I feel as though I have had literally no time to myself all week. I'm lucky that the little boy I've been babysitting is pretty compliant when I ask him to take a nap while my kids are napping, but that just frees up some time to get a few things done around the house. Matthew's naps have been incredibly short and Elise isn't a great napper anyway... so I've been busy. I have today off because Mason (my neighbor's younger son) is with Grandma today. However, there's still plenty for me to do while the kids nap...



Elise has inherited Matthew's jumperoo and she seems to like it quite a bit.

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I love my boys



Always sucking on her hand



Matthew desperately trying to get outside to see Daddy. I must be mean for taking a picture rather than letting him actually go outside... it was too hot.



Riding his dog. That little blonde head behind him is Mason.



"Cheeeeeese"





This picture makes me laugh. I don't know why he was pushing his belly out.

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I love to hear my kids laugh. She's laughing at Gilbert whistling.

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Matthew's tummy finally seems to be better. All of a sudden everything just went back to normal. Strange, but good. I never thought I'd be so happy about a change in bowel movements.

Well, I'm back to work. Our neighbor approached me a few weeks ago to watch his boys and I took him up on it. Their boys are good kids and Matthew LOVES playing with their 3 year old. Gilbert threw out his back picking up Matthew's quad of all things and has been home for 3 days now. Matthew still has diarrhea and we're still waiting to hear back on the lab results. Other than that, not a whole lot going on around here this week.



We *finally* put Elise's butterflies on the wall. I'm so happy.







We got hair cuts!



=)



Elise rocking the Led Zeppelin onesie that our good friend, Sammy Barrett, gave to Matthew before he was born =). Daddy has the matching t-shirt, too.



Elise and Mommy =)





There aren't many picture of Matthew because he hasn't been cooperating with the camera over the last few days.

Here are some more picture of Mommy's new hair.



Everyone forgets that my hair is naturally curly because I usually straighten it. Now that my weird straight ends are gone, though, I may leave it curly more often.

Well, it's Friday. Being a stay at home mom, you would think this wouldn't make a big difference to me... but much like those who leave their homes to go to work, Friday is a reason for me to rejoice. We love having Gilbert home on the weekends. The kids tend to be much happier and it's just nice knowing he's around.

Here's what we've been up to.

The kids hanging out together.



They really do love each other a lot more than I expected them to at this age. Matthew likes to participate in Tummy Time, too.



She likes to look at herself.



We went to Elijah's birthday party last weekend and Elise fell asleep on Uncle Bruce.



Matthew's stomach is still about the same. We got the test results back and they were all negative. Well, because of how his stomach has been, I got called on Sunday to get him out of the nursery. We ended up in the nursing mom's room so I could feed Elise and since I needed to keep both kids entertained on Sunday at church during the service, this is what Elise did for a few minutes. It cracks me up that her feet are nowhere near the ground.



Seeing as it's so hot here in Houston, I was starting to get really paranoid about Elise being swaddled at night. We set the thermostat in the upper 70's at night in an effort to conserve some energy and we run the ceiling fans. Well, we were successful in getting Elise to sleep with her arms out of the swaddle. Woo hoo! She looks cute all sprawled out.



One of the things I really, really wanted for Elise's room was a big "E" to put on one wall, but I had no idea how I was going to do it. Lucky for me, I have some incredibly creative friends and as a gift to Elise, they made this:



It's pretty big, too. It's 3' by 3'. It's awesome.













So Erin and I decided to take the kids down to the Kemah boardwalk today to run around in a big fountain they have. Well, we got there and much to our dissapointment they were working on the fountain so it wasn't on. So we decided to walk around for a bit in hopes that they would turn it on while we were still there... then it started to rain... while we were standing under misters... Awesome. Addilyn had a great time yelling and running around in the rain but Matthew wasn't quite as convinced as she was. Unfortunately, while we were standing there Elise started to get pretty wet so I had to find another spot to stand in. Luckily we found a good spot and after getting thoroughly soaked, Erin, Addilyn, and Asher joined us. *Then* Matthew decided that the rain wasn't so bad. It was really fun to watch =).

Matthew has no idea who SpongeBob is, but he really liked him.



Before the rain



Testing it out







Jumping in puddles with Addilyn





=)

Well, things haven't gotten *that* much better around here. Elise and I kicked that virus pretty quickly, but Matthew has had a lingering cough and runny nose, both of which finally seem to be getting better. However, it seems Elise has managed to come down with another cold. Sigh. She's a trooper, though. Despite the stuffy nose and her desire to just sleep she's still managing to give me some big smiles. That's my girl.

In addition to all of that, Matthew has had diarrhea on and off for about 4 weeks now. We went to the doctor on Monday to try to figure it all out and after getting some stool samples we're just waiting on the lab. The doctor was very hesitant to say that it's just taking him a while to recover from two separate viruses because he hasn't gained any weight in 3 months, but he hasn't lost any either. Poor kid is stuck on a bland diet for a little while longer. I'm looking forward to both of my babies being healthy again.

We got a bumbo seat for Elise. She loves to sit up and it's really not easy to sit and support an infant while trying to keep a toddler out of trouble. I never invested in one of these with Matthew because I was able to just hold him whenever he wanted to sit up, but I found one on craigslist that was in great condition for half the price of what they go for in store. She seems to like it.



Our 4th of July was very quiet. We stayed home with the kids. Gilbert made burgers, Matthew and I shared some ice cream, Matthew rode around on his quad, and then the kids were in bed before the fireworks started. We debated taking Matthew out to look at the fireworks but then we realized he probably wouldn't be all that interested in them yet.

My girl's first mini skirt



They're so cute



Hanging out



More bumbo time





My happy girl. She smiles like her mommy.



For a little while there we thought Elise might have lighter eyes than the rest of us. My dad has green eyes and it seemed like her grey eyes were going to stay light. However, they've gone brown. You can actually see it clearly in this picture.



If you are friends with Gilbert on facebook you may have seen this already. Enjoy =)

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Apparently we sing to many jingles in our home. In addition to "Mini Sirloin Burgers" and the Two and a Half Men theme, Matthew has now picked up Subway's "Five Dollar Footlong" song...

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