Perfectly Potty Trained = Prize Time!

Tonight we celebrated a MAJOR milestone! Emma and Ella are officially potty trained at 2 years and 9 months of age! Tomorrow marks 7 days diaper free! The girls have done so great, having very few accidents. They even traveled to and from Texarkana without any problems (we did make a pit stop at a liquor store that was closed!) We are putting Pull-Ups on at night just to be safe, but most mornings they wake up dry. They love picking out pretty panties to wear. Ellie would change panties every hour if I would let her...so fashionable! Yay for no diapers!! We have changed and paid for diapers for 4 years straight. Sam and I are excited to be done with this chapter!

With the boys away at Grancie's this evening we took the girlies out on the town. They deserved a special treat! We started out by eating at Texas Roadhouse, they gobbled up yummy mac-&-cheese, rolls, and applesauce. We then headed to Target where we found what was left of some good deals from "Black Friday". We found some cheap DVDs, and I got my early Christmas present, a new vacuum for our new house...the pink Dyson...it's cute! After that we headed to the mall to let the girls pick out a bear from Build-A-Bear. It was their very first time to get to do this, and it didn't disappoint!


Here are our potty trained princesses heading into the mall for some fun at Build-A-Bear!

Picking out the perfect animal

They picked a cute little Christmas Moose.

Getting ready to stuff their moose. Daddy pressed the pedal on the stuffing machine because the loud noise made the girls a bit nervous!

waiting patiently

telling the lady their names

Ella Cate putting the heart in her moose

giving the moose a bath...not sure what was up with the lighting in Build-A-Bear

The girls picked out "Kitty-Hello" (Hello-Kitty) Christmas panties for their moose...perfect I thought! Sam thought they needed some more clothing on, but after seeing the price tags he decided that panties were plenty!

Emma Claire and her moose

Ella Cate and her moose

heading out with their moose inside their "houses" ; )

proud girls!

On our way out of the mall we stopped at Sunglass Hut to get Robin a gift card for her birthday, and the girls tried on some sunglasses.

Our last stop of the evening was Home Depot to get some parts to fix our sink.

Helping Daddy carry supplies to the check out.

Thank God for potty trained children!! : )

Thankful x 30

I truly am thankful x (times) 30!! I have so much to be thankful for! I wish that I had the time to do a really cool post about all of the many things that I am thankful for. Since I don't, I wanted to post pictures of the people in my life that bless me every second of every day.

My little ones had their Thanksgiving feast at school, and my wonderful teammate covered my class so that I could go and be with them at their feast. Cade came with me to join in the fun.


Ella Cate and Emma Claire

Cade helped me out so much! Since the girls and Carson were feasting in separate rooms, he would stay in one room as I went to the other.

Cade and his "indian" sisters.

Cade and I posed with the girls before we headed back to school. Can you tell by the look on Emmy's face that major tears were about to occur??? : (

We are headed to Texarkana tomorrow after I help Sam out with an inventory count for an an audit (extra $ for me!).

We will spend Wednesday night and all day Thursday being with family. The kids are very excited to go to the country! I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving! : )

Finally something to blog about!!

After a long period of time with not much to blog about, I have lots to blog about today!
Our week started out like any other week. I had just gotten back from my annual trip to Austin with Chels, and boy was I tired!

Sam was perusing around on the Internet on Monday evening while I was trying to drift off to sleep. He is always checking to see if any cool homes are for sale in our area, since we are literally busting at the seams in our current house!

On Monday it just so happened that Sam saw a new listing in our price range. It turns out that the price on the house had recently been reduced, so that is why he hadn't come across it before. Sam made an appointment with our realtor (that sold us our current house 7 years ago) to see the house on Wednesday evening. We all really liked the house, and we fell in love with the yard and the neighborhood. The house needs some updating, but nothing really major. The yard is gorgeous! It sits on 1/3 of an acre with mature trees. The house is within walking distance of the junior high school that our kids will be going to, and we know a couple of families that live very close.

