So, as probably expected, my series of updating everything after our move has gotten postponed time and again. It really is the story of my life. I always have such a huge list of things that I want to get done that when I don't feel like doing them I typically just take a nap, browse pinterest, or just do anything I can to ignore responsibility. Hopefully I'm not the only one!
Several things are worth noting in the last 5 months! The first being that we have officially moved to Temple! We really love this small town! Temple is about the same size population wise as Galveston, however it has A LOT more to offer :), minus the beautiful beach and Moody Gardens (I miss those like crazy!). And we "technically" live in Temple. However, when they made the city limits for Temple, somehow our neighborhood got claimed but the land on 3 out of 4 of the sides of it did not. They are all Belton! Very weird to me. But Belton is an even smaller town than Temple. Yet, it is even more beautiful! If you ever move into this area then choose to live in either West Temple or Belton! Things are so much more spread out and you get to enjoy feeling like you're almost in the country! I definitely miss driving down Seawall and seeing the ocean in Galveston, but this is a good trade off! Plus there is hardly any traffic ever! Temple actually has a mall (probably about the same size as Mall of the Mainland in Texas City, except all the stores there are actually opened and not scary to walk into!), a Hobby Lobby, a Charming Charlie (If you haven't ever been there then quickly look up your closest one now!!! It is the best store ever! It was probably my happiest day of the week when I found out there was one here!), TONS of places to eat, and Lake Belton is just a couple miles from our house! Yes, it does get REALLY hot during the summer! But at least our neighborhood has a pool that is open from the beginning of May till the end of October! We spent A LOT of time there this summer :). And Temple has a ton of parks with splash pads for all the little kiddos to cool off!
Anyhow, enough about that! Point being, this is a wonderful town. We love it. Come visit us! We would love to show it off!
So, I think it would be near impossible to really update on EVERYTHING that we have been doing in this gorgeous town since we moved here, so I will instead attempt to update on each of us individually and the highlights of what we've done. Then I'll spend a post talking about our recent vacations and Hannah's 18 month post (can you believe it!!!).
Hannah Banana: Commonly known as Hannah Banana, Monkey Girl, Silly Goose and Cutie. Ya, I know my nicknames are really original, but they're done with the greatest love :). Hannah has been growing like crazy and is no longer a baby! Something that I am both incredibly sad about, and happy about at the same time. She can be the sweetest little snuggler and most defiant little tantrum thrower within milliseconds of each other. I am constantly amazed at how stubborn a little child can be! And it's over the silliest things! She refuses to talk to us (either in sign language or vocally) to get her milk in the morning or evening. And simply asking her to do so results in an amusing tantrum. I wish I had a video of these tantrums to show you! I will attempt to describe them though. She screams at us while doing a moonwalk stomp away from us until she is out of view. If we try to help her sign "Please" or "milk", it results in the same thing. It's very difficult to not laugh at the "moonwalk stomp"! It is literally like she's moonwalking Michael Jackson style only adding high kneed stomps into it. Quite talented! She is a very particular child who does not like to be told what to do or how to do it. (I see a fun future ahead!) She is incredibly scared of animals! However, we recently went to a petting zoo where she actually was excited to pet the bunny. And our neighbor got a kitten which she loves to pet (however she insists that I help hold her arm as she does so). So, I think that she likes animals that are still, but is scared of them moving. I can understand a little though. Soon after we moved here we went to a BBQ at one of David's co-worker's homes that had a HUGE dog. They weren't the best of hosts and allowed their dog to wander the yard with all of the guests trying to steal their food and terrorizing the kids. At one point Hannah was holding some food in her hand and the dog tackled her to the ground and hovered over her as she screamed and it tried to get her food. Poor girl! I felt so bad! (If you have a big dog, please put them away for a dinner party with lots of guests! It's just courteous!) Hannah really is a sweetheart when she wants to be though! She loves to be held and snuggled! She loves to play with her big sister and do what she's doing. And she LOVES slides! She could go in circles on a slide for hours and never tire of it!
