Soap Heads

Baby's Walk

I thought this was cute! The girls are always wanting to take their babies for a walk like we take them for a walk so I let them take them down our street and back.

Weekend Surprise

We surprised everyone by going back home this weekend. Maddie has been begging us for weeks now to go see her gwama's and gwampa's and since we don't have to worry about packing and moving now, we thought it was a good time to go. It was good seeing everyone. We took the girls out on the golf course Saturday afternoon for the first time..... that was interesting. They both just really wanted to drive the cart but we did get Maddie to hit a few balls. She really wanted to hit a ball off a tee so she tee'd it up herself and wacked it about 10 yards. I think she hit one more time and was done. Then she was back to doing cartwheels in the grass. Matt and I got two holes in before the rain and on the first hole Matt informed me that I did NOT get my golf skills from my family! The second whole, I pulled out Jamie's BIG daddy driver and drove it way past him. He didn't have anything to say after that. :)

Sunday we visited Coco and Grandma Brenda for breakfast. Maddie barely said hi and was off to her favorite room "the Pink room." Then it was hot tub time for the girls and Matt and I drove around town on the golf cart, (only in Burdett)!! It was yummy fried chicken day at the club for lunch and we got to eat with everybody. Then it was back to Emporia. Kynzie fell asleep right away and slept until Newton where we stopped and played at a park for a while. Right outside Newton, Maddie fell asleep until Emporia. Fun weekend!

House Update

Well, another house update. What a rollercoaster ride this whole thing has been. It does not look like we will be moving after all. The appraisal on our house was fine but the appraisal on the house that we were buying did not appraise for what we needed it to. It is confusing to understand but the just of it is, we will not be moving. Surprisingly Matt and I are not sad about this. I actually felt a bit of relief. We were really taking on a lot of stress lately with everything and this really does make things much more simple now. And, like Matt said, it's not like we are living in a dump :) We do like our house and the location and it will be nice to have the extra money each month. So...... that's that. Onward and Upward... next big event..... Kynzie's Birthday!

Unlucky or Lucky??

I'm still trying to decide if I am unlucky or lucky. I think I'm going to go with lucky. I was speeding (41 mph) today through a 30 zone and got pulled over :( The good news is, the cop just gave me a warning! I have never gotten a warning in my life. And the weird thing is, I didn't even have to try and talk my way out of it. Darn cops!

Gymnastics

Last night I took Maddie and Kynzie to Maddie's gymnastics class. Here is a video of Maddie doing her thing and here's a video of Kynzie..........doing her thing!

She's BA ACK

Wow, I never thought I would be so happy to see Kynzie eat a bowl of cereal! Last night after I got home from work, Kynzie started coming around and even went to gymnastics with Maddie. See video... We got her to eat some noodles last night and drink some milk. She slept great throughout the night, not waking one time. And this morning..... SHE'S BACK!! Back to eating (alot) back to smiling, back to laughing, back to talking, and back to being her mischievious little self. That was the sickest that she has ever been and I hope that we don't have to go through that for a long time again. Thank you if you were praying for her. It definitely helped!

We were talking the other night about Aunt Katie and Uncle Tyson coming to visit us after the baby is born and Maddie said that she wanted to feed her and drink her!

John the Bathtub - Maddie
Maddie and I were playing a matching game last night with some religous cards that she got from her teacher at school and when we turned over one of them it was a picture of a man standing in water..... AKA John the "Baptist" Maddie shouted out, "It's John the Bathtub" Well.... made sense to her

Gora - Kynzie
Kynzie's name for Dora.... so cute to hear her say it!

