Exciting news!!

I'm thrilled to tell everyone that I got a job!! I decided a few months ago that teaching is the career path I wanted to head down. One day it just dawned on me that I was supposed to be a teacher. I had never had that inclination before. After having thought about my prospects with regard to next fall, i.e. taking care of kids after school again (not a fun prospect), or possibly getting a job, I decided to apply for a teaching job at Ellie's preschool. Today I met with the Director. After speaking with her for a few minutes about what would be involved and the positions that were available, she "unofficially" offered me a job as Lead Teacher in one of the 3 year old classrooms!! (I should have a written offer sometime next week after the board of directors approves the budget.)

I'll be working M-F 8-2:30, which means that Ellie will be attending all 5 days as well (we haven't talked about that yet and I'm not sure how it will go over, eeek!). I'm very excited to be re-entering the workforce as it were. And I feel like this is the perfect venue to launch my career in teaching. I feel very lucky and a bit nervous to have been given the opportunity to be lead teacher and not just a co-teacher which is what I was expecting since I don't have any formal teaching experience. I must admit that I have about a million things running thru my head right now about everything that will be involved with this, but again I just feel excited and lucky.

I just couldn't contain my excitement and wanted to share the good news with everyone!!! Wish me luck as I'm sure I'll need it!

Crazy kids

Don't you just love movie time and Popsicles?

Logan really likes to dress up people. This is the ensemble he put Grace in today. He also likes to pose for the camera in case you hadn't noticed up to now!

Ride'em cowboys!!

Here's Logan as a rock star and Ellie's the Hulk(of course).

Check out their jam session. Ellie's eyes are even closed since she's so in to her music. This is a cute one taken by Ellie's grandpa I didn't include on my previous birthday blog.

Carrots and ranch (all over her face), Yumm!

This is Ellie dancing with her Bella Dancerella DVD she got from Aunt Becky. It's so cute to watch her!! She can't wait to begin dance lessons.

Have a great day!!!

New Mom inventions

I found this in my Redbook magazine. Although I'm not a new mom and won't be again, I thought that these were really neat and that my new mom friends might like to know about them. I wish I'd known about them way back when I had my babies! These are all inventions that mom's came up with out of necessity.

First, is a nursing cover-up called the Hooter Hider. Cute, huh? It can be found at http://www.bebeaulait.com/ They have some really nice fabrics to choose from (prints and solids).Next is a swaddling blanket. I know most of you are devoted to the miracle blanket, but you never know when something better may come along. It's called the Snug and Tug blanket. It can be found at http://www.sungandtug.com/. The last, but certainly not least, is a car seat cover that's easy to snap on and off without going through all the trouble of taking the whole thing apart (unlacing straps, etc.). They're called dressy dribbles car seat covers and can be found at http://www.dressydribbles.com/. This thing seems awesome. If I still had regular car seats I would definitely consider it. I don't know how many times I wished my cover had been easier to remove and put back on. I probably would have washed it a lot more often if I'd had something like this.
I thought these might be helpful to some of you with new little ones or little ones on the way.

Have a Happy Day!!

Too many kids, not enough Sex and the city!!

Yesterday we went over to Erica's house to let the kids play. Lisa brought over her 2 boys and the 2 girls she takes care of. There were a lot of kids! (8 to be exact) I don't know how home daycare workers do it! It's hard, even with 3 adults there. We had fun though and managed to wear everyone out pretty well with no major catastrophes. Somewhere Erica got the brilliant idea to have the kids make a pyramid and take their picture. A little ambitious to be sure. We almost did it too until Carter started hitting everyone with his plastic golf club. What's wrong with just having everyone sit together?

After all that, we managed to get ourselves cleaned up for a night on the town. (A movie at Alamo Drafthouse). We went to see Sex and the City. It was great. We thoroughly enjoyed it. Afterwards we asked someone to take a picture of us. His lovely friend managed to mess up both shots. I have rabbit ears in one and in the other he's making an obscene gesture behind us. I tried to crop him out as best I could. What a jackass. It was a fabulous time. I can't wait until we do it again!

The Pfreaks on Vacation

Last week was our summer vacation. We went to South Padre Island on Monday and came home Friday. It's fun and beautiful, but a really long drive. Especially with 2 kids. They did awesome on the drive down, no whining, crying or fighting the whole 7 hours!! The DVD player and other hand held electronics we took were a huge help with that. Unfortunately the drive back didn't go quite so smoothly. By then they were tired and a little sleep deprived so they were crankier and after about 5 hours, I wanted to cry myself! But, we all survived. And we have some great memories and pictures to show for it!!

