Kirsten

Kirsten had a birthday two weeks ago too. She turned 6! I feel like she is growing up way too fast. When I was first pregnant with Max and she was really hoping for a sister I told her that if I had a boy I would let her decorate her very own girl's room. So when we were in Dallas we went to Ikea and she picked out a duvet cover and some accessories. She was so excited because it was all "teenager" stuff. What has happened to my little girl? She wanted to paint her room black! We compromised on a Grayish Purple.
Kirsten is my lifesaver. There are many times I don't know what I'd do without her. She helps me so much with the boys and she keeps me company. I drove back from Dallas to Midland once without her and I almost lost it! Not having her to talk to was really hard!
She is a very sweet and loving girl. I asked her what her favorite animal is and she said she didn't want to choose one because she would feel bad for all the animals she didn't choose. She loves animals. We went to the rodeo a couple months ago and she cheered for the bulls whenever the rider would fall off.
She is really good at math. She really likes it and definitely got her skills from her dad. She doesn't like reading and writing as much, hopefully that will come with time.
She's always got a story going on in her mind. She loves to pretend she's her teacher, an animal, the random lady who did an evaluation on Colton...anybody she sees during the day.
For her birthday she has been wanting to go to the American Girl store in Dallas for months. So we got to have breakfast there on her birthday just her and me. She had so much fun walking around the store and Daddy even surprised her with a new doll.
She is such a sweetheart and we absolutely adore her.
My parents came up to celebrate with a cake. It's been so nice having them here to celebrate with us. Kirsten loves having them around too!

Happy Easter!

We started out with an Easter Egg hunt in our backyard on Saturday.





Kirsten pretty much found all of the eggs.


All Colton wanted was the candy. He'd find an egg open it and eat the candy and then he'd find another one.




Dyeing eggs.


Kirsten is loving dinosaurs right now. So she had a lot of fun playing with the eggs after we put them together.




Easter morning.



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We had to wake Colton up and he wasn't sure what to think.


All ready for church.






After church we went to my family's house for dinner and another Easter egg hunt. It was raining all day so we did it inside.




Colton actually got the hang of it this time.

Colton's Three!

Two of our kids had birthdays last week. I like to do a brag post about each of them on their birthdays so I'll start with Colton since his birthday is first.

Colton turned 3 on April 12th. He is my absolute sunshine. He still doesn't say much and doesn't understand much. In fact he just started calling me mommy a couple weeks ago. He says it all the time and it's my favorite thing in the world.

He is such a sweet boy. When I put him to bed at night he always puts his arms around my neck and holds on until I finally have to leave. He gives us a kiss whenever he wants something or we tell him to say sorry. He'll come up to us with his little lips puckered saying "mmmm".

He still loves trucks and trains and will watch videos of real trains on YouTube all day if I'd let him.

He loves to be chased. He'll take things away from Kirsten just so she'll chase him around to get it. He thinks it's absolutely hilarious.

He has a really funny high pitched voice.

He loves to play outside and will play out there for hours.

If he gets mad at anything or anyone he will head but them or it. If he trips over something or runs into something he'll head butt it. Luckily he has learned to restrain himself and doesn't do it very hard.

He is a very picky eater. If something looks like he wouldn't like it he will not even touch it. Even if it's candy that just looks odd to him.

He's started putting more 2 word phrases together like "car keys", "fire truck".

He's repeated phrases for a while like "what are you doing", "what are we going to do now (actually that one's really cute because he says "oh man, what we gon do now" and he pats his sides in dispair), "cookie in the world" (that one's from a book and he thinks it's hilarious if I scream after he says it, it took me a long time to figure out what he was actually saying. His words are usually all jumbled so it's hard to understand him).

His laugh is super cute and it's really easy to get him to laugh.

Whenever he gets evaluated they always ask me at the end to brag about Colton and the thing I always say is that he's so sweet tempered, he never throws fits or yells. The only time he ever gets upset is if he's frustrated about something.

Grandma and Papa came up bearing gifts and cake. Daddy wasn't able to be there 'cause he was in Canada for work.

