Big Girl Bed

Claire now has a big girl bed! The actual bed is my old day-bed (it's almost an antique!), but the mattress and bedding are new. She seems to like it, but is still making the nightly trip to our room right now.

The kids decided to get in the picture. I tried to get them to pose to no avail :)

In other news, we have been trying to potty train Claire, but she is not very interested. She will sit on the potty if she has clothes on, but the minute you take off the diaper, she stiffens up and freaks out! I have tried buying her "pretty" panties to entice her but that didn't work either. She is ready in the sense that she is showing all the signs, but she just doesn't want to make that transition. Any suggestions?

Our lives are taking on that busy summer schedule that comes with being a youth minister. Scott is having service week this week, VBS is next week, then camp is two weeks after that. July is just as packed with activity, if not busier. However, we are enjoying the summer--playing in the pool, sprinkler, etc. We took the kids to see UP the other night and that was lots of fun. They both sat quietly through the whole thing. I was pretty amazed! I recommend the movie if you haven't seen it already. But bring tissue!

Birth-iversary!

My parents sent us to a Bed & Breakfast in Buffalo Gap, Texas, for our 9th anniversary/my 30th birthday! We haven't been on a vacation together away from the kids ever, so a couple of nights in a sleepy little town was the the perfect gift. Here are a few pics from our get away!

The B&B where we stayed was an old church building You can see the church bell on the left.
The second photo is the cornerstone of the church, built in 1937.

The front door of the church/B&B. It says "Peace and Grace to All Who Enter."

The private garden. Wish we could have been there when it was in full bloom!! The steps you see on the right go up the the hot tub.

Part of the room. It was so pretty!

On Monday we went to the Buffalo Gap Historical Village, which was about a block away from out B&B. Here we are on the porch of the Hill House in the village; it was Marshal Tom Hill's home circa the 1880's.

I saw this sign in the old train depot at the BGHV; I thought it was pretty cool!

What did the kids do while we were away? My parents took them to Chuck E. Cheese, bought a sandbox for Will's birthday and set it up for them, and let them play in the pool. Yes, they were quite spoiled!


So, today I turn 30 and Scott and I celebrate 9 years of marriage and 10 years together. We are so blessed! I hope you all have a wonderful May 27th...I plan on it!

Where Have I Been??

Well, I'll tell you. I've been at work! But as of last week, I have gone back to part-time and I couldn't be happier about my decision. I am so glad to be back at home with my kids two days a week!

Since I will be at home a couple of days a week again, I will hopefully be able to update a little more often. Since my last post at Easter, a lot has happened! Scott graduated from LCU on May 2nd, earning his second Masters degree, a Master of Arts in Biblical Interpretation. Scott's parents and grandmother were able to join us for the event. We are so proud of our daddy and all his accomplishments!

That same day, when we got home from Lubbock, we had Will's 4th birthday party. This year, we went with a pirate theme; Will dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow in the costume we got him. It was a crazy day, but we had a lot of fun! Since we were going to be out of town the day previous to Will's party, I bought his cake from the bakery this year instead of making it myself. They did a great job and it was delicious!

Will's actual birthday came on Mother's Day, May 10th. That day we celebrated by going to Midland, eating at Rosa's, shopping, and having birthday cookies on Spider-Man plates at home. It was a good day for all. We just can't believe that our big boy is FOUR!

Here is a random picture of Claire reading in her chair that I thought was too cute and had to share! The next picture is Claire at her end-of-the-year CDO program. They are singing "Twinkle, Twinkle." I don't have a very good picture of Will; we took more video of him than pictures.

We are excited that my parents are here this weekend. They are going to take care of the kids while Scott and I get away for a couple of days (our anniversary is coming up). Then, summer is right around the corner and our lives will be filled with VBS, camps, mission trips, youth rallies and the like! It doesn't seem possible that summer is so close.

I am looking forward to updating more often and keeping myself updated with all of you!

Happy Easter!

Claire's class after their egg hunt at Children's Day Out.

Will after his egg hunt. They got to have theirs at the park.

Dying eggs!

Today after church in the neighbor's garden.

This is the only decent one that we got of them together!

Pictures by Robyn

Robyn was able to take photos of us while we were in Lubbock a few weeks ago! Check out her photography blog for a sampling of the pictures!

Goings-On

Hello! I am still alive :)

So much has been going on, and most of the time I am way too tired to even consider blogging, but I thought I'd update since I have a few pictures to share.

