Water Babies

Since the pool felt so good at the birthday party the other day I decided we should do more swimming. This morning after we took Peter to work the girls and I went to my Dad and Judy's house to use their pool. The weather was so hot out and the pool felt great. Brye was afraid at first and didn't even want to go down to the second step but after I made her get in all the way and put her inner tube around her she had a blast. She just floated around the pool and figured out how to move in different directions by kicking her feet. Abbi is my little daredevil and she isn't afraid of anything. She walked right down the steps and when I put her crab float around her she pushed right off into the deep water. She even jumped into the water from the ledge (into my arms) and then when I was holding her she wanted me to let her go so she could swim on her own, that didn't work so well but she still didn't want me to hold her. We had a great time and the girls were really wore out afterwards. We will probably be returning in a couple days.

My little cacher

The other day while Brye was at Grandma's house I took Abbi caching while Daddy was working. She always has fun going through all the treasure. If there is anything real exciting in there I will trade things out so she can have a prize. She doesn't quite understand the whole finding conception yet but when I pull open the cache she pulls everything out and then puts it all back in, just like a true cacher. Whenever I stop the car Abbi says "me too!!" because she wants me to pull her out too. She usually pokes around the area while I do the real searching. I like having helpers with me but it does take a lot longer to do it that way, it's okay though because my pictures for my find posts are always cuter when I have helpers. The other day Abbi was completely worn out from our caching adventures, she slept all the way home.

Dog Lovers

Peter had the day off and we needed to take a couple things back to the Altamonte Mall. After we finished up a couple more errands we went over to Michael and Angella's house to hang out. They have two big dogs but they always put them up when we come over because the girls are afraid. Today Brye decided to be brave (after some coaxing) and started petting one of the dogs. When Abbi saw that Brye could do it she decided to give it a try too. Katana (spelling?) was very happy for the attention but also kind of worried but she behaved and the girls enjoyed how soft she was. Later we all went to the Mall of Millennia and then to the Cheesecake Factory, so yummy!

So tired

Last night we didn't get home until midnight and then we had to get up and go back to town this morning. I was taking the girls to a birthday party at their friend Delaney's house. We all had a great time at the party. Cindy and Brian got a huge blow up slide and the kids go down it into a pool of water. Brye was afraid at first but after she got enough nerve to go down it once she had a blast doing it hundreds of times after. Abbi swam in the pool with me and played with some of the other younger kids. It was so hot out and the pool felt so nice. We were there until almost two and then we went over to my mom's house. I said my good bye to my brother, Brian, and it was really sad, I am really going to miss him. Anyhow we made it home and ate dinner and now I am ready for bed. This picture is from last night, I brought my camera to the party today but forgot to put my memory card in it, oops.

Good Bye Brian!

My youngest brother, Brian, is joining the Navy and leaves on Sunday for Basic Training in IL. Tonight we had a big dinner for him at my mom's house with one of my other brothers and my sister and their families to say good bye. Brian graduated from high school earlier this year and then joined the Navy to be a gunners-mate. He goes to basic training for 9 weeks and then has to go to class for his specified career. I am hoping to be able to attend his BT graduation in October (I think). We had a great time at dinner but I didn't say good bye yet because I am going over there tomorrow. I am really proud of Brian, he has really come a long way and the next few weeks won't be easy. I will really miss giving him a hard time when I go over to my mom's house. I will just have to save it all for when I see him again when he graduates.

Back in the game

Well if you thought I was bad before you should see me now. Ever since my doctor released me on Monday I have had caching running through my mind non-stop. Luckily while I was out of commission the local cachers placed some new geocaches in my area so I had something to do when I got well again. There is a park a couple miles from my house where one cacher placed 7 puzzle caches, I had the time so I solved them all while I was on bedrest. I wanted to go make the finds in the early morning but I don't like hiking alone in the woods so I called up a couple caching friends and we made a morning of it. We ended up with 8 finds (6 puzzles and one other) and will return for the final two probably next week. It got hot fast even though we left the house around 7am. I definitely needed this caching run, it helped sooth my itch (somewhat).

Weather or not

We had a pretty crazy storm today. The rain came down almost sideways. Of course this is the time that we decided we should go to the grocery store. We got pretty wet but at least we got some food for dinner. When we came home we saw that a tree fell onto our neighbors house. You can see that it landed on the wires and I am pretty sure that is what saved it from going straight through the roof. Likely they had no damage but I don't know how they are going to get the tree down. We lost both our big trees to the hurricanes a couple years ago so we weren't worried. Later one from the lot across the street fell and just barely missed our house. The next door neighbor helped us cut it up and then drug it off our driveway with his truck. I think all the big trees that were a threat to us are gone now.

