the country

We went to "The country" (as Marci calls it) again today. Today it was Marci, Abby, Emma and myself. Mandy watched Garrett and Izzy. it was fun only ahveing the big kids. Emma loved playing with Abby. We went in the wave pool. Floated down the lazy river. Then we braved the water slides. First, Emma and i went down a little kid one in a double raft where the front area is filled in so she could sit in it without slipping out. She really enjoyed that one. Then we went up the pipeline one. A long, windy, dark and enclosed in places one. We got all the way to the top of the steps, of which i had to pick up emma towards the top because it was burning our feet, and I asked her again do you want to do this with mommy? She looked concerned but if abby was going to do it so was she. Well we were ina double raft (not the baby ones that had an enclosed front section) where I sat in the front and she sat on the middle of the two sections with ehr feet wrapped around my waist. Ok kinda scarey for mommy but i wrapped her legs around and held onto one of her ankles for dear life. Then we star off with a huge waterfall in our face, then a long area of completly dark and enclosed fast turns, next another waterfall in the face, open air fast curves, more water in the face to finally opening into a pool area. I tired to conceal my fear for her with yells like "whoo hoo isn't this funny baby?" every few seconds. we got off and she was shaking and said "i want to go back to the baby pool. that was kinda scarey" so maybe a 2 1/2 year old is a bit too young for the pipeline. :) I kinda knew that but didn't want to pass along my fears of heights and going fast to her. I told her (as i carried her back to eat lunch) that she was ok and mommy had a hold of ehr leg the whole time and would never let go of her. we decided she'd wait till she was 3 years old before we tried the big slide again and next time we'd just go on the littler slide a bunch.

Then we come home and hang out with the rhodes and mandy for a few. After Izzy woke up and went upstairs with the big kids we hear a cry over the monitor. MArci and Mandy walked upstairs to check. Marci asked Abby "why is Izzy crying?" abby replies with "I don't know I wasn't even in there" Emma pipes up "well i was" So Marci asks here "why is Izzy crying?" Emma says "I pushed her". ok so at least she's honest. Then mandy says to emma "let's go tell your mommy" Emma says "No I don't want to" and refuses to come. Mandy picks her up in one arm (garrett's still in the other) and brings her to me. I make her say sorry and hug Izzy and tell her not to push anymore but I was proud of her to tell me and Mrs. Marci the truth.

Also Granny will be so proud 2 nights ago Emma lost her passy. She brought it downstairs and was playing with it. I told her to go put in back upstairs or I was calling Granny. I didn't see it with ehr later on so i assumed she took it back upstairs. When it came time for bedtime she was haivng a fit because she didn't want to go to bed. which is rare with her. She usually goes to bed really good. Then Daddy and I search the downstairs over and over and can't find the passy. I offer her one of brothers but she doesn't use it untill about 4 am. (I always check on her when I'm up feeding Garrett) we still didn't find it the next day so she has been passy free for two days. She found it when abby was here but while she was distracted I hid it in my room and she hasn't asked for it. I think we are going to use this opportunity to get rid of it all together. The only problem is I think she's getting her 2 year molers because she has been putting everything in her mouth lately. I finally broke down adn gave her a teething ring and she actually chews on it too. The thing I can't stand is her constantly chewing on her fingernails. I don't know what to do about that. But we need to find a solution soon. It's such a bad habit to have a so hard to break (*cough TANYA cough*)

Have a great holiday weekend. I think Matt and I are going to work on making our house more "sellable". Fun times here.

That's my favorite

Recently Emma has been saying "That's my favorite" about everything. A few things remain favorites no matter what. Like the color Pink or the cheese dip place for dinner. Other things come and go like when she'll see a car on the road and say "I like that car. It's my favorite" or yesterday while playing near the wooded area by our house she found a tree and said "I like this tree. It's my favorite" I think it's very cute.


We've had Isaac every mon - thurs for a couple of hours in the morning so Kellie can go to a class. Emma and Isaac have loved being together again. Today was kellies last day of class though. Next week we have Isaac 2 days for kellie to go to a workshop but after that no more I-man. What will we do? There will be much weeping. Though they are very good at getting into all kinds of truoble togther I will miss him and how emma loves him so. We need to sell our house quick so we can move closer to them!

