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Body no

2012-01-28T09:33:00.001-06:00

I remembered the other thing Hailey says "incorrectly". Especially when she's going to bed, she goes through a list of things she's worried about: "body no touch my lovey. Body no touch my mommy. Body no touch my Dora puzzle. There's no animals by my bed." so I reassure her that all of those things are correct and shut her door. I'm going to try to record this and put it on here. She also gets a story every night and after it's over, she repeats her favorite parts back to me. Lately she wants Swiper to be in all her stories. A few weeks ago she wanted someone to be in time out in each story. Tyson has started a new trend of complimenting me. My favorite is when he says "Mommy you make good choices." but he also tells me I look beautiful if I do my hair differently or if I'm more dressed up than normal. Such a sweet kid! I don't think I've turned on the camera since Christmas. Need to get back in that habit!

another one

2012-01-25T22:23:00.002-06:00

I wanted to document an endearing phrase that Hailey uses a lot so we don't forget it in a few years. When she is asking for something, or identifying something, she often says it like "Can I have another one cracker?" or "I like the red one marker." "Mommy, I like the pink one shoe!"

It makes us smile every time she does it, especially since she's usually excited or very adamant when she says it. And... I know there's more cute and unusual things that they both say right now, but my brain can only remember this one for now! I'll tell you another one cute phrase when I remember it!

New job!

2012-01-09T18:28:00.001-06:00

I started a new job today! I am now an IT Manager for the leading hospital in Houston. (I'm paranoid so I don't want to put exact details). My boss was GREAT at my last company, which made it hard to leave, but this is a great opportunity for me. Of course, the family will all need to adjust our routines while I adjust, so please keep us in your thoughts!

Merry Christmas 2011

2012-01-04T20:21:00.000-06:00

Christmas was with the Moriarty side this year! We headed to Jammy and Papa's on Christmas Eve morning, and Nick and Amber were already there! The cousins got to play together, Tyson played with the train (a lot as usual), they got silly with Papa...

... and then we opened presents to/from family members. I included just a few of the pictures. Hailey got some new clothes and shoes from Jonah, and immediately had to try on her shoes...

Tyson got a lot of good stuff too. Of course they got so much that we haven't even played with half of it yet!

Hailey got a set of baby doll necessities - a new stroller, pack and play, high chair and baby chair - huge hit :)

We made and decorated cookies for Santa, getting ready to leave them by the fireplace.

Jammy read The Polar Express and Twas the Night Before Christmas to the kids (an every-year tradition)!

We took the usual couch picture... and then got a little crazy with it. Any time Steve and Nick get together this is just expected. I have plenty of other crazy pictures I could post, or use for blackmail someday.

Getting the kids settled down for bedtime. Tyson and Jonah both loved this snow globe. But where's Hailey? Oh... sneaking a cookie in the kitchen...

On Christmas morning the kids found their stockings from Santa right by the fireplace. Tyson got the Polar Express DVD (I think this was his favorite gift) and Hailey got some bracelets (among other things of course)

Santa brought Hailey a Dora doll (as requested) and a Cabbage Patch Kid! Tyson got a watch (as requested) and a toolbench! The toolbench is really cool but it only has one project he can do... interest is already waning :(

The kids were good about opening their stuff, then heading off to church. It was a fun weekend!

Patrick

2011-12-31T19:03:00.002-06:00

Meet Patrick. He showed up on December 6th and reported to Santa each night until Christmas Eve. Tyson was really interested in him and gave him his name. Every morning he wanted to check for Patrick and see where he ended up. One day, a toy knocked him over ~ that was traumatic (you can NOT touch the elf or his magic will go away!). Daddy talked to Patrick and asked him to tell Santa the toy was sorry, and luckily Patrick came back the next day in a different location again! Whew!

Thanks Patrick for giving us some extra fun and motivation to be good. We hope to see you next year!

Santa visit

2011-12-24T09:20:00.001-06:00

Some of you may remember our previous Santa visits - they have usually ended up in at least one kid screaming and clawing away from Santa. Finally, we had a happy Santa visit! This year we went to Bass Pro and it was by far our favorite set-up. Plenty to do while waiting in line (creative advertising).

The first one is me kneeling down with our camera (yes they allow this...) and the second one is the "real" picture. Yes, I took a picture of a picture, what can you do. Tyson asked Santa for a watch and Hailey asked for Dora! We'll see if Santa can deliver that!

Afterwards we checked out the fish tank and they got a close-up of a fish! Merry Christmas!

roarrring birthday party

2011-12-21T22:23:00.001-06:00

Roarrrr! We had Tyson's 5th birthday party at the zoo again. We loved it last year so we decided to go for it again. Just like last year, we got very lucky with the weather. Sunny and around 65-70 degrees. Even in Houston, it's a little nerve racking planning an outdoor event in December.

At first, the kids played in the petting zoo and the playgrounds around the pavilion. We don't have any pics of that because we were in the pavilion greeting people. Thanks to everyone who helped watch our kiddos during that time! (Cousin Christine took care of Hailey most of the time!)

When the party came back into the pavilion, everyone chowed down on donuts, kolaches and fruit (ok... so hardly anyone touched the fruit tray!) Then, the kids colored their tails for "pin the tail on the donkey."

They had fun and it went well - Garritt was the big winner (a friend from Tyson's class) - I just realized I didn't get a pic of all the kids together. Lesson learned for next year.

Tyson made his wish, blew out his candles and we ate cake and opened presents! Then, on to the merry go round and looking at the animals!

We got this wagon the day before the party. We've always wanted one but never sprang for it until now. What a life saver. Hailey could actually pull her big cousins in it.

Papa provided lots of entertainment by racing them around the zoo (lots of screaming and fun)

Glenn got another great shot of Hailey, and I caught both of the kids in the aquarium tunnel (we hadn't been in this part of the zoo in all of our visits before!)

No trip to the zoo is complete without a train ride at the end! Hailey was the most well-behaved that she's ever been on the train. It helped that we hardly had to wait to get on for once! Tyson loved it as usual.

We had a great time and everything went great. Happy Birthday Tyson! We love you!

Thanksgiving '11

2011-12-07T21:23:00.001-06:00

This year we spent Thanksgiving with the Torno side of the family. We got a long break from work and went down Tuesday night, and stayed until Sunday afternoon! That may be our longest stay down there so far. Apparently, I only took pictures of the two excursions we went on and not of any of the Thanksgiving activities. Ahhhh.

On Wednesday we went to the Texas State Aquarium. It was perfect - nice weather and hardly anyone was there. Everyone else must have been travelling or getting ready for the big meal!

Tyson and Caleb were inseparable as usual!

Hailey also really likes Caleb and Hannah and tries to tag along whenever they let her!

SHARK!


Benjamin got to be a volunteer during the dolphin show, and the dolphin chose his shape!

On Friday Grandpa took us to a fishing spot, where Tyson fished for a few minutes, then we played around in the sand and ran around. Again the weather was perfect and it was a fun little getaway.

We had a good time and actually got to go on a date while we were there! That's a rare occasion these days! Happy Thanksgiving!

Tyson is 5!

2011-12-05T22:52:00.001-06:00

Our sweet, loving first-born turned 5 today! In many ways I am happy for him, because he's been telling people he's 5 for a couple of months now, he's very excited, and it's FUN to spoil him with parties and gifts. But in other ways of course it's a little sad that our first baby is another year older. Memories came flashing back of his "birth"day. The difficulty that both he and I had during delivery. The uncertainty about the first few days in the hospital. The overwhelming feeling of gratefulness that our baby ended up being just fine and healthy. The joy of holding him in the NICU and how little sleep we got those first few days - I did NOT want to be in my hospital room without him! [And we do realize that people go through MUCH worse than that!]

Tyson is such a sweet, caring, loving, good boy. He is all boy. He still says a few things "incorrectly" - he asks us to "transform" the TV (fast-forward), he still says "movie beefeater" for movie theater, and still says "y" for "l"'s. He really wants to be nice to his little sister, but she knows how to push his buttons. He's a great hugger, sharer, and gives sweet kisses on your cheek. He's still the cutest boy I've ever seen. There are multiple girls in his class that claim they are going to marry him.

What else can I say that won't make you throw up? :) We are in love with this kid, so proud of him, and can't wait to see what the future holds for him. Happy Birthday Tyson Noble. We love you more than we can say.

new hairdo

2011-11-29T22:26:00.001-06:00

I got tired of my haircut. So I let the kids design a new 'do. When I worked at Royce we used to say "how long do you think it would take me to get fired if..." with ridiculous faces or whatever. How long do you think it would take me to get fired with this hair? I think I could pull it off.

patting babies

2011-11-10T21:59:00.001-06:00

I was trying to get Hailey on camera patting her babies, which is a common occurrence around here, and she was trying to get me to lay down so she could pat me too. The camera was incognito so the angle is a little weird. The best part is in the last 15 seconds or so... I got a surprise comment. I laughed so hard.

Translation if needed: "Mommy not listen."

Halloween 2011

2011-10-31T23:17:00.002-05:00

Halloween festivities actually started on Friday for the kids - they had their party at school. It continued on Sunday afternoon with pumpkin carving. Here we were in the morning... (had to get a pic of Hailey in her Halloween shirt and tights... and Tyson's awesome shirt that needs no explanation ;)

Tyson made some candy corn designs while mommy and daddy were taking it easy for a few minutes after the Texans game...

... and here are our pumpkins, with faces designed by Tyson (they are both SCARY faces)...

The rest are all from tonight! Here's our little ladybug and our big werewolf!!!

She thought I was taking her candy!

Trick or Treat!

The loot... and our jack-o-lanterns in action!

Live action trick-or-treating! It was definitely the easiest and most fun year we've had with them so far. I'm sure that has something to do with neither of them being a baby anymore. The weather cooperated nicely and was around 70 degrees. Now I'm really looking forward to next year!! Happy Halloween!

first NFL game

2011-10-31T22:04:00.000-05:00

The kids went to their first NFL game yesterday at Reliant Stadium - Texans vs. Jaguars. Thanks to Steve's company for getting us the tickets! We were really hesitant to take the kids, mostly because Hailey has failed every stadium-seating test she's had so far (absolutely does not want to stay in her seat, much less the row of seats ~ see the Circus post). We didn't know where the seats were until we got there, but could not have chosen better seats ourselves. We were at club level in the first row = perfect for a squirmy 2 year old who does not stay in her seat. No seats in front of her to kick. No people to run into when she keeps getting in and out of her seat (a form of entertainment). YEA!!!

The kids did really well. I brought a few markers and some paper and that entertained them during time outs. Daddy bought them big tubs of popcorn which they loved. It was perfect until the 3rd quarter, when the sun started directly hitting us. The kids quickly got uncomfortable. I'd say 3 whole quarters of an NFL game is a pretty darn good success for a 4 and 2 year old.

Tyson and I took a bunch of pics - this is my favorite.

On the way back to the car - the kids did a ton of walking and they had enough! It was a fun time and the Texans won!

happy birthday Papa

2011-10-31T21:46:00.002-05:00

Papa turned 60 last weekend! In our card I wrote "60 is the new 40." Cliche, I know, but it definitely applies to my Dad. There is no way he is really 60. He takes really good care of himself and being healthy is part of his lifestyle.

We all got to go to Jammy and Papa's for lunch. We had fun - it had been months since we were all together. We had so much fun I hardly took any pictures, as usual! The kids played trains and puzzles, and after lunch we headed to the park. That was great for Hailey and Jonah, but Tyson and Caleb ran into a bully who quickly ruined their experience, so we only stayed about 10 minutes. The kids were over tired by that point anyway!