Lydia: Lydia has been so busy since we moved here! We quickly got her into some swim lessons after moving to Temple because I needed her to be a little bit more independent and comfortable in the water as I watched Hannah. On the first swim lesson I was nervous! She didn't want to get in the water, refused to "bob" under the water and didn't do a single thing the instructor asked her to do. The instructor didn't want to push her too hard and scare her from the water more, but I kept wishing that he would be a little bit more persistent. Nonetheless, we went for the second day. She stood with the group in the water for a few minutes and then got out and refused to get back in. The third day came and I knew I needed to do something or I would be throwing $40 down the drain. So, I did what any mom would do. Bribery! If she stayed in the water the whole time, listened to the instructor and did a "bob" then she would get a Slurpee from 7-11. It worked! A few bribes later and she was letting the instructor support her in a back and front float, attempting to swim with support and jumping into the water (with someone catching her)! And who says bribery is bad?! So, overall I think that the swim lessons were very successful. She is not an independent swimmer by any means! But she is much more confident and willing to try things in the water. She loves jumping in the water now and could do it for hours! I plan to put her into lessons again in the spring and hopefully by then with some more maturity she will start to swim on her own :).
Lydia also tried out soccer for the first time! A mom in the other ward wanted to do soccer with her 2 boys over the summer and decided to have "lessons" with the preschool age kids once a week. Lydia really enjoyed it, especially when we got her a pink, Minnie the Mouse soccer ball :). While I would not describe her as a very athletic girl, she picked up on some of the concepts of the game and it was good for her to work on her hand-eye coordination. She's definitely her Momma's child though! She's the type that would love to sit in the goal box, pick flowers and daydream while everyone else runs and kicks the ball. I hope that we do lessons again next summer so that she can pick up on some more good skills!
Lydia has also started preschool! Well, another Preschool Co-op that I rotate with 7 other moms to teach. It's with several of the other kids in our ward and it's been so good for Lydia to make some friends! She gets very excited to go each week and learn about the letters of the alphabet! (Each week is focused on a different letter.) Please feel free to check out what Lydia's been doing at school on our blog at
ourcooppreschool.blogspot.com. The other moms in the group are so creative and amazing! We are so lucky to have them all here with us!
As I said, Lydia has been VERY busy since moving here! Lydia also attends dance once a week. This is her very favorite event of the week! She adores her instructor (Ms. Margaret) and is so excited to show me what she's learning every week! I am very curious to see everything put together into a dance! Since this is a class done out of her home, it is too crowded and distracting for me to stay and watch during the lessons. But Lydia will have her first recital in December and I think she will have the time of her life up there on that stage!
A few other things that Lydia has been up to: She now has 6 Articles of Faith memorized :). She is so smart! We just started the 7th one and I don't think that it will take her very long at all to get it down! One day, after being at a friends house who has a pet dog, she told me that she wanted to have a cat and a dog. I informed her that Daddy is allergic to cats, and so we couldn't get one. And that we are not in a position right now to take care of a dog. She proceeded to make all sorts of plans on how we could manage to get both. Daddy would stay in the back of the house and the cat would always stay in the front. And we could simply get rid of the "baby" in order to get the dog. When asked who the "baby" was, she pointed to Hannah (she doesn't usually refer to Hannah as "the baby", so that threw me off). After a long time of laughing, we told her that that wasn't an option. She hasn't brought it up much since then, but I know she is still hoping :).
On another day Lydia was playing with Hannah. I caught her "walking" Hannah with a jump rope tied around Hannah's neck (not in a real knot, Lydia just kind of twists it). The jump rope was quickly taken away and I sat down to talk with her about it. I tried to explain that it wasn't safe to put things around people's necks and that they could choke and die when we do that. Lydia cheerfully exclaimed, "It's okay if she dies! She'll get resurrected and come back!" Sigh. That was a hard one to explain! She's so smart and catches onto things, but still is learning about many things.
I could go on for a LONG time about Lydia and everything she's said and done! Unfortunately I put things off for so long that I can't do it all. Overall, Lydia is a very active, sweet, smart, and beautiful young lady! She loves being our beautiful princess :).
David: Well, this one might be a little bit shorter :). Not because David hasn't been busy. He certainly has been! But he is busy with the same type of expected thing. Residency :). So far David is 4 1/2 months into his 3 year residency and time has both passed quickly and incredibly slowly! He has already completed 2 of his 5 ward months (meaning inpatient, crazy hours rotations) and also his nursery month (also insanely crazy hours!). So, I'd say we've done pretty good and getting some of the worst months out of the way! But he still loves working with the kids and being a Pediatrician :). He spent his last month in outpatient cardiology and absolutely loved it! He is now considering doing a fellowship in Cardiology. This is both exciting and scary! We love the pace of life much more with cardiology. In general pediatrics, a physician is expected to see at least 8 patients in an hour! That's only about 7 minutes with each patient including doing notes, etc.! David has a hard time with this. He wants to build a better connection with his patients. However, in cardiology you have 45 minutes with each patient! Much better! This creates a much more relaxed atmosphere :). It is 3 more years of a residency-like training and salary :(. Not so much fun. But in the end we would be making more money and David would enjoy his job even more :). Unfortunately, Scott and White does not offer a fellowship in cardiology though, so we would have to move :(. Lots of pros and cons! I am fully supportive of either road he chooses to take. The cardiologists he worked with gave him excellent reviews (which are not common, according to the fellow residents) and told him that they think he would make a great cardiologist. He's nervous about the competitiveness of getting into cardiology (apparently it's not an easy one to get into!), but I think that with the referrals of some of these cardiologist and his hard work, he could definitely do it.
