Playing with the Elliotts

We drove down to visit Daniel's parents on Sunday afternoon. We had a pizza picnic at the park. (Say that 5 times fast! lol) His folks had kindly agreed to let the girls stay with them for a few days while we finished moving furniture, painting the house, and having carpet installed.

It was very hot outside, but the girls really enjoyed playing at Strickland park. Daniel and Gloria climbed up opposite sides of this rock wall and gave each other a kiss at the top. When Danya made it to the top I reached up and shook her hand from the other side. Both girls were so proud of themselves for getting up there all by themselves. Daniel was pretty proud of himself too, maybe because this time last year he may have been too out of shape to make it up there so fast.

It really was a beautiful day. The girls stayed Sunday night through Wednesday afternoon with their grandparents. They made marble paintings, took walks, played on the tire swing, and made crafts. They are really looking forward to going back to Grandma's house this coming Sunday for an Easter egg hunt with the Maxwell cousins.

BOK and PAC visit

We had ALOT of change after last weekend's garage sale. So we brought the entire box of coins to Tulsa to the downtown branch of our bank, located in the BOK tower. That tower is connected to the building that Daniel works in.

The girls enjoyed the revolving doors, riding the escalators, tossing pennies into the fountain, and getting their hands stamped and free suckers at the bank. They took our coins and sent them to the underground vault where they would be counted and then the total would be credited to our checking account. It wound up being about $35 in change.

We also walked out across the bridge that connects the second floor of the tower to the parking garage across the street. The top of the garage has been turned into a little park that butts up against the Performing Arts Center (PAC). We walked around the park and took this picture of Gloria under a giant statue of a ballerina. Last of all, we went to a Borders book store and got each of us a new book. Altogether it was a fun little outing!

Extreme Bear Makeover!

Gloria was in tears Thursday night because her favorite bear, Brownie, was coming apart at the seams. Brownie belonged to Daniel's dad when he was little. He's getting pretty old and threadbare. So we did some repair work on him this weekend.

I stitched his ear back on, since it was hanging by a thread. Then, since he only had one button eye left, I removed it and put new matching button eyes on that Gloria got to choose herself. We decided to leave his nose for now until we find a good replacement.

In an odd coincidence, when we were cleaning out the garage on Tuesday we came across a box of Daniel's chilhood photos including an old postcard that has a picture of a bear that looks identical to Brownie on it (minus the clothes, since those were added by Daniel's mom years ago). Hopefully we can keep Brownie holding together so that one day he can be passed on to one of our grandkids.

Hiding the Baby

Do I look 6 1/2 months pregnant in this picture? I tried to stand in such a way as to hide my pregnancy a little when we would get onto rides so that they wouldn't kick me off. Since every ride including the little kid rides had those signs that suggest you don't ride if you're pregnant, I decided that it was mostly to prevent law suits.

So I rode the giant boat that swings back and forth about 5 times because the girls liked it so much and also the Wild Cat roller coaster twice since it's fairly tame and didn't hurt my belly at all. The one mistake I made was wearing a sleeveless maternity shirt. I went home with a mildly painful sunburn on my shoulders and chest. Thankfully, the girls didn't get burned at all.

One of the highlights of the day was when Daniel got chosen to assist in the magic show! He had to verify the restraints and the female assistant were all real. I think the best thing of all though, was that the girls had grown just enough that they could both ride some of the bigger rides. We bought the souvenir photo of the girls riding on a real grown-up size roller coaster with us for the first time ever. They loved it so much they immediately said, "Let's go again!"

Yard Sale and Frontier City!

We had a garage sale last weekend that went extraordinarily well. Over the course of two days we made about $350! Most of that was from selling kid's clothing and scrapbook supplies. We sold all but a couple of items for just a quarter a piece.

Saturday night Danya asked if we had made enough money to go to Frontier City. We had planned earlier this year to try to go to Disney World..but that didn't happen. Then we thought maybe Frontier City, but decided to use the money to replace our carpet and tile instead. Friday night Daniel's work informed him that his schedule has changed and he suddenly had Sunday off. So we decided to go on the spur of the moment.

We didn't realize it was opening weekend, but it worked out fine. There were almost no lines at all and we got to ride everything we wanted to except the swings which were temporarily closed. We all had a great weekend!

The Cleaning Crew

We recently hired a wonderful new cleaning crew to scrub down the play structure in our back yard. They swept and washed every inch of it from the slides, to the rock walls, to the stools and other accessories.

They don't do windows, but fortunately the only actual window in the structure is the plastic sky light.

Both girls were very professional and even dressed in matching "uniforms" before beginning work. The best part was that the entire cleaning job was their idea in the first place!

The play structure looked great for about a week before a bad storm blew it over and it got covered in mud and bugs. I guess we'll just have to see if they are available to come clean it again for us on the next sunny day!

The Apprentice

Danya got to help Grandpa Wayne and Daniel lay the new tiles in the entry hall and the kitchen. She was fascinated by all the different tools they used. The tools were on loan courtesy of our friendly neighborhood supply store...A.K.A. our neighbor, Shane.

