Oh My, Oh My....I'm so behind....

Well, since it's been almost a year since I've last posted I guess i have a ton to fill in here. I wish I had the time and energy to do it today but I don't. ;) X-mas cards and letter will be coming out soon so hopefully I can get people up to date that way.

Changes, changes........

Well, looks as if the new year may be a time of many changes for us. Nothing drastic as of yet but a few things to make mention of.

Guess who's "working" again????????? Well, it's not full time, heck, it's not really even part time but I'm happy to be doing something other than cleaning my house and carting kids around to various activities. My friend Kathy was generous enough to suggest me for some side work at The Hockaday School (it's a private all girls school here in Dallas) doing various mailing, data entry, time consuming blah jobs. The best part is that I work from home on my own time in my jammies (if I want). Not glamorous but the perfect thing to ease me back into a "work world" mode without having to give up being a stay-at-home-mom to my boys. And heck, the extra money doesn't hurt either. ;)

Alex has been sprung from Speech therapy! The day his therapist took him to the potty and he exclaimed "Hey, my pee pee is yellow like a bird!" she figured his speech skills had reached the point where he really didn't need to be there anymore. LOL!

Parker has started some group therapy where he currently goes for Speech and OT. It's a social skills group with 3 other children. So far he's had 2 sessions and has done great! His therpaist even said he was "the example" for all the other kids! You have no idea how happy this makes me to hear something like that! Guess everything we've done for the past 4 years has really made a difference!

A brand new year!

January, a time to sweep away the guilt of what you didn't accomplish last year and make that list of all those things you swear to do this year. Right now my list is staring at me still blank but with all kinds of "maybes" floating around on the page.

Getting back to December of course......we had a really nice holiday. Saw Santa twice in one day and the boys were quite bold in expressing exactly what they wanted the big guy to bring. For Parker it was the Digitial Art and Crafts Studio (of course with how fast he says it it was heard as "thdigarsancratstudo" and so we gladly helped with translation). The only thing on Alex's list were choo-choo's, specifically Thomas and Percy. He wasn't even up in Santa's lap before he started yelling "I want Thomas and Percy Santa!!!!!" Luckily, Santa took note of their requests and both boys were very happy on Christmas morning. My parents and sister were here to celebrate with us. It was the usual orgy of gifts that I think poor Keith will never get used to. We had some great meals and Alex even got to help grandma make dumplings for chicken and dumplings. Keith and I also got some free-of-charge babysitting to go run errands, etc. which we always appreciate.

The boys are back at school now and Keith is back to work after being able to take off pretty muc the whole last 2 weeks of the year. Let's just say.....it was time. Having all this "boyishness" in my house 24/7 was wearing on my already thin nerves. LOL!

I have lots of pictures to post but they are on my laptop which is on it's way back to me after having been shipped to Dell for repair. Hopefully I'll get those photos on here soon. There are some pretty funny ones.

Hope everyone had a great holiday and we wish you all the best for 2009!

October???!!! It's been that long since I've posted? Wow, I must be turning into Keith. You'd think as a lady with no paying job I'd have a little more time to devote to this sort of thing.

Ok, so since October I guess we've been pretty busy? Getting things ready for the holidays becomes a full time job for me (obviously I end up making things way harder on myself than I should). LOL! Halloween was fun. In the past year all but 1 of the empty lots on our street have been filled and people have moved in so Halloween was a lot busier than previous years. Our friend Meredyth came up with Roman and Ferris and our new friend Penny brought her little boy Chandler. The kids all had a great time running around the hood going up to houses for treats. I don't know about my kids....they kept wanting to goin people houses and give them big hugs. Can you say "soon to be kidnapped children".

We stayed here for Thanksgiving and had some friends over so we would have an excuse to make a big meal. We were outnumbered by kids......6 adults, 7 kids (5 and under!) It was a wild time but fun! Keith fried 2 turkeys and did an outstanding job!

Gearing up now for Christmas. All the gifts have been bought, the boys have one more week of school left until winter break and we'll be expecting my mom and dad and sister to arrive a couple days before Christmas. More food, more fun (in that order).

I'm going to try and post some new pictures soon.

Oh, and I finally set up my facebook page. Ummmmm...can you say, ADDICTIVE!!!!!!!

Been away awhile....

from blogging that is. :) It's been busy, busy around here. I have managed to get quite a bit done in the past few weeks. I had a yard sale and made a few bucks, Keith took some vacation time, we visited the great State Fair of Texas and are enjoying the cool fall weather!

I bugged and bugged him and finally Keith took a week off work to see how the boys and I endure the long weeks without him here. ;) It had been nearly a year since he last took a vacation so I decided to take it easy on him and held off on the mile long "honey-do" list I had planned in my head. He had a wonderful time sharing in the kid toting to/from school, therapist appts. and my usual routine of errands I do each week. I think he was nice and ready to go back to work when he realized that sleeping till 10:30a.m. would not be an option for his "vacation".

We visited the Great State Fair of Texas as we do each year. We had a great time and the boys had a blast going around and seeing all the livestock. We even caught the "milking" demonstration which the boys found fascinating. They now each ask for their glass of "cow's milk" each morning. LOL! Unfortunately they are both tall enough to be able to ride many of the midway rides. They both love to ride said rides which cost from $4-$6 a pop. You can only imagine how much $$ we spent. I think from now on they are going to have their own money for this once a year trip or we'll be getting into their college fund to pay for our Fair trips. LOL!!!

