When is Andrea Coming Home?

Andrea informed us that she will be coming home probably on Nov 24. So I have updated my ticker to reflect that. I can't wait for her to come home!

Happy Birthday, Keira!

Tuesday is officially Keira's 3rd birthday but we celebrated yesterday. We have TONS of balloons. Rick decided to blow up the whole package that I bought thinking it would last us through at least a couple of birthdays. I guess that is what I get for buying a balloon pump to make blowing them up easier.
Blogger always jumbles up the pictures so these are in no particular order. Keira got to pick out her Mickey Mouse cake. It was way cute and she gets to keep the cool handy helper toy on top. Is anyone else WAY paranoid about their children's hair catching on fire from the candles? It happened to me on my 22 birthday and after that it has taken a lot for Rick to even convince me to let ANYONE have candles on their birthday cake. I haven't had them on mine since.
Elaina loved having all of her favorite people around all at once and really wanted to help open presents but we kept her away. I didn't want to her screams of "ENINA!" every time Elaina came even close to something. Keira is getting a little posesive these days. We are trying to learn to share.
Keira finally got that basketball hoop she has been dreaming about for months from her favorite parents. When Rick brought out the box she just stood there staring at it and clapping. She was so excited she didn't know what to do. She finally said "Open it!" I am sure we will have lots of pictures of her playing with it soon.
Keira is not really a girly girl. Part of that is me because I don't really foo foo up my girls but she also isn't really into dolls or things like that. She absolutly loves the princess outfit my mom got her though. It came complete with princess high heels but we don't have pictures of those for some reason. We will have to get on that. She wanted to play basketball in her princess outfit. What a modern girl!

We were so glad that everyone treked out to our house for a quick birthday party. Keira had so much fun and it was great to have her first birthday party where she really knew what was going on and anticipated everything. I love my girls.

Happy 3rd Birthday Keira!

Bathtime

I haven't gotten any pictures of the joint bath yet so I thought I would today. These girls LOVE to take a bath. They would do it three times a day if I let them. I loved that their daddy gave them a bath today so I didn't have to deal with it. Notice our weird, big soaking tub. This is in the master bath. We have no shower in there. I absolutely hate that there is no shower so we have to use the one in the main bath but the soaking tub is great for bathing kids. So if anyone feels like taking on a bath remodel for free, have I got a job for you. ;) We love pics that will embarrass them later in life...

My Artistic Genius

Rick and I saw this on the floor today. We thought that the other had helped Keira draw it. Nope. She did it all by herself. I asked her about it and she told me about the hair and ears and toes (apparently the two lines at the bottom are toes??). Can you believe that she is almost three and drawing like this? She almost draws better than I do which isn't hard to beat. Now if this is normal you can beat me down to earth but I think she is insanely good for her age. She is definitely related to her Daddy.

Inman Reunion

So am I the first to post pictures of the reunion? If you want to see a bunch of pictures Rick took go here but here are some of my favorites. When we got home Keira got all upset and said she wanted to go home! I think she thought we had moved. Funny girl. We took her to her room and showed her all of her stuff and she realized this was still our house. I think they were glad to sleep in their own beds. I hope I can say the same in a couple of minutes. :)

Help!

We are going to family reunion and, like anyone with little kids, we are dreading the drive. Does anyone have any good ideas when it comes to traveling with an almost 3 year old and a 10 month old? I can use tips on anything from food, sleep, activities etc. I know that most of you have traveled long distance more than we have (if you have done it with kids more than once you are officially an expert in my book!). So please leave your comments or email me if you have so many you can't fit it all in a comment. Thank you so much in advance. We can't wait to see you all at reunion.

Piano Lessons

So Keira has been very interested in playing our piano since we got it tuned last week. It sounds so much better! Our piano tuner is such a great guy. He had some time left over so he fixed a bunch of stuff that has been bothering me that I didn't even know could be fixed! Yay. Anyway, Elaina has decided since she can pull up now that she can play too, so they have been playing some BEAUTIFUL duets lately. I even found them some "real" piano books to play out of. I think I might start teaching Keira a couple of little songs. She probably could do it. She is very artistically gifted. She already draws better than I do (no joke).

I also like the picture of Keira standing in the diaper bag. That is problem solving at its finest. Please don't fault us for the half naked child. It was a very hot day today and she had just eaten a bunch of watermelon which we insisted she take off her dress because she always makes a huge mess. Isn't it just easier to throw them in the bath afterward the doing a load of laundry everytime they eat messy food?