Wayne has laid a lot of tile over the years since he is the head of maintenance at my old high school. He was installing those tiles so fast, it was a thing of beauty to watch! He made it look so easy. But then Daniel, attempting to lay tile for the first time ever, showed how hard it really is if you aren't experienced at it. Together, though, they made a good team. I'm glad that the girls got to participate, since it's not a typical "girl job". I want them to feel confident and capable at any task.

Memory Makers

Grandma Nancy helped Danya make her memory box as part of the projects required to complete her workbook from church. In the box she is supposed to put little things like a letter to herself saying what becoming a Christian means to her and a photo of her getting baptized. She's also memorizing scripture and basically getting prepared to make that big decision. She's been saying that she wants to ask Jesus into her heart and get baptized for a long time now, and this is our way of making sure she fully understands how important the decision is before she makes it. She really got a kick out of having Grandma there to help her make her memory box.

Green Pudding?

Since we had to cancel our weekly homeschooling get together with the Millers last week, we did all our St. Patrick's Day activities and crafts this Thursday instead. We watched a Veggie Tales video about St. Patrick and found Ireland on the globe. Then the girls made Shamrock people. They accordian folded the arms, used a paper crimper on the legs, and attached little Sizzix die cut hands and some black boots that I freehand cut. Then they drew faces and clothes on them.

Next they went on a hunt for a pot of gold (chocolate coins), while Betsy and I gave them directions playing "hot and cold". Finally they got to shake up jars full of powdered vanilla pudding, milk, and green food coloring. They had that for a snack. The girls also played "Parcheesy" a new board game that Courtney got for her birthday.

Tile Tales

Thursday morning we went shopping for new tile and carpet. We found the ones we wanted at Lowe's. Then we went over to Home Depot to see if they had a similar tile for less. They didn't, but the girls really enjoyed driving around in their shopping carts!

When Daniel went to consult our neighbor, Shane, for advice we discovered that he and Missy have the exact same tile in their kitchen! He loaned Daniel a bunch of his tools and showed him what kind of cleaner to get for the floors before laying the new tiles.

When we told people we were installing new carpet we got the same advice from everyone, "Hire a professional!" So we have a guy coming out next week to take measurements and give us an estimate. Hopefully within the next couple of weeks we'll get the carpets replaced. I'll post a picture when the work is done.

Moving Out, Moving In

We decided that the house we'd most like to live in...is our own. As we looked at houses in the surrounding neighborhoods and compared their positives and negatives, and as we continued to de-clutter our home, we realized that our house is still ideal for us. So we are going to take the money we have available and the money we'll be saving by not having a larger house payment and utilities bills, and use it to invest in our current home.

We are replacing the tile and carpets, and then we'll start on a long list of other improvements. In the meantime, we are going to have a couple of massive yard sales and get rid of all the clutter we've removed from our home. With so much junk and excess furniture gone, our house is looking a lot bigger, so we should have plenty of room for Kevin when he arrives. We're also downsizing our homeschooling and scrapbooking materials. We're getting rid of everything we can't use or are unlikely to use anytime in the near future. Then we're going to store the remainder in two cabinets that we already own and not allow those materials to outgrow their cabinets.

Finally, I thought I'd add this pretty picture of our house that Daniel took this week when we had snow for about 12 hours.

Sara Sleeps Over

The girls have been wanting to have a sleepover with their friend Sara for a while now. Unfortunately they keep getting sick. So it's been postponed a few times. Last Wednesday it finally all worked out.

They played at McDonald's for lunch and then came home and spent the rest of the day doing "girl stuff". They came out of Danya's room in quite a few different interesting dressup outfits. They played classical music on their CD player and danced in ballerina costumes all around the living room. In this picture Danya was reading out loud to Sara while Sara was looking at the pictures through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars.

They had fun staying up late giggling and whispering in Danya's room. We took Sara to her daycare (since school is out for Spring Break) after breakfast. Both of the girls were already asking when they could have another sleep over!

De-Cluttering or Nesting?

So about a week ago we went and took a look at our neighbors' house that's for sale. It's about four houses down from ours and twice the size. Ever since then we've had the "moving bug". Suddenly we realized that our house seemed way too small for us. We would like to have a separate room to put our homeschooling things and my scrapbooking things in. We'd like the girls to have a bigger bedroom too.

We have a realtor friend, Stacie Casler, in our Sunday school class and she came over and talked to us about our options and showed us what homes similar to ours were selling for in our neighborhood. She said that they are selling on average in about 60 days. She also said that if we wanted to sell our home we would have to seriously de-clutter to make our house look bigger. She recommended we get a storage unit and box up anything that wasn't absolutely essential. So we've been doing just that. Right now all the boxes are going into the garage, but once we are ready we'll get a little storage unit at the place a few blocks from our house. They are having a half price sale for the next few months. We also plan to ask Stacie to come over after we finish our de-cluttering and give us advice for what else we can do to make the place sell faster and better.

