Dave

I couldn't write about my girls without writing about Dave. Here are some fun/interesting facts about my wonderful hubby:
The first time I met Dave, he was trying to impress the group of girls I was with and he smacked his head with a dumbbell.
Dave and I got to know each other by giving our plasma and playing basketball every week.
Dave told me he was interested in me only after another guy had asked me out.
Dave proposed by coming into my room when I was gone, putting vases of flowers around the entire room (he had painted different memories from our dates onto the vases), being on one knee when I came in, telling me a bunch of sweet things that unfortunately I cannot remember, giving me a ring which had been in his family for a couple of generations, and asking me to marry him.
Dave is really good with kids, now. Right before Emily was born, we volunteered for nursery at our church. Dave refused to hold any of the babies and if one of them cried, he would quickly pick them up and hand them to me.
Dave is an extremely hard worker. When we moved to round rock, he was working 70 hours a week and he was still able to come home and play with Emily and give me a break.
Dave likes weird music. And somehow he has gotten me to like it as well.
Dave is an inch shorter than me and a year and a half younger than me.
Dave wanted another girl the second time I was pregnant, not a boy.
If I make cookies, I have to hide some or I will not get any. Usually they are gone in less than 2 days.
Dave gets excited about talking about lumber.
If I want something for my b-day or Christmas or any other holiday, I cannot hint around to Dave. I have to tell him exactly what I want.
Dave is a huge procrastinator.
Dave is extremely mature for his age. He has a college degree, a wife of 3 1/2 years, 2 kids, moved 6 times since we have been married and he is only 23 years old.
So I could go on and on about Dave but the bottom line is he is an excellent husband, father, and friend.

Job Search

I wanted to update you all on my job hunt progress. On Sunday I was supposed to meet with the mom of the 2 month old I was going to watch. She never called and finally at 9 pm I received an email from her saying that her computer had died and she hadn't been able to get a hold of me. I had gotten a really bad vibe from the woman throughout the day. We had emailed each other 21 times and she had never told me her name. I told her all about myself and she never told me about her or her family. I set my price and she kept telling me she couldn't afford it. I know what I am worth and she kept trying to get me to go lower. So when she emailed me that night, I talked with Dave and told him what I was thinking. He told me to follow my instincts. I wrote the woman back and told her that I could not watch her kids. She replied that that was fine because she had already found a sitter and she didn't know how to tell me. Why let us go to 21 emails then? I am glad I followed my instincts.
Yesterday I received a phone call from Home Depot and they wanted me to come in for an interview. I was so nervous. I have not worked for the last 3 years and an interview is very intimidating to me right now. I went in last night and they offered me a job as a cashier on the spot! I had to go and take a drug test today and that will take about a week to process. After that I have to go in and fill out paperwork, take the computer courses that tell me how to do my job, and go to orientation. I should be finished with all that by the end of the month. I am only going to be working on the weekends, but I will be making more money than I would have made babysitting for 4 days. I am really excited to have the opportunity to help Dave and I get out of debt a lot quicker. We are gazelle intense (for those of you who know what that means, and if not, ask me about it!).

Ally May

Some fun Ally facts:
She is almost 6 months old.
She is eating rice cereal once a day and she loves it.
She can hear her bottle being made a mile away no matter what she is doing.
If I leave her laying on the living room floor, when I come back, she will be on the other side of the room.
She can turn over both ways like a pro.
She loves to be around Emily and no matter how upset she is, she always has a smile for Em.
She has the most heartbreaking cry that will make you pick her up, no matter what you are doing.
She will sit in my lap and let me rock her for a while (something Em never allowed me to do).
She really likes it when I read to her and she will lay quietly for as long as 20 minutes while I read.
She can get across the entire kitchen in her walker.
She likes cartoons.

Ally is such a sweet cuddle baby. I always joked that the next baby after Em would be forced to cuddle with me because Em was so independent, even from birth. Em was never a cuddler and she never let me rock her to sleep. Ally will allow me to rock her and she usually falls asleep. I love both of my girls in the differences and similarities.

Emily

Yesterday I posted on how Emily was in her terrible twos, but today I want to express how much fun she truly is. I am posting this mostly for Dave and I to look back on and remember her at this age.
Emily has many different pronunciations of family members names:
Jennifer-Hoffer
Johannah-Nanna
Katherine-Kaquin
Keving-Falcon
Stephen-Huge emphasis on Steeephen!
Andrew-Addwew
Grace-Cwace
The other names are a lot more simple for her to say but she has so many family member names to remember, she has started getting a little confused. She will look at me and call me daddamama or Dave momadadda. When I was visiting my mom last week, she kept calling me gwandmama.
Here are some other funny/interesting Emily words/phrases:
Medicine=gas (no clue were she got that)
Any tunnel or dark place=dinosaur
If she doesn't like the food she is told to eat=ants
Every morning the first thing she asks me is "Daddy work?" followed by "nanna?"
She cannot go to sleep without her silky and bear (which she now calls a dinosaur)
If we ask her to pray, she prays for anyone she can think of at work.
She is deathly afraid of snakes (and Dave and I have no clue why).
She gets sick every time she goes into toddlers at church (ok, that might be a slight exageration).
She asks to go to Starbucks and Target.
She knows the symbols for Starbucks, HEB, and walmart.
She tells me what color cart she wants to be pushed in at the store.
If Ally is crying she tells me to give her a bottle.
When I tell her I love her, she now says "I love you too."

