It's almost been a year!

Memorial Day weekend will mark one year of us closing on our house in Kansas.  Moving from Texas where we grew up and lived for 30 years!  It is really hard to believe that we have already been here a year.  I must say though, what a fun adventure it has been and actually it has not been as hard as I might have thought!  I usually have a pretty optimistic attitude about things and this was no exception.  I had the mind-set that we would be okay moving up here and that it would not turn our world upside down or anything crazy like that and sure enough- it has been okay and we are doing great!

Now that is not to say I don't miss seeing my family and friends often, because I sure do!  We would see family on a weekly, if not daily basis.  That was definitely an adjustment at first!  However, we found babysitters and friends and neighbors and we have made all of this work!  I do think we spend LOTS more time together as a family of 4, which in my opinion is great!  Seriously, in Texas we would have the kids stay with our parents very often and we did more "Ryan and Lisa" outings, rather than the 4 of us.  Here, well, we are all each other has so we do lots together!  :) We've been to Chuck E Cheese more Friday nights than I would like to count!  :) 

We have made many new friends up here!  It has been fun to get to know new people and new families.  In Texas, we had so many of our friends that we had know for so long that, looking back, I never took the time to really meet new people and form new friendships.  This move has forced me to do that and it has been great!  Ryan and I both are more on the outgoing/extrovert side and so its not super intimidating or hard for us to strike up conversations with new people.  This has been good for us!  I hope that does not sound arrogant in any way.... I would never mean for it to.  Just you know, some people are not great at meeting/interacting with brand new people and luckily for Ryan and I that is not a huge issue. 

We have also loved having our friends and family come visit us up here.  That has been great!  If we had not ever moved, we would not have that quality time with friends or family either.  When else would we have ever spent 4 days non-stop together?  Probably never! 

Over Mother's Day weekend we had the Salomone's visit!  It was such fun and we really enjoyed our time with Chelsea, Nick and Logan!

Of course we had to get a bath picture!  Ben said his favorite part of their visit was washing Logi's hair.  Hahaha!  Addy got to help with bath time one night by herself (no Ben) and she said that was her favorite part of their visit.  Spoken like true brother and sister! 

We went to brunch on Mother's Day and it was yummy!

Me and my babies on Mother's Day!  Love those 2!

Chelsea and I ventured out that afternoon for pedicures and shopping at The Plaza!  Fun times!

We had a great visit with them and we are so thankful that they came to see us!  It really means a lot!  We all played cards at night and had fun even though we let the guys win this time.  I mean every once in a while you have to let the boys win so that they keep playing with us!  :)

I just can't wrap my head around that we have been here a year!  It seems crazy all that has happened but I guess life just keeps on going!  Addyson's last day of Kindergarten is tomorrow and that is what I am really having a hard time believing.  I was up at school today for Field Day and they did a little preview of the 5th grade farewell that is tomorrow and I almost teared up thinking that in the blink of an eye that will be my baby!!  I just try to enjoy every minute with them that I can.  Here's to summer!! 

Ben's Christmas List

Ben is already making his Christmas list for next year!  Ha!  When ever he sees something that he wants, he says, "Can I ask Santa for that?"  :)  I always say, "Sure buddy!!" Of course you can! 

Here is what has made the list so far:

1.  Number one item by far is a TRUMPET.  He is really "in" to music these days and seems quite enthralled with trumpets.  He walks around pretend playing his trumpet.  Very cute!  We'll see if he is still in to this come next December
2.  A Harmonica.  This is for me to play while he plays the trumpet.  He really wants to ask Santa for one of these and then give it to me.  So sweet!
3.  Wooden boards that he can cut with a saw.  Yep!  This is what he is asking for! 

Love this little boy!

