Celebrating Pop and Mimi's Birthdays

Saturday night we went to my parents house to spend some time with them and celebrate their upcoming birthdays. 

CarCar and TayTay with the nieces and nephew

Playing together.  Reese likes to climb on the toys. 

Counting money in a game the adults were playing

Reese and Tay Tay

Grayson throwing the ball to Piper. 

Jumping on the bed!

Playing hide and seek - in the bathroom cabinet

And in the pantry

Mimi and Reese

Reese and Pop

Reese finally got her toy (it was in our storage with all our house stuff).  

Now that she is walking, she will love it!

This made me laugh.   Birthday present from his two teenage girls - high fashion sweaters from Forever 21 and H&M. He's learning what the word "fitted" means.   Ha!

Happy Birthday Mimi and Pop!  We love you!

July Photodump

July has been HUGE.  We finally moved to the new house.  It was a big transition and has been a long few weeks.  We have been overwhelmed with working on the house and trying to enjoy the last few weeks of summer.  

Playing on the Hempkins' 4-wheelers.  This was the first time that Harper enjoyed it.  But it's pretty hard to drive, shift, and hold a toddler who is squirming around.  

Shopping McKinney Trade Days with the fam - she found lots of dolls.  

The joys of potty training.  Stopping on the side of the highway to potty because you can't find a restroom and you are an hour away.  Thankful for the portable potty!

So with everyone home for summer, sometimes we got a little bored.  Taylor and Carleigh liked to make up vines and funny photos.  This is a "family retake" idea from pinterest where you recreate a photo.  It's super funny and a little creepy.  This is the first picture Cody, Taylor and Carleigh ever took.  He went with me to Arizona to meet my family after we got engaged.  They were so little and cute!  But its cute that they have just grown to love each other more.  It's almost like they have been family their whole lives.  

We spent our last day in Highland Village playing at the park and feeding the ducks.  Harper loves when Cody comes - he is way more fun than me!  And the ducks were in full force that day - there were tons of them. 

Our first weekend in Denison, we did the Lowe's kids workshop.  Harper loved getting to hammer and play with tools.  

Her first diy project.

Taylor and Carleigh came home with us for the weekend.  They took like 15 videos just in the car going home and taught Harper to say "Oh no, it's the po-po."  She missed them a TON!

Hanging in the new bed together (its rumored that someone even got a paci...)

Our first dress up experience.  She really wanted to wear the dress but I don't think it was the most comfortable thing.  But she still looked cute. 

3 minutes later we were naked as usual.  

Taylor left her ipod so we played with it each day and sent her pictures.  

Another picture for Taylor - Cody with his 4 cherries from his Sonic drink.  Taylor seems to always get jipped on cherries so we thought we would show her our luck.  

Our Move to the Country

Our house is almost done!  The floors went in last week so it's not a construction zone anymore and it's livable for us.  We are going to go ahead and move in so we can get started on all the projects that we have to do.  All that is left to be done in the house is bathroom tile, paint touchups, kitchen appliances, and tiny details.  But we have furniture paint redos, pasture mowing, ceiling fan and light installation, doorknobs, etc.  Lots to do and it's already the middle of July!

Leaving Argyle headed to our house for good

Cody and his 1 millionth trailor load.  

The first week was ok but a little harder than I thought.  It was mostly like camping out, in a house.  We had no running water, no toilet/shower/sink etc.  We had a fridge but no stove installed yet.  We ate tons of sandwhiches.  And we couldn't move any furniture in because the painter wasn't done yet.  So we just kinda camped out.  We spent a lot of time at the Hempkins', bathing, eating, etc.  We are so grateful that they were kind enough to take care of us for a week.  

1st big grocery trip

Helping out at Lowe's.  

Cody had tons of work to do.  It took hours to get the ceiling fans up.  "5 minute fan" advertisement was a lie!  He also had to do lots of yard work and get this house ready for us to live in since school starts just a few weeks down the road.  I spent my time keeping a 2 year old busy and not too bored.  She loved running around the empty rooms, singing, dancing.  I used most days to repaint furniture.  We painted Cody's old bunkbeds for Harper's new big girl bed, as well as an old kids desk from the 60's that Nana had in her house and a nightstand.  We also had to paint my greatgrandparents old speaker cabinet to use as a buffet and my parents old halltree.  And we did finally get to spraypaint the old gold fireplace.  I think all the pieces turned out great!  Thankfully the "vintage" paint technique is another way of saying "it's ok to paint poorly, just sand and it'll look old and unique".  

While I painted, she climbed all over me.  It kinda slowed progress just a little.

