Three?!

i cannot believe that my little girl is three already!  where does the time go?  seems like only yesterday i was holding that new little baby in my arms, totally unassuming of the greatest adventure she was going to take me on.

 it's so crazy to look back and see how much she has grown in three years!  what a fun, energetic, sassy, smart, happy, helpful little girl she is becoming.

one of the best gifts was having my cousin sydney in town for mae's birthday!  she was here last year, and she surprised me and got a ticket to be here for mae's birthday this year.  it was so much fun!
she and my aunt mary got mae this super cute vanity for her birthday.  she was so hilarious opening the box!  so fun.

 i decided not to have a party with her friends this year.  i'm just not ready for that yet.  next year...definitely.  since we weren't having a party i still wanted to make it a special day, so we put up tons of streamers the night before.  she was so excited when she came downstairs that morning.

 she was very adamant that she wanted a cupcake dress for her birthday.  i was happy to grant that request.  and lucky for me sydney was here to help me with it! 

 i don't even want to know how much frosting mae consumed while syd and i were frosting the cupcakes.

 mae picked out the sprinkles that she wanted on her cake, which of course were bright pink and silver.  she also picked the color she wanted to frosting to be. 

she almost blew out the candles before we started to sing to her.  

 she is such a loved little girl.  we got lots of packages and cards from lots of special people.  and we were able to facetime with both my parents and cody's parents when she opened their gifts, technoloy is amazing.  she is so lucky! 
the big present from us was a comforter.  girlfriend was sleeping with a teeny tiny little blanket, poor thing.  finally got an upgrade. (isn't that pillow adorable?  my little cousin made one for mae and izzy, they are so cute!)

 she got a scooter from gram and gramps.  she's actually getting really good at it, i'm pretty impressed.  she doesn't understand how to do the brake yet, so we've had a couple spills.  but she loves this thing.

 she got some money on her birthday as well and was so excited to spend it!  we went downtown while sydney was here and made a stop at the big top candy shop (one of our favorite places).  and mae was so pumped to pick out lots of taffy.  she also had to be the one to give the cashier her monies. so fun.

we've been blessed with such a great kid.  she has her moments, but for the most part this is one amazing little girl. 

learning

since mae's birthday isn't until the end of september, she was too young to start preschool this fall (sad day).  i honestly didn't think she would be ready for it either.  but as the summer progressed, i realized that she needed something for sure.  so i decided to do a little letter craft each week.  she loves it!  it's been really fun for us to do something like this together.  sometimes i feel like she doesn't get enough of my time or attention, so it has been good for our relationship to have that time to work on something together.

 she is quite the little crafter. 

she also has started to help me out in the kitchen quite a bit.  whenever i start to make something she yells "wait for me!", and grabs a chair to see whats going on.  we've had a few mishaps...flour all over the place for example.  but, she really enjoys it, and again it's something that we can do together.

we haven't seen much of daddy the past few weeks, he's been so busy with work.  but, on the nights that he does make it home the girlies love to wait outside for him.  and honestly, my kids are usually the happiest when they are outside. (trying to get these two to smile for a picture simultaneously is no simple task.)

with daddy not home much, it makes for some seriously endless days for me sometimes.  after izzy's nap in the afternoon mae is pretty much over being inside, or playing quietly.  the 4-6 o'clock hours are some of my least favorite of the day.  they never seem to end!  so, the past couple of days we've headed over to the lake to just get out for a bit.

 

i didn't think mae would want to swim, so i didn't put her suit on, but of course she wanted to.  so i stripped her down to her undies, and she thought it was the greatest thing to be able to swim in her underwear...ah the simple things in life, right?

this kiddo pretty much lives in the stroller.  between going on runs with me, the store, library, playground, lake, i'm pretty sure she's spent a good chunk of her life in here.  lucky for me she loves it.

 an example of what boredom can make a 2 year old do.  ripping the paper into tiny pieces and putting them all over the place.  on one side, she was occupied without me for a good 30 minutes.  on the other, we spent close to that trying to clean up!

end of summer

i still can't believe that summer is over!  what happened there?  it didn't really even feel like summer this year. 

we're going to miss our long days at the pool.  mae has become quite the little fish, it took her a while in the beginning, but she's pretty independent (as long as she has her puddle jumper on) now.  it's been fun.

this little one loves the water as well.  the past few times we've gone she's fallen asleep while i'm holding her in the pool.

mae and her cute little friend mylie.  these girls love each other.  so fun.

we've braved the heat and made lots of trips to the playground this summer.  mae helped tommy go down the slide for the first time!

mae is still too young for preschool, sad day.  so i've been looking for activities for her.  my friend is doing a music class in her home this fall, and i signed mae up for that real quick! she loved it, and was very excited about the craft that she made.

this is one girly girl.  she found some old headbands and was accessorizing herself and izzy one morning.  poor izzy is going to have to be a pretty mellow girl.  i think mae has big plans for the two of them. 

this little nugget is sitting up all by herself now!  i honestly thought it would take her longer.  but, she surprised me.   it's hard to believe that she will be 7 months this week.  she seems so big to me know!  this girl can eat.  there hasn't really been anything that i've given her that she hasn't gladly accepted.  one of mae's new favorite activities is to try all of izzy's baby food.

 
this is izzy's home away from home.  she is always in this stroller! 

