New School Year

Well school started yesterday (Aug 22nd) Kate is in Kindergarten and Naty is in PreK! Time is really speeding up again! Natalie had been hoping to be with Kate's PreK teacher but I didn't request her so she got one of the other teachers. She was ok with that and so was I. Having 4 kids go through grades back to back like we will, I think giving the teachers a break from the Ziegenbein Hurricanes will be nice LOL I also think it will give them each a slightly different experience so that none of them can say "Oh I did that too" which I know they'll do some stuff the same but no teacher does the same activity the same.

So the night before school started everyone was very excited and nervous! I was very happy when the girls were asleep by 9pm! I managed to get the nervous stomaches to eat breakfast, we took some pictures (below) and walked to school. I decided to drop Kate off at her class first since I figured she wouldn't feel the need for me to stay. We walked into her classroom and found she had a substitute already. Her teacher had been sick on Meet the Teacher night too. So I helped Kate get settled, didn't talk to the sub much but I overheard him saying to other parents who were bombarding him with questions, "I'm not quite sure of the policy" I just figured, they'll survive, just don't loose my kid. Guess what? He lost my kid! I was a little late for pick-up (it's almost an hour earlier then how ended last year) so I was caught in the mix of first day parents, all ten thousand of them ;). I got Naty from her class, was waiting to get Kate's sub's attention or the teacher with the megaphone calling for the kids, all of sudden I realize the TA from Kate's PreK class is standing in front of me with a sobbing Kate! She explained that somehow Kate had ended up with the Extended Day kids and then tried to go to the cafeteria where the car riders/walker usually come out from, she was just standing in a corner sobbing trying to tell a teacher she didn't know that she isn't supposed to be there. Thank God Mrs. Meyers came up then and was able to scoop her up and come find me! Poor Kate, took all evening to calm her down. I assured her I would come talk to either her teacher or sub, whoever was there the next day. Turns out, someone in the office let everyone go at the same time, they usually call for bus riders, then Extended Day kids, then everyone else leaves. They apparently had kids trying to get on buses who were car riders too, it was a cluster.

The rest of the week has gone smoothly. Kate's teacher has only been there for 2.5 days, not sure what she has but I feel bad for her! Naty is in love with her teacher and the whole school experience! I think Kate is finally settling in too, she's excited to have a "real" art class this year! Today is her first Art class, so I can't wait to hear how it went! Praying for a good school year! :)

Audrey and Charlotte are now enjoying some alone time with Mom and I'm enjoying it too! The first few days were a little rough for them in the morning because they are so used to going with their big sisters everywhere that they had a hard time understanding they can't go to school this year. We are waiting for the weather to cool off so we can enjoy doing things like the park and zoo with just the three of us! They have been potty training all month and are doing such a good job! They are having some issues with making it to the potty for #2 but are solid on #1, even sleeping dry all night! I actually threw out the diaper pail today! Big moment for us, we've had one for almost 6 years straight now! Hahaha I know they'll be done with the training soon and then we'll be tackling sleeping without binky ;) That'll be fun :p hahaha

All my girls on the first day of school!

Big Kindergartner!

PreK!!

Charlotte had to have a picture too haha

And of course Audrey too!

Big school girls :)

Hard to believe they'll be in school next year!

Kate in her classroom

Naty in her classroom!

Uncle Dan joins the Navy!

My little brother, Daniel, joined the United States Navy Reserve a little over a month ago! He left for boot camp then A school training this morning, we probably won't see him for 5 months now, including Thanksgiving and Christmas. We are so incredibly proud of him! In A school, he is going into Construction Mechanics, also known as SeaBees. If you don't know anything about the SeaBees you can go here, USN SeaBees They are pretty bad ass ;) The SeaBees go in right behind the Marines and set up everything from camp to roads and can fix about anything that need fixing. When he comes back though, he intends to finish school and become a Pharmacist and then go active duty for the USN for at least the remainder of his enlistment time but as been seriously considering going career ultimately. We are very proud of our Sailor, praying he stays safe and has a good time, and we can't wait to have him home!

