Cakes!

Here is round 1 of Emily's cake - this one round 1 of Em's cake - we had toss this one since Cha Cha helped me decorate it and then got sick an hour later.

Here is round 2 of Emily's cake - I think it turned out better than the first one.

Here is Natalie's Barbie cake. She loved it!

The 2 meanings of chillin'

The first definition of chillin' comes from Jane - she thinks of it as hanging out on the couch doing nothing but drinking a bottle. As you can see, she is quite comfortable.

The second definition comes from Charlotte. Her definition of chillin' involves getting ready for a snow day. Clearly she doesn't get that lives in Texas and that it doesn't snow here. That said, she got ready for snow yesterday morning - she has on her snow shoes (Brian's socks), her snow mittens (again, Brian's socks), her snow hat, and her snow coat.

Where a kid can be a kid

The sketch book was so much fun, the girls did one together - don't you love mom & dad's arms holding up the kids?

Cousins

Last weekend we took the girls to Chuck E. Cheese's for a birthday party. Their cousin Dayne was turing 5. The favorite game at the party was the sketch book. Since Cha Cha & Luke are the same age, they did one together.

Then Jane and Derryk did one together since they are close in age too. As you can see, Jane was not as impressed with this as Charlotte was.

Busy Jane

Now that Jane is crawling, she is all over the place. We'll put her down in the living room and before we know it, she is in the kitchen or the play room, or up the stairs (yes, we have since put up the baby gate). Here she is playing with her drums.

Then she decided to read a book, and by read, I really mean eat.

Then she moved to the hall to hang out there.

Sweet Baby Jane

Cha Cha works out

Cha Cha has started working out with her mom and her dad. Here she is doing some arm work with EA Active.

When toddlers dress themselves...

4th of July

For the 4th of July the family headed to Houston for the Greenwood Forest neighborhood parade. Here we all are waiting for the parade to begin.

Notice, Cha Cha's parade hat - she was so excited to wear it!

Here Cha Cha is with her cousin Tatum. They had so much fun over the weekend and she can't wait for Tatum to come back and play.

During the parade, Cha Cha got a horn to blow...I really want to thank the woman passing by for giving her that. We are still enjoying her using that. I think it may go missing tonight while she sleeps.

Jane was wonderful during the parade. I was worried the sirens would upset her or she'd melt in the heat, but she was a trooper and loved every minute of it.

Family photo

Brian is not back yet, but I didn't get any new pictures of the girls today so I'm posting this recent family photo in honor of

JANE'S FIRST WORDS!!!

Yepers, Jane came out with "dada" tonight. Her face lit up as she said it and I called Brian right away so he could hear it. Clearly, she is missing him and can't wait to see him in a few days.

Daddy Search

Jane has been looking for her daddy...she thinks she heard something in the toy basket....

"oh my, is my daddy in here?" she thinks...

She is doing a very good job looking in the basket....

but for all her looking in the toy basket, he was not there, leaving her to wonder "when is my daddy coming home?"

My babies

Cha Cha decided to be a baby today. She put on one of Jane's bibs and drank water from a baby bottle most the afternoon.

Jane is reaching out for her daddy.

Emailing Daddy

This is Cha Cha writting an email to her daddy on her computer.

She started to get sad when he didn't reply back to her right away.

It made her cry.

Daddy finally wrote her back and she was so happy!

So much to discover

Jane is crawling all over the place now and gets into the oddest places. Tonight she managed to crawl under the kitchen table and just loved playing there.