Ice Cream and The Pool.....

It seems like most of our summer days involve both of these at some point. It is still very hot here almost to where I am used to seeing 100 degrees at some point during the day whether in my car or on a bank sign. We cannot play outside or go on walks. I guess we could at night, but I normally go to the gym in the morning. I think we've almost visited all the city pools in our area. We have our favorites and all of them are very fun. The girls are becoming little fish and even Ellie is overcoming her fears of the water. Anna is crazy and loves the water. I hope to get a video of her soon in the water. We bought her some sort of floatation thing that is amazing. It is a little shirt that comes half way down with an tube going around her. It is so nice cause I don't have to hold on to her the whole time. We always see people we know at the pool which is fun or I meet my play group girls there. I love to get ice cream in the summer so I thought I'd give you a list of our faves.....

#1- Braum's:it is mainly only in the south (OK, AR, TX).... I love a single dip sundae of german chocolate ice cream with caramel topping and pecans! It is super cheap and where we go the most. We can also buy our milk there so that is nice since we are always almost out!

#2 TCBY: White chocolate mousse in a cone and Mike loves the raspberry sorbet. Wednesday is 99 cent cone day.

#3 McDonald's : Ice Cream is the only thing we get there. However, they have a fun play area and I can get a sundae for $1 while the girls play.

#4 DQ: Dipped cone yummmyyyy.

#5 Cold Stone: Mike's favorite, but I don't like to pay $4 for a dip of ice cream. We only go there on a date.

What are your favorites? I hope you are enjoying this last day of July.....

Bye Bye Diaper Day!

Well, I feel like we have been saying this oh since about April! We traveled so much this summer that it was nearly impossible to stay consistent with p.t.. Ellie has her own little personality and for sure her own time table of when she is ready for things.  I can say that we enjoyed the paci till she was 2 1/2 and diapers till she is almost 3 (next week)! We just got her big girl bed and she never has tried to climb out of her crib. However, I can tell that now she is totally ready for both. She stayed dry all morning and was very excited. When I tried before she screamed every time I tried to sit her on the potty when we were out. We still enjoyed quite the experience of going potty in Target, but it was cause Anna is pulling everything out and touching who knows what while I was holding Ellie. Anna is a totally different personality. She's fearless and has done everything very early. I'm hoping it will be the same with p.t.. This morning Ellie said "Anna go potty to" and Anna always is pulling on her clothes when she sees Ellie. I put Ellie on the big potty and Anna on the little potty. Anna went right away and immediately started clapping. She also requested and m&m like her sister. She's one smart girl. She also has figured out how to climb up onto a chair and then onto the table. These girls are keeping me busy, but I love to see them grow. God is so good to me for their health and sweet spirits. Tonight, is bye bye crib night! More to come.....

Road Trip Conquered....

Well, we did our road trip to and from Colorado. We all survived and it went really well. I have to admit in the past I would always be so confused when people would say their children traveled so well. I always was a little jealous and thought I can honestly say our children do not travel well either by car or plane. They've traveled so much and it has never been easy to this point. I was really nervous about this drive to Southwest Colorado. I was praying so much the week before for them to enjoy it and for us to have patience etc... The way there we drove straight through and it took us about 14 hours with all the stops. We watched many movies and had many snacks etc... I knew if we could get to dinner time that we would be fine cause they always sleep really well at night in the car. I couldn't believe how well it went and there were no major stressful things that occurred. We had such an awesome time in Pagosa Springs, CO. Our friends joined us and it was so fun. Our kids played so well together and our girls slept well the whole time. Ellie has never been a fan of sleeping in new places, but now that her and Anna can share a room they do great! They shared a bathroom together this week it was pretty funny, but it worked really well! I will post more pictures from our trip when I get them uploaded onto the computer. We split the trip up on the way home and it was so nice. We drove about 9 hours yesterday and did the rest today. The girls did great once again. Mike did such a great job driving us on this journey and solving all of our electronic problems. Yesterday, our radio/cd/dvd outlets all would not work. We had to stop at an auto zone to get a new fuse. We are now home and it is time to get caught up on laundry. It was our last trip of the summer and I am a little sad. We've had such a fun summer and I am looking forward to the fall. However, this week I think we will be spending lots of time at the pool cause they said tonight a slight cold front would move through Dallas this week and drop the temperature to 102 degrees! Colorado was so nice in the summer with highs in the upper 70's!