Some of our attempts at pictures with the kids! Amber may have some better ones! Happy 60th Dad, here's to many more years!

cousin sleepover

2011-10-31T21:33:00.002-05:00

Tyson had his first sleepover two weekends ago with Caleb. These two have tons of fun when they're together, and people even mistake them for each other... you know who you are :) The boys got to stay up a little late, and Hailey tagged along as much as they'd let her.

They got to sleep in the game room on the big, comfy couch, and Daddy told them a bedtime story. Tyson decided to wake up at 5:30 (see previous post), and of course he woke Caleb up too. That made the morning a little rough for Mommy but it was fun seeing them have such a good time together. Caleb got to stay with us all day and we took him to his grandparents' house at dinner time. The boys really didn't want to leave each other, and Hailey asked every day for a week "where Caleb"? Thanks for coming Caleb!

guess who?

2011-10-27T21:30:00.000-05:00

Which one of these two mess - making,

fun - loving,

over - excited kids is having trouble sleeping at night? Is it our little girl, whose current sayings frequently include "me do it myself" and "I want to hold you", "I want candy" and even "Gig 'Em Angies?"

The same little girl who loves to play Mommy to her baby dolls, lining them up, patting them to sleep and laying "blankies" (wipes) on them?

Nope. It's her big brother. Poor Tyson has had trouble sleeping lately, waking up because he's scared. We tell him how safe we are, how we were very careful when we chose our house, and that nothing can get in. He even knows he has a strong Daddy that can protect him. We know it's just a phase, but some days it feels like the infant level of tiredness again! He has actually done a lot better this week so here's hoping we're on the way out of this little phase!

pumpkin patch

2011-10-24T21:50:00.000-05:00

Two weekends ago, we went to Froberg's Farm to do our annual pumpkin patch visit. We've been going to a big one in Spring, but it wasn't going to work out this year so we found a new, closer one. We had no idea what to expect - all I knew is that it's a strawberry farm in the Spring.

It poured on the way there and we almost turned around. Tyson was pretty upset with that idea so we decided to tough it out and see - luckily the rain hadn't gotten to the farm yet. We started out on a hay ride and got a really cool tour of the farm. It's family owned and the son-in-law did the tour. Here's some of the strawberry fields that have just recently been planted.

As soon as the hayride was done, it started raining. We hurried inside to the store, which is also where they had the pumpkins. This part was different than what we're used to - they had already hand-picked the best looking pumpkins so it was pretty easy to make a decision. We're used to piles and piles of pumpkins, which make cute pics but not great pumpkins.

The same guy who did the tour built this tractor - pretty cute. The kids all loved it of course.

We got some fruit and veggies from their store also - loved it.

It was a really cute place - if you're around Alvin you should check it out! We're definitely going back in the Spring to pick strawberries!

like Tyson... if I could be like Tyson

2011-09-26T21:31:00.000-05:00

Hailey wants to do everything Tyson is doing. He always starts out very sweet, sharing his toys, food, or whatever else. She almost always wants to be where he is. At some point it usually goes south. Sometimes it's her fault, sometimes it's his. Ah, siblings.

We often hear "Tyson not sharing!" or "Hailey hit me!"

She also says "me do it myself" at least once a day - usually when we're trying to get her into her car seat, or do just about anything faster than she's doing it.

See what I mean?

3 things to be proud of

2011-09-23T21:30:00.001-05:00

Our Aggie football team... we're finally relevant again. I hadn't been to Kyle Field in two years. Always fun! We had a good time with friends, and showed some Auburn alum friends what they're about to be up against. Thanks Jammy and Papa for keeping the kiddos on our short getaway!

Hailey isn't playing around with her potty training. The date on this note is 9/15. She's been using the potty exclusively at school every day since then, and is even dry after nap. At home, she's not always into it, but that's why she's still in diapers/ pull-ups. In due time!

Last but certainly not least... Tyson's swimming skills have just soared this summer. He went from having a float vest and arm floaties, to not using any floating assistance, swimming across the pool, jumping off the waterfall, going down the slide, and most recently this... we are so proud :)

zoo and updates

2011-09-08T09:53:00.001-05:00

Since the weather finally calmed down a little over the weekend, we wanted to take the kids to the zoo. Steve wasn't feeling well on Saturday so Jammy went with us!

Checking out the monkeys

It was nice to actually have less than 100% humidity, and the 95 degrees felt like it was cool outside. Funny how your perspective changes.

Also - an update on some of the things the kids are saying:

Hailey can say almost anything understandably. She's corrected some of the cuter things that she used to mispronounce, like again (was anYA), and Tyson (was Tysee). She knows her colors very well; she has trouble every once in awhile but basically knows them. Pink is called "pinky". Purple is her favorite color. She names colors frequently by saying "that's the [color] one." So we hear "I want purple one" a lot :)

She is into showing us boo-boos and asking for a band-aid. Most of the time she takes the band-aid right off. She also makes the funniest sound effects when sucking her thumb. It's kind of like a machine gun sound while humming (hard to describe, can't you tell?!?). She's very independent (just like Mommy, no surprise), and we hear "ME do it" or "Hayee do it" pretty often. She's been speaking in complete sentences more often, and even walked up to us the other day and said "Mommy, I have a booger". Yes... it was on her finger. And yes, Daddy did the dirty work and got it off.

Hailey has been doing great at potty training at school. They're asking if we can bring pull-ups for her now. She does ok at home, but I don't think she's completely ready to make the jump yet.

Tyson doesn't have as many new updates in this area of course, but he does still say "movie beefeater" for movie theater :) He also tells us he's allergic to food, or activities that he doesn't want to do. "Mommy, I'm ayergic to water." ha ha!

catch up

2011-08-31T22:05:00.003-05:00

I realized that I haven't downloaded pics from our camera in about a MONTH... so here's a summary of the past month!

We went to see the Barnum & Bailey circus the last weekend it was in town (yeah, about a month ago). I thought it would be a great idea to take the kids, all the reviews online were great. Tyson loved it, Hailey loved it from a distance. As long as she wasn't sitting in the confined row of seats, she was great...

The motorcycle family was our favorite. Amazing that they could somehow fit 7 motorcyles in a cage that looks to be about 10' in diamater...

I loved the elephants too. Tigers, ehhhh, and the trapeze people really left something to be desired. Overall it was about a B+ or A-.

The kids chilling in their diapers/ undies. Both prefer to only wear the bare minimum. Maybe because it's the hottest summer on record in Houston, with no rain, and we've had almost 30 days of 100+ degree temps....

We took them to the Childrens Museum one Saturday. Steve loves to take it easy on weekends when possible. Unfortunately for him I don't have that gene very often. So we went for a couple of hours.

The art room was pretty disappointing, the paint barely did anything (it was really sponges with a LITTLE bit of color in them)

Hailey swinging/ doing pullups (CrossFit kid maybe)?

The outside part was fun, but remember it was 100+ degrees... blechhhhh....

Flowers that Steve got me for our anniversary! One of a few times a year I usually get flowers! :)

Tyson on his first day of "school", which really meant he moved up to the last class he can be in at Primrose and started wearing his uniform again. Love this kid. 1 more year until Kindergarten.

We will try to take more pictures this month and be better about posting!

10 Years

2011-08-24T21:42:00.003-05:00

8.18.2011 was our 10 YEAR wedding anniversary! That sounds like such a long time, and in some ways it seems like we've been married longer than that (in a good way...). We started out in a rental house in Spring, and I'm still expecting one of us to test positive for malaria or some other disease caused by living in a moldy house! Blech. No amount of extreme cleaning could fix that place. We've moved twice since then, gone from a Honda Accord and Pontiac Grand Am, through 4 other vehicles, a few jobs each, had two kids, seen some ups and downs, and had plenty of fun along the way.

Steve, thank you for being a loving, caring husband, my best friend, and an excellent father to our children. Also - thank you for giving us a boy first and then a girl! :) I'm proud to be your wife, and thinking back on our relationship, it's obvious that we've grown so much as a couple in the last 10 years.

I love you. I say it a lot but I mean it every time. Because of you I look forward to coming home, spending time with you (even if we only get to talk for 5 minutes), laughing and playing with our kids. Here's to the rest of our lives!!

Schlitterbahn (Galveston)

2011-08-20T18:48:00.004-05:00

We were forced to take a vacation day yesterday because the kids' school was closed for their annual teacher in-service. We decided to make the best of it and take the kids to Schlitterbahn Galveston. We knew it would be smaller than the NB version but the reviews were good online so we were optimistic about it.

Those kids are definitely mine. Not that I was questioning that, but they are both completely fearless on rides, slides, everything there. It was fun because we could take them on any ride, even if they didn't meet the height requirement, as long as they rode with us. So we basically rode everything except the generic slide at every waterpark that's basically a vertical drop. (Tyson did ask to ride it though...) They would shriek in excitement when a ride went fast, had a drop, or anything. It was fun seeing them so excited. The lazy river was the best one we've been on - it has different paths if you want to go through rapids or waves.

The quote of the day was on the way there - Hailey was getting bored with the longer car trip and started randomly screaming. Tyson said "she's making me DIE." I cracked up. He didn't appreciate it, but I couldn't help it!

Hailey made it through the whole day without a nap somehow, and fell asleep as soon as we got in the car. It was fun, but we're still wiped out today! No pictures... didn't think it was worth trying to keep the camera dry and messing with that drama! We did break our streak of "the kids have never been sunburned" though - Hailey's cheeks and arms got burned, but they are better today thankfully.

Happy end of summer! (But not end of heat... we wish!)

potty training

2011-08-01T18:13:00.000-05:00

I was NOT ready for this development, but Hailey is constantly saying she needs to use the potty. As I mentioned in an earlier post, she went once (#2), coincidentally at school. Well that was until Thursday. She went #1 in the potty, then proceeded to do it again on Friday, Saturday and Sunday! She only did it once each day, and does not always ask to use the potty, usually just when she wakes up in the morning and between dinner and bath time.

I am still not expecting her to be completely potty trained any time soon, and I'm not going to push her on it yet, but this is pretty cool... it's at least nice to see her do it sometimes instead of just sitting there! And hey, if she's potty trained in a month or two, PARTY! No more diapers, EVER!

Of course I make a HUGE deal about it when she goes, and she tells everyone in the house that she did it. So funny. We will see where this goes...

water babies

2011-07-25T22:10:00.000-05:00

Our kids have made some huge strides in their swimming skills in the past month. They took swimming lessons in April/ May (well... TYSON took swim lessons. Hailey fought me and freaked out during most of her 3 lessons that we went to!). I think they really paid off for Tyson. He now swims without his float vest, including jumping off the rocks and sliding down the slide, which are both in the deep end! He can swim from the steps to the basketball goal. He kind of does a combo of underwater swimming and breaststroke.

Here's a pic showing most of the pool so you can kind of see what I'm talking about. We are SO proud of him and he's pretty excited too! I definitely won't trust him completely for awhile so I'm still very close to him when he does it, but he has done great! This is also why we don't have any pics of him doing this "in action" yet.

Hailey has done better with her float/ innertube too! She used to dip her face in the water all the time but now she can maintain her balance without us having to move her around! It's nice because we can all swim together but independently. That's a first since we had kids!

Tyson picked out some Jolly Rancher popsicles at the store and they are GREAT. Here's Hailey eating her first popsicle. She was shrieking and really excited the whole time, it was great.

stats

2011-07-24T21:43:00.003-05:00

Hailey had her 2 year well-check on Thursday, and passed with flying colors! The only developmental question I couldn't answer was "can she string noodles or beads on a string?" Ummm... I didn't know I was supposed to try that so I had to say no. Other than that she's above par on her skills. Luckily, we haven't had to take the kids to the doctor very much this year, so it was nice to know how much she weighs!

