Christmas 2012

At the begining of December our neighborhood had a Christmas get together with Santa. They had face painters and jingle bells that the kids could learn to play songs with. It was a lot of fun and the kids got to play a little bit with Santa's elves and reindeer!

Emily's first visit with Santa went well I think!

Caitlin asked to redecorate the tree and told Santa when leaving to not forget a present but never specified what she wanted!

Caitlin became a "Candy Cane Princess" She's very good while getting her face painted!

After Christmas Mass. Cait does not like having her picture taken very much anymore so these are the kinds of pictures I'm getting if she knows I'm taking them! Emily, on the other hand, is much more accomidating!

Oh and we got SNOW for Christmas too! Quite a bit of it and it stuck around for a couple days too! This was the day after, I think.

Well Checks

Back in December we scheduled the girls for their well checks. Emily was due in November but we had to find a new pediatritian and they didn't have any openings until December so she had her 15 month check at 16 1/2! Caitlin had her 4 year check up the same day on schedule. They both got a ton of shots...ouch! Emily cried, as expected. Caitlin cried and was not happy with me or the nurse who gave the shots and told us so! Then the nurse told her she could pick out a prize on the way out and she was a lot better after that!

Emily is a very healthy girl. She's bigger than Cait was, which has been the norm her whole life! She weighed 27.6 lbs and was 31" tall. I was told that both those stats are in the 80-90%! I was also told that at her age she should be able to "say" at least five words...well she's got that! These are the words she "says" pretty well- shoe, bye bye, night night, boo (peek-a-boo), baby, thank you. She will point to her ear now when you ask her where it is! She loves having her tummy tickled and she gives the best open-mouthed kisses you could ever imagine! She is growing too fast and we are trying to soak it all up! She is a very happy little girl and has a smile that melts your heart! She has such pretty curls in her hair that catch everyone's attention! And she absolutely loves playing with her big sister!

Caitlin is also very healthy but is still on the smaller side of the growth chart. She was 36 lbs and was 36" tall. I was told that she was at about the 30% mark which is a bit smaller than she had been but she's gotten quite picky about the food she will eat. If it's green she won't touch it! She will eat grapes and apples and last night willingly ate cauliflower, for the first time in at least a year! Caitlin is a talker! She will tell anyone near her that her name is "Caitlin Amanda Forquer!" She is such a sweetheart and everyone she sees is her friend! Cait's visit was a bit different this time. She had a hearing and vision screening. For the hearing screen they put the headphones on and gave her the button to push and all she cared about was pushing the button. The nurse was patient with her and after explaining a couple times she did a great job and passed her test! The vision test was a little easier, she named every shape they asked her and her vision is perfect! When the doctor came in he asked her a lot of questions. Her name, where she moved from, what her sister's name is, then asked her several colors and had her draw shapes (circle, star, and a square) after he drew them. She did great with it all!

BCS Half Marathon

I have now officially run a half marathon and am proud to say that I STILL have no desire to run a full marathon!

Michelle flew in from California (and it just so happens that it was the same weekend as Caitlin's birthday!) and my friend Carter flew in from Chicago to run the Bryan/College Station Half Marathon. Our friend Mandy ran it last year and wanted all of us to try to do this together. Unfortunately, Mandy was hurt and couldn't run it but she and Melissa made us signs and cheered for us on the sidelines which was great!

So, after a horrible sprained ankle for me, a move for both of us and not as much training time as either of us had hoped for I think we did very well! We finished the race in 3:02:59, that's including a 10 minute port-o-potty stop at mile 5 1/2(because there were none before this and the line at the start of the race was a mile long...) Michelle did her best at the begining of the race, I did my best in the middle and the last 2 miles killed us both! And we both feel like the last 0.1 mile stretch was way too long to be just a tenth of a mile! But we did it and we crossed at the same time! It was so great to have someone to run it with who dealt with how slow I run and could keep me going in the beginning and I could return the favor in the middle and who didn't get frustrated at the end! I love my sister very much and I'm so glad we did this together. And it was awesome that Carter came and met us at the 13 mile marker and ran to the end with us again! 

So on to training for next year where we will hopefully have a recovered Mandy who can run, Melissa is going to run, Michelle and I will be back to beat our time from this year and hopefully Carter will come back too! And maybe we'll grab a couple more friends to come to town for this race that supports a great charity!

Michelle, Carter and Me about an hour before the start of the race

The front of the shirts we had made...with Mark in the background (by the way, Mark woke up the morning of the race and decided to run it...and he did!)

The back of the shirts we had made...we thought it was genius!

Happy 4th Birthday Caitlin!!

Cait turned 4 today...where has the time gone? Here are a few pictures and I'll add more text later!

Fours years seems like a long time but it feels like it was yesterday that we brought a 5lb Caitlin home from the hospital...where, really, has the time gone? She has grown up so fast and is such a beautiful little girl, inside and out.

