Our Texas Trip takes up our second half of July! We drove 18 hours through the night and made it to Texas with 3 kids and only 3 stops!!! We were so pumped about our timing and how quickly we made it- not to mention the trip was amazing and easy! We got on the road at 4pm AZ time; M&M fell asleep around 7 PM right after we stopped for dinner at Dairy Queen; M&M slept until 8:00 AM; Shiloh slept from about 9:30 pm to 7:00 am and didn't have any bathroom accidents!!; we arrived in TX at 12 noon TX time (10 am AZ time)! It really wasn't bad at all!! (The trip home is a different story)
In TX we got to see so many friends and family!! It was GREAT!!! We also got to meet our precious niece Alicia!! The big purpose of our trip was to meet our beautiful neice! Seeing her confirmed that I do love being an Aunt!!
Here are pictures to chronicle our TX trip:
Dinner stop at Dairy Queen
Meeting Ali for the first time!
All Dressed Up for Church
All three matching
Ali's matching too! Shiloh is so excited to "hold" her
Oma and Pops holding M&M
(Oma with Zee and Pops with Lee)
Mike and all the Smith Granddaughters
Erin and Zee
With one of my best friends and her amazing family!!
We love Nino
Painting with some of my best friends
Hanging out with my mom, brother and his sweet wife
Wearing both girls for a walk
They still fit in the swing together... and they LOVE it!!
Here is Zee laughing while swinging
Lee laughing while swinging
Shiloh loving it too
Swimming with Daddy and Pops
Sandwich making with Daddy
One of the highlights of my trip was this Wiggles Show!!!
(yes, I am a mom and yes, I did enjoy the show)
The Wiggles Show
Shiloh and My wonderful Grandma
My girls and their Great-Grandparents
(I am so blessed to have a wonderful Papa and Grandma who so sweetly love on my girls too)
Cousin McKellie, Aunt Lala, Nino and the Smith Girls
Shiloh, Emma and Rylie
Shiloh and Eliana
Lee, Zee and Leah
Shiloh and Andrew so sweetly playing together
He asked her to hold his hand... it was adorable!!
So cute
3 moms, two sets of twins and a total of 8 kids
Fun playdate buddies!
Lee and Zee
The first half of August has been a lot of fun too! We were able to rest from our pretty rough trip home. The girls weren't sick, perhaps carsick- I don't really know, BUT they threw up a total of 5 times. Each twin did it twice and Shiloh once. We had 7 outfit changes because of the getting sick, lots of crying, lots of unplanned stopping and several more hours added onto our long trek home. The drive home was exhausting and not too great. Crossing our fingers that will be the only drive like that, BUT it was definitely the best feeling when we pulled up into our driveway! I didn't think I'd be glad to be back, but I was!!
The Monday after we got home, Shiloh started her first Rythmic Ribbons class!! She absolutely loved it! I was a little nervous because the teacher told me that she has only one strict rule, if she has to call the students out three times, they sit down the rest of the class. Usually Shiloh obeys other people, but I felt like she would have been devastated to have to sit down. Thankfully, the teacher did not even have to call her out once! She obeyed everything the teacher said and had a wonderful class! Pics below.
Shiloh Ready for her First Rythmic Ribbons Class
Practicing Twirling
11 Month Picture
(Zee on the left and Lee on the right)
Outtake
Little Ponytails! (Zee on the left & Lee on the right)
(My sweet little teethers wouldn't part from their ice cubes for this pic)
Milestones:
Shiloh (2 years and 9 months)-
- she can identify most letters and the sounds they make; ie Mommy starts with "M"
- she can identify numbers 1-11
- she can count to 12
- she can write numbers 0, 1, 2, 6, 7, 10, 11 (mostly ones without curves)
- she can draw a circle and a triangle
- she can write the letters C, D, I, T (a few more but I'm not sure which ones)
- she can draw a person with a head that has eyes, hair & a mouth, a body, two legs with feet & two arms with hands (I was pretty impressed with the details!!)
