Little Linebacker

The Redskins practice field is about 2 minutes from our house, so we stopped by on Saturday for a free fan event. I wouldn't necessarily call us Redskin fans, but it was fun to stop by and they had lots for the kids to do. Here's Will posing as a player. People have referred to him as a linebacker since the delivery room(weighing in at 9 lbs) and ever since because of his motor skills and activity level. Also, his favorite game lately happens to be tackling. He loves tackling Aubrey and unfortunately any unsuspecting baby we happen to be around... Anyway, our little linebacker was 15 months yesterday -- here's a few highlights of him lately:
-he's getting his 4th molar and all 4 of his eye teeth or whatever those sharp ones are called. This is not fun, we hope they come in soon so he'll hopefully go back to sleeping better.
-he's talking a ton and even putting 2 words together sometimes like, "eat waffle"(these are usually the first words out of his mouth every morning!)
-Some of his other favorite words are: dater(water), duice (juice), dup (cup), dar (car),Desus (Jesus - every time he sees Aubrey's Bible), bubble, bubble ba (bubble bath), nanet (planet) and erf (earth), dent (tent), nunnel (tunnel), ball, ello (hello), etc...

-he's using a few signs : more, all done, air plane, bird, please, thank you and baby. Baby is his favorite and he does it a bazillion times a day

-he loves making animal sounds

-he's already shaking his head, saying "no, no no" and we've even seen a few foot stomps to go along with it -- not yet, I'm not ready!

-He's doing great though and we absolutely adore spending every second with him!

Unpacking

This truck arrived at 7:30 a.m. last Sunday and was gone by 2 p.m.

We've been trying not to drown in all the paper the packers used. I can't tell you how many times I unwrapped 5 sheets of paper to find a marble, a paperclip and a penny!

We have chairs...

...and a couch! We're hoping to get most of the boxes and paper out of the house this weekend, we'll see if we can get it done.

Other stuff...

We thought we'd miss HEB, but Aubrey likes the new grocery store even better. Not only does she get a balloon and a cookie, but a grocery cart just her size.
We've been doing lots of park hopping, as well.
Will seems to like running around the empty house. I wonder what he'll think of all the furniture next week?

More visits to the neighborhood pool.
Lots of playtime at home while Will naps
A train ride at the mall, another carousel ride, and lunch at Chick-fil-A

Neighbors & Parties

Carleigh's 4th of July party

Aubrey with her new buddy, Nick, at our other neighbor, Jet's birthday.
Aubrey & Carleigh
Will loved the corn on the cob!

Air & Space Museum

I'm getting caught up on posting some pictures from our first week here. Here are some from the Air & Space Museum. Since it's free and we have an empty house to come home to, we randomly stopped in after returning our rental car to the airport.

Child astronaut doll?

3D Space Shuttle simulator ride

Week 2 Update

Enjoying a cool treat on the mall

Checking out the bugs at the museum
Aubrey loved getting to hold a real caterpillar!

Another carousel ride on the mall

Getting ready to get on the train
First metro ride
A keeps talking about how we got to ride underground.
A is fascinated by spiders, especially this poisonous tarantula. She already knew about this orange & black one from her spider book, so she was excited to see it up close.

It's hard to believe we've already been in VA for 2 weeks! Things are still going well -- we're getting more and more familiar with our surroundings and have gotten into a pretty good "temporary" routine, since we're still camping in.

-Our house is officially packed and the moving truck will be heading out tomorrow. Our stuff will arrive next week, by Wed. at the latest.

-We also have a contract on the house and the buyers are scheduled to close on Aug. 15, so that's an answer to prayer!

-The kids seem to be doing well and playing well with the 1 box of toys we packed -- blocks, legos, cars & trucks and animals. Today I heard Aubrey playing school with her animals and telling the class, "Jupiter is made of mostly gases and has 16 moons". Can you tell her favorite book lately is her children's encyclopedia? I think not having a tv has been a really good thing for our daily routine, we hope it sticks once we do have it here.

