5 months

Not much has changed from the 4 month mark to the 5 month mark, our little ladies just keep growing growing growing! They love playing together and watching their big sister and big brother play. They also love to giggle and roll all around the room. They still sleep burrito style, all rolled up in their little pink tortillas...

They usually sleep in their own seperate cribs though, they just wiggle way too much to sleep in the same crib. Here they are in the cute dresses Aunt Nikki and Uncle Spencer bought, they barely have enough hair to squeeze into a clippie now...

Ava, Elsie

And finally, some twin giggles (there's nothing like the sound of a laughing baby to brighten your day, huh? here it is x2)...

How to be a princess

I think Kaydree has known how to be a princess since the day she was born, she just came to us that way. Like all little girls I know that are her age, she loves all things princess - dress ups, movies, barbies...she even has an imaginary friend who is a prince named Daniel whom she insists is NOT pretend, but that's another story. Last year for her birthday, Aunt Merilee and Aunt Ansley got her a DVD/activity game called "Learn to be a Princess" which takes you through all of the proper princess training including everything from detailed instruction on how to curtsy to how to correctly hold your tea cup (with your pinkie pointing upward, of course)...
She absolutely loved it and Ryan and I got a big kick out of watching her intense concentration, learning to be a princess is serious stuff to a 3 year old. Fast forward to this year, all Kaydree really really wanted to do for her birthday was to have all her friends over to "Learn to be a Princess" with her. So that's just what we did...

As it turns out, sometimes 3 going on 4 year-olds actually know what they're talking about because this turned out to be one of our easiest and most fun birthday parties yet! Kaydree had a great birthday and had tons of fun playing with all her princess friends.

Here's Carver (trying to get in where he can fit in with a house full of girls) dressed up as a prince for the party. He loved the cape but not the crown and was overall the wildest prince I've ever seen. Anyone know where we can find a good "learn to be a prince" DVD?

Here are 4 great things about Kaydree:

#1 She's sensitive - what was a not so great quality during the terrible 2's is turning out to be one of my favorite things about her as she gets older, and something that I think will make her a great mother some day.

#2 She's creative - this girl will disappear for hours working on one of her "projects" and I am always amazed at the interesting detailed explanations she has for some of her pictures.

#3 She's silly and heaven knows a good sense of humor comes in handy in this household.

#4 She is definitely a leader in our family and is becoming a better big sister every day.

Happy Birthday K, we love you!!

A Labor-free Labor Day

Nothing is entirely labor-free with my 4 kids, but all the packing, changing, and planning turned out to be worth it for a day at the beach. I'm not talking Newport, Laguna, or Huntington, but Lake Ray Roberts was the closest we could get around here. The kids had fun playing in the sand and water, building castles, and eating circus animals - a Carver Family must for the beach. There was only one minor drawback, apparently everyone else had the same idea that we did (labor day, we should've guessed) so the place was packed, but still fun.
The rest of the month has been busy as well. Ryan made a visit to this architectural monstrosity (aka the new Cowboys Stadium) for the big Oklahoma/BYU game...

BYU did NOT disappoint that night, but not surprisingly they have since then... and not surprisingly Ryan never listens to my 'don't get your hopes up' advice.

Meanwhile, I have been trying to get back on the wagon with visiting teaching, new route and all. As with grocery shopping and any other kind of 1 parent outing, I have to go out at night so I don't have my quatro-in-tow. Maybe my visits would be a bit more interesting if they looked like this...But not so much. And speaking of Edward, I mean...The Twilight Saga, I hope you (like my husband) didn't have your hopes up that I would mature from the whole 'Teen Fiction' genre, because here comes round 2. I read this bad boy back when I was in the hospital on bed rest...

Since then, I've been dying to get my hands on the second book in the series which came out at the beginning of this month. So, I decided to reread the first book - which is a totally "sorry kids, mommy's busy, have fun watching KERA" page turner - before I hit the second book...
Let me just tell you, book 2 was even better than book 1, and I cannot wait for the 3rd and final book in the series. And here's the shocker (dare I say it) I liked it even BETTER THAN TWILIGHT (insert gasp here). Needless to say, personal hygiene was not high on the list of priorities around here that week (gross, Carrie). Anyway, I've since recovered and am back to normal, my house is back to normal, and my kids are once again being read to.