After seeing the house and thinking it over we decided to make an offer Thursday afternoon. We found out that we were not the only ones making an offer, another couple had made an offer the day before we had. That made me want the house even more! : ) Anyway, our first offer was rejected, and the buyer made a counter offer this afternoon. We accepted the counter, and we are scheduled to close December 29th!!

We are planning to keep our current house as a rental property, with our real-estate agent managing the property. So, our hope is that we find a renter for January!

We are all sooo excited! After we accepted the offer we headed over to play in the yard of the house that is almost ours!

The kids posed in front of our new house!



In front of the for sale sign...Ellie's brown pants tell it all...potty training did NOT go well today...aaaahhh!!!

Walking around back to play in our big backyard

A big bonus is that this house comes equipped with this play set (that the kids have fallen in love with), a front loading Kenmore washing machine, a font loading Kenmore dryer, and a fairly new refrigerator. This pictures do not do the yard justice. This play set is on one side of the yard, and then it opens up to a huge open area. Sam and I really enjoyed watching the kids play, they didn't know what to do with all of the space!!! Our current yard is teeny!

Having fun on the play set. I was really nervous that someone was going to call the police to report us as trespassers, but it didn't happen, thank goodness!! No one wanted to leave! They just can't understand why we can't live in our new house today!!

"I Not Ella" and "I Not Emma"

"I not Emma!"

"I not Ella!"

Over the past couple of days my girls have begun to correct me anytime that I call them by their twin's name. Sadly, that happens more often than I care to admit. I can easily tell the girls apart when I look straight at their faces, but when I look at them from the side or behind it is VERY hard to tell who's who. The poor girls are used to their mama calling them the wrong names at least a couple of times a day, so I guess that it has started to get on their nerves. ; ) Anytime I am wrong I am very quickly corrected by little voices saying "I not Ella", or "I not Emma". They know that Mommy needs all the help that she can get! My girls are growing up fast! : (

1 Power Ranger + 2 ballerinas + 1 scary ghoul = 1 fun Halloween

Halloween has come and gone, but boy was it fun! The festivities began bright and early Friday morning as the little ones dressed in their costumes to head to school for their Halloween parties. I think that they were still half asleep when I snapped these pictures before we left the house.

Ballerina Buddies

Carson the Red Ranger

Ella Cate and Emma Claire working on their ballet moves

Carson and the girls (holding play-doh) in the front yard before leaving for school Halloween morning
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After school and work we headed to Grancie's house to trick-or-treat. This has been an ongoing tradition for us since Cade was 1 year old. That makes this our 9th year to trick-or-treat with Grancie!

The kids ate pizza and Halloween cupcakes, then we hit the streets to trick-or-treat.

Ella Cate was a little nervous as she watched Daddy transform her biggest brother into a scary ghoul! She held on for dear life to this little witch Barbie that Grancie surprised her with.

Emmy LOVES her Uncle Caleb, and it is always so very obvious!

Grancie and Ella Cate

Carson decided to transform into a Blue Ranger to trick-or-treat. He has many costumes because he loves to dress up.

Sam transforming Cade into a ghoul

The ballerinas were ready to trick-or-treat

a quick pose on Grancie's porch before heading out

hitting the 1st house

The ghoul in front of a scary yard

I love this pic of Uncle Caleb and Emma Claire!

The gang getting treats

Emmy posing in front of a McCain sign

The Stewart gang

Emmy's pure bliss...candy DOES make her this happy!

Carson admiring a pretty pumpkin.

The last house of the night

Uncle Caleb and the ghoul

Emmy's Daddy carried her back to Grancie's house. They were tired after all of that walking!

The trick-or-treating gang

Checking out the candy

Ellie showing off her witch Barbie

Ella Cate getting hydrated! ; )

Ella Cate and Cade

Car getting comfy in his boxer briefs.

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We rolled into our driveway a little after 10:00. Everyone had a little snooze in the car, and when we got home they were rested and ready to have a sampling of their candy. Everyone was finally asleep by 11:00 (VERY late for us).

This morning we headed to the football fields to see Cade's game at 9:00, and then to the soccer fields for Carson's game. Right now it's nap time, but it is just about over! I used nap time to do this post. Right now I am thinking that I should have napped instead!! : )