and this one.  in two weeks from today she will be three...what?!  i don't know if it's her birthday coming up or what, but she has seriously been giving some attitude lately.  just seeing how far she can push the boundaries.  i guess that's what toddlers are supposed to do.  ugh, i'm super excited for when she's a teenager!!

but, she's a happy girl.  always willing to help when it comes to izzy.  she's got a tender heart just like her daddy.

slow days

we've had some slow days around here.  and while some days it's really nice to not have anywhere that i need to be...some days it just makes for some seriously bored kiddos.  we try to get out every day.  it's not always somewhere fun, but at least it's not the house!

cody has been so busy at work lately.  some days he's not even home before bedtime.  so, the other night when he was home, these girlies were so excited to see their daddy.  i love how much they love him.  and also that they climb all over him for a change!

we usually go out in the mornings, so izzy can have a long nap in the afternoon.  this past week, mae and i made some forts while izzy was napping.

she was super excited when i brought out the ipad and she got to play games on it while she was in the fort.  

 and sometimes getting out once a day is not enough for this mama.  these girls love to be outside. i usually take them for a run outside once or twice a week, but we have to go at like 7:30 because it's so stinkin hot! i've been waiting for izzy to be big enough to sit up in the bike trailer so i could take them on a ride.  the other afternoon, it wasn't too bad (meaning it was only in the low 90's) and they were both cranky, so i piled them in the bike trailer and took them for a spin.  their combined weight is 58lbs.  oh my word my legs were burning after that!  but, they loved it.

mae has been going through a stage of getting up during the night...multiple times...as in 5 or 6 times a night.  sometimes it's cause she rolls off the bed, but not all the time.  who knows.  she's never been  a good sleeper.  but, this is what happens when you have a few nights in a row where you're up more than once...

little izzy.  still a string bean.  eats like crazy.  is still a smiley girl.  but, is starting to be less content.  she still can't sit up yet ( i think her legs are too long, and she doesn't like to bend them so they push out and she falls backwards), so she rolls all over the place.  but just gets tired of being on the floor.  the past few days, she's just wanted to be held for most of the day.

but when she's happy, she's a cutie.

with cody working so late, i decided to take mae to the children's museum one evening.  she loved it.  we spent almost 3 hours there.  and she still cried a little bit when we left.

there was so much to do, she didn't know where to go first.  she was like a pinball bouncing from one thing to the next.  

izzy finally had her first injury by big sister.  i was bringing in the groceries and saw mae dragging izzy around on the floor by her legs, then she hit her head against the couch.  she felt really badly.  and has been very concerned about izzy's boo-boo.  i seriously can't believe it took her 6 months to leave a mark on her sister...victory in my book.

anniversary trip

since it was our 5 year anniversary, and we haven't been on a trip without kids, cody and i felt like we were overdue for a vacation, just the two of us.  for the longest time we could not decide where we wanted to go. cody once surprised me with a trip when we were first married...and since then i told him he can't do that anymore.  let's just say it consisted of taking everything i needed in a backpack so we didn't have to pay for a carry on (yes, the airline he chose charged for a large carry on) and taking public transportation everywhere. it was an adventure.
all i really wanted was to go someplace where there was a pool or beach, where i could sit with a book and soda and read without being interrupted by my kids. we finally decided to go to galveston, and i'm so glad that we did.  it might not be the most exotic place, but we had a great time.

cody delivered this time.  he picked the hotel, we stayed at the hotel galvez.  it was really beautiful, right on the beach, and had some neat history.

i didnt get tired of this view!

 i'm a beach bum.  literally could spend all day down there, and normally do when i go.  cody on the other hand is not.  but, my sweet husband spent time each day at the beach with me so i could get my beach time in.  he's a pretty awesome guy.

 we found out there were some really cool houses to tour while we were there.  there are 7 "castles" on the main street in galveston, some of them are privately owned and a few of them you can go in.  they were once owned by families, and the historical foundation has preserved them.  it was so cool! 

 this one is called the bishop's castle.  because the family that built it sold it to the catholic church and the bishop lived there.

when we went to dinner one night, we drove down a street with the most amazing and amazingly scary houses!  this was one of the creepy ones, all of the shutters were closed, the paint was peeling...totally creepy.

then we found this one.  still so weird to see these huge brick homes by the beach!

 then we found another creepy one.  this one looked straight out of a horror movie.  we thought it was abandoned...until we saw shoes on the steps.  we hightailed it out of there,

love this guy.

then we toured the moody mansion.  the moody's owned a lot of galveston, and played a big role in rebuilding the city after the great storm of 1900.

 pleasure pier is a must while you're there.  we love amusement parks, and while this one isn't amazing, it was fun to ride some rides.  and, it's a beautiful view.

 i've never been on a ferris wheel...i know, who am i?  so i thought, what better place to ride one for the first time, than over the ocean...wrong!  it was so scary!!  the wind was blowing like crazy, you aren't strapped in, you stop all the time, and you're just hanging out over the ocean.

 so glad that we had this time together to reconnect.  it's been a really long time since we've been able to have so much time alone.  it made me remember why i fell in love with him in the first place.  it was wonderful.

 i'm not typically afraid of rides or anything.  but for some reason that stinkin' ferris wheel freaked me out.

 i have a death grip on that pole.

we made a stop at the houston temple on the way home.  it has been so long since we've been able to actually go to the temple together.  it was a wonderful way to end our trip...along with a stop at buc-ee's!