Our last night in our first house...

Tonight is our very last night at our house. Tomorrow the electricity will be on at our new house, and we plan on sleeping there tomorrow night. I have been so busy that I have not really had time to be sappy about moving, but it is kind of starting to hit me. Don't get me wrong...I am more than thrilled to have a house with extra space and a huge yard that the kids can play in, but our current house holds so many memories....

23, 28, and 3....our ages when we moved in on New Year's Day in 2002 (me, Sam, and Cade)
75 + weeks....the number of weeks that I was pregnant behind these walls
3....the number of babies that called this their first home
6...Christmas days together
6...pets that have lived here, only 2 of those have made it to the present day (we lost a hamster, mouse, 2 fish, and countless hermit crabs)

6 of the most special years of our lives were spent behind the walls of our sweet little 1st home. I will forever be grateful for the memories that were made here!
I think that the whole moving process has been made a little easier since we will be renting our house, so for now it technically is still ours!

Christmas in the Country

This weekend we celebrated an early Christmas with all of our family in Texarkana. The kids, Caleb, and I headed to Texarkana on Saturday morning. Sam stayed behind to move most of our things into our new house...we sure missed him! Anyway, we arrived at my Dad, Julie, and Cylas' house for lunch and presents on Saturday afternoon. The kids got lots of fun stuff and bunches of good loving!
We spent Saturday night at my Mo and Wissy's house. The kids always love being there because they have free reign of the house (just as we always did as kids ; ) ). We ate lunch with my Mom's side of the family on Sunday afternoon. Santa even stopped by for a quick visit at Mo's! The kids got more lovin and many neat things to take home!

Carson surrounded by presents at my Dad's house

The girls delivering gifts...they normally DO NOT walk around with passys, but with all of the faces and places they were unfamiliar with they got passys to ease anxiety. ; )

Helping Cy pass out gifts

Sporting new fairy costumes from my cousin Brittney

Caleb, Cy, and the kiddos

Cy and Caleb

Uncle Caleb and Emmy watching the Grinch

leaving my Dad's house with all of their goodies

Caden rode the 4 wheeler all over the place at Mo's

Cade and his 2nd cousin Emily have the best time together!

Carson and Santa at MoJo's house

My cousin Jeremy's family

Santa and my cousin's little girl Kylie

Carson and Santa

Cade and Santa

Santa and my MoJo. Caleb found this shirt at Nordstrom Rack when he was there shopping awhile back. It is a Lucky Brand shirt that just happened to say MoJo!! : )

Santa and my gang!

Santa and the girls

Christmas Musical

The little ones' preschool had their annual Christmas Musical on Thursday evening. I always love their program! Grancie, Robin, and Nana joined us to watch the little ones perform. They sang off and on and entertained us all.
The girls scanned the crowd until they found me, and once they did they were doing all that they could to get a smile out of me...making faces, pulling their dresses up, and even picking their noses! They were expert bell shakers!
Carson had lots of fun with a cute little gal who was standing next to him! They were nose to nose for quite a bit of the show!
In the picture at the top I had the kiddos pose for an off centered "before the show shot". With the expenses that we are incurring from our move we decided not to go "all out" on their clothes for the evening. The girls wore a dress and red shirt that they already had, and Carson borrowed a shirt from my friend's son! I thought they all turned out pretty cute! ; )

Here is Emma Claire making a face for Mommy! : )

Carson singing his little heart out!

Emmy and Ellie singing with their friends

Carson towards the end of the show

The whole bunch minus Robin

a funny picture of our big fam

Grancie, Cade, and Dad enjoying the show

Gingerbread Playdate

On Wednesday night we had a gingerbread play date with some friends from my school. Julie hosted, and the kids had lots of fun! They ate pizza, played in Reese and Quinn's awesome playroom, and then made gingerbread houses. This was my family's first attempt at putting together a gingerbread house, and it turned out alot easier than I thought. The kids loved munching candy and licking the icing as we put it together.
Sadly, the gingerbread house did not survive the car ride home. By the time we reached our house the roof had fallen off. No one seemed to mind though! This gave the kids even more opportunity to snack on it!
We're going to try to make the gingerbread play date a yearly tradition! What fun!

The kiddos with the gingerbread houses and trains

Ella Cate, Emma Claire, Quinn, and Grayson eating pizza

These 4 kiddos were baked and born : ) during the 2005-2006 school year. Stevi (Grayson's mommy), Julie (Quinn's mommy), and I were all pregnant together. The girls were born in February, Quinn was born in March, and Grayson was born in April. They have lots of fun together, as do their mommys!!

The Stewart gingerbread house 2008! : )

Cade, Ella Cate, and Emma Claire decorating

Emma Claire, Quinny, and Ella Cate

Emma and Quinn

Carson and Reese

Sick Day

In the words of the substitute management system for AISD, today was an "illness of employee or employee's family" day. My Emmy was sick. She warned me all day yesterday by saying "my ear hurting Mommy". I almost took her to The Neighborhood Dr. (very similar to Care Now), but I decided to wait since she didn't have fever.

