There's a door in my closet

When my parent's were out here a few weeks ago, we put my dad to work. He was gracious enough to spend some of his time here putting a hole in the wall in my closet. You see, Kevin and I have taken our time getting started on food storage, but we finally started. There's not alot, but when you have no storage room in your house, it makes it seem like there's alot more food storage than there really is. So if you've been to our house in recent months, you've probably seen the pile of food on the floor in our dining room, yes, isn't that the perfect spot for it?

Well, yeah for my dad, he put the hole in the wall, added shelving and a light to our HUGE empty space under our stairs, and then added a door. I LOVE IT! It's so nice to have somewhere to store everything, and now I can see that we really don't have much, but there's lots of room to add more, yeah, I can't wait to start!

Look how big that space is!

Lots and lots of shelving and a little bit of food

even more empty space, finally a place to hide presents from the girls, I'm awful at that!

The girls also love this new room, although I think slowly the novelty is wearing off. Halli say's it's her cottage, and Peyton says it's here house, and they love to show their friends whenever they come over. Too bad they'll be banned from it as soon as we paint the door and add a doornob that locks. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. :)

Little Girls

I just saw this today and it's my new favorite quote:

"Some women are dripping with diamonds, some women are dripping with pearls, look at me, lucky me, I'm dripping with little girls!"
from the musical, "Little orphan annie"

gotta love it!

How do you get to Heaven?

Last night we had FHE, and Halli did the lesson for us. She taught us about the premortal life and all that happened there. Well, Kevin and I did a little coaching through questions, but all-in-all she did really well. She also drew a picture of heaven, the earth, mars and saturn.

The earth is in the middle, and the red person on the earth is Halli. Mars is the cookie looking one on the bottom, and saturn is above that with the rings. Heaven is the blue cloud with all the red people and the green person in the middle is Heavenly Father.


Our conversation went a little like this:

Dad - So, who did we choose to follow after the war in heaven?
Halli - Jesus
Dad - How do you know that?
Halli - I just know!
Mom - you know because you have a body, right?
Halli - oh yeah.

Dad - So how do we get back to Heaven to live with Heavenly father?
Halli - you die.

I couldn't stop laughing at that one. She is right after all, we can't get there if we don't die. I love how simple their minds can be!

We love when Grandma & Grandpa come to town!

Last week we were blessed to have my parents come stay with us for a very short three days. The girls were beyond excited to have them here and were very sad when they left. We did have some fun while they were here though.

We visited Halli at school for lunch, which she LOVED. We played Wii lots, it is tons of fun, and I'm feeling a little sore in my shoulder from bowling! We also learned that Halli is an awesome wii bowler! My dad was put to work while he was here too...more on that later. We did a little bit of shopping and alot of hanging out and cuddling with Grandma & Grandpa. It was so sad when they left, Halli was crying and Peyton was doing alright as they pulled away, and once we got in the house, I had just sat down and heard awful crying from Peyton, I thought Halli had hit her or something. But no, she just broke down and wanted Grandpa Logan to come back...I felt awful for her. (sorry mom & dad, not trying to make ya feel bad!) She's still saying "gwandpa Wogan gone" and "gwandma gone home" So cute! Luckily they'll be back in February for another short visit. We miss ya both, and are so glad you got home safe!

Since we were having so much fun I didn't pull out the camera too much, but here is one afternoon as we were out playing. Halli isn't in too many of them cause she was riding around the block with her dad. yeah for no training wheels! She's so proud!

Don't worry, Grandma was right next to these two, so Lexie wasn't in danger!:)

Okay, she isn't really smiling, but I love her eyes in this photo!

Lexie and grandma having some bonding time!

Peyton and her main sqeeze. She loves grandpa logan.

tickle time with grandma.

Peyton saying "cheese" what a cheeseball! Gotta love that girl!

We had some serious fun and can't wait till next time!

My Evil Plan - part II

A little less than a year ago I wrote about my evil plan to get my family to move to Houston. This is a tough one, since California may have a little more appeal for most people, but it never hurt to try, right? Well, in April of last year my brother and his wife moved down to college station, so that was a decent start, now I just needed my sister and my parents, Sorry Ryan & Kate, I would love to have y'all out here, but I know there is probably VERY little chance of that happening, so you're gonna be a little left out of the mix.

Well, I am very happy to report that my parents were here visiting for three very short days following their very long drive to help move my sister and her hubby down! Yes, you heard right, my sister now lives less than 30 minutes away, YEAH!!! I can't believe she actually lives this close and isn't really planning on leaving anytime soon. (I know they may have to as her hubby is doing an internship and my get a job somewhere else, but we'll pretend that won't happen!)

Now we just need to get my parent's down here, that may be a little tougher. The last time they were here, my dad said he could live in conroe, and considering the fact that he's always been slightly anti-houston, that's a pretty big concession. I guess he liked all the trees and the lake! So, I'm keeping my fingers crossed and hoping for the best! Here's to a future post titled, "my evil plan - Complete!" Wish me luck!