Also, I forgot one other funny story from my last post that I meant to include.  Ben frequently talks to himself in the mirror or he will go in the bathroom and shut the door and have conversations with his imaginary friends.  SOOO cute to listen in and hear what all he says.  So back when he was still in his crib (about a month ago) I went to get him up from his nap because I could hear him talking.  I walked in and smelled a dirty diaper.  He has been really good about going # 2 in the potty so I said, "Ben, why did you do that"  (I mean half way joking- not mad at him at all, but just asking).  He looked at me and shrugged his head to one side and got a little smirk on his face and he said, "That kid in the mirror told me to do it."  Hmmmmmm.  I said, "Really? Well what did that kid say?"  Ben: "He said Poop!!  And so I did!" (very matter of factly!)  Me:  laughed out loud.  Well, I guess that's a pretty good reason to poop in your pants.  The kid in the mirror yelled, Poop!

He is so funny!  :) 

Funny Ben moments

Ben has been doing several things lately that just plain make me laugh.  He is one funny guy!

So, of course, we have been potty training.  I would say by far, for us, boys have been harder.  He's just more inconsistent that Addyson was.  When Addyson was potty trained (2 years 8 months), she never had ONE accident.  She wore a pull up at night for probably 6 months, but during the day she never had accidents.  Not so much with Ben!  It's okay though.  I think we are mostly over the hump and he has not gone potty in his pants in about a week.  He's discovered that he can potty outside......which is good and bad.  Good because he doesn't just go in his pants when he doesn't want to come inside.  Bad because well, he's busting out the pee-pee and having fun peeing all over the yard.  Hmmmmm......moms of boys.....do you let your boys pee outside?  I can't decide if this is complete white trash or if it's okay in certain situations (like in our backyard only!!). 

Anyways, on to my funny story!  So when I take Ben into a bathroom when we are out anywhere (which he loves to frequent public restrooms- eww!) of course I go into the stall with him.  He give me very strict, military-like orders to stand in the corner and glue my feet together.  Ha!  It's pretty funny.  It started when we were in Mexico and he went potty in the bathroom.  He yelled, "Mom- in the corner" .......  "Feet together"  And of course I comply because when you are potty training you are just glad your child is going in the potty and you'll do anything really to get them to go.  It's now transpired into every time we are in the bathroom he give me my orders to face the wall and now it's moved from "Feet together" to "glue your feet together".  He doesn't apparently like to be watched while going to the bathroom!

Another thing Ben has been doing is busting out in full dance moves any time he hears a good song come on.  The boy LOVES to dance!  It's so cute too!  He has got some good moves!!  He is super in to music and instruments right now and he is mesmerized any time he sees a band playing or people singing.  When we were at Six Flags back over Spring Break he did not want to ride rides after he saw this live band playing.  He could have sat there all day watching the band!  He also makes his own band at home all the time.  He has a guitar and drum sticks and he sets up chairs and everything to do his concerts.  Oh yes, and he sings as well.  He won't do any of this on demand though.  You have to catch him in the act if you want to see any singing or dancing!

Tonight as I was putting him to bed he told me, "Mommy you are my best friend and I love you the most".  I mean, really, what else does a mom ever need to hear?  Love this boy!  Here's a few pics of my little man:

 The other day he got into the car and put this hat on that was on the floor.  It was chilly, but not that cold! 

Being silly!

Extreme Home Makeover

We have been doing some fun house projects lately!  If you know Ryan and I, we LOVE projects!  Well, let's put it like this.  I love the ideas and planning and picking out stuff and then Ryan executes it.  We're a great team, really!  :)  I love that Ryan is very project oriented and he gets the job done right and in a timely manner.  He HAS to complete projects all in one sitting (or weekend).  He doesn't leave it lingering for weeks on end.  I love that about him!

What I REALLY wanted to do with this post is put the  "before" pics of our house on here.  Like before we even moved in because that is an extreme home makeover post in itself.  However, those pictures are on a hard drive from my old computer and they are not exactly cooperating with being put onto my new Mac.  So, I'll have to keep working on that!  For now, I have some before and afters, but the Before's are not the TRUE befores.  Make sense?  :) 

In February we got LOTS of snow.  Ryan knew we were expected to get snowed in for a few days so he quickly thought of a project he could do.  Oh yes, the fireplace!  We have hated the tile since we moved in, but didn't quite know what we wanted to do with it.  We saw some rock at the fireplace store when we were getting gas logs and we both liked it and decided this is what we should do.  It wouldn't be too much of a project because Ryan could lay the rock right on top of the tile.  Perfect! 