A couple of weeks ago, we went down to San Antonio to visit my grandmother and meet up with my parents. The kids and I went on with my mom and dad to Katy and Scott returned home to work on his essays for his comprehensive exams. We returned a few days later by plane. THAT was an experience I'd soon like to forget. Plane travel alone with two kids is not much fun. I did survive, though :) My mom took a lot of great pictures of my kids riding my brother's girlfriend's horse, but alas, I do not have those. Maybe my mom will email them to me (hint, hint!) ;)

Scott has since finished his essays and turned them it (Praise God!) and we are done with grad school stuff for a while. We also found someone to baby-sit our kids on those days that they're not in "school." So that is another "Praise!" The flower shop was extremely busy last week with several funeral pieces, so I definitely got in some "practice." This week has been a little slower so far, so that's kind of nice (it is our local schools' spring break, which is always notoriously slow).

The kids are doing well. Claire was sick for a while before we went to my parents' house, but she is better now. Will is currently obsessed with pirate "jewels" (which will explain a couple of pics), however we haven't watched Pirates of the Caribbean for several days as he is currently hooked on Star Wars (my fault, I let him watch it the other day). He still likes to dress as a pirate, though. Claire likes to do everything that Will is doing and is a sweet little helper. She is showing her intelligence here lately by recognizing some of the letters of the alphabet and talking more and more. She loves to sing and dance and is even starting to show interest in the potty. Kids grow WAY too fast!!!

One funny thing that Will has been doing the last few days is asking me if I am going to have a baby. I am not sure what has prompted this question...maybe it was the fact that we went shopping for a baby shower gift a few days ago. Anyway, he's asked me several times since about it and I have told him, no, that I'm not going to have a baby anytime soon. He says that I should and he wants a brother. Hmm. I'm not so sure.

Anyway, time for the pictures!

Scott and the kids watching Cinderella in our bed.

Claire's ponytail!

"Smarty Pants!"

Man, I wish this picture wasn't blurry! It would have been so great!

Will watching a movie while wearing his "pirate jewels", a Mardi Gras mask, and his Capt. Jack Sparrow hat.

Will (again with the pirate jewels) and his St. Patrick's Day hat he made at school (so cute!).

Claire with the leprechaun hat.

This is how I found my children when I came home today...Claire asleep in her chair (but sitting in it the wrong way, with its back on the ground)...

...and Will deeply engrossed in Winnie the Pooh, with my couch's arm cover on his head and wearing (of course) his pirate jewels. Funny.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

Oh, my. Where do I start? We've had an interesting few weeks at work. Valentine's Day was pretty horrible, not because we were so overloaded with work but quite the opposite. It was the worst V-Day that I've ever seen, and I've worked in the flower business for about seven years now. Aside from that, we've had some people leave the shop, mainly for health reasons; they needed health insurance and my boss can't really provide insurance that's reasonably priced--it's a small business! However, the people that left included the lead designer for the shop, who has had 25+ years experience in floral design. She is phenomenal in what she can create and do. The other person that left has been our other full-time designer since October. I have been designing some off and on for the past few months, but not in any major capacity. I only work three days a week.

Sooo....guess who's the new lead designer? Yep, you guessed it...ME! This is both exciting and scary at the same time. Today I went in thinking I would only work from 9:00 to 2:00, but ended up having to stay til 5:30 because we had a lot of funeral work orders come in. But, I made two $75 dollar standing easels and several other things and everything looked pretty good! Not 25+ years-experience top-notch, but certainly not bad.

This means I am going to have to try to go back to work full time. This is going to be hard because I don't really have anyone to take care of my kids. So, please pray for me in this new position and also that I might find a good place for my kids to go on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays (they go to "school" on Wed. and Fri.). Scott is also trying to finish up his comprehensive exams, which is really 4 papers, in the next couple of weeks for his Masters of Arts in Biblical Interpretation from LCU. So, AHHH! This is a crazy time for all this to be happening. I am just asking for prayers as we try to accommodate all these new changes.

Oh yeah, and Claire has been sick with RSV for the past week--bad timing! She seems to be at the tail-end of it, though :) To close, I leave you with a couple of random pictures...because what's a blog post without pictures??

My sweet hubby surprised me with roses on Wednesday! Beautiful!!

At long last...Scott's diploma from ACU came in a couple of weeks ago!

Sweet little red shoes on Claire for Valentine's Day (from Nana).

And finally...

A sign of the future?? Will decided he needed to take a nap outside in this cardboard box the other day. (He stayed in there for about three minutes) :)