She weighs 27 lbs (back up in the 50th percentile after being underweight last time)

She's 34.5" tall (75th percentile as she's been since birth). She's supposed to be 5'9" eventually, which is an inch taller than mommy!

Potty training. She is EXTREMELY interested in it, but not ready yet. She asks to sit on the potty at least 3 times a day, and 2 weeks ago she (accidentally) went #2 in it, but so far she's 1 for about 50 attempts, so we aren't getting too excited about it :) This is a different experience than with Tyson, because when he was ready to start, he was serious about it (and at least 2.5 years old) and it didn't take long. We'll see with this one!

She can say almost anything, but still talks plenty of gibberish too. Here's some of the cuter mis-pronunciations she does now:

"pidap" = pizza

"moy" = more

"dop" = stop

"Tysee" = Tyson

She also tells us to "go play" if she wants to do something mischevious. So hilarious. I hope she keeps telling on herself like that for awhile. Here's a short video of another saying she recently picked up :)

birthday girl

2011-07-18T21:41:00.006-05:00

We had a small party on Saturday for Hailey's 2nd birthday! We just invited direct family and close friends, and figured we'd start with the "classmate" parties next year. It was a luau themed party, but it actually rained for the first time in months on Saturday, which delayed our decorating until 1 hour before party time... but we rearranged activities to make up for it.

Steve spent all day making brisket and ribs on the smoker, and of course the famous potato explosion, seen above. The kids had hot dogs on the grill. I seriously think this was the best version of all of those items that he's made so far!

Hailey loves cupcakes so we decided to get her a "cupcake cake". It still had buttercream icing like a cake so we had to cut each cupcake out!

Birthday girl eating her cupcake - she loved it so much I couldn't get her to stop and smile for a pic!

Opening presents - Tyson helped too. He was so cute, and kept wanting to bring her more presents.

And here comes the big gift from Mommy and Daddy... thanks for the help with kitchen themed gifts, she definitely has some choices on pots, pans and food to cook!

She (and Tyson) love the play kitchen. We hope it stays a big hit for years to come!

I'm tired of not having pictures of people when we have a party or just even have people over, so I forced myself to take pictures! I think I got everyone in at least one picture!

Howie and Mom

Laura and Amber, the best sisters I never had :) Oh, and that goofball behind them is my brother.

Kyle, Sarah, Mike and Krista

Are we related?

Grandma and Grandpa

After stuffing our faces and opening presents, some of us swam. It was hard to get Hailey away from her presents, but since she loves swimming she finally wanted to make an appearance!

Synchronized jumping, followed by the challenge of shooting a basket while jumping off the rocks, then catching a football before hitting the water.

Jonah, the only other kid at the party! Yikes! He got ALL of the party favors! (Just kidding Amber I wouldn't do that to you)

Us singing to the birthday girl. Thanks to everyone who came!

Hailey is 2!

2011-07-14T22:14:00.000-05:00

I can't believe our baby girl is 2 years old today. As with most milestones, in some ways it seems like she's been with us for longer than that, and in other ways it seems like there's no way it's already been 2 years. Here's a picture from the day she was born. She started out as a Daddy's girl right from the beginning.

Here she is close to her 1 year birthday. Such a cutie. Hailey has been an outgoing, opinionated, very type A personality since the day she was born!

Here's some recent pictures of her. In the last few months she has really broken out of her shyness shell. For the first 6 months or so of her life, she would only have Mommy. Then she decided Daddy was OK, but that was about it (other than her day care teachers). She has gradually added more people to her "list", and now I think almost everyone is on it. This has been challenging for Mommy and Daddy so we're glad she's over it!

She loves her brother. And he loves her right back and protects her. Of course they fight like all siblings do, but deep down they really love each other. They ask about the other one if they aren't there. It's great to see their relationship take off.

I know I'm biased, but she has already grown to be a beautiful little girl. Actually, both of our kids are the cutest kids in the world! (Yeah... every parent thinks that I know). Hailey can basically say anything she wants to. There are only a few things we can't understand at this point. She is definitely in tantrum stage, but we know that will pass and it's normal for 2 year olds! She has plenty of sweetheart moments to make us forget about the times she throws a fit. Little girls really tug at your heart strings and she is no exception! We love our baby girl and we're sad that she's officially not a baby anymore. She really is a sweet kid and knows what she wants! We love you Hailey Lane!

kids' vacation

2011-07-13T22:04:00.004-05:00

It sounds like the kids had a blast while we were gone! Almost every day they had something exciting going on (I think they only had one day of "hanging out"... I'm sure that was needed by everyone!). We can't express enough how much we appreciate Steve's parents taking care of them, and Aunt Shannon for helping out so much. We heard that all of the family in the Corpus Christi area helped out at some point. Before we left, Grandma told me her goal was to have the kids not want to leave when we came to pick them up.

I think this may be my favorite picture of all time of Hailey. I'm about to order a bunch of prints of it. Thank you Uncle Glenn for taking this!!

This is Caleb, Tyson and Hannah at the aquarium. Tyson obviously loved it because he was really disappointed at the Houston Aquarium restaurant the other day!

Surfing at the beach!

Tyson got to go fishing with Grandpa!

They got to visit the botanical gardens (I can just hear Hailey trying to say butterfly... "bufwy" :)

Playing on the beach with Hannah!

We heard that Hailey wasn't so sure about the waves at first!

These two are from Sunday when we came to pick them up. I should have videotaped our "reunion," but that would have ruined the moment. The looks on their faces were so precious and priceless. Tyson gave us HUGE hugs and Hailey had a more extended reunion. She couldn't stop saying "hi mommy" and she kept changing how she wanted to be held/ sit in our laps. So adorable.

Tyson got a new train set! Which has now been relocated to our dining room. Great choice. Hailey got a new baby doll and some clothes!

Grandma got her wish - Tyson did NOT want to leave and come back home. We could tell they were very happy and well taken care of (not like we thought they wouldn't be!). THANK YOU SO MUCH for keeping them for us, and for spoiling them rotten. We know that's what grandparents are for :)

Jamaica - yeah mon

2011-07-10T20:55:00.002-05:00

Steve and I took off on June 25th for Montego Bay, Jamaica to stay at Sandals Royal Caribbean for 8 days! The journey started on the 24th, with Steve driving the kids to Corpus Christi to stay with his parents (with the help of Aunt Shannon and Uncle Shane's families too) and then driving back after they went to bed! We went to celebrate our 10 year anniversary, which is coming up in August! I'm sure this is too many pics but of course I have a ton more that I didn't include. I also haven't messed with the videos or the waterproof camera yet so you may get to see more later (I know you're excited). This is the very summarized version of our trip.

This is after we made it through customs in Montego Bay, and we were waiting at the Sandals lounge for a few minutes to get picked up. We waited 5 minutes, max.

Here's the view from the balcony of our room. We had a great view of the beach and the boat dock... with a huge tree in the middle of it!

Ahhhhh. Nothing like just laying out on the beach. I actually read a whole book (Seabiscuit). I don't remember the last time I read for "fun".

This is the private island that was also part of our resort. We went one day to check it out. The beaches there are also nice, it has beautiful plants and landscaping, but we decided we liked the main resort beach better. Our favorite dinner was over there though - at the Royal Thai. I was expecting to go back and eat a burger at the beach bar, but we LOVED it.

Some of the scenery on the private island. (I have TONS of scenery pics)

View of the main resort when we were coming back from the private island on the boat

There was some kind of entertainment every night. Our favorite night was some kind of Jamaican music/ dance performance. It was basically 4 guys on drums and then 2 girls and 2 guys doing crazy acrobatic dancing to it. Very impressive. This guy was walking around during one of the other nights' performances.

Every night before we went to dinner we took a self-portrait by the window in our room. Here's one of them.

One night we were eating by the beach, and during our 2 hour dinner (yes that's right.. SLOOOOOW) we were entertained by crabs fighting. I actually have 4 pics of this... that's what happens when you have 30 minutes between each course!

On Monday we went to Dunn's River falls. That was all on the waterproof camera so I won't have any of that in this post. It was BEAUTIFUL. It was highly recommended to us by everyone who has visited Jamaica. We are really glad we went. Wednesday we did the Chukka zip line tour. We actually agreed we liked that excursion even better than the falls. I have video that I'll try to post later. There are tons of stories from this trip also that I'll try to post later. Here's Steve coming in on one of the long zip lines.

Climbing up to one of the next zip's

Us with our guides, Gussy and Kim-possible. They were great, very friendly and both had a great sense of humor.

Afterwards, we ate Jamaican "hot pockets." I just had to include this for fellow Jim Gaffigan fans.

Back to the resort... there were peacocks that we periodically saw. Unfortunately this is the least interesting one. I just didn't happen to have the camera when we saw the pretty ones with the huge colorful feathers.

View from the main beach one night before dinner

Steve came to ask me if I was ready to get up, I just liked this pic of his expression :)

The rest are just some scenery pics from the resort. Unfortunately the day I went on my "scenery picture spree" the lens was fogged up - our room was freezing so the camera always had to thaw out when we came outside!

This was the walkway to our building, we were on the second floor. The rooms below us had walk-out balconies to the beach. Honestly I liked ours better because we could chill out on it, hang our clothes etc without people messing with us.

Another self-portrait before going to dinner, this one was on Friday night, our last night.

This is along the entrance to the resort. It really was very beautifully landscaped. Tropical flowers were everywhere.

We definitely had a great time, but we agreed it was a little too long to be away from the kids. We didn't talk to them while we were gone in fear they would get upset (Tyson has gotten upset before when we talked to him when he stayed overnight). We hadn't gone on a "real" vacation in almost 4 years, so it was nice to get away and do whatever we wanted (limited on the resort anyway... we didn't dare go into the city unless we were on a tour). Happy early anniversary Steve!

we're baaaaack!

2011-07-04T21:12:00.003-05:00

I'm sure it will take awhile to compile all the pictures and video from our trip and from the kids' adventures while they were with Grandma and Grandpa. So for now I'll just put this one up:

We flew back on Saturday afternoon, ate dinner with my parents, came home and crashed, woke up early Sunday morning and drove to Corpus Christi to get the kids, hung out there until bedtime, drove back and got to bed after midnight. Needless to say, all 4 of us needed a day of relaxing today so it was good that it was a holiday! More coming soon...

excited.

2011-06-23T23:22:00.002-05:00

I haven't been blogging much lately because I've been preparing for our 10 year anniversary trip to Jamaica! We leave on Saturday and we're super excited! We haven't been completely kid-less (except when Nick and Amber kept them a few weeks ago) since Hailey was born, much less gone on a "real" vacation in FOREVER so it's going to make me a little anxious at first, I'm sure! The kids will be in great hands with Steve's family in Corpus. (And for any creeps who may be stalking our blog, our friends will be at our house while we're gone so don't think you can break in or anything!!)

I'm sure we will have an obnoxious amount of pics to post, both of our trip and our kids' adventures when we get back - wish all of us luck!

rocketship

2011-06-15T18:40:00.000-05:00

Tyson got his first pet on Sunday - meet "Rocketship", a friendly ladybug from our crepe myrtle. He was so excited to set him up in this jar, give him leaves and a little water, and have Daddy poke holes in the top for air.

Unfortunately Rocketship has already decided he didn't like his new home! After a little sadness we told Tyson we'd be able to find another ladybug.

Oh, and I love this pic of Hailey, guess she found our storage place for the learning potty!

first night away from home

2011-06-06T21:51:00.002-05:00

Nick and Amber kept the kids overnight on Friday so we could go out for STEVE'S BIRTHDAY (happy birthday Steve)!! Due to some circumstances out of our control, we got a much later start to our evening than we expected, but still ended up having a great time going out to a late dinner at BJ's and then bowling.

