A few pics from Freckles Fotography

My sister in law took the most beautiful pic of Preston's long eyelashes. Click the link below to see it.

Cute Pics

We found a house!

I had a big long post but just deleted so here is the run down. Ashley hasn't been doing well in school as far as grades, she starting hanging out with a few people I would call sketchy and she had expressed more than once that she wanted to be back in Houston. We thought it was time to do whatever we needed to do to get her back in Houston. We decided on the neighborhood of Bridgeland. It is centrally located close to my brother and my sister. So here you go here is the house. I love it so much.......... no really I do. I know I say that at every house but this one is unlike any that I looked at. I am so proud if my husband for giving me the control to buy a house without him ever seeing it (in person). I hope he likes it as much as I do.

Aren't vacations supposed to be relaxing?

I am still in Texas from Christmas. I extended my visit so that I could attended the Cypress Calling retreat. We rented a log cabin in Brookshire for the weekend so we could spend the days and nights planning 2010. We got so much done budget, goals, events... I am so excited to be a part of this ministry. I am also hosting a baby shower, along with Tasha, for our best friend Jenn who is pregnant with boy girl twins. I can't wait to be more involved when I move back. Move back did she say move back. Yes I did and yes we are. We came to the conclusion over Christmas that our kids, mainly Ashley, needed to be back here in Texas. Aaron's boss has been hinting for months that he wants him in Calgary but we always said we would finish out the school year in Newfoundland. Well one thing led to another we found out some information about the people Ashley calls friends, found a house we liked and made the decision. Aaron is going to Calgary we are coming home to Houston. It's sad that Aaron will be working out of town and coming home when he can but I know he is doing what is best for our family right now. Once the US economy picks back up he will be able to transfer back here. Now about the house. We found an awesome house in Towne Lake that we LOVED I did lots of research and found out it had been on the market for close to 2 years. I thought that the offer we made was very fair but apparently the bank didn't. Yea bank owned, hello accept the offer. They countered with full price and end of January closing. Not gonna happen. We countered again but got rejected. It was a blessing in disguise though because it wasn't zoned for the school I thought it was. So since then I have looked at about 12 homes. Why is in when I am searching online with no intention of moving back there are a ton of houses for sale and now there are 6 that meet my picky criteria? So here I am with a plane ticket back to St John's on Tuesday with no house. In my perfect world I will find a house, set a closing date, go back to St John's to coordinate the move and come back to Houston. But as we all know life isn't always rainbows and sunshine. We will see and I will keep you updated.

I will leave you with some pictures from the park today.

Lilys hair

While we were in Louisiana over Christmas Ashley thought it would be funny to straighten Lily's hair. I couldn't believe how different she looked. I am so glad her hair is curly....... I love it!

Merry Christmas

Santa was very good to our family. We finished our gift opening and now we are enjoying the company of family while we cook our cajun Christmas dinner. YUM fried turkey, pork stew, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, peas and cheese. Wishing you and your family a very Merry Christmas, from our family.

Fa la la la la..... la la la laaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Bye Bye Binky (for real this time)

I waited to post this until it was for sure. It's been a week since Preston bit a hole in his beloved binky so I told him we had to throw it away. He gave it a kiss, said bye bye and put it in the trash. I admit I did tear up a little. I mean he has been best friends with binky since birth. Binky made many appearances in the first year but once Preston was a year old we only let him have it at bedtime. Preston knew when he got out of bed Binky had to stay behind. He always perched him up on the rail of the crib by the wall to wait until it was time to sleep again. Binky was a world traveller, always going on the airplane with his bff. Just recently when we went to Florida Preston was holding Binky up to the window and saying "you see it, Binky, you see the airplane" Seriously the cutest thing ever. The Binky Preston had, well we had 3, the duck, the horse and the dog. We just cute the pacifier off and now he has Binky dog.

As we leave tomorrow for our flight I hope Preston is happy with just the dog.

So long Binky we will miss you!

Home for the Holidays!!!!

I literally took the suitcases out this morning. This week has been so busy. With us doing our Christmas last Sunday, then me trying to finish up some last minute gifts before leaving. Me and the twins will actually be staying in Texas until Jan. 16th. I am attending a retreat for CCMand hosting a baby shower for my friend Jenn, who is pregnant with boy/girl twins. So instead of flying back I figured it would be best to just extend this trip and do it all while I was there. Of course this also means I have to be fully prepared for the shower, retreat, Christmas, and New Year's. I think I am all done now and completely packed. I finished the last load of clothes, zipped the last suitcase but now what's for dinner. I guess this is a night we will order in.

Even though it's been busy I love that I can take the kids outside to enjoy the snow. It doesn't take as long this year to get them bundled up and they love going outside. Once we get done putting on socks, boots, gloves, snow pants, jackets and hats it's time to head out. Here is a cute video I took yesterday and a few pictures of our snow man.

Silent Sunday!

