Drive-In Movies

Yesterday we partook in an old past time. We went to a drive-in movie theater up in Hockley called the Showboat Drive-In. It was reasonably priced. $5 for adults and $4 for kids for a double feature. After a little difficulty finding it. (Our GPS could not find the address. Argh!) We showed up and only had to wait about 10 minutes before the show started. The movie starts at dusk around 9pm. We brought our chairs and snacks and watched G-Force with my parents and the girls. After the first movie we put the girls in the car so they could TRY and fall asleep while the adults watched The Proposal. We really enjoyed ourselves. It was not that crowded. No one complained if Kaylee started making too much noise. Weather was actually quite nice not too warm with a little breeze. No mosquitoes. And we could bring our own popcorn/drinks. It was definitely much cheaper than seeing both of these movies at the regular theater.

The gang ready to watch G-Force (Sorry the picture quality is poor)

Fun at the Park

Some cute pictures from our trip to the park this morning before it got too HOT!!!

Chilling in the shade

Mom a hippo ate me

Do I really want to go down this slide???

Museum of Natural Science

Yesterday we went to the Houston Museum of Natural Science. The museum has free Tuesdays from 2pm-9pm. This allows you into any of the permanent exhibit halls for free. If you want to go see one of the special exhibits, you still have to pay for them. However, only having to pay the price for the special exhibit is still a good deal. Yesterday we just visited the permanent exhibit halls. We spent most of our time in the paleontology exhibit and the chemistry exhibit. We really enjoyed ourselves. I did not think Kaylee would enjoy it that much but she had a blast. She would run from one dinosaur to the next saying look at this one. PS If you park in the Houston Garden Center parking lot it is free and you don't have to pay the $10 for the parking garage.

The family in front of a T-Rex
Look out their is an anklyosaurus behind you

Looking at one of the many dinosaur fossils

Toddler Sleep Aid

I must be a horrible mom to be looking for a sleep aid for my kids. Last night Kaylee was up until midnight. The night before that it was Naomi. They have a tendency to take turns. Usually it is Naomi that can't fall asleep till around 11/midnight. Why can't my children fall asleep at a decent hour? Any suggestions? (Oh by the way, they don't get naps!)

More Car Problems

For the past month or so, we have been having difficulty turning the car off when the car was running (i.e the key would not turn to the off position). Earlier this week, we tried to turn the car off and it would not turn off. I finally stalled the car since it is a standard and we were able to turn it off and get the key out. However, the next day when we went to start the car the key would not turn. So after some web searching, we decided to get new keys made because our keys are quite worn out. Thirty-seven dollars later ($7 for the keys, $25 for them to imprint the key and of course tax) we had new keys. But alas, we still could not turn the key in the ignition. Back to Saturn we went, this time to by a lock cylinder to the tune of $90. Ouch!!! After some help from someone in our ward. We were able to replace the lock cylinder and the car works again. Hooray!!!
P.S. Thanks also go to my dad for being the chauffer this week while we were down to one car for the whole family. And he also helped with the fixing as well.

Circus Fun

On Wednesday the 22nd of this month, we went to see Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. We went with my parents, Jenny, Shane and Aurora, and a friend of my parents Patrick. We arrived at the circus early enough that we were able to see some of the performers in the pre-show down on the ring floor. Both girls really loved the circus. Kaylee had a blast. She danced to a lot of the music and really had fun. I don't think she had one favorite act because she liked it all. Naomi's favorite part of the show was the elephant's and the acrobats. We truly enjoyed ourselves. I can't wait for the circus to come again next year.

Kaylee, Naomi, and David with one of the Circus performers

Kaylee and Naomi with another circus performer

The elephants

Guess who has high cholesterol....