Here are the kids in the car on the way. Logan is listening to his play list that Stuart made him on my Dell DJ (things like Bohemian Rhapsody, the theme from Superman and Rocky, Upside you turn me, etc.). I looked back at him and thought he looked like a teenager already!! Ellie's coloring a picture.

We went to the zoo in Brownsville one morning. It's a really nice zoo with a great gorilla exhibit. The kids had fun. They love zoos like we do. I think this is the 7th zoo they've been to. (Albuquerque, Austin, Fort Worth, SA, Houston, Brownsville and Waco.) That's actually a little lie, Ellie's never been to the Albuquerque zoo since Susan moved

before she was born. I digress...

I made the mistake of feeding the sea gulls on the beach. They are NOT shy. It doesn't look as close in the picture as it felt, but they would fly right up to your face and just hover there until you gave them something. I couldn't help but think of Finding Nemo when the Pelicans called all the gulls, "rats with wings". That's what I kept saying to myself the whole time. (The picture above is not cropped or zoomed in any way. They were right there in my face!)

We had a great time, but were glad to be home. I'm not sure if we'll go down there again any time soon. It's fun, but all there is to do there is go to the beach. I guess we're not "beach people". We can't just go to the beach all day everyday. In fact the last day the kids didn't want to go to the beach again, just the pool! I was actually disappointed that I wasn't going to get to go again. I kept saying to them "We can go to the pool all summer, this is the last time we'll get to go to the beach!!" They didn't care. They just wanted to go to the pool and the hot tub. They loved the hot tub. It was about 15 ft X 8 ft, so there was always plenty of room. So we'll see what next year brings!!

Logan and Ellie's Birthdays!!

We had a birthday party for the kids last Sunday. Their birthdays are actually June 9th and June 11th(through no planning of my own), but we wanted to have the party early while Logan was still in school so no one would forget about it by the time we had it. Logan got a Wii! (His favorite present!)

Logan turned 7 (well, almost) and Ellie 4!! Wow, I can hardly believe that even as I type it!! How can I be old enough to have 7 and 4 year olds? Bizarre.

Ellie and Grace both dressed like princesses of course. Didn't you know that princesses bowled?

Opening presents with 2 kids at once is always chaotic and this was no different. It's really hard to keep everything straight and always know who gave what, but with about 7 adults helping, we managed to figure it out!

We decided pretty much a week after last year's party to have this one at Interstate Lanes bowling alley. They do a great party that includes everything -cake, pizza, drinks, plates, napkins (etc.) and of course the entertainment! The kids loved it and so did I. It was the most relaxing birthday party I've ever thrown!! All I had to do was bring party favors and an extra cake so Ellie and Logan would each have their own. They turn down the lights and do like a disco ball and lights!

I made Ellie the Giant Cupcake cake. I think it turned out really cute!

I wasn't sure how the 4 year olds would do, but they had a great time. It was a really good party. We bowled, ate pizza, cake and then did presents. I highly recommend it for anyone looking for a place to have a party!!

This is Logan's idea of a good pose before blowing out his candle.

This is Ellie after the party wearing a new dress from Grandma and a cute hat from Nonny. What a little ham!

Happy Birthday to my babies!!!!!!

Our 11th Anniversary

Wow, I can't believe it's been 11 years since we got married. Our Anniversary was actually on Saturday (May 31). I wanted to do this post on the actual day, but I've been so busy.

Here's a picture of us on our Wedding day. No, we weren't actually 12 when we got married, but we do look young! We were young. I was 21 (almost 22) and he was 23. I had just graduated from UT (like 2 weeks earlier) and he had graduated the December before. We had been together since I was 18 and he 19. I didn't know how we were supposed to start our "real lives" without being married. We wanted to be together all the time and that really hasn't changed. In October it will have been 15 years since our first date!! Wow, that's bizarre when you say it like that. It's almost 1/2 of my life!!

We had a small backyard wedding at my sister Susan's house in Pflugerville. Who knew that 6 years later we would actually move to Pflugerville? Anyway, in today's world where marriages often don't last more than a few years, I feel like we have achieved something. We're still working on it all the time, but so far so good!!