The boys are both doing well in school, Keith is not too stressed at work and I pretty much just pick-up after kids and animals. The weather has been beautiful so we've finally been able to open some windows and enjoy some cool breezes throughout the house. (Plus, it saves from having to run the AC or heater. ;) )

Looking forward to a Halloween party tomorrow night and of course trick-or-treating on Halloween night. I know we'll have pictures to come from those 2 events!

5 5 5 5 5 5!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

5 years ago today we got to meet this tiny little guy that would change our lives forever. Whew! What a scary scary time for two people who were pretty apprehensive about becoming something as important as "parents". From Keith putting on his (Keith's and Parker's) first diaper to me a couple days after coming home looking at Keith with tears welling up in my eyes and saying "I just love him sooooooooo much!" I think we've done a pretty good job. We may have had a few ER visits but we have been able to keep him all in one piece (pretty much). ;)

So, to my 5 year old, Happy Birthday Baby!!!!

(Does this mean I'm 5 years older? ACCCKKKKK!!!!)

Time to get Ed-ju-ma-ca-ted!!!!!!

Yipee!!!! School is back in session and we're off to a great start! Parker started last week and has done really well. He's at a new elementary school this year with a new teacher so I had my doubts but he's handled things great. He describes most days as "Super!" He's riding the bus again and has some of the neatest and nicest people for drivers. He's also started outpatient Speech therapy once a week and we are waiting to hear if he'll start going to outpatient Occupational therapy too.

Alex didn't get to start until this week but is doing very well. Yesterday was his first day at preschool and I'm sure I ended up looking like the worst mom in the world when I dropped him off in the carpool line. ((Running and hiding right now)) I think I was the ONLY parent that did not walk their child in to their class on the first day of school. You should have seen some of the looks I got from the other parents when I pulled up and they came out to get Alex out of the truck. LOL!!! In my defense I did ask Alex if he wanted Mommy to walk him into his class or if he wanted Miss Shelly (the asst. director of the school) to come out and get him out of the truck. He said, "I want Miss Selly get me!" So it was really his idea.......right? ;)

Alex also started a speech class through the school district this morning. It lasts for about 2 hours 2 days a week and he'll get help with a lot of articulation issues, etc.

So far so good with the only issue being me constantly driving from here to there to drop off or pick up for all these things. Good thing I don't "work" or else these boys wouldn't have a chauffeur to tote them around. Right Keith?????? LOL!

Birthdays!!!!

Oh My!!! Birthday parties DONE!!! Whew! We had the boys party last Sunday and even though it started out with a few glitches I'm calling it a huge success. Our Dallas friends were nice enough to take the road trip up to Prosper (about a 45 minutes drive for them) and celebrate. We also has some of our new freinds from Alex's class join us for the fun. Lots of bouncing, dancing, arcade game playing, rock wall climbing and even a spirited game of laser tag for a handful of the dads.

We went with the spongebob cake from Wal-Mart because we couldn't agree on a theme that both boys would be happy with. LOL! Not the best decorating job but the cake was yummy and that's all that matters. ;)

We also went to the circus on Friday night. Definitely not as great as the last time we went but always entertaining none-the-less. We ate overpriced food and even bought the uber expensive toys so we did our part in that aspect. The only downfall was that Alex decided that the star of the show "Belo" the clown was the most terrifying thing he'd ever seen and repeatedly asked "Mama, we go home". When the clown made his way right in front of us for a skit Alex decided that was the last straw. Luckily, Keith's office was not far away so he took Alex to hang out there until the show was over. All was not lost and Alex ended up a very happy boy since they got to ride "the train" (DART rail) over to his building from the American Airlines Center. Parker had a great time and intently watched everything.

Diapers bite the dust!

Guess who's wearing big boy underwear?????? We worked very hard this past week on the huge task of potty training Alex. We figured since he's recently started expressing himself regularly (i.e. he never shuts up ;) ) he was ready to move on to "big boy" status.

Let me tell ya, this was no easy task. After how easy it was training Parker I went into this with a lot more confidence (only to be beat down and nearly defeated). He fought me for 2 days.....and would even sit on the potty and say "NO WAY MOM, No Potty!" I knew once he went on the potty once it would smooth sailing. When he finally did I made a big deal over it. I think whhat really sealed it was the fact that he got a lollipop and stickers when he went on the potty. I'm finding bribery works well on this child. ;)

So, he's doing great and we're really proud of him! Now, if anyone has any tips on how to get him to do #2 on the potty I'd be mighty greatful....... :P

My Baby is 3??!!!!!??!!

WHAAAAAAA!!!!! My baby isn't a baby anymore!! We celebrated Alex's birthday this past Sunday with a day full of friends and water. Always a good mix when the temperatures are high here in Texas. We started out with lunch at McDonald's thanks to Grandma Lewis and then met our friends at Hawaiian Falls (a waterpark). We ended the evening with some chocolate chip muffins complete with Diego decoration. No big gifts since his birthday party is on Aug. 10.

Happy Borthday Big Boy!!!!