Our Mini Vacay

The company Kevin works for was doing some work on the Hilton in Downtown, and we were able to go down for a night last monday, and enjoy a pretend vacation with the girls! We were planning on going to "the Aquarium" to hang out and enjoy some rides and then stay for dinner. It ended up being way too late, so we just had dinner and enjoyed the scenery inside the restaurant before heading to the hotel. We set up for the night and got the girls situated and as soon as that was done, Kevin had something in mind that he wanted to do......it wasn't what you're thinking. The Hilton is right next door to the Toyota Center, and there was a rockets game. That's right, he left us to go see the game, and he even got in, without a ticket. I don't know how that boy does that, but he always manages to get things for free!

The next morning we headed to a park next to the hotel, they have an outdoor ice skating rink there, which I really wanted to do, but it didn't work out, instead the girls played on a playground right there, and I was able to play with my new telephoto lens for my camera, yeah! Once they were done there, we headed back to the Aquarium to play a little bit more. It was tons of fun and it was great to feel like we got to have a little vacation not far from home. Lexie could have slept a little better, we were both a little tired the second day, but other than that, we had an amazing time and it was great to just hang out with our little family and enjoy the moment!

Look at some of these awesome fish! The girls loved it here!

The middle picture is the inside of the restaurant. It totally felt like you were underwater. Halli thought it was cool to be like a mermaid.

Our cozy and comfy hotel stay. The girls slept great, except for Lexie, who slept great on me all night, so I had a very sore back the next morning. I guess she just didn't like the closet. That or the fact that she had her shots that day, not such great timing.

The view from our hotel, not our room but in the hotel, you can see it looks down on the toyota center. Yeah, Kevin was lovin that.

This was at the park the next day, tons of fun!

Halli actually smiled at the camera! I think she hates it, she always turns her back to it and tries to avoid it, so yeah for the smiling happy picture!

This is inside the shark tank, we went twice and both times as soon as we got outside, Peyton was saying "more" and wanting to go back.

Riding the carousel, nothing's better than that!

The ferris wheel, looking down on houston! The other girls were there too, they just didn't look as happy in their pictures, I don't think they really cared.

This is pretty cool you could touch the sting rays, or go underneath and look at them through the glass. The girls loved this and stayed under there for quite a long time!

All-in-all it was a great mini-vacation,and we thoroughly enjoyed our time together, we just might make a mini-vacation over christmas break an annual tradition!

New Years Eve

We had a little new years eve party with some friends and it was so much fun. We had TONS of food, which is always fine with me, and we had some awesome company to go with it. The kids favorite part of the evening was definitly the fireworks...okay, well, most of the kids. For some of the younger ones, the fireworks didn't go over too well. Once we finished those up, we got kiddos ready for bed and let them watch a movie, while the adults played games and hung out. We had a blast and I know the girls loved hanging out with their friends. Some of the kids slept, some didn't but it was all worth it, even having to wake up bright and early at 7am with my early risers!

Halli & Dad, playing with fire!

Peyton wasn't too sure of the whole thing, but she didn't do too bad.

Halli couldn't get enough of the fireworks.

Shooting off bottlerockets. Even the adults fully enjoyed this one!

The majority of the gang, tucked in and ready for a great movie!

Even some of the younger kids stayed up late to get in on the action.

We had such a fun evening, and hope it becomes an annual tradition.

Where does the time go?

I can't believe it's been six months already! Our little baby is changing so quickly, it's time for her to stop. I'll admit, I wished the newborn days away, but now, she's loads of fun and I wish I could just freeze time. Lexie is the happiest little girl, and she loves attention. If you smile at her and start talking to her, you're pretty much guaranteed a big bright smile. She also loves to watch her big sisters and is always laughing at them, which they love. I can't imagine not having this amazing baby girl in our family!

On a side note, here are her stats from her 6 month check-up:

weight - 16lbs 10oz (75th percentile)
Height- 25.5in (50th percentile)

She is the most average size baby I've had. The other two were always 90th percentile in at least one of the measurements, Halli was always 90th in both. But compared to Peyton, our skinny minny baby, Lexie's feeling a little chunkier!

Christmas Morning

I absolutely LOVE christmas! We had a wonderful christmas day and enjoyed spending time at home all morning, just relaxing and playing with new toys! The girls gave me a little present and slept in just a little, at least they weren't up at 6:30, so that was great! I loved the look of excitment on their faces as they came in and told us that santa had come. It was also so fun this year as Peyton was able to get into it a little more.

Gotta love that Christmas Morning Excitment!

Peyton was so excited for her "binkerbell" toys.

Halli got a new hula hoop, she wasn't too great at it to start, but it's amazing how quick these kids learn, she's pretty good!

This is pretty much what Lexie did all morning, she was just overcome with excitment!:)

There's nothing like a big hunk of chocolate before 8am!

Our tree after santa came! I love thes pictures. When I was growing up my mom never put any presents under the tree until christmas eve, so in the morning it looked like the whole place was overflowing. She says they did this to hide the lack of presents, I guess it worked, cause it always looked like a ton! This is something I've continued with our kids and will probably always do, it just makes christmas morning that much more exciting.

We had a great christmas, but maybe next year santa will pull in the purse strings and not overdo it so much! Okay, maybe not Santa, but Mrs. Clause is to blame.