Thursday, July 30, 2009

Bethany is back! :)

Bethany finally made it back to New Orleans on July 15th! The kids, even Thomas, were really starting to miss not having her around. Andrew and Aimee said that it just wasn't fun without Bethany. Mattie agreed!



Edd went to the airport to pick Bethany up for me so I didn't have to take everyone to the airport. This turned out to be a really thing since Bethany's plane was about 2 hours late!!! Edd called me about 5 minutes before her plane was supposed to land and said that B hadn't even left Houston yet!


There was something that needed to be replaced on the plane, it wasn't serious, but I guess necessary and took a long time! Poor B was sitting on the plane the whole time they were doing the repairs!



Once we got Bethany home, the kids were so excited!!! She was challenged out on the badminton court in the backyard. I don't know whose team won, but I think everyone had fun! Mattie just reported to me that Bethany and Aimee won because Bethany is good at hits! :)




Then next item of business: painting Bethany's room! We were supposed to get it done while she was gone, but in those 3 weeks, we just didn't have time to work on it, other than get the paint. So all the kids ended up helping! They were all excited to help! After painting one wall, we had used up about 3/4 of the first gallon of paint! Yikes!!! After that, I had to limit the access to the paint. After a stressful day and a half, we finally got B's room painted! It looks great! :)
Another bit of excitement was the day we could FINALLY make MICROWAVE POPCORN!!! :)
Our new house is equipped with a double oven, which has been handy...like when we are making cookies! But poor Thomas was so sad not to have microwave popcorn anymore! I'd given away our electric popcorn popper when we moved, not realizing how handy it would be at the new house since it didn't have a microwave!
I thought it was kindof fun to live without a microwave for awhile...reminded me of when I was a kid and there was no such thing as microwaves. But the are very nice to have! So Bethany's first Friday night was spent babysitting while Edd and I went microwave shopping!

Thomas is so glad to have microwave popcorn again!!! :)



Sunday, July 12, 2009

Is that thunder??? :)

Yeah!!! It FINALLY rained again!!!

The kids were so excited they had to go out in it!

Of course they ended up catching 11 crawfish! The joys of living in the South!

They put them in the rain water that had accumulated in our overturned blow-up pool.



















Aimee had a list of all their names: Joe, Jenna, Jay Jay, John, Josephina, Jack and Jill, Jana, and two more "J" names that we can't remember anymore since that was Monday!
















Andrew created his own technique of using the crawfish nets to scoop them up so he could catch them in a plastic cup! :) Once he caught one, he'd race over to the pool and add it to the collection!

Tuesday morning, all the crawfish were gone, except for 1 little one, which the kids promptly brought inside and put into a container, begging to keep it!!! :) Later that day, Andrew was out on the patio moving stuff around and found another escapee hiding behind a box, which he brought in to keep.
The kids had fun feeding the crawfish and watching them eat. Andrew even looked up on the internet to see how to take care of them. We kept them around for a few days before had to dump them.
After the rain was done, it was sooo nice outside!!! :) In the morning it was actually very pleasant! But it didn't last long, by the end of the week though, we were back to plain old hot and super humid!!!

This week we had breakfast from Momma's "Fruity Smoothie" shop! The first couple of days we had "Blueberry Blast" for breakfast! It was super yummy! A good way to use of the blueberry crisp we had for Sunday dessert that I didn't think turned out very well. Too many blueberries and not enough crisp. It made and awesome smoothie though!!!

When the blueberries were gone, we had "Rock'n Raspberry" to celebrate me finding my i-pod!!! I thought that I'd never find my i-pod after we moved. I hadn't found it in any of the boxes from my room or bathroom and was about to cross it off as a casualty of the move.

One morning, I think it was Wednesday, I had the thought, "LOOK IN YOUR GREEN COMPUTER BAG!" Low and behold, there it was in one of the pockets!!! YEAH!!!! Was I really that stressed that I'd forgotten in one evening--our last night in Kingwood--where I put my i-pod??? I guess so! Glad the move is over and so glad I found my i-pod!!!! :)

The end of the week smoothie flavor was "Mango Magic" I was glad that it was the weekend! I was thinking it would be fun to be in Hawaii! :) Hmmm...wouldn't that be fun!!! Relaxing in the white sand on the beach, hearing the ocean, feeling the breeze....almost heaven, ahhhhhhhh!

We had our own version of white fun........















SHAVING CREAM!!!! :)

Oh, the kids had so much fun with the shaving cream!!!! First they were going to do their own shaving cream sculptures, but it ended up becoming a joint effort to cover the whole table! :)

After emptying two cans of shaving cream and covering the table, the kids were content for a little while. They swirled their hands all around making all sorts of designs on the table. They had a blast! They had so much fun, they thought it should be a whole Primary Party! :)



I think they especially enjoyed the fact they could get messy and make a huge mess and it was OK!!
Thomas was a little unsure about the white stuff, but quickly changed his mind and decided that it was really fun!






















Once the kids were done with the shaving cream, I sent them outside to clean off with the hose...another great idea! They had a blast cleaning each other with the hose and hoping into their makeshift bathtub...a plastic container they'd filled with water!

FAMILY UPDATES:

EDD is super busy with work. He was in Baton Rouge one day, in Houston the next. He is adjusting to his commute. Mostly this week, he's been trying not to scratch. Unfortunately, he got into some poison ivy while cleaning up the backyard. He is finally doing better! :)
BETHANY has been having a great time up in Texas! She have ton of fun at Girl's Camp! This is picture of Bethany and her buddie, Raegan at camp. B had an awesome time at EFY in San Antonio.


