All the Things You've Missed

Hello again everyone.  I promise I'm still alive.  I apologize for my severe lack of new material but I can guarantee it hasn't been for lack of trying.  I've written (on paper) a couple of posts in my absence and kept a pretty extensive list of things I want to blog about but until now we haven't had any Internet or computer out at our house.  However, Andy just bought this nifty little antenna and he's promised to leave his laptop home for me a couple times a week so hopefully I can get caught up again.  Nothing real major has happened for us in a while.  You know what they say, "No news is good news"- right?  But for that reason I've really started to enjoy the little things in life.  Here's a tidbit of all the little things.

1.  We moved into our house!  It's been great.  You wouldn't believe what it feels like to be HOME again.  Our stuff is still in storage but we've kind of just learned to live without it.  The house is wonderful... and not haunted like previously thought.  We love it!  The kids each have their own room, we have an amazing backyard (w/ pool), and the best part of all is that we have AMAZING neighbors.

2.  We went on a weekend trip to L.A. a little while back and we took the kids to the Zoo.  They loved it!  We also did a few of the L.A. things I've always wanted to do- We went to the La Brea Tar Pits which were very interesting and we went on a little expedition to see how close we could get to the HOLLYWOOD sign.  I got tons of awesome picture of the trip so I'll probably write a more extensive blog on our trip.

3.  Evelyn and I had an EGG Day.  Yeah, just for the heck of it.  We had tons of eggs in our fridge that needed to be used up so I figured I'd use it as a learning opportunity.  For breakfast I let her crack her own eggs (very messy but fun and well worth the mess).  I set her on the counter and demonstrated to her how I make a scrambled egg, a fried egg and at the same time I boiled a pot of eggs.  Afterwards we ate all three different kinds of eggs.  Her favorite was the boiled.

4.  I've kind of missed my chance to mention this one but as of June 28th I've been blogging for an entire year and this post in particular is my 100th post.  I have really enjoyed blogging.  It's crazy how quickly you can really get caught up in it.  I really love that I can look back at my first year of blogging and remember how little and cute Evelyn was and as I read back I get to remember all the fun things we've done.  I imagine most of the posts I've written are things that I would have otherwise forgotten so blogging is kind of my way to get them down in writing.  Plus I love that I can share the wonderful things about my life with my family and friends and share in the wonderful things that they write about.  ~Now if only I could be a little better about it~

5.  Since we moved into the house there's been a cat that wanders around outside.  She's great because she's been catching mice for us.  So after days of deliberating we decided to "unofficially" adopt her.  We named her Frankie.  She's an orange, black, and white calico.  She's actually really great.  In fact the reason I say "unofficially" is because nothing has really changed except that we now claim her as ours.  She's strictly an outdoor cat and I just feed her the kids' leftover table scraps.  She is the most low maintenance pet you can have.  Plus she's amazing with the kids and she loves ever bit of the attention.

6.  The kids are doing great.  To no surprise, Evelyn is turning out to be a beautiful and bright little girl.  The other day as we were getting into the car she looked at me and with perfect precision she said, "Mommy, can I drive the car?"  Yeah, no joke.  Her prayers are still my favorite though.  Every night we say our little prayer and she gets to list off all the things she's thankful for.  She is so sweet!  All by herself she remembers to say thank you for her family, for church, for Jesus, for our home, for her toys and books, for her bed, her baby and her cuppy.  She usually throws in something funny too that totally catches me off guard.  The other night she mentioned TV, Disneyland, movies, and cows?...  She's not all cute though.  She's finally figured out that there's more to write on then just paper- like the walls, the couch, the table, herself, and yes... her little brother.  I don't believe I've ever mentioned this one before but ever since Evelyn was a baby she has been terrified of the THX sound and logo.  Well, at 2 1/2 she STILL is.  She literally hides behind the couch until the movie starts.  I do not know where she got that from.  

7.  Preston turned 1.  He is the most adorable little boy ever!  He started walking about a week before his birthday and he's really got it down now.  I won't say too much about Preston just because I wrote a whole Birthday post about him which I'll most likely post after this one but one thing I didn't mention is his new interest in eating dirt.  I seriously can't take this kid outside without him eating a handful of dirt and leaves.

8.  I've been up to a couple of interesting things myself lately.  I just finished all 4 books of the Twilight series and yes... they really are just as good as everyone says they are.  I will add too for everyone that's read them that if I had my choice between Edward and Jacob I would for sure be out there riding motorcycles with Jacob.  I don't know what it is.  I've also, like many of my sibs in laws have taken up jogging.  I started the couch to 5k program and I've made it all the way up to WEEK 5. 

9.  The last thing is that I've done a few things outside.  We put up a Hummingbird feeder which has proved to be really cool.  There's almost always at least one hummingbird around it, usually several.  I've also started watering all the plants and every thing's growing really well.  I trimmed the rose bush and I finally got my first rose.