Hailey had a landmark on Friday night though - her first night away from home (without Mommy and Daddy). A year ago, this may have been a long, tough night for Nick and Amber, but our little girl has come a looooooooooong way overcoming her fears! She did great though, and of course Tyson did great as always. He told us at least 4 times on the way home that he didn't want to leave.

Thanks Nick and Amber for volunteering, it was a weird feeling to be completely kid-less, that hasn't happened in 2 years (we usually have them at home and still have to get up early with them the next morning if we go out)!

And Happy Birthday to my hubby!!

Memorial Day weekend

2011-05-31T21:55:00.002-05:00

We had a great weekend. We have all been taking turns getting sick for the past MONTH, so I wasn't about to just hang out in the house all weekend. We thought we were all better, and then Steve woke up on Saturday feeling bad again. Aggggh! I took Tyson to see Kung Fu Panda II (pretty good actually), and then he put up with shopping for a little while. On Sunday afternoon I took the kids to the zoo (can't believe I did it by myself... but I told you I had cabin fever!) They were better than I expected and we had a great time!

After this Hailey decided I needed to ride with her (it still hadn't started moving yet)

I think this is the first time the petting zoo has been a huge success with both of them. Usually one of them isn't feeling too confident about the non-moving, completely non-threatening goats. They brushed every single one.

Tyson loved this and had to get on and have his picture taken!

With our train-obsessed kids, it's basically impossible to go to the zoo without a train ride at the end. As usual, Hailey spent the whole time climbing around and flirting with people behind us.

On Monday, Kyle and Sarah came over for a visit! After about 5 minutes of "checking them out", Hailey warmed right up. She is really getting over her fear of "non-daily" people.

After breakfast, Kyle, Sarah and I headed up to the gym to do the Murph workout. You can read about it here.
It felt good to have a reason to do a workout that long and tough. The "before" picture is above.

Somewhere in the middle of the craziness

I'm done! Kyle kicked my butt and beat me by 15 minutes!

"after"

Needless to say, after this we were very glad to jump in the pool and chill for awhile! Hope everyone had a great long weekend. Now I need to go to sleep and catch up on that...

talky talky

2011-05-17T21:37:00.005-05:00

Hailey has been good at saying names, but she hasn't said her own name or Tyson's name until recently. She started out calling him "bobo" for brother, but now we're trying to get her to say Tyson:

Also, Tyson has had his share of hilarious statements recently:

"for real" - this is used at least once a day, either to add emphasis or when he's in trouble and he's saying he didn't do something (for real mommy!)

"can I may please have a sticker?" - how he asks Ms. Jennifer for a sticker if he's been good in school - makes her smile every time

"we were going SPEED!" - if we are driving fast or if something is going fast, it's going speed!

When he's in a loving mood, he tells me that he's going to marry me when he grows up. When Daddy says that I'm already married he says "well then she will marry me!"

The last two times he's said a prayer at a family gathering, he goes straight into "I pledge allegiance to the flag..." and recites the whole thing. Meanwhile everyone's trying not to laugh out loud...

"When I grow up, my voice will be deeper but I'll still be Tyson."

mothers day

2011-05-16T22:19:00.002-05:00

Mothers Day weekend started out with "moms and muffins" at Primrose on Friday. This is the first time I've had both of them for this event (well, Hailey came last year but stayed in her carrier). It went great at first, but I was nervous because they just had little cups (not sippy cups... hence no top). I just knew Hailey was going to spill hers because she's still trying to get the hang of it. Nope... Tyson knocked his all over himself! Then when I was trying to clean it up Hailey knocked hers over too... sigh... oh well, we still had fun!

Then on Friday afternoon we headed to Corpus. The boys and Hannah went camping and the rest of us hung out in cool, comfy houses!

Hannah and Tyson after camping... then they ran out of gas after lunch (below)

Little Hailey making a mess and posing for the camera as usual! We had a nice visit, with a special Mothers Day/ birthday dinner on Saturday night. The drive back home was MUCH calmer than the drive down, nice Mothers Day bonus for me! We got home and relaxed for dinner and the rest of the evening. Happy Mothers day everyone, and especially to my Mom who we didn't get to spend time with this year on Mom's day!

Easter weekend

2011-05-04T22:39:00.003-05:00

On Saturday of Easter weekend we headed to Jammy and Papa's and did an egg hunt with the grandkids. It was fun having more than just Tyson doing an egg hunt! Jonah and Hailey did great on their first "real" egg hunt!

Jonah has the greatest facial expressions...

As you can see in all of these pics... none of the kids wanted to pose for our pictures! I guess the Easter candy was affecting their ability to sit still or atleast stop and smile, you think?

The best one we have of the 3 of them.... HAHA

The rest are from Easter Sunday and the egg hunt we did at our house. Same issue with not getting good pics of the kids!

The Easter Bunny hid some eggs on the top of the slide :)

Happy Easter! Hope some of you had better luck getting family pics, haha!

Jumpin' Good Friday

2011-05-04T22:25:00.002-05:00

I had Good Friday off, and the kids' school was closed, but unfortunately Daddy had to work. I had ambitions of taking the kids to the zoo, but I couldn't find anyone to go with me at the last minute, and on Friday morning I just didn't have the energy to brave that feat by myself. So, around 10 AM I had the bright idea of taking them to Jump N Jungle. They have "free play" during the week, and we could finally take advantage! (and I could let them get some good energy out and not worry about losing them, always a plus)

Tyson was so good with Hailey, helped her up these stairs every time. They probably did this 20 times, minimum.

What, you mean most moms don't put their daughters in a tutu to go jumping around? Well they should!

The kids were very good the whole time and really played well together the WHOLE time. Plus, when we got home Daddy had just gotten home early too!

MS 150

2011-04-26T21:34:00.003-05:00

Steve rode in the MS-150 for the second straight year. Last year, he did a ton of training to prepare for it. This year, he didn't get to do much training so we weren't sure what to expect! He started off with a great place to stay with some work friends in Waller, so that was good.

The weather was PERFECT this time (as far as temperature and sun/ no rain), so that was a definite improvement over last year. On Saturday (4/16), Steve made it more than half of the distance and his bike started acting up (it also did last year...). The chain suddenly popped off 4 consecutive times so he decided it was time to call it a day. He had a nice place to stay near LaGrange, so no rainy campsite this year!

On Sunday, there was supposed to be a 20 mph tail wind... well there wasn't! He made it the whole day, through all the hills in ONE GEAR. Steve definitely has drive and determination. Unfortunately, he got extremely sick starting that evening through the next few days.

I'm proud of you Steve! And thanks to those who checked in on his progress through the weekend!

Jonah is 2!

2011-04-25T21:33:00.004-05:00

Jonah turned 2 on April 14th! Wow that went by fast. We're so glad his Mommy and Daddy moved back to Texas so we can see them more often! His party was at Hermann park last weekend (great location for us!) and of course the weather was perfect. Jammy and Papa helped a lot so that was great!

Papa and all of his grandkids!

The birthday boy with Daddy!

This may be the biggest fire truck toy I've seen... yesssssss :)

The party was close to the train tracks so Tyson and one of Amber's cousins spent a lot of time hanging out and waving to the people on the train when it came by

More playing after the party

And of course, we had to ride the train ourselves before we went to Jammy and Papa's! This was my attempt to get us all in a pic. You can see Tyson's ear by my neck. Oh well.

Happy Birthday Jonah!

Moriarty mini-reunion

2011-04-24T22:23:00.004-05:00

My cousin Tommy had a volleyball tournament in Houston two weekends ago (yes I am still behind... April has been busy in a good way!). So we got to see him play quite a bit, (his team is really good, go UWEC!) and also my Uncle Bruce's whole family, and Grammy came in town for a visit! We don't get to see them often at all, so it was great to get to spend lots of quality time together in a short weekend!

Hailey was a mess at the games, she just wanted to run around or run ON THE COURT (thanks Jennifer for having little dolls that kept her entertained!) so that meant I didn't get any pictures of games (I have NONE of Tommy even.... yikes), and I have HARDLY ANY of family even though everyone hung out at our house two nights. HELP PLEASE, anyone else please send me some pics, this is bad! Here's the few that I have... thanks for a good weekend everyone, it was the easiest big crowd we've ever had (seriously!!! tons of fun!)

Tyson and Owen seemed to hit it off (my cousin Kiki's son), too bad they live in Austin!

most of the "boy cousins"

Hailey has always loved her Aunt Amber!

all of the rest are just general crowd pics... sad!!! Need better ones!!

Seriously though, thanks to Bruce's family and Grammy for the effort and money spent to get down here for a visit. We loved having you and everyone else at our house! And go UWEC for making it to the final four in the tourney - great job!

nee now

2011-04-16T22:14:00.008-05:00

This girl is non-stop energy. She is a climbing, running, tumbling, TOUGH, sibling rivalry - inciting, screaming, crazy, fun-filled and full-fledged toddler. I don't think I can get away with calling her a baby anymore. Well, maybe until she turns 2 I guess, maybe. She is really turning it up a notch on her talking. Here's her latest frequently said phrases:

"nee now" - sit down. She sits down, or pulls out a chair, pats next to her and says "nee now". This sometimes starts by her grabbing your finger and bringing you to where she's playing.

"no bite" - she tells her babies this. Just repeating what she hears because she has done this a couple of times at school.

"agua" - this is what she calls any type of drink, or body of water.

"gucky" - could be yucky or ducky. If ducky, it says "cack cack".

"rawrrrr" - could be lion, tiger, bear, or dinosaur, or monster. She calls animals by their noises (woof woof, neigh are popular ones), except cows and ducks.

"don't do that" - luckily she has only said this to another little girl who was trying to push (help) her on her tricycle.

"wheee" - swing or slide

"shoe" - says this plain as day, and is obsessed with shoes. She can already put on and take off her right shoe by herself. Uh oh.

"Up" - this is more the action that is funny. If you're sitting and she wants you to follow her she will say "{name} UP" and try to pull you up. ha.

"annie" - candy, normally said as "I want annie!"

I KNOW I am forgetting a major one. It's getting late and I'm out of energy from chasing this one and her older brother around all day :)

spring fling

2011-04-16T21:50:00.004-05:00

I got pretty far behind again... catch up time. TWO weeks ago, I took the kids to the Spring Fling carnival/ fundraiser at their school. Cosmic Fitness CrossFit also sponsored a booth. We were going to go as a family, but unfortunately Steve had an allergic reaction to a donut at breakfast (it had sprinkles... there must have been chocolate in the sprinkles???)... I felt HORRIBLE since it was my idea to splurge and get breakfast that morning. He tried to go but just felt too bad so I took the kids by myself... which is always an adventure. And makes for worse pictures, but I'm glad that I actually got some. Luckily Tyson was great until it was time to go. He did NOT want to get out of the bubble pit. Hailey was pretty good, but she kept wanting to run into the middle of the dance class presentations when they were going on (lol). This was actually a Thomas the Tank Engine train ride. I just didn't get a pic of the exerior... of course this was a huge hit with T-man.

Tyson did a pony ride!!! This is huge!!! In the past he would have been afraid to do it but he was ALL for it when he discovered it. Hailey was excited too until I tried to put her on the pony... maybe next year for her.

Face painting... spider related of course!

The bubble pit... I would get Tyson to come out, then Hailey would run under the tape and I'd have to go get her. Then Tyson would get back in the bubbles. He'd come out, and Hailey would run away again. Sigh... it was fun but tiring!

a different baby?