Above is a picture of the first room we've fully finished, Danya's room. The 'before' picture was actually taken at the half-way point. The top shelf of the closet was originally dangerous because you never knew when dress up hats, pom-poms, and toys might come crashing down on your head. We also removed about two garbage bags full of clothes that were too small for the girls. But we STILL had too many clothes to fit in their dresser, so we bought and assembled the tan cabinet shown in the 'after' picture above. We still have alot more work to do on the rest of the house, but it's good to see real progress!

St. Patrick's Day Fellowship

Happy St. Patrick's Day! This is a special day in our family for three reasons. One, my little brother Patrick was born on St. Pat's Day 24 years ago. Two, Daniel's little sister Jennie was married on St. Pat's in 2001. Three, I'm Irish on my mother's side. This year we had an extra special day because it was also the 20-somethings class fellowship night at our church. We played air hockey, ping-pong, foosball, basketball, and video games interspersed with gabbing with friends and eating ice cream. Unfortunately, the one thing I forgot to do was take a family photo of all of us wearing green.

Now for a funny family story about being Irish. A few years ago my older brother Shane went on his first ever business trip to NYC. He hailed a cab outside his hotel and asked the driver to take him to a bar, any bar, since he'd never been to NY before. The cabbie said, "You want an Irish bar, right?" My brother was confused and asked him why he would think that automatically. The cabbie said my brother looked obviously Irish...my brown-haired blue-eyed brother with a slight Okie accent who doesn't look a bit Irish as far as we knew. My brother was still wondering what made the cabbie assume he was Irish, so the cabbie said, "I can tell you're Irish. What's your last name?" My brother laughed and told him that his last name is Shields, which is actually a German name. The cabbie just said, "Yes, but what was your mother's maiden name?" Then my brother grinned sheepishly and admitted that our mom's maiden name was Fitzgerald, an Irish name. Those NYC cab drivers are pretty sharp.

Incredible Birthday!

Last Thursday, March 16th, we attended the Miller girls' joint birthday party at Incredible Pizza in Tulsa. Megan is now three and Courtney is five. We had an awesome time! They gave out lots of game cards and the girls ran from one game to the next. They really liked playing putt-putt with Courtney and Megan.

One of the favorite rides was the merry-go-round because several kids could ride it at once. I liked anything that had a bench near it, so I could sit down while the kids played, lol.

Betsy made two amazing birthday cakes for her girls. They were both made to look like the dresses of a Barbie doll. You can see the edge of the yellow cake in the picture. Each doll was holding up a sign with one of the girls' names on it. We gave the girls books by Eric Carle for birthday gifts. Since they both, Megan especially, really liked reading "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" at the zoo the other day, we thought they'd like more of his books.

The Graduates - Danya and Gloria!

We finished our first year of homeschooling! Since we started in June of last year, we were able to complete the 180 day requirement early. Now we are taking a sort of long spring break for a couple of weeks.

As a celebration for doing so well this year we drove down to visit grandma and grandpa. We had dinner at C.C.'s Pizza and then went to see "The Shaggy Dog". We had planned to have a little ceremony at the library to give them their graduation certificates and take their picture, but we ran out of time. We all really liked the movies and the girls liked being the center of attention.

On the following Thursday they also got to tell their cousins that they had graduated. Daniel's parents, his sister Robin, and all the Maxwell cousins drove up in the R.V. to Keystone Lake during their spring break last week. We brought the girls' bikes and roller blades with us. So all the cousins shared those and had a great time playing together. Gloria fell off the top bunk of the R.V. and hurt her back, then she fell asleep in the van while all the other kids played at the park. It was an eventful day!

6 Months Pregnant

I fully intended to take a picture of my belly each month of this pregnancy. But with all the miscarriages last year I almost felt like I'd be tempting fate or something if I took a picture during the first few months. So now that Kevin seems to be doing great I'll try to get a picture once a month from here on out. Yes, here I am at 6 months pregnant in all my stretch-marked glory.

What's really weird is when I go to sit down or bend over and it feels like an arm or a leg of his is getting squished for a moment. He's moving so much lately that it feels like I swallowed a frisky puppy! I saw this pregnant woman at the doctor's office recently who's belly was more than twice the size of mine! She was this skinny young woman who looked like she was going to tip over at any moment! I already feel like a whale, so it's making me nervous to think I have a little over 3 months still to go...or should I say grow?

A Really Great Blog!

If you haven't seen this blog you should: Living a Full Life Today I read this person's blog for the first time and literally laughed so hard my sides hurt. Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only person who has some serious concerns about the state of our educational system. If you do, too, this blogger has a great post that you should read: Educational State But the absolute best thing I read was her post about the comments she gets about having a big family and her polite and not-so-polite responses: Rude Comments This blogger will definitely be added to my favorite blogs bookmarks!

Fancy Family Dinner

The girls and I made a special dinner for daddy tonight. While he was sleeping we cleaned the house and set the table with the best dishes. After we made banana bread we made meatloaf. The girls really got into squishing the ingredients together. Here's a picture of Danya forming it into a loaf.