Cheney, Raegan, Bethany & Brooke in San Antonio
Bethany is visiting with Grandma & Grandpa Prince and Aunt Paula right now. Edd's sister, Sara, and her 3 kids came up to visit while B was there! After church today, my kids told me they really miss Bethany and can't wait for her to get home on Wednesday!! :)
ANDREW is enjoying his new found friend, Connor, who he met at church! Connor lives in the neighborhood across from ours. One day Andrew went to play at Connor's house and this past week, we had Connor come to our house!
AIMEE is such a good girl! She works hard and likes to help Thomas. Aimee doesn't appreciate Andrew's teasing. This week has been a good week with Aimee and Mattie. They have been playing nicely all week! :) She is a good sport when the frogs get loose in the house...Aimee hates frogs!!! Aimee has been busy getting her summer scrapbook put together!

MATTIE is becoming quite a swimmer! She has been enjoying her own room, but still loves to hang out with Aimee. Mattie loves to tease Thomas. It is like watching Bethany and Andrew all over again. Mattie loves to read and has already finished some of the books she got at the beginning of the summer!
THOMAS decided that he was going to be a BIG BOY.......FINALLY!!! As his reward each day, we got to go swimming....which translates to Thomas as, "let's go frog hunting at the pool!!!" :)


Monday, July 6, 2009

Our 4th of July Fun!

We had a super fun 4th of July weekend! Edd's brother, Dan, and his family came to our house for a visit! The arrived late Thursday night. They were hoping for the 5 hour drive from Kingwood. Unfortunately, they got stuck in traffic around Baton Rouge, maybe because of the rain??? The true reason for the traffic is a mystery. After 8 hrs of driving, they all arrived...safe, & sound asleep...at least the kids were! :)
Friday morning, we headed out early for our grand adventure on the swamp! We rode a flat bottom boat into the Honey Island Swamp, and saw quite a few alligators up close!!! It was really exciting to see alligators that close! After the swamp, we went down the river to see more alligators. It was really neat hear about the history of the area, like pirates!!! And neat to see all the fishing camps along the river...looks like fun!
After our swamp adventure, we had some yummy po-boys for lunch and the big kids each got a bottle of rootbeer, which was almost as exciting as the alligators! When we finished lunch, we scrapped our park plans...it was just too hot to play outside. So we went back to the house and watched a movie and napped. Later on, Edd and Dan took the kids to the pool while Melissa and I went to Wal-Mart for our weekend groceries.

Saturday morning, the 4th of July, we ventured across Lake Pontchartrain and went to the Audubon Aquarium. While we were waiting for Edd & Dan to get the tickets, we watched the Mississippi River. The paddle boat down a ways from us started playing patriotic songs on it's organ! We watched a ship come around the bend. It didn't look like it was going to clear the big bridge, but it did!!! Then we went into the aquarium.
It was really neat to see all the different creatures they had at the aquarium. The penguins were one of the favorite spots. I liked the sea dragons...they are like sea horses, but they looked like they were covered in twigs! Thomas, of course, loved the frog area. He wanted to take on of the frogs on display home with us!!!! He begged and begged. I finally got him to move on!
The kids loved touching the sting-rays and the baby shark too! I think most of them tried, even Aimee...well, she only would touch the shark. Aimee preferred hanging out with Henry!!! She loved holding him all weekend long and helping Melissa take care of him!
Another highlight was the tank that had the big sharks! It also had a huge sea turtle that would swim past every now and then!
The next stop was LUNCH!!! After walking around trying to find a place to eat, we ended up at Cafe DuMonde!!! The kids were so excited to get beignets, especially George! :)
Once we had our fill of beignets, we were off again to do some sight seeing! Back to Jackson Square and the cathedral! I think we were all glad to go inside the cathedral because it had AC!!!
Aimee loved this big Oak tree! She had remembered it from when we came down for Spring Break!
As we walked along the streets of the French Quarter, Andrew ended up walking with Ben and George. Every now and then Andrew would pretend to walk into a light post. The boys would laugh at him every time! It was really cute!

Of course our French Quarter experience wouldn't be complete with out watching the street performers. The kids were lucky enough to experience it hands on!!!

We had such a fun weekend! :)
to

Friday, July 3, 2009

"It's OK, Momma!" :)


This picture sums up my week...

My little helper has been very busy this week. The other day, I heard Thomas squealing...in the bathroom. When I went to check on him, I was overcome with the smell of strawberry! Thomas was in the tub, with his clothes on, slipping & sliding all over! He told me that he was trying to clean the bathtub for me, but had used nearly a whole bottle of strawberry conditioner!!!! Then he said to me, "It's OK, Momma!" and gave me his big smile! :) How can you get upset after that???

Thursday, we were trying to finish getting the house clean. Edd's brother, Dan, and his family were coming for the weekend. At one point, after dinner I think it was, I realized Thomas was in the bathroom and was being very quite...UH OH!!! Time to check and this is what I found............

along with the BLUE footprints, there was BLUE all over the toilet, step stool and smeared all over the mirror!!!

Of course, Thomas being the sweet boy he is, said, "It's OK, Momma!" and gave me that big grin!!! :)

So I cleaned it all up again, the third time I'd cleaned that bathroom that day~and I'd cleaned the other bathroom twice...because of my little helper! Oh well, at least the bathrooms were squeaky clean!!! :) The blue substance ended up being toothpaste from Aimee's brand new tube, it's mostly gone now.

The rest of the house eventually got clean in between all the bathroom jobs.

I'm thankful for my little helper and I did pause a few moments to admire his work! And his cute BLUE footprints. :)