2011-04-06T21:50:00.006-05:00

No... I'm not pregnant. But it was the most appropriate title for this post! On Sunday I was driving the kids in Steve's truck (forgot to put their car seats back in my SUV). Hailey started randomly screaming out of boredom, a nice activity that we have the privilege of hearing sometimes. Normally when this happens, Tyson screams back at her or whines at us that she's screaming. Not this time.

Tyson: (very calm, matter of fact, talking at normal volume even through the screaming) "Mommy, did you have a dream last night that we got a different baby?"

Me: (annoyed at the screaming but also trying not to smile) "No, Tyson. Did you? I would never want to trade anyone in our family. Would you really want to trade Hailey?"

(by now I've found some random object to give her so she's not screaming)

Tyson: "No. She's really cute. I also wouldn't trade Daddy because he's a killer of deers."

(now I can't help but chuckle, luckily he didn't notice) ... Not sure if he would trade me or not. Also don't know the last time "deer killing" has come up. At least 4-5 months ago. Hilarious!

first full sentence

2011-04-04T19:12:00.000-05:00

Hailey said her first full sentence last week... check it out...

Here they are enjoying their cupcakes! I started taking Hailey's shirt off when she eats messy foods at home, tired of spending tons of time fighting stains! Other words/ phrases in her vocabulary: "go away", "i want {cheese, juice, agua, or that}", "no bite", and of course the others I have previously put up and more! She is really getting good at communicating!

random cuteness

2011-04-03T21:52:00.004-05:00

This girl has the whitest hair and bluest eyes. And fairest skin!

One word: Fearless.

These pictures were taken the morning of their spring school pictures. They took pics with live bunnies. Hope they turned out because mine weren't that great (well not professional quality anyway) :)

Hailey now says "cheeeeeese" when she knows you're taking her pic, can you tell??

Laundry basket races always make for a fun evening, especially when mommy and daddy don't have to push!

And, at the risk of driving some people insane, I have to include this... we finally gave in and watched the "Friday" video on youtube, and it must have been an instant hit with Hailey...

cousin fun

2011-04-03T21:37:00.002-05:00

So I'm a little behind... but a few weeks ago we got to see Shane and Amy's family for a couple of hours, and then we kept the boys a little longer after they had to leave for their date :) Tyson loves his cousins and lately we haven't gotten down there very often, so it was good to give them time together. We all went to Chick-Fil-A and they played there (always a winner), and then we took the kids to the park and then back to our house for more play time!

It was good to see all of you! Hope to make it down there soon!

little mommy

2011-03-30T22:09:00.004-05:00

Hailey has daily "mommy" time now. It's usually after dinner. She goes in the little area between the couch and our bedroom door and lines up her babies (sometimes 1, sometimes all of them). Her favorite baby is in the picture (notice she colored on her head with crayon). She gets a kleenex and wipes their noses (TONS of times), then lays them down to sleep, says "nigh nigh" and pats them on the back. It's adorable. Of course, when I turned the camera on she stopped talking to them, but at least she kept "taking care" of them!

Grandma, Aunt Shannon, Christine and Matthew came to visit for a couple days during spring break... this was the only picture I took (bad hostess)! It was a fun visit, great to see you! {technical difficulties with video/ blogger... arghhh}

bomb shelter

2011-03-10T21:06:00.002-06:00

The other night Tyson was taking his bath, and suddenly he said "Hey guys!!! (very excited) If our house explodes, we can all hide in here!"

(Yes, as in those two blocks). "We can bring our big TV's, our little TV, our bideo {video} games, and ALLLLLL of our movies!" {Think this kid likes TV much?}

Glad that he has a plan for that. I guess we'd have advanced notice so we could get everything set up in there beforehand...

Armadillo Dash Half-Marathon

2011-03-07T18:43:00.001-06:00

I've been training since December for a half marathon. Well yesterday I finally ran it with Mike and Krista! We did the Armadillo Dash in College Station. I ran it without walking in 2:03:54. My goal time was 2 hours or less so I'm pretty happy with that. For one thing, there were some hills on the course, and we never did hills in training (thank you Houston for being flat).

Even though I'm having trouble walking today, I do want to try this again and see if I can improve! This pic is about 6 hours after the race, after we had recovered and had driven back home (we didn't take cameras to C.S.)

Here's the details, I'm sure most won't be interested but I want to record it somewhere:
I came into the race with two nagging injuries. My left achilles and my right shin have been flaring up as soon as I jog my first step for the past month or so. I've been trying to rest it during the week and just do long training runs on the weekends. It helped, but luckily I went to a sports chiropractor on Saturday before we left (first Chiropractor visit) and he did an analysis of my injuries and put on kinesio tape (you can kind of see it in the pic). I've always been leery of going to a chiropractor because I've seen them make people worse (like my mom). He just did a few things to my right shin to try to work out the pain, and then put the kinesio tape on both legs. I really think he fixed it. My right shin didn't bother me at all during the race!

It was 32 degrees when we woke up at 5:15 AM on Sunday. We put on our race gear and layered up and headed to the start/finish line. 5 minutes before the race we shed our layers and froze for a few minutes before the start! While we were running the temp was 40-50 degrees and it was sunny and not too windy, which is PERFECT running weather. The first mile was slow (about 10 minutes), and that was partly due to starting in a crowd and getting stuck sometimes, and partly due to me running slower because my achilles flared up right away. After the first mile it was much better. I felt fine until about mile 8, that's about when I hit the "wall" of tiredness and my legs were starting to hurt. That's also when the hills showed up! I pushed through and didn't let myself walk. Around mile 10, my achilles really started bothering me again. When this happens I pretty much have to run flat footed with my left foot or it will send shooting pain with every step. My original plan was to speed up quite a bit on the last two miles and make up some time. Well, my brain wanted to but my legs didn't! I did speed up a little but not enough to make up those 4 minutes. I was so glad to cross the finish line and can proudly say that I never walked! Now I'm pretty sore in my calves, hamstrings, behind my knees, lower back, and left achilles (of course). Time to take a couple days off from exercise!

name game

2011-02-28T21:38:00.002-06:00

Before we went to Uncle Nick and Aunt Amber's house a couple weekends ago, I was "reviewing" family names with Hailey. To my surprise, she repeated a lot of them back to me! I've been trying to get her on camera doing it since then, and I think I finally figured out a way to record her without her knowing it. Check it out! It seems like she can do 6-8 names, then she starts babbling, so I will just rotate which names I start with!

Attempt #1:

Attempt #2!

wall art

2011-02-27T16:22:00.002-06:00

I consider us lucky that it took until our younger child was 19 months old for our first wall art. Still, not what you really want to see. Thanks Magic Eraser for fixing this and making it look like new! That stuff is great...

Here's some other random pictures that don't need a separate post... enjoy!

Hailey wanted to mail herself.

He buckled himself in his carseat!

No pictures please... can't you see I'm riding Clifford? We FINALLY got a Chuck E Cheese close to our house... it's nice going to a new one, before the games are all pizza-fied, and broken!

happy valentine's day

2011-02-21T21:54:00.004-06:00

Here's our cuties on their way to school that day, they had Valentine's parties and were all hyped up!

Steve made us HUGE ribeye steaks (yummmm) and asparagus. Why mess with the restaurants when your husband can cook better than them anyways! And I got tulips! Woo-hoo!

Hope you had a good one. Yes, it is a made-up holiday, but it's nice to remind the ones we love of our feelings for them.

cupcakes and elefantes

2011-02-10T21:51:00.000-06:00

I finally wrote down some of the funny things this guy has been saying lately...

Last night we were putting him to bed, and he said he had a booboo on his finger (he didn't... it was one of his delay tactics that he tries sometimes). Me: "Oh that's too bad. I'll give it a kiss." Tyson: "Mommy here's what I need to fix it. First, I need a bandaid. Then I need to get the right medicine, cut my toenails (counting on his fingers for each request), eat healthy foods, drink my milk slowly, and don't stare at the elefantes." HA HA!!!! (Not sure if I mentioned but starting with his birthday party, he prefers to calls elephants "elefantes"... Spanish word for them)

Then, tonight when putting him to bed, we noticed he had some weird sticky stuff on his shirt. We were trying to figure out what it was, and he says "I tripped on some mulch, then I landed on a stone and it did that to my shirt." {We had just gotten the shirt out of the dryer...}

We have some leftover cupcakes from the Superbowl... Hailey had her first one since her birthday. I was actually surprised that she didn't get more messy with it!

Superbowl XLV Champs!

2011-02-08T21:37:00.003-06:00

So... I talked Steve into making some yummy stuff on the smoker and having a little superbowl fun since the PACKERS were in it! We had the whole family dressed up!

Pre-Super Bowl wrestling...

So the kids were a little excited that they could actually play outside... they haven't made it out much lately with the cold weather. So these were the best family pics we have!

What else can I say but... dun dun ch dun dun dun dun... GO PACK GO! What an awesome game! I have to admit I was nervous on the last drive, but hewhoshouldnotbenamed couldn't get it done and the Pack prevailed!! SWEEEEEET... it's so fun when your favorite team wins a championship... especially when you don't live in the town they're in... SUPER BOWL CHAMPS BABY!! Now we go for the SPURS to win again!

the Good list

2011-02-02T21:52:00.000-06:00

I thought I'd write down some of the endearing things the kids do, mostly so we can look back later and smile when we realize we didn't catch it on video, but also to share them with those of you who don't see them often, and lastly so we can remember the fun things when we're having a "frustrated moment".

Hailey:
She can be extremely shy and reserved with new people, but she is FEARLESS when it comes to playing. This slide is probably 2 stories tall and she was alllll about it. She wanted to go down by herself and got mad when I'd put her in my lap.

She finally got to go down by herself... and shrieked in excitement the whole way down! She would have gone head first if we let her. She also tries to just walk into the pool, etc.

She loves Daddy more than anyone else. She kicks her legs like crazy if I'm holding her when he comes home. Mommy's a pretty close second.

This habit is probably more of one that will be funny when we look back on it. Not so funny now, but this time when she did some pantry destroying it was kind of cute how she wedged herself in there.

She does "drawings" for us... :) When she colors with markers, she will draw a few lines, then put the top back on. Then take it off and draw a few more lines. etc. etc.

She has such a sweet smile, and shrieks in excitement constantly. She's started doing an exaggerated "fake smile" lately too. She's added more words - up, yucky (gucky), ball (really not new just forgot earlier), cheese (chzszszs), please, apple, cookie, cracker (gacka).

She gives GREAT hugs.

When she wants to sit in your lap, she backs in and then once she sits down, she scoots all the way back until she's completely pressed up against you. So sweet.

She makes this adorable sound when she's concentrating, or trying to lift something heavy. It's kind of like a soft grunting sound. I doubt I'll be able to get it on video but I love it.

She talks and talks about all kinds of things in her own language. I've tried to catch this on camera a bunch, but she either stops talking or tries to grab the camera when she sees it :(

Tyson:

Tyson is such a sweet natured kid. He loves to play pretend, whether it just be making his toys have conversations or actually dressing up himself...

He loves to do projects. This year we did his gingerbread house a little late (it was still early January), but he didn't care if it happened before Christmas or not!

He's very funny. He says hilarious things all the time, and has gotten to the stage of saying "don't laugh at me" when we chuckle at his cuteness. Man... it's hard not to laugh sometimes!

He brings home artwork from school that we are so proud of. Whether it be letters, numbers, or writing his name, we love it. He is proud of it too, every day he tells me he has a surprise for me in his backpack :)

Getting much better, eh?

Almost daily he draws a picture of our family and our house. The number of people varies, but there is usually some kind of road or train track on it, a ladybug and a spider.

