Witchy Women

Happy Halloweener!

We had a great Halloween. The girls and I all went as witches. They were so cute! We had tons of fun eating candy and trick-or-treating and partying. We went to our ward party on Friday night and Ady got to play in the bounce houses and trunk-or-treat. Then on Saturday we did a little old fashioned trick-or-treating and then went to a karaoke party at our friend's house in Norman. It was an awesome party, thanks JQ. The only sad thing was that I couldn't get Zack to dress up for any of it. Oh well he has an eternity with me, maybe some day...

Ady with her nursery teachers.

I know you think those tights are super sexy, right?

We went trick-or-treating with some friends from our

neighborhood. Aren't they all so cute!

Ady and Hannah

Ady showing off her Trick-or-treating skills, with Drew close behind.

Super Slacker

Here is an update on us...

WARNING: very long and no pictures

We've had a pretty crazy month. To start of with, Brinkley got a really mild case of the swine flu. She had a low fever for three days, but she tested positive for it, who knew. Then Zack's parents and sister came out to visit for Brinkley's birthday on the 10th. It's hard to believe that she is already one year old! She is the cutest little one year old. I emphasize little, because she is so tiny. For weight she is less than the 3rd percentile, and for height she is around the 50th. She's just a skinny little baby. She's been crawling for just over two months, and is really starting to take her first steps by herself. She's been getting better and better at walking. She's really good and holding on to Ady's little car and walking herself all around the house. She is a fireball. Her and Ady have started to have some pretty funny little fights, she can be quite the ornery little fetcher. I'm all done nursing her; hooray!, but she won't drink milk, only drinkable yogurts. And she has to have the cutest little butt on the planet!

Just before Brinkley's birthday, Zack got bit by a tick in his belly button (we are true Oklahomans now, Zack got a tick in the backyard!). He didn't know what was biting him, so he reached down and yanked it out. Then he had to get tweezers to pull the rest out. It was really disgusting. Then like three days after that he started getting fever and chills. So he went to the doctor, who didn't test him for anything, and claimed he was getting Lyme disease. He prescribed him three antibiotics and sent him home. We are now fairly certain he didn't have a tick borne illness, but rather he had his bout with swine flu, because he gave it to Savanna while she was here. Anyway, Zack is plugging away at school and really not enjoying it. He has boards coming up around Thanksgiving, so he'll need lots of prayers.

Ady is getting so big and she is way to smart for our good. She talks like a four year old, but definitely acts like a two year old. She loves nursery and playing with friends. She loves nursing and changing her dolly's diaper. She really wanted to be spiderman for Halloween, but she's a witch instead. She likes to insult me and then hurry and fix it by saying, "you're cute mom". She is really good at pushing my buttons and driving me crazy, and she knows it. But she is a really good and sweet big sister; most of the time. She has decided to take up dancing with her daddy. Every night she finds some random clothing or blanket and tries to wear it like a dress. Then she walks up to Zack and holds out her had and asks him to dance with her. It's so cute!

She scoots

It's true, Brinkley is finally mobile!!  Last Sunday she finally figured out how to get around.  She scoots so cute-like.  She's getting really good at it too.  In fact she's getting so good it's almost a real crawl.  It's so fun to watch her scoot her tiny body all over the floor.  She is also pulling herself up to standing on things.  We thought she'd never be able too cause she's got such skinny legs, but she's doing it.  It's so awesome.  She is also the cheesiest baby ever.  The last couple days she has had so much fun grinning at other people and scrunching her face all up and breathing hard.  It's so funny.  She will also dance on command now, which is so fun, and she's pointing at things.  Her top two teeth are also coming in, so she's been mucho fussy.  Oh, and I finally got her nine month pictures done; which it turns out are going to be ten month pictures because I'm a procrastinator.  Anyway, she has been so much fun lately and we love her to death, and we are also realizing that she and Ady are going to be fighters.  They already fight over like every toy, and Brinkley is not as passive as we thought she'd be.  Oh well, I guess that's what sister are supposed to do.

