Tooth fairy visit

Well it's been a week of many firsts for Austin. And it continues - with his first lost tooth. I wasn't sure how much the tooth fairy rate was these days - one friend told me $20 for the first tooth. I thought that was a little extreme and was happy the tooth fairy went for $5 instead. I think the rate goes down after the first tooth though!

You can kind of see in the second picture he already has his big tooth coming in.

Dinner by Austin

Austin came home from school and wanted to make dinner - all by himself with no help.

I will say he is becoming quite self sufficient. Like if he needed to get by for a few days by himself he could probably manage. Not to say I would ever consciously let him manage by himself, just if there was some sort of circumstance where I was so sick in bed I couldn't get out - that they wouldn't starve. You know...



Nice to know they wouldn't be eating on the floor...


and that they would eat all the junk first.

Soccer and a field trip

Austin had his first soccer game of the season. Their team is called the Red Dragons, and let me tell you first grade soccer is way more entertaining than kindergarten soccer. They have a real official and everything. The team lost, but Austin did great and even scored a goal.


Number 5 (the kid on the ground) was the best player on the other team. He scored at least 3 goals and was virtually unstoppable. Except when he and Austin accidentally collided. Notice who is still standing... :)

The girls had their first field trip. Unfortunately I wasn't able to go... I've been sick again this week. I am sick of being sick. It is getting really old. Anyway, if you remember their field trip was canceled from last December to a Christmas tree farm, so they scheduled this one to Petco and Cici's Pizza. Not an even trade off if you ask me, but oh well. The highlights were that they got to pet a rat (yuck), make their own pizzas, and ride the school bus. Hopefully they washed their hands after the rat experience (it happened before the pizza). Here they are before the exciting day.

Here's Abby pretending to have three eyes. I love our little, random kiddos.

How to tie your shoes

So I realize most kids are probably tying their shoes around 4ish or so. Not mine. They all get frustrated so easily. Austin finally saw the light, and is so proud of himself, even showing off his skills with his eyes closed. Next up: tackling the two wheeler. Trust me, we've tried.

This boy cracks me up...



Have a great weekend!

Deer Day

I bet you had no idea that yesterday was the annual deer day in our household. I just found out that afternoon. Most people celebrated President's Day - not us.

The festivities included deer races, creating deer stickers for our clothes, deer hide and go seek, deer football, deer step, etc.


Don't think she didn't participate - Emily was just taking a barbie break while I had the camera out. (I don't know how much more of growing their bangs out I can take).

According to Austin deer day is to "celebrate all the deer that have died. We want them all to come back from heaven to have fun with us."

I didn't have the heart to tell him that we have some deer sausage in the freezer right now and that he's had it and actually enjoyed it. Tomorrow we will be celebrating kangaroo day - can't wait.

My valentines

Happy Valentines Day! Truth be told, we see this day as more of a Hallmark holiday - we don't go crazy with flowers and chocolates and gifts for each other. So I guess there's a little bah humbug on February 14 for us... but, the Amazing Race is coming back tonight so it will be a great day after all!

Today we celebrated by doing nothing. Well not really nothing. I went to the grocery store. We did do a fair amount of yard work and played outside - we've been stuck inside for several weeks and today was a beautiful day! We also made cookies - well because there just wasn't enough sugar in the house from all the valentines parties at school this week.

This is from Austin's party at school on Friday.


Here he is with his teacher, Mrs. Marberry. He adores her (even though she's an Aggie).

Helping us pull weeds... from the looks of the yard (and Abby's face), it appears they were being attacked by weeds.


The Disney princesses must join us doing everything.

That's about it. Just getting ready to come off the sugar high and enjoy another week. Let's hope the weather stays this way for a while!

House rules

I have no idea when Austin created this - I passed by it in the hallway upstairs today and noticed it. Shows how much I pay attention.

First of all I am pretty surprised that he didn't spell the word "scream" correctly. You see, one of Austin's new favorite past times is taking spelling tests on the computer (his elementary school posts all the spelling words each week for every grade). He skips the 1st - 3rd and goes directly to the highest level, 4th grade. He gets most of them right too. There could be worse hobbies in the world, right?