Speaking of selling our house. We spent 1 1/2 hours out on the wooded trail near our house yesterday so they could show it to someone. which was fine. I found a place that had a bunch of shade and we laid out a blanket and had a picnic. Today though they called at 11:40 to see if they could show the house at 12. I mean really! So I told them they could come at 12:30. They thankfully agreed. I got off the phone and yelled "clean up the toys" Emma looked up and said "are people comming to see the house?" I said "Yes" and she and Isaac actually started cleaning up their toys right away. Thankgoodness. I thankfully ahd just finished washing up and clenaing up the kitchen after making my cake and iceing for class tonight. So all I had to do was striaghten upstairs, get me and the kids ready, and get out. We ended up getting out of there at 12. But I had a delima of only 1 big kid car seat and 2 big kids. So I opted to put Isaac in emmas car seat and let emma sit in the backseat with just the lap belt. We drove about 2 minutes away to a little roadside park and played there for about 20 min untill Kellie got there. Then we went to Senior's for cheesedip. YUM :)

Tonight is my last cake decorating class for this course 1. I want to continute on to course 2 and 3. We have to have 4 people to be able to get a class started. So if anyone has done class one and want to do a thursday night 5-7 course 2 class plase let me know so we can all sign up! I will post pictures tonorrow of all 4 cakes I've made to impress all of you.

Garrett is being pretty cute these days too. He is really working on his controll of his arms and legs. It's too funny to watch him slowly make a fist and try to slowly bring it to his mouth, going cross-eyed- in the process.

And he's pulling his legs up in a little crunch and thinking about throwing them to one side. I know rolling over is just around the corner. Of course if he could he'd get up and run after that big sister of his. He LOVES emma and tris his hardest to get her attention. He smiles his biggest when she is paying attention to him. She's a good big sister to him.

A day for Emma

We put our house on the market thursday around 5pm. Yesterday we had the realtor call to see if they could show it at 10:30am today. So, Matt and I went on a crazy cleaning, fixing up, sorting spree. Emma was confused, curious, and really wanting to help but ending up in the way most of the time. She also had to entertain herself alot the past couple of days. She has beena real trooper. It was hard to watch a lot of her toys being packed up and taken away but she felt better once we showed her the storage shed so she knew her toys woudl return once we get "our new big house closer to Isaac". Well since we needed to be gone by 10am this morning we decided to make it a day for Emma. We went to McDonalds for a 10:20am breakfast. Then it was off to the Zoo. The zoo was hot but fun. Emma and Daddy went into the petting area and brushed a goat.


They went into the reptile building together. Then later on, they got to pet a snake (no pictures of this one b/c mommy had her back turned in fear when she glimpsed the thing from far away). While they were doing that I got another call to show the house at 2:30 today.So we had more time to kill so we let Emma decide which animals she wanted to see and in which order. Daddy and I walked alot! After all that excitement we went to The Purple Cow resturant for lunch.(Emma's been wanting to go back there for weeks). She ate some of her grilled cheese but ate all of her purple (vanilla) ice cream cone. She just thinks it's sooo cool to have purple ice cream. It's been a fun filled day.

Random shots:
Garrett "reading"


Can a baby get some sleep around here?


Emma and Isaac playing dress up . . what's a boy to do ?. . when in rome . . .

Eating a push-up popcicle


Our princess

We're moving . . .

. . . to the sherwood/NLR area . . . .hopefully soon. We found a house we LOVE last night and now we are doing a mad rush trying to pack up extra stuff adn move it to a storage shed so we can put our house on the market this weekend. yikes! Pray for this deal to all work out and for us to keep our sanity and patience.

family pictures

view our family pictures online . . . http://amykeltonproofs.photosite.com/Welch/
let me know by July 6th if you want me to order you one.

They called him flipper . . .

Garrett flipped from his belly to his back all by himself today! He did it only once and got mad when I tried to get him to do it again. So it may be a while before he does it again but once means he's getting bigger and stronger. He'd really like to crawl after his big sister but can't figure that one out. He scrunches his chubby legs up and throows his head to the floor and looks up at her like "aren't you going to come over and play with me?" That's pretty cute as well.

Fun in the sun

We went to texarkana this past sunday - wednesday for my Uncle Don's funeral. He was a great christain man and he will be missed. The funeral was tuesday. Monday morning we got up and went to meme and popo's to play for a little bit. Then ate lunch with Big Daddy and headed toward Uncle Hoyts swimming pool. It was a whole family outing. Emma calls Uncle Hoyt either "Grandpa" or "Uncle Oint" Emma had a blast in the pool. She loved getting to feel so big swimming "by herself" in a floaty ring. It was a bunch of fun for us all. Garrett even got to join in on the fun for a couple of minutes. Though he would prefer a lukewarm bath tub to the cool pool waters. :)


Thursday was crazy because I had to watch Emma, Isaac, adn Garrett all day, bake my cake, ice my cake, make extra icing, and find a sitter for the kids that evening so matt and casey could go play softball. I got it all achieved. Though the sitter part was hard because either no one answered tehir phone, were out of town, or were spending time with their parents ;) so finally I got ahold of Suzanna Brown (better known as Davia's mom) and she agreed to come watch the 3 kids for the hour between when the guys needed to leave and when kellie and i could get there. That was a lifesaver. Though after she left emma kept saying davia this and davia that. I had to keep reminding that wasn't davia, it was davias mommy. Kellie and I had a laughing good time in our cake decorating class. We both need to work on our icinig consistency. Her's was too thick. Some of mine was too thick but mostly too thin. It made doing the things we needed to do laughable.