By 2:00 this morning she definitely had fever! So, I headed up to school at 6:09 a.m. to lay out my stuff for my sub.

I decided to keep the other little ones home as well today. Why, you may ask...well...the last time I tried to drop one twin off at school without the other was not pretty, and I didn't want to fight it today. Also, none of my kids had gotten their flu-shot, so I decided to tackle that since I would be at the Dr's office anyway. I offered to let Cade stay home, but he opted for school instead of a flu shot! He probably needed to be at school more than the little ones did anyway! ; )

Even though Emmy was sick we had a fun day. After dropping off Cade this morning we headed to Krispy Kreme to get a snowman doughnut. Then we went to drop off Daddy's dry cleaning that has needed to be dropped off for 2 weeks (Sam has had to get real good at ironing recently). Our next stop was the post office to get nutcracker stamps for our Christmas cards. Thank goodness for that handy do it yourself machine, because the post office was a mile long at 8:58 a.m. (2 minutes before the post office even opened). We then headed for home so that I could get a shower and call the Dr's office.

Our appointment was at 10:30, and Emma Claire was diagnosed with the 1st ear infection of her life. After having a firstborn that had at least 25 ear infections in his first 4 years of life, it is pretty amazing to me that Emmy is 2 years and 10 months old and she is only now getting an ear infection. As the Dr looked through her file to make sure she had no allergies to antibiotics he was pretty shocked to see that she has never been on an antibiotic! Strong healthy girl! Ella Cate is still holding out ear infection free. Ellie has been on one antibiotic for an eye infection last summer, and that is her only antibiotic experience. Thank God for my healthy girls!

During Emmy's appointment Carson and Ella Cate got their flu shots, and they were not happy campers. Emmy lucked out, since she had run a fever in the past 24 hours she couldn't get her shot. She will get hers when I take Carson for his well check (only 2 months late : ) ) next week.

After our Dr's office fun we headed to Target to get Emma's prescription filled, get Dr's office bribe prizes, and eat lunch. My kids could stay in Target forever...I am pretty sure that they love it as much as me! I'm so excited that it is only one minute from our new house!! The little ones easily picked out prizes in our price range, and then they shared a mini pizza and drank ICEEs in the Target snack bar.

We got out of Target with no fits, and then we headed home for naps, which brings us to the present! I cannot remember the last time that I typed this much on a post! Oh, what a good blogger I might be if I didn't have to work!

I had an enjoyable day off work thanks to my little sickie! : )

This is what Ellie picked out for her bribe prize. A $1.99 microphone. Good girl Ella Cate!

Of course my Emmy wanted the same one...different colors! Carson chose a little transformer for his prize.

Carson eating his snowman doughnut this morning

Emmy and Ellie enjoying their snowman doughnuts

Work Filled Weekend

I am sure that getting a house ready to rent is much like getting a house ready to sell, but I couldn't be sure because I have never sold a home.

This weekend we worked on some last minute things that we need to do before our house is ready to become a rental property. Our listing agent told us that the ugly wallpaper in the bathrooms needed to go. Sam and I knew that, but we have been a little short on time for the last 4 years, so we just lived with ugly wallpaper. Throughout last week Sam, with Cade's help, had been stripping the wallpaper so that the walls would be ready to texture. On Saturday evening (after we had to vacate our house so that it could be shown) the texturing began.

If you weren't sure, texturing is a REAL messy job...not for people who don't like messes (that would be me). I would have paid someone to strip, texture, and paint our walls no questions asked! However, I will admit that Sam is quite a bit wiser that I am in the financial department. With that being said he doesn't want to pay anyone to do anything unless he absolutely has to! So, he borrowed our neighbor's texture sprayer, and he did it all on his own. The walls look great, and they are ready to be painted sometime this week.

I was (and still am) a bit nervous about this whole rental property thing, even though in the long run I know it will be a wise investment. However, I think things are starting off on the right foot. We have had 3 showings in a week, and the little fix ups aren't turning out to be anything major....thanks to my hard working hubby!

Sam finishing up the texturing in our bathroom

Winter Carnival

Tonight we went to the winter carnival at our school. The little ones always love to go to Mommy and Caden's school, so it was a special treat. We all had fun playing carnival games and winning junky prizes. $15.00 worth of tickets didn't last us very long at all. ; ) Ella, Emma, and Carson got special attention from all of the big kids in my class, and they definitely DID NOT want to leave when it was time to go!
The cafeteria had been turned into a winter wonderland courtesy of one of our dads that is a tatoo artist. He is an amazing artist! We decided to take a quick family pic in front of a cute gingerbread man and reindeer that he painted.


The kiddos played the duck game.

Ella Cate picking her duck

Cade showed Ella Cate his art work that was displayed in the main hallway.

Emma Claire and Ella Cate in their Christmas crowns

playing a fun game

In front of a game that the kids thought was quite funny. They had to throw fake cow patties at the bucket! Yuck!

one of the girls throwing her cow patty

Carson throwing his cow patty