Uncle Dan with his nieces 

My parents and brother

One of my favorites, my brother is such a goob

Chillaxin' last summer

Happy 3rd Birthday Audrey and Charlotte!

Well my babies are 3 today! What an adventure they have taken us on! I had fun with Jason last night reminiscing about "This time three years ago, we were...." Hahaha I was asleep however when the actual time they were born (bright an early at 3:15am and 3:16am) rolled around! Unless God has other plans for us, we are done having children, so they really are my babies and it's truly bittersweet to have them turn 3. They are turning into such fun little girls and they are very much their own people and a tight unit at the same time.

Miss Audrey, she is turning out to be a live life to the fullest at full throttle person! I can see her soon relishing in that 1 minute older thing hahahaha She laughs louder, cries harder and dances longer then any of her sisters! Audrey has never met a stranger and is always going up to anyone who will listen and saying "Hi!" and telling them all about herself and her sisters. We have a running joke in the family that she is running for Congress hahaha She's a big Momma's Girl, the only time she's holding still is if she is snuggling with me or asleep. I love that she will still cuddle with me! She has such an imagination, which she loves to use to tell stories and play games. I'm excited to see what kind of person she continues to turn into, I have no doubt she will be a leader and always looking to include everyone in the fun!

Miss Charlotte, she is definitely much more reserved and shy then her twin. She is such a sweetheart, always has hugs and kisses for everyone and wants everyone to play together! Her verbal skills have finally started to blossom because up til now she has been very happy to let Audrey talk for both of them. I'm so happy to listen to what goes on in her head hahaha She has the most imagination out of all the girls I think, she is constantly lost in her own world. It can be frustrating at times, especially when trying to get her attention, but it's so to just stand and watch and listen as she plays with her dolls or cars! Lotty is a big people watcher and usually will sit back and watch before joining in anything. She is very much a girly girl! She loves dressing up, painting her nails and having her hair done! I think Lotty will continue to grow up to be a friend to everyone and one of those friends you can always talk to because she listens. :)

I can't help but think I'm a little sad because I have forgotten so much about the first couple of years with them! It was such a blur! I don't think either Jason or I ever expected we'd be the parents of twins and it has been a constant learning and growing experience! I always get the comment, "I don't know how you do it!" and I always answer "Neither do I!" and it's the truth! I don't know how I manage me life with these beautiful girls, but I can't imagine what my life would be like without them! Audrey and Charlotte have no problems playing with other children, but always check-in with each other off and on and I think that is a great relationship to have! They always call each other "My Audrey" or "My Charlotte" which just melts my heart every time I hear it!

So HAPPY BIRTHDAY AUDREY!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHARLOTTE!! You make my life doubly as full and interesting every day!! LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE YOU BOTH!! Here are some of my favorite pictures from the last 3 years :)

The ultrasound that nearly made me pass out LOL

Sweet girls, 3 days old

My chunky monkeys, about 4 months old

They always slept cuddled up at babies, still warm my heart!

1st birthday!

1st birthday picture, all dolled up hehe

My mud princess Audrey

2nd birthday!

Lil bunnies!

HAPPY 3RD BIRTHDAY!!!

Audrey & Charlotte's 3rd Birthday Party

So I'm a lame mom sometimes and things that I thought I had plenty of time to plan for, like birthday parties, tend to sneak up on me. It doesn't help when you just ripped your house apart and put it back together hahaha I only realized two weeks ago that I needed to plan Audrey & Charlotte's birthday party, then I forget again. Lame, I know. So I threw together a tiny get together with just our closest friends like a week ago. Can I get an Amen for summer birthdays? You fill up the pool, hook up the sprinkler and boom, you have a party! LOL My dear friend Kerri offered to make them Cars cupcakes since I haz no baking skillz! LOL I think I might owe her my next born child since that turned into a 10 hour crazy-fest at her house! Kerri, you have no idea how much I appreciate you!!! Those cupcakes made Audrey & Charlotte's day, they were so yummy and I can't believe how much you went through to make it happen!! Hahaha THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!