Toddler times

When we decided to remove the front part of the twins cribs I had no idea what I was getting my self into. Bedtime has been great but until yesterday nap time was laugh, cry, remove diaper, take off clothes and play time. Well this momma wised up. I went up to their room for the 10th time put back on their diapers, dressed them again except this time I put tape on their diapers and put their zip up pj's on backwards and moved Lily to the guest bedroom. She can not climb out of a pack and play so this worked VERY WELL! With the tape, backwards pj's and no one to play with they slept for 2 1/2 hours!!!

Here are a few random pictures for you:

Christmas traditions

We don't have alot of Christmas traditions as far as gifts. We do wear Christmas pajamas to open our presents on Christmas day, watch The Christmas Story and Christmas Vacation about a hundred times during the holidays and buy an ornament for each kids every year. I would love to start a new tradition since Preston and Lily are young enough and Ashley is old enough. The tradition is involving gifts. Every year I take a look around and think these kids have way too much. I can remember growing up there were years we had alot and a few years we had very little and I mean like 1 gift that my parents had to scrap money together to buy. Now that Ashley is older she is at the age where if she asks for something, within reason, she gets it. She is a good kid her grades are good, she does things around the house and helps with the kids. There isn't anything she needs. Preston and Lily are the same way. For all my kids before summer we get a few summer outfits before winter we get snow suits, jackets and the necessities. Then Christmas comes around and I am completely stumped. What in the world do I buy this year. I saw somewhere online a tradition that a family has started that I absolutely love.

4 gifts only:
Something they Want, Something they Need, Something to Wear, Something to Read

That pretty much narrows the gift giving down. I would love to try this next year. I have also wanted to adopt a family through maybe a women's shelter or something. Hopefully by doing this my kids will be able to see the reason for the season is not an over abundant amount of gifts. I love hearing about traditions that families share. What are yours?

Toddler beds

Since we got back from Florida Preston and Lily have been climbing out of their cribs. It's been mostly at nap time I think because it's more light in their room. At night they can't see a thing in there. So all week it's been a fight trying to get them to stay in their cribs long enough to fall alseep. I have been paranoid about them climbing out and getting stuck and hurting themselves. So Aaron and I decided today we would take the front off the crib and make it more of a day bed. We stuck to our same bedtime routine of bath, book, bed then tucked them in and said goodnight. We first heard the door open, laughter, then crying. I think they just thought we were going to give them free reign on the whole house. We put a gate up at their door and when they saw that they started yelling "mommy" I went upstairs put them back in the bed without saying a word (just like Supernanny says) and came back downstairs. Repeat about 6 times but then ........... 45 mins later they were sleeping. Really that's it, it was so easy *knock on wood*. Now I face the challenge of naps. One of my friends told me they may be done with naps *hold on while I scream* What do you mean done with naps? I have lots to do during the 2 hours that they sleep, don't theses kids know it's Christmas and we leave for Texas in 2 weeks?! ?! Oh god if they are done with naps it's going to be a looooooong winter.

If I sound like I have no idea what I am doing it's because I don't. I should mention that Ashley didn't come out of her crib until she was almost 3 and by then she pretty much knew what stay in your bed means. People say the first year is the hardest they obviously don't remember 2.

Trust me I will keep you up to date on the toddler bed transition. Any advice on this transition is greatly appreciated and needed.

It's taken me long enough!

We have been home from Disney for almost a week and not one single post. It's been a rough week. As soon as we got home I kicked it into Christmas gear. I spend the day Monday shopping online. I love that I can shop online and ship the gifts to the recipients. Makes traveling and shopping so much easier. Now getting the gifts home from the states to Canada is a whole other process. Then there was the house that needed to be cleaned, the laundry that needed to be done and oh about 1300 pictures that needed to be uploaded and gone through. So here I am finally ready to tell you all about Disney. It really is a magical place. There is not a detail that the folks at Disney have left out. If you can dream it they provide it. We had a lot of fun and felt like everyone at Disney really loved being there and loved their jobs. Not to mention the food at every place we ate was amazing. Special thanks to my sister and her husband for allowing us to tag along on their yearly Disney trip. We will have to do it again. We visited all 4 parks, Hollywood Studios, Animal Kingdom, Magic Kingdom and Epcot. Our favorite was Magic Kingdom. I love that all the parks had rides and entertainment for all ages. Preston and Lily were able to ride most of the rides that included shows like Haunted Mansion &Pirates of the Caribbean. They were even brave enough to ride on Tomorrowland Speedway, Dumbo and the Dinosaurs in Animal Kingdom. We didn't really have much of a plan to our day we just went on the morning then came back to let the kids rest for a few hours before heading back out. We did stay late on night at Magic Kingdom to catch the fireworks. It was worth it the lights, the music, the fireworks were amazing. It was an awesome way to spend my birthday! And now for some pictures. I will put some up here but if you click on the link you will be able to see all of them.

Disney World 2009 Pictures

Notice Preston quickly moving out of Eeyore's way!

Is it me or does Lily look older here?