Vacation in Colorado Part 1...

I took this picture with my iphone this morning around 6:30 a.m. from my balcony in Pagosa Springs, Colorado. We (my wife and 2 kids) arrived last night around midnight, so we had no idea what to expect when we woke up. Pagosa is in the Southwest part of the state near Durango. This may sound crazy, but I actually like it better than the rockies up in Estes Park. There's a lot more color here. And I can promise you this, after living in Dallas for a year I was ready for some color (anything other than concrete). That's not a bash on Dallas, but bragging on God's handywork here in Colorado. It truly is beautiful here. I've only been here for about 18 hours, and I can already say this is going to be a place I'd like to come back to every year. One of the reasons is there's not a lot of people here. You can truly have sabbath here, and practice the presence of God a lot easier than our busy lives in whatever city we live in. Most of our blog readers should appreciate this since most of you are in decent sized cities (yes, I am watching you :) This morning we went to Centerpoint Church in Pagosa and worshiped with the folks there. It was pretty similar the church I worked at in seminary, so it gave my wife and I some fun flashbacks to our days in North Carolina. I actually contacted the youth pastor there ahead of time and asked him if he had any good babysitters. Is that weird if I'd never met him? David will probably think so.
Our friends the Oakes are going to be coming in tonight to stay with us for the week, and we are so pumped to see them and get to spend our vacation with them. I'll update more soon!!!

I love my Anna....

I took this video the other day and I love Anna's little voice. Ellie had to be in the video as well. She is very in to wearing "unique" clothing for nap time, but it helps her take one so I am all for it. She found one of Mike's old student ministry shirts and she loves to wear it. 

Texas Friends

Ellie and Caleb on the 4th of July. I love their faces!
Sweet friends! They are about 7-8 months younger than Ellie.
We often join others for lunch and it is always "interesting"!
A few of our play group friends waiting for the train.

We've had a fun summer with our little Texas friends. It is neat to finally connect with other moms and our kids enjoy playing together. I am so thankful for this blessing of friendship. It means so much to me and is a real answer to prayer. Ellie loves to see her friends and talks about them all the time. I look forward to seeing them all grow up and we all pass through these trying days of tantrums, picky-eating, paci's, potty training and naps.

"Mom, I want a bath...."

The other day I couldn't find Anna anywhere. I went into the bathroom and found her in the bathtub sitting in her bath seat. She climbs on everything and can get pretty high. She is giving me quite a few scares these days, but I try not to hold her back. She is hilarious to watch at the mall play ground cause she thinks she can do anything and is not afraid to try! I love her spirit and determination. She is still so sweet and mommy's girl most of the time!

"It's a Bad Night to be an Atheist"

Last night Josh Hamilton set a record during the Home Run Derby. He hit 28 home runs in the first round of the competition. After all the greats that have ever played; Ruth, Mantle, Sosa, etc..., Hamilton beat all of them. I just kept saying one word last night; "unbelievable." The greatest thing about Josh is his story. If you haven't heard it, you can read a great blog post by Peter Gammons here. He was addicted to Heroine, was a bad husband, father, and God completely turned his life around. The commentators last night couldn't stop talking about his story, and how he had found God, and then one of the guys made a pretty interesting comment; "it's a bad night to be an atheist." Josh chalks everything up in his life to God. His story is God's story. Josh is just happy to be a part of God's story, and He's doing something very unique with him. While experience (stories) is never the first thing we would use to argue for the existence of God, it's hard to deny the turn that Josh has made and who the author is behind it all. On a personal note, the last church we worked at is the church that Josh attends when he is home in Raleigh, North Carolina. He got baptized there, and is very close with many people in the church. I got to meet him a little over a year ago, and I can say that he is completely changed, transformed, and his story is legit. He is an amazing guy, and a big congrats to Josh and his family.