Brye's Gift from God

Last summer I planted a bunch of Marigolds in my garden. Brye really liked the bright yellow and orange flowers and everyday we would go out and dead-head them to keep them healthy. We really liked the way our fingers smelled afterwards because Marigolds are so fragrant. Anyhow the Marigolds bloomed and seeded other areas and grew new flowers there. I explained to Brye that new sprouts were put there by God for us to enjoy and that I didn't plant them. All summer Brye and I cared for the flowers until they died when the weather got colder. Throughout the whole fall, winter, and spring, Brye kept talking about the orange flowers that God gave us. She was really sad that they died but I told her that in the summer we might get to see some more grow in our garden. Occasionally Brye would ask me when the orange flowers were going to come back but all I could do was to tell her to wait. About a month ago I saw a single Marigold sprout come up but I didn't tell Brye as there there were no buds yet. Sure enough about two days ago a little gold flower bloomed and today I showed Brye it out her bedroom window. She got so excited, and I am sure she spent most of her nap time watching her Gift from God.

Recovery: Final

Today I had my postpartum check-up at the doctors office. It was my final appointment with them and it was kind of sad. I feel so much better than I did after the surgery; I would say I am probably about 95% better. I still have a couple fears about my incision area but they are all in my head and I just need to get over it. At the appointment today everything looked great and there were no worries. There are two drs at the office but I almost always saw Dr. Christensen and only saw Dr. Al Malt once or twice. Well today I saw Dr. C again but even Dr. Al Malt said that I looked a lot better than the last time I came in and that I seemed a lot happier too. I told him that I feel so much better and it is so surprising to me the difference between now and just a few weeks ago. Though this doctors office is strictly high-risk pregnancies only they said that if I wanted to I could return to them for future pregnancies since I had triplets and especially since one passed. They told me they would take me as a patient even though I wouldn't necessarily need them. That made me happy because Dr. C is by far the best doctor I have ever had and I have had a lot of doctors. The whole office is so together and with it, I have never experienced a doctors office like that. And even after being away for 6 weeks they still greeted me by name the moment I walked in without having to check my paperwork first. I love places like that, it makes you feel important not just another patient.

Cache away!

Last night there were a few new puzzle caches posted in my area. I spent some time with another local cacher trying to figure out the real coordinates so we could go make the finds today. After not too long we had the answers to all the puzzles but it was raining too hard to go out. This morning I took Abbi out and we searched Stetson University for the three caches. Abbi enjoyed the walk and she especially liked the fountain that was in the center. Since it was Sunday there were no students around and we were able to take our time and enjoy the quietness. Later today, we all went to see one of Peter's friends play guitar at a restaurant on the riverside. On the way home we grabbed a couple more caches that were on the way and Brye helped me with those finds. It felt good to get out and cache again, it's been a long time since I have done much caching. Except it just makes me want to go out and get more. :)

Do you know the Cupcake girl?

My youngest brother Brian is joining the Navy at the end of the month so we are having a going away dinner for him before he leaves. Abbi and I thought it would be a good idea to make up some cupcakes to take with us to my mom's house for after dinner. The dinner isn't until Sunday but we had time today so we decided to get to work. I wanted Brye to help us too but she wouldn't clean up her room so she missed out on the fun. Abbi was a big help, she poured all the ingredients in and put the cup cake papers in the pan. She even helped me mix it all up even though the mixer is loud and she doesn't like loud noises. After I portioned out the mix into the first batch of cups I had to give Abbi a taste. As most of you know, I don't usually give the girls anything with sugar but I couldn't deny the chef a taste of her own creation. There wasn't much on the beater but she was happy to have it. Once I put the cupcakes in the oven Abbi watched from her stool in front of the oven to wait until they were done. She didn't make it the whole twenty minutes but it was cute while it lasted.

Computer Literate

While Peter was paying for my new computer last week, I let Brye play at one of the iMac stations they had set up for kids. They had a program on there was a Dr Suess book that was animated and could read to you or let you do things yourself within each page. She was really good with the mouse and so I decided we should get her that program for home. Today the girls were playing on it and I was impressed with Brye's coordination with the mouse cursor. I never let her play on my computer before because I didn't really have anything that she could do but now I will have to look into getting some more programs for her so she can become more computer literate.

Alligators!!

My mom still had Brye today so it was just Abbi and I for most the day.















After lunch my mom and I decided to meet at Sanford mall but she was still going to be a little while.
















I decided to head over that way but stop at Cold Stone to get a milkshake while we were waiting.
















As we were driving up to the store Abbi saw all these colorful alligators and she got so excited, she started yelling out and pointing!


















It was really cute. After we parked and started walking up to Cold Stone there was another alligator right in front of the store.














Abbi ran right over and pointed to all the designs on it. She is so cute.
















After we got my milk shake, I knew mom was still going to be a little bit so we walked to each alligator and saw all the cool paintings and colors.

