...Naomi!! Surprised you didn't it. On Wednesday, I finally brought the girls in for their 5 year and 3 year check up. Naomi is 41 lbs and 3 1/2 ft tall. Kaylee is 31 lbs and 3 ft. 1 in. They are both doing great and in the 50th percentile for their age. Dead on average. Neither of the girls had to get shots this time but they did a routine CBC and lipid panel on Naomi. Yesterday morning, the nurse called to tell me the results of Naomi's bloodwork and that she has high cholesterol. I was quite floored from this information because we eat a lot of whole grains, we don't eat a lot of fried food, and Naomi is not overweight at all. (We are suspecting that the results are a little skewed since Naomi did not fast before having the bloodwork done.) However, we are going to do what the Dr. suggests and put her (and the rest of the family) on a low-fat, low cholesterol diet. Then in two months we will bring her in (fasting of course) to get her cholesterol checked again. And hopefully the next time they will say that her cholesterol is just fine.

My What an Imagination You Have Kaylee...

I have been making bread in my bread machine lately. Tonight I asked Kaylee what type of bread she wanted me to make. I gave her the options of sourdough, white, potato or oatmeal. Kaylee thought about it for a minute and said Cake Bread. I told her I don't have a recipe for cake bread. She thought some more and told me the recipe is to mix candles and ice cream together. YUM!?!?

Piecing Together My Memories

Revised: Short Version
Well, I have learned yet another hard lesson. Our home computer's motherboard ended up getting fried. In the process of trying to diagnose the problem we lost all of our information on our hard drive including our pictures since we went digital back in Dec 2005. :o( Now I am trying to scramble around and see if I can recover our memories from 2006-2008. I backed-up our pictures until Feb 2007. My dad has some of my picture files on his computer. I have some stored on Wal-Mart's photo site. My brother-in-law is trying to recover our pictures from our old hard drive but it looks like not all of the pictures will be recovered. My biggest gap is 2008. Needless to say I have learned my lesson. From now on I will back-up my pictures at least once a month or at the most every six months.

Cousins

More cute pictures. I snagged the first one from my sister-in-laws blog.

Naomi and Jacob playing pattycake
Kaylee, Jacob, and Naomi

Pop-pop and his Girls

I love these pictures of my Dad and his granddaughters.

Pop-pop with Kaylee, Emmalee, and Naomi
Pop-pop and Emmalee

Sewing with Grandma

My mom has been teaching both Naomi and Aurora how to make simple quilts. Naomi's will be a pillowcase. Naomi really enjoys spending time with Grandma sewing. Naomi really loves to sew. Thanks Mom for teaching my girls how to sew.

Naomi and Grandma sewing some blocks together
Pinning her blocks

Ironing the seam (Kaylee wishes she could make one too!)

Snowbird

While up in Utah, I had the chance to visit Snowbird. Joel's grandma has a timeshare there and her week happened to occur while I was visiting. So Friday the 10th after Joel got off work, we headed up to Snowbird. We met his family up there and had a nice dinner. Then everyone left and we stayed the last night in the room. Interestingly enough this was one of the few nights that Emmalee slept really well and only woke up to be changed, eat and then fall back asleep. Joel's mom had given us tickets to go on the Tram ride but the next morning as we were leaving it was raining and therefore decided to postpone our tram ride till the following week. We were able to get back to Snowbird on Tuesday the 14th the day before I left. I really enjoyed the ride. When we reached the top, it was a pleasant 72 degrees. How nice!! On our way back down we even saw a buck. But I could not get a picture of it.

View from our room
Wow!! Snow in July

Joel, Emmalee, Arielle and I at Hidden Peak Elevation 11,000 feet

Arielle, Joel, and Emmalee on the tram

Not your typical vacation

As many of you know, I spent the last two weeks in Utah with my sister, Arielle, and her new little girl Emmalee. Before I made the trip I think both of us thought we would have plenty of time to visit and do things while Emmalee was sleeping. But alas Emmalee is not your typical newborn and we believe that she has food sensitivities (most likely food allergies) and might have reflux as well and therefore screams/cries a lot. Sometimes she would scream from 11 pm to 4 am. Needless to say I was not able to accomplish all that I had planned to do on my vacation away from my girls. But I still had a nice time visiting with my sister and her family. Thanks Arielle and Joel for letting me stay with you. I really enjoyed my time with you.

