Seat belts!

The girls were playing last week and came to find me because they needed a seat belt. They were satisfied with a pool noodle. At least I know they are listening and know the safety rules in the car.

Before I forget

I am trying to post from my new phone so we'll see how it goes. Wanted to write this down before I forget because it was so funny. The girls were playing and I heard matney get upset. Then I listened to HK...she was telling matney that Santa couldn't come this year because he died. Matney asked why and HK said that the "bad guys" got him. Matney then asked who the bad guys are and HK quickly responded "Mary and Joseph". Ha! This same conversation repeated itself many more times during the afternoon. Kids are so darn funny!

Printing the Blog

I have had lots of people ask me about this recently and promised to post the info. See those 4 folders on shelf? I finally got the blog printed! There are several online sites that will print and bind your blog into a book but I never found one I liked due to formatting issues (and cost!). We started blogging at the end of 2007 so there was a lot of blog to print!
After looking at all the options I ended up using blog2print. Uploading your blog will take just a few minutes and then you’ll see several printing options. I chose to pay $7.95 per year and have the blog emailed to me as a PDF file instead of having it printed by their company. Again, personal preference but if they print it, and your blog is like ours with specific text under specific pictures, the formatting changes so your pictures don’t line up with your text (ie – all the photos upload in one column and the text is in another column. If you had more pictures or text than the other then the longer portion continues on to the next page. Does that make sense?) I didn’t want to go back and delete/rearrange 4+ years of blog so I chose the PDF and the emailed file looks exactly like the blog does online.
We researched printing options and a friend was able to print at her office and we just paid her per page. Talk about a good friend! I selected and shipped her paper (this one is a thicker and better for photos than regular paper), then gave her a flash drive with the files. She printed everything and I handed her a check. So easy (well, maybe not for her! Thanks again a TON, Erin!)
Total cost, based on how many books/pages we needed (4 books, approx. 1200 pages), was over $800 on the cheapest blog printing website I found. Ouch! If you printed each year it wouldn’t be as painful as doing 4 years at a time. However, if $200+ per year still didn’t get you what you wanted then that seems like a REALLY REALLY expensive option. I ordered enough paper to print this year’s blog too. So, when it is all said and done we will have spent $215 to order PDFs and paper, printed and purchased binders for 5+ years of blog books….compared to the $1000+ it would have been to have an online company print and bind the same thing.
What else? I took all the pages to Office Depot and punched holes for free and am making my own cover for the front of each binder. You could print the pages yourself and then have an office supply store bind them into a book for you if you don’t like the binder idea.  I ended up thinking that if they were in a binder and the girls ever grow up and want their own copy then I can just run it through a copier as many times as I need (of course, who knows if copiers and paper will exist in 20 years?!?!?).
Obviously it took years to get this done, partly because I wasn’t sure how I wanted to do it. It was expensive and what happens when there is 1 printed book and 3 kids? And, let’s be honest, I type these entries at night – I started this post at 4:30am – there are lots of grammar/spelling issues that spell check doesn’t catch and I don’t have time to go back and proof every entry (don’t we think Jared should do that?!?!). If there were more hours in the day I’d ideally write a post, save it and edit it later…but we way too quickly run out of hours around here!
Lots of times I beat myself up because (before I was a parent) I just knew my kids would have awesome scrapbooks every year and fabulous photo albums to document their lives. After being a mom for about 2 months I decided that if we all survived to adulthood/old age without starving or being overcome by dust in the house then life was going to be great! Just kidding…sort of! Now, as I put the printed blog into binders and looked at them all together I ended up giving myself a pat on the back. Sure, there are misspelled words, grammar mistakes and events left out, there are unflattering pictures of all of us and sometimes too much unnecessary information. However, blogging is a lot of work and those 1200 pages represent a LOT of missed sleep while documenting our lives. We may not have perfect baby scrapbooks, and maybe the girls won’t ever care to look back through these posts again. However, I can close my eyes and imagine that, if nothing else, Jared and I will sit 30 years from now flipping through the pages, laughing and crying looking back through these years. So, here’s to more years of blogging - spelling mistakes, ugly pictures and all! Now go get yours printed, if you wait until it is perfect you’ll never get it done!

Built-ins Update

What a difference 2 weeks can make….of course, that is two weeks with lots of super late nights spend nailing, sanding and painting. The built-ins are installed and almost finished. Whoo hoo! Aren’t you so very impressed? Jared built the entire thing in 2 weeks, while working his usual bazillion hours…you’re jealous aren’t you girls?!?!?! Once he finished installing I painted. Here are some pictures from the past 2 weeks.


Whooo hooo! Aren't they awesome? And don't even think about trying to steal the man on the ladder. He's mine! Although, after all this he probably would like someone to come take him away and let him rest for a while. Sassy, I should probably send him to you. Some good TX food and being a "punkin" for a week would probably do him good!

