Cirstyn is 1 year old!

On May 12, 2009 right up until 3:28 p.m. I wondered who is inside me?  Is it a she or a he?  Will you have my eyes or dads?  Brown hair or blonde? Which name should we give you?  But in that exact moment we knew the answer to most of these questions that we had been waiting for.  If your brother is our breath of fresh air and your sister is heart and fire, then you must be sweet and sassy with a little bit of fire cracker all in one!

I can't believe she's one, but boy is she ever and she's not afraid to let anyone know!  She's louder than her brother and sister combined and full of opinions and gumption.   Though not quite walking yet, she's still cruising around the furniture.  She like's her new room and is a big girl having it all to herself.

Here are her 1 year stats:  18 lbs 19 oz and 30 1/4 inches

I really think she will take off walking anytime now.  She takes a few steps but then falls to her knees full of pride over her new accomplishment!  She can just almost out eat her brother and will eat nearly anything I put on her tray.  I hope that is a trend that sticks because Lord knows we don't need yet another picky eater in this house.  She's a dainty thing but man does she think she's in charge!

I love you Cirstyn Delaney...you're so Zaney...you are a big girl now!  (bum bum bum bum bum)

Happy Mother's Day!

All of Nanny's children got together and had Grandma Blankenship's last quilt finished and presented to her at Mother's Day lunch at my mom's house.  It was so beautiful and as you can see from the pictures, she was quite surprised!  This is a great picture of Nanny, Mom, Rick and Bobby!

My babies did some special things for me this year too!  At school Angelina made a "garden" with tulips made up of paint hand prints and a very special poem about mothers.  I just love it mostly because I can really tell those are her hand prints!  Brady made a special apron that say's "Mom you brighten my day!" with hand print flowers at school as well, it's so cute!  I don't think I'll ever wear it because I don't want to get it dirty.  I have it hanging on the refrigerator and he will spread it out and read  it to me about 5 times a day!  

Daddy and the kids made a card that they all signed and gave me my two favorite kid books:  Guess How Much I Love You and I'll Love You Forever.  I have read these two books to all the kids so many times I can't even tell you.  Guess How Much I Love You was the first book that I happened to memorize and that Brady could just tell me the story be looking at the pages.  Angelina knows this book too and really listens and laughs appropriately.  I bet if she could talk she would be able to tell me the story too!  Now Cirstyn is doing the same thing!  In I'll Love You Forever we made up a tune to the song the mother sings to her baby and Brady always wants to sing it when we are reading.  Larry wrote a beautiful inscription inside and it makes my heart just well up!  Great idea you guys had, Mommy loves her present....

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Here are some more pics of Mother's Day at Mom's

Nothin' says WAKE UP at 6:30 am like a drawer front crashing down on your foot!

Okay, so Monday morning I wake up to Brady yelling down the stairs "Mom, wake up! I want to go downstairs! Wake up Mom!" So I get up after deciding that he just is not going to be cool and go back to bed. I make my way up, then make my way down. Now he wants some juice. You know the fake drawers in front of the sink? Well, ours aren't permanently affixed, they just pop on to these plastic round things, I guess for better access there. Anyway, apparently he must have been messing with it because as I am getting that boy some juice, one falls off and gets me right in my second toe just below my toenail sending these lightening pains up my leg and before I know it I am like on the floor trying not to yell too loud, but I'm sure I did! OMG it hurt so bad, like probably one of the worse pains ever! Now, I haven't actually given birth the old fashion way, but this had to be some comparison to the pain because I am telling you I thought my toe had been severed from my foot! Oddly enough, it didn't bleed that much, but as you can see a lot of blood has collected under the nail and down my toe. This picture is somewhat washed out but the blue color is really, really blue! It's so wierd! Now I am walking funny because I am limping trying not to bump it into anything and I'm actually getting sore from the adjustment in walking pattern. This is getting way out of hand, I mean it's a toe for Pete's sakes! I'm just ready for the nail to fall off or whatever it's gonna do because I'm tired of this already!

