A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T "me" V W X Y Z

This post is about as random as the title but equally full of as much character.

Enjoy <3

I've been slacking in the blogging area which only means I've been spending more time with my babies and my man.  

Quite a wonderful trade in my opinion.  :)  

I'll give ya'll an update on what's been happening here in sweaty southern Texas.  

These pictures are posted in random order, I'm actually not quite sure I could recall what happened on which day but I will try my best!

Junk shirt turned adorable dress

I turned one of my junk t-shirts from a thrift store (yes, I still wear thrift store t-shirts) into a pillow case dress for Aveline, simply for the sake of trying it out at this point and it worked wonderfully, I do need to tweek my design a bit but overall it was great.  Now I need to decide which shirts I can and can't live without and let Aveline pick out a few of the ones that I am willing to part with so she too can start wearing vintage/thrift store shirts.  

Bubbles on a hot day

For whatever reason I don't keep bubbles around the house, I think I happened to run out last fall and never bought/made more so the kids were very "inexperienced" with their bubble blowing skills but after several attempts the boys finally figured it out and from then on it was bubbles galore!  

Aveline kept eating the wands so she just sat and let the boys blow bubbles to her :)  

Aveline learned to whisper

Aveline has started whispering when we say "shhh" or if she sees Jared "sleeping", it is super adorable but really, what 1 year old does something that isn't super adorable??  :)

Hip Hop

The kids wearing their bunny masks that Grandma and Grandpa Greaves sent them for Easter. 

Birthday Party in a box

Aunt Sherrie sent Leonidas a birthday party in a box.  Party hats, streamers, little presents, ice cream bowls, ice cream spoons, sprinkles, chocolate topping .. everything he needed for an ice cream birthday party.  Pardon the lack of clothes, the kids were dressed in some of their nicer things and we didn't want to get them messy so we let them eat shirtless .. super classy :)

 Nidas was too busy looking at his little presents to even notice Jared sneaking a bite of his ice cream. 
 Jokes on you Daddy, he didn't even notice.

Grey Tooth = First Dentist Visit

I noticed earlier in the week of this appointment that Oliver had a tooth that was changing color.  Immediately I said "Jared you watch the kids I'm going to google it" so I rushed upstairs to the computer and googled what would cause a grey tooth basically what google told me that the discoloration was due to either tooth trauma OR poor hygiene.  That's a scary thought at first but then I went back and looked at Oliver's grey tooth again, it was the same tooth that Oliver has now chipped twice.  What an odd sense of relief but still a disappointment that Oliver will have a grey baby tooth until he is around 6 or 7.  I called the dentist and asked if they could bump up Oliver's first visit from August to earlier that week, they agreed and off we went to the dentist.  Oliver was surprisingly excellent at the dentist, he is the kid I feared going the most, I just *knew* he'd cry or throw a fit but he didn't, he just sat in his chair and gave them his famous dirty look.  :)  After a bit he lightened up and was his normal self.  I was prepared for the worst and actually, he was a little angel.  The dentist agreed, it's not tooth decay, the nerve in his tooth has died due to trauma.  He is going back for an x-ray in a few days, just to make sure.

I'm willing to sacrifice a grey or possibly even silver tooth for an otherwise healthy happy little boy :)

 She has curls!

Aveline is growing the cutest little curls and yes, it's worth documenting and posting about.  Jared and I always hoped that one of our kids would end up with curly hair, even though we don't have curly hair. Leonidas' hair is as straight as straight gets, Oliver's is coarse and wipsy and Aveline .. little sweet Aveline is getting some adorable little ringlets  <3

 Texas Friends

We are friends with a couple here in TX who have an adorable little boy.  We were hanging out one night at the house, Elizabeth and I were talking about cloth diapers and other types of natural mamma things and the guys were playing video games and having a bit of zombie talk and then all of a sudden I see little Kaeden getting his game on too! :)  Okay so maybe Kaeden wasn't actually playing video games but he sure did look adorable posing for his picture!  We are so thankful for our friends that we have at home and for the new friends that we have met since being here in Texas, life is so much more enjoyable when you're with good friends  :)

Baking cookies with cascarones
Last week Leonidas and I had date night and we baked cookies and drank hot cocoa outside, it was 85 degrees.  When Nidas was cracking the eggs I switched a regular egg with a cascarones, an Easter tradition that is slowly making it's way across the southern states from Mexico.  A cascarones is a confetti filled egg that is meant to be smashed on the head of friends and family during celebrations, mostly Easter around here.  Well, the grocery store, H.E.B., had them on sale so I picked up a carton to trick the kids with.  I wish I had recorded Nidas' experience with the cascarones, it was awesome.  He cracked the egg and confetti flew everywhere, his jaw dropped and he was so confused .. and then he laughed.  Perfection.  I recorded Oliver when we were baking cookies for pizza movie night .. he didn't even care.  Not perfection.