He loves his sister. One of his favorite things is wrestling with her on our bed after they get their pj's on. He's very aware of how and where to tackle her - never near the edge of the bed, never making her fall on something other than either him or the mattress.

He randomly says the sweetest things. We were at lunch with friends on Sunday, and he was at the opposite end of the table. He says "Mommy?" "What Tyson?" "I love you!" He melted all the girls' hearts right there! We get random "I love you's" and I even got an "I want to marry you when I grow up" last week! Love you two!

Go Pack Go!

2011-01-27T21:36:00.003-06:00

I am soooooooooo excited that the Packers are going to the Super Bowl! I watched as many games as I could this year and seriously thought they would end up there all season... (I may be a little biased but they did look GOOD!) I was realllllly tempted to get one of Nick Barnett's XLV or die t-shirts, but I guess at this point it's a little late!

Saw these in email lately and thought they were too good to pass up... for any Packer fans that read this here you go!

And Go Pack Go! Those Steelers don't need any more rings!

We opened our CrossFit gym!

2011-01-24T17:46:00.002-06:00

I can't believe I haven't put this on our blog yet, it must have been mixed up in the craziness of Christmas. In mid-December we opened our actual physical location of our CrossFit gym:

Silverlake Business Park, 2809 Miller Ranch Rd. Ste #425, Pearland, TX 77584

It's fun to have an actual location, it feels like a real gym now! We are gradually growing our clients and we're hoping to have a bigger increase soon. It's fun saying I'm working out at MY gym. Come check it out, tell your friends and see what we're all excited about!

http://www.cosmic-fitness.com/

18 months

2011-01-23T13:00:00.004-06:00

Hailey is 18 months old! She did great at her check-up. Dr. G said she was easier than most other 18 month olds during the exam (is this the same kid?). She is ahead of the curve with her speech. Here's her vitals:

Head: 19" (90th percentile)
Height: 2' 8.5" (75th percentile)
Weight: 23 lb 1 oz (30th percentile... yikes)

She eats well so we think she's just burning it off since she never sits still :)

She seems to add a new word almost every day at this point. Here's what she can say (hope I can remember it all): mama, dada, daddy, bobo (Tyson), no, no more, oh no, mine, hat, door, knock knock, please (pssss), shoes (shssss), eye, nose, baby, bye bye, hi, papa, grandpa (bampa), water (wawa), blue, purple, more, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some.

You love playing with bobo, but that usually ends up with one of you getting mad at the other one. I'm sure that will continue for awhile...

You looove Daddy. You get so excited when you see him every night.

You're still rocking the platinum blonde hair and beautiful blue eyes. You have such a fun personality (except when you're being stubborn or screaming with your STRONG LUNGS, ha). We love you Hailey and I have a feeling you'll be talking non-stop pretty soon!

Mine and No

2011-01-18T08:09:00.002-06:00

These two words have entered Hailey's vocabulary this week... I see more interesting fights between the kids in the near future...

Cotton Bowl

2011-01-08T14:21:00.000-06:00

Steve and I were very fortunate to get tickets to the Cotton Bowl last night, thanks to his Uncle Tim! Unfortunately, A&M gave us their usual bowl performance... looking nothing like the team we've seen the past 6 or 7 games. But, the first quarter was GREAT. And some other things were great too...

Mommy and Daddy got some much needed "fun" time off from the kiddos. No, work does NOT count. We love them more than anything, but sometimes you just need some "us" time. Who knows the last time we've gotten away for more than just a movie. Months. Even though we drove back to Houston after the game and got home at 3:30 AM, it was still worth it. Also, we got to see Dallas Cowboy stadium for the first time. Sorry Reliant, this one's got you beaten.

We got pictures taken with Reveille! I've also had mine taken with Reveille VI, and it's always an honor. This was an unexpected surprise, we just happened to run into her!

Steve's Uncle Tim and cousin Nathan, thanks for the tickets!

The orange color in the background is actually the sky at sunset before the game started... thought it was a bad omen that it was that color!

This was great - it was still 0-0!

Also a great fact above... and that we had 9 wins. And that tu had a horrible season for the first time in over a decade. Who would have guessed that in August.

The Aggie Band never disappoints.

Stadium at night as we were walking to the car. It was fun, except during the 2nd, 3rd and 4th quarter. 1st quarter and halftime were great! I guess there's always next year!

Moriarty Christmas

2011-01-02T22:28:00.002-06:00

The Tuesday after Christmas we celebrated with the Moriarty's! We all ate a yummy dinner and opened presents. But first, a little rough housing with Papa!

The opening presents portion was everyone for themselves and I didn't get too many pictures. Please send more if you have them! Nam and Howie were able to join us, it's nice to have them so close now.

Hailey got a toy cell phone, hopefully that will keep her away from Mommy's....

Slink! He has been asking about this toy for weeks. Thanks Aunt Amber for hunting it down!

Jonah wondering what the heck is going on? :)

This picture needs to be blown up to poster size and framed. Hailey has been afraid of my dad for some reason since she was born. I think this may be the first time she has let him hold her without immediately screaming. Maybe when she was first born, but not any time lately!!! yea!!

Merry Christmas!

2011-01-02T21:46:00.005-06:00

This year we spent Christmas in Corpus with the Torno's. Luckily Hailey is getting better about sleeping at other places, so it was easier to travel than the last few times.

Our crazy girl on Christmas Eve

Decorating cookies for Santa ~ Christine had the idea to decorate them, and we vote to make that a new tradition! The cousins loved it.

Leaving "reindeer food" in the street ~ they need something to refuel too!

Leaving cookies and milk by the fireplace for Santa

Christmas morning ~ Santa came!

Santa brought Tyson a train... wow. All he wanted to do was watch the train, and have people watch it with him. He turned into a "train nazi" eventually. He got mad at Caleb because he was talking, so he couldn't hear the train. Yikes.

Santa brought Hailey a rocking chair! Grandma and Grandpa already had one too so they took turns sitting in both.

Trying on Hannah's shoes, or "shhhhhhh" as Hailey says

Tyson checking to see if Santa came!

Merry Christmas everyone!

breakfast with Santa

2010-12-12T22:10:00.003-06:00

There are surprisingly no Santa photo ops at our local mall, so our only opportunity was to go to "breakfast with Santa" yesterday at our neighborhood clubhouse. I'm glad we went, but Santa was a little marginal as far as friendliness, and we were there only 30 minutes after it opened.

Of course Tyson did great...

Hailey... not really!!! This is as close as she would get. Santa didn't offer any help though (huh? He should atleast grab her so I can take a pic of her screaming...)

Loved the train ride, surprise, surprise!!

Well, at least she liked the playground!

Still trying to figure out how we're going to get a family pic for Christmas cards....

Tyson is 4!!!!

2010-12-05T12:58:00.001-06:00

Tyson is 4 YEARS OLD today! Wow. He has made some pretty big changes in the last 6 months or so. We finally kicked the paci habit, he doesn't get upset when I drop him off at school anymore, his imagination and sense of humor have reached extreme heights, we can trust him to do a number of things on his own that we couldn't before (bathroom, play in the backyard or anywhere in the house for that matter, be good at school even when his favorite friends are acting up), are the first that come to mind.

We had his party yesterday at the zoo. It's a little nerve racking to plan an outdoor party in December, but thanks to cold weather being RARE (except last year, when we had to reschedule his indoor party due to SNOW), we were blessed with a beautiful day, and perfect weather!

All of the immediate family was there (except Amy and Benjamin - poor Benjamin came down with strep throat - we missed you guys!), Aunt Lala, and friends Charlie, Peyton, Jackson, Rebekkah, and Maddie from school came too!

As usual, I didn't take as many pics as I'd like to. It's hard to do when you're trying to keep everything running. Luckily Amber took some for awhile but I still missed some people.

The kids played in the childrens zoo for the first part of the party, after pigging out on donuts and kolaches!

the cake... Ice Age was the closest theme they had to a zoo... is it me or is that weird. it worked though.

The birthday boy!

The loot

We tried to get all of his friends, and his cousins closest in age by him for cake and presents.

This is him while everyone was singing Happy Birthday to him

Okay, so at 4, or close to 4, some kids still have a hard time letting the "birthday kid" open their gifts. Oh well, it all worked out in the end.

Our attempt at a family picture... nice huh? Maybe it will be on our Christmas card this year. Or not.

After the party everyone did their own thing, our friends and family hung around and we went to the carousel and saw some animals for awhile.

We expected this at some point. She threw a tantrum the whole way in when we first got there(wanted to walk, but would just sit down when I let her try), and on the way to the carousel. Other than that she did very well.

We loved the zoo as a party place. Great weather always makes it that much better too. Thanks to all the family and friends who came and had fun with us! Tyson had such a great time. We can't wait to see what this year has in store for him. Such a great kid and a joy to be around.

failed holiday pics

2010-12-04T21:41:00.002-06:00

The kids had their holiday pics at school the other day. I usually don't feel like paying the premium to get their school prints, so I was trying to cheat and take a cute pic at home in front of our tree before we left for school. Ha. Ha.

(This was actually a few days before, she wanted to only wear the Santa hat if it completely covered her head... ha)

Hailey was in this picture when I was bringing the camera up to my face...

This was attempt #2... LOL. Can you tell she wants to be held and not stand away from Mommy for a picture? Thanks Tyson for doing such a great job!

Finally got her to stand there, but of course she wasn't thrilled about it. I love the way Tyson is looking at her in this pic.

Well i guess there are advantages to having other people help you take pics of your kids. lesson learned.

November's gone?

2010-12-04T21:27:00.003-06:00

We were apparently really busy, or really boring in November because I only took a total of 12 pictures. Here's the best of those...

After storing a baby swing in the garage for 1.5 years, we finally put it on the swingset (took 30 seconds). This may be Hailey's only ride in it. She loved it the first time, but won't get back in it since. ???

Went to the Texans - Chargers game. Krista is a huge Chargers fan. Atleast she was happy about the outcome of the game!

We went to Corpus for the beginning of Thanksgiving week, but I forgot to bring the camera (one reason for so few pics). We were at my parents for actual Thanksgiving. Hailey was helping us cook as you can see.

My Uncle Bruce & Aunt Jacque gave this Packer gear to Tyson a year or so ago, and we finally got cold enough weather for him to wear it! Had to grab a pic! And... GO PACK GO

Black Friday... none of us went shopping, but everyone came to our house and we took turns going to see Unstoppable. Of course it was great, every Denzel movie is.

Tyson was a little worn out after the holiday fun. I'm sure our December will be more eventful than our November!

ballerina boo!

2010-11-06T22:21:00.003-05:00

Finally getting around to posting our 2010 Halloween pics! Hailey was a ballerina and Tyson was a ghost.

Hailey wanted to stay in the stroller for a pretty long time. At first I was a little bummed because you couldn't really see her costume, but once she got out I was grateful for the time she stayed in the stroller :)

Both kids did really well and got plenty of candy. Once Hailey got out of the stroller she was still fine, she just didn't get it when we'd try to move on from house to house and wanted to randomly roam around. So after a few houses Daddy took her back home while I finished the night out with Tyson.

Our jack-o-lanterns, designed with the help of Tyson!

Decorations...

Happy Halloween everyone!

bike riding and first dentist visit

2010-11-06T21:39:00.002-05:00

Tyson has had some major events in the last week! We got a bike for him back when we lived in Spring, and quickly discovered he was too short for it (Mommy got it without him there)... we've been trying it every once in awhile for the past 1-2 years and he'd try and get frustrated. We FINALLY had a break through and he learned how to keep going when he gets stuck! Yea!

