Christmas 2010

Well another 3 months have came on gone. Life in the Lillywhite household continues to be filled with love, laughter, and a lot of busyness. I guess that is just how it goes when your living life. I can honestly say I am quite possibly the happiest I can ever remember being. This year Christmas came unlike any other Christmas we have had. Texas greeted the winter holidays with a few days in the 80's. Luckily for us Christmas was a little cooler and it rained on Christmas eve. We had big plans to go home for Christmas but were not able to go. We missed everyone, and had to fight the waves of sadness that came as we faced the reality of Christmas without extended family around. This though brought with it the excitement of a little Christmas with just us. We spent Christmas eve at some friends of ours and filled our tummies up with all sorts of deliciousness. It feels so good to have friends that we can share the holidays with, kind of a pseudo-family I guess. Christmas morning the kids were awesome and let us sleep in until almost 8am. Elle even slept through the night in her own bed (big news in our house). I think it may be due to the fact that she was scared of running into Santa should she venture out of her room. We had a fire in the fireplace both last night and this morning. It was awesome, especially once we figured out how to fully open the damper, (my hair still smells like campfire, and Tom likes it ;) ). It was such a fun Christmas morning, we just took our time and spent a good hour and a half opening up and playing with all the toys. Riley was excited to get a Nerf gun set from Santa, along with some Lego's. Brooke got her Fur-real kitty and a whole bunch of princess stuff. Elle got her 7 Disney princess barbie set and all sorts of other goodies. The big present for the family was the Wii that we bought the kids (no way was I letting Santa get credit for that one). We spent the whole day today cuddled on the couch watching movies, playing with toys and snacking. Poor Elle is sick again, tummy troubles, and Brooke is complaining of an earache so I am hoping we don't have an ear infection brewing. But all that considered it really has been a great Christmas. I was surprised by Tom with a Iphone 4. Sadly for me I accidentally came upon it 2 days before Christmas and ruined the surprise for myself. It actually turned out great because I was able to do Facetime with my family on Christmas eve. Almost as good as being there....almost. The best part of all of this is I have a healthy (mostly) and happy (again...mostly) family. We have the gospel of Jesus Christ and are surrounded near and far by those who love us. Merry Christmas!!!

Happy Birthday Brookie Girl!!!

Today my oldest "little girl" is 6 years old! How does that happen? She is the light in our family and we are so lucky to have her in our family. She is so excited to be turning 6 and asked me last night if she was going to be able to even wear her clothes today because she was probably going to grow so much while she was sleeping and turned 6. We had a good laugh about that and had to spend the next little bit explaining that she would only feel different on the inside and that the outside doesn't change that fast. Happy Birthday Brookie girl, we love you so much and are so glad you were sent to our crazy little family!!!!

Brookie and Daddy

Brooke has a ongoing love affair with her daddy. She has him wrapped around her finger and vice-versa. Tom left for a short work trip today and Brooke decided to draw a picture for him. I love that she even drew his goatee and that they are holding hands.

She also is learning how to write her last name. I had written it on top of a sheet of paper and had her copy it over and over. Then I gave her a new sheet of paper and told her to write it without looking at the name. Next thing I know she is giggling and had her eyes closed trying to write her name, yeah I needed to clarify. She was however able to write her name with her eyes closed. Silly girl. I love that her and her daddy have such a close relationship and hope they always will.

Anaconda.....Texas Edition.

