We Heart Arizona!

Cal and I are having a fabulous time in AZ with all our favorite people! I hardly see Callin any more. He is one of the pack that roams from Popsicles on the trampoline, to driving bikes, cars, scooters, off to cool down in the pool, inside to color or watch Horton Hears a Who for the fourth time, down stairs to play dress up, house, or Lego's, into the bath with which ever kids may be sleeping over for the night, and finally they wind down and crash hard at night.

The 3 triplet cousins took a couple of hours to warm up to each other, but soon picked up right where they left off!

Blink...and then he's two!

Cal had a super fun, jam packed birthday!

Cal ordered pancakes for breakfast.
We had TONS of fun at the Children's Museum in the morning with Paola & Mateus.

Next, we were off to swim lessons. Callin is in a class with all his little buddies (and girlfriend) from church. It is super fun!

Next, we were off to the beach... (with a little nap time in the car).

Cupcakes on the beach was the perfect birthday party! It was a perfect beach day!

Who could ask for a better day?!

Progress

It has definitely been a crazy past couple of weeks. Mom Lewis came and worked her magic on our house. Who knew the wonders that could be done with spray paint! We now have all new light fixtures outside and in! After finishing tearing down the wall paper in the Master bath, texturizing 3 bathrooms, new floor and bead board in half bath, priming all 3, painting master... the never ending bathroom project is almost finished!

Callin only got into the makeup twice while she was here. (And only gave her the Heimleich maneuver once while she was napping on the couch.)

Other highlights include: Callin going to Dallas w/ Grandma for 3 1/2 days, the trampoline, Uncle Eddie, meeting new cousin Dessie Raeann, and a trip to the farm.

P.S. Thank you for all your sweet comments, emails, face book messages, etc., regarding my parents. We are looking forward to their safe return and being together very soon!

Future Fire Fighters

Cal and his best bud Shep.

My uncontrollable mane was not supposed to be the focus of this picture. (It has recently been chopped!) Callin cannot stop wearing his fire hat and playing with his fire truck. He loved his 1 day of being able to hang out with the preschoolers. I swear he idolizes them the way he talks about them and knows all of their names.

Tomorrow is the 100th day and last day of preschool. Quite a momentous day for us!

Phone Conversations between D & A

(8 am) D to A :  "I am so hungry.  I totally forgot to eat my oatmeal after I made it this morning.  And I forgot my wallet."  

(11:30am) A to D:  "Guess what?  Callin went poo poo in the toilet for the first time today! He is so cute.  Oh and I love his language lately.  Earlier he wanted to go and play outside and play with his water table.  I brought him some sand toys, he looked at them and said, 'No, orge shoble peas.' (Orange shovel please.)"  

(3:00pm) A to D:  "I changed my  mind.  Callin is a stinker.  He would not fall asleep today for his nap.  I had to go in after an hour and take all his books away.  After 30 more minutes, he was

 really quiet, but my mothers intuition told me to go and check on him.  The closer and closer I got to to his door, I could smell it.  Desitin.  I opened the door to find a little ghost boy, literally covered head to toe in pure white.  Not to mention he enjoyed painting the carpet, dresser, toys, etc. "

I found these empty bottles of Desitin and Hydrocortisone to prove it.  (No pictures of the little ghost.  He had to be rushed immediately to the tub and scrubbed for over 20 minutes before he turned pink again.)   

A wonderful day!

This picture captures a little bit of one of (if not THE) greatest moment of my life! I love the joys of motherhood. Thanks to Doug who made the day extra special and cooked delicious food (eggs, bacon, and strawberry & raspberry crapes for breakfast and yummy Mexican meat burritos with heavenly guacamole for dinner!!!) and kept the kitchen spic and span on top of it!

I love singing "Sou um Filho de Deus" before Cal goes to bed. I love helping him learn how to pedal his new tricycle (a trade in for the nap time Binky). I love helping him learn his shapes and colors (except for when he is oh so proud of his blue circles he drew all over the walls). I love snuggling together and reading his favorite books. And I guess I even love him when I find him covered in Vaseline or hiding under the stairs dumping box after box of my food storage out (it's okay, it was just macaroni & cheese, we'll live w/out it.)

We REALLY love our "cinda" mothers (LaCinda and Precinda, aka Cindy) with all our hearts! Happy Mothers Day!

Troubles

Where to start...so why do people complain about living in Seattle.  Let's talk about rain folks.  It RAINS, I mean really rains in Houston.  Check out this map if you don't believe me. (You have to change it to look at the rainfall for the past 30 days.) Where we live received around 15 inches the past couple of weeks.  Do you know that Seattle only around 35 inches a year?  If you click on the past 365 days in Houston, you will see numbers like 75 inches, 90 inches, 101 inches.  

I love rain.  It is really not a problem for me (I don't mean to sound like I am complaining.)  We had several days last week where Cal and I would lay on the couch next to the windows, with the lights off (sometimes by choice, usually by consequence of the storm) and watch the storm.  He learned some new exciting words like thunder and lightning.  I told him how much his Papa loves to watch storms.  How he would wake me up as a little girl, just to go sit and watch the storms.  We watched the water fill up the street and then start to creep closer and closer up our drive way.  (This was the day we got 8 inches all at once.) While we were watching the front, we forgot about the back.  As a result, trouble #1 happened!  Doug has spent most of this weekend redoing the floor (wood laminate from IKEA).   Trouble #2 would be that my camera has been dead and the cord to charge it has vanished to Mars or something.  So no pictures of our floorless floor.  

On to troubles #3-6.  Almost-two-year-olds get into everything!  This week alone I have walked down stairs on difference occasions to find an empty spaghetti box, spaghetti all over the floor, an empty cereal box, cereal all over the floor, an empty jelly beans bag, not too many jelly beans left all over the floor, and upstairs an empty Comet can, green powder all over everything (beds, clean pile of clothes, carpet, rungs, toys, books, etc.)  Again, no picture to document the proof, but I am sure you can imagine it! (You might ask what are Doug & I always doing?  The answer is always house projects, new gutters, taring off the last bathrooms wallpapers, talking to the tile man, insulation man, handy man about their respective projects, and my latest skill: recaulking the bathrooms!) 

Doug finished block 5 on Wednesday!  It was so fun to have him around...and to help.  We stopped working long enough Saturday morning to go to Surfside beach (about 45 min. away).We planned to go Friday, but trouble #7 came and our car had to go see the car doctor and rack up a nice bill.  We had a wonderful time!  Callin was not so sure about the waves after he got knocked down in the first minute of his brave exploration.  But the sand, buckets, shovel experience was a success.  Good times cannot last forever. Trouble #8 happened when Doug and Callin took a walk down the beach while I tried to read for a few minutes.  Callin stepped on a wood board and ended up with 2 nail "bites" in his feet.  Sand and cuts don't really mix, so we packed up a little early.  (Don't worry, Cal recently got his 2nd Dtap vaccine, that includes tetanus. Those who know me, know this is a big step!) 

All in all, we know these troubles are nothing to complain about.  We are staying busy, grateful for all our many blessings and having a great time!