Cowgirl boots

Happy Halloween from Texas!

These are all out of order, but you can see how busy our weekend was!

Daddy the Gangster (that was a hard one to explain to the kids)

90 degrees!

Jas was not thrilled that I dressed up the dogs

Boys Pic

Group Pic

Who are these cute chics?

Mommy and Lisl

The Pinata

Bobbing for apples

Addie's Fall Festival at School!

Yes this chic drives us a little batty

Daddy!

Mama and girls

Dolphin

Face painting!

Backyard at school

She was so proud to show us her classroom

Hangin out in the cowboy room

Pretty deep in concentration

Planning out their "creations"

Not much time to blog tonite, but as you see our weekend was full of busy halloween festivites, fall festival at Addie's school, Halloween party, tball, grocery shopping, playing in the sprinkler and trick or treating!

Jas and I were so uncreative with costumes this year, probably due to the extreme busy lifestyle we've been living lately. But we may have an idea for next year already!! We had such a fun family friendly weekend with temps in the mid 80's to almost 90 today, hard to believe just ONE year ago in Indiana, we had the girls in winter coats, gloves and hats just to trick or treat a few houses on the street! I'm off school for the next 2 weeks so I'll try to update about what's been keeping us so busy tomorrow night! Off to put some material together to train my team at work on the benefits and importance of good customer service!!

PS. The countdown is ON for Christmas, Grandma Tami, Papa Jim, Aunt Courtney, Aunt Kasey and soon to be uncle Jeff, Great Grandma Sandy and Great Papa Rich all arrive in CC, TX in approximately 51 days!!

All about Miss Alivia

Alivia and mommy!

Daddy singing Happy Birthday and apparantly Alivia wants him to stop

Good Morning Beautiful 6 year old!

Every year on the girls' birthdays, Jas and I think back to the day they were born. Alivia Lin Lee was born 6 years ago yesterday, and wow how awesome its been to have been blessed to be her parents. Gosh 6 years already, Jas and I are still both in denial that our once little babies are now 6 and 4.

Overall the last 6 years she has grown from the perfect baby to this brillant little girl. She is as sensitive as they come, yet likes to rough house with daddy and Addieboo. Her new love these days is definately school. She lives and breathes everything school. We had parent teacher conferences last week where we were told she rarely gets in trouble and is always VERY truthful, (hmmm wonder if she got that from her mom;). Her teacher, Mrs. Almageur says she always finds notes on her desk that Alivia has written her and her writing folder is overflowing with stories so she is going to help her put a book together.

Alivia loves to read books and is constantly trying to learn new things. She is the sweetest little girl who always knows what to say when mommy and daddy are having a bad day. Even when her little sister is being a pain in the butt about what alivia has, she shares it or tries to include her. We can't wait to see what this little girl will learn over the next year.

We are celebrating her birthday tomorrow with her friends from school and other friends of ours. Mommy and Daddy rented a huge moonwalk and will be having pizza and Hannah Montana cupcakes, pics of course will follow in the next few days!

Alright a few pics for the night

New house kitchen

backyard

Front of house

living/dining

another kitchen

Tball!

All ready for the game

And I found this pic on addie's camera, her and liv were doing a photo shoot I guess. Hmm jas are we gonna have some problems in the future? Is it the "snap" in her fingers, the shake of her hips, the stiletto heals or complete sass look on her face?=)

Yea I"m still here

Just when I think life can't be any crazier, that seems to be the jinxing thought for more to welcome itself into our lives.

So wow its been a month since I last blogged, geez what have we been doing. Oh yeah we moved during record rainfalls, a total of 17 inches over 4 days, streets were 6 inches under water, yard was completely underwater, yet jas and I and the girls were moving. It was not pretty, daddy and I had several drinks when the whole thing was said and done, but again, we accomplished a huge task as a family. Our new house is now 7 miles to the beach (boo hoo) but it does have a nice GRASS yard (those of you who have lived in the desert or had rock yards will appreciate this). I was all unpacked in about 3 days which i know sounds extremely crazy, but I am really a pro at packing and unpacking, this move marked number 7 since December of 2006, so yes 7 moves in 4 years. Jas and I were talking about how we've never been in one house for 12 months, not one. We're hoping all that is over and done with. I would add some pics of the new house, but I am feeling icky tonite and am not in the mood to fight blogger.

The girls are playing tball this fall, and daddy gets to be the coach. Both girls are on a team full of boys, wearing pink batting helmets and smacking that ball with a pink bat. I'll add pics of that soon too! They seem to be enjoying it, we don't keep score so everyone wins in the kids eyes! Season runs through November, maybe it'll cool off by then.

We will be celebrating miss Alivia's 6th , YES 6th, birthday on Friday, oh how our lives have changed since she was born, makes me wonder what the next 6 will bring. We are going to have our nails done after school then Sunday she is having her whole class and a few other friends over to the house for a Hannah Montana party, with HUGE bounce house and all. I hope to do a special blog on her birthday.