This was actually after bike riding, both kids playing in their cars

So proud of himself :)

Here he is in action! Of course, right after I say he doesn't get stuck he gets stuck... ha!

I also took him to the dentist for the first time. I wasn't really sure what was going to happen, but the place was AWESOME. And Tyson was GREAT!! He was such a good boy for his cleaning and x-rays. They usually can't get bitewing x-rays on 3 year olds but he just cooperated like a champ. Good job Tyson! He was such a good boy and had no cavities or any problems AT ALL!

15 months

2010-11-03T23:18:00.002-05:00

Hailey, now that you are closer to 16 months I am finally getting around to your 15 month post. Here are your stats:

Height: 2'7" (75th percentile)
Weight: 23 lb 2 oz (55th percentile)
Head: 18.5" (75th percentile)

You passed your developmental tests with flying colors. You had a harder time with your shots this time, but luckily we had spaced them out so you didn't have to do all at this appointment.

You are so funny. You "talk" to us all the time, but you are most talkative right when you wake up in the morning. You can say mama, dada, bobo (your name for Tyson... adorable), and baby. You do baby signs for more, all done, hat, dog, and baby.

Everyone thinks you're cute and you know it. You love to be the center of attention and get very jealous when Tyson has our attention. You throw tantrums but we've learned the best way to deal with those with you.

Your hair is so blonde it's white. Dr G asked if it could be any lighter when she saw you. You still have your beautiful bright blue eyes. I think they may be here to stay after this long! You can walk like a champ and like to run away from mommy after your bath :)

You wear size 4 diapers, size 24 month clothes, and size 4.5 - 5 shoes. Mommy finally decided to break you of bottles last weekend and you're doing well, except for your pre-nap bottle. You aren't wanting to give that one up AT ALL. Hopefully we will get better at giving that one up this weekend!

You figured out that Mommy LOOOOVES hugs and you know how to give real ones now! You still give us big, open mouth kisses but less often than a couple months ago. You love your brother but you have also learned how to pick on him!

Happy 15 months baby doll! Love you.

Howie is 90!

2010-11-03T22:21:00.002-05:00

We celebrated Howie's (my mom's dad) 90th birthday on October 23rd. Family flew in from New Jersey, Illinois, Minnesota, California, and Wisconsin to celebrate. Howie and Nam moved to Houston earlier this summer from Georgia, so we got lucky and only had to drive 45 minutes to come to his party!

Howie and Nam have always been very involved in their grandkids' lives, and provided the family with our favorite getaway growing up (the SHACK - a lakehouse in Wisconsin).

It was a fun party with lots of love poured out towards Howie. Unfortunately I didn't get many pictures because of certain little people who were there...

Luckily Jammy brought some enterainment for Tyson, that kept him entertained most of the time!

They did well most of the party. Then their "best behavior" started deteriorating a little so Daddy and Aunt Amber took the kids into the hall while people were telling Howie stories.

We love you Howie! We are so glad that you're close to us now! Happy 90th!

zoo boo

2010-10-24T21:56:00.003-05:00

Well, I didn't know that Amber and Jonah had just gone to the zoo 2 Fridays ago, but I invited them to go this past Friday for zoo boo and they decided to come again :) I have 10 days of vacation to burn, and since the zoo had special Halloween activities I decided to use a day and take the kids.

Tyson coloring on a big mural. Hailey loved playing with the bucket of markers but didn't attempt to actually color. Worked for me.

Tyson and Hailey in the pumpkin patch

Amber and Jonah! Thanks so much for coming!

They both loved the petting zoo. Awesome because Tyson used to be scared of it.

Hailey almost shared her drink with one of the goats! i don't think she was actually supposed to bring it in there :)

The carousel was a hit as usual. I had to get creative with the pictures since I couldn't leave Hailey by herself, she can't be trusted to hold on yet.

Rode the train at the end of the day. Tyson actually said he didn't want to ride the train because he was tired, but then when we walked past it he changed his mind. He must have been REAAAAAALY tired to suggest skipping the train.

All in all it was a great morning, and it helped to have Amber there! I am trying to get better about not stressing out when I have both of them "out" w/o Steve. I'm getting there! Thanks kiddos for being good for me!

happy birthday papa

2010-10-24T21:36:00.002-05:00

After the pumpkin patch we celebrated Papa's birthday. Tyson always enjoys helping the birthday boy/girl open their gifts and blowing out their candles. Of course Papa obliged him!

Just love this stance where she's squatting and looking down at something :)

Tyson helped Papa do some yard work... what, that's not a normal birthday party activity? Happy Birthday Papa!

pumpkin patch fun

2010-10-24T21:07:00.004-05:00

Last weekend we went to the pumpkin patch in Spring for our annual October fun! We met Nick, Amber, Jonah, Jammy and Papa there. It was great at first and by the time we left, it was REALLY packed! The weather was great that day.

Love the trailers/ dumpsters in the background of this one :)

Steve and Jonah!

"The guys"

Jammy, Papa and their grandkids

Finally got on the train!

The kids loved it as usual!

first "real" haircut

2010-10-16T21:49:00.002-05:00

Hailey's bangs were falling into her eyes, and I didn't want to take a crack at trimming them again (I did a questionable job last time). So I took her to Stephanie at Ideal Hair, who does my hair. That way it would atleast be someone who's familiar with me.

The hardest part about this was before we got there, and it wasn't with Hailey. Tyson LOVES to get his hair cut. Which is great, except when he has to come along on someone else's haircut :) He didn't understand why he couldn't get his cut and didn't take "yours doesn't need to be cut" as an acceptible answer. I finally convinced him when I said this was a salon, where girls get their hair cut. Boys get theirs cut where he goes (sport clips) :)

Hailey just had a blank stare on her face the whole time. No emotion no matter what I, Tyson or Stephanie tried to do. I'll take that over crying. I think she was trying to figure out what was going on the whole time. Tyson was a very good boy too. I was worried he would get into something or get upset that it wasn't his haircut.

When it was all said and done, she got her bangs trimmed and the back trimmed up a little so it would all be the same length. Not much taken off but cleaned up now, and it's not in her eyes! Good job Hailey (and Tyson)!!

girls' weekend!

2010-10-16T21:27:00.002-05:00

At the end of September I got to sneak away to Fredericksburg with my good friends Laura and Kelly for a girls weekend! We had a great time relaxing, doing whatever we wanted, WHENEVER we wanted (what's that like?!?!?)

We stayed in a cute bed and breakfast. It was a 3 bedroom house all to ourselves. The owner really spoiled us by leaving us starbucks coffee, homemade kolaches, quiche and pie! And all kinds of other yummy snacks. I highly recommend doing this in Fredericksburg - there are plenty of B&B's there to choose from. Here's a few pics of the house.

Some pics of us relaxing and enjoying each other's company - we rarely get to see each other since we're all kind of spread out and BUSY.

We ate humongous chicken fried steaks for lunch on Saturday... yummmmm

Thanks to Steve for making this getaway possible, and to Jammy and Papa for watching Tyson that weekend (really helped Steve)! This needs to be an annual event!

dancing and reading

2010-10-09T22:39:00.003-05:00

It's been awhile since I've been able to get on the blog. Here's some video to help catch up - there's been a lot of dancing going on (ahem... Hailey). She dances to almost any song, and sometimes dances randomly when there's not even any music on. Her most famous move is walking around in a squat position. She loves the ipad commercials. HA!

Below is one of Tyson reading to Hailey. Tyson has always loved books and Hailey now shares that love. She will grab books and plop down in our laps, expecting us to drop everything and read to her. She gets stuck on a certain book and just wants to read that one over and over. First it was Pat a Cake, then Brown Bear, Brown Bear and now it's Where is Baby's Belly Button?

Hailey has been a handful lately! She broke a few molars (I need to look back at Tyson's baby book but I wasn't remembering it happening that early!), then she has learned how to pull hair and scratch people (mostly her brother), and she is very opinionated. She screams (most of her screams are happy ones though), and definitely lets you know when she doesn't like something.

That being said, she is still a blast to be around and of course, Tyson always is!

Happy Birthday Grandma!

2010-09-15T22:06:00.005-05:00

The family surprised Grandma over labor day weekend with a birthday party at a pavilion on the beach. We got there a little early so the kids could play on the beach for awhile. Hailey's never played in sand and if Tyson has been to a real beach, it was maybe once and he probably doesn't remember it.

Of course, both of the kids loved the beach. The water was a little seaweed-y so we didn't want them to get in (especially since we'd just have to clean them up right away for the party), but they had tons of fun playing in the sand.

Then it was time to get ready for the party! All of the family and friends hid in the party room area. Grandma thought she was going to meet Shannon's and Shane's families here and then go to dinner.

She was really surprised! It was fun to be involved in it, we are really glad we could make it.

Tyson and Caleb having a blast - these guys were getting really loud and having tons of fun together. They're only 4 months apart so I'm sure we'll have plenty more of this as they grow up :)

Hailey started out in some cute shorts. But then she had a leaky diaper, luckily about 10 minutes before we were leaving, and I didn't have a spare outfit in the diaper bag so she just went in a diaper for the last few minutes.

Tyson loves when Grandma reads to him. She got some new books that he loved.

On Saturday, all of the cousins except Christine and Hailey went fishing. As usual it was a huge hit. Afterwards I drove Christine and Hailey to the splash pad and everyone played together in it.

Hailey's cousins and brother did a great job of including her and playing with her. The water got a little too deep for her at some points, so she swallowed water a few times and had a constant escort the whole time. She loved it but I think next year she'll like it a bunch more.

Loved this pic because they were playing together nicely!

We had a great visit, as usual. Happy Birthday Grandma!

Tyson's in a soccer league!

2010-09-11T22:54:00.004-05:00

We found out yesterday that Tyson was going to start in a soccer league today! He was on the waiting list and someone must have dropped out at the last minute. Let me just say, it is so entertaining to watch 3 year olds play soccer. Especially for the first time. They have no idea even where the boundaries are. Most of them would stop the ball with their feet, then pick it up. Ha! It's a fun, friendly league where they don't keep score (Tyson's team won 6-2).

Here's our cutie when we were waiting to meet his coach and team

They had a very short practice before their game (like 10 minutes due to disorganization...) Daddy helped out because their ~~loser~~ assistant coach still wasn't there. We nominate Steve for coach!

Hailey was really good the whole time. Very active as usual, but never whined or cried. Just had fun ~~spilling~~ eating her cheerios and trying to get on the field.

Tyson scored a goal!! He was so excited! I think we were more excited than he was :)

The little ones trying to figure out how to play :)

Taking a rest - he got to play more than half the time because a couple of kids wouldn't ever go in (crying or refusing)... it was nice to have a kid who was excited to play and was listening well to his coach and parents! Oh... and did I mention it was 104 degrees, sunny with absolutely no shade. So the kids and parents were very hot as well (we will always practice at 1:30 and play games at 2... FALL where are you?!?)

Shaking hands with the "opponents" afterwards. Tyson did really well in his first game and actually almost scored another goal for his team. A little girl accidentally ~~walked in front of the ball~~ blocked him when he shot that one (seriously... the other team was really clueless). Tyson also scored one of the other team's goals. Ha! Yeah, they don't realize that you don't score in both goals yet. Hopefully this will be a fun experience and no one will pass out in the heat!

Cosmic Fitness CrossFit

2010-09-06T22:23:00.002-05:00

We started a company with some friends at the end of June. It's called Cosmic Fitness CrossFit. For those of you who haven't heard of CrossFit, it's a bootcamp style fitness and conditioning program. The workouts are varied every time, so there is never any monotony or boredom.