Halltree Before

Halltree After 

(Grey-blue color from our bathroom)

New fireplace screen

Most days we get up at 7am with Harper.  We don't have blinds, so the sun is a little bright when it comes up.  We work all day, sometimes taking breaks to eat or rest when Harper naps, sometimes not.  When Harper goes to bed, we clean up the house and all the dirt and dust that accumulated from the days work.  It takes a few hours to sweep and mop - that dust is hard to get up.  Then we head to the Hempkins' to shower and go to bed.  Then, we repeat until it gets done.  

Cody sitting in a camping chair at 10pm after a shower.  Once you sit, sometimes 

you just don't have the energy to get back up.  

After about a week, we started to bring loads to the house.  We both hate moving, so we chose to bring smaller loads every day until we get done (rather than one huge load).  But going every evening after a long day was HARD.  We had to get 7 loads from the warehouse/storage and 4 from the barns.  

This is an all too familiar sight.  

It was like Christmas in July for Harper.  I had put her toys away in March 

when we listed our house.  She was SUPER excited when they all showed up one day.    

After the first week, our bathrooms got done and we were almost contractor free.  We started being able to shower and brush our teeth and wash dishes.  A luxury we took for granted before.  After this, we have some details to take care of and then moving all our stuff in.  But it's ALMOST DONE!

Our new master bathroom shower

Happy to be home.

Bible Study Girls Lake Weekend

I have been leading a bible study with Karla Rogers, on staff at Argyle United Methodist Church.  Taylor and Carleigh were going there on Wednesday nights until Carleigh's orchestra began on Wednesdays.  So we needed another night and we started a high school girls bible study on Mondays.  We did it all year and had a great time seeing the girls change and progress and learn to trust a God who is invisible and yet all powerful.  Our group started with Tay, Car, and Gentry.  Then, this semester we added Maddy, Leyton, Kenna, Claire, Jesse, and a few others.  

It's a fun group.  They always leave me laughing and praying for this new generation.  They face such different things and live in such a different cultural norm than I did.  And yet, sometimes you find people who are just good, kind, funny, and sweet.  That is this group of girls.  

We went up to Lake Texoma and rented a house right on the lake.  Karla and I took up 4 girls, and Andie (the intern) brought up the last two.  We had a great time just relaxing and getting to know each other even better.  Sadly, it was the ONLY cool and rainy few days we have had all summer so that lake wasn't as useful as we had hoped.  But it was still a blast.

We ate tons of food, played games, watched movies, and talked a ton.  We played a card game which is like a group solitare.  It's fun because you get to yell whatever word you want at the end, which gets worse and worse as time goes on.  We played Telestrations which is like a combination of pictionary and telephone.  This was fun to see "farmer" end up "the lone harvester."  Taylor, the artist, is fabulous at drawing and changing people's pictures to her funny inside jokes.  We played Mafia where Karla had every one fooled and turned against me, poor little me.  We also played spoons, in which someone got bit, rug burns, scratched, and someone ended up skinny dipping in the lake while another ended up licking a ring around the toilet.  Success in my opinion.  

We also watched Safe Haven and Mean Girls, both classic girl movies.  We had smores, dump cake, cookies, and tons of snacks.  No one finished the cake because Leyton ate all the stuff off the top.  The girls had a great time and really got to spend good quality time together.  They swam in the lake, did a photo shoot, Carleigh did makeovers, and they even made up a dance to T. Swift.  It was fabulous but I think took hours to create and memorize.  

It was hard to be gone from Harper and Cody for a full weekend, and the house that was still in progress with contractors.  But it was a great weekend and I had a blast!  I will miss these sweet girls!

Playing Telestrations

Meeting Andie (who incidentally knows the Lulfs, my second family)

Doing their T. Swift dance

Our last days with my family...

We have lived with my parents and sisters for about 3 months.  It was just a bit longer than my dad lived with us when they first moved here, but we are so much fun, they just didn't want us to leave!  

We had an absolute blast.  There was always something going on and someone to play with.  My dad is always willing to help do stuff and Kristi was such a help with Harper and cooking for us and taking care of us.  And once summer hit, we had Cody, Taylor, and Carleigh home to play with everyday.  So now that we are moving, it's going to be sad and quiet at our new house without our family.  We are going to miss them!

Carleigh and Taylor are fabulous at taking tons of funny pictures of Harper.  They also sometimes do photo shoots and dress her up, so the funny photos are even better.  

Carleigh (the cook) made Harper her assistant.  

Naked cooking.

Taylor, Harper, and the vintage doll she bought her at a thrift shop.  

They named her Ruby.  Harper actually really likes Ruby. 

But Ruby is a little creepy.

They love to shop and pick out clothes for Harper.  Carleigh is always letting me know which outfit is cutest.  And, of course, we had to do a photo shoot with our new clothes from H&M.

