Cabinet drop off

We stopped by the house on the way downtown last night and found that all the cabinets had been dropped off!  They also put plugs in and some lights.  Layla didn't want to get out of the car because she didn't want to get her costume dirty:), so it's just Gibs on the pics.

 Standing in the "sitting area" upstairs (we might put desks there when they're older, just chairs for now).  The open door you can see is a closet and Greta's room is to the left of the closet and Gibs' is on teh right.  The kids' bathroom is the door closest on the right (next to Gibs' room).

 Gibs is always excited to go upstairs when we go see the house and wants to right to his room. 

 The kitchen/dining is full of cabinet boxes!  I can't wait to see them!

Tulip Time Begins!

We went downtown last night to experience Tulip Time for the first time this year (and probably not the last time this year!).  The weather has been awesome the past week or two and last night was no exception! We had junk food (which was quite disappointing, our elephant ear was not very good) and then watched the kinder Dutch Dance.  The kids loved watching it and had great seats thanks to a nice guy that told them to come up by him.  They were practicing dancing so cute when they got home.  I wasn't going to have them wear costumes b/c we got home from dance class and then I wanted to just get going, but Layla really wanted to wear hers, so just she wore a costume.  Tomorrow for the parade, they'll all wear their costumes.  I was not good with alterations this year--meaning, I didn't do any--so hoepfully they fit from last year!  The girls' skirts will be a bit short so hopefully no one notices:).  And Gibs will just hike up the pants on the costume he's wearing that Gavin wore last year.

 Watching intently...

Biking Like A Big Girl

We (and by we, I mean Joe) took Layla's training wheels off last week and Joe a few different nights helped her learn to glide and then ran behind her while she pedaled.  Today we (and again, I mean Joe) worked on it some more and she was pedaling all over by herself.   Well, near home that is:-).  She still struggles a bit with turns and getting distracted by trying to smile for pics and such, but I'm confident that with even more practice, she'll be riding even better in no time!  Right before heading inside today, Gibs was riding his bike on the road by Joe and and I thought that Layla was looking pretty brave coming at him with her bike pretty close to where he was and then, bam, she crashed right into him.  I think she panicked and didn't  know which side she should go on to get around him or something and somehow they ended up crashing into him.  It was a  minor incident though and they were both fine.  Gibs doesn't love riding his bike.  He thinks that it's too much work and on trikes, he's rather just use his legs to push.  He's capable of pedaling, he just doesn't like to do it for very long.  But I'm sure eventually, he'll get better at it and think it's easier and therefore like it better.  He says he just likes to coast:-). 

Layla recently has been talking about kids that get money for doing chores.  I may have told her about that, or she may have heard it from someone else, I'm not sure.  We don't do that in our household though.  Anyway, so the other day at Gavin's, the kids told me that Gavin was in charge of making sure that Layla and Gibs did their chores and then Gavin would assign a value for each chore and reward them (with pretend non existent money).  Gavin was standing on the porch watching while Gibs and Layla were sweeping bark off the driveway.  This made me laugh because this is so typical to how they play.  You can certainly tell whose oldest!  It's so funny too because when Gavin isn't playing with them, then Layla steps into the oldest child role and bosses Gibson around.  I'll often hear Gibs telling Layla, "Can I be the dad today because Gavin isn't here?".  Otherewise he is always stuck being the kid.  Layla likes the idea of getting money for chorse you can tell because she today while riding her bike thought it'd be a good idea if we paid her money every time she did well on her bike.  :-) 

While I'm remembering to write things about the kids' daily conversations, I found it funny the other day when for some reason I was talking to Layla about allergies and explaining to her what that meant.  Guess we don't know anyone with allergies (hard to believe, I know) because she didn't really know what that meant.  I told her how if someone that is allergic to something, has that certain something, that they will then have a bad reaction. In all seriousness, she said, "Oh, so like how I'm allergic to going to bed."  Ha, guess that explains some of her issues!  Actually, most nights she goes to bed fine, but some nights definitely turns into a whole different person when she's in bed!  Her troubles started when we moved her, so I'm sure she'll always go to bed like an angel when we move into our new house:-). 

 I also found it funny tonight at dinner when Gibs randomly asked why we don't have tails. I told him that I guess God thought we didn't need them, to which Layla said, "And because we'd look pretty dorky if we had tails". :-)  We had dinner with Joe tonight because he had a meeting at church before our evening service.  He was installed today as an elder in our church and already since being elected, has had 3 meetings in the past 5 days!!  Ahh!  This could be a really long three year term!! :-(  I'd say that I hope it goes by really quickly, but really, I don't.  I love our kids at the ages they are at, and Layla will be going into third grade, Gibs into first and Greta will be going into preschool when he finishes and that just seems like way too much to think about right now!!  Crazy that he got off of council (he was a deacon last time) three years ago (they give you three years off thank goodness) already.  His last term, we started with not even thinking about having kids and ended with two kids.  A lot can change in three years!

 

Daddy staying close by...

 Going down the road all by herself!

Disney Day 4

Drywall and Priming Complete

Drywall was completed last week and the only thing that got done this week was that it got primed.

 

Drywall complete... 

 

 We were at Harper and Gavin's for the afternoon today, so we took a walk over with the kids. 

 They delivered our trim and doors today and so hopefully trim should start next week!  This picture is so typical Gibs--he's holding trinkets.  That boy just falls in love with the most random things.  Many of those items are Mickey related:-).  This Mickey microphone in his left hand he got free from a garage sale this morning and he's got his Mickey sunglasses in his other hand:-).

This is in our play room where I'm sure the kids will have lots of fun playing in the future! :-)

Disney Day 3

We stayed at Saratoga Springs for the first time ever this trip.  It's part of the Disney Vacation Club resorts.

 Sunday morning we had breakfast at Chef Mickey's.  The food was great!  The kids of course loved seeing all the characters.  It wasn't a very relaxing meal as it felt like I was either up getting more food for my kids (they were all in big eating moods!) or up taking pictures of the kids with the characters, but it was still fun.

 This is so typical of these three.  The boys are being goofy laying on each other and Layla is just sitting and smiling sweetly for the picture.

 A big hug for Minnie!

 A Disney trip (in my opinion) wouldn't be complete without Mickey waffles!!  Even with my Mickey waffle iron at home, I just can't seem to make them quite the same--must be the pixie dust they sprinkle on them:).

 Riding the monorail..

 The part of the bathroom in our room that had the tub in it didn't have a door to it, so Greta thought it was pretty fun that she could keep going over there and turning the water on.  The problem came with Gibs turned the faucet and it then was pouring water onto the floor...

 She found it pretty hilarious...

 The kids loved the splash pad area...

 This is one of the small pools (closest to wear we stayed--it's a very big resort).

 Gavin and Grampy had fun visiting the Lego Store and then playing with them back in the room.  The nice thing about Saratoga Springs is that you can take a boat to Downtown Disney.  You also can from Port Orleans, where we stayed last time, and from Old Key West, which is where we'll be staying in the fall--funny that we happen to be staying in those three resortsthat are all by each other, all in a row.

 Instead of always eating out, one night we picked up Macaroni Grill and it we had so much food we all got at least another meal out of the leftovers.  Yum!  The baby girls loved making a mess with it:-).

 This is in the Lego Store.  It was SO crazy busy that we just waited in line to quick get this picture and then left.