Mud Monkeys, Superheroes, and Lipstick

Henry and Emma played in the sprinkler yesterday and ended up being mud monkeys;)
Working together , building a mud city for their animals.
They had a blast, but we now have a small mud pit in the front yard.
Driving the train at La Hacienda Ranch-restaurant. Kinda blurry, but so cute!
Ridem' Cowboy. Hiyooo Silver Away.....! We actually got him to say "yeehaw."
Chef Emma cooking up something yummy:) Side note-please excuse the background, we are still working on painting in the kitchen and else where-so you'll be seeing drywall for a bit.
Pajama party with Daddy:)
What happens when Mommy lets Emma do her own lipstick. The return of scarey clown lips, yikes!
Henry chose a more manly shade. He got in on the lipstick action too!
Our pretty pretty princess.
Spidey came back for another visit.

***Rock Stars***

Henry surprised me this morning by putting on a drum show. He set up his own drum set with various toys and made drumsticks out of Tinkertoys. Emma decided that she wanted to jam with bubby too. And then she had to have her own drumset. It was a great jam session and they had so much fun playing and singing. I only wish I had it on video. Maybe we'll get a repeat performance some time soon.

Parks and Lincoln Logs

There's plenty of things to tell everyone about Emma and Henry and how much growing and changing they are doing at the moment, but I'm just doing a quick post tonight. I have to gather and organize my thoughts for the rest of the latest happenings.

Here are a couple of things that we have been up to. In the past couple of weeks we've been trying to get the kids outside as much as possible when the weather has permitted. We aren't buried in snow or anything, but we have had some rather chilly weather here in big Tex. Last weekend we went to a new park that we had never been to. It's a rather large setup. The largest playground/fort setup that I've seen anyway. The kids were in awe of the size of it, but that didn't stop them from running at full speed from the parking lot to the play area. Henry took to the fort right away. We only had to coax him a little bit to climb up on his own and start exploring. Emma on the other hand was hesitant. It was cold out that day and we hadn't originally planned on going to the park so Mommy(bad Mommy) didn't put coats on them. I think she was cold so her mind wasn't on playing. We only stayed for about 20 minutes, but I did get some good shots. Yesterday we walked down to the park down the street(very convenient) and played for a bit. I did get windbreakers on them, but the weather fooled me again. We nearly froze to death. It was a beautiful day, but the wind was bitter cold. And lastly, we've been building almost every day at home. We've had either their mega blocks out or Lincoln logs and have been building like crazy. So here are a few shot of what H and E have been up to.

Stuff...

Enjoying the Fall air playing with dinosaurs outside at Nana and Papa's house.

We helped celebrate my grandfather's 94th birthday at one of his favorite restaurants.

Emma fell asleep in my recliner on one of the days she wasn't feeling too good. It was too cute to pass up.

First time in the chair by herself for a haircut. She went second. Her brother encouraged her by saying, "It's ok Sissy, I'm proud of you." She stopped crying after that.

First time in the chair by himself for a haircut. He was sooo good!

Stuff...I didn't know what to title this post. We're all still here. The kids picked up some kind of bug(viral, we think) or a cold and have passed it on to me and Jason. So the last week and a half have been loads of fun(can you sense the sarcasm there?). It started off with Henry running a high temp/low grade fever and snowballed from there. Emma followed with the same symptoms about a day and a half later and then Daddy and Mommy started a little over a week ago(seems much longer). Emma is back to being a healthy girl and Henry just has a little bit of a sniffle accompanied by a cough from drainage. Daddy seems to be pretty much back to good. And Mommy is bringing up the rear-still stuffy and hacking my lungs out. In other words, there hasn't been much going on around here including picture taking. I did manage to get some taken before the yucky bug got the best of me. Fall has finally come to Texas and we were able to pull out the light weight jackets and spend a little time outside at Nana and Papa's. Long enough for the dinosaurs to discover new land and to get in trouble for eating on Nana and Papa's newly planted frontyard. We went to a bookfair at N&P's church and bought a few new books, colored a truckload of pictures, helped Mommy cook breakfast and lunch a few times, gotten haircuts from Mrs.Lucy, and bunches more(my brain just can't remember right now).

Pics from Home and Out and About

Happy July:)

We're only a few days into he month of July, but so far it's been pretty good.I've got to make this fast because the kids should be up for the day very soon. I think we have finally succeeded(for the most part) with potty training both kids!!! Emma has been doing it for about a month now with only a few accidents along the way. Henry has gotten on the bandwagon and isn't scared of the big potty now. We're still working on every once in a while getting him there in time. Now if we cna get him to flush just once instead of three or four times in a row, it would be great! Also, if we could get them to settle down on the hand washing afterwards that would also be great. I'm all for washng the hands after using the bathroom, but when these two leave the sink it looks like a massive tidal wave has hit the bathroom! As for the whole poop factor, well they aren't painting their bedroom walls with it anymore. Daddy came up with a great idea and it has worked so far. We haven't painted in their room yet. So the other day on the way home from one of Mommy's doctor appointments we stopped at Hobby Lobby and picked up some watercolors and brushes. We've been painting on their walls for about two weeks now and they love it. Emma could spend hours on end painting. Henry likes to supervise and have Mommy or Daddy paint for him. I don't mind because it's one thing I like to do just haven't been able to.

No more highchairs!!! They have graduated to sitting at the "big table"-our dining room table. We've played musical chairs at dinnertime a few times. but otherwise they are doing really well. We've also started working on drinking from big girl and big boy glasses instead of sippy cups. Now if we can get them to stay still and not run around with those cups then life would be great!

Still working on sharing toys and other things and taking turns. Henry is into saying "pretty soon" and "in a minute" when it comes to those two things. Emma has gotten protective of her toys. But so far no one has suffered too much.

As for whining, well...it's still happening and will continue to for a while. Usually all we have to say is, "stop whining or go to your room until your done" or start counting to three, which normally means a spank will follow if they continue.

You'll soon see a post that will say no more toddler beds as well. Toddler beds aren't built to last. And ours have taken several beatings. Ours have a lot of battle scars. So we've started looking around at twin beds. I'll post picks and an update once we get them.

As for our July 4th weekend, well, not how we originally planned. The kids will be wo different places this weekend starting later today. Aunt Amy(Yaya) will be here this afternoon to pick them up for an overnight slumber party at her house with cousin Elysabeth and then tomorrow she'll take them to Nana and Papa's for the rest of the weekend. Why, you ask. My neck/back/shoulder problems are still alive and kicking so I'm going in this afternoon to have an epidural injection and will not be able to do anything for the next few days. Hopefully this works-if not we may be looking at surgery to correct the herniated disk. I still may have to have some surgery anyway on my shoulder, but we are waiting until after this procedure to see if it also takes care of the shoulder problems.

We'll keep you posted. And I'll also post some picks sometime today before all of that, but right now I'm out of time. I hear two little sweet voices so I better go.

Happy July Pictures