So when the first week in June when we moved here, Tom went out to his car to go to work and there was a note from the neighbor saying he found a 5 foot water moccasin in his back yard last night, chased it into our backyard but it went behind the fence and he lost it. He was just giving us a warning to watch out with our kids. So what does Tom do with the vital information? Go to work, and I continued to let the kids play in the backyard unattended for the rest of the day, when Tom came in that night he gave me the note and I asked him if he knew what a Water Moccasin was to which he replied....nope. I proceed to Google search and find out that the Water Moccasin does in fact live were we live and is a highly aggressive, poisonous snake. Yep in my backyard. We had a good laugh after that and I check the yard before the kids go out and they know not to pick up any snakes. On to last night, Tom and I did a babysitting swap with the Dinkels (the watched our kids in the morning so we could go to the Temple and we watched theirs in the evening so they could go). We had a great night, pizza, splash pad, ice-cream and then home to watch Benji (yep the original...quite possibly the weirdest 70's movie ever....OK probably not the weirdest but it is bad). I thought I was being an awesome mom and made a huge bed on the floor for the kids to watch the movie on. We got everyone snuggled down and proceeded to watch the movie. About 1/2 through the movie I noticed a huge cloud that had a ton of lighting inside of it. We all went outside and watched it on our front porch, and left the door open for a good 3-5 minutes. We then all went back inside and kept watching the movie. Well the movie got over and we started picking up. Riley then says, "Hey, there's a snake." several times, all the lights are off except for the TV at this point and I think he's just pulling our leg. Tom then looks and goes, yeah that's a snake. The screaming started. Brooke, the poor thing, was the most freaked out. She just heard a story at school from her teacher about snakes, and how the baby ones are more poisonous than the adult ones. She was freaking out, so I had a choice, comfort the children, or video. Yep, I am a awesome mom. The video's kind of speak for itself. Hopefully none of the children are too scarred. By the end of the night Brooke went from screaming, "KILL IT, KILL IT" to asking if we could keep it. It is currently residing at the Dinkel residence. What a night!!!

Grateful....

I am feeling so grateful tonight. Grateful for good friends that arrived in our lives when we needed them most. Grateful for long weekends that I get to spend with my little family. Grateful for long warm showers to get rid of sand on sun-kissed bodies. Grateful for Aloe Vera to help heal those sun-kissed bodies. Grateful for 2 of my favorite people in the world willing to take time from their family to come and visit us with their darling baby. Needless to say it was a good weekend.

Back to school!

So we are back in the swing of things. My little Brookie is in Kindergarten and I am just trying to figure out were all the time went!!! She is in full day Kindergarten and loves it. We are all slowly adjusting to the early bedtime and even early mornings but we are getting there. I was so proud of myself that I didn't cry when I dropped her off. She is adjusting to all of it in stride minus the automatic flushing toilets. I forgot to take her potty one morning last week before she went to school, as soon as she was gone I realized it and was worried but figured she would go at school. Yeah, not so much. She came running in the door from school and barely made it to the bathroom. When I asked her if she had gone at school she said, "No, the toilets flush by themselves and scare me." AHHHHHH! I felt so bad, she had not gone to the bathroom since 8pm the night before, yep 19 hours of holding it. That girls got one tough bladder. After a lot of discussions and bribing (yep not below me) she came home triumphant today and informed me she used the toilet and it only got her tush a little wet. What a silly girl!!!

Riley started 3rd grade and though back to school night was a rocky start he seems to be doing great. Tom and I realized that he has finally reached the age that this move was a little harder on him. He makes friends so easily that any fears I had about him adjusting to school have disappeared. It is weird to think about Riley being in 3rd grade. I remember a lot about 3rd grade, and it is weird to think that all the parenting mistakes I make now he just might remember. Let's hope he remembers the good parts too.

Elle is adjusting to being home with Mom all by herself but she is kind of like a lost puppy. She follows me around and I hate to admit it but has watched Shrek 2, at least 4 x in the past 3 days. Yep awesome mom here. She is back to taking naps (she stopped during the summer) and that has made a world of difference. The house stays so much cleaner with 2 less kiddies but I miss like crazy and am happy that they are walking back in the door by 3:15pm. Now if I could just get use to the waking up early part!

Arachnophobia.....Texas edition

This is what I killed yesterday (Go ahead, click on the pic and take a good look). There was a lot of screaming involved and not all of it was by me. Guess we are spraying this weekend. Add to this the fact that we just finished reading Charlotte's Web, and I am fairly certain there is an egg sack with 514 babies in it hiding somewhere. It's times like this that I wish Tom didn't travel, I should not be in charge of killing things like that!!!!