Cirstyn Delaney's 1st Birthday Invitation

New house, new chapter....

Well, as most of you know by now, Larry and I found a home that we just couldn't live without and closed the contract on it April 12th, the same day Cirstyn turned over 11 months!  Happy Birthday baby!

Actually, since Angelina started school and we decided that we really wanted to keep her here, we got back in touch with our mortgage guy.  We originally thought we were going to have to wait until the summer but he convinced us that now would be a better time.

We knew we were more than likely going to have to purchase a foreclosure home because of what we needed vs. budget.  So we looked at a bunch!  We made an offer on another house in Twin Mill Farms but backed out when I found out there was a registered sex offender of little boys 2 houses down.  It was a great house, but we couldn't knowingly make that purchase with a person like that nearby!  So our new house was the LAST house we looked at.  I hadn't even considered Marine Creek Meadows because I thought it was probably Lake Worth ISD and we were forbidden to take Angelina to LWISD!  But after a little more research, I found that it was EMISD so I included it on our search list and found this property.  The first time we saw it, there was painter's plastic everywhere and NO CARPET anywhere!  They had completely repainted all the walls and trim in the house as well as new carpet throughout the entire house.  I immediately liked it and couldn't believe that this home was in our price range!  I'm talking about down right giddy.  So much so that I was trying to curb my level of giddiness for fear of looking like a complete moron!  It's so pretty and feels so expensive, but it has all the things we said we needed.  Even though it's a 2story there is another room on the ground floor for Angelina when she gets too heavy to carry up the stairs - who knows maybe she'll be walking by that time :).  It's on a cul-de-sac so not much traffic and it doesn't back up to another house.  I mean there are ledges and niches everywhere, the master br has a tray ceiling, there's no popcorn ceilings anywhere!  The backyard needs some love, it has a pretty significant slope due to erosion, but that can be fixed.  I will miss the kitchen in the old house with it's island and all it's storage, but the biggest difference be the two is that I OWN THIS KITCHEN!  We are saving money also, the mortgage payment ended up being about $50 less than our rent, so that makes me happy!

I have to say, I don't think you can truly appreciate home ownership and the value of how grounded that can make one feel until you've gone from owning a home to renting one.  I am really very happy to finally be back in the vicinity of what Larry and I had worked so hard to attain and achieve before we had kids.  I'm so glad my kids won't remember moving from the Fuller house to an apartment to the townhouse to the rent house then finally to OUR HOUSE!  It makes me happy to be able to finally look down the road of our lives and visualize 5 or 10 years from now and where we may be as opposed to not being able to see into the next year because I didn't know where we would be or when we would be buying again!

We have been so blessed, probably more than we deserve, to land on our feet again.  It seems that anytime anything has happened with us, we're like cats...we always land feet first.  I feel blessed in that respect, like God is really looking out for us and giving us good direction.  We try so hard to be patient (which is hard for both Larry and I to be) and now it's paid off.

SO since just after the golf tournament we have been moving and are almost done.  We are doing Cirstyn's 1st birthday party here and I am really excited about that.  I just hope we have things hung on the walls by that time!  Yes Jennifer, I have pics, but it's late and I'll post them tomorrow!

Gotta love those misty-eyed moments....

About a week ago as I was changing Angelina for bedtime Brady kept getting up out of his bed so I told him to come and join us.  We were in the hallway between their rooms because Cirstyn had already gone to bed and was sound asleep.  So there we were, just the three of us once again and it was such a sweet time.  I asked Brady to lay on his back next to Angelina.  I wanted to see if side-by-side they were looking any more alike.  They weren't!  BUT the neatest thing happened.  I was seeing an updated version of a picture that had been taken almost 3 years ago when they were babies.  It was their announcement picture that I was thinking of.  Brady was looking toward me and Angelina was tilted toward him and their faces were touching just a little.  Angelina had the most aware look in her eyes as she began to reach for him.  I was helping her bring her arm over all the way and she was trying to get his hand.  It was so cute.  Then I showed Brady how to open her hand so he could clasp his fingers with hers and he did.  There they were, the two of them, holding hands and snuggled up a little!  I explained, the best I could to a three year old, how they were in mommy's tummy together like Cirstyn was when she was in mommy's tummy.  He said he understood, but who knows?!  I told him I wished mommy had her camera and he was saying "take a picture mommy!"  So I did, with my fingers!