We're really excited about it and are slowly growing it. We are meeting at Tom Bass Park for now (local park in Pearland), but once we get enough clients we will move to a location. Two of our friends are certified CrossFit trainers and they run the sessions. I go as a "client" and have already seen some differences in just a month!

If you know anyone who lives or works around the Pearland/ 288 & Beltway 8 area, please let them know about us! The first workout is always free, so there's no risk to try it out. View our website here. (No I didn't design it.. slowly working on changing it :)

let's go to the zoo

2010-08-22T22:22:00.003-05:00

I had Friday off because the kids' school was closed. I took them to the zoo with Choco and Krista. I'm so glad they came because there's no way I would have survived by myself with the kids. They were both very good throughout almost the whole day, but until they get a little older it will still be challenging taking them to places like this.

The zoo has a dinosaur exhibit and it's only going to be there a few more weeks. Tyson loves dinosaurs so I was hoping he'd love it. He was really excited to go in the dinosaur part, and look at them, but he didn't want to stand by them for pictures. I think he didn't want to turn his back to them. I finally got him to do one near the end but I had to hold him :) They were pretty cool, they moved and made noises.

Hailey was in the stroller most of the time, but I tried to let her get out when it made sense and get some walking in.

Both kids loved the carousel - Hailey knew just what to do and grabbed on to the pole

Tyson loved the petting zoo - this was a major improvement over last year, when he wouldn't touch any of the animals. He went right in and even switched brushes a few times :)

I was worried what Hailey would do when she got tired since we were there during her nap time. She did great and just fell asleep in my arms when she couldn't take it any longer.

Of course we had to get a train ride in at the end - Tyson was bugging us to ride it from the first time he heard the whistle!

walking girl!

2010-08-16T22:26:00.000-05:00

Hailey has been taking 1-15 steps for about a month now, but this weekend she finally decided she was ready to switch to walking! Right on her 13 month birthday! Here's a few pics and video of her taking off.

I love this look - the "aaaaahhhh... am I really doing this??? I don't know???"

Also I just had to grab some pics of her in this outfit... it was the 3rd one from the studio that we didn't get any professional pics of. She also had some adorable sandals on but I took them off.

She can make it much farther than this, but I'm not always sitting there with the camera rolling ;)

1 year pics

2010-08-15T21:36:00.004-05:00

I took Hailey to get her 1 year pictures on Saturday morning. I made the appointment during her happiest time of day, had all her favorite snacks with me, even put her in her outfits a couple of times on the week leading up to the pictures so she wouldn't freak out (mostly for the tutu). She still freaked out though. She would have been fine if I was in all of the pictures with her, but for one thing I wasn't prepared for that, and also... come on... it's her 1 year pictures. The rocking chair pics were one of the last things we did and it was by far her favorite. She LOVED it. I don't think she's sat in one before, but she knew just what to do and was rocking her little body like crazy! I actually changed her into a third outfit but since they had taken the rocking chair away, she had had it. We did get some good ones despite the challenges... these are some of the better ones.

As usual, we ordered way too many pics so I'm sure you will be getting some of these!

Unexpectedly, I think this is my favorite one (above)

forward facing car seat

2010-08-05T21:18:00.000-05:00

Hailey got to switch to a big girl car seat last weekend and now faces forward! She took over Tyson's car seat and he got a new one. She rode in it for the first time on Sunday. She was a little confused at first, kept wanting to reach for me and didn't understand why I wouldn't pick her up. But then she loved it (surprise surprise). It will really be nice the next time we go on a trip - hopefully she will watch movies like her brother and I won't have to ride on the floor between the two back seats...

my drawer

2010-08-05T18:13:00.001-05:00

Whenever we pull this drawer out now, Hailey climbs in and doesn't get out until she's forced to. She unloads it, reloads it, hands train pieces from it to whoever will grab them, or just chills out in it.

cousin fun

2010-08-04T21:59:00.002-05:00

We had some fun visits last weekend from people we don't get to see very often - Aunt Amy brought Caleb and Benjamin over on Saturday for lunch and swimming! Unfortunately Uncle Shane couldn't make it, he was in training a little too far away for a lunch break commute.

Tyson loved having them and I think everyone had a blast swimming!

Then on Sunday, Steve's cousin Keith and his family stayed with us on their way down to Corpus/ Sinton from Kansas. We rarely see them now that they live in Kansas, and when we do it's in a large family setting so it was nice to get some time to visit with them. Hopefully they'll keep us as a stop on their way down in future trips.

Once again, I didn't get as many pics as I wanted to, but sometimes it feels a little lame to be taking pics of stuff all the time...

photos by Tyson

2010-08-02T22:55:00.004-05:00

Tyson always wants to look at pictures on my camera after I take them. On this day he asked if he could take pictures. At first I thought nah, but then I told him if he stays right next to me he can take pictures with it.

Here's how it started... Tyson accidentally pulled the drawer out (no one got hurt), and Hailey immediately climbed into it and took over. More drawer pictures to come soon. I took the first one, and Tyson took the rest... enjoy

He kept saying "Mommy stick your tongue out!"

He did a good job aiming during his self-portraits I think.

Hailey's final 1st birthday party

2010-08-02T22:41:00.004-05:00

The weekend after Hailey's birthday, we had another little celebration / excuse to try to get the college friends back together. It's pretty hard to get all of us these days, and unfortunately we lost the Lane's due to a series of unfortunate events, but we still had a lot of fun. Hailey got to dig into more cupcakes.

We didn't get many pictures, but I did manage to get some pics of Tyson getting some quality time in with his uncles. Uncle Kyle read him one story...

... and Uncle Micah read him another! It was really great to see Micah and Jenny, I hadn't seen them in atleast a year and a half (way too long... but it's kinda hard when they lived in PANAMA), so glad they are back in Texas now! Missed you guys!

It's nice to use your kids' life events to get people together sometimes ;-)

Farewell Tooncis and Ashes

2010-08-02T22:02:00.002-05:00

Our cats have a new home as of Friday night ~ we gave them to a family closeby. You can tell they love animals, and they just lost their kitty so they were looking for a replacement. They instantly fell in love with Ashes, but Tooncis was being a little brat so I hope she warms up to them. They picked her up and turned her upside down and she hates that. So... Now they know not to do that anymore.

They will give it a week and see how it goes. If tuna (or ashes) is not adjusting well we will take them back.

We feel good about them because they were immediately noticing they needed to be brushed, and they wanted to do that as soon as they got home. They really love ashes so hopefully tuna will be better in a day or so.

We feel really good about these people and they really want to love on them, so if they can adjust I think it will be better for them in the long run. They will sure get a lot more attention than they got here lately.

Tyson did pretty well when we told him - luckily Uncle Mike and Aunt Krista took him swimming while the family came to get them or that may have been bad, but he is excited that all of our cat allergy prone family and friends can come over to our house now!

I like dirty

2010-07-21T21:33:00.005-05:00

I feel like Tyson has been overshadowed in blog world lately, so I wanted to give him his own post.

Tyson went through a little phase recently where he could be difficult at times. He was acting up at school and home. Not all the time, but he'd have his moments. In the past couple of weeks it seems like he's pulling out of it. He keeps getting rave reviews at school ("happy notes") and is doing much better at home also.

His sister is constantly going after him and trying to take things from him, touch him, etc. She's trying to play but I can see how it's annoying from his perspective. He's learned to keep his special toys out of her reach and that's made a big difference.

He loves to play in the tub - he gets water outside of the tub at least once a night, but he's a good bath taker and teeth-brusher.

This is him going "I'm squishing your head mommy!" He says hilarious things every day, it's hard to remember them all and some are only funny because of his voice.

Thanks to Uncle Nick and Aunt Amber giving Hailey more megablocks for her birthday, they made this massive tower that was taller than Daddy! And then had fun knocking it down.

He has gained so much confidence in the pool since last summer! He will go anywhere with his floaties on. Here he was really proud of himself and saying "Yook [look]! I jumped in the DEEP END!" (Previously MAJORLY off limits of course)

Having tons of fun swimming

He started pulling this trick lately - hiding in the trunk in the hall. Funny guy.

Every night when he's getting ready for bath, he goes #2 but he announces it beforehand by finding each one of us and saying "Mommy, don't open the door! Daddy, don't open the door!" Which is great because we know exactly what he's doing.

One day recently we were going to school and he said "Mommy can we go fishing today?" "Well Tyson we can't go today, but Mommy and Daddy will plan something soon so we can go, ok?" "Ok Mommy. I want to go fishing. I like dirty."

He has also started saying "yes ma'am." But he says ma'am to everyone. We've been telling him to say "sir" to guys. Guys who don't know him hesitate a little when they get called ma'am ;-)

We just taught him the difference between he/him and she/her, so I think he'll figure it out pretty quickly.

Tyson is such a fun kid and a joy to have around!

1 year stats

2010-07-21T21:27:00.002-05:00

I took Ms. Hailey to see Dr. G yesterday for her 12 month checkup. She passed the developmental milestones with flying colors (it's ok that she can't walk yet), her weight has dropped off a bit, but she lost a pound since I took her in for her double ear infection. If she weighed now what she did 2 weeks ago she'd be in her normal growth curve.

Height: 30.5 inches (75th percentile)
Weight: 19 lbs 12 oz (30th percentile... but temporarily low)
Head: 18.25 (75th percentile)

She took 3 steps tonight so we'll see when she starts walking... looks like it will be soon!

Happy Birthday Hailey Bear

2010-07-14T21:39:00.005-05:00

Hailey, you are 1 YEAR OLD today! I can't believe it. You are such a sweet baby. You wave, clap like crazy, play pattycake, point and open/ close your fist at things you want,

love to wrestle, be tickled (your feet are really ticklish now), be thrown in the air, or mostly be the center of attention.

You have started opening books and looking through the pages.

Happy Birthday today! We got cupcakes to celebrate your REAL birthday. Mommy always likes to make sure something special happens on everyone's actual birthday, even if the main celebration is on another day.

You give high fives...

You discovered the stairs this month... uh oh...

I love when you look down. It's hard to catch on camera, but your cheeks get all chubby and I just wanna squish/ kiss them.

You talk to us all the time. Mostly still mama, dada. It seems like you know how to use the names properly. I think you also just realized that's you in the mirror and not another baby. You really love to hand things to us, share your food, feed us, etc. When you give things to us you say "neh" every time you hand us something.

You have officially switched to table food now, you refuse to eat baby food. We also just started you on whole milk instead of formula - you love it but it has to be warmed up. I will take that as a win. You are a pro at sippy cups. You have 5 teeth, 3 on top and two on bottom. You have two bottom teeth working their way through now. You're still cruising the furniture and standing by yourself, but not quite walking yet.

You are still a happy, talkative girl. Tyson sure loves you unless you are taking something away from him. He is still very protective of you and shows you off to his friends.

Here's your birthday song from today... forgive the bad singing!

I hate mosquitos

2010-07-14T21:26:00.004-05:00

I'm sorry, but this is way too much a part of our lives right now so I have to mention it. I can't even think of a catchy title for this post. I don't know if it's like this everywhere in Houston, but down here in Pearland, we are INFESTED. They must have liked the rain we got from Alex. There are literally SWARMS of them by any flower bed/ garden in the area. I really think it's the worst I've been around so far.

Steve and Hailey are lucky, they don't get bitten much and when they do, the bites are pretty small. Tyson and I on the other hand, get attacked in the swarms and get massive, nasty looking welps when we get bitten. On my left knee alone, I have 10 bites. No exaggeration. The past few nights I've woken up multiple times because my mosquito bites are itching.

Ok I will stop my rant, but seriously. Please. We need those repellent fogging trucks to drive around the area for about 10 hours straight. I know there are others out there who sympathize with me.