weekend. Hopefully it will start to dry up this week.