This is the before.  Yucky cream colored tile around the fireplace.  Mind you, before we moved in there was a lovely brass fireplace cover over the opening and all the white wood was honey oak.  I promise I'll figure out a way to post those pics.  They are awful!  

Rock on the bottom......

Rock all the way around!  Looks good!  

Oh but wait.  Sorry honey, but I really think we have to do the backs of the bookshelves too.  They look horrible with the white background.  I think it would look great with rock on the backs of those too!  :)  See, like I said, I have the ideas.  Ryan executes! 

Looking back I am horrified at how "plain" this looks!  Yikes!  I always knew it needed something, but I didn't know what!

Much better!!

Much Much better!!  This isn't the best picture with the light, but you get the idea.  It really warms up the whole room!

Project 2:  Furniture makeover! 

When we moved in we brought all of our furniture for our old house.  We bought it for that house and it "fit" that house perfectly!  It was great!  Well, it wasn't so great for our Kansas house.  It was much too big for the room and I never really liked it.  Back in February when our moms came up to visit we went furniture shopping, met with a designer who helped us to pick our furniture that would fit the room to scale much better and wa-la.  8 weeks later it was delivered!  We LOVE the way it turned out! 

I don't think I took official "before" pics, so I'll just have to find a few that will do so you get the idea!  Oh wow- looking back I did not have a great picture of the living room at all.  I'm telling you- I wasn't in there all that much because I didn't like it!  Ha!  Guess no one was- there were no good pics!  Here's the best i could do:

Big clunky couch in front of the windows.  This picture is Dustin sleeping and Ryan trying to make him sneeze by putting pepper under his nose.  :)

You can see a little bit here....the couch was overpowering the room!

My fav little nephews! 

Oh yes, and remember this??  This is what our couch looked like for the first 5 weeks here because the moving company LOST the other half of our couch.  Nice!!!  Ugg- I hated living so disheveled!!  

And now the after pics! 

We love the furniture but OBVIOUSLY we need some accessories to tie it all together!  The furniture fits so much better in the room and we feel it is SOO much bigger than before! 

Friday Ryan and I went accessory shopping.  I love Ryan's input on this and I think he might be part metro, because he always picks out the good stuff.  :)  He has a good eye for decorating.  We got most of this stuff home and I messed around with it for an hour and I couldn't make it look right.  He came up in 5 minutes and arranged the sofa table and I love it!

Found the picture and it was PERFECT for our room.  Had all of the colors we used and really tied everything together!  The sconces were from our old house.  Glad we kept those!  The lanterns are my fav.  The candles are flameless and they are on a timer.  They turn on every day at 7:00 and stay on for 4 hours and turn off automatically.  Love them! 

The other view!  It is so cozy- we love it!  

Disney Cruise 2013

Over Spring Break we went on our first Family fun trip, a Disney Cruise.  It was SOOOO much fun and I am so glad that we went and have such great memories of it all!  When I say our first family trip, I mean the first trip with just the 4 of us.  It was great fun and I have LOTS of pictures to share! 

We drove down on Tuesday morning (the morning of our cruise).  We left Arlington at around 7:45 and got in to Galveston about 5 hours later.  We ran in to some traffic and had 2 stops, so it took a little longer than expected.  Here we are at the terminal where Ryan dropped us off and he went to park the car. 

Kids being silly! 

 The check-in process was a BEATING to say the least.  Not a great start to the trip!  The computer systems were down/intermittent and so it took us a GOOD 2 HOURS to check in and get on the ship.  This was not great for Ben, who was tired and hungry and I didn't have much to give him.  We were planning on getting on the boat and having lunch, so this was delayed a little!  We FINALLY got on and quickly changed into our swimsuits!  Here is my little diva! 