Is it just me, or is Ol' McDonald a little crazy?

So, one of Ady's favorite songs right now is Ol' McDonald had a farm.  She calls it "i o i o" which is obviously really cute.  But lately the farmer has had some pretty weird things on his farm.  The other night at bed time she ask Zack to sing it (and when she asks for it she also tells us what animal to sing about on the farm).  First she ask for an octopus, and told us it says "blolel blolel" (with a funky tongue thing).  And we thought that was so funny, because like a farmer would have an octopus.  But then she ask for it again, only this time he had a cookie, and the cookie says "yum yum".  Next he had a princess that says "pretty pretty".  And my all time favorite, he had a bucket on his farm that said "pick pick".  I don't even know where she gets this stuff from.  

    Ol McDonald had a farm, e i e i o

    And on this farm he had a bucket, e i e i o

    With a pick pick here and pick pick there

    Here a pick, there a pick, everywhere a pick pick

   Ol McDonald had a farm, e i e i o

I get the princess saying pretty and the cookies saying yum, but I'm just not sure why the bucket says pick.  If you ask me, it sounds like Ol' McDonald is a little tipsy.  Ady is so funny, we just can't get enough of her.

Also, lately she likes to tell me I'm cute.  At first I thought it was so cute and sweet, but now I know why.  She only likes to tell me that after she has done or said something naughty.  Like she'll say something mean to me and I'll say "what?" (you know, in the tone of voice so she knows she's done something wrong).  And instead of repeating herself she looks and me and says so sweetly, "you're cute mom".  What a stinker.

Can I just say that I love summer

I am so great... at blogging!!!  Well and other things too, but specially blogging.  We have had a really sweet summer so far.  Right after the semester ended for Zack we headed to Utah for my cousin's wedding.  Congratulations Ali and Matt!  They are so cute together.  

The girls in Manti.

I love my family, and I'm so glad we got to be there for a week.  Then we headed off to Lake Powell with Zacko's family.  And can I just say that I love them too!  We had so much fun.  Our girls and Lake babies.  They loved the water and the sand and the sun, and they really loved the boats.  Plus we ate a lot of delicious junk food.  Yum!  I love junk food!  The highlight of the whole trip to Utah was that I got to eat lots and lots of Extreme Moose Tracks ice cream!  The biggest unhighlight of the trip was that we drove.  Not so fun with two babies named Ady and Brinkley.  We even drove at night so that they would sleep the whole way, except it backfired and they didn't sleep that great.  So anyway, I vowed never to do it again, and yet we are, planning our drive back for Christmas.  Anyhow, after Lake Powell we went to Moab for my family reunion.  It was so fun to see most of my Mom's family, they are so awesome and sweet.  All in all it was a great trip!

All the Grandbabies at Lake Powell.

In other news.  Brinkley is now in the 5th percentile for weight, and the 50th-ish for height.  She's so un-Ady.  She is also starting to get pretty sassy. She gets a little fired up when the Ady sister touches her and bugs her.  She is finally eating rice cereal, and other human food (as opposed to baby food).  Cereal is the only baby food she'll eat with out gagging.  She loves goldfish already and it makes her dad so proud.  She is also really close to crawling.  She's scooting around a little bit for now, and working on her crawling form.  It won't be long now ...    

The most incredibly awesome, cutest, sweetest amazing playhouse ever!

For the last three weeks, Zack has been completely occupied with building a playhouse for the girls.  It is so awesome.  I've helped a little, just painting and planning, but Zack has done the rest.  He did have help a couple of days from our friend Jordan; Thanks Jordan.  It's also incredibly incredible because he has built almost the entire thing from scraps.  We've been scavenging the neighborhood where they are building new houses and taking the scraps to build it.  We even found some sweet carpet in one of the dumpsters.  Anyway, see for yourself how awesome it is.  Beware you may "go blind from over exposure to Pure Awesomness" (kung fu panda). 

Both the girls love it.  Brinkley thinks it's so fun to look out the windows

 and play peek-a-boo with Ady.  

