quirky little girls!

Last night Natalie decided to remind us of her Lung Strength. This can only be proven, apparently, by screaming for no reason. "I have a boo-boo. I need band-aid. Nooooooooo, not dora bandaid. I want Elmo band-aid. NOOOOOOOOOOOO I don't need bandaid!!!!!!!!!" The only good part of these little fits with Natalie is that they are blessedly short. She screamed like a crazy girl and then happily sat down in her chair and asked to eat mashed potatoes.
Meagan must have superpower memory. I am amazed every day at what she can pull out of her mind. I am not talking about things that we talk about so she remembers. I am talking about things like the print of the bulletin board in her classroom at Mother's Day out when she was turning two. It is pretty cool.

Busy bees...

Thankfully, our weekend involved no driving, or at least no long distances. Actually, it does not really matter, because I think we would have had total rebellion (not from the kids- from andy and myself!) and we wouldn't have gone anywhere. Especially when gas costs 900 zillion dollars a gallon. Only a slight exageration.

Meagan's friend Lexi celebrated her 4th birthday all decked out in Annie gear. That is her in the bright red wig, with Meagan next to her singing "Happy Birthday."

We made a "beautiful" handmade sign to accessorize Meagan's herb garden. Her daddy is trying to get her excited about gardening, but he also likes having a project to do together. She will eat anything as long as it has her herbs in it. That doesn't say that much, though, because she will eat 99% of things on a normal basis. Just don't add any onions to the recipe or it is off limits. Anyway, her herb garden sign will be fired and ready to go by next weekend.

Quite the storms that made their way through Austin last night/this morning. I don't think we had a lot of hail, but many people did.

The weekends really do fly by too quickly. I can't wait for June.

Special day at the NEW school!

Rare is it that people have the opportunity to watch someone's dream come true, but today we were lucky enough to experience that when Ms. Kumari's dream of having her own school was realized. We all woke up early and met the rest of the students for a lovely little Sri Lankan ceremony. Jesse, their son who is one of my National Junior Honor Society kids, read a sweet prayer and we all lit the oil candle. I am amazed at the quality of the facility. These kids have granite countertops on which they may lay their "stuff." Also, Natalie has an adorable little potty in her room just waiting for her to USE it. Kumari and her husband, Raju, are a special part of our family now . They have been so loving and a dream come true to a conflicted working mommy. I am so happy for them, as well as for my daughters. What a great place to spend their days!

Dallas fun and Jenny gets new clothes

Despite the fact that all of us have had more than our fair share of the car (like, I don't even want to drive the 3 miles to work even), we had a nice time in Dallas. It was fun to get to see everyone and celebrate Grandma Lois's birthday. The most exciting part of the whole trip for Natalie is when we bought her a matching dress with her best friend Jenny. They looked very stylish as they headed off to school this morning.

Countdown 10 days until TAKS test...so life at work is crazy. I literally do math all day, which is fine, but I am not cut out to be a math teacher for the long haul. Summer and April can do that, and I can help. I am a good helper, just like Meagan.

We were happy to finally get to see cousins Rich, Becky, and Julie, whom unfortunately, we rarely get to see. They were a very special part of my childhood, so it is hard to believe that a year can go by without seeing them. Rich is headed to Denver in a few months to start his job as a doctor, so I am so going to visit.

More traveling

We are off to Dallas for the weekend. Grandma Lois is having her ***60th*** birthday, which is amazing because Papa Joe says that he is 29. The whole family is going to be in town, even both Brians from San Francisco!
Natalie had a blast yesterday. Our neighbor, Reilly, who is exactly Nati's age, has a little barbie car that goes pretty fast. We were amazed to watch the girl drive the thing! She understands "reverse" and goes off roading. Natalie was in heaven. She rode along, giggling the whole time. Meagan was scared by the thing, but that is normal for her. She did mention that she would like a car like mommy's, not one of those little barbie cars.

Uncle Peter and Aunt Mary are married...

This weekend was the big Flower Girl weekend. It was a great adventure! Meagan and Natalie were not exactly good flower girls, but they thought the whole wedding thing was a lot of fun. Finally, after 4 long years, Meagan finally met her cousin Emily. They hit it off immediately and declared themselves best friends before we left Austin. Natalie chased after them as she tends to do. :0)

No one could have dreamed of how gorgeous the weather was for Peter and Mary's wedding. It was a lovely ceremony; perfect for the two of them. Brian's house out "in the boondocks" (as non-nature girl me usually calls it) was exactly right for the occasion. They got married in front of a stream with a early morning sun. Peter sang a sweet song to Mary. The food was great! I was especially appreciative of the wedding cake/cupcakes.