 Actually, before we could go to the pool, we grabbed some lunch (more on that later, but I wasn't super impressed with the lunch options on the boat!). Then we had the mandatory safety drill.  Talk about clausterphobic!  It was quite embarassing as Ben screamed/cried the entire time as he was SO tired.  This boy can't go without a nap!  I kept apologizing for him but he was so worn out.  If we do this again, I think we would get down there the day before.  It was just too much to do all in one day.  We went directly back to the room so Ben could nap.  He slept for 3 hours and then we were good to go for the evening!  We missed the show the first night because he was asleep and I'm so sad we missed it!  The shows were my favorite part of the cruise and had I known how great they were, we would have gone that first night!

Characters were around the ship at all times.  One of the best things I bought before the trip was an autograph book for each kid.  This was awesome!  We carried them with us at all times and got autographs and pictures.  Its a fun keepsake to have!  Beside each autograph page is a page for a picture.  I got these at the Disney store or you can order them on-line.  This is a must have item!  

The kids with Chip and Dale!

Ryan and the kiddos

Me and my babies!

And all 4! 

The famous Mickey Mouse!  Ben's fav!

 We had the late seating at dinner.  That means dinner STARTED at 8:15.  Some of you might think we were crazy- and I was a little unsure before the cruise as well!  The 2 dinner options are 5:15 and 8:15.  When I booked, the 8:15 was the only option available.  So, 8:15 it was!  Turns out, it worked out great for us!  Ben was usually still asleep at 5:15 and that would have been way too early for us to be there.  The 8:15 was a little late most nights (7:30 would have been a perfect time), but I'm glad we had this instead of the early one.  Every night (minus the first) we would get up from naps (Ben had to have one every day), get ready and be at the 6:15 show.  The show was over by 7:15 and we would walk around and get autographs for the next hour.  It was fun!  At the show we always had some snacks to hold everyone over!

hanging out before dinner! 

 So, that brings me to the first night at dinner!  Addyson fell asleep and I ended up single-momming it as Ryan got sea sick.  At this point, I was like GRRREEEAAAT.  Ryan is going to be laid up the whole time and I'm going to be chasing our two lovlies around all by myself.  Not fun!  Luckily he felt great the next morning and was good to go the rest of the time.  We had good weather- it wasn't rough at all! 

Addyson sleeping.....Ryan had a full plate of dinner before he had to make a B-line for the room

Ben sitting in my lap that night at dinner being silly!

 Day 2!  Princess Day!  Ben loved this just as much as his sissy did!!  Ryan skipped breakfast to get us a good spot in line.  This helped tremendously as the line was 2 hours long for people at the end.  We only waited less than 5 minutes!  Thanks Dad!!  Addyson dressed up in her princess dress to meet all the princesses!

They were all so sweet.  They would chat with each child and hug them.  So cute!

LOVE Ben's smile here!!!  He loved this!

 The kids went to the Kids Club some and Ryan and I played Bingo.  No winning tickets for us!!  :(

 The pool.  Oh the pool.  The very small pool.  First thing Addyson said was that she wanted to go to the REAL pool.  I told her this was it!  She wasn't too impressed!  There were millions of kids.  Not a lot of room.  I'm glad my kids were old enough where I didn't have to be in there with them.   Its only about 2 feet deep but its chaos!  Ben didn't seem to mind! 

Ben was jumping off the sides.  I was a bit nervous, but all ended up well! 

Me and Addyson looking at the water.  Ryan couldn't go out there with us- it made him queasy to look at the water!  Ha! 

Me and my girl!

Kids being silly!

Meeting Minny Mouse!  Love how Addyson is lifting up her dress! 

Hugs!

More hugs!  The kids felt so special!

One of their favorite things to do was lay in these big port holes.  They had a window to the water.  Fun!

Daddy getting kisses at dinner! The kids were so good on the trip! 