And Me :). I feel like I could write the longest paragraph of all about everything I've been doing! I'll try to sum it all up quickly for you though :). Moving into a new home has been an incredible experience! One of the things I hadn't taken into much consideration when choosing a house to buy was the effort to make a brand new house a home. Granted, we were able to get the builders to add several things into the house that they initially weren't planning to do. However, there was still A LOT of work to do (and there still is!). Just a couple months after moving into our house, we were able to recruit my dad to come help me take on probably the biggest project of all, the attic! In our negotiations, we were unable to convince the builder to make storage ready space for us in the attic, let alone even give us a pull-down ladder for it. Luckily my dad had done this project before in his own home. So, with a van full of his tools and his expertise, I took on role as assistant and apprentice. It was a fun, bonding experience for both of us. Though I don't think that either of us would wish to do it again :). But the end result is a full storage area the size of our 2 car garage with electricity + a pull down ladder into our attic! It is truly beautiful! It didn't take me long to start hauling junk up there! I was very anxious to clear out my garage so that I could get some other projects under-way. One of which was our garden. We expanded our front gardens and planted several more plants and bushes around our front and back yard on Labor Day :). It was a very exhausting, labor intensive project. But I'm glad we did it! Now we have space on the side of our house to hide our trash cans and get them out of our garage :) (because Heaven forbid the HOA can see them!), several fast growing tall red tips and Oleanders in our back yard to eventually create more privacy from our back neighbors, a little bit more color in our front gardens, and some beautiful white bricks lining our gardens (snatched up from the construction sites of the homes in our neighborhood :). Don't worry, I asked permission before I took them .). Those are my two really big house projects done so far. I still really want to paint the house, add floodlights in the back, make drapes for the living room, and do several other miscellaneous things. But we will see how many of those things I am able to do and which ones are worth doing if we really do only live here for 3 years :).
Lets see, other things I have been up to :). I now babysit a little girl named Beckym full time. She just turned 2 last week. She is a very sweet little girl and I am lucky to have her to babysit! She is so laid back and mellow. She can easily entertain herself, but also gets along really well with Lydia and Hannah.
I have a ton of projects that I have decided to do for Christmas this year, and the list just keeps on growing :). We'll see how much of it I'm able to do. I've got a couple of them finished, but still have a lot more to do. I'll probably (hopefully) show more of those later so that I don't spoil any surprises for anyone :). But this year our Christmas budget is very small, so I am doing a lot of homemade things. I already have a huge stash of fabric to make things with and have had some very generous donations to build on some other amazing gifts!
Also, I made Lydia some butterfly wings and antennae for her Halloween costume, as well as a caterpillar dress and antennae for Hannah. I am so happy with how they turned out! Adorable! And very durable for some fun dress-up time!
So, I guess that my time is mostly spent babysitting, doing fun and crazy projects, running Lydia all over the place, being a single-mom during David's busy rotations, and doing my best to enjoy life :). But I wouldn't trade it for anything!
Here's a quick (in a matter of speaking) recap of things in pictures:
The day we closed on our house!
The truck all loaded up and ready to move :)
David and I went for a walk on the beach the night before we moved. It was romantic (the kids were in San Antonio with my parents) and fun! We came across this shark that washed up on shore! I've always heard about the sharks all over there, but was glad that I hadn't actually seen one up close until we were moving :)
Fun on the 4th of July :). The ward had a little parade with the kids.
Lydia demonstrating her back float with my mom. She's actually gotten even better than this and will do it without the floatie. Next summer is going to be good!
Daddy and Hannah enjoying some Sonic :). This is what Hannah looks like if I don't do her hair. It is always covering her face and covered in food and other nastiness.
Birthday Happy Kimberly! I celebrated my 30th Birthday in San Antonio with my family and going to SeaWorld :). Fun day!