After we finished preparing the meal of meatloaf, banana bread, and corn, we all ran off and got dressed up pretty. Then we put on a CD of love songs, turned down the lights, and woke up Daniel. We told him to put on a nice shirt and tie. He was very surprised and the girls were just beaming, grinning from ear to ear with pride. They also got to be special tonight using real glasses instead of plastic cups. Gloria said, "If someone came to our house right now they would think there's FOUR grownups at the table!"

Homemade Banana Bread

As a special surprise for Daniel, the girls and I decided to make banana bread. We had just the right amount of bananas that were about to go bad, and after a quick call to my favorite source of cooking advice, Betsy, we were ready to get cookin'! Danya and Gloria were excited to finally get to use their new aprons that they made last week. Here's the recipe we used:

Banana Bread
3 bananas mashed
1 C. sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 C. vegetable oil
2 C. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mash bananas. Add sugar, eggs, and oil. Sift dry ingredients together and add to banana mixture. Pour in greased 5 x 9 loaf pan and bake 55-60 minutes.

Gloria liked making huge white clouds of flour while sifting it. Danya liked smushing the bananas and she kept singing, "Smush it like ya just don't care!" Me? I loved the heavenly smells filling the house while it was baking. It turned out to be absolutely delicious!

A Great Big Love

Gloria sang with her pre-KICK choir last Sunday night at church. When she was singing...which wasn't the entire time since she was being a little obstinate, she sang adorably. They sang songs like, "I've got a great big love in my little heart for Jesus". It was extremely cute!

Every so often she would just completely quit participating, and judging by the expression on her face, I think she was just doing it to see if she could get away with it. I was in the second row giving her the "straighten up right now or else" signals, so she grinned mischievously and started singing and doing the motions again.

She's been running up to me and singing to my belly every chance she gets lately. She likes to hold her hand on my belly and sing to see if Kevin will start kicking. Sometimes he seems to be reacting to the sound of her voice! He's kicking ALOT lately. It's really fun to lay in the bathtub and watch my belly jump and the water move from the force of his kicks. Gloria likes to come into my room in the mornings and wake me up. Then she'll crawl into bed with me and lay down with her hand on my belly patiently waiting for the baby to kick. Gloria is definitely excited about becoming a big sister.

YMCA Skate Night

Tonight we joined some friends at the YMCA for skate night. The only problem? We don't skate. We were able to find a pair that I picked up for $3 at a garage sale last year that fits Gloria. The girls and I went out this afternoon and bought Danya her first ever pair of roller blades. Then after dinner we took Daniel to buy a pair because he has completely lost his old pair. (Not to mention they were about 12 years old)

When we got Danya's skates I let her hold onto the shopping cart handle and skate all the way across the store to the checkout lane. The clerk cut the security wire off the skates and Danya skated out to the car. At the Y, she amazed us even further by skating all by herself! They were skating on a basketball court, so it wasn't as slippery. Danya encouraged Gloria, and she started skating on her own, too! I was soo proud of them! They even participated in a race! So did Daniel, which was amusing since he hasn't skated in a few years. I was impressed with how well he kept his balance despite spending most of the night with one or more little girls clinging to him and slipping and sliding all over the place. The Y is having another skate night next month and I hope we get to go to that one, too, even if I can't skate because of the baby. We all had a great time!

Jess Bloggin' Along

This is a picture Daniel caught of me updating my blog at the Haley's house in Texas. I have to admit...it's becoming an addiction. Since I know that people regularly check my blog to see what's new, I can't go more than a couple of days without adding something. If I have pictures sitting on my camera I feel guilty if I don't get them downloaded to my PC and then quickly added to my blog. I know it's nuts. The blog police aren't going to come looking for me if I don't update often enough...although Jennie might, lol.

I love looking at the little counter at the bottom of my blog to see how many people have viewed it recently. Currently it's saying that there have been 2,859 views. That's counting individuals, not how many times the same person has come back to view it again. That number is even higher.

I don't have any friends who blog...or at least not any that admit it. No, in my corner of the world it's my own private little addiction. My only wish is that more people would leave comments. It's a little egocentric, I know, but I can't help enjoying the knowledge that my words, my life, my blog, are affecting people...most of whom I don't even know! So, this is me. Blogging merrily along. Thanks for joining me!

Aprons and Bibs

We went to Hobby Lobby before heading over to the Miller's house. I was looking for shape templates, but didn't find any. What I DID find were $2 aprons and bibs that the kids could decorate and fabric markers were on sale! So each of the girls decorated their own apron, red for the younger girls and white for the older ones. The adults each got to decorate a bib for baby Kevin. I was thinking that bib decorating would be a great activity for a baby shower. Each lady could make one for the new baby. I might have to try that at my shower!

Betsy had some shape, letter, and animal templates that we all used and the fabric markers worked out well. We had originally considered buying fabric paint and letting the girls stamp images onto the aprons, but the markers were a much less messy option. I used the letter templates to put Kevin's name on one of the bibs. Then Danya drew hearts all around it. Even Daniel made a bib! The girls are excited about getting to wear their new aprons when they help in the kitchen!

Shape Race!