Addyson went to "girls night" in the kids club one evening.  They did nails and make-up.  She loved it!  Ben went to the "guys night" at the other kids club and poor thing.....when we went to pick them up at like 11:00 (way too late- I know!) Ben was like slumped over in a chair in the corner half passed out/asleep.  Poor baby!!  I felt so bad! 

 These next pics crack me up!  Addyson loved my hat, as you can tell!  This was our Cozumel day!  Eating a quick breakfast before heading off the ship!

Haaaa!  She posed like this on purpose!  She thought it was glamorous!

 We are off the boat!  We went back and forth on whether or not to get off the boat in Cozumel.  Most of the excursions Ben was not old enough for and the beach excursion was ALL day and I didn't want to commit to that either.  Last minute, we decided to grab a taxi and go to Paradise Beach.  I am glad we did- we had a great time and fun memories!  Ben was in a silly mood that day and he had me laughing all day!  Love that boy! 

The beach was rocky getting in and the kids did not like it.  "Hairy Rocks" as Addyson said.  Ewwww!!!  So, we hung out mostly at the pool.  It was great!

Yes, I know I look VERY pale and quite distorted here.  Oh well- it makes me remember how much fun we had.  Addyson was swimming around and Ben was being so silly!  Lots of laughing! 

 On our way back to the boat we stopped for some pics with a parrot.  When I showed these pictures to family and friends they all asked, Is that parrot dead?  Okay.  Would I let my kids hold a dead parrot in Mexico???  I'm a little too OCD for that!  No, the parrot was alive and it would lay in your arms!  The kids loved it! 

 Almost back on the ship!  I look rough here. ....but its the only pic with us and the boat! 

 That night was Pirate Night.  What a fun day/night!!  The kids loved dressing up and being in pirate character!  They did a big show that night with fireworks and Mickey zip-lining across the boat to get Captain Hook.  So fun!!! 

Love this!

Arrrrrrrrrr!!!

Pirate or Gangsta?  He did not want to see Captain Jack Sparrow and he got all shy.  I think he looks like a little gangsta here! 

Addyson with Jack Sparrow.  He looked just like Johnny Depp!

 The kids loved seeing Mr. Smee and Captain Hook!  Captain Hook kept messing with Ben and he was laughing so hard! 

Love Ben's smile here!

Ben still in true pirate form!

 We ordered milk and cookies from room service one night at MIDNIGHT.  Ugg!  We were so spent every night but I had told Addyson about this before the trip, so you know how that goes!  Didn't want to disappoint! 

 A pic of our sleeping arrangements!  Addy on top bunk! Ben on bottom!

 Addyson and Peter Pan.  Ben didn't want any part of this for some reason!

 We did crafts on the boat one day! 

 Character Dance Party!! 

Ben said, Mom take my picture I'm going to smile!!  :)

 Day 4- me and Addy hung out at the big kid pool while Ben napped one afternoon.  Fun times!  They had a movie playing and I had some yummy drinks! 

Standing in line for autographs!

Stitch!  He was so funny!

 And lastly- Addyson sporting my hat once again eating chicken fingers and drinking shirley temples.  Kids dream! 

And I had a mango daquiri!  Yumm!! 

This was a great trip that I would highly recommend!  I would, however, recommend your child be at least 3 before you go as you have to be 3 to do most of the stuff (kids club, etc).  There was so much to and we did not nearly get to everything!  The 4 nights was great for a first time cruise for all of us.  I think I would do longer when the kids get older.  One with more stops would be fun!!

My favorite thing was hanging out with my kids and Ryan in such a fun setting.  I LOVED the shows at night- they were SO GOOD!  The kids loved them too.  I will sound a bit cheesy saying this, but they truly were magical!  So many special effects and so well done.  I am so bummed we missed the first night's show! 

Ben's favorite thing in his words was "Mickey" and Addyson's favorite thing was swimming!

Ryan said his fav part was napping with Ben every day.  They would snuggle up in the same bed (the Queen) and have good daddy/Ben time!  In all honesty, Ryan said the trip was fun and it was not a beating for him.  That's always a good sign! 

Can't wait to do it again someday!!