That is all I can think of right now. Please feel free to add to the list.
Emily is also such a big helper with Ally. Today I had to go outside to make a phone call. We get little to no reception on our cell phones inside the house. I told Emily to watch Ally while I stepped out. I left the front door cracked so I could hear them. When I came back in a couple of minutes later, Emily was down on the floor in front of Ally in her walker handing her toys and trying to make her laugh.

Terrible Twos

Emily has definitely hit the terrible twos. She has been having a bunch of temper tantrums. One minute, she is happy and being a sweet angel and then the next minute, she is crying and being negative about everything. We are trying to make the most of this age and the other night we were taking pictures of Ally eating and Emily refused to smile for the camera. We decided to play along. Unfortunately she continued to be cross even after we all took pictures showing how silly she looked.

Emily being grumpy:

Me being grumpy:

Dave being grumpy:

Ally trying to be grumpy:

We have had a very relaxing weekend. We did not get to try out another church today because both of the girls have been sick (from being in the nursery and toddlers while visiting a church last Sunday). Dave and I did some house cleaning and I tried to catch up on some laundry. I have been searching for a job to help our with our debt and I have applied to about six jobs online and I posted on craigslist that I can care for a kid or two at home. I got a couple of hits off of craigslist and there is a strong possibility that I will be taking care of a 2 month old baby girl 4 days a week. It is really an ideal situation for me and I am hoping it works out. I am kind of nervous about having an infant with Ally still being so young, but being able to care for the girl in our home is much better than having to have an evening and weekend job. The mom of the 2 month old also has two other children that I may watch once a week as well. The money is good but I am not exactly sure how I am going to handle 5 kids by myself.

Pictures

Here are some pictures we have collected during the move.

The kitchen:

The dining room:

Emily's room:

Emily "helping" put the crib together:

Emily brought me each of these hair clips to put in her hair:

Ally playing in her walker:

Em and Ally playing together:

We are alive!

Hi family and friends! I am so sorry for not having updated you all sooner but things have been busy and we did not get the internet hooked up until late Monday night. Tuesday morning I drove to San Antonio with the girls to visit my mom for her birthday. It is a really long drive to make by myself with two babies who did not want to sleep. But I am back and we are finally settling down in our lovely rental house in Spring, Texas. It was not an easy journey getting here, but the important thing is that we have a place to live and can start to explore the city. The last time I wrote we were still in Round Rock not knowing if we would have a place to live in Houston. We had the movers come on that Friday and they came about 3 hours late. They were able to load us up in about 2 hours and so we hit the road at about 9 pm to travel to Houston. We arrived at our hotel after midnight and it was after 1 am before we were all in bed. Saturday morning we got up at 7 to be able to meet with a realtor and find a place to live. We looked at a house and decided we both liked it. It was 3 bedrooms with a huge kitchen, a tiny backyard, and a 2 car garage. The house needed a paint job, but other than that, we thought it would be perfect for us. We drove around for a little while to check out the neighborhood and to discuss what we wanted and decided to try and rent the house. We went to the realtor's office and filled out the application and by the end of the day we had a house. We moved in on Sunday and spent the night without heat or hot water. We were really thankful to have a place to live. We are in Spring which is about 15 minutes north of Tomball. Dave's commute to work is about 15 minutes in the mornings and about 30 minutes in the evening. Emily is loving being able to play outside whenever she wants. When we were in the apartment, it was a huge ordeal to take her outside and we didn't do it very often. Now we go outside just about every morning and every afternoon. There is plenty of room inside the house to run around as well. Emily and Ally each have there own rooms. We moved Ally into her crib and it was the first time in 5 months that she had not slept in the same room with me. It was a little sad but now she doesn't wake up when Dave gets up in the morning and I get to sleep a bit longer. I have also started feeding Ally solid food. She is only eating rice cereal, but she is doing a great job. I am really excited to start trying veggies and fruits. Ally has already tried bananas because the first time she tried the cereal, she hated it. I put a tiny piece of banana and mashed it into the cereal and she ate all of it. Now she eats the cereal plain without a problem. I think she just needed the bit of sweetness to get her started.