9.12.2008

Fun Friday Morning

We were so excited to meet up with our friends, the Kitchens, at the indoor playground today! They have been out of town for most of the whole summer, so we have been missing our friends! Elise and Will play PERFECTLY together, and Mary Miller hangs tough with the twins.
One of the highlights is "bubble-time"....all of the kids love it! You can see Elise below dancing away!



Bennett loved this slide, and my little superman even went head first a few times!



All three of my monkeys climbing over the rainbow...





Playing at the Lego table (if you counting chewing on them and throwing them at each other as playing!)



Will and Elise taking a ride...



Mary Miller and Lila stuck in traffic...



It was a great way to spend a rainy day, and by the end of the morning everyone (including me!) was exhausted and ready for a good rainy day nap!

Our thoughts and prayers are with those weathering hurricane Ike tonight...we are so thankful we were spared, but hate that others are having to go through it....
Goodnight!
Love, Nicole

9.11.2008

Ballet








Elise had her very first dance class today. She has been sooo excited! In the first picture she is doing some "stretching" before we left. In the second one she is showing off the ballerina hair do she requested (I did my best!); and, in the third she was waiting for class to start!
In the few glimpses I caught through the window she looked like she was having a complete blast! Lila and Bennett were not the most cooperative, so I didn't get to watch as much as I would have liked, but there will be many more classes. She was especially excited to see some familiar faces of friends from her class last year!

In twin news, last night at Mimi and Grandpa's house (Wed Night Dinner) Bennett was practicing his walking..Lila walked up and grabbed his hand and they held hands and walked. It was the cutest thing ever. I am sooo sad I didn't have my camera. Lately, there have been many more moments where they are biting, hitting, or hair-pulling, and so I really wish I could have captured the very sweet moment they had last night! Hopefully it will happen again soon..

Has been a very busy week! I am loving being back in a very structured routine, although I have to admit I am a little worn out as well! Loading everyone in and out of the car is hard work!!! But, I wouldn't want be anywhere else!
I am looking forward to a quick trip to Nashville this Saturday morning to help Mo celebrate her big birthday! I'll just be gone one night, but I know we'll have a great time!

9.09.2008

Playing Catch Up

Feels like forever since I last posted and it has only been 5 days! We've packed a lot into those five days though! Our computer situation still has not been remedied, but I could not put off posting any longer. Too many things to write about that I don't want to forget! :) And, I am starting to get the hang of David's laptop...

I love this picture of Elise and Grandpa sitting on the porch. One of Grandpa's favorite things to do is to sit outside and watch the rain. So, when he and Mimi spent the night here waiting for their power to come back on, he and Elise watched the rain together. It was adorable.



I think this was on Saturday morning...I walked out of the kitchen for just a moment and returned to find Bennett having a blast with the plastic garbage bags. Obviously, because of the many dangers involved I could not continue to let him play with them, but I have to admit I did consider letting it go on because he was just so HAPPY! He loved the noise they made when he flapped them around....He is definitely turning into a little investigator...Too busy figuring out how things work to figure out how to walk!! In addition, his sisters' shoe obsession has rubbed off on him and he now pleads to have shoes on as well. Otherwise I wouldn't usually have shoes on him with his pj's!!



Sunday we woke up to find that we had some very unwelcome house guests!! Usually David gets the kids up and starts breakfast so that I can start getting ready for church. I heard him yelling and when I walked into the den I could see why. I swear our house had been taken over by ants overnight!!!!!! Millions of them were everywhere!!! We think they came in through the dishwasher looking for some dry ground (since there was NONE outside) and decided our house seemed nice enough! They were really EVERYWHERE! I like to think of myself as a calm person (or at least I try to be), but I definitely lost my calm. I was so panicky that I RUDELY called the Bristers looking for rubber gloves (Su is a cleaning pro) and didn't even think about the fact that it was 8 o'clock in the morning! Luckily, they are still talking to me (and of course, they had the gloves) and luckily we had two full bottles of Raid and so we went to town. Then we decided it would be best to just get the kids completely out of the house and away from the chemicals, so David took them out to breakfast in their pj's while I got rid of our house guests! Yikes!!
Some good did come out of the situation though....I don't think my floors have been that clean in months!! I was so paranoid about Bennett crawling around on ant killing chemicals that I scrubbed those floors with vinegar and water until they were spotless!
In addition, something else from that situation has had David and I cracking up today. Elise had a little tantrum earlier and was stomping around on the kitchen floor when I questioned her behavior.."Elise, is that the way to act when you don't get your way?"
She paused for just a quick moment and then said, "Mom, I am just getting one of those ants!"



