Vanessa's Last Day of School

Vanessa recently finished her first year of preschool. This is her teach, Mrs. Jiou. She is an awesome teacher and helped Vanessa in so many ways. One thing that was a lifesaver for Vanessa and us were the "magic rocks". Vanessa became really afraid of the wind a few months ago and was deathly afraid of being outside. During recess, she would cling to Mrs. Jiou's leg the entire time. So, Mrs. Jiou suggested that Vanessa put two "magic rocks" in her pockets so she wouldn't blow away. Brilliant woman! Ever since then, Vanessa has thrown caution to the wind and has loved being outside.

Here is a book Vanessa made (with Mommy's help) for Mrs. Jiou. Lisa gave her this prompt on every page ("Mrs. Jiou is great because...), and Vanessa decided what to say next and drew a picture to go along with it. After a lot of frustration when things weren't just right (from Vanessa), here is the finished product.

Beating the Heat!

As I sit here and look at the forecasted high temps for the next four days, this is what I see: 103, 108, 105, and yes, 105! Here is how the girls have been beating the heat. As you can see, Nicole has taken to it a little more than Vanessa.

Ultrasound # 2

As you all know, we are having another girl. We have also decided to name her Natalie Corinne Brown. In addition to finding out we were having a girl in the first ultrasound, we also found out that she too has dwarfism and looked like she might have club feet as well. Since we have already been through the drill with Nicole, we felt pretty good about things. It also helped knowing that all the specialists she would need are here in town.

As a result of the dwarfism, we will likely have monthly ultrasounds again to monitor the growth of her limb bones. Today, we had the second ultrasound and from what we could see, she definitely has some shortening in her limbs, but does not appear to have club feet. We also got a few really clear 3-D shots. It was crazy to see how much her little nose looks like Vanessa's. With that similarity, I guess it wasn't too surprising to see her trying to stick her little thumb in her mouth throughout the entire ultrasound. Here are the pictures.

Nicole turns 3!

Yesterday was Nicole's birthday, and since we did joint presents (backyard toys) for our girls this year, we thought the best way to celebrate the actual day was to just spend all day doing what she wanted to do.

Here were Nicole's food requests for the day:

Breakfast-- waffles and kiwi

Lunch-- Rosa's (the only restaurant to go to...in her opinion). A mexican restaurant where we always get fresh flour tortillas with our meal.

Dinner-- Cornbread. Only. She is nuts over this. When I asked what else she wanted, she just insisted on cornbread so we just gave a few of her usual food picks like hot dogs. (Nothing exciting for adults but she loved it.)

We also attempted a few parks, and when plans were thwarted, Petsmart was her place of choice (y'know, our day was planned by our 3-year-old!). She was a little sad to find out they don't keep dogs there, but she had fun with the fish, kittens, birds, and rats (she said one was named Lisa like me...sa-weet). We also went "swimming" and played in the sand and on the swings in our backyard and just enjoyed hanging out with daddy. It was a really nice kick-back day.

The highlight, of course, were the presents from grandparents and cake. Here are a few shots:

Nicole interpreted her birthday check: "It says, 'I love you, Niccoli. Love, Grandma-mama and Grandpapa." Then when she learned she could pick the toy, it became even cooler.
So excited! I love the foot especially! She just loves "reading" books to herself.
What? My own Barbie? She couldn't believe it!
She had to make sure it was just for her!
And then the kitchen with miniature food came out, and all else was forgotten...
until she was ready for cake.
Her pick...can you tell what her favorite animal is? I tried to make him look a little like her Ruff-ruff that she sleeps with at night. I think the tongue made her giggle.
The cake was taller than I realized, so she got a boost to blow out candles.
Mmmm! The best part of birthdays. Wanna know which part the girls wanted to eat? That's right, the chocolate coated ears.
Here's a chocolate kiss from the birthday girl!

Writing Conference in Horseshoe Bay

Last week, we attended a writing conference in Horseshoe Bay. It was sponsored by the grant I’m working for, which equated to an all-expenses-paid vacation…for the girls. I also had a lot of fun. We had 4 faculty members from different universities (University of Minnesota, East Carolina University, University of Central Florida, and Texas Tech), as well as myself and another student I work with. It was an awesome experience to work with these guys, brainstorm about marriage education, and crank out 3 publications over the course of a few days. Although we worked hard, we also played hard. The girls had a blast swimming, playing in the sand, seeing exotic birds, etc. Here are some shots of the girls.

Lisa will probably kill me when she sees I posted this one, but I can't help it...she's hot!

This is a salt water pool.

I thought this hot tub was AWESOME!

Another one of the pools at night.

The drive home was also quite amazing. We learned all about Texas wildflowers. Here are some pictures of the drive home.