It's obviously not done yet, but it's getting very close.  I picked out the purple, isn't it awesome.  The inside will be a sea foam green color when we're all done.  There is even an upper level on the inside, it's so sweet.  Enjoy! 

It's Official...

Zack is exactly one quarter dentist today!  He just finished his first year of dental school today.  It's been a crazy year for him, but he did so awesome.  In the last two weeks he saw his first patient.  He was nervous about it, but he said she was really nice and everything went pretty good.  He still has an amazing GPA, and is ranked pretty high in his class.  I'm so proud of him!!

Girlie Trip!

This last weekend me and some friends went on a fun trip to Dallas. My Aunt Gemie was awesome and let us stay at her house, even though there was seven of us plus kids. She was so sweet and watched the kids for us while we shopped. We stayed up late talking and eating junk food, and shopped lots during the day. We found an awesome outlet mall, and JQ's favorite, a three story Nordstroms. We were really excited to go to IKEA too, but we never made it there. No one got swine flu, that we know of yet, and our Husbands got to play lots of Star Craft (they were really excited about that). It was so much fun. Thanks Girls for going, I had a blast. And a HUGE thanks to Aunt Gemie for letting us stay at your house, you are so sweet.

Ady and Drew fought a lot on this trip, they love each other,
but they sure can't share with each other.

The Brinkers

Brinkley is growing so fast! I can't believe she is almost already 7 months old. At her 6 month check-up she was in the 75th percentile for height and 25th percentile for weight. Talk about being completely opposite of Ady. Their faces do look a lot alike though. She is so much fun. She is also still very attached to me; won't let me out of her sight without crying. Her first tooth just broke through a few days ago. And she still isn't eating solids very well, but she loves orange juice! She and Ady are now sharing a room and doing really well with it. Brinkley falls asleep pretty fast even though Ady is sometimes awake for an hour or more talking or singing or banging on the walls. I love having them both in there together finally, and am so glad that it's working out. I love having girls, they are so fun. Here are some cute pictures of her and some of Ady too...

They both love their tubbies, even though
Ady doesn't share the toys very well

This is how much she loves solids

Easter morning

Both in their soccer jerseys from Brazil

Hooray for underpants...

So Ady has been potty training the last couple weeks, and it's going pretty well. She likes that she can go "poo-poo and pee-pee in the potty just like Elmo." Anyway, the other day, while I was visiting teaching, she had to go potty. So we went in and she was sitting on the potty, and she fell in. I tried so hard not to laugh, but I couldn't help it. It only made it funnier that she was kind of upset. She saw me laughing and said in a really sad voice, "It's not funny." I busted up. It was so awesome. In the end she was laughing too, so she wasn't to hurt about the whole thing. Now if she falls in she just laughs.

She is such a big girl!

Panty-head

Lots of fun stuff...

So I'm a really big slacker, and I'm sorry.  I have a few things to catch up on so here goes (I'll try to keep it short and put lots of pictures).

3 Year Anniversary!!

Zack and I celebrated our third anniversary on Feb. 17th.  We didn't do anything huge, we just went out to dinner at Texas Roadhouse, but we

 did get a baby sitter which we don't do very often.

  

So it was fun to be just the two of us and a sleeping baby.  It's been an awesome three years, and I feel like I've known Zack my whole life instead of just three and half years.  I love being married to Zack and I wanted to write a few of my favorite things about him:

  1.  I love how he thinks bodily functions (burping, tooting, potty stuff) and toilet humor are the funniest things on the planet.  He's just a little boy inside.

  2.  I love how he is a little OCD about things, it cracks me up.

  3.  I love how he makes me laugh when I'm crying.

  4.  I love watching him with his two baby girls!  I think he is the best dad ever.

  5.  I love how much he helps out around the house.

  6.  I love how he goes easy on me when we play sports together.

  7.  I love his eyes, they are so gorgeous!

  8.  And I love when he smiles (a real smile, not the fake ones he does or pictures).

He's an amazing husband and father and I love him! 