Friday we went to amy kelton's house to have our pictures taken. The kids did pretty good. http://amykeltonproofs.photosite.com/ (our pictures should be up in a couple of weeks)

Then the best thing of all TANYA AND AIRY ARE HOME! We got to go to Ms. Pam's house and see them and get our presents. Emma loves the fact they got her a sheep that can take his outfit off. Then we rushed home, ate lunch and, changed clothes. Next Mandy came over and Emma and I went to WRC. She was having a blast jumping in the waves of the wave pool, playing on the duck slide in the kiddie area, and Laying on her back in the super shallow area of both. The best part was when she spotted Katie, Madison, Chris, and Taylor in the deep end. She wanted to badly to go over there and see them. They spotted her and acme over and she pulled the shy thing and didn't saya word. uuggg! Then we got on the lazy river. Not 2 seconds after we get going on it it begins to rain. No biggi we're at a water park you are supposed to get wet. Then it rains harder and thumders. As we are rounding a corner I see they are making people get out of the big pool. Lovely we're floating where we can't eaisly get out. So I begin to paddle my arms to help us finish faster. A ittle bit before then end a friendly lifeguard boy comes up and pushes us to the end. Emma thought that was pretty fun. By that time it's 3pm and we were going to eave at 3:20 anyway so we pack it in and leave. She's in the car 4 minutes then she's out like a light.

On Garrett news, he's going to eat us out of house and home eventually. Thursday I thought I'd try a little rice ceral with Garrett just to see what he would do with it. . . . He slurped it down like he'd been eating it for weeks! ok fine I thought. I tried applesauce that evening and he slurped that down too! It was a size 2 jar! So we got more jar food and rice ceral last night. I fed him a size 2 jar mixed with rice cereal and he downed it good. Now noone tell his Dr because he's not supposed to start cereal or foods untill 4 months old. Yeah my 2 1/2 month old has started food and started on size 2 jars! BOYS!

What a fun filled week

We have had so much fun this week. First it's so great Isaac comes to our house monday through thursday for about 3 hours every morning. Wednesday we had Mandy come over and watch Garrett while Emma, Isaac and I went to Wild River Country with Marci, Abby, and Izzy. That was loads of fun. Then came our new "big kid" 2 year old Bible class that night. Yesterday Emma, Isaac, Garrett, and I went to the park in the morning. Today Kellie, Isaac, Emma, Garrett, and I went to the Zoo. Man it's been so busy but so much fun! Oh and last night Jennifer and Caroline stopped in for a little while. That was awsome too. Even better is Tanya and Airy come home next Friday!!! I miss them so much! I don't like not being able to call Tan whenever I want.

Granny Magic

Too funny! As many of you may know we have tried to make Emma only use her passy for nap and bedtime. And sometimes if she's sick and pitifull. She has tried to be sneaky and say she's tired when she's upset so she can go upstairs and use it but we got wise to that one and put it where she can't reach it. As many of you might not know my mom "Granny" tries to get her to not use it at all. Well yesterday I guess I forgot to put it away after nap. She went and found it later and had it in her mouth with a "lok what I found" smile on her face. So I said "ohhhh, I'm gonna call Granny" she pulled it out and threw it on the floor and said "no" (smiling). It was too funny. So everytime I found her with it in her mouth I'd pick up my cell and she'd throw it down and say "no call Granny". she didn't want Granny to know she'd had it in her mouth.

On that same tone. We are still working on potty training. Going to wal-mart tonight to buy the book "Potty Train Your Child in Just One Day: Proven Secrets of the Potty Pro". Hey it's worth a try. Well emma's pull-up was wet this morning so I told her to go sit on the potty while i got her adry one. She ended up going potty. I said "Oh good job baby!" she smiled and said "Granny so proud". I said "yes, she is. Mommy and daddy are proud too"

So, Granny has some magic hold of my girl. awsome. and she gave me permission to use her for things like this whenever I want. :) sweet!

Happy Trails to you . . .

The Clements are officially gone. They drove off from our house towards TN about 15 minutes ago. I just now stopped crying. I did good though. I gave ree a hug, went outside while they loaded the kids in the car, waved by, shut the front door, then broke down. I didn't want to break down in front of her because then she'd start up and that'd be a driving hazard. I don't want them to leave but not because they are all in the hospital from a car crash. It was special to me to have them spend their last night in town with us. Though I barely saw ree and matt it was still nice knowing they were downstairs. I love the whole family with all my heart and wish them the best of time over there in TN. Ree is one of my very best friends and always will be. She willbe missed greatly! Emma acts sad when I talk about them living far away but I don't think it will really set in untill she doesn't see them at church and we don't go over to their house anymore. She's gonna miss Caleb and Riley and even Ian. Please come and visit you guys! and Keep your family blog updated with news adn pictures! We love you!