Sick Baby

Oh where to begin? My poor poor baby McKynzie has been sick all week. She got "Hand Foot and Mouth" disease from a little boy at her daycare. Maddie had this when she was about Kynzie's age but it never affected her like it has poor Kynze. She has sores all over her mouth and the poor thing has not been able to eat or drink anything for the last two days except yogurt sticks and one bowl of chicken noodle soup. Last night we had to give her water through a medicine syringe so she doesn't get dehydrated. This is the saddest thing to go through watching your little one be in so much pain and there is nothing that you can do for her. And anyone who knows Kynzie knows that her favorite thing to do is EAT, so this has to be soooo hard for her. Dr. said the sores should go away in 3 to 6 days and we are on day 3.5 so I'm hoping things will start getting better real soon. I don't think I can take much more of this. Matt and I have taken turns each night sleeping with her..... so glad we got her big girl bed up (crib might have been uncomfortable :). I've also had strep this week which made it really hard for me at times to take care of a really sick kid when I didn't feel well either. Matt had training for his new online job this week so I have been staying at home. Maddie has been amazing through all of this. She is so sweet to Kynzie and such a big help. The other night she wanted to pray for Kynzie and me and she asked God to "please make mommas throat go away" it was too cute. Well Maddie has gymnastics tonight and I'm sure Matt and I will fight over who gets to take her because it is not fun at all being home with crying Kynzie. Please pray for her to get better SOON!!

Big Girl Bed

This weekend, we decided to make the transition from crib to big girl bed for Kynzie. We did this for Maddie when she turned 2 as well. We decided to do it a couple weeks before her birthday because if we end up moving, it is going to be on her birthday and we didn't want to try and transition her to a new bed and new house all at once. We went to Topeka on Saturday and picked one out.... somehow managed to stuff it in the van and brought it back to Emporia. We decided to take the safety rail off of Maddie's bed and give it to Kynzie. We figured Maddie was big enough now that we didn't need to keep that on her bed and this would also save us from buying another one. Matt got the crib all taken down and the new bed up successfully. We have ordered her a new butterfly comforter and sheet set but they are not in yet so we just put Maddie's old Dora ones on there for now. Like Matt said, Kynzie will probably be dissappointed when we take the Dora ones off and put her new ones on. Now it was time to surprise Kynzie with her new bed. I didn't get any pictures of her reaction because we were recording her on DVD. Her reaction was priceless though and extremely similar to Maddie's when she got her big girl bed. She walked in, saw it, sprinted to it, took one leap and rolled on it and then went nuts flopping around on it for about 2 minutes straight. When it was time for bed, we just did the same thing that we do every night and she laid her little head on the pillow and I don't think she ever moved. And.... the best part was, she slept in until 9:00 am the next morning. when I went in her room in the morning to get her up, this is how I found her.

Now....here's the second part to this story. That night after we had all went to bed, it was about 1:30 am and I hear a THUD upstairs and it was immediately followed by the pitter patter of footsteps all the way down the stairs and into our room followed by Maddie's voice saying, "can I sleep with you guys tonight." I was too tired to ask questions and just rolled over and let her in. The next morning it all came out why she had made her way down to our room. She fell out of the bed! Oops! So, I made a trip to Wal Mart yesterday for another safety rail. Turns out, Maddie is too crazy of a sleeper to be without a safety rail on her bed. So, overall the big girl bed was a good experience. It's so cute to see Kynzie sleeping in her new bed. She looks so little in that big "twin" bed. I can't believe both our girls are in real beds now.

Piggy Bank

Maddie has been saving her money in her piggy bank for a long time now and last week her and Matt decided it was time to spend it! We've always told Maddie that whenever her piggy bank was full, she could take that money and buy WHATEVER she wants with it. So, her and Matt counted it all out and took it to the bank. The teller let her drop it in the machines that sort it all for you and she even got to push the buttons. They handed her all $55 and they were off to Wal Mart. Matt said they walked every single toy isle and he let her decide. She stopped at the Barbie section and chose to buy the bride and groom barbie as well as the Ken beach barbie with the swimming pool. She was very excited about her new purchases and had to tell me all about it when she got home. She said that daddy took her to the "money store" and got money to buy her barbies at Wal Mart!