You don't know what ya got until it's gone

Our beloved computer of nearly 4 years has gone the way of the world and decided to bite the dust about 2 weeks ago. I know computers crash from time to time, it's like delays at the airport, you're suppose to expect it. But everytime this happens I still manage to squeeze in a minor nervous breakdown, probably due to the fact that I don't back up my data as often as I should. So yes, I stood to lose a lot of my pictures, videos, and other things, but THANKFULLY we had a good friend who was able to recover everything, and we finally bit the bullet and got an external hard drive so that I can back stuff up more often and hopefully not have a meltdown when (not if) this shiny new computer breaks down. One more thing...even though a computer is kind of like a fridge now a days, you pretty much have to have one for your family, I still couldn't help but think of the flat screen TV we've been wanting, all the cute stuff for my house, or better yet all the new clothes I could buy when we had to shell out all that cash to pay for this new computer. Oh well, the old one is out-may it rest in peace-the new one is in, and my window to the outside world is back!

Now I'll have some catching up to do, pics to post from Labor Day and Kaydree's birthday, but other than that we've just been chillin' lately...

Here are the girlies in matching dresses a few Sundays ago...

More pictures to come!

4 months

I am a little late with this post (the ladies are nearing the 5 month mark now) and I could've added it to my previous post but I have been taking so many pictures lately, and the girls have been changing so much lately, that I thought they deserved their own post. So, at their 4 month appointment, Ava weighed in at 14 lbs. 3 oz. (55th percentile) and is 26 in. long (95th percentile)...big girl! Elsie is not far behind, weighing 13lbs. 11oz. (50th percentile) and is about 25.5 in. long (90th percentile). So they are not surprisingly long but they definately have some chunkiness too (which I LOVE). Check out the nakey pictures to get the full effect of their chubs...

EA

Lately, the ladies have been chatting, playing, and (to my dismay) are even rolling all around the room. It seems WAY too early for them to be as mobile as they are! But they spend most of their time hanging out on the floor...

Ava has developed a new found fondness for her tongue, so she's usually the one in the picture with her tongue hanging out of her mouth. Elsie's new trick is blowing raspberries, which she mostly does when she's getting bored or fussy. Here they are fitting nicely into some 6 month sized outfits from Aunt Dee Dee.
We moved from the tiny tub to the big tub this month, and not a moment too soon...it was getting crowded in there!

I'm sure our girls will be crawling before we know it, so for now we are enjoying some peace before things get really crazy!

E, A

Milestones

We celebrated Ryan's birthday last weekend, the big Two-Niner. I know what you're thinking - 30 is the big milestone, not 29, but since I like to pretend that I am still 20 we'll pretty much both be counting backwards from now on...so I figure 29 is as big a milestone as any. We celebrated by taking the night off from the kiddos (courtesy of Papa and Nana), going out to eat at Barrera's (mexican, yum!), and going out to the movies. We saw G.I. Joe (his choice, obviously) and though it wasn't half bad, I couldn't manage to stay awake for the whole thing. Ryan liked it though. Here he is hanging out with his ladies on his b-day, they love to cuddle with their Daddy... We also went to my brother Jeffrey's Eagle Court of Honor over the weekend, a big milestone for him. These things usually bore me, but I was actually impressed by all of the neat things a scout learns to become an Eagle. It's almost like training to become a 'real man.' It made me proud that I married an Eagle Scout myself, and although I sometimes wonder where some of those skills have wandered off to (i.e. handiwork and navigational skills), I am sure glad that I have such good examples for my son to follow some day. (I tried to dig up an embarassing picture of Ryan in a Scout uniform but couldn't find one, I'm sure he'll be really sad about that...Robyn? I know you have one scrapbooked:)Per my parent's request, I made this video for Jeff's court of honor. I've been a movie-making fool lately thanks to this new program that I bought. Anyway, while this will be boring for most, I think it turned out pretty well and I knew some people would appreciate it (Grandma) so here it is...

Kaydree also started preschool today which marks the official end of summer for us. I love summer, but I always welcome the Texas Fall when we can head outside more and everything cools off.