She has so many new favorite things like Dora the Explorer and Doc McStuffins. She loves to play pretend and sometimes it takes a minute to figure out what show she's pretending to be in because she likes to jump from one to the other in a split second! She is learning how to play with her little sister and will sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star when she starts to cry to calm her down and make her smile again! She loves when family comes to visit and loves to go the the gym with Mommy and Daddy!

I can't wait to see what in store for this next year of her life. She has learned so much this last year! She speaks very well but is still learning how to talk on the phone! She knows how to write her letters but doesn't really like to right now. She get overly excited when she sees a school bus because she wants to ride on it when she "grows bigger!" She misses her friends from preschool and still asks about them often. When asked what something's name is she always says "Sarah" who was her best friend. Makes me kind of sad when I have to tell her that Sarah and Landon won't go to the same school as her because she gets sad. She has made a few friends here and loves when we get to meet with them!

I love her with all my heart and I'm so excited that we got picked to be her family! She makes me smile everyday and I love her fun-loving, sweet, innocent personality!

Happy Birthday Caitlin Amanda!

She got donuts for breakfast, the one with the sprinkles!

Aunt Michelle came to visit too!

Caitlin dancing, such a big girl!

Happy FIRST Birthday, Emily Claire!

 Emily Claire's First Birthday!!

 We were still in the apartment on Emily's birthday so we decided to take her out to Joe Willy's for some good burgers and fried pickles! I got her a birthday cake from Tom Thumb that had pretty flowers on it! I was kind of sad that all of my baking stuff was in storage and I wasn't able to make her a cake but it was a very good store bought cake!!

 At first I wasn't sure she was going to put on a good show because she started out a little slow on the cake! I guess she had filled up on burger and fries but then she got in to it and decided that cake is not so bad after all!

Then she decided that playing "peek-a-boo" was a good idea and that's when it got good! She had cake all over her face and her hair! I'm sure the people were not happy with us when we left because there was quite a mess but we had a good time!

Happy First Birthday sweetheart!

We have her well check set up for September, because that's when they could get us in! I guess with all the back to school physicals they had no well check appointments available in August so I have no stats to pass along but I should soon!

Way Past Time for an UPDATE!!

Hello family and friends! We have had a lot going on in our lives lately! First of all we FINALLY got into our new house...we had several "hiccups" as they were called and it left the four of us living in the efficency apartment that Sean got at the begining of this journey for 3 weeks instead of the 10 days we thought originally...but we finally got in to sign papers on August 3rd! 

 

 Emily had had a lot of changes in her little life too! She turned ONE on August 2nd, we had dinner out at a local burger joint, Joe Willy's, and celebrated with Grandpa and Mandy and her friend Melissa! Pictures of the birthday to follow! She now has 4 teeth and working on getting some more! The biggest thing that has changed for her is that she learned how to walk!! For about 2 weeks now she has been a walker and she just keeps getting better and better! She doesn't even try to crawl any more! Next thing will be to learn to walk with shoes...we will see how she likes having shoes on her feet!

 Caitlin hasn't had as much as Emily going on but she is enjoying staying home with us. It's nice to be able to spend some more time with her! We have a season pass to the Dallas Zoo, which she loves! And now that it's getting cooler we will go more frequently! She is in love with her new room:  it's pink (and I mean it's PINK!!) with brown polka-dots. We have a swim park in our subdivision and she loves to go "swimming" and is learning a lot about being in the water! Hopefully we can get her some swimming lessons soon!

This is our new house! We now have a guest room...so come visit us! We are very happy with the house and the neighborhood! We have two kids parks within a block from the house and the swim park s up the street about 2 miles but it's very nice too! We live on a golf course, which neither of us plays golf, but it makes for some pretty scenery.

Sean likes his new job and will be training for a while longer. We are trying to find out what there is to do here, which we are learning is a lot! We are trying to get things settled down at the house so we can get out and make some new friends! There are still a lot of boxes that need to be unpacked but that will happen in time! Maybe this time next year there will be no boxes, haha!

A Lot of Changes Going On!

So we are officially out of Waco now! We sold our house and closed on it July 20th! It was great to not have it on the market for long! Now we are living in "Daddy's Clubhouse" in Garland. It's an efficiency so space is very limited with 4 people (two of whom require a lot of stuff!!) but we are making it! We should be in our new house next week some time hopefully by Wednesday!

Emily will turn ONE next Thursday! I can't believe it's been a year already! She's absolutely adorable and keeps us on our toes! She's a climber, jumper, and almost trying to be a walker! She's standing on her own for a long time and will even bend down to pick something up and stand up again without falling! She's taken a couple of "steps" too!

For living in such a small space they have done a great job! They are playing well together too! Emily adores Caitlin and Cait loves to share with Emmy! This makes things so much easier! But we will all be ready to have our own spaces!!