Weekend Update

Saturday Matt helped our friends, the Lake's, move and I watched their daughter Brenna who is a year older than Maddie. I got to experience what it would be like to have 3 kids. We played inside and out, walked to the park, ate lunch, watched a movie, went swimming, and played in the toy room. Let me tell ya, I was beat. Matt said he was beat from all the heavy lifting they did, but I was exhausted as well. Sunday after church we decided to go to the zoo in Topeka. On the way there, Matt got a speeding ticket (ouch)! But that did not detour from us having a great time with the girls. When we got there, we got some train tickets and a pop and popcorn and rode the train through Gage park. It's a much bigger and nicer train than Emporia's. Then we walked to the zoo. We decided not to bring the stroller this time and see how the girls would do. Surprisingly, they both did pretty well. Maddie actually asked to be carried before McKynzie did. When we got there, they gave us a map of the zoo. We always give the maps to Maddie and tell her to tell us where we need to go. Well....this time around, little sister also thought she needed a map so Kynzie was walking around the entire time carrying this big map all spread out so that she couldn't even see where she was going. She looked so cute, I wish I would have gotten a picture of it. She held onto that map the entire time we were there. After the zoo, we went back to the park and played on the playground then went and ate at CiCi's Pizza. It was a good day with them and we just realize that among all the crazy things happening in our lives, the girls are still our main focus and we need to enjoy all the time that we have with them because they won't be this age forever. :(

We're Moving!

Well........ they accepted our offer! Looks like we will be moving!!! We're meeting next week to write up the contracts then it's on to the inspections. Everything should move pretty quick since we want to be in our new house before school starts. Here's a picture of the front of the house. I'll post lots more once it's all official.

No, that's not me in the picture. It's the owner's daughter.

Update on house situation

So I had just updated our blog the other day about our whole house situation and I went home for lunch and got a phone call from the people that are looking at our house. They talked about it and decided that they could make it work with what we want for the house. So.... we are one step closer to moving now. Some things still have to happen first but that was a pretty big step in this whole process. We'll keep you all updated. We could be moving soon and recruiting some help or at least babysitters :)

Ti Ti - Kynzie
Kynzie saying her name

Momma, these pants are choking my belly! Maddie

4th of July

I painted Kynzie's little fingernails red white and blue!

This was a fun 4th because it was the first year that I think our girls really enjoyed it and the fireworks. We went to the parade at noon and then had a picnic lunch at the park. That evening we went over to some friends house that had the PERFECT view of the city's firework show. I was little nervous as to how the girls would do with them. I was so proud of them, they both did really well. They weren't scared at all. I thought we would have to hold them in our lap during the show but Maddie was off playing with her friend the whole time and they really didn't phase her. McKynzie sat in my lap the whole time but not because whe was scared. I think she was getting sick. She felt really warm and ended up running a temperature all day on Sunday. Anyways, they did excellent with the fireworks and when we got home that night we even popped off more in our driveway.

This is Maddie watching fireworks in our driveway at about midnight when we got home from our friends house. The ONE night of the year we let her stay up late.

Aquatic Center

I didn't have to work on Friday so we went to the aquatic center for the first time this summer. The girls had a blast! We started off in the spray park area so the girls could get used to the water. Maddie is getting more brave in the water and both girls loved the big slides and lazy river. I didn't get any pictures of the girls doing these but I did take a couple of them at the spray park and in the main swimming area.

Putting sunscreen on!