Its just 2 short months till my family will be here and we all absolutely can't WAIT. Even though I absolutely LOVE living here, part of me misses Iowa things. My family and friends mostly. Other things include fall, the leaves turning color and the smell in the air during harvest, happy joe's pizza, the ability to be able to watch a Hawkeye football whenever we wanted instead of scouring channels and the internet to even HEAR it. I've missed a lot by being away, my best friend from high school's baby being born a few weeks ago, a very close friend's little girl growing up and a very special cousin's baby boy's birthday. Not to mention my grandmother's 70th birthday party or my baby sis's 21st birthday. But I do love calling south Texas our new "home".

I never seem to have anything to blog about or maybe I don't think I do. I know some of you would love to know every ounce of our lives, but I just don't think we are that interesting. Yes we spend lots of time at the beach, we are so very lucky and blessed to live where the palm trees are plenty, the beach is natural and beautiful. Where at the middle of October we are still at 88 degrees with no sign of fall coming soon.

Guess that was a whole bunch of randomness from me tonight, this should show you how scattered my mind is at this stage of the game. Hopefully I can do a post tomorrow night about my first experience in juvenile court (and no not for my children) =)

A couple big girls

These were taken at the Aquarium today!

The sun was so bright

"Mom, we can't see"

Me and my babies

Daddy and Girls

Hello Ms Attitude, when did my baby turn 4 going on 15

And my first born that i've been told by her latchkey coach "is the most pleasant little girl they have there"

How long is our wingspan?

We may look innocent but we give mom and dad a run for their money....

These 2 cool chics are no longer babies, uggg how fast time has gone.

MOLD and MOVING

I briefly mentioned finding mold in our townhouse last week, and wanted to show everyone that I'm not crazy! Here are the pics we've taken so far, landlord is still refusing to acknowledge a problem.

Vent Cover to a bedroom upstairs

Inside of duct work, he says there's no problem cause his look like that too-UM DUH!

This is how we originally found the plywood in the attic, now he has replaced this, but nothing else

Needless to say we are moving out, but our landlords have already declared that we have no right to be breaking lease (again they don't see the issues) and are keeping our $1700 deposit. So we have taken plenty of pics, have a sample of that black substance that is on the vent duct and contacted a mold inspector in San Antonio to test it. We will be taking them to small claims court to retrieve our deposit. We have found a new place in the Flour Bluff area (still in Liv's school district) and actually not far from where our house was when we lived here in 08-09. The house is for sale and really would be something we would consider buying, but we are renting for now. Its going to be hard leaving the island, and seeing those sand dunes everyday, crossing the cosway and seeing the ocean, but in reality we will be about 7 minutes from there and in a house, not a townhouse, condo or duplex where we share walls with neighbors. Another bonus is that this house has a nice big GRASS yard!! which for dogs and kids will be great, we have rock now! the house is about 300 sq feet smaller than ours now, but is all tile (another bonus for kids and dogs) except in the master bedroom and was built in 2005 so is mostly updated. We are very excited to move into this house and bartered our way into it. They wanted an outrageous amount for rent (more than what the house payment would have been) and wanted to take some of the appliances. But I had time on my side since the house had been listed back in May with no offers and they were moving. We have a very busy few weeks ahead of us and are just so irritated we are doing this same thing again after just moving 5 months ago, all the packing, change of address, utilities, etc.. But it will be for the best.

We are moving Sept 21-24 which falls directly in the middle of the week, but jas and I will be taking one day off of work to finish it up. I will also be gone for 2 days at meetings for work in San Antonio on the 15th and 16th, my first night away by myself maybe EVER! So Jas will be playing Mr. Mom while i'm gone getting both girls off to the correct places and picked up on time at night, cooking, cleaning and laundry, plus add in the move just 5 days later.

Alivia is loving school and latchkey is going better, she enjoys it now and was bummed to know we had a 3 day weekend this weekend. She is really thriving and enjoying every second of learning and interaction she's getting. Addison seems to be adjusting better, I still hear how she misses sissy, but the clinging has gotten better in the mornings. They seem to be fine with the move, they loved the house and can't wait to play in the yard and ride their bikes.(sand/rock backyard + fire ants, and very busy street do not make for a good place for kids) we may attempt to have them share a room again, they are trying to convince us of that, but not sure if we're ready for the 2 hour process of bedtime like we've gone through before.

Sorry for all the random thoughts, my mind is lost these days and I haven't been sleeping well at night, I was actually up at 5:20 am on a saturday morning worried about work, uggg will life ever calm down? or if it does will it be better or will we find it boring then?

Happy Labor Day everyone, we will be spending it not doing a darn thing but laying on the beach with our two little babes!