The other night, we heard...the ice cream truck!  It was like a fairy tale dream come true from my childhood.  I can't tell you how many ice cream trucks I had to pass up when I was little!  So of course Carleigh and Taylor ran outside and we followed and all got something.  They had frozen custard and Harper absolutely loved it!  Carleigh got a cone with a million sprinkles on it and Taylor blew it at the last minute and got a mango slushy (which she didn't like).  It was WAY more money than the old ice cream trucks were, so that won't be happening everytime.  

Two nights before we were moving, we were all hanging out and watching Supernatural (can't believe the girls got Cody to watch it!).  Then we were playing WWE wrestling girls vs. cody.  We ended up just laying down and I kept saying "Girls - don't fall asleep on my bed!  Go to your own rooms!"  Which of course didn't happen.  So all four of us slept on our bed, Taylor across the top, Cody on his side, Carleigh on my side, and I got the bottom corner under Carleigh's feet.  Let's just say the next day we all needed a back massage and a nap.  It was awful sleep.  The next night, Carleigh was sleeping at Ashley's so we all went up and slept in her room so all four of us could be together again :).  

We had SO much fun living with my family.  We are going to miss Mimi, Pop, TayTay, and CarCar SO much!!!

Indoor Safari Park with the Longs'

We got to see the Indoor Safari Park with the Longs' the other day for one last playdate before we moved.  We had actually planned it for weeks ago but Addy got sick and then we were all busy for almost a solid month!

The park was fun and had tons of play equipment.  It was fun for Harper in the morning before it got too crowded with bigger kids.  She loved the trampoline and the ball pit.  She hated the animal ride and mini train ride (she wouldn't actually go on either one).

Addy and Grayson had a blast.  Being 3 is much bigger than 2!  But Harper loves Addy and Gray so she just followed them around and copied what they did.  She did go up the jungle gyms with them but wouldn't go down the slides, no matter how much they told her to.

Lisa and I had a fabulous visit and got to catch up on months of stuff.  My friend who is so like me and never judges!  We will miss seeing them as often but will still get to see them at Mom's Inc.

Celebrating KK's Birthday

On July 7th my mom turned 55. So we went over to her house to have dinner and celebrate her birthday. When we got there she had a big vase of flowers from the boys - they did good.

 Playing any sport with a ball 

KK and Reese

Harper all hot and red faced.

Harper and Grayson helped her blow the candle out, and then Gray wanted it to be re-lit and for everyone to sing to him. 

I honestly don't remember what he was doing but Kristen says "Not Listening" because that's really what he's always in trouble for. But he was in time out and Harper and Reese were patiently waiting on him so they all could play. And he's also saying "No Pictures!"

Fourth of July

For the fourth of July, my family came up to Denison to see the house and celebrate with the country folk.  Carleigh got the stomach flu the night before, so she and Kristi stayed home.  We had been staying in Denison for a few days working on the house, so my dad and Taylor met us up there.  My dad brought a picnic lunch and we ate some good fourth of july food.  

This is Dixie, our new dog!  She showed up a few weeks before the fourth.  We figured that if she was still here when we got back, we'd keep her.  She is still here and won't seem to leave, so we are keeping her.  Maggie had been doing so much better with other dogs around at my parents house so we wanted a second dog anyways.  She's a red healer, so her and Maggie are a lot alike.  She's a puppy so she has a TON of energy but she is the sweetest dog - very loving.

Harper visiting Nana and Papa's cows.  She loves animals.

Standoff.  Harper vs. The Cows

Taylor thinks the country life is fun.  Tractors, cows, hay bales.  She decided to climb up three levels of hay, which is probably 2 stories.  Of course she talked Cody into it and they both ended up itchy and happy.  

Here she is sliding down the second bale of hay.

Ever since I was little, we usually spent the fourth of July with my dad in Kansas at the lake house.  We loved it and it was like a family tradition.  Taylor and Carleigh didn't really get to do that since they grew up in Arizona, so we decided to show them what it's like to set off your own fireworks.   We went to the firework stand and bought a good assortment of daylight fireworks.  It's good to live in the country because you can do whatever you want when you are outside the city limits. 

The loot

Taylor's first firework

They were holding the smoke bombs until one exploded in Cody's hand.

Harper did not enjoy the fireworks this year.  She was terrified of the loud pop most of the fireworks made.  But she did like the smoke bombs because of their color.  Taylor and I liked the plane bombers the best because they spiraled up and then lit up in the sky.  Cody and I had to switch off lighting fireworks so someone could stay inside with Harper.  But it was fun and now Taylor and Carleigh want to do fireworks every time they come up.

My dad said that the fourth of July is his favorite holiday because it's the only holiday that you don't dress up, you don't spend all day cooking, and you don't have to buy gifts.  Everyone just relaxes and enjoys the day.  He's so right!

Happy Birthday 'Merica!