Wedding day in Manti

Our Honeymoon in the Bahamas!

Great news!

My brother Jason and his wife Paloma are expecting!  They just found out and I am really excited for them.  They are also buying a new house in Hurricane at the end of the month.  Congratulations :)

Visit from Nama and Papa!

Zack's mom and dad came to visit us on March 12th.  It wasn't a super long visit, they had to leave on the 17th, but we were so glad to see them.  Ady had a blast bossing her Papa around for a few days, and he did what ever she wanted him to do.  Poor Nama was sick the whole time, so it wasn't a lot of fun for her, but we were so glad to see both of them.  Thanks for all your help with the girls and the yard, and thanks for coming to visit, it was lots of fun!  We love you!

Papa took us to Chuck-E-Cheese!  Zack and I won 

lots of tickets so Ady got a pretty good prize.

Camping trip!

Zack had spring break this last week, it was so nice to have him back for a whole week.  We went camping from Tuesday to Thursday with some friends.  It was so much fun.  We were really nervous about how the girls would do, specially at night, but they were amazing little campers!  And the weather could not have been better for us.  It was 80 degrees the first day and 85 the second.  We went down to a place called Chickasaw and camped by The Lake of the Arbuckles.  We also went over to an awesome place called Turner Falls on the second day.  It was fun.  We played in the water and the mud, we skipped rocks, and we roasted marshmallows.  Ady loved it so much, and I've never seen such a dirty little person before.  She was so filthy, but she loved every minute of it.  She was so sad to come home.  

Ady and her friend Drew playing in the lake.  The water was really cold.

Ady taking a nice mud bath. 

The sweet Brinkley girl.  She was such a good sport.

Ady and Drew hugging.  Ady was so dirty.  The shirt she

 wore was covered in dirt and leaves when we left.

While we were at Turner falls Ady heard a little boy speaking spanish and she looked at Zack and I and said, "Silly boy, he can't talk".  It was so funny.  So I tried to explain to her that he was talking, but in a different language.  I don't think she quite understood.  

This is Turner Falls.  It was beautiful, and it was nice to 

see some mountainous land formations again.

Meg and Drew

Jordan and Katrina taking a little nap 

Brent sleeping, or saying a really really long prayer

Other stuff...

-We still haven't heard from the Air Force, but we are still keeping our fingers crossed.   

-This weekend Zack participated in quite possibly the geekiest thing ever.  Him and 12 other guys here had a star craft party.  I think it's funny that they all get together and play star craft til like three in the morning.  Geeks!

-We've been planting fun stuff in our yard.  Our neighbor gave us one of his pear trees and we planted some big flowers too.  

-Zack and I just got done playing session of indoor soccer, and I just started playing the next session.  It's fun, and our team does pretty good!

-I finally started Brinkley on rice cereal, but she won't eat it.  She seals her lips shut when I bring the spoon to her mouth, and then when I do get some in, she gags on it.  I don't really know what to do about it.  She's five and half months old and so sweet.

-Ady quote:  she grabbed Zack's cheek and said, "chunky baby."  She also says she doesn't want a dog any more because "they stink and they poop in the bath, and they are dumb doggies"  according to her. (Zack brainwashed her into thinking that all dogs are mean and horrible, sad.)  And I'm not sure why she thinks dogs poop in the tub????

That's about everything that's going on with us right now 

Tornado mania

Tuesday was a crazy scary day for me. We had our first tornado warning since moving to Oklahoma. I was home alone with the girls and I was a little freaked out. The day started out really nice and sunny and even pretty warm. Around 2 pm, I was feeding the Brinkers and the tornado siren by my house started going off. So I turned on the news and watched as they tracked a storm that was headed my direction.