This picture does not look that bad because they are all shriveled up and dead. But, I swear they were big and gross and scary when we saw them and there were about a million more than you can see in this picture!

In other big news this week, yesterday was Lila and Bennett's first day of Mother's Day out!
I had every intention of taking a cute little picture of them next to each other with their little school bags, but that didn't happen. At least I captured some shots of them on their first day!
They were happy to go to school and didn't seem to mind at all when I left! I had a little moment of sadness (my babies!), but I know that I really need the time to spend with Elise and to get errands done; and, I think it will be good for them to play with someone other than just each other. It was a little embarrassing to have to point out all of the bite marks that they have given each other (we are working on it, I promise) in order to insure that no little innocent child gets blamed for their injuries! In addition, the choreography of getting them into the classroom (Elise was with me too) was enough to keep my mind off of the fact that my babies are going to school! I was also laughing at the fact that they are the GIANTS of the classroom! Bennett is definitely the biggest one and it is really getting to the point that it just looks strange that this big boy cannot walk (or I should say doesn't want to walk!) The teaches said they had a great day and they were exhausted afterwards!



Lila with her "school" bag...



Bennett ready to go...



Elise had her first day of Preschool today! She was thrilled and did great! I was surprised that today was even more emotional for me with her than it was bringing the twins on their first day. Something about sitting in car-pool line just made me very sentimental. She practiced the new prayer she learned on the way home, which was very cute....and as the day has gone on she has remembered a few other things they learned- apparently "criss cross, applesauce, hands in the cookie jar" means sit with your legs crossed and your hands in your lap. She taught us how to do it...

In addition, here are a few "quotes of the day":
1. "Dad, how long is this time out going to be?"
2. "Su Su- I think that toy got broken in the storm" (As IF!)
3. "Su Su's house has a big bo-bo, but the big blue band aid (tarp) is going to fix it up"
4. Needs a little background...Kimberly had her over to play for a while on Monday while I ran some errands and when I picked her up I said, "Elise, now what do you say?" (prompting her to say thanks).....Instead, she walked up to Kimberly and said, "I'm sorry for not listening."
Gives you an idea of how much time she has spent in time out and how many times she has had to say those words to us this week!

I also realized that I forgot to document my most favorite story from our Brookhaven evacuation. We all took a walk one afternoon (babies in stroller, "big" girls on foot) and as we were walking we noticed one of those HUGE black grasshoppers...Just as Elise was oohing and ahhing over it Quinn saw it and made a mad dash towards it! When she reached him she proceeded to stomp on him as hard as she could! Elise's jaw dropped. David quickly said, "Oh look...the grasshopper went nite-nite". Under my breath I said, "yeah, permanently!". Elise seemed to accept that, but then Quinn chirpped up, "It's not nite-nite, I KILLED it!"
It was so hilarious. I worried Lissa might go into labor. It was even funnier with Quinn's adorable Mississippi accent! In Quinn's defense, she has been taught by her Gimme (Brad's Mom) that those grasshoppers are evil and will eat up your whole garden (their yard is beautiful!). Of course, since I am not much of a green thumb I did not realize this! So, I guess Quinn did all of the Brookhaven gardeners a favor!

