I finished painting the kitchen!!

Natalie and I painted part of our kitchen a couple of weeks ago. She was a big help! She and Lily are in Galveston this week with Aunt Shirley and some family friends. I know they're having a great time! We miss them a lot! I decided that since I have the house to myself during the day, it would be a good time to finish painting the kitchen. The true color is kinda hard to see in the pics, but it's a pale, soft aqua blue color. Anyway, here's some pics of the finished product:

Farewell to the syringe...

I know this is an odd picture to post. But this syringe (well, not always this one, but ones just like it) have been part of our lives since Lily was 3 weeks old and began taking compounded Prevacid. We took her for her yearly appt. with her gastro doctor on Wed. and we finally felt like Lily was ready to try some of the Prevacid granules mixed into her applesauce. We've tried in the past and we've tried the solutabs that are supposed to melt on your tongue. But, Lily always ended up vomiting immediately due to the texture of the medicine "beads". This time she did great! I called the little beads "polka-dots" and told her it was big-girl Prevacid and she took it without hesitation! We are so excited to finally be done with the liquid compound. We had to have it shipped to us every month and it has to be refrigerated, so it was not exactly convenient. So, after almost 6 years, we say farewell to the syringe that has been such a part of Lily's life. We are very grateful for the Prevacid though, because without it Lily would be unable to keep her food down and would have to have major surgery or a feeding tube. She came so close to that as an infant and when I think back on those days, I'm so incredibly grateful that she responded well to the Prevacid. Maybe some day she will even be able to swallow the Prevacid pill. But, I guess I'm getting ahead of myself, huh? ;)

Tea Party!

The girls and I had a lovely tea party this afternoon after church. Well, technically it was pink lemonade, but it was quite delicious! They wanted cookies to go with our "tea", so I made some milk-free, egg-free cookies so that Lily could have some too. That little stinker wouldn't even try them! LOL Oh well, at least they tasted yummy! Lily ate her old stand-by--golden oreos. It was a really fun time! I'm so glad that Lily has learned to play with Natalie and I hope that someday she will want to have a tea party with some girls her age too. Notice our "guests"? We enjoyed the company of Hello Kitty and Niki the Bear during our party. Don't you just love our accessories? The girls insisted I wear the crown and Lily even wore her boa. Natalie was dressed as a princess. Here are some pics:

We're all moved in!

Our new home:



Sorry about the lack of updates lately, but we've been super busy getting settled into our new home. It's so wonderful to finally be moved in. We're still waiting for our appliances to be delivered (fridge, washer, dryer) due to a back order. But other than that, we're doing well. The girls loved the paint in their new rooms! I'm so grateful to my mom and my friend Heather for helping to paint. Coult and Steven helped out as well when they finished moving our mountain of boxes! We're also very grateful to my friend Cynthia for providing such a delicious meal for us the night we moved in. Also, it was so helpful to have several men and their sons from our church come to help move our furniture. Our move would not have gone so smoothly without all the help we received from our loving family and friends.

Lily has been having some issues with anxiety lately, so it was really wonderful to see her playing so well with Natalie last night. They put on a "dress-up" show for us last night. Yes, Lily is the surgeon and Natalie is her patient! Enjoy the pics:

Missing our girls...

Natalie and Lily have been staying with our extended family for the last week while Coult and I get everything packed for our move next week. We miss them so much, but we know they are having lots of fun with their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins! We appreciate everyone who has is taking care of them while we're packing. We have the best extended family in the world! Sorry I don't have any new pics to post right now. But without the girls here, I just don't have any thing to add. We had our first walk-through at the house today and our closing will be next Friday. We are so excited that we will be in our new home soon. I promise I will post some pics then. I hope you're all having a great summer so far!

Creativity Time!

Natalie is always coming up with creative things for she and Lily to do. A few days ago, she decided to draw some food on her marker board and let she and Lily color it and pretend to eat it (erase it). As you can see from the smiles on their faces, they had lots of fun!

End of another school year!

Lily & her teacher:



Today is the last day of school for my girls, and I realized that in only 30 minutes, Lily will no longer be in preschool! I know I'm probably going to cry when I pick her up and we have to say goodbye to her teacher and the aides in her room. She will be going to a new elementary school for kindergarten next year. She has had a great year and we all really love her teacher. I'm nervous about her going to kindergarten. But, we had our big meeting with all the school personnel a couple of weeks ago and she will have lots of support next year. She's going to have her reg. ed. kindergarten teacher, her resource teacher, an OT, Speech Therapist, and they are also going to put an aide in her classroom. I know it's going to be quite an adjustment for her, but I know the school staff will help her to have a positive experience.

I also can't believe that in just a few hours, Natalie will be finished with the 5th grade!!! Where did the time go? It seems like she just finished kindergarten! Next year will be her last year before middle school. That makes me feel really old! She always does well in school, though and I know she's going to do great next year too.

We are going to have such a busy summer! We should be moving into our new house by the first part of July. I have lots of packing to do in the next few weeks. I started packing a couple of weeks ago. But, I don't feel like I've made much headway yet. I'm dreading the actual move, but we can't wait to actually live in our new home! There's even a pool just a few houses down, so we can spend lots of time swimming this summer. With the scorching Texas temps, we're really going to need that pool!

**As requested, I have created a section of "Lilyisms". It's on the right side of the screen under the pictures of the girls**

Disney on Ice--"High School Musical"

We got free tickets to see "High School Musical" on ice last Thursday. It was a really great show! I think Coult even enjoyed it! Natalie loves High School Musical 1 & 2 and Lily loves the songs that are about basketball and baseball. Lily's face lit up when she saw the basketball players on the ice. Here are some pics from the show:

Ready for church...

I couldn't resist taking some pictures of our beautiful girls before church today.

New pictures of the house