. meet the teacher photo shoot.

although i already know her, and love her, we got to "meet" karsyn's preschool teacher tonight.  what's just as exciting for me is that my sweet girl actually let me take pictures of her before we left.

i'm so thankful that she already knows her teacher and that her teacher is the sweetest friend.  i cannot believe that my sweet girl is even old enough for preschool, but i know that she'll have tons of fun and the time away from mommy will probably be great for her.  and me.  just sayin'

preschool officially starts next wednesday.  we shall see if i get a "1st day of preschool" photo shoot.

. first dentist visit .

we talked it up big time.  she promised she would be big.  but when it comes down to it, she flipped out just a bit.  when they called her name to come back, she froze.  she wouldn't budge.  she had to be carried out of the waiting area to the little room where the dentist would come check out her teeth.  all along she kept asking me if the dentist was a boy or a girl.  i was sure it was a boy, but i tried to blow off the question as much as i could.  but we went step by step what the dentist would do and how she would get a fun treat at the end. 



the time came.  we sat in the room with the dental assistant and she told my sweet girl yet again what the dentist would do.  the BOY dentist came in, snapped on his blue gloves, and went to work.  he was actually very good with her and talked with her before he even touched her mouth.  she sat in my lap and laid back onto his knees.  all he did was brush her teeth and put a little polish on them.  all i can say is that he is amazing because he did a good job brushing through her screaming and jaw clinching.  she wanted no part of it.  it took all of 2 minutes.  but that was 2 minutes of screaming as loud as she could.



later in the evening she told me "i sreamed because it was a boy dentist.  if it was the girl dentist i wouldn't have screamed at all."  now she tells me.

. she said it .

i think i'm going to start posting funny things my sweet girls say just so i can remember them.  karsyn says hysterical things all the time and i definitely wish i had started this sooner, but here's a few from today ...



*today, karsyn was "straightening" my hair with a pair of rubber tongs.  apparently she's seen me straighten my hair before.  she started talking to me like i was in a real salon.  she'd ask me things like "so, what's your name?"  and i'd answer "sally."  "and what's your baby's name?"  "oh, that's lucy."  i ask her "what's your name?"  she thought for a minute and said "slisa."  seriously.  slisa?  where on earth did she get that from?



*she then was playing in her kitchen and has recently spend long periods of time cooking for us.  she asked me "would you like some pancakes, ma'am?"  i said, "yes, please."  she rather quickly replied "sorry, we don't have any pancakes."  i thought to myself "then why the heck did you offer them to me?  no tip for you!"



*after i so nicely asked her to pick up a puzzle that she scattered all over the living room, she said "whatever, baby." 



*she's constantly patting sweet baby on the back and saying, "it's ok sweetheart."

. 10 on tuesday ... and a letter .

to my sweet girl,



although these days are hard on both of us because you think you are 21, i still love you to the moon and back.  they say 4 is definitely a better age, but i want to be able to think back and remember age 3, not for the hair pulling and record breaking time out trips, but for the laughter and smiles that actually were present each day in our home. 



xoxo mommy

10 things about my sweet girl right now ...

1. her blue eyes still melt my heart, even when they are giving me "the look"

2. she LOVES to sing and dance.  apparently she inherited her daddy's dancing skills, which provides us lots of laughter and entertainment daily.

3. barbies are her favorite toy right now.  we have found that there's only so many ways to fix a barbie's hair, but she still keeps coming back for more.

4. she has not taken a nap for several months now.  i had a hard time with this at first because i really enjoy "me" time and used naptime each day to enjoy the quiet of the house, but now i enjoy the time with her alone.

5. she picks up on things so quickly.  you tell her or show her once how to do something and she can do it.  now, this does not work on things such as picking up toys or being nice to her sister.

6. she can be sweeter than chocolate.  she really can be.  and i enjoy those moments when she puts her arm around sweet baby and says "it'll be ok sweetheart."

7. she loves to swim these days, even if it's in my bathtub. 

8. she'd drink chocolate milk 24 hours a day if i'd let her.

9. she is very head-strong and likes to argue.  this makes a momma crazy sometimes.  seems as though her favorite word is "but..." or "actually..."

10. she can light up a room faster than a light bulb.  she has lots of energy and keeps us smiling, sometimes through cringing teeth, but nevertheless she has such a fun personality and comes up with the craziest things to say.  this age may be tough, but it's still so sweet and innocent and that keeps me going.