We had 5 of their friends over and the kids all loved going out to swim, splash in the sprinkler and the greatest fun, flood the sand box! LOL We looked out at one point and they had drug the hose over to the sand box and were filling it! Crazy kids! Audrey & Lotty were in true Birthday Diva form through the party, I think today was a day when they needed a nap. It's gotten so hit and miss with naps with them that I never know when they'll need one. They pretty much took turns being in my arms, my lap, following me, and general fussing. They didn't want to eat anything but their cupcakes, they didn't want to swim, didn't want to play with their friends. Finally with about 30 minutes left they decided to go out and swim and play! I was relieved!

Thank you to my dear friends who came to help celebrate with us! We are so lucky to have incredible friends like you!! :)

Cars Cakes! As the twins called them

McQueen looks innocent, but he just might be the devil hahaha

So happy with their Cars cakes!

Jason and Asher chillin together

All the kiddos having some food

Birthday Divas!

Loving having everyone sing

Lotty's shy face, love her

It's done!

Our new floors are done! Can I get a AMEN?! Jason worked so hard, he did an incredible job! They looks so nice and I am SO HAPPY to be rid of those awful carpets!! The girls love that their cars can drive anywhere now and they are finally not slipping around themselves hahaha One of our dogs Margo, I can't say the same for. She basically Bambi's her way from area rug to area rug! She's not too happy with us but I'm hoping she adjusts soon! Our other dogs, Lucky and Shorty, aren't bothered by them except when trying to sit for biscuits because their fuzzy butts slip hehehehehe It's a little mean how amused we have all been by this ;-) So here is the finished product, I'll only post a couple of pics because I know I've been posting to death about it LOL

Kitchen

Family Room

Living room 1

Living room 2

Girls loving the new floors!

So now we have detail work like base boards, outlet covers, a few light fixtures to replace, and repainting the doors to do still but those will be weekend projects now. Happy, happy, joy, joy! ;)

Home remodeling and discovering I might be an OCD neat freak just like Grandma always wanted me to be!

2 weeks. That's how long this floor remodeling is taking. 2 full weeks. My house has been any combination of looking like a nuclear bomb went off in it and we are all refugees. Craziness has ensued in almost all forms of that word. Send help. Preferably in the form of chocolate cake because I can both indulge in eating it while throwing it in my husband's face (the mess doesn't bother him one bit, neither does getting two weeks off of daddy duty) both of which are fabulous forms of distressing! ;)

So back up about 15 years (guess I'm dating myself now huh? LOL) My Nana was an old fashion, strict, busy bee of an Italian grandmother. At the ripe age of 13, I was drafted into the most kick-your-ass-learn-to-be-a-furture-housewife school around, AKA Cleaning my Nana's house once a week for $10 (pretty sure illegal mexicans got better pay then me.) This wasn't granny sat in a chair and cross stitched while I dusted for an hour, no this was all day, Nana breathing down your neck, smack you upside the head if you didn't get that dirt in the corner that you had to have super human (or super old lady) vision to see. Brutal. Loved my Nana, but she was brutal. Some friends have fond memories of her yelling things at me down the halls of our church, like the time I took my shoes off while teaching RE, "Christina! If you keep that up, all you're heading for is to be bare foot and pregnant!" Thanks Nana. Sorry that was off subject but hopefully some of you are laughing over that story right now ;) Ok so I repressed as much of that as I could but when I got married and set up house, I would have "fits" where I would become my Nana and clean all day long with a toothbrush and my super human vision.

Now cut back to the present. Any one who has been to my house up to this point would probably think I was some kind of awful house keeper. We live in the house I grew up in, my parents struggled financially pretty much my whole life, so new carpet was never in the cards. Take 20 year old, builders grade carpet (the super cheap stuff), add over 20 years 7 kids, 4 dogs, 2 cats, 1 rabbit (yes you read right) and you get.... gross. There is no other word for those carpets and linoleum. I could spend all day on my hands and knees and they wouldn't have looked clean. So I've been fighting a loosing battle for the last almost 6 years we have lived here.

