Last week

We had some fun...

Ace went to his first Baylor game with Daddy.

Daddy had a bunch of late nights at work so we entertained ourselves however possible. Thursday, Ace spent the afternoon running in the rain.

I guess there's one good thing about hot and rainy Houston.

And Lily Kate started smiling.

I had really begun to worry about this little thing not smiling because big brother had set quite a precedent of smiling all the time.

I am desperate for a new camera. My PowerShot is really taking horrible pictures lately - they are all grainy and all of my nighttime pics are smudged. Taking suggestions.

Playground Pictures

Yesterday evening it was in the 70s! I took the kids to the playground and we stayed over an hour. We had it all to ourselves. I love these times with Ace when he does nothing but giggle and smile and indulges me by letting me take countless photos of him.

I guess Lily Kate doesn't like the swings yet.
If I could make time stand still, it would be looking at this face...

...or maybe this one.

Big Brother showing little sis how it's done.

No, I didn't slide her down the slide. She was so pooped, she hardly cared where I put her.

So I took pictures of her all over. =)

Maternity leave is over this week and I start back on Monday. How I will miss the time when the only thing I have to concentrate on is my two angels. Last night was a treasure.

Sip N See

Saturday was the biggest treat! Brittany threw a Sip n See for Ms. Lily Kate and Mr. Gray Kadane. Gray is only one and a half months older than Lily Kate and Mommy is calling dibs on him for Lily Kate's future...although, she met Jack Davis (4 weeks) and Will Emmons (6 months) this past weekend as well. Choices, choices.

Here is the beautiful fireplace.

Quite the couple, wouldn't you say???

Proud mommies and the best hostess ever!

(No, Kate and I did not call each other an coordinate our outfits before hand. I guess mommy-wear is just coral colored.)

The unbelievable spread including Klaassen cookies!

Mr. Will Emmons and Lily Kate. She was crying and made the poor guy cry too.

If she wants an empathetic, sensitive guy, Will is her man. (Ace always calls him "Baby Wilson.") Lily Kate and her Aunt Shannon. Gorgeous girls.

Mommy and Precious.

It was such a memorable time. Unfortunately, my camera turned on me and blurred most of my photos! I'm going to have to beg around for copies.

Thank you Brittany for the best time ever!

Our Family

Ace had his first HOMEWORK project. I was so nerdy-excited over this and wanted it to be perfect. He had to put photos of his family on a house that the teacher sent home. As soon as he got up from his nap we were printing photos. I knew I couldn't do it for him (as badly as I wanted to) so I thought my circle hole-punch would make everything clean looking.

Ace punched the photos and the white paper. Then I told him he could draw a picture of everyone on their white circle...it ended up more like scribbling.

I had some brads in my craft cabinet so we covered the pictures and made "windows" in the house.
Even Hula made it although you can't really see her in the lower right corner.
Ace used Elmer's glue which ended up soaking through the photo paper and giving everyone pink splotches in the middle of their faces!!!! I thought to myself, when Ace goes to school tomorrow, I'll just redo the whole thing. Then I came to my senses and just left it as the 3yr old's masterpiece that it is.
Here's the pic we used of Lily Kate. Looking more like her Daddy every day.
I had to take this picture of Ace because he's been OBSESSED with my iPhone lately. He can use it better than I can and I frequently find my wallpaper changed or my ringtones mixed around. He even called one of my clients! Yikes!

I LOVE this pic of the kids. Lily Kate isn't smiling very much yet but she will give those rare treats to her big brother.

My three loves.

Mommy does exist! (You'd never know it from most of our photos.)

Two more weeks of maternity leave then our world will change again. For now, we are really enjoying preschool and time together.

Precious Moments

Here are some of our funny/ memorable moments from the past few weeks:

Ace sitting across from Jonathan at the dinner table asks, "Daddy, how was your day today?" then "Did you have a good day Dad?" I melted just listening to them!

Lily Kate let out a blood-curdling scream yesterday (while I was looking at her). I ran over to her to discover she had a death-grip on her HAIR and was pulling it out!

We call boobs "minnies" (I don't know why) and we use the same word for boys and girls. Ace asked me if Lily Kate would eat from "Daddy's minnies." I WISH!

Everyone has given me such a hard time for teaching Ace that his you-know-what is called a "don't touch." So I tried to change it and teach him it's called a weenie. He was in the bath last week and told me he was cooking his weenie for me to eat, that it would help me grow "big and strong." Commence faint.

Ace doesn't like to be taken out of the car by the ladies in the car line at preschool. Here's our conversation every schoolday morning:
"Mommy, you take me in."
"School doesn't let mommies come in, only kids."
"Even you?" (My heart melts at this point.)

Wish I could get all of these moments on video. This is the best part of mommy-hood for sure!

Ace's 2009 Yearbook

Today is MOMENTOUS! I finally finished Ace's 2009 Yearbook!!!

I used Picaboo.com for Ace's 2007 and 2008 yearbooks and thought I'd look around to make sure it was still the best product for me. I wanted the ability to make my own layouts, determine the size of my text boxes and position everything where I wanted it on the page. Picaboo hadn't previously allowed me to do any of those as all of their layouts and sizes were set.

I tried Blurb and SmileBooks. I liked that these two offered complete customization but it was taking me FOREVER to complete just one month. After two full days of frustration at my lack of progress, I went back to Picaboo and discovered that it actually revamped its software and now calls it PicabooX. PicabooX let me change the size and position of photos and text, yipee!

One thing I absolutely love about PicabooX is all of the fun backgrounds. I'm sure my affinity for Picaboo comes somewhat from the fact that I'm familiar with it and can produce a book quickly. I also love that they are always running promotions. When I ordered my book today, I got 40% off!!!! (That meant that I saved $78 and paid $125 for his book. If I compare that to the cost of getting all of the photos printed at the store and putting them in a paper scrapbook, I know I saved a ton of money.)

Here's a link to my masterpiece. I will be eagerly checking my mailbox all next week for it!!! Now I can actually start working on the current year. (Since I've already taken over 500 photos of Lily Kate, I need to start the editing process early.)

http://app.picaboo.com/WebView/Project.aspx?clientID=f81c46b73ce54dc583536282ffd269ae&version=42957