For the next two or three hours I ran around not knowing what to do. They said on the news we should get in our shelters or closets, but I was scared to go down in the shelter alone with the girls. About ten minutes after that storm passed over me, it touched down about 5 miles north of me. It stayed on the ground for about 10 minutes and damaged over 50 homes but no one was seriously injured. While that one was still on the ground the siren went off again. They had another storm cell just south of me and moving my way. That one passed over without actually turning into a tornado. Then the first storm touched down again in the county north of us. Right after that, our siren went off for a third time. There were two more storm cells just south of me coming right at us. The first of the two touched down for only a few minutes, damaged some businesses and apartments and then weaked and disappeared. By the time it got anywhere close to me it was already just a thunderstorm again. After that the storms all weakened and pushed north.

The very first tornado that touched down about 5 miles from me was an EF-2. Around 7pm that night another huge tornado touched down in the southern part of the state. That one wasn't close to us at all, but very destructive. It was on the gound for over an hour. It was 1/2 mile wide, and it killed 8 people so far and injured many. They classifed it as an EF-4 (which is really huge), it had winds over 100 mph. They said it was the 7th deadliest tornado to ever hit Oklahoma. And all of this comes a month before the actual tornado season is supposed to start. Yikes!! It was scary for me, but we are fine. We didn't even get hit with the big hail.

Hail that fell during these storms. Up to the size of baseballs in some areas

The EF-4 right before it touches down.

some of the damage from the EF-4

This is a link to a video of the EF-2 (the closest one to me)
Link to this video



More destruction from the EF-4


Fun Facts: The movie "Twister" was filmed in Oklahoma in Wakita, Ok. And Oklahoma City has one of the highest rates of tornadoes.

Randomness

Lately I've really been thinking how sorry I feel for poor little Brinkley and how neglected she is compared to how much attention Ady got (and still gets). Poor little dolly. She is so sweet and patient mostly, and it just makes me feel worse that I can't give her the attentions I want to give her. It also makes me feel sorry for myself...I mean I was the youngest of five. I have like two pictures from my babyhood days, I think that translates to very little attention. I'm so sad for me and for all children who aren't born first. I really do love my second one just as much, but it's so hard to give them equal attention (specially when the older one screams as loud as she does).

Air Force Update

I just wanted to let everyone know what is going on with Zack and the Air Force. We finally heard back from the recruiter, and Zack was picked up as an alternate. He's number 23 on the alternate list. What this means is that all the scholarships were already given away (he was late for the first deadline because of the whole being a women thing and having to have a "sex change") and so now if an incoming dental student doesn't get accepted to school, then that scholarship goes to an alternate. We're still hopeful that he'll get in; the recruiter said they got to alternates in the 50's last year, so we'll keep our fingers crossed and keep praying for the best.

Ice, Ice Baby....

This last week the weather has been pretty crazy. Last weekend the weather was so nice. It was in the 60's and there wasn't even a lot of wind. It was super. Then on Monday morning a storm moved in. It was an ice storm. It was really really cold and windy and man was it i-cy. I couldn't believe how covered everything was. I looked out my window around noon and saw ice on the window. I thought it might just be water, so I went outside to check it out. Bad idea.... I nearly died. The back porch was covered in a layer of ice about a quarter of an inch thick, but I couldn't see it at all. The ground looked dry, so I stepped down from the step and started sliding all over the place. Took me completely by surprise, and I pulled my groin trying not to fall (poor Keri). After that I decided if I went outside I risked putting myself in mortal danger. So anyway, they canceled Zack's school Monday afternoon, Tuesday, and Wednesday (which was incredibly awesome but mostly unnecessary). It took Zack an hour and a half to drive home; a drive which usually takes 15 minutes. We could stand at the top of our neighbors driveway and slide all the way down without doing anything. It was crazy fun. It was supposed to get worse on Tuesday, but instead it just snowed this really weird snow (more like ice dust, or salt). So they could have had school on Wed. but Oklahomans can't drive in bad weather so they canceled it again, and all the schools except the Universitys were closed today. It's crazy. Anyway then tomorrow and Saturday are supposed to be really warm again. I love Oklahoma!

This picture is from last years ice storm
(which was way worse), but you get the idea.