This Thursday afternoon it was our turn to provide the activity for our weekly homeschool get together with the Millers. I had planned to do a St. Patrick's Day theme, but everything went wrong. The shamrock stickers to make cards with fell out of our shopping cart and we didn't notice...so the cardmaking was out. Our computer decided to no longer recognize our printer..so I couldn't print out coloring sheets or activities. Argh!!

Instead we cut out a bunch of shapes and taped them all over the Miller's house. Then we had the girls race to find each shape. They absolutely loved it! Little Megan amazed her mommy with all the shapes she knew. They thought it was extremely funny sticking the shapes all over themselves. I was planning to do this with paper shamrocks, but I think the shapes worked out much better.

Church Job

Thursday morning we took a childcare job up at the church during women's bible study. We were helping take care of about 13 kids of various ages. A friend had told us the night before that they really needed extra help and we figured Danya and Gloria would enjoy playing with the other kids.

It went pretty smoothly for the most part. We got to snuggle some little ones in the rocking chair and deal with a few tantrums with background noise provided by Veggie Tales videos. Our girls each made a new friend and we all had access to all the goldfish crackers we could eat. Not a bad way to spend a morning.

Activity for Couch Potatos

What a day! This morning Daniel dropped off the van to get the brakes fixed. We were getting tired of listening to the annoying squealing sound it was making. They had to replace the front and back brakes, the driver side rotor, and the rear wheel cylinder. And now, happily, no more squealing!

The owner of the auto mechanic place gave Daniel a ride home. When it was time to pick up the van at about noon, we decided to walk. We walked the girls over to the local drop-in childcare center. On the way a giant dog without a collar followed us and scared the girls. Then Daniel and I continued walking, just over a mile, to pick up the van.

Next door to the mechanic shop was a pool supply store that had a little sign in the window that said, "Bookstore Upstairs". I, being the book junkie that I am, had to investigate. They sell used books and take trade-ins. We just happened to have a trunk FULL of books that we were planning to donate to the library. So we traded some of them in and got a little stack of different books basically free. Don't you love the barter system?

Next we had lunch and then went to Wal-mart to look for a new DVD player. Our old one was a birthday present for Daniel about 6 years ago and it keeps freezing up and the remote no longer works. Above is a picture of the new one we bought. It actually records DVDs, so we've hooked it up to our TV/VCR so that we can try to transfer some of our older VHS tapes onto DVD. The girls have some old "Mary Kate & Ashley Olsen" videos that are starting to wear out. I'm also thinking about recording "Grey's Anatomy", my new favorite TV show. I'm exhausted from all the walking today, so tonight sounds like an excellent time to try out the DVD player.

Special Reading Time

It was Gloria's 'special day' yesterday, so she got to stay up an hour late. At the same time, Danya gets 30 minutes to stay up reading on nights when we are at home by bedtime. In an unusual twist, last night Gloria asked if Danya could read to her for part of her special time.

Danya is at a strange stage in her reading. She can read lots of words, but still struggles on difficult words. That makes it tough during silent reading, because she isn't supposed to get out of bed to come ask us for help with words. The other night she tried reading a book about the medical profession, but they had words like "paramedic" in it, which she should be able to sound out. However, she gets intimidated when she sees longer words and we have to remind her to break it into smaller parts.

Speaking of reading, I just finished reading to the girls our latest book "Ramona's World" by Beverly Cleary. They liked it so much that I'm considering getting the other books about Ramona. I think reading books that are advanced for the girls gets them excited to learn to read better and faster so that they can read those kinds of books. So far it seems to be working.

Playdates and Park Adventures

Emma came over yesterday around 11am for a playdate with Danya. They thought it was great that they happened to both be wearing pink striped shirts. We went to McDonald's for lunch and let the kids play. While we were there, we bumped into an old friend of Daniel's and his family.

Then we went to the park to meet the Millers and let the girls ride their bikes. Courtney brought her brand new Strawberry Shortcake bike that she got for her 5th birthday last week. Emma impressed everyone because HER bike didn't have training wheels on it!

Pet Parade at the Library

Yesterday they had "Bring your pet to the library" day during story time. Danya brought Dusty, a dog that was Daniel's when he was little, and also her "Lovey Lamb" doll. Gloria brought the bear that we call "Bear in the Big Blue House" and one of her Care Bears. The librarian let Gloria wear a special hat.

Daniel videotaped the parade around the room with the kids singing "The Ants Go Marching", and if I ever figure out how to add video clips from my camera to this blog, watch out! Because we take a short video at almost every event.

Sweeties

After getting our pictures taken we hung out in the mall, had dinner, let the girls play in the playground area, and on the way out the door stopped and got some candy from the quarter machines. Danya got gum. Gloria got mini sweet tart baby pacifiers, and I made the mistake of picking tear jerkers. They were disgusting! Luckily, I'm past the constant nausea stage of this pregnancy. This is also a rare photo of me with straight hair, since Azure brushed it out and blow dried it for me before we went to the mall. Too bad it was such a windy day today, because Danya and I lost most of the curls that Azure added. I'm wearing the maternity shirt that Daniel and the girls gave me last fall for my birthday.