Now over the course of the Remodel-that-never-ends, these beautiful wood floors have been laid. Excited doesn't even cover it! I feel like Steve the monkey from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, "EXCITED!!" But now I feel the Nana waking up. My poor husband has not had to deal with a side of me he only thought he knew! I have been following him around like a crazy person, cleaning, organizing, and twitching. It's still an impossible task at the moment because he is cutting planks (which cause ridiculous amounts of sawdust) and moving the furniture and knick-knacks from one side of the house to other, plus the girls keep bringing toys down because they have been banned to their tiny room until we are done. Loosing battle, but I keep trying!

New floors of non-grossness?? EXCITED!!!

Let me just share with a few photos from this remodel-o-doom ride we have been on for 2 weeks....

This took 3 days to get this far.. ugh.

Living room finally done! Furniture still everywhere.

Family room finally done! Couch un-sitable.

This is how close we are tonight, we are so close it makes me twitch!

This has been my kitchen for the last 2 days, I have literally cried over it because I'm so insane!

Now, now. I know my husband has been doing 1,000sqft of flooring all by his lonesome, and I know I sound ungrateful so let me just give him one lil sentence of props ;) I adore my husband, I am extremely proud he has undertaken this and is rocking at it! He knows I'm crazy and loves me anyway so I know he will totally ignore this entire post as it has crazy juice all over it and he won't be able to read it anyway!

He should be done by tomorrow, which means I still have all weekend for him to resume his daddy duties, take my lovely lil monsters away from me (I adore my children but 2 weeks of them non-stop and trying to keep them out of power tools is a bit much for even Mother Theresa) and I can get lost with my Clorox, brooms, and mops and clean this house within an inch of it's life! It will be heaven, like finally itching that scratch you haven't been able to reach, but crazier.

It speaks the truth!

4th of July

Just another holiday weekend for mommy!

You know what's fun? Take one massive floor remodel + 4 crazy monkey children + 1 overworked, under paid daddy + 1 mommy trying to keep said monkeys out of said daddy's power tools, and just for giggles, + 1 holiday involving things blowing up! Throw it all in a giant martini shaker and that's been my weekend, I'll take it extra dirty please ;)

So it took J three days to lay the floor in the living room, mind you working by himself, I think that's pretty good. Pretty sure I was on the verge of loosing my mind from the clutter but I did my best to not let my OCD splatter all over my overworked, under paid husband and simply stick to curling into the fetal position and rocking in a corner at night. One of my very best friends was kind enough to take us in for two days in a row so we wouldn't be refugees, passing out from the heat as we wondered from splash pad to splash pad in the loverly Oklahoma summer heat! Her daughter made a point to tell her mom that if we were going to be there every day, we might just want to move in because it would be easier, LOL! I agree K! My OCD wanted to take K up on that offer, still does Hahaha

Ok thanks for invading our home for 48hrs, buh-bye!

The flooring process has slowed dramatically, my husband's hands might fall off at the wrist soon I'm told. I told him I don't have time for that so make sure he has his duct tape handy. The hall and kitchen also have fun angles that my angle perfection, watchmaking, OCD husband is driving himself crazy over. Lay your bets people, do his hands fall off or he lands in a padded room from OCD first?? I'll take that hands because I'll be damned if he gets to vacation in a padded room without me! ;)

