Weekend

 Last weekend was quite eventful. To make a looong story short, we thought we had a skunk in our wall and we KNEW we had rats in our backyard. Yuck! We have a lot of new construction around our house and the little critters are forced to find a new homes. Unfortunately, they found a new home in our backyard.
We called out a "critter control" person and he informed us that there IS an animal in our wall, but it's on an exterier wall and pretty much unreachable. Sigh.
So... after drilling a few holes in our wall (to put a scope in so he could look around), and checking out various possible entry points (didn't find any), he gave us the bill and left. With the animal still in our wall.

We quickly moved our efforts to the rats. They were hiding under the girls' little blue playhouse in the backyard.  Tony and a friend tore it down last Sunday and killed 2 nests of rats.   YUCK!

 Tearing down the house

It was a good thing we did that...those little babies would have grown and had babies themselves and we would have had a BIG problem. The animal in our wall has gone away...so we are thinking it wasn't a skunk after all. (We thought it was a skunk because of the strong skunk odor we were smelling!)

Fast forward: This weekend

We were invited to a fun backyard swim party and the girls were very excited. Before we left, Tony picked some beautiful roses from our rose bush! They smell soooo good and they are HUGE! I love having (free) roses on the table. :)

 

My pretty roses...and lots more outside.

It was a bit cloudy to be playing in the water at the party, but the kids didn't seem to mind. They got right in and had a blast!

 Kaitlyn

 Jillian

 Silly Kennedy

 They had beautiful cakes, desserts and decorations! She was celebrating both her kids (girl and boy) birthdays and she made them each a separate cake! Wow!

 More swim fun! 

They had big water slides and lots of pools out!

 My little "fish"

Of course, the trampoline was a hit too!

It was threating to rain pretty much the whole time, but it held out until the end. 

I love having relaxing fun weekends and watching the kids have so much fun outside.  

Field trip!

 Kaitlyn and Kennedy went on their first field trip this past Wed!! They rode the bus to the Houston zoo. I didn't sign up to be a volunteer (even though I wanted to) because I really thought that they would do better without me there. (If you don't know, the twins have had a lot of fears, and some of the things in the zoo make them nervous.)
I had a good feeling about sending them off..they were just so excited! I knew it was going to be a positive experience for them. :)

 All the Kinder students wore these cute shirts to the zoo!  (Kaitlyn, Kennedy)

I snapped this before we left for school. 

I was bummed that I couldn't take pictures of them at the zoo (since I wasn't going to be there), but luckily, I received 2 pictures from our neighbors who were there with their son.

 Kennedy and Mrs. Amber (our neighbor down the street)

Standing by the giraffes! 

I'm impressed my neighbors found the girls both together...since they are in separate classes, they were not in the same group at the zoo. I guess they found each other anyway. :)  They are so close.

They came home bursting with excitement telling me all that they did. I'm so happy they had a great time!! So proud of my big girls. 

Carnival and party

Just a quick post....
Last Friday, Kennedy and Kaitlyn's school had a carnival. They girls had a good time, but I think their favorite part was going to sonic for a treat afterwards. (They won sonic gift cards and wanted to use them!)

 Ready to go! 

 Playing games and earning prizes (Kaitlyn)

 Confetti eggs.......

.....On daddy's head!

 Jilly got some frozen yogurt

 Look who we can into! Kyle!! This made Kaitlyn happy! Oh, by the way, apparently he kissed her hand on the playground this past week. She now has announced that they are getting married and she will be Kaitlyn Phillips.  Oh, that girl!

 Sonic treats!! (Kennedy)

She tried a sundae for the first time and loved it.

 Kaitlyn got her favorite slushy

 Kennedy could eat cherries all day!  Silly girl!

Jillian didn't get anything at sonic because she was still eating her frozen yogurt from the carnival...but she wasn't too happy about that. Once we got to sonic she was ready to ditch the yogurt for something else. It's hard being 3.

On Sunday we went to a friend's party at Chuck E Cheese. Kaitlyn was still a little nervous about the mouse coming out, but I was proud of them for being brave. Kennedy and Jillian didn't seem phased! 

We are getting ready for our spring garage sale which will be the first weekend in May. We have been gathering items around the house  and the twins are super excited about selling some of their things and getting some money! Jillian on the other hand....not so much. She is still quite attached to her baby toys. (even though she never plays with them)

We had this conversation a couple of days ago....

I was trying to explain to Jillian about the garage sale and selling her things. I was talking about how another baby could use her baby stuff and she could get some money to buy new big girl things.

She listened.  I told her maybe we could sell her big wheels because she has a bike now. etc.

 

She said "No, I think I will save that for when we have another baby"

 

Me: Well, I don't think we are going to have another baby.

 

Jillian: Well, we can pray for it to happen.

 

Me: Yes. we can. You can pray for that.

 

Jillian: Right now.

 

Me: You want me to pray for a baby right now?

 (We were in the middle of the living room)

 

Jillian: yes.

 

Me: OK.  (So, I prayed for God to bless our family with a baby)

 

Jillian: (Looking up after prayer). "So, there we go."  

 

She has such child-like faith. Love it!  I just wanted to write this down before I forgot it. She has been praying for a little brother or sister for a loooong time.  Poor girl....I think she will just have to get used to being the baby of the family.