Family Portrait Day!

Today we decided, on the spur of the moment, to get family photos taken. We figured it would be our last portraits as a family of 4! Our friend and hair stylist, Azure, trimmed and styled Danya, Gloria, and I. We only planned to have her do the girls' hair, but she refused to let me take pictures with my hair up in my usual clips.

The pictures came out beautifully and will be back in about two weeks. If you click on the title of this post within the next few months you can see the pictures. (Hopefully, that is. Let us know if it doesn't work by commenting or emailing Daniel at dwelliott1126@yahoo.com )

This picture of Gloria is a really great shot that Daniel took after we finished getting our portraits made. Aren't her eyes amazing?

Circus Birthday!

Daniel was given free tickets to the Shriner's Circus in Tulsa last weekend, and decided it would be the perfect place to take his mom for her birthday. Luckily, she and Grandpa were available on short notice to make the drive up here. We took them out for dinner at Delta Cafe first.

Unfortunately, we arrived a little late and it was a sold out show so we weren't able to get seats together. The girls hadn't been to a circus in a few years, so they were both very excited. I thought it was fun that when I was pregnant with Gloria we went to the circus, and now that I'm pregnant with little "Kevin" we went again.

This time I was determined to make sure the girls got a glow in the dark toy, since that's part of the fun. Gloria is holding hers in the picture. It flashes colored lights. The circus frequently went dark in between acts, so the whole audience was lit up with all the different glowing, flashing toys. After the intermission alot of people left, so we were able to find seats next to Daniel's parents. The girls had stayed with them, so it was nice to get to see the girls enjoying the show. The girls' favorite act was the clowns who played musical intruments.

Baby Shower for Cami

I went to a baby shower for my friend, Cami, today. She is the one in stripes in the middle. There are three pregnant women and three with brand new babies in this picture. They say there is something in the water at our church...

We had a great time talking and drinking orange punch. It's pretty funny to me that all these women get together and spend our time talking about our husbands. Apparently to avoid the sudden rash of pregnancies several couples are discussing the big "V". We also had races to diaper baby dolls, and talked about the usual things like breast pumps and which hospital is best to deliver in. I'm hoping that by the time my baby is due, Cami, who is a nurse at a local hospital, will be back at work so she can be there for the delivery. Her newest daughter makes her a mother of three girls now.

Weather Experiment

We cracked open a weather experiment kit yesterday and created an "anemometer". It measures wind speed. The girls thought it was pretty neat. Danya timed one minute on her watch while she and Daniel counted the revolutions of the cup with the orange dot on it. We figured out that the wind was blowing at about 5 mph. Of course, our homemade version isn't all that accurate, but it was fun.

The girls are looking forward to trying some of the other experiments in the kit, but part of it requires rain and unfortunately that may mean we'll be waiting quite some time. Despite the snow last weekend we are still under a burn ban here in Oklahoma. In the meantime we'll try out some of the temperature experiments.

Daniel bought this kit back in October and I finally decided not to wait on him to try it anymore. Once I started pulling out the pieces though, he got interested and jumped in to help the girls assemble the first project. The girls and I got a kick out of trying to say "anemometer" five times fast. Danya stumbled and said something like, "I'm a mom eater" and we all broke into giggles!

Strep Throat Blues

This has been a crazy week. Not yesterday but the Friday before, we got to babysit for some friends of ours over at their house. We watched their three boys. Actually, I should say we played with them. They have a huge train set at one end of their living room with remote control trains that the girls just loved! We read stories, played video games, and Daniel became a human jungle gym. It was like watching acrobats. All the kids would line up and Daniel would take turns flipping them upside down!

The next morning I woke up with strep throat. I wasn't positive that's what it was, but my throat was swollen up and painful. On Monday I went to the doctor and confirmed it. The antibiotics fixed the problem, but yesterday my hands started to break out in an itchy rash. I tried lotion on them, but it just made them feel like they were burning. So the doctor prescribed me a different form of antibiotics today. We'll see how that goes. I just hope that none of this has affected little "Kevin". On the upside, none of the kids we babysat or anyone else in our house got sick, just me.

American as Apple Pie!

On our "Thursdays with the Millers" get together this week, Betsy had all four girls help make an apple pie. They got to mix the ingredients and use a machine that peels, cores, and slices apples. Gloria enjoyed making the crust and putting the little diamond shaped holes in the top.

The girls also had a good time playing together and enjoying the nice day outside on the swingset. Now it's our turn to think up something fun for next week! Hmm....

Zoo Baby?

The fastest growing baby at the zoo may have been ours! Here's Danya measuring little Kevin. We went to Dr. Christy's office for my monthly check-up the day before we went to the zoo. She used the ultrasound machine to take his measurements...and then paused. "That can't be right." she said. (words you DON'T want your obstetrician to say) Then she said that the baby is supposed to be just over one pound right now. Our big boy is roughly one pound thirteen ounces!