It was so endearing like nothing else in the world mattered right then and they were having not just a sibling moment, but a twin moment!  That doesn't happen very often and I was so thankful I was there to witness it!

Angelina is doing so well in school!

This was school picture day....

I hear her pictures may not have turned out so well!

Snack Time!

I think I really like my cookies!

College Week...Supporting my Longhorns!

I am sitting so well in my cube chair!

Like my stop sign??

This girl is LOVING school!  She is happy when we drop her off and happy when we pick her up.  She is actually letting her teacher "help" her chew on a cookie (biter/teething biscuits) and doesn't have a meltdown about it.  Her favorite cookies are Earth's Best!  She has been sitting very well in a cube chair and they help her with markers and colors to make pretty pictures.  She has been walking at physical therapy during school in a "pony" walker.  It basically has a seat in the middle in case the child gets tired.  It also helps with gait to keep her legs apart.  She's getting pretty good with it though!

Her teacher knew that my camera is on the fritz so she has taken pictures of her over the last month and gave them to me.  So here they are!  I love you Angelina!  We are proud to be your F-A-M-I-L-Y!

Golf Tournament time is almost here!

Okay, I have to admit, I'm a bit nervous now that there is LESS THAN 2 WEEKS until this golf tournament!  I guess it could be worse, I could be pregnant and nervous like last year...this is me finding the silver lining!  It seems since February all we have been doing with any free time is golf tournament stuff.  A lot has happened though and even with the economy the way it is, I think we are all happy with the direction the sponsorships are going!   To me, last year's event was such a blowout.  I mean, did any of us expect for it to gross over $15k?  I surely didn't.  When Marcey and I talked about doing it she was thinking it would be good for about 5k.  So needless to say we were all completely shocked when the final numbers were tallied!  This year Lisa, Andar, Marianne, Larry and I discussed where we thought it might end up at and it made sense to me to keep expectations low again for the simple fact that our economy isn't the greatest.  So with that said, I for one am happy that there is as much support as it has gotten!

Another thing I am excited about is that Lisa, Andar and Marianne are really motivated and excited about the cause!  They all have so many great ideas and want to do more than just the one event so as to extend the support to other children.  Lisa is such a "take the reigns and get things done" kind of gal and likewise with Marianne.  Andar doesn't have a choice but to be that way because Lisa keeps the fire lit under him!  Before her current employer, Marianne worked for non-profits for like 7 or 8 or more years.  So she really has a good mind for what goes on and what has to happen.

Even though it's a lot of work as a "volunteer", it's really rewarding for me and I guess it makes me feel like I am working again even though it doesn't require me to leave my house much!  I am finding that my brain still works and it hasn't turned to kid mush!

UPDATING POSTS

I updated a bunch of posts tonight so feel free to hit delete since they are mostly from Jan and Feb 2010.  I am trying to catch up on my blog so I don't forget what has happened but have been so busy lately with everything.  The updating isn't over but the brunt of it is!

Cirstyn is 10 months!

Yep, 10 months old!  Cirstyn is growing and learning so many new things.  We have been exposing her to sign language so now she can do the sign for Dad and bath!  It's so cute!  She has TWO teeth now and really enjoys using them to chomp up some table food.  She finally understands what all the fuss is about macaroni and Alfredo sauce!  She is cruising so well and getting so fast on all fours that it's getting hard to keep up with her.  I weighed her today and by my scale she is no 18.5 lbs so she's definately made up all the ground she lost!  She plays patty cake with me and Brady, they play peek-a-boo together and then go play with Angelina.  We are so blessed to have such wonderful children!  I love you baby girl!  Happy 10 months!