bitter sweet

This past weekend we made a quick trip down to Austin.

My sister-in-law, Christee, starts Chemo this week and we wanted to hang out with her before things got started.

We did find out that it is Stage IIIC - which is MUCH better than Stage IV, but we still need lots of prayer!! Also, since she is going loose her hair very quickly she decided she would rather have a celebration and shave her head vs. it coming out in clumps one day too soon. So we had a party!! It was super fun and great to meet all their friends. She has an awesome support system down in Austin and thankfully Adam's other brother lives there too! We wished we were closer, but we are planning to make trips down there more often. Here are a few shots of the fun.

Some before pictures -

The Dugan clan -

Todd & Tricia, Paul & Christee, Adam and I

Before

Kaitlynn helping cut her mom's hair.

A little mohawk!

bald and beautiful!

Christee sporting her one of her many new scarfs - doesn't she look so cute?!!

footies

I love when the weather turns cooler and I can finally put my littlest daughter in little footie pj's. There is just something about them that makes me feel like I have still have a baby. One last winter of footie pj's then on to separates - otherwise potty training would be even more difficult.

ps. I can't thank you enough for the prayers for Christee. Please keep praying! This is going to be a long hard battle, but we know she can beat it with God by her side!!

prayers

I have a big request. My sister-in-law (Adam's brothers wife) Christee, has a big road ahead of her. Last week she was diagnosed with Stage 3 (possibly Stage 4) breast cancer. She is only in her 30's and has 3 kids and has much to live for - so we need all the prayers we can get. This week please pray for Christee and her family and the news they have been given. Please pray that it is not stage 4 as the chance of survival at the point goes way down.

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers!!

rain rain

It's rained for 6 days straight now.

And while I normally love a rainy day to enjoy the indoors, I might very well go crazy.

Adam's out of town so getting out with two small children in the rain is tough. The girls are going stir crazy. We normally spend at least an hour or two outside a day.

Plus its putting a damper on my running schedule.

The only positive about all this rain is my super cute new shoes I have to wear. They are AWESOME - and green :) You totally need to try out Privo's if you haven't already. Thanks Hailey for telling me about them! I love 'em!!

Oh and I have to add that I got them on Amazon for $31 - tax, shipping and all!! Bargan since they retail for $80+!

Hoping for nicer weather this weekend so we go to the Balloon Festival!

Emma's half birthday!

Emma is now our big girl at 18 months!

At least that is what she thinks.

Honestly, I really wonder/fear what kind of pre-teen she is going to be?!

Emma is definitely our strong-willed child that knows what she wants and isn't stopping till she gets it. However in the same breath, she is sweet and kind and always ready to blow a kiss or give a high five!

She loves to do anything that means we are going - loves to go shopping (for a bit), loves to go the park, loves to go for rides in the car or a stroll around the neighborhood, she loves to go to the pediatrician, and loves to hang out and play with friends at their houses of course (new toys!). She just loves to be on the go.


Emma is really into pretend these days - playing with her baby dolls and putting them "night, night" or feeding them their bottles or even taking them for a stroller ride around the house - she loves it! She also loves playing house and with her little kitchen.

She is a great little sleeper - typically sleeping from 8:30pm-7:30am and usually takes a 3 hours nap after lunch.

Emma loves books as well. Well, she really just loves to pull every single one off the shelf and thumb through them. She has gotten into bedtime story time most. We all cuddle up in Grace's bed and read a couple books every night. She loves being in her sister's big bed. I suspect that we might have to move her to a big girl bed before we know it. She just loves it!

She also went pee-pee on the potty for the first time over the weekend!! I pulled out one of our little potty's and started putting her on the potty before bath time. Grace actually did the same thing about this age, but we have no plans to potty train till sometime next Spring/Summer - after she is 2.

Emma is also a little shatter box. I don't know exactly how many words she says but its a lot. I would say a good guess is that she is saying around 100 words. She tries to repeat nearly everything we ask her to and some things we don't. :)

Oh and I've almost forgotten - I think her hair might be starting to get curly. It's just doing this cute little flip up thing in the back and I love it. Maybe it will be curly like Gracie's hair?? Or maybe just a little body. Can't wait to see!

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Emma's 18 month stats:
Height - 32 inches (61%)
Weight - 22.2 lbs (18%)
Head - 19 inches (90%)

Emma actually lost weight from 15-18 months... just seeming to get taller and leaner. Thankfully she only lost a few ounces (which could have been b/c of what she ate) so the doctor wasn't worried at all.

The doctor did say she is way ahead with her language development. He said its pretty common for kids with siblings, but its super exciting for us. :)

Happy half birthday baby girl!! Until then stay little - your daddy and I just love this age!

first day

Today was Grace's first day back at preschool. She was so excited and ready to go meet her new teachers and new friends.