Jason decided to take yesterday off and spend it with the kids and I. He made a massive breakfast of blueberry pancakes, eggs and bacon, almost none of the kids ate any of it and opted for "chocolate waffles" (aka Eggo with Nutella) *deep sigh* At least they didn't take my coffee. The afternoon was mostly spent watching movies and doing their best Risky Business impressions of the new floors in the living room, also resulting in the phrase "My butt hurts!" being said a lot. We had BBQ brisket, rotel dip w/chips and pickles for dinner (fancy stuff) My children ate rotel dip with spoons, maybe a pickle or two, Lotty acted like she was choking to death after taking one bite of the BBQ, resulting in 30mins of coughing, drinking water and tears. Can we call that dinner a fail yet? On to explosives! Snap Pops were a huge hit, only minimal throwing at each other was had (Winning!) Sparklers were an interesting under taking, 3 of the 4 loved them (Lotty thought we were insane!) and only 1 minor burn was had (Naty had to test the "when the sparkler stops, drop it, don't touch" theory of her crazy parents, who know nothing) Next was Smoke bombs. Can we talk about smoke bombs for a second? Who thought of these? Who thought they would be fun? Oh must have been a boy! Because the girls and I had the same opinion that lighting a colorful ball that then shoots colorful, awful smelling smoke for all of 3.2 seconds, not so fun. Then Jason being a boy, had to buy M-80s. 100 of them. That was the "smallest package they came in". Then being a boy, he proceeds to light them and drop them in a soda bottle, full of water. Cut to exploding water all over. Including me, as I was being the responsible party trying to sweep up the Snap Pop mess, thanks for the warning babe ;)

We took the girls to watch the river fireworks, being a sensible people, we didn't sweat it out all afternoon with the entire city population to watch the 30min (disappointing IMO) fireworks show. We got our redneck on and drove to the top of a parking garage and sat in the back of the suburban! The girls were mildly impressed and thought wandering around the dark parking lot would be more fun, so I spent the better part of the show convincing them to stay put and fighting the urge to throw my husband's iPhone off the roof so he would wake up and help. Good times ;) The girls fell asleep on the way home (winning!), we pulled up to the house, went to take out our sleeping angels, our neighbors two doors down set off Satan's firework complete with earth shattering boom, woke up all the sleeping angels who then became overtired devils. Thanks neighbors! (Fail!) Moral of the story though, we got everyone tucked into bed, including 1 very scared dog, they all went back to sleep easily and woke up with smiles on their faces this morning! They had fun and that's all that counts! :) Now anyone wanna come finish my floors today for free??

Father's Day Weekend

We had a very productive Father's Day weekend! Jason and I spent most of Saturday painting the living room, we got about 2/3 done which is excellent! We'll finish that up this coming weekend so that sometime over the next two weeks while Jason is off work, he can lay the new floors!! I'm so excited! I've been waiting about 4 years for new floors! When we were cleaning last night we found two huge spot of mold on the carpet under the girls' dress up box and toy box! Jason ripped it out and we didn't see any mold on the padding so we are guessing someone spilled something and never told us. So the girls and I had a long talk about when we get the new floors all food and drinks must stay in the kitchen! I told them mommy will be very upset and sad if they ruin my new floors, to which Kate said "Like if someone breaks my new birthday toy? A toy that I just got?" and I said, "Yes! Exactly! The new floors are like a big, giant, huge birthday present for mommy!" Hahaha I think I got through to them because all of their cups have stayed on the kitchen counter all morning without me having to ask :)

Living room before

Living room after!

Father's Day didn't go exactly how I planned. First when making breakfast for the girls, I managed to knock something down the back of the fridge cause a tube to come loose and a huge water leak!! So I had to wake up Jason :-/ I had planned on letting him sleep til whenever he wanted but because of my klutziness, he was up 8am. I made it up to him by making him a huge breakfast and the girls gave him his cards and presents! He had been needing some more t-shirts and I found Houston Astros and Houston Rockets shirts for him! (He is from Houston in case anyone didn't know that) Jason finished the edging on the living room and I think he got to relax a lot with the kiddos. We had my sister and her family over for a BBQ and swimming, it was Simon's first time swimming and he loved it! The girls really loved having their little cousin over, each of them took a turn sitting in Simon's baby pool with him! It was a nice weekend and I'm glad we are getting to the end of the first phase of the renovations!!

Simon swimming for the first time!

The girls loved having Simon swim "with them" hehehe

Naty swimming with her cousin

Kate had a lot of fun helping him play with toys

Audrey had a blast!

Lotty just had fun sitting and watching Simon

The "cards" Kate and Naty made for Jason

Getting ready to surprise Daddy with his presents!

Daddy and all his girls <3