The doors still have to go on the bottom and we’ll move the TV this weekend but I started putting stuff on the upper bookcase shelves playing around yesterday. That is a LOT of space. I stole things from all over the house (with the help of a few cans of spray paint)  and, thanks to some birthday Target giftcards, will be on the hunt to fill the rest of the space today. I am not a knick knack person and want it to look full but not cluttered.

Most of the above pictures were taken at night when the girls were in bed. What it really looks like during the day is the picture below. Each girl has claimed a cubby as a bed and the spaces with shelves are “bunk beds” for their dolls. As I blog there is a Tiger cuddling with a toy car currently bunking on the bottom and a fairy Barbie on the top. It will be a sad day when the doors go on!

Now that most of the construction is over and the tools are out of the house it is time to put this place back together! Between moving everything upstairs, which reminds me that I need to do a post on the girls sharing a room, and the downstairs being a construction zone this place has been a mess! There is a THICK layer of dust on every surface of this house. Sanding inside is necessary but messy! Time to get things cleaned up so we can settle in and wait for Evelyn to arrive!

Visit to Santa

Ellie the Elf came back to visit and dropped of our tickets to see Santa yesterday! The girls had been waiting and were super excited to go. Halle Kate even demanded to wear her Christmas dress with tights. I have never run (ok, Jared will correct this, I waddled) up the stairs and ironed a dress so fast in my life! Such cute girls!

Family picture in front of the snowman. We’ve taken this same picture for the past several years. I need to put them all together in one post to compare.

The girls do not believe they can go to the mall and not eat a pretzel. We finished our snack and headed to see Santa. Lots of smiles turned into a little apprehension as we got close.

See the difference in the girls? Matney is very serious in a new situation, HK is always wide-eyed and ready to run.

Mr. Claus! Matney asked for the McKenna American Girl doll. She picked that out months ago and has never changed her mind. Apparently HK asked for spiderman footie pajamas with spiderman wearing a Santa hat. ha! She is going to be sad when those don’t show up. I asked her later where she’d ever seen those before and she said “MoMo’s Target”. It has been well over a year since she has ever stepped foot in MoMo’s Target!

 

This is our official Bass Pro Shop picture. These girls had been smiling for hours and when the camera came *poof* serious faces!

School Pictures

I just scanned these pictures for something and realized that they never made it on the blog. These are the girls' school pictures from Spring semester. Matney had just turned 4 and HK was a few months shy of turning 3. Anyone think I will ever get them in matching outfits and bows again? I doubt it. It was a good thing these turned out so very cute because they were ridiculously expensive to buy. Pretty sure these three 8x10s were $90. And now you know why we never buy the school pictures! All prices forgotten (in fact, I should delete that $ info from the blog before Jared has a stroke all over again!) they are such cute girls!!!

Thankful

I am so darn thankful for these three! The girls become Daddy’s Girls more and more every day. They wake up wanting Daddy in the morning and continue to ask for him all day long. I LOVE it! I know there are some dads who don’t take time to get down and play with their kids but that is not Jared. He is awesome at getting down and dirty with the girls, so much better than I am. They have adventures with all their toys, wacky races and bear hunts every night when Jared gets home. Sometimes I use that time to clean the kitchen and sometimes I just stop and watch them. They are all so cute! And let’s just imagine another little one on top of the pile. We’re about 2 months out….can’t wait to meet you Evelyn!

End of gymnastics

The girls had their final gymnastics class last week. The moms were allowed to come into the gym to watch and take pictures….which meant that all the kids were way hyped up and not paying any attention to their teachers!

They always warm up on mats.


Ms. Laura and HK on the uneven bars.

HK going sideways on the balance beam.

Matney getting ready for a floor routine.

The long trampoline that lands in a foam pit was the class favorite for sure!


Ta da! They each got a ribbon and were very proud!

Matney’s Thanksgiving program

Matney’s class had a Thanksgiving feast and complete with songs and yummy food. Even though we know that she is an awesome kid I wish we knew how to help Matney because she is so shy. See her in the middle with her hands in her mouth? She stayed like that the entire time and never sang one word. And she’d been singing every word of those songs for weeks very excited to show off.

 

Once again there is Ms. Sherrie in all her fun clothes. She makes the school year fun for the kids and the parents!

One of Matney’s best friends this year is Brooke. I hope they are going to the same elementary school. Can’t believe it is time to think about that already. Before I know it I’ll be heading to register her for school!

Thanksgiving Day

I don’t have many pictures from Thanksgiving day. Jared and the girls got up and went to his parents. His dad had the shingles shot a few weeks prior and was told not to be around anyone pregnant for a month. I enjoyed a pizza and scrapbooking day home alone. When they got back we went to our neighborhood park to play.


The girls and Jared always play grocery/bagel/ice cream, etc store at the park. I think this day they were selling ice cream and Matney was taking orders.

I have no idea what Jared was doing. ha! He’ll love this picture being on the blog.

Pay up, Sister! Matney always makes sure to get her money.