No More Pull-ups for Kaylee

At long last Kaylee is potty trained. About two weeks ago, Kaylee started announcing that she needed to go to potty because she did not want to pee her pull-up. However, she still pooped in her pull-up. Last Monday, I decided that the pull-ups were more of a crutch than a potty training aid so I put her in regular panties. Monday she did rather well. Tuesday, however, she pooped in her panties while I was out running errands. I came home right when David was taking care of the mess. She was quite distraught because Daddy put her back in pull-ups and she had ruined her Ariel panties. I put her back in panties and explained if she did not want to ruin her Ariel panties that she needed to put her poo-poo in the toilet. The next day we left for Utah. We were kind of concerned how she would do traveling in the car with panties but she did excellent. In fact, at one of the rest stops while we were waiting in line to order our food Kaylee came up and said she had to go poo-poo. Since her one mistake she has stayed clean and dry and goes to the bathroom all by herself without reminders. My goal was to have her potty trained by the end of the summer. I did not think it was going to happen but she surprised me and it only took one day of panties to finish her potty training. Hooray!!!!

In love with Baby Emmalee

Both the girls are enamored with their cousin Emmalee. Kaylee especially loves her littlest cousin and wants to hold her any chance that she can get. When she does get to hold her, she does not want to give her back and can sit for a long time just holding Emmalee and staring at her. It is so cute to see how both girls love their cousin so much. I am glad the girls had the opportunity to come with my Dad and I to see her. Here are some of my favorite pictures of the girls and Emmalee.

Kaylee holding Emmalee
The girls

Naomi and Emmalee

Naomi, Grandma, and Emmalee

Kaylee watching Grandma give Emmalee a bath

4th of July Fun

We had a very fun 4th of July up here in Utah. We tried to go see the parade in Provo, but by the time I got the girls ready I could not find a place to park close to where my brother Dan and his wife Stephanie were saving a spot for us. So I went back to my sister's apartment with two very disappointed girls. Early afternoon we headed up to Taylorsville to my brother Mike's and his wife Julie's house. They were kind enough to host the family 4th of July picnic (especially since they are in the middle of renovating their house). All of my siblings except John were present. My dad cooked a brisket and my mom made her terrific potato salad. The girls enjoyed watching Uncle Mike and his pals throw water balloons at each other. Kaylee was right in the middle of things telling Uncle Mike who to throw the balloons at. I wish I had gotten a picture of the balloon fight. After the picnic, the water balloons, and the naps, we headed back to Provo and parked in the Provo High parking lot to see the fireworks that were part of the Stadium of Fire program. Kaylee kept telling us all day that she does not like fireworks they scare her. Interestingly enough she fell asleep between Taylorsville and Provo and slept through the whole fireworks display. Naomi, however, really enjoyed the fireworks and wished there were more.

The girls in their 4th of July outfitsA firework

Naomi watching a firework sitting on Mike's best friend Adam's lap

Kaylee sleeping through the firework display

Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple Open House

The girls and I left for Utah last Wednesday, the 2nd, with my dad. My dad was picking up my mom, who spent the month of June helping Arielle get ready for baby Emmalee to arrive. Since my dad was driving, we hitched along for the ride. The girls and my parents will be leaving tomorrow to go back home to Texas. I will be staying till next week to help Arielle with Emmalee. One neat experience we were able to have here in Utah is to go to the Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple Open House. The temple is gorgeous. It was really neat for my girls to be able to see what the inside of the temple looks like while they are young. Naomi has loved temples since she was 2 years old. The girls were very reverent for the most part. Kaylee would point out all of the pictures that had Jesus in them. We had to stand in line for quite awhile but it was definitely worth the wait.