Now, we have been praying for the last 5 months that our baby would grow big and strong...but SHEESH! Since Gloria was a 10 pounder, I'm willing to believe that "little Kevin" might not be so little. And, admittedly, I did feel a little better about the scale saying I had put on a couple of pounds. Of course, when I went to see my regular doctor today to find out for sure that I had strep throat, the scale said I'd lost 4 pounds in less than a week. I guess it's because I've felt so sick and my throat has been swollen and sore, so I've hardly been able to eat. I wonder if other pregnant women actually worry about gaining a tiny amount of weight during pregnancy or if I'm the only paranoid momma out there? One good thing is that no matter how I feel about turning into a beachball, Gloria always tells me, "You look bootiful, Mommy"

Brrr! Freezin' at the Zoo!

For our Thursday get together with our homeschooling friends, the Millers, we went to the Tulsa Zoo. To make it special, Daniel and I prepared two mini books based on the "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" book by Eric Carle. As we went through the zoo, the girls got to choose which animals they wanted in the books. Then Betsy or I took a picture with my Polaroid camera and glued it right into the books! Then we filled in the name of the animal in the blankspots I'd left. So instead of "Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?" Danya and Gloria's book says "White rhino, white rhino..." Here's a link to a website with fun ideas to go with the book: Brown Bear, Brown Bear

We also read a poem about 100 animals at the zoo (10 of each kind), and then went on a scavenger hunt to find them. We found all but two, because we were freezing and wanted to go home. Did the weather affect us? Well, the next day Gloria woke up with a fever and the day after that I woke up with strep throat. But other than the weather, it was a really good day.

Bowling and Boxes (homeschool party)

We went to the Valentine's Day Heartland homeschool bowling party this year. The girls both broke 60 on their bowling scores, which I thought was pretty good for their second time ever bowling.

They also each made a box for the Valentine's box decorating contest. While the box judging was finishing up, the kids had cupcakes and icecream. Gloria won second prize for her box that looked like a dog house. She put her puppy, Max, in it and wrote his name along the top. Danya's box had windows in it that you could look through to see a little homeschool scene made with dollhouse furniture and a little girl doll. But since the boxes were put on the floor instead of on a table, it was hard to see into her box. They both did a great job and had alot of fun making their boxes! They also loved opening their boxes to pull out all the candy and valentine's cards from the other homeschool kids!

Happy Heart Day!

Daniel and I stayed up the night before Valentine's day making giant hearts and decorating the house. When Danya and Gloria woke up they first saw red hearts dangling on strings hanging from the ceiling in doorways. Then they discovered these giant red hearts hanging on walls and doors around the house. The pink heart pockets had candy hidden inside them. Danya was laughing like a loon as she ran around looking for more hearts and Gloria was chuckling greedily as she dug out more and more little candies from the pockets. It was great!

Then they had breakfast. Their white paper plates had little red hearts drawn all around the outter edge. Their bananas had been sliced into small discs and placed in the shape of a heart and a smiley face with a chocolate chip on each slice! And Daniel's Valentine's Day gift? He got to sleep in while I made the breakfast and took pictures of the girls finding their candy.

Valentine's Dinner

Daniel bought us tickets to our church's Valentine's dinner at the Marriott hotel in Tulsa. We were able to sit at a table with our friends, Leslie and Stan, which was a lot of fun.

The dinner was good, chicken in a creamy mushroom sauce with cheesecake for dessert, yum! But the best part of the night was the entertainment. Some of the people in our church have amazing voices and they sang classic love songs, interspersed with jokes and skits. Three older ladies had us rolling in the aisles at their costumed performance of "Baby Love"! Then the guest speaker for the night, Pastor Spoo, from Tulsa Baptist church gave us some hilarious advice on love and marriage. The funniest moment was when he told the husbands in the room to take their wives' hands, look deep into their eyes and say, "Submit!" I think the husbands knew better than to try that, lol. A wise husband realizes that a good wife will submit out of love without the need to order her to do it. I'm so glad Daniel took the initiative to get the tickets for this. I can't remember a better Valentine's day date!

Debt Free!

Free at last, thanks to Dave! We started the Dave Ramsey Total Money Makeover a little over a year ago when we took a class at our church. It was called his "Financial Peace University", and never was a program more appropriately named!

As of last weekend we paid off the last of our credit card debt and our vehicle is also completely paid for. When we started the program we had a car loan and credit cards totalling almost $20,000 in debt. Now we have no payments except for our mortgage...and we just received a letter from the county assessors office telling us that our home value has gone up about $3,000.

It really is a peaceful feeling knowing that you have an emergency fund and that there isn't a huge pile of debt looming over you just waiting for a disaster to happen. We had set a goal of being debt free before our next baby is born, and we achieved it! Little "Kevin" will be born into a financially peaceful home!
Click the title of this post to go to the Dave Ramsey website!

Bike Blessing

Ben and Diana had to make a short trip to Oklahoma the first weekend of February for Ben to preach and so that they could pick up some donated items from some churches for their mission.

They visited us for a few hours on Saturday. In a stroke of good luck, or maybe God's doing, we happened to be about to donate our old bikes to charity...when Ben mentioned that he wished he had a bike to ride in Del Rio so that he wouldn't have to spend money on gas for his minivan just to grab one little thing from the grocery store.