I am not sure if we saw every one they had but we sure did see a lot and Abbi was just as excited about the next as she was at the last.















Here are all the pictures I took of her with her new friends.

















I only had my phone on me so they aren't the best quality but you can still see her excitement and the pretty designs.
















After we met mom and hung out at the mall for a while we went back to get Daddy and then we all went to the movies to see Ratatouille.
















When we got to the theater that is right next to Cold Stone Brye got just as excited to see the alligators as Abbi did earlier. Such simple things...

I got dirt

UPS came by today gave me some dirt. Literally. I have been geocaching for a while and along the way I have told just about all my friends about it and a couple people have taken to the hobby as well. One of those friends is Rayna, a long time friend of Peter's. Well Rayna was in Oregon visiting family and getting a few caches while she was there. Just so happens that the very first geocache ever placed was located just minutes away from where she was staying. As any true cacher would, she had to make this find. While she was there she collected a baby jar of the soil for herself and also for me which I received today in the mail. I thought this was a great idea and now I have a piece of true geocaching history. I think it's really cute too how the baby jar is "organic" and so labeled as such. To read more about Rayna's adventures you can visit her blog on the right "The Nielson Family Blog." Thanks Rayna, Peter said it best "only a geocacher could appreciate a jar of dirt so much!"

Happy Birthday Bresa!!

Four years ago today I became a Mommy for the first time. I remember the day like it was yesterday but it has already been a full four years. Bryanna is so sweet and so super smart! Everyday she enriches my life and gives it meaning. Sometimes we have hard days but in the end I don't know what I would do without her. We already had Brye's party but we still had to celebrate her big day. Peter had off because it was Monday so we decided to do a few errands and celebrate all in one. Brye got to choose where we had lunch and she chose Panera, thats my girl. While we were there though Abbi fell and hit her mouth and bit both sides of her tongue and it bled a lot. It was pretty scary but she recovered pretty quickly. After we ran a couple more errands we picked up Grandma and went to Chuckie Cheese's. Brye had been once before and had a great time but this was Abbi's first time. I had printed out some coupons so after getting cup full of tokens and eating pizza and drinking up some water we took the girls to play all the games. We decided we got too many tokens and they took forever to go through them all but the girls had a great time. Brye liked playing in the tunnels the best and met a new friend. Abbi liked the ball games best, I never knew you could make one game of skeet ball last 20 minutes. LOL After we took Grandma home and left Brye there to spend the night, it only took Abbi a couple minutes to fall asleep on the way back home.
Also a very Happy Birthday to Robert!!

Her last day as a 3yr old

Here is Brye next to an old Martin D35. I told Brye I wanted to take her picture before she went to bed because she will never be three again and Peter said "here take it next to this." So here you go. Brye is excited about her birthday tomorrow. We already had her party at the beginning of the month but we will still make this a special day complete with seeing Grandma and all. Brye sure is a big girl, I don't remember life before her, but in all honesty it really seems very unimportant. My life has so much more meaning now that I am a Mommy and it all started four years ago tomorrow.

Take my picture please

The other day when I got my camera out to take a picture of the water lily Brye asked if I could take her picture too. She was so polite and used her manners when have I been known to turn down a picture op? I asked where she would like me to take it and we decided on Charlie. Abbi joined Brye and they both posed so nicely.

Popcorn Flicks

Last night was a Winter Park Popcorn flicks where they have free movies in the park and give out free popcorn. We missed lasts months showing because I was having the babies so we were excited to get back to the park again this month. We met up with Michael and Angella and a few more friends. The movie last night was Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Ark, the park was absolutely packed! I don't think I have ever seen it that full, even when they played the Muppets Movie. We left right after Peter got off work and grabbed dinner on the way and the movie didn't start until 8:00 so we had pretty good seats up front. It was really hot out last night and there was no breeze whatsoever but we still had a great time.

Lily

So far this year we have had two Lily's in our fish pond out front.The first lily appeared the day after the girls party (of course) and then after a couple days of bloom it closed up and went back under the water's surface. Yesterday we had another lily pop up so I figured I should get a quick picture before it went under for good too. Hopefully we will have many more before they vanish in the fall, I think they are so pretty and they always look so perfect they could be fake.

Slippin' Slide

Last month while I was still recovering from my surgery my mom had the girls for a long time. My mom had a great idea to get the girls a Slippin' Slide so they could play out doors. The girls had a blast and played out there for hours! They had never played with anything like that. I use to take them to the pool but this was completely different. They didn't really understand the running and sliding concept but they had fun nonetheless. They crawled through the "water tunnel" and drank the water up from the streams shooting out. They got to the end of the slide and laid down where some of the water gathered. Such silly girls, they had such a great time that Grandma bought one for Abbi's birthday so we could