Caterpillar watchin'

We were at the park behind our house one day when the boys saw a furry white caterpillar with some black stripes.  We then turned around and saw so many more.  we gathered up quite a few caterpillars, 13 to be exact.  Daddy rushed inside to get the butterfly keeper that Nannie and CatPa had just sent the boys.  We put all the caterpillars in and fed them for a few days.  After a day or two Jared and I decided we should investigate so again I head straight for google .. google it and wouldn't ya know it, we have ourselves some Hickory Tussock Moth's.  Along with being super cute and fuzzy these guys also are poisonous .. POISONOUS .. GET THEM OUT OF MY HOUSE!  The moths aren't deadly to humans but if touched in a threatening way the black parts on their backs can release a poison or venom that will cause a rash and all the goodies that come with it, itching, swelling, fevers .. awesome.  The kids enjoyed having something to look at and sweet little Nidas would run in the kitchen and say "did I miss it?  .. did they turn into butterflies yet?" so after we get back from our trip to Missouri we are going to purchase a few caterpillars and let them grow and watch them change in to butterflies in his butterfly keeper.  :)

Ice Cream Treats

As I started to think about what to write for these next few photos I realized just how many activities within the last few weeks that are posted on here involve sugary snacks.  Typically we don't eat this many sugar snacks, I guess I've been slacking a bit on my regular rules of "no sugar" "no this" "no that" I didn't even realize it.  We do buy the most natural ice cream out there and it happens to be the most delicious so maybe I'll justify it by knowing that .. yeah, that's what I'll do.   A hot hot hot Saturday afternoon, nothing planned so we had ginormous ice cream cones out back.  :)  We tossed a few over the fence to the neighbor kids that were sweating to death at the park too.  

Oliver graduated!

Oliver graduated and was discharged from speech therapy.  :)

We enrolled Oliver in speech last fall when he wasn't talking and we began to question if he was having problems hearing because he wasn't talking clearly and he wasn't using helping words, he would only say the names of every possible animal, such a strange first word vocabulary.  After a few rounds of hearing screens, evaluations and such it was determined that Oliver needed tubes put in his ears.  Oliver was able to hear just as well as us, if our heads were under water.  

no wonder he was always so frustrated when he tried to communicate verbally with us.

Oliver had tubes put in his ears in October of 2011 and 6 months later he is talking at the lower level of a 3 year old (he's only 2.5) and he is discharged and continues to progress each and every day with his speech and oddly enough his attitude has changed, he isn't grumpy all the time, he's actually quite enjoyable to be around now whereas before .. not so much.  :)  This is Oliver's speech therapist, Mary, she came to our house twice a month for speech for an hour each session, it was wonderful.  She taught Oliver and she gave me helpful hints, tips and reminders each visit on what to work on with Oliver.  She has been a huge blessing to our family and she will not be forgotten.  At the end of each session I was given a copy of Oliver's progress notes, I saved every single one of these and they are going in Oliver's time capsule.  In the goal line on the first progress sheet it reads "establish single word vocabulary" and a few progress sheets later Mary noted that Oliver had said "hi turtle" and "big ball" and now (I tear up thinking about it) I can't get the little boy to be quiet for a minute, he talks (clearly) all day long.  :)

Kids just relaxing around the house

A few shots of the kids one day, just hanging out around the house.  :)

Pixie

I cut it all off and I love it.  The cut is wonky and not what I wanted but I LOVE having short hair.  I can't wait to let it grow a bit and then re-cut it properly.  <3

I honestly don't remember

I can honestly say I don't remember what we were doing or where we were going when these pictures were taken, I was thinking it was Easter but Avie had a different dress on for Easter Sunday .. I tried and tried to remember but I just can't .. Oh well, they're still cute, even if I'm going nuts!

Swinging out back

The boys LOVE to swing on the swings at the park behind our house.  :)

MORE goodies

These are some super delicious cookies that I made for Jared to take to work and I have a handful of cousins back home that think these are delicious!