A note from Alexis...

Dear Mom & Dad,

Lately I feel like I've been misunderstood. You write all the blog posts about how I'm "into everything" but I need to tell MY side of the story. For instance the other day you got onto me for this:



Well, you had just given me the same old boring breakfast. I was just wanting to try something new. And those little pointy things you use to eat with seem much more fun than just my fingers!





And you know how the other girls have been sick. I just wanted to supply Avery with tissues in case she needed them. I left a few in the box. I think Avery was very grateful!









Besides - you guys aren't so perfect either. I mean just look at these pictures of daddy. If you want to know why I climb so much, apparently I'm part monkey! I know this probably won't change things, but at least my side of the story is out there.






Love,
Alexis

Saturday we went down to OBU for my sister-in-law Kayla's graduation. We took all the kids so we were kind of "in & out" of the ceremony. It was outside so we were pretty free to come and go. During some of the slow parts we walked around the campus. It is so beautiful there and the day was so pretty that it brought back memories of sitting around campus on the grass in the sun and just being a carefree college student. After we graduated they carved our names into the sidewalk so we had to go and find our names.

After the graduation we went back to Kayla & Timothy's apartment and had lunch and visited together. All the kids played and had a good time.

We also took some 3 month pictures of Emory. Of course this little girl who is almost always all smiles would barely smile for us, but we still got a few cute ones! She is so big already. She's a little chunk and so loveable. I've been working on editing pictures lately. I downloaded Picasa and Gimp. Haven't really figured Gimp out yet for more advanced editing but Picasa is great for simple changes. It has the most fun facial recognition feature. I've been thinking lately that I need to upload my pictures and store them on the internet somewhere. Any ideas or suggestions on the best, most affordable place to do this?

What's Happening...

Nathan- you said you didn't know what was going on in our house since I hadn't updated our blog in a while, so here goes Nathan (& anyone else who might be reading).

You've been working on the deck when you get a free minute. After trying to preserve part of it, you decided to start from scratch. It doesn't look like much has been done, but progress should speed up quickly from here on out.

I started a chore chart for Kaleigh. She has to clean her room at night, brush her teeth 2x a day, and help me put away dishes. When she does these things she gets a sticker. If she gets enough stickers at the end of the week, she gets to do something fun with one of us.

The twins are now climbing on everything. They get up on the couch, then climb onto the kitchen counter. I'm running out of safe surfaces to keep things from them, so I actually have to put things away! Alexis has started hitting a lot recently. I pinch her hand when she hits somebody so she resorts to hitting furniture and toys when she's mad. Kaleigh's sweet though, she tells me "It's okay if Alexis wants to hit me". Those girls are destructive. They have pretty much broken Emory's swing from getting in it themselves and bouncing up and down. They've also climbed into her bouncer on top of her. They keep me on my toes for sure!

I went garage saleing last week since my parents were here. There were two big neighborhood sales. I got a bunch of stuff for the kids, especially shoes, Yay. My best buy was an almost new, pink pack & play for $25. Love me some garage sales! But don't worry, even with the pack & Play I only spent around $60 total.

Since it was raining Saturday and you couldn't work on the deck, we actually hung a few pictures in the house.

I just ordered a photo flipbook from Snapfish. It was supposed to be $30 but I used the coupon code ALLYOUMOM and got it for 1.99! That includes shipping! It's just a little spiral book that has a picture on each page and holds 45 pictures.

That's about all for now. Hopefully you will get the deck finished soon and we can talk face to face again!