As always, she walked right in and said "see you later". I know she is going to have a blast, but why does she have to make leaving mom seem so easy!

I'm so excited to see what she learns and what new adventures this year brings.

(And of course Miss Emma had to have her picture taken too!)

annoying...

So is it just me or is anyone else not feeling the blog lately?

I've always felt like I was doing the blog so that one day my girls would have a little record of their lives - well lately I just haven't had a lot to talk about.



Until today that is.



Okay so picture you are at the grocery store just shopping away and you notice that you cut someone off with your cart. You know this happens - its just apart of grocery shopping. So you quickly move and apologize over and over until the person you cut off says no problem or don't worry about it.



Well today I was asking the customer service desk a quick question and a lady was trying to get her cart through this little walk way and my cart was in the way. Well I didn't know it. But of course as soon as I realized that my cart was in the way I quickly pulled it out of the way and said "OH I'm so sorry". And the lady looks at me, with the meanest look EVER, and says "whatever". I was dumbfounded (is that really how you spell that?)!



I was being honest. I really didn't know she was trying to get by.



So I said again - "No I'm really sorry." - probably should have just ignored her, but ouch - is anyone really in that big of hurry at the store.



So she storms off to shop and a lady that worked at the store apparently saw the whole conversation. She came up to me and told me that it wasn't my fault and b/c of the displays it was narrow walkway and I was being very nice.



So there you have it mean lady.


Moral of the story - when you accidentally cut someone off or someone cuts you off always say "excuse me" or "I'm sorry" - something!- it makes people like me feel better. :)



****Check back later this week for Emma's 18 month post and Grace's first day of school!****

oreos

We love oreos in this house.

Kind of funny because if you know me, you know that I don't really like chocolate.

But I do like oreos.

And I couldn't resist when I saw them on sale at Market Street last week for $1.99. I mean under $2 bucks for heaven in a cookie!

Anyway, this post really isn't about oreos, its how you eat them. You've all seen the commercials with person after person eating their oreo in different ways.

So since this blog is about my girls I thought I would post pics of their first oreos.

They are so different.

Grace - Nov. 2007 (pulled her oreo apart and ate the icing first!)

Emma - Aug. 2009 (she just eats it as fast as she can)

(I wish it were a better picture of Emma... she looks so sad... trust me she wasn't!!)

asleep

Every night before I go to bed I go and check on the girls and make sure they have a blanket over them, that they are still breathing, etc.

Well the other night I flip the stairs light on to find Grace asleep on the stairs. So of course before moving her I had to take a picture.

I guess she got out of bed and knew better than to come and find me so she just hung out there and go tired of waiting for me to notice she was there.

She sure does look cozy there.

breckenridge 2009

Last week we headed to Colorado to get away from the 100 degree weather and enjoy the outdoors.

If you know me you know that I grew up vacationing in the mountains. However our vacations to the mountains always came in the Winter/Spring when there mounds of white fluffy stuff covering everything. I've never been to the mountains in the summer. Except a trip to Colorado Springs (located in the foothills of the Rockys) and it was for a soccer tournament for my older brother and I was in 5th grade.

It is so very different in the summer. Just as beautiful but in a whole new green way. While it did make me miss the snow and skiing (its been over 6 years since I've skied) I gained a whole new love of the mountains.

A family photo at the top of peak 9 at Breckenridge. Brrrr... it was cold up there!

We enjoyed the AMAZING weather - highs in the upper 50's/low 60's.

Emma sporting her cute little Breck gear.

We all enjoyed a little Alpine Slide action. Grace LOVED it. When I rode with her she kept telling me to go faster! She sure does love a thrill.


The girls got a chance to ski...
Emma

Grace

Majority of our time was spent outside. There is a beautiful river that flows right through town that the guys went fishing in (well down stream a bit).

We even made some new friends. We met this sweet Laboradoodle while hanging out one afternoon. Labradoodles are hypoallergenic so Grace was so happy that she actually got to pet the dog. She talked about it the rest of trip. Poor girl... LOVES dogs and cats... maybe one day we will have a Labradoodle??

Emma met a miniature horse. The became fast friends.

We panned for some gold... no luck though.


Went mining... no luck there either.

Grace was COLD... very cold down in the mines and Adam and dad were wearing SHORTS!!

The whole family... my mom sure looks like a natural?

(From left to right)

Todd (my little bro), dad, me, Grace, mom, Adam and Emmy

On yet another walk... the flowers there were beautiful. Seriously you can't grow flowers here in Texas like they can up there. Shoot all the flowers around here are practically dead!

Emma enjoying spaghetti... pretty much the only meal she actually ate. She is becoming quite the picky eater! And yes she is sitting in a regular chair. She has been boycotting highchairs lately and I've decided its not a battle I choose to fight over.

We even enjoyed a little dress up at the local Children's museum.

And of course a little view of the ski hill at Breckenridge... I believe that is peak 7? Grace enjoying the view at Maggie Pond.

Overall, it was a great family trip.

And what trip would be complete without the following -
Adam got sick the last 2 days of our trip.

Grace got ringworm - can't believe I'm writing that here, but thankfully its all gone now... I've decided she got it from the plane ride to Breck!

Grace threw up on the plane on the way home.

Emma screamed for a good 30 minutes on the plane ride home. It was probably a combinations of being overtired, her ears hurting and I think she was ticked about us giving her Benedryl (which didn't work!).

Thankfully we made it home. We also decided we are driving on our next trip. We had to bring WAY too much stuff - 1 pack 'n play, 2 car seats, 1 set of gold clubs and 3 suitcases, plus 1 carry-on backpack for everyone... yes we checked SEVEN items. Thankfully we flew Southwest where you can still check bags for free and 2 baby items count for 1 regular item.

We would still go back in a heart beat. So many things we didn't have time for this trip so maybe next year?!

Thanks for a great trip everyone!

3.5

My baby girl is 3 1/2 years old. How can I possibly have a little girl that is on the bend to her fourth birthday. 4 sounds so grown up doesn't it. Well maybe it isn't, but some days it sure does feel like it. I know in another blink I will be sending her Kindergarten. Thankfully I still have 2 precious more years with her at home.

Grace is such a great daughter. While many days she does say little comments that at first I wonder where she heard it, then I remember that I said it the day before. For example, its been really hot here. I think almost everyday while we are loading up in the car I will say "its hot tamales"... and sure enough now if we are out and about Grace will says "hot toemalees" (yes its sounds like she is saying "toe" "malees"). And we often use the phrase "see you later alligator" and "after a while crocodile"... well she gets the alligator and crocodile mixed up... its really cute and I think when I laugh she knows its wrong but also knows she is just being cute.

These days Grace loves puzzles. She is doing little 15 piece jigsaw puzzles all on her own. She also told me that all her "old" puzzles are now Emma's b/c they are for babies. Well hey at least she is sharing.

Grace's favorite food right now is by far cereal. Good thing her mamma is a crazy couponer and has loads of boxes of cereal. She would eat it for breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner if I let her.

Grace's favorite books right now are Fancy Nancy, still Pinkalious, The three little pigs, and really any other fairy tail. She really loves when I just tell her stories... so sometimes I just make them up as we go along.

She also has a love/hate relationship with her little sister. When Emma is asleep or with my mom, Grace always wants to know where she is. In the same breath, when Emma is up and around she wants whatever her sister has. And of course vise versa... hopefully we get this sharing thing down at some point. I think she has just gotten a little spoiled being home all summer... starting back to school in a few weeks might be a really good thing.

Grace also continues to do great with her speech. We have been working on "s" blends all summer and we are getting there. She will say the words like "sweep" or "swim", but when we try to put it in a sentence it still comes out "fweep" of "fwim". So we will keep working. But she is making strides and trying really hard and that is all we can ask of her. We really couldn't be more proud... she really is a good little student and eager to learn and preform.

I guess that is all that is going on grace's life for the moment. We are really blessed to have such a sweet and happy little girl to be in our lives. We love you Gracie and look forward to many more memories with you!

just Grace...

This weekend Adam and I toook our oldest daughter to the lake! Some of our sweet friends invited us out to their parents lake house on Lake Jacksonville.

It was a perfect lake house made just for entertaining and having fun with friends and family. The house was built over the water so their view from the back deck was amazing. We had fun relaxing, driving the jet skis, drinking our favorite cold beverages, being pulled to our death on the tubes (I am so sore today!!), and going for cruises around the lake in their barge. Leslie, thanks so much for inviting us! We had a blast!!

Enjoying the sunset...

Part of the view... beautiful!

What trip to the lake would be complete without watermelon??!!

And of course Grace trying to "help" Steven drive.... hold on girlfriend... you have a lot more years to go!!

More pictures to come... I didn't have my camera out the first half of the day!

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Oh and don't worry, Emma was spoiled by my mom. Since the deck had no railing we figured it would be safer (and that Adam and I would have a bit more fun) if Emma stayed at home with my mom. My dad was out of town at a golf tournament so I think my mom wanted someone to keep her company. Thanks mom!

hot time summer in the city...

We have been enjoying summer so much that I've forgotten to update my blog!!

So in case we are wondering how we are doing... we are great!

And in case you are missing pictures of my two cuties... enjoy...

It's hard to tell but I'm not sure they like having their picture taken!

Hope you are having a great summer!!