It sure has been a scorcher lately. It is almost miserable to be outside unless you are in a pool. Last week we decided to get out our awesome Li'l Squirt baby pool from One Step Ahead that Nana and Papa bought the girls for their birthday. It is absolutely perfect for their age. There is only about 2 inches of water in the "pool" part but it is attached to the hose so that it can squirt water out of little holes all over the pool. They can step in and out and I felt okay with them standing and sitting in the water without me having to have a constant hold on them. They thought it was so much fun and didn't even seem to notice that the hose water was ice cold! Oops!!! I didn't think about the fact that I should have filled it and let it sit in the sun to warm up a bit. Anyways, Daddy brought the iPod dock outside and cranked up the Beach Boys. We had a great time splashing in the water and playing with our bath toys! My attempt at a Mother/Daughter picture....unsuccessful. :( Pure cuteness....that's all I can say. It was so much fun we decided to take it over to Nana and Papa's house the next day so they could see how cool their present was. We loved it just as much the second time. Will and Sophie even got to borrow our pool the next day when they came to visit Nana. It was money well spent, that's for sure! Papa also shared his water bottle with the girls, which they loved. They just didn't really understand how to drink the water that was coming so fast. It was hilarious!
"Now you're my whole life, Now you're my whole world I just can't believe the way I feel about you girls Like a river meets the sea, stronger than it's ever been We've come so far since that day And I thought I loved you then"
I do realize he is talking about the love between a husband and wife. It is actually the ring tone on my phone for when Wes calls me. It is so true to my relationship with him as well, but I think it fits with how I feel about my amazing daughters too! The love I have for my babies grows daily and it amazes me that there is space in my heart for me to love them more each and every day. Here was just a snuggly day a while ago. I know the pictures are similar but there are things I like about each of them so I posted them all. *Please excuse Stella's look of disgust in the last pic.....I promise she loves me!
Last weekend Wes' mom and step-dad came to stay. They were originally coming up to help us clean and paint in our new house, but that didn't end up working out so they came to babysit the girls instead. We had a birthday party on Saturday night and we really didn't want to take the girls so they were thrilled when we asked them to babysit. They came up around 11:00 and we spent the day playing. The girls LOVE to read books now and so Grammy and Grampy obliged. We did get to take them over to see the new house but we weren't able to get started working yet. Grampy said that now that we have a garage the girls HAD to have a wagon so they got them the Cadillac of wagons! They got an awesome Radio Flyer with seats, storage, cup holders inside for the kids and outside for the parents, seat belts and a canopy!!! We took the girls for a test run but didn't get any pics so the picture I'm posting is obviously not the girls. ;) Thanks Grammy and Grampy! We will get tons of use out of our awesome present!!!!!Skip forward to Thursday of this week.....I had plans to go to Columbus with my mom, aunt, grandma and my mom's cousin to attend an event for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. My cousin, Brittany, is an event coordinator for the CF Foundation and invited us to Movies, Martinis and Ms.Behavin'. It was a ladies night with a Mama Mia theme. They showed the movie and had delicious food and yummy pomegranate martinis. There was a silent auction and we even learned the line dance from the movie! It took place at a beautiful golf course and we had a lot of fun! Thanks Britt! Well, while Mommy was gone Daddy had baby duty! This is a HUGE job lately, as the ladies are into EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!! He decided that he would let them try spaghetti for the first time so he stripped them down to their diapers and let them just make a mess. They really enjoyed and then straight into the bath they went. What an awesome Daddy they have to take on all of that by himself! It's a good thing they liked it because we eat spaghetti all the time. This was just store bought sauce so we have to let them try our yummy homemade sauce ~ recipe compliments of Aunt Ashley. Oh and P.S. my husband is so cute....he took pictures and video of them eating. Today when I got home Wes also told me that Stella started tickling Mya's feet while she is still in her high chair. We do that to them a lot and they love it so now she started to join in the fun. She even says "ickle, ickle, ickle" when she does it! LOL And one last one just because I so cherish moments like these......I LOVE being a Mommy!
So I'm pretty behind on my blogging but I just don't feel like sitting down to do it lately. It takes FOREVER to load pictures on my computer and I just haven't had the urge. Sorry for the lack of content lately.....but I'm sure you understand.
July 1st Wesley and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary. I can and can't believe that some days. Sometimes it seems like just yesterday and some days I feel like we've been married for 20 years. LOL Anniversaries have never really been a very big deal to us.....in fact our first anniversary was celebrated at Applebees!!!!! Pathetic, I know. This year we were going to try to do something fun but we bought a house that day so we ended up at Red Lobster and then window shopped for things for our new house. That was really fun for me! Amanda graciously offered to babysit for us and it was a nice evening. Before we left we had a little photo shoot because we have taken an anniversary picture every year for our awesome scrap book that my friend, Lindsey, made us as a wedding gift. It has pages for every year up to 50 years. She said that the second edition will have to be our 50th anniversary gift as long as she doesn't have arthritis. LOL We put two pictures in each year and write a little recap of highlights from the past year. I love this gift! Amanda is all about pictures though so we took a few extras.....it was super fun!Our audience wanted to join us. LOLSo we let them...And here are some pictures of us by our for sale sign. It went on the market May 20th and as of now my dad is buying it from us and then re-listing it so if anyone is interested it is still available.