The only not so good part of the weekend was attempting to sleep in the same beds as our girls. We have always been very firm in our stance that they need to sleep in their own rooms, so when we told them to sleep with us last night, it was awful. They kicked us, rolled around, and generally were confused.

All in all, a very nice weekend.

KU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnyZwTnkDPU

Simply Beautiful...enough said.

I don't want to go on forever about the game on Monday. It is hard for me to describe the emotions that Andy and I feel about this game. Andy is a die-hard Astros fan, and I adore the Cubs (and the Royals too, believe it or not!), but not even a World Series win could get close to how both of us feel right now. Our hearts were in Lawrence that night, yelling and celebrating on Mass street. Perhaps now I can move on about Roy Williams. :-)

In the picture above, Natalie carries the infamous Jenny. Jenny is the light of Natalie's life. She feeds Jenny, burps her, potty trains her, and adores her. There is nothing special about Jenny, especially amongst all of the amazing dolls that she got for her birthday, but to Natalie Jenny is the very best toy in the whole wide world. Jenny was lucky enough to accompany us to the Carribean in December. Unfortunately, she almost met her demise there. She disappeared and Uncle Brian L and Andy searched high and low. We were frantic, but by some grace of God I found her just laying on the floor of the library. We are thinking about getting Jenny her own Passport.

Tomorrow is the return of the Office. We are having the usual folks over for dinner: April, Jon, Summer, Casey, Steph, Darrell and the kids. Meagan doesn't love the Office like we do, but she is psyched to have Lexi come over in the middle of the week.

BEAUTIFUL!

You can ask my mom...or andy....or my friends...etc, but I do not like to be wrong. Well, this is one case where I am SO glad that I was wrong. I thought that we were going to go down last night, but from the very first play, those guys played like champions. Meagan greeted her daddy this morning by saying, "congratulations!" Congratulations to all of us.....
We are eagerly anticipating the arrival of Meagan and Natalie's cousin, Emily. The girls do not have any first cousins, and they always hear about their friends' cousins. They are pumped up that they have their very own cousin visiting soon. Emily is the oldest child of Andy's first cousin, Karin. Meagan has specially designed a "goody" bag for her cousin, complete with all the things a 4 year old must have.
****edited to add**** Andy and our friend Todd are going to the CHAMPIONSHIP game in San Antonio. We may not be eating for the next month, but it is worth it. Well, it will be worth it if we win.

It all comes down to tonight...and we are very excited!

As you can see, Meagan loves her Final Four Tshirt. She has no idea of the rolling hills and beautiful campus that her parents love so much, but she sure loves our excitement. We know that playing UNC is going to be rough but we are crossing our fingers. The following URL is to a funny spirit song a Kansas City radio show did.
http://www.stationcaster.com/player.php?s=26&c=137&f=10850

We had a fun night last night with some of my friends from work. April and Jon are fabulous cooks and we all enjoyed Meat buckets. Meagan and Natalie are coming out of their shell around Summer, Casey, April and Jon, which is good because they see them all of the time! We are going to a First Birthday party today for Jackson, Lexi's little brother. Meagan and Natalie are thrilled that they are going to go jump in our awesome jump house that mommy is always too lazy to set up, but luckily Stephanie isn't as lazy.
Weather is simply lovely, so we are enjoying that. We are hoping it will be this awesome next weekend for Peter's wedding!

Another busy day

Yet another busy day. We spent a good deal of the afternoon and the seamstress, trying to get Meagan's Flower Girl dress to fit correctly. We have learned that Uncle Peter's wedding out at the ranch might be muddy, so the super long length of her dress might have been not so good. We did find out that we are saving some pennies though! Apparently due to the mud, we are supposed to wear sneakers. Meagan loved the idea of wearing her silver "American Idol" shoes!

Her newest funny thing that she says (Meagan): She can't pronounce "accidently," so she says "ointsy-bointsy". Example for you: "I fell down and ointsy-bointsy hurt my toe." It cracks me up.

Life as a teacher is hectic right now too. Texas has a test called the TAKS test. Right now it is making life at school very stressful. Everyone is panicking that their student might not pass. These tests are truly "high stakes" now.

Noticed something today

I noticed my first wrinkle today. Now, there is no irony in the fact that my first wrinkle in the worry lines above my eyes. As you may know, if you know me even a tiny, tiny bit, I am a worrier. One thing that I have not ever worried about before, however, are (is?!?) wrinkles. I have always looked younger than I truly am. Well, on the way home from work I noticed that those lines were stuck on my brow.

Guess I really have hit the big 3-3!