McKenzie (10 months)
- she can take up to 7 steps
- she can stand by herself
- she can get to the standing position by herself from the ground
- she can stoop and stand up
- she can say "Mama" "Dada" "All done" "More"
- she can dance
- she can climb up stairs
- she is trying to figure out how to climb down stairs, but attempts to go head first and I have to catch her
McKinley (10 months)
- she took her first step just a few days before she turned 11 months
- she can stand by herself
- as of VERY recently she can stoop and get back up
- she can get to the standing position by herself from the ground
- she can say "Mama" "Dada" "All done" "More"
- she loves to bounce
- she can climb up and down stairs (so well that I don't get too scared when she does it)-- she goes down the stairs by sliding herself backwards
My personal milestones:
My goal lately has been to cut preservatives out of our diet and learn to cook better. Since we've been married (4.5 years), I have learned a LOT about cooking and I've really enjoyed all of it.
I was never very interested in cooking growing up because my mom and my grandma were/are amazing cooks. I had a wonderful dinner and afternoon snack cooked for me everyday. When I was at Baylor, I realized that I did not know much about cooking at all, and I did not want to take my time to do it.
Once I got married, my wonderful family tradition of having every meal cooked began to return. Since then, I've made it my goal to learn to cook as much from scratch as I can and I've learned lots about what shortcuts I can take. A few things I've been doing lately are:
- making bread (no more store bought for us)
- making chicken broth from boiling chicken
- making cream of chicken soup
- making whole wheat pizza dough from scratch
- making homemade chicken nuggets
- trying to use as much organic fruits and veggies as possible
Tips/Tricks I've learned lately:
- Costco has a GREAT frozen fruit and veggie section. I have bought frozen stuff in bulk and thawed it based on what we should use for the next few days. This way I don't have to thaw everything for every meal.
- Costco now sells premade tortilla dough in the refridgerated section!! It is PRESERVATIVE free and very easy to make. We've been buying these and making our own tortillas. My next goal is to make them from scratch, but for now buying the dough will have to do.
- I have been drinking more water (healthier)
- When I buy fresh fruits and veggies, I use a wash that supposedly helps them last longer (and I really think it works)-- my wash is 10 parts water to 1 part vinegar and some drops of fresh lemon juice (occasionaly) I will make one batch and wash all of my fresh produce in it. I don't mix the produce so I wash each bunch individually. Next I will strain it, rinse it, set it out on a towel to dry and lastly bag it up and stick it in the fridge.
- We have lived without using vegetable oil in our house since February. Depending on the recipe, I will either substitute yogurt, apple sauce or as a last resort butter.
- For as many meals as possible, I make 1.5 to 2 times the amount we will eat. I will put enough of the left overs immediately in the freezer to make up another meal, and then whatever is left after we eat will be leftovers for that week.
- We do sandwich/quesadilla meals at least one night a week. I am so proud of Marc, who knew pretty much nothing about cooking when we got married, because he is in charge of this meal each week!! This is my cooking night off!
Other milestones... I've been able to run a mile and a half at my goal pace! I have been working on getting a faster pace than I used to do, which has been quite the challenge. My goal is around 9 to 9.5 minutes a mile.
- I've been doing a little more repurposing items around the house and a little more spray painting of picture frames and decorating a bit here and there. Anything that involves house decorating is out of my comfort zone, but I am trying!!
Upcoming goals:
- Make pumpkin dresses for girls... I'm sad to say that I haven't had any time to sew lately. I've spent much of my free time cooking and preparing meals. I need to wedge time in their for improving my sewing skills.
- MY BIG GOAL is to learn how to sew these Anthropologie curtains. I finally found curtains that I am just in LOVE with but they are WAY too expensive. I've been reading tutorials on how to make them, so we'll have to see.
- Get or make some more wall decorations
- We have a few things that I need to hang up
- Continue learning about cooking. Make a few recipes from Julia Childs cookbook
- Home made jam
- run 2 miles at my goal pace (and 3.5 miles just running at any pace)
- lots more, but that'll be it for the rest of August
- start sharing recipes and tips on my blog