When we lay the girls down for bed at night they are both starting to show their own preferences. Mya pretty quickly throws her glowing musical sea horse (like the old school Glo-Worms), her stuffed froggie that sits on the back of her crib and her blanket bear out of the crib onto the floor. Sometime the sea horse gets to stay because she likes the music but froggie and "Bitsy Bear" (as I've named her) have no chance.However, Stella has become quite the hoarder. She always has multiple toys, washclothes, clothing items, etc. in her arms. It cracks us up, because she will get so many things in her arms that she is dropping something constantly and bending over to pick it up which in turn leads to her dropping something else. She looks so stinkin' cute though when she lays all snuggled up in her crib with her babies......oh and if you're wondering I named her blanket elephant "Ellie Elephant" or "Stellie's Ellie"!
I am so behind on my blogging these days and so very soon you will have an overload from me. But today I'm going to skip some things because I am so incredibly excited to announce that we bought a new house yesterday! Our offer was accepted and so pending any issues with the home inspection we will be closing August 3rd on our fabulous new house!
When we first started talking about looking for a new house we made a wish list. It really was a wish list because we were pretty sure there was no way we could get everything we wanted all in one house that would be in our budget. Here was our list: 1. At least 2 full baths (that are larger than the small one we have now) and preferably a master bath that is attached 2. Walk-in closet in the master bedroom 3. Storage space 4. 4 bedrooms 5. At least 2,000 square feet 6. Attached 2 car garage 7. Large yard 8. Basement 9. Two separate living spaces (so when the girls are older and don't want to hang with mom and dad they can have somewhere else to go since there will be NO BOYS in their bedroom lol) 10. Brick 11. A larger front porch and a back patio area for grilling and chilling! 12. A separate laundry room that can be closed off so no has to see it.
Our new dream home has every single one of these items except a basement. It is actually 2,600 square feet and 3 full baths!!!!! It has 4 bedrooms, with the master having a walk in closet and a second smaller closet and a master bath with 2 sinks!!! It even has it's own separate little porch off of it. The entire house has been recently remodeled and is a blank canvas. A retired police officer bought it and updated it to sell. Every single room is white. All the carpet is a neutral tan colored freisse (sp?). The kitchen has cream colored ceramic tile and the HUGE living room has wood laminate. There is a a brand new dishwasher and microwave in the kitchen and a very large pantry that isn't deep, which I'm excited about because I hate when things get pushed to the back and you forget about them. We have space to have an eat-in kitchen, but there is also a separate dining room. We are currently planning to keep the girls together in one room, make one room a guest bed until we decide to have another baby and make the 4th smaller bedroom an office. We are planning to paint the whole house but that is really all that needs to be done immediately. In the near future we are going to redo the bathrooms but they are definitely livable. Finally, our house has a 1.14 acre yard with a large front porch and back patio area that we may also screen in so that it can be a 3 season area. There is plenty of room to have a swing set for the girls and Wes was excited to think about all the room there is to play catch and other sports with our kids. There is room to grow in this house which we soooooo needed! *I'm also super excited that we won't have another Christmas where we don't have room to put up our tree! I will post pictures when I can!
This would not be possible for us if we hadn't sold our house. We bought it super cheap and put a lot of work into it. Once we sold it we stood to make a very good amount of money that we needed for a down payment. Well, our house hadn't sold (although it had only been on the market since May 20th) and we were getting antsy because we have completely outgrown our little house. My parents came with us to the showing of our new house and fell in love with it as much as we did. They knew it was everything we wanted and in some cases needed. My dad said he didn't want us to take the chance that we would miss out on it so he said he would like to buy our house. We would then have the money to use as our down payment and he would just relist our house right away. He could easily make our mortgage payment for a few months and then just pay himself back once the house is sold. Our realtor said she wouldn't charge a commission on the sale from us to my dad so that was another plus. I can't even begin to explain what an amazing father my dad is. It is my dream to be able to be that security net for our children. He is and always has been there for us whenever we needed something. I just start tearing up every time I think of what an amazing gift he is giving us by doing this. He even said that if he sells our house quickly he will only pay himself back what he spent and if there is anything left over he will give it to us. He doesn't want to make money on this deal he just wants us to have our house. He said he feels so blessed that we gave him such beautiful granddaughters and that this is his thank you! Words cannot begin to describe how I felt when he said that! I love you so incredibly much, Dad! Thank you from the bottom of our hearts!
Ok, just kidding, we didn't really get a cat. In fact, I don't even really like cats. But my girls LOVE to crawl in and out of the wicker basket under the end table and they look like a cat in a kennel. Cracks me up! This particular day Mya was napping so I only have pictures of Stella. She does it more often anyways. And here are a few more fun tunnel pictures. This was money well spent because they can't get enough of it!
My attempt at a Mother/Daughter picture....unsuccessful. :(
Pure cuteness....that's all I can say.
It was so much fun we decided to take it over to Nana and Papa's house the next day so they could see how cool their present was. We loved it just as much the second time. Will and Sophie even got to borrow our pool the next day when they came to visit Nana. It was money well spent, that's for sure! Papa also shared his water bottle with the girls, which they loved. They just didn't really understand how to drink the water that was coming so fast. It was hilarious!