Hope everyone is having a good one.
Goodnight!
Love, Nicole

9.04.2008

Enjoying Evacuation

Considering the circumstances, we had a GREAT week! When we first arrived in Brookhaven, the weather was beautiful...we encouraged the kids to play outside as much as possible while they could! Elise and Quinn had a great time swinging...

Quinn has tons of fun toys and she did such a great job sharing with Elise, Lila and Bennett! Elise would have stayed outside forever if she could have! Between the big girl bike, the scooter, the big wheels, and the fabulous Barbie Mustang- she was in heaven!! Here you can see her taking Bennett on a ride....I was WAY more comfortable when Quinn was driving, because her experience was obvious!

Unfortunately, our time outside was limited. The weather was rough in Brookhaven and we were in and out of power. During Katrina, we remembered watching a tree fall across their street, and during Gustav history repeated itself! A large oak fell on the power lines right near Brad and Lissa's- but fortunately, nobody and no one's house was damaged. David and I hope we aren't the ones bringing the bad luck to Brookhaven!!!
During one of the power outages, Brad's parents were nice enough to have us over to their house- where the power was still on. It was so fun to see them and to hang out with Brad's sister Betsy, her husband Nic, and their adorable little girl, Violet. They are also expecting a baby boy this fall! How fun that the little baby boy cousins will be so close in age!

Violet is just two months older than Lila and Bennett and so we let them have a dinner party together! Brad fried fish and it was DELICIOUS!!
Lissa has this antique couch that I think is really neat and comfortable, but I think she is trying to find a reason to get rid of it- she was fine with the kids using it as a trampoline, and it was a great way for them to expend some energy while being cooped up for so many days!
4 little monkeys jumping on a couch.....
Lissa also had a great idea to blow some bubbles inside and let the kids chase them...they loved it!

Here is just a small sampling of some of the artwork that Quinn and Elise worked on while we were there...they had a blast painting together!

The girls also enjoying dressing up as ballerinas (among other things) and dancing away! They are both starting ballet next week! They played soooo well together. I cannot imagine how drastically different our evacuation would have been had we been stuck in a hotel room. Elise and Quinn got along great, entertained each other really well, and 95% of the time brought out the best in each other. We would crack up at the conversations they had...They begged us to sleep in the same room, so we humored them and tried it...They were actually really great and just read books to each other! But, we eventually had to separate them for fear they would NEVER go to sleep!
We are so blessed to have such great friends that welcomed us into their home and treated us like family! We are so thankful!
Yesterday we were finally cleared to come home!! Yeah! We were very fortunate and had no damage to our house. Su Su and G's house has a big "bo-bo", as Elise says, but it definitely could have been worse considering the amount they trees they have. The beautiful trees are one of the reasons we love our neighborhood, but during hurricanes they can be a little scary! We had a "slumber party" last night with Mimi and Grandpa- they stayed here because they still didn't have power...they were thankful to hear that it was back on this morning, but the kids were especially sad that they had to leave!
David has been busy trying to get the yard cleaned up before he has to return to work and Elise has been happy to help!
Other than that we are just counting our blessings and looking forward to returning to a "normal" routine! I am dying to get back into some type of work-out schedule and the kids are DEFINITELY ready for school. I do think they will have an adjustment being away from David when he heads back to work..between our beach trip and our Gustav "trip", they have been getting lots of quality time with Dad. Definitely one of the positive things about the whole evacuation situation!


Game Day



As many of you know last Saturday was not only "evacuation day" but it was also LSU's first home game! Go Tigers! So, in that spirit, as we escaped from the hurricane, we also decked out the kids in their Tiger-wear!



It is hard to see, but Lila's bloomers say "Go Tigers!"



Lila and Bennett "checking their email" one last time before we hit the road...

I was almost jealous of the kids and how excited they were to go on our "trip"! Although we were thrilled to spend time with the Boerner family, it was very scary leaving the house not knowing what we would be coming back to...We are so blessed that Gustav was not as bad as they originally predicted!