-We took our first ride on the metro into DC on Saturday and went to the Natural History museum and hung out on the mall b/t the Capital and the Washington Monument. Aubrey rode the carousel and had a popsicle and Will ran around and chased birds the whole time.

-We're looking forward to a visit from Gigi this weekend!

-Hopefully, I'll get caught up on pictures soon. Here are a few from our weekend...

We made it!

Happy 4th of July from our Nation's Capital! Tonight will be our 5th night in VA and everything is so far, so good. The kids did great on the plane, the night in the hotel went well, the closing went smoothly and we are in our house. We're all sleeping on air mattresses and Will in his pack'n'play and we bought a card table & a few folding chairs from Target to eat at until our furniture arrives. I actually think that Aubrey & Will are enjoying the empty house b/c there is so much room to run around and play. We packed a big rubbermaid container with toys, so they are keeping themselves entertained. Also, we went to the Smithsonian Air & Space museum yesterday and the kids had fun looking at all the air planes, space shuttles and Aubrey even rode on a 3D space simulation ride. All the museums are free for VA & MD residents, so we're going to try to hit them all. We also had 2 different neighbors come and introduce themselves to us in the past few days and they both invited us to 2 different parties this weekend. So, we already went to a neighbor's 2nd birthday this morning and Aubrey & Will got to meet lots of new friends. Tomorrow, we're supposed to go to a July 4th/ fireworks party with over 100 neighbors attending. Our street is crawling with kids 6 years and under, so it should be a good spot for our fam for the next couple years. We're enjoying the noticeably cooler weather and the tall trees and having fun exploring our new surroundings. But, we do of course miss you all and Aubrey has mentioned a couple times that she wants to go back to our old house in Texas. I'm sure it'll take time for all of us for it to really feel like home here.

We're off!

Our last family picture in Texas before we're Virginia bound!
Thanks everyone for all your help and if I haven't called you back, it's been a little crazy around here. I will email soon once we get our phone line set up and settled a bit. All we have left to do tonight is get the car all packed up so we can just head out in the morning. Our flight is at 6:45 so we should be waking up around 4 am. We'll miss y'all, come visit us!

Last weekend in TX!

We felt very loved this weekend by all the time and well wishes we received from our friends and family! Friday night, all our friends from church had a wonderful going away party for us. We were very thankful for the time to see all our friends together one last time. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera, but I think several friends took pictures so I should get some soon. Then on Saturday my mom, grandmother and brother came to spend the night. We had a nice dinner out and then hung out in the backyard. Aubrey enjoyed all the extra attention she got from everyone-- here's a pic of Uncle Tim doing an "Aubrey bench press". Aubrey also loved laying in the grass and watching the stars with Daddy & Uncle Tim. One funny thing about the evening was that our normally quiet neighbor behind us had a big party with toilet paper in his trees, an Animal House sign on his front door, and a big sign with Greek letters on his garage...

Then today, after our last Sunday at Redeemer we came home to a cook out at our next door neighbor's house. We have loved our 2 years in this house and this neighborhood. We've had great neighbors that we will greatly miss, as well.

Here's Will with baby Lili from across the street, admiring the pebbles together.

Will's first time in a bouncy house, I think he liked it!
Then tonight, my friend Felicia had us over for Steak & shrimp on the grill. God has richly blessed our life here and we pray that He would help us maintain all these relationships over the next few years until we return to Texas.

1 week to go...

