Long Overdue Post

I know it has been a long time since my last post.....again.  We have been busy with our move to Texas and getting settled into our new home!  Below I have posted some of the highlighted pictures from the last couple months.

The girls had a great play date at the park with their friends in Virginia prior to the move.  We miss our friends already!

Emma and her friend Vivi

Anna swinging on the bar

Anna and Kolby playing with sticks

We also took a quick trip to Philadelphia prior to the move.  We had been wanting to visit and figured it was our last chance!  We packed a lot of tourist attractions into a couple short days but had a great family trip together.  We toured Independence Hall, visited the Liberty Bell, toured the US Mint, Betsy Ross house, climbed the steps that Rocky made famous at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and went to one of the best national children's museums.  One more place off the bucket list:)

Girls at Independence Hall

Liberty Bell

Our awesome ice cream at the famous Franklin Soda Shop - yummy!

Emma standing in Rocky's footsteps - she wasn't as excited about this adventure as her daddy was!

 

Pictures below are of the girls and their friends from Virginia at our goodbye trip for yogurt.  We have so many great memories of the kids playing together!

 

Jay drove to Virginia to start work immediately, but the girls and I headed to MI for a week prior to closing on our new home.  We went up to northern MI for a few days for the girls to play in the snow at Great Grandma's lake house.  Grandpa brought the snowmobile for the girls to ride too and Emma loved it.  I think what she loved most was the fact that Grandpa drove her down to the Aloha store and let her pick out candy.  He knows the way directly to her heart! 

Anna thought it was fun to sit on the snowmobile too!

Is eating snow a necessity in childhood?!?

Emma looks like an old pro!

Anna loved the snow but the girl could not stay on her feet.  She kept falling and wasn't able to get up.

 

Anna showing off her musical skills on Great Grandma Jay's piano

Girls with their cousins at Disney on Ice.  They loved it, of course!

We are finally getting settled in to our new house in Texas.  Every time I forget just how much work moving is.  And every time it seems that we have more and more stuff!  Thankfully, my mom came with me to help watch the girls and work some serious hard labor for a week at unpacking, organizing, and cleaning.  I'm not sure I could have managed to stay sane without all of her help!!!  Easter was the weekend after we moved in and the girls managed to do all of the fun traditional Easter things.  We even went to the local Southeast Texas State Fair on Easter day for a little family fun after a hard week of unpacking.

Dyeing the eggs

 

They even twisted daddy's arm so that they could go for a camel ride!

 

Easter egg hunt!

 

 Emma has started preschool in Texas and I am SO HAPPY that I decided to put her in school just for the last couple months as I had originally decided to just let her stay home.  She has met a couple new friends (and I have met some of their nice moms - bonus!) to have play dates with this summer.  We have been busy finding new doctors, learning how to take care of our pool, lining up contractors to do some work, and the list goes on.  Not to mention that two other major life events have occurred:

1)  Emma has stopped sucking her thumb!  Say what???  That girls mouth was seriously attached to her thumb.  I mean SERIOUSLY attached.  She would sometimes put it in her mouth in between bites at the dinner table.  We had told her no less than 1 million times to get her thumb out of her mouth.  Then one day we went to the dentist and he told her that kindergartner's do not suck their thumb.  (This has all been said to her before.)  Then it clicked and the next thing I knew she asked if we would get her a surprise if she stopped.  UMMM...yes!  We told her she could have three surprises - one for each week of not sucking her thumb.  (Jay thinks it takes a few weeks to stop a bad habit.)  So three weeks later and three surprises later the girl hasn't had it in her mouth.  This means that mom and dad won't have to foot the bill for an appliance when her adult teeth come in because her teeth were moving from having her thumb in all the time.  We are SO proud of her for making the decision to stop and doing it - we know it wasn't easy for her.

2) Anna is potty trained!!  Can I get a whoop whoop??  I knew she was ready and it was just a matter of mom being ready to tackle the project.  Well, it couldn't be put off any longer.  She picked out her big girl underwear - Dora and Minnie mouse and we spent a couple whole days outside.  Day 1 she only had 4 accidents and day 2 and 3 she only had 1 accident each day!!  I think she has been accident free since and has been doing awesome.  I knew she wanted to be a big girl like her big sister.  She has been rewarded with M&M's and stickers for her successes.  She turned out to be way easier than Emma who had like 15 accidents for three days straight before catching on (although she was a bit younger.)  Anna still doesn't tell us when she needs to go and we have to remind her, but she is doing so good.  If feels great to not have to buy diapers anymore!!  She does need pull ups at night and is dry some nights and soaking wet other nights.

 

This post has turned out to be super long!  Don't forget to visit my last post for a link to our fundraising efforts for the Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance and the upcoming walkathon.  I also have some amazing pictures to post soon of a little family photo session we had in DC before we left:)