Our new baby

I know, I'm a pessimist, but I honestly had my doubts that this day would come! Yes, we finally have a real piano, after suffering with a (cheap) Clavinova (that we bought off ebay) for the past 8 years. Well, we weren't even planning to buy one yet, but we decided we needed to research which pianos we liked best and how much it would cost. So with Memorial Day free, we drove all over Houston looking at pianos. When we found the exact piano we wanted (Kawai RX-1--5'5 baby grand) we just couldn't resist. We gave the salesman an offer (which he took without hesitation--darn, should've offered him less!), and that Thursday they delivered it!

It would've been a day sooner, but on Tuesday I discovered teeny tiny light brown bugs in our kitchen creating a neat pile of sawdust. I pretty much freaked out and thought our house was doomed to dry wood termites (I even did a bunch of research on the internet). So I called the salesman and asked if he could hold off on the sale and delivery until we solved our bug problem. I honestly thought we might have to replace all our cabinets, maybe our walls, leaving us with no money for a piano. Anyway, Terminix came on Wednesday and right away said those pesky bugs were none other than SUGAR ANTS! I felt really really silly for getting all worked up over harmless sugar ants. I hope I've learned my lesson about worrying over nothing!

Anyway...it is heavenly playing on our new piano. I'm just so amazed that everything worked out so we could get the piano of our dreams!!

T-ball Tyler

Tyler and his best buddy Matt are in t-ball together this season. They have practices on Thursdays and games on Saturday mornings. He earned money according to the number of catches and stops he made, practicing at home, and got to buy a real bat! During his most profitable home practice, he caught/stopped 402 balls. Needless to say, he's getting really good at catching and hitting!

Mother's Day surprise

I know, I'm so behind on my blog. Sorry for these old entries all at once! (I blame it all on Stephenie Meyer...) I had to include this picture that Tyler took for me. It was Mother's Day--Tim's 6 am bishopric meeting was still on, and I was prepared to get the kids ready for church with the usual cold cereal for breakfast. I was so amazed when Tim got up at 5 am or earlier and made my favorite breakfast with all the trimmings--biscuits and gravy with sausage, scrambled eggs, and strawberries on the side! He even set the table and bought beautiful roses for the centerpiece. How did I get so lucky?!

Finally--some pics of our new (or now semi-new) paint job

Much better than pink, in my opinion. I wanted to show Alissa how nice her "HOME" artwork looks in our front hall. Of course, we still have our newlywed furniture and not much in the decoration department, but the newly painted walls make a huge difference!

Tyler's bday campout

Last weekend was the long-awaited camping trip! Please don't look closely at the rocket cake--it really did look a lot better before transport. Tyler loved his new lantern. Didn't like the bugs so much. All the kids seemed deathly afraid of all the bugs. We had a late dinner, so we had to use our lantern to see, and all the huge beetles were flying onto the table trying to get into our food. And there were daddy longlegs crawling all over the bathroom walls! I guess the kids need more exposure to the "great outdoors."

The next day was fun, though. We made a big breakfast, walked around the lake, rented a john boat for an hour, played tug-of-war, hit the fire truck pinata (I think Tim had the most fun with that), and roasted hot dogs for lunch. Tim was a good sport with everything, he was feeling sick the whole time with a cold.

This weekend Tim is taking Tyler and Scott on the father-son campout, so I'm looking forward to having a fun girls night out with Claire. Claire loves to say, "girls stick together," and "Girl Team!" I think we'll rent a chick flick and eat ice cream, maybe do some shopping...

spring showers

It's finally sprinkler time in Houston! If you can't tell, Tyler's using the hose sprayer to fill up Scott's bucket. We love springtime!

i did promise you pictures!

Ok, so these aren't the best pictures to show you our newly painted rooms. I did take some pics with my camera phone, but since I haven't bought a memory card for it yet I can't transfer it to my computer easily. Hopefully I'll get a hold of Tim's laptop soon and can transfer them that way.

Anyway, last week I bought a new tent--we're going camping for Tyler's 6th bday in a couple weeks, and a 3-man tent just won't cut it anymore. Tyler decided it'd be more fun to go camping instead of having a party with his friends (which makes it a lot easier on me!). Anyway, we thought we'd set it up to see how we liked it. We didn't realize just how big it was! We let Tyler and Claire sleep in there for a couple nights before taking it down. It's such a cool tent (Coleman Tucana from Target)! It has a hinge door so it's easy to get in and out, plus it has two hanging room dividers to make three separate areas. We're so excited to go camping!

snake!

We heard a strange noise coming from our air conditioner--
this is what Tim found! Any guesses on what kind of snake this is?

bye pink walls

After 5 years of living with pink walls, I finally convinced Tim that we needed a new paint job. Everyone had fun pitching in. I'll post pics of the finished rooms soon.

peas please

We finally have vegetables in the garden! Not all the pea plants survived the winter, but many of them are doing well and producing. I love eating them straight from the garden. I never thought gardening could be so easy!

more pics from spring break

party time!

We loved playing with cousins Josh & Jordan when they were here visiting over Spring break. One of the mornings we also had two other friends over that we were babysitting, so we had a big party with balloon volleyball, crepe paper, pin-the-tail-on-the-horse (thanks to Jordan's great artwork), and lots of playground time!

howdy!

Yesterday we had fun at a friend's birthday party at our neighborhood park. We were surrounded by "true" Texans--by the end of the party I found myself talking in the Texan drawl. The kids loved the pony rides. And they were so excited to get cowboys hats! Aren't they the cutest cowkids?

Tim's Norway trip

Tim went on a business trip to Oslo, Norway a couple weeks ago. He and his coworkers went to a Viking ship museum. They used these ships as coffins to bury rich people in, underground! They also walked up to a ski jump that was used for the Olympics.