My Girls!

i'll have to post about Addie's 3 birthday parties but for now here are 2 pics I love of my girls. In the first one they were supposed to be napping at Oma and Opa's house but Aunt Misty was visiting so they both insisted on laying on the recliner with her. In the second one Nora is holding a much coveted (by Addie) frog by it's little back leg - poor thing! Addie the animal lover is talking Nora through the whole experience and trying to talk her out of custody of the frog and little Nora, not to be left out of any experience, is holding the frog despite her strong inclination to put it down. Funny how things are so much more appealing when someone else wants them!

Little Salties

Last weekend Addie was in her 1st Fishing Tournament - Little Salties down in Matagorda. She was super excited that her Daddy, Uncle Dwayne, Cadence and Skylar were fishing on Grandpa's boat with her. I was super excited that Dwayne's mother-in-law was there to take pictures of all the "monster" fish they caught (and promptly threw back because, really, we weren't even going to be close to winning the most weight caught).



We have been unknowingly preparing Addie for one competition in this tournament for most of her little life - the CASTING contest! One of Addison's favorite things to do is to take her fishing rod (or Nora's since it is pink) and go outside to the front yard or back yard and just cast, cast, cast her fishing rod. She's really good at it too but we've never worked on aiming and accuracy. Well, all that practice paid off because she won 3rd place in the 3-8 year old division!!



She was certainly the youngest winner up there at age 3 (yes, she turns 4 on May 21st but still, the other winners were definitely older than her). She was so excited to get both her trophies. Funny thing is she loves the one with the fish on it the most. Each participant received this trophy along with a fishing rod.



Nora, Wyatt, Grandma and I arrived Saturday morning and Aunt Holly and Luke came to the contest site to play with us before all the boats got back. Nora was "fishing" for a while but when Luke came they were all about throwing rocks into the water - big fun! Wyatt slept a good portion of the morning in Grandma's arms. Thank goodness for an extra pair of arms!







It was a great weekend and we are just so proud of our girl. Thanks to Uncle Dwayne and all the other sponsers for this fun tournament! Can't wait until next year.

A Few Favorite Pics...

...from our wonderful Easter weekend in Fredericksburg.

Go Team

Some one clearly isn't sure about wearing the green and gold...



and CLEARLY loves the maroon and white. (WHOOP!)


But no matter what colors he wears, he'll always smile for his mommy:-)

FIESTA!!!

So I'm a little late posting this but better late than never. The kids were in the annual Fiesta Parade at school and they all did great jobs. Each class room dresses in a certain theme. There are kings & queens, 50's, parade floats (decorated wagons), spurs fans, surfers, dancers and so much more. Addie's class dressed as cowgirls and cowboys. We had to buy new boots (which she was SOOO proud of) because she'd outgrown her old ones. First they walked with flags and then the second round they threw candy from bags.





This is important to note because little Nora was an "Extra Spicy" (yes, they matched the names with the personalities - mild, sweet, spicy, extra-spicy) red pepper - and apparently she didn't want to be. To be fair, she did great until she saw me.



First round she just acted shy. My attempts to make her smile (sticking out my tongue at her) didn't get much of a result other than a shy look which I caught on camera. Soon she resorted to crying - this is so unlike her so I'm still not quite sure what happened.



The second round she was once again fine but when she saw me she started full on wailing.




After a quick hug and kiss to comfort her as best as I could, my extra-spicy, crying-red-pepper continued to trudge along with her class. Determined to get a smiling picture from my sweet girl I did the only thing I could think of - I bribed my kid with candy:-) After the 2nd round Addie had picked up a laffy taffy. I got the whole thing on video. She picks the candy up off the parade route, tries to open it, shows it to the teacher who tells her to save it for later, so of course she continues to open the candy at which time I stop recording and go get my girl.

I took her over to Nora, split the candy and like magic, I got smiles! Didn't get eye contact with the camera but that's ok, the smiles were enough.








And what about Wyatt in all of this?? Even the nursery participated. Unfortunately they had him laying down in the crib rather than in a bumbo. Oh well, he was still happy as can be and I got a few pics. All in all a great day!

Swimming

Addie's been taking swimming lessons and loving them! After having spring break off, the new spring session starts this week. She was always fearless in the water and now she has a few skills to use in the water. She can float on her back by herself and is pretty good swimming the backstroke. She does great with her sitting and kneeling dive, jumps readily into the water (never a problem but at least now she waits until she's told she is allowed to), holds her breath really well (pool and bathtub skill apparently)and can do a pretty good breast stroke and freestyle. This next session Mr. Anthony's goal is to get her breathing coordinated with her stroke so she can swim greater distances - not just as far as her breath will hold out!! Addie is our little fish and Nora practices her skills in the tub with her sister (she sometimes goes to class with us and watches). Can't wait to have her in the water this summer too!

February 2011

So now that March is halfway over and I only have 3 more weeks of maternity leave (including this one)I thought I'd post an update of our February. Unfortunately February was not a very healthy month for the girls in this family. Fortunately the guys stayed well through it all! Literally most of February one or the other of us was sick. It started on the first day of February with Addie at home with a fever for a few days, then Nora got that bug which also lasted several days. After a day or so of Nora being well then I got a fever - ugggg! I was convinced Wyatt was going to get sick from me so I tried to only hold him to feed him and sanitized like crazy. Not too long after that Addie and Nora BOTH got a stomach bug (Addie's started late in the evening and Nora's the next morning). Now the stomach bug was a different ball game because when the girls had to go, they HAD to go and I was still restricted to lifting only 20 lbs or less. What's a girl to do knowing her husband had appointments all afternoon and could only stay that morning??? Call her mom, of course! Mom to the rescue!! I was still weak from the c-section and fever, never mind the weight restrictions. The morning went fine and then when my mom was there in the afternoon things got very BUSY! I won't get into the messy details but it certainly got messy. At one point I was cleaning the floor downstairs while mom was bathing the girls upstairs. Boy was I glad when it was over...but wait...Nora got round 2 of the stomach bug. Poor baby at one point had such bad stomach pains that she would cry and put her head on my shoulder while she was sitting on the potty, the she requested her pillow to put on my shoulder which of course I complied with because poor baby was moaning about how bad her tummy was hurting. I felt so helpless and was SOOOOO relieved when days later she was better. All she could eat were popsicles, bananas, crackers, jello and rice soup - each time we though she was better and tried something else we had problems. Here are pictures from the fever episodes (Addie doesn't look too sick but she was). There are NO pictures from the stomach bug episodes.





We managed to fit in some fun in the few days we were healthy (or mostly healthy - Nora started her second round of stomach bug on Wyatt's Baptism day).

We had a home photo session with Wyatt and a toe nail painting break in between takes!






We went to the San Antonio Livestock Show one afternoon.



We celebrated Valentine's Day!



The kids and I went to spend the night at Aunt Misty's and Joanie's home. That was Wyatt's first time to sleep away from home (since coming home from the hospital) and he did WONDERFUL!



Wyatt met the horses out at Luckenbach.







Wyatt got Baptized.



And we had an amazing weekend with Greg, Shauna, Lyndie and Gavin Key. We even made a trip to Sea World and got to try out the new "Bay of Play."