A fun and tiring week....

So I've decided this has been the best summer we've had since seminary days or when we worked at kanakuk! I feel like we are always on the go or enjoying time at home. I had a great week this week with friends and Mike. Here's a random summer week for us. What's yours like?
Swim at a new city pool (Texans love their city pool!)
Ice Cream almost every day
Reintroduce potty-training to Ellie.
I did a garage sale today. It was interesting to say the least, but I got rid of lots of junk!
A trip on the city train with my play group girls to a fun shopping area with the kids.
Sweltering in the 100+ degree heat everyday. Tuesday night community group.
Many messes and meltdowns this week. I went to the gym consecutive days in a row.
I showered at the gym which was very peaceful. I ordered Ellie's big girl bed (yes, my almost 3 year old loves her crib!) Five Guys Burgers opened in Dallas yummy....
I went to a fun baby shower for my friend, Katrina.
Mike sold his old iphone for more than the new one costs!
Swimming twice in one day on Wednesday and more baby pool today.
A little worried about what our electric bill will cost this month?
Mike's Moonwalks is back in business ha ha... He's getting lots of calls lately.
Mike and I wishing we had family in town to baby-sit and cause we miss them.
I'm about to start a new Beth Moore study and I'm so excited!
My sweet husband watched the girls for 3 hours while I cleaned the house and did some errands. It is amazing what I can get done when everyone is out of the house!

I hope you all have a great Saturday!

Mike's blog...

Check out my sweet hubby's blog post about Camp Barnabas. He did such a great job!

Baby-Wise/Attachment parenting...

My good friend April just wrote a really interesting post on attachment parenting vs. baby-wise method. We did mostly baby-wise except more of the laid-back version of only keeping a schedule. Ellie had 3 paci's till she was 2 1/2 and it was so nice. I think the Ezzo's would have not agreed with that position! Anyways, I thought you all would enjoy reading her thoughts. I must say she has the cutest most well-behaved "Texan" children! I've only seen Anna Kate in the cutest dresses and a bow to match everyday! Here's the link to April's blog.

Ellie Grace....

Ellie has been making me laugh lots lately along with the frustration of becoming more independent. I love the way she just thinks out loud and says whatever she is thinking at the current moment. Here are a few of her new things.....
Mommy: Ellie we are going to see our friend Caleb today.
Ellie: What's his last name? What's my last name? She now likes to tell me her name is Edie Shelton. We started calling her "Edie" sometimes cause that is what she called herself for a really long time when she couldn't say Ellie. Today, we saw our friend Carsen and she immediately said what's Carsen's last name?

Ellie has always been a "tomboy" and loves Lightning McQueen so much more than Dora etc...
I love to tease her and say do you want to wear your princess pajamas or something and she said to me out of the blue "NO mommy, I'm a super-hero".

Ellie loves any kind of strange animal, reptile etc... so you can imagine yesterday as we were reading our children's Bible and we were reading Adam and Eve. She was only wanting to read about the serpent. I didn't quite know how to explain the snake to her so I just said he was a naughty snake.

We were driving the other day and she always asks me what every single place on the road is called. We drove past Wal-Mart and I said "Ellie that's Wal-Mart; we love to go there."
She said "No, that is Target"! I love to go to Target as well, but try not to as Wal-Mart is so much less expensive!

Anyways, I hope you all are having a great afternoon in nice, cool weather. Texas heat is crazy and I knew it would be like this I just have to get used to it. We've been going to the pool almost every night. I'm excited to try a new pool in the morning before it gets to hot! I think this weekend every day is supposed to be over 100 degrees. Enjoy!

Myrtle Beach trip...

Ellie loved the beach and playing in the sand!
                              We did lots of swimming and had so much fun!
                        Anna is now feeding herself!! Meals in peace!
               Ellie made a froggie at build a bear that she loves so much!
                      We went to eat seafood at Calabash, NC! Yummm!!
We went to a fun alligator/snake/reptile adventure!