Lydia is always begging for me to take pictures of her with random things in stores and all over the place! Here is a random one of her at the nursery :).
Lydia's first day of dance. She adores her sparkly pink leotard!
Our friends, the Wests, came down from Dallas to visit us for a few days :). It was so great to see them! And the girls loved our new swingset!
Enjoying one of our last days at the neighborhood swimming pool. This is just the baby pool. The regular pool is a lot bigger!
A fun day at the Waco Zoo with some friends :).
Lydia liked going down the slide through the water with her friends at the zoo!
Lydia begged for a horsie ride from David one day. Apparently David decided that Hannah was a fun little pony to ride as well! I thought this was one of the funniest views I've seen :). I love the little diaper bum at the bottom! So cute!
Lydia and Hannah trying out their Halloween costumes at a pre-Halloween trick or treat at a local park. Super cute! Lydia is a butterfly and Hannah is a caterpillar. I don't know how they could look any cuter! I'm always so happy when I make something that I can't stop ogling over! That's when I know I did a good job :). (Sorry to brag! I just really like them!) Bonus: the main blue fabric for Lydia's wings was the leftover fabric used to make my high school prom dress!
And some fun carving pumpkins! Lydia designed her own pumpkin. I was actually very impressed! She drew the face on a piece of paper (I made a few minor adjustments, like making the mouth open so that I could carve something and adding pupils in the eyes) and then I carved it for her. We decided that David's pumpkin should be "pretty". I helped him design it with nice full lips, a heart nose and eyelashes. Yep, we're a house full of girls and princesses!
And that, my friends, is a little bit of what we've been up to for the last 5 months! Phew! Props to you if you made it this far!!! I think I'll go ahead and write my next post, but I won't actually post if for a couple days so that you can have a break from reading this!
Dear Sweet Hannah,
Your favorite things are your cuddly (a pink owl blankie thing), baby dolls, your rocking moose, coloring (you're really good at staying on the paper too!), pushing around things (like the stroller or shopping cart), copying anything Lydia is doing, being held by me, and washing your hands. It's very difficult to say what your favorite foods are because sometimes you eat things and other times you refuse. However, the things that you are most consistent about are mac and cheese, peas, pizza, anything sugary, milk, chocolate milk, and most fruit. You also love carrying around your blankets and hiding under them or playing with them. It's the cheapest and easiest toy to keep you occupied for a long time! You love going outside! Any mention of shoes or outside and you will not forget it until we have let you out! I have to try to sneak into the garage if I want to leave the house without you! You also LOVE slides! This too can occupy you for a very long time! 
Oh sweet Hannah! With all of the joys of having children and watching them experience joy also comes the pain of watching them suffer. It greatly hurts me to watch you struggle for air every time you get sick and your asthma acts up. Lately this has happened almost monthly and the problem seems to only be getting worse each time. Part of me was excited for you to turn 18 months and be old enough for nursery at church. But the other part of me dreaded it because of all of the germs floating around in there. For our first week there I was also asked to sub. So I stayed in there with you. But within a few hours after church I started to get sick and the days since have only progressed. You have now experience your first hospital stay as a result. I question if nursery is where you should be if you are this sick having only gone in there once. I do not consider myself to be an over-protective mother. You have played with other kids and been exposed to germs. But I don't want to be careless and knowingly expose you to things when it hurts you so bad. So, for now I think that we will take things slowly. 
As I mentioned, you have experienced your first hospital stay and you did not like it one bit! You screamed every time any of the doctors or nurses even listened to your lungs. You hated the pulse oximeter on your finger or toe. And those are the gentle things that were done to you while there. As time progressed, things only got worse for you. Though your condition was improving, you were becoming more aware of your surroundings and knew that you wanted out. If I wasn't holding you then you were screaming and banging on the door to leave the room. You got so happy when we went on brief walks to the vending machines or the playroom. However, even all of the fun toys in the playroom weren't enough to make you forget where you were. Luckily your asthma did improve well enough in the time we were in the hospital that you were discharged within 20 hours and sent home with a new controller medication (that will hopefully prevent hospitalizations like this in the future!) and a higher dose of albuterol for the times that we need it :). Even through all of your screaming fits and insistence that I hold you all night long on my little couch bed, you were a sweetheart and very compliant to the necessary medications and procedures. You never tried to pull out your IV or push away your breathing treatments. I think that you know and understand the need for these things and how they help you. I am so grateful for this because, unfortunately, I would probably be naïve to think that we will never experience similar episodes again.