Birthdays, Tornadoes, and Toads

Part 1 Tornadoes

For months we have been planning to go to Dallas for Kirsten's birthday and to go to the American Girl store. She didn't want a party or anything other than this. Since Max had an appointment in Dallas last Friday morning we decided to head down there Thursday night. We had heard a storm was headed toward Tulsa so we thought it would be nice to get out of here and evade the hail and tornadoes. Not that I'm scared in fact I actually like storms, especially when I'm in the comfort of my own home. Anyway, Kirsten got off the bus and we get in the car to go. We had to drop Marpie off at the Kennel first and then we headed down through Tulsa. Traffic in Tulsa was actually really bad. I guess people were trying to get home before the storm hit. The whole way we kept hearing that a really bad storm was almost to Sapulpa and South Tulsa. As we drove past Sapulpa we thought we were in the free and clear and were feeling pretty good. Keep in mind that when I say we, I mean me and the kids. Jonathan was in Canada for work and was going to fly down on Friday to meet us there.

So as we continue to head south; and the weather continues to get worse and worse. The people on the radio were only talking about the weather advisories for Tulsa and so I had no idea what was going on except for that it was raining really hard and it was hailing. I pulled over twice to try to get out of the hail. I see storm chasers on the side of the road all excited with their cameras. I do not like to drive in heavy rain so I'm freaking out a little. Especially because it's dark at this point. Kirsten was very nervous, Colton didn't know what was going on, and luckily Max was asleep (he has a really disturbing high pitched scream that probably would've put me over the edge). I guess my mom and Jonathan had been trying to call and warn me but my phone wasn't working.

The second time we stopped I was looking at my phone to find a hotel. I was not going to drive in that weather for another 2 hours. For some reason my phone still wasn't working. Which actually ended up being a miracle because I sat in that gas station trying to get it to work for a good 10 minutes. I decided to get back on the road. a few minutes later I went through a town called Tushka. If you've seen the news lately you've probably seen pictures of this little town. Just about 10 minutes before I got there a tornado had made it's way up the road I was driving on. There were overturned semis, trees down everywhere, houses destroyed...I have never seen anything like it. Even though I probably could have gotten all three of my kids out and in a ditch and that we would've been fine, I cannot even say how grateful I am that I didn't have to do that. I seriously feel so blessed.

On our way back home we went through this town again and it was amazing to see so many people working on getting people's roofs fixed and houses back together. I'm so amazed at the kindness people show during crazy scary events like this.

Goodbye Midland

So now that we have officially moved from Midland I thought I'd make a list of what I will miss the most and what I will not miss about our 2 years in Midland.

Starting with what...

I Will Miss
Proximity. everything in town is so close. 7 minutes to Jonathan's work, 5 minutes to ballet and gymnastics, 8 minutes to Kirsten's school, 2 minutes to the grocery store...

The airport. This probably seems weird, but it is so close and so convenient. You can literally stand in one place and see the entire airport.

Kirsten's School. I love her teacher, I love the class size (10 kids in her class), I love having her home twice a week.

The Sky

The Weather. I love the warm weather throughout the year and I even love the Summer weather. Little humidity, nice cool nights...love it.

Rosas. Best Mexican food ever!

Friends. We've made some really great friends in our ward. I've especially realized this the last few months. I've been so busy traveling to Dallas every week and I've had people who just had babies, have 3 kids at home, have 5 busy kids insisting on helping me. This last week we've had so many people help us with our move. We really have been so blessed

Danie. Ok I have to do a special category for the person who made Midland bearable for me the last year and a half. Before she moved in I didn't think I was going to make it. But after I actually really started to love living in Midland. We have had so much fun running together (well mostly fun except for that 16 miler that almost killed us;), having play dates, and mostly just talking. I've really needed her these last few months. I had a particularly bad day last month and she dropped everything to come make sure I was ok, and I really needed that! It hasn't sunken in yet that I'm not going to see her everyday, when it does...well, let's just say that's going to be a bad day for me! And I know Kirsten is going to miss her little girl, Brighton, her BFF for the last almost 2 years.

I Won't Miss
Nothing to do.

The Water. I can't wait to be able to drink water out of the tap without risking disease.

No Water or rain. I love lakes, rivers, streams, oceans, and rain.M y parents have more of that in their neighborhood than in the whole city of Midland.

The Ugly. Even people who love West Texas will admit that it's one of the ugliest places on Earth.

"Don't Mess With Texas" Litter commercials. "Cause God blessed Texas With His own hand. Brought down a piece of the promised land. He gave them a place like they've never seen, said all got to do ya'll is keep it clean..." See previous "won't miss" for why this song drove me nutty; and I heard it at least once a week for the last 2 years.

Dust. When we first moved to Midland a lady in our ward could sense that I didn't love it there. Her response was just wait until April when the dust storms come and you'll be cursing your husband for moving you here. What she didn't know is that I already was. There's nothing like seeing the dust blow in.

Isolation. It's not that Midland is too small it's just that it's so far away from everything. 5 hours to a major city is too far.