So Daniel tweaked a few little things on our old bikes, and Ben took one for a test ride around our neighborhood with Danya and Gloria. Fortunately, Ben and Diana were driving a huge van loaned to them for this trip so that they could haul donated items, which meant that they had plenty of room to bring the bikes home with them, too!

Homeschool Buddies

Betsy agreed to start a weekly homeschooling get together for our girls. We'll trade off Thursdays planning crafts, games, and activities for our four girls. The first week was mine, so we had music time where we learned some of the color songs, spelling each of the colors. Courtney really liked it! Betsy says that Courtney went around the whole rest of the day singing, "R..E..D red, I can spell red!"

I got the CD by swapping services with Danya's former pre-K teacher, Mrs. Lenaburg. I helped her out with a scrapbook she's making, and she burned me a copy of the CD and a book to go with it.

Then the girls made paper bag puppets with foam animal faces. This was a messy but fun activity! None of the girls get to use glue sticks very often, so it was a special treat. They also got to spend plenty of time just running around and playing together! Next week Betsy is going to teach the girls to make sugar cookies for Valentine's day!

Play Pals and Pregnancy

In January we all went over to the Millers to play. It was so nice out that the kids got to play in the back yard. We also took a walk to the nearby neighborhood playground. The kids rode their bikes, and I was really glad that Daniel had come with us, because he was able to jog along and keep up with them while I trailed slowly behind.

I also got to eat some of Betsy's delicious homemade carrot cake muffins...mmm...muffins. (sorry, Homer Simpson moment) I like this picture that Daniel took because it shows the beginnings of my little pregnancy tummy!

Reading for Cheese!

If I can find the pictures, I'll post one later. Danya completed her book worm the day of the derby car race. All by herself, she had read 54 books!! As promised, she got to go to Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate. She worked really hard all week to read the last several books she needed to complete her book worm by Thursday because Thursday is her "special day" of the week when she gets to stay up late and have special time with mom & dad. She figured out that if she completed her book worm by that day, then she would get to go to Chuck E. Cheese, compete in the derby car race, and get to stay up for special time ALL on the same day. She called it her "triple-dipple special day"!

Luckily, our friends the Millers were available at the last moment's notice to come with us to Chuck E. Cheese. So Danya, Gloria, Courtney, and Megan each got a huge pile of tokens and ran around like crazed monkeys playing as many games as they possibly could in the two hours we were there. Megan was a little scared of Chuck E., but other than that they all had a great time!

Derby Car Race

Danya participated in her first derby car race at church as part of the Awanas program in January. She and her daddy carved and painted their car to look like snowy mountains. Then Danya added snowflake stickers.

When we arrived, Gloria broke off one of the wheels just as we entered the church! Daniel fixed it, but then when we went to register her car, we found out that it was much too light. So a nice man helped her add extra little metal weights around the outside of her car to get it closer to the 5 oz mark.

Danya's car was in three races. She got first, second, and third place, but wasn't the overall fastest. When she won first place she got to turn and wave to the cheering crowd!

It's a BOY!!

We found out after we got back from Texas that we are expecting a little boy! I really love the fact that my doctor does an ultrasound at almost every visit. She even printed out a picture with an arrow pointing to his...uh...boy proof.

Daniel took me to a scrapbook store right after we left the doctor's office so that I could pick up the materials to start his baby album. We are doing a Dr. Seuss theme on his album and in his bedroom. Afterwards, we took the girls to the dollar movie theatre to celebrate. We saw Zathura. There were some intense moments, but the girls enjoyed it overall.

We are sooo excited to finally be having a boy! When we heard the news I almost leapt off the exam table! We were all jumping up and down with joy! The girls want to name him Kevin, and so far that is my and Daniel's favorite name also. I think it would be fun to tell him that his big sisters' chose his name.

Swimming in January?!

Ben took us to a park near his home in Del Rio. The park had a beautiful stream/river flowing through it. It was such a gorgeous day that we couldn't resist going wading!

I just dipped my feet at first, but Ben and Daniel carried the girls out into the middle and helped them walk along the shelf of stone on the far side. Later, Grandma Nancy, Aunt Diana, and the kids went back home to get started on dinner (burritos, yum!) while Ben, Daniel, and I took a little swim in the river. The water seemed extremely chilly at first, but after we got in up to our shoulders it was great! Then the guys played basketball for a little bit until it was time to go home and eat.

Shalom y La Guitarra

We got a new computer on February 6th with our state tax returns so I'm going to be adding a flurry of posts to catch up on all the news from the last month or so.

We finished out our Texas road trip in Del Rio. Our niece, Shalom, was the cutest little girl! She says the beginnings of some words like mama and ball. Mostly she likes to be held and to cruise around in her baby walker. Here she is on my lap with her sombrero and tiny guitar.

We had a really good time visiting Ben's family. We got to stand on a dam at the border of Mexico and the U.S. and learn a little about the history of Mexico from uncle Ben. We passed some beautifully scenery along the way! Mostly we just enjoyed spending time with the "Elliotts #3".