Second, I think this list was made strictly for Emily. I say that because #7 says, "be nice to mama and dad." Austin never calls me Mama. Neither does Abby. Emily is the only one who will occasionally address me as mama, especially when she's being super sweet and wants something. She's a smart one.

Another reason I think it was made for Emily is that she told Austin to be a good sport the other day (and in the semi-correct context). I asked Austin to help Abby with something, and he wasn't too thrilled about it. Shocker, I know - the kid doesn't listen to 100% of everything we say. Anyway, when Emily told him to be a good sport I thought that was strange because I've never really had the need to tell her to be a good sport. I figured she heard it from school - guess not.

I'll have to ask him what brought on the need for this list, but overall I'm pleased - not a bad set of house rules to have!

24 Weeks

Trust me, you're not going to see many more of these type of pictures. What I see in the mirror is very different than what I see in pictures - ha!

Anyway... I'm at 24 weeks now. I'm still feeling pretty good - definitely feeling tired more these days, especially towards the end of the day. I don't sleep a whole lot - it's getting hard to find a comfortable position. Baby boy is supposedly 9 inches long and weighs about 1 1/2 lbs. I feel him moving around quite a bit when I lay down and when I'm at the gym (maybe he likes the loud music??). I'm feeling like I'm getting behind - still no stroller, car seat(s), swing, bouncer, etc. The room is still not completely done. We're still undecided about names (but glad we finally have a list). It seems like this pregnancy has gone by so incredibly fast and May will be here before we know it.

Austin and the girls both start up start up soccer again next week. The girls are also starting a reading program to help prepare them for kinder in the fall. I get tired just thinking of all the stuff that needs to be done!

Super Bowl Sunday

Geaux Saints!!

Honestly it really doesn't matter to me, but I'd like to see the Saints win today. I think it would be great for the city of New Orleans. Plus James designed some Saints shirts, so if they win maybe we'll earn a little money :) Austin wants the Colts... but really we have cheered for both teams this season. Although I will say that during my fantasy football Superbowl game, I started the Saints defense and lost because of them. Should have started the Titans D. I'm not completely over it.

It's been another lazy weekend in our house. Well really a sick weekend. James and I came down with the most horrible stomach bug ever. Thankfully my mother came over yesterday to watch the kiddos while we stayed quarantined in our bedroom. I haven't been that sick in a long time. I had a fun night planned with some girls in the neighborhood and was really bummed to have missed it. We're both feeling much better today. I was going to make us a big spread of Superbowl type unhealthy foods, but the thought of it nauseates me at the moment. So we ordered a pizza for the kids.

We did finally get around to creating the kids' valentine's boxes for their upcoming parties this week. It is difficult to wrap shoe boxes, especially on the ones that the top is still attached to the box.

Here's our big football fan working on his box. He wanted an extra-large box for all the ladies...


Emily had a slight bug too this weekend. But this didn't keep her from getting ready for the month of love.

"Okay, enough is enough. Let's get this football game started!"

Name ideas

So we finally looked at a website for baby names. I don't know why it's so hard this time - it seems like we have picked out names for the other kiddos way sooner.

Here are the names that made the list:
Cody
Ethan
Noah
Evan
Jack
Ryan
Jason
Alex
Zachary
Christian
Cole
Cooper
Jackson
Peyton

I personally like Evan and James seems to lean toward Jackson and Cole. Abby likes the name Zachary. Emily likes Petyon, only because I think it was the last one on the list we read to her - hence the only one she remembered. Austin liked Peyton too, only if his first name was Peyton and middle name was Manning. Um - don't think so kiddo.

Austin also wanted these names added:
Starle / Tile / Rory / stickle (with a long i sound) / Jarli

I am regretting getting them involved in this whole process. Austin had a dream about it last night and now wants the name Cole Riker. The girls agreed and Abby informed us it was 3 against 2. Ha!

And since I can't go a post without putting a picture up - here's the girls trying on makeup for the first time... about a month ago. We haven't pulled it out since.