June visit to Grandma's house

Here are a few pictures taken during our June visit to Grandma and Grandpa Bear's house while our hardwood floors were being installed. Yes, they are from 3 months ago, but at least I finally got them posted. This is a good pictoral of our visit.

The Cub House ROCKS!!!! This cub house was my savior!! It got the cubs out of the house and entertained. It's decked out with carpet, ceiling fans, windows, and TOYS!!! My parents really go all out for the cubs. Can you say "spoiled"?!?!?!






"Oooh, look Mommy! Another animal for us to torture!"


Isn't he the cutest? Even after the cubs picked him up by the neck in a death grip.


Baxter has learned to keep his distance. In reality, he really is great with the cubs, and the cubs love him!


Some serious golfing! Zach spent a lot of time golfing. He has perfected the fist pump. Too darn cute, if I say so myself.










Some serious kite flying. Emily loved it. Zach, not so much.






Some serious Heather-trapping. My dad kindly put up this sign so I wouldn't have a repeat of the "attack of the killer hose guard".


My dad doesn't throw anything away. Here is a picture of Emily on MY very first tricycle.


Some serious wearing-out. Little guy was exhausted from all those rounds of golf.

Time warp

I FINALLY downloaded our pictures from June and July. Yes, I am THAT far behind. Now I have to go through them and post the best ones. I can't comprehend where all the time has gone. Trying to get anything done with two VERY active three year olds is darn near impossible. Please bear with me, I promise to have a blog update soon! ...with pictures too!

Who's the boss??

The cubs were sitting of the floor playing together last week. It was really a nice thing to watch. I heard several "here you go"s and "thank you"s, which made me smile. Then something went very wrong. A squabble broke out, Emily stood up, put one hand on her hip, pointed to the corner, and said, "Zach, corner!". UH OH!! Then she repeated it, with emphasis. "Zach, CORNER!" To my dismay, my sweet, little man got up and went to his time-out corner. So I quickly went to him, told him he wasn't in trouble, and explained that only Mom and Dad could put him in the time-out corner. Big Sister is not the boss!! Sorry, Emily.

I don't even know what I've missed!

Wow, it's bad when you are so far behind in blogging that you don't even know what you've forgotten to blog about. I'm sure Steve will read this and present me with a long list of things I forgot. His memory is better than mine.

I think I'll start with the present and try to work my way backwards. We had a very enjoyable Fourth of July weekend. Our friends, Kristi and JJ, came to visit. We enjoyed a nice lunch with them. They had tickets to the Rangers game on Sunday evening, so we went to Heather and Greg's house across the street to watch the fireworks. They have 3 year old twin boys so it was fun watching the kiddos play together. Zach loved the fireworks. Emily was a little afraid of them. We were really close and they were pretty loud. She had her head buried in her hands or in Daddy's shoulder most of the time. Cubs were super exhausted on Monday. Emily even asked to go "night-night" early. WHAT????

Don't drink the water here. That's what I'm going to tell everyone who visits. In addition to Heather and Greg's twins, another set of 3 year olds is moving in 4 houses down from us, and another set is due just around the corner from us. That's four sets of twins practically within arms length of each other. It is going to be fun watching the cubs grow up with so many kiddos in our age group around.

I found a summer preschool for the cubs. You have no idea how momentous this announcement is. I thought I could handle the summer, but it was quickly evident that I was way in over my head. They were cranky, I was cranky. Cub Central was CRANKY. So now they go on Tuesdays and Thursdays and I think they are really enjoying it. I know I am. Even if I do nothing at all but sit at home and absorb the silence. It only lasts six weeks but I think it is our saving grace. I don't think we could have made it through the summer without it. Mom can only paint so many times in one day. That is Emily's current favorite activity. Paint, paint, paint. She loves it. She can sit at the table and paint for 30 minutes. I am not complaining about this! I think this is AWESOME! My complaint is that her twin counterpart can only paint for 30 seconds. So for over 29 minutes I have to listen to whining and moaning and complaining. I would love for him to do his own activity but he is a little attached to Mommy right now and for obvious reasons I can't leave Emily alone with the paint. I already have a newly decorated chair cover. So there is this constant need to be going in two directions at once. I can't seem to please them both, so summer Preschool to the rescue.

Grandma and Grandpa Bear were here two weekends ago (even though it feels like two months ago). They volunteered to cubsit while Steve and I took a mini-vacation. It was the first time Steve and I had been away from the cubs together. We stayed two nights at the Four Seasons in Las Colinas. We stayed in a villa right off the 18th green. Steve was acting like a little boy on Christmas morning. He got to play two rounds of golf while I made good use of the spa. I even took a few naps and enjoyed reading a book poolside. It was amazing. I only called to check up on the cubs a few times. I thought I did pretty well.

We purchased a cedar play set for the cubs, complete with swings, a slide, a rock wall, and a fort. Grandpa Bear came a day early to help us install it. We are now waiting on a few replacement parts (some were damaged in shipping). I can't wait to get it completed. The swings are up and the cubs love them, but I know the slide will be the biggest hit.

I celebrated my birthday with four of the best girls ever. I had a blast at Brio's! Five girls, four bottles of wine, and the best $2.99 appetizers EVER! Their appetizer special was from 3-7pm and 9-11pm, and yes, we were there to cover both of them. We then topped the night off at the Cheesecake Factory. Yummy!

I guess it's time to let Steve tell me everything I left out. I'll make myself a list and cover it in the next post. Next month. That seems to be the posting pattern now. I laughed when I noticed that I posted 118 entries in 2008 and 170 entries in 2009. No chance for that this year....only 39 entries so far and it's already July. Urgh.

More random photos

This is Emily's alter ego. The dress wearing one.

Reading and laughing. Good times!

Our future PGA Pro!

She has it rough, doesn't she??

Summer fun!!

We've really been loving the pool. The cubs love the play ledge with the gushers, but are still uncertain about getting into the actual pool. However, they love riding in the floaties, so I captured a few photos to share. We have been looking into swimming lessons, but most of the 3 year old classes are taught with no parental guardian in the pool and I don't think the cubs are quite ready for that yet. The other classes I have found are "Mommy and Me" type classes, which require one adult per every child, and those won't work for us either since I obviously can't clone myself. Perhaps private lessons are the way to go.

They certainly take after their mom...they love floating in the rafts. Here's proof:

Long overdue

Time to get caught up on our long overdue photo sharing. Here are some pictures from Mother's Day. While the thought was good (I would love this to be a yearly event), the execution leaves a little more to be desired. The cubs still don't like their pictures taken, so here is all we could get. You'll notice there isn't one of the three of us. Better luck next year!