. ...beach .

yesterday we loaded up and headed to houston.  our first pit stop was the children's museum, but since there were about nine million people there, i had to chase my children instead of taking pictures.  i know, i know ... but i just couldn't risk losing one of them.  that place was nuts.



after a few hours there we headed to the beach.  the girls absolutely love it and i needed to earn to good mommy points.  i would go to the beach every single day of my life if i was guaranteed two things ... #1 that my legs didn't burn from shaving the night before and the salt water.  #2 if there was a shower within 5 feet of my car.  if i can't shower before i head home, i am not a happy camper.  so you can only imagine what the ride home was like and how my thighs were feeling 2 hours after leaving the beach.  i think i was the first one in the shower when we got home.  {i won't mention that my sweet girls stayed awake the ENTIRE trip home.  the WHOLE 2 hours.  laughing. screaming. singing. at 7:00 PM.  they did not sleep one wink at all.  no nap.  nothing.  i just knew playing all day would wear them out.  boy was i wrong.}



we had a blast though and here are just a few pictures of the 250 that i took to prove it ... (note: i did have my swimsuit on, so you will NEVER see a picture of me here.)

i had to threaten karsyn that i was going to load her up and take her back home if she didn't smile for at least one picture for me.  this girl knows how to get to me.  she quickly smiled and said "ok, that's all."

saying sweet baby LOVED the beach would be a complete understatement.  she absolutely loves the water and sat for a good 30 minutes (no kidding) with a shovel and pail playing with the sand. 

the end.

. a day at the ...

can you guess what we did today?

i'll share more later ...

. how cute is this? .

i found it here and it's EXTREMELY cute.  it's a cloth basket.  and would match my kitchen perfectly.  i may have to invest in a few for the girls too.  i'm thinking one for each of them for the car.  hmm...

if only i could sew ...

. blogging .

i started blogging in october of 2005.  we had just been married that june and moved here in august and i decided to blog to keep my family and friends updated on our life and for me to have a writing outlet.  it has gone from my writing to 2 pregnancies and 2 moves.  whoa!  who'da thunk?!? 



i also went from blogger to typepad back to blogger.  and i made the move back so that i could print my blog into a book.  typepad doesn't work with the blog printing websites nor does typepad transfer back to blogger, so i'm having to one-by-one transfer over my posts since 2005. 



bear with me.  especially if you have me on your google reader and may see a million updates.  they are old, but you may enjoy reading them if you haven't already.  then again, they may be pretty boring to you.

. genes? .

apparently this look runs in our family {a.k.a ... "the face"} ...

karsyn - 2007

mykah - 2010

and we won't even say who they get this from, will we?!?  i. think. not.

. oklahoma trip .

we made our yearly july trip to oklahoma this past weekend.  i wish clinton, OK and college station, TX were more like 8 minutes apart instead of 8 hours, but such is life, right?  the BFF and her family and my family take turns (usually) driving to make visits and we try to do this a few times each year, which obviously isn't near enough.  when we did live 30 minutes apart we saw each other every single day and i could go back to that instantly. 



off my pity party.  this time we headed out with daylight left.  the girls did great though, but sweet baby has decided she doesn't like to sleep in the car.  seriously.  this kid lasts hours before she finally knocks out.  as most moms know, the key to a great car trip is drugs keeping the kids entertained.  i try different things each time and will continue to do so until i find what works best for us.  this trip i purchased 6 pencil bags from wal-mart and filled each with brand new goodies for the girls to play with.  (dominoes, plastic bugs, cards, notebooks, magna-doodle, etc.).  fail.  they lasted all of about 30 minutes of our trip and then ended up packed away in the back of the car.  they get bored so easily.  next trip we are going to try the dvd player one more time.  you see, my sweet girl gets car sick when she watches movies.  but it's been a year or so since we've tried, so we're going to try again.  worst case is she vomits all over my car again.  what a joy that always is.



ok, so back to our trip.  we got to the BFF's house at 1:30am friday.  as usual, we take the girls straight in and go to bed.  up and at 'em the next morning and we head to the city where the BFF's parents live and we swim for 2 days straight.  ok, not really, but we swam an aweful lot.  the girls had a blast.  {sidenote: i got a haircut while we were there too.  love lea.  my new hair girl.} 



here's a few pictures from our trip ...



i packed 2 tupperware containers for the girls to use for their new goodies and had a brilliant idea to use them for their food too.  {yes, they had mcdonalds for dinner in the car.}  it worked like a charm. 

sweet baby's, of course, was smaller than karsyn's and they fit in their laps perfectly.

i had also bought the girls neck pillows to use because when they fall asleep their heads always end up in their laps for some reason.  ok, not really to that extent, but it seems like it.  karsyn always wakes up screaming because her neck hurts.  i got these at target in the dollar spot!

karsyn, however, decided not to use hers.  isn't that how it always works?  once she was sound asleep i slipped it around her neck and she was set for the rest of the trip.

the next morning, finally there, and getting some konner love.  that little guys is so stinkin' cute and absolutely loves him some "bykah weese", as he always calls her.

the BFF's parents have this pool in their backyard that is amazing.  it was covered with a tarp so no one got sunburned and we stayed out there for hours each day.  karsyn swam like a fish and jumped in a million times.  sweet baby wasn't so sure, but enjoyed it while i was in there with her.

karsyn couldn't really escape me, so i got tons of pictures of her swimming.  sweet baby was in and out, screaming then laughing, or in my lap, so she was hard to get pictures of.  they had a blast and it definitely wore them out.  i'm not saying if we did or didn't swim them before bedtime each night, but they slept like rocks.

i'm always so sad to leave the BFF.  we stayed up hours on end talking, laughing until we cried, playing phase 10 until 2am (d.u.m.b. when you have children, by the way), and simply having a great time.  and we're already planning our next trip.