We had a fun time last week going to Houston, visiting friends and trying to soak up every last minute while we're still in TX. When we got back, we went to ride the train at Zilker with Aunt Joy, took Aubrey to the Sprinkler park, had dinner at the Oasis, Aubrey went swimming with her neighbor friends, and we went to Gruene with the Smiths on Saturday. We also had a busy open house yesterday -- the realtor said several people seemed interested in our house, so hopefully it'll be under contract soon...? We'll be visiting with more family & friends this week as well as packing up all the essentials that we'll be bringing with us next Monday on the plane. We recently found out that the moving company won't be able to deliver our stuff for a couple WEEKS after we arrive in VA. So, looks like we'll be "camping in" for a little while... We could stay here longer, but we already bought our tickets and we are just ready to all be in one location as a family. I know it isn't ideal, but we are just going to make the best of it. The house comes with a washer/ dryer and refrigerator, so at least we can wash our clothes & not have to use a cooler. We're just going to bring Will's pack'n'play and a queen air mattress for us. Other than that, I'll be filling a couple suitcases with some favorite books, toys, stuffed animals and familiar items for the kids. Once again, we'd appreciate your prayers, especially that we'd all adjust well and that this transition would go as smoothly as possible, even without furniture!

Here are some highlights from last week!

Blurb

I have been thinking for a while how cool it would be to be able to publish my blog, since it is kind of like a scrapbook for my kids. I looked online a little and my friend, Fran, also mentioned that blurb will publish your blog as a hardcover book. I thought this was a great idea and plan to do it! You can edit your blog, if there are any posts that you don't want published in the book. Also, blurb does great books with all your digital photos. I did a big Creative Memories scrapbook for Aubrey, but I think Will is getting one of these instead.

2 weeks and counting...

I am still in denial that we are moving in 2 weeks! I guess it'll hit me once we're on the airplane... Since I'm not doing any packing and our house is still in tact, the move just just feel as close as it really is. Our house went on the market on Friday and we've had some activity, but not a ton so far. Robert is still back & forth between TX & VA until we move. He's been super busy with his new job on top of trying to sign, fax, notorize, sign and fax again a bazillion papers... I can't wait until we're done with all the paperwork! We were able to have a nice Father's Day in the midst of the chaos. We went to Sunday brunch at Moonshine after church, had a relaxing afternoon (while BOTH kids napped, this doesn't happen very oftern anymore!) and ended the day with dinner at Chuy's with the Connells (thanks again for dinner guys!). We have been trying to see friends as much as possible. Tomorrow I'm taking the kids to Houston to visit "Gigi" and then we're going to visit with some close friends that used to live in Austin. And this weekend, we're going to meet up with the Smiths (best man in our wedding) from San Antonio, who we only get to see once or twice a year. Here are a few pictures of what we've been up to the last couple weeks...


We took the kids to a little water park in Round Rock on Saturday and they both loved it, even though it doesn't look like it in this picture.
We recently visited a family I used to nanny for in college, the Barfields. Mary Bentley was only 2 months when I started babysitting her... Now she's 8! She and her sister, Rebecca, were also flower girls in our wedding. It was really special to see Aubrey playing with them.

I also went to my 10 year high school reunion last weekend! Here are: Taylor, Carole, me, Crystal & megan. My 2 other best friends from GHS (besides Carole) were both busy having babies that day and couldn't make it... I can't wait to meet baby Noah & baby Victoria, hopefully soon -- Congrats Amy & Laura!

Aubrey got to play with her good friend, GC, while his mom was having baby #3 last week. Aubrey keeps asking if his mom can have another baby so he can spend the night again!

I walked into Aubrey's room and noticed that she got a sweet potato from the kitchen as a snack for her animals. When I asked her about it she said, "Don't worry Mom, it's organic".

Although she's cold in this picture, Aubrey had fun swimming & splashing with her playgroup buddies, Haley & John last week.

Saying Goodbye

Even though we have a few weeks left here, some of our really good friends left today for a trip to Spain & Turkey and they won't be back until after we leave for VA! So, this morning we stopped by to say goodbye to them. The girls have been playing together since they were one, at least once a week, but sometimes as much as 3 or 4 times a week! They live super close so we've had lots of impromptu play dates and trips to the park at 8 am when all our kids are awake, but it's too early to call lots of people. We have been blessed by their friendship and will miss them while we're away!