Speich is in the House

One of my best friends from high school Elly Speicher was able to come visit mid-March and it was awesome! She had a conference to go to in Houston and just extended her stay over the weekend so she could come up and visit. The last time I saw Elly was last summer when I was staying in Pittsburgh without John after just having King. It was fun then, but I think the craziness of my life may at that time may have frightened her away from ever wanting to have kids. Heck it frightened me. Luckily, this time around things were not so crazy and she had fun with the kids and they loved her. In fact Netta will still talk about her friend Elly. John was great and took care of the kids so we could do as much as possible while she was here. In fact I was able to be kidless pretty much all day Saturday, which is by far the most I have been since King was born. Of course we ate and ate and ate and shopped and shopped. We also got to see a movie at Alamo Drafthouse, where you can order food and eat it during the movie. John has been there a couple times, but I never have and it was awesome. We also toured the state capitol, which I have been wanting to do for while. Yes it's nerdy and it means we are old, but we liked it. (I kind of skipped a post where I turned 30, but I did in February and I think it is starting to show). It was a bummer when she had to leave, but as it turns out this conference happens in Houston every year so for as long as she is at that job we should be able to get together! Here is a pic of Elly and I thanks to our photographer EZ.

Texas Day

To say that Texans are proud of their state would be a huge understatement. On March 10th, EZ's preschool celebrated Texas Day with stories about cowboys, pony rides, making a book about Texas and a picnic lunch for the whole family. I am pretty sure we never celebrated Pennsylvania day. I volunteered to help out EZ's class and Netta was so excited when she found out that she got to go to school. The girl couldn't be more ready and she jumped right in and did everything the class did. (EZ is sitting to her right in the orange and white plain with the huge cowboy hat from when I was Jesse for Halloween). We have already registered Netta for next year and I am just as excited for her to go as she is.

John was able to join us for lunch and we attempted to get a picture of him with the kids, but as usual not everyone was cooperative.

EZ really loves to take pictures and he took this one of me and Netta. I have finally again reached the point where I don't mind having my picture taken. I decided back in January to really crack down on my diet and it has helped a lot. Now I just need to ween King so I can really cut the calories.

EZ also took this picture of his friend Emme. She often proclaims that she wants to marry him and got in trouble for kissing him on the lips during music class. EZ really loves to play with her, but he has also said that he is marrying a girl named Ashley from his class. I am blown away by how much EZ has changed since he turned 4. Last year he couldn't even name the kids in his preschool class and now he is ready to get married! I would say that he has made quite a leap in his social development.

King Brown

In February King had his 9 month check up. He is still holding onto his title of heaviest baby. Amazingly, despite his weight disadvantage, he also wins the award for earliest crawler. The baby books will tell you babies crawl between 6 and 9 months, well neither EZ nor Netta pulled that off. EZ army crawled at 10 months and then didn't crawl on his hands and knees till a year. Netta was almost 11 months before she got her butt moving at all. King however managed to army crawl a week before he turned 9 months, making him our earliest army crawler and then he even managed to crawl on his hands and knees at 10 months making him our earliest actual crawler. We are very proud. He just desperately wants to keep up with all the fun he sees EZ and Netta having. Now the test is to see if he walks earlier. EZ and Netta both walked around 15 months, which shouldn't be hard to beat.

Other updates on King are that he likes to lay around like this:

We don't know why but for some reason he just loves to lounge on his side and hold his leg up. He also still clings to me like it's no body's business. He is my hip baby and I get comments all the time that he is so pleasant, but that is mainly because I am holding him when people tell me that. In fact, last night he was up coughing in the middle of the night and I was holding him and John reached out to him and he repeatedly pushed John's hands away. Not to say that he doesn't love John, but if I am around he just loves me more. Finally, our the last update is just that King is a stud and we have a picture to prove it.

Here We Go Steelers Kind Of

The Steelers were in the Super Bowl so of course we had to have some kind of get together. In fact we had two. First we went to my friend Kim's house, who is also from Pittsburgh, and then we had my sister Sarah and her husband Casey over. Alas the Steelers didn't win, but we got to make the most of this opportunity to show off our Steelers apparel. Try and ignore the duct tape that EZ felt the need to wear. His shirt says "I had no choice but to be a Steelers fan" on the back, which is so true since Grandma Sharon makes sure the kids know where their roots are and that they have to clothing to prove it. EZ so closely associates the Steelers and my mom that when he saw Sarah's shirt he immediately asked "Did Grandma Sharon get you that?" Of course she did. But notice that I am not in the picture, because I have no Steelers apparel. What is up with that Grandma Sharon? ;)

(I must add that I think my kids are adorable).

SNOW!!!

I was bummed that we weren't able to travel this year for Thanksgiving or Christmas because A: we wouldn't get to see family and B: the kids wouldn't get to see any snow, something that Netta asks for regularly. Well amazingly on February 4th we actually got snow! The kids wanted to play in it the minute they got up, but it was too cold so I said that they had to wait till after I took King to his doctor's appointment at 10am. Some of my friends warned me to call the doctor's office to make sure they were still having appointments, which I thought was ridiculous because there was hardly any snow, but some offices did close. King still had his appointment, but there was hardly anyone there and the staff was slowly trickling in. People were so afraid to drive here, which again I thought was ridiculous, but I have to admit while I was driving to the appointment I got a little worried. There wasn't very much snow, but since it rarely snows here they do NOTHING to clean the roads and the drive turned out to be a bit treacherous. I just kept thinking how ironic it would be if I got in an accident on my way to my baby's well-baby check up. The sun came out while we were in the appointment and when we came out at 11 a lot of the snow had melted. I just thought "Crap! I have to hurry home so my kids can play in the snow before it is gone". It would have been really sad if I had made them wait and then it all melted. Luckily, when I got home there was still some in the back yard. Here are some pics of the kids playing. I realize they look like homeless people with their mish mash of winter clothes, but that is not something I felt like investing in this year for 20 minutes of winter weather.

Girls' Weekend

Way back in January we had a girls' weekend. My mom and all my sisters came to town and it was a blast. We got a hotel in Austin and enjoyed our time shopping, watching movies, eating and hot tubbing. The weather, which is normally gorgeous, was of course rainy just for this weekend, so we didn't get to do everything we might have liked, but we still had a really great time together. Sadly, I don't actually have any pictures of us ladies. Probably because we all are hard on ourselves and hate pictures. My sister Meghan and I both had our babies in tow. Here is a pic of Lucy and King hanging out.

My mom was able to stay for a couple of extra days and my kids loved having grandma in town. One of my favorite videos of me as a child is of my grandma reading to me and my sisters, so I had to get this shot of my mom reading to Netta and ES.

This last picture has nothing to do with girls' weekend except that it was taken right after everyone left. All of my kids enjoy watching tv together. Probably a little too much, but it definitely comes in handy when I have stuff to get done around the house. Gotta love family bonding around the boob tube.