So Much to Share

Where to begin? Do you want the good news or the bad news first? I'll give you the bad news first. We did not get the house. She counteroffered and it was too high so we walked away. We have committed to not going above a certain price out of financial responsibility and while it's hard to stick to that, we know that it's the best thing for us. So the house hunt continues. We told the seller that our offer was still on the table. Hopefully, she'll keep that in mind over the next couple of weeks. The other bad news is that George hurt his back badly on Saturday afternoon. He was trying to show Hannah how he could walk on his hands doing a handstand, but he fell wrong. The sad thing...Hannah wasn't even looking...no one was. Luckily, he has today off so he can recuperate.

We have St. Louis family in town. My dad's parents and my cousin came down to bring us their pop-up camper. It's almost as old (or young) as I am, but it's still in great shape so we are looking forward to taking it out this Memorial Day weekend. George and I went to the Strawberry Festival in Plant City this weekend. We always said we'd go every year, but just never went. Well, we finally did this year. The only thing was that we didn't get strawberry shortcake. What kind of people do that? Go to a strawberry festival and not get strawberry shortcake? I know, weird. We had the girls with us and were kind of trying to go around their schedule. We ended up leaving so George could take me to his favorite BBQ place in Plant City. The girls acted surprisingly well even though it was right during their nap time.

And the good news is that I have lots of pictures of my sweet, adorable, get into everything girls!

Hannah
Kate

Hannah's first girl scout cookie, thin mints

Kate's first girl scout cookie, too

Kate in her cute Sunday dress

Kate

Hannah

Hannah

Kate, Hannah, & Rachel during bath time-their first bath together

P.S. Hope you have fun in West Virginia & Maine, Nanny & Grampy! Miss you!

It's Beginning to Feel A Lot Like Spring

We have had an unusually longer "winter" down here in FL this year. We've (Hannah & Kate) been going through the long sleeve clothing sometimes more than once a week. However, this past week has been a little nicer, at least enough to go play outside. I take balls out there to play with, but the girls are more interested in Grandma's lawn ornaments and the mulch. Here are some pictures of their adorable little feet in flip flops they got for Christmas.

I know it's not that exciting. I'm hoping the next time I post, I'll get to tell you that we finally have a house!

More House Hunting

Hannah and Kate are feeling much better. The fever they had was gone by the next morning. However, they are drooling like crazy. I'm not sure if they are getting new teeth, but Kate has been soaking the upper part of her shirts.

George and I have been continuing our house hunt. We looked at about 4 houses this week. We found one on the original street that we began our house hunt at 4 or 5 months ago. It's an older house, but with a lot of room, a nice pool, and an acre. It about a quarter mile from our church and very close to where we used to live. We plan on putting an offer in on Monday. Not sure how it will go because we are dealing strictly with an owner on this house. It's not a short sale nor a foreclosure, which should make it quick and easy to close in the long run. The house itself is not perfect, but it meets the overwhelming majority of our needs and wants. The lady who owns it has done A LOT of updating and adding on. She did a good job, too. Unless God throws a huge NO in our face (which we have given him permission to do & He has with several houses thus far), we'll hopefully be making some deals next week. I know that many of you out there have been praying for us and it is so much appreciated. We have been discouraged lately because we feel the rush & pressure (being put on by ourselves-not my parents) to move out of my parents' house. Honestly, I feel like God has spoken to my heart a little bit about not being 100% satisfied about this current house. The couple of things I'm not crazy about are things that the overwhelming majority of the world would consider extreme luxuries to have in a house. That's not to say that there is something wrong with having a walk-in master closet or a master bedroom on the other side of the house. I just think that sometimes I should feel more blessed by the things that I do have rather than by what I don't.

Feverish Fun

Or not. We had a low-key day today because these two sweet girls were running fevers between 102-103. I called the doctor to see if it was a reaction to their vaccines on Monday, but she said it most likely was not since it was that high. So I doped them up with Motrin and Tylenol. As soon as the medicine kicked in, they were back to their normal playful selves. Once it wore off, they were back on the couch with pacis, blankets, pillows, and Hannah even had Bella cuddled up to her. Per the advice of a friend who is in the medical field, I eventually stripped them down to their diapers to cool them off. These were pictures of them before the medicine kicked in. They were pitiful. They laid on the couch for a while today and just watched whatever cartoons were on PBS.

Kate
Hannah

Kate

Kate

Kate

Hannah

Happy 18 Months!

Happy 18 Months, Hannah & Kate! How exciting that we have reached the 1.5 year old mark. No longer babies or infants, but toddlers. And let me tell you just how toddlerish they are becoming. My sweet happy Hannah definitely has developed quite the temper. She gets her little feet a dancing and a stomping and she lets you know how unhappy she is. She has even thrown herself on the ground this past week. Kate gets upset when she's unhappy, but certainly doesn't throw the foot-stomping tantrums that Hannah does. Kate is our little talker. She is obsessed with telling us that the puppies say woof. She also knows what a sheep, bear, and car say. She can say ball, bye, dada, and uh-oh. Hannah prefers her own little language. However, she can tell us what a bear says and says mama and dada. They love calling their dada's name. Of course, George loves it just as much. They have pretty much dropped their morning nap. We've been so busy these past couple of weeks that I think they've decided there are much more exciting things going on than sleeping. They generally take a 2 to 3 hour nap in the afternoons.


Hannah weighed in at 19 lbs. 8 oz. She is 30" tall. She even wore 18 month clothes this morning. She's growing! She loves her veggies and is overall a good eater.


Kate weighed in at 22 lbs. 8 oz. She refused to sit on the infant scale, but loved the chance to stand on the toddler scale. She knew exactly what was going on when we went into the exam room today. She is 31.25" tall. She is still having some bowel problems, but we are upping her doses of Miralax and if that doesn't work, then we'll be talking her to see a gastroentrologist doctor. It's like the poor girl is trying to birth a child every time she poops. It's bad.


On the home front, we are completely moved out of our house. We are home owners, but homeless. The offer that we put in on the house out in Dover has expired and we are moving on. We offered the full asking price, but the seller's realtor obviously had no true interest in selling the house because she never even answered the offer. Her loss. Unfortuately, our loss, too. I'm choosing to believe though that God didn't want us to have that house because nothing was working out. We have a couple of other houses that we want to go look at. To say that we are discouraged and frustrated would be right on. We have invested so much work into getting our old house up to par and we just feel exhausted. We also are emotionally drained from looking at houses and nothing coming to fruition.


I had my 26th birthday this past week. As an adult, they come and go without much hooplah. I actually spent the evening shampooing the carpets at our house. Woohoo! We did have a family celebration last night at Erin and Dru's house. They made some yummy pizza! I'm looking forward to a "normal" week that includes bible study, story time, and the normal errands. Everyone is finally healthy and we're hoping that it stays that way!

Here are some pictures of our time running around in the backyard this afternoon.



This is just me trying to get some pictures to put on the blog.

Hannah

Kate

Hannah

Here are some of Hannah playing at our old house while I was cleaning. I actually forgot I had these on my camera. She loves having her blanket over her head.

And here is some video of them during snack time today. I was trying to get them to show off, but apparently all it did was make me look stupid. Normally when I tell Hannah to say cheese, she squints her eyes and gives a big toothy grin. Enjoy!