Playing on the aligator

Having fun in the spray park

Potty Training

This is the proud little face of a potty trainer! I decided that since I had Friday off that I would start the potty training process and try and hit it hard for the three day weekend. Friday morning, we woke up and put the pull up on and the process began. This picture was taken that morning. She did really great all morning until she had to poop. I was getting ready and her and Maddie were playing in Maddie's room when all of a sudden I hear Maddie starting yelling at her, "NOOOO Kynzie you need to poop in the potty!" I ran in there and grabbed her but it was too late, the deed had been done! We then again put a new pull up on and started over. Things were going well again and then I needed to run out to my summer camps and check on them. Matt was helping a friend move so I had to take the girls with me. Well.... there went the potty training. After we got home it was lunch and naptime and then as soon as Kynzie woke up we all went out to the aquatic center for the rest of the afternoon. Who knows what she did out there :) ha ha!! As soon as we got home, we changed and headed to the gym to watch the MAYBE basketball games that night. She actually did do pretty good at the gym because I think she was bored so going to the bathroom was something to do. She went three times while we were there and once at the restaurant after the games. Saturday was just as busy for us. We were in and out all day long so it was hit and miss with her. Just when I think she's not ready and I'm ready to give up, she will just come up to me and say "potty" and I'll take her and she'll go! So, we'll see how this process goes. I think it will be a longer process than it was with Maddie. When we decided to train Maddie, it took 2-3 days and she was DONE! We might do a more passive approach with Kynzie.

*UPDATE* Matt is at home with Kynzie today and he has been giving me the play by play through text messages all morning. His first text said that Kynze came to him and said "potty" and her diaper was still dry and she went and sat on the potty and went. The second text was the same thing. She still had a dry diaper and she said she had to go potty and she went again!! That's not fair, I try all weekend with her and then Monday morning Matt is just having the best experience with it. I told him that he needs to be the one to train her from now on! We'll keep you updated.

Maddie's 1st Fish

Maddie got a really cute pink fishing pole for her birthday and last week Matt decided to take her fishing at the pond by our house. They went to Wal Mart and bought worms and some snacks for them and headed to the pond. They got all set up in their chairs and were having a great time. Matt showed Maddie how to put the worms on the hook and cast the pole in the water. After about 20 minutes they had a bite! Matt realed the fish in and got it on the dock. The only thing Maddie could talk about was the bleed (how she says blood) that was coming from his mouth. Matt said it was a pretty good size catfish. Matt asked Maddie if she wanted to touch it and she was going to and then it started flopping around and scared her so Matt ended up just throwing it back in. I really wish Matt would have gotten a picture but I was at work so once again no pictures were taken.

Katie's Baby Shower

We had a fun time last weekend. The girls and I made the long trip alone again. They did really great in the van this time. No crying during either trip. They really are getting older and starting to travel much better. It was good seeing everyone. We stayed with Coco and Grandma Brenda on Friday night and then went to Kadie's shower on Saturday. Maddie was sooo excited for the "shower" of Katie's that we were going to. I kept wondering what she really thought was going to happen at this "shower." Well.... we got there and she had to go potty so I took her into the bathroom and while we were in there we heard a noise that sounded like running water. All of a sudden, Maddie got really excited and said "Momma, is THAT Katie's shower?" Ha ha, it was so cute. Kids are so literal.

After the shower we headed for Grandma Debbie's and Grandpa Joe's house. We pulled in to a huge surprise. Aunt Tammy and Uncle Monty had borrowed a huge water slide from some friends and had it all set up for the girls. I wish I would have had my camera to see their faces and to take pictures of Maddie going down it. It took Maddie about 5 mins. to go get her swimsuit on and get back outside to go down the slide! I'd say she went about 50 times before she got too cold and it started raining on us. Kynzie was perfectly happy to just splash around in the baby pool. Hunter came over and joined the girls for the evening.

Sunday we visited Grandma and Grandpa Castaneda and ate some fried chicken at the club. We headed back for Emporia around 2 pm and had a perfect ride home.

Oh yeah for those of you who knew, Matt stayed home because he was showing our house for the second time to a couple who was really interested in buying it. They ended up loving it and making an offer on it the next day but it was just too low. They are trying to downsize in price from the house they are in now and our house was at the top of their price range. They just couldn't come up anymore and we won't go down on ours anymore so it looks like we won't be moving. We are okay with that though.

On Tuesday, Matt was offered that online teaching position that he applied for. He has had to go through 3 grueling phone interviews (he hates talking on the phone). And on Tuesday the principal called and offered him the position. He will still keep his current job here at the Middle School. This will just be a supplemental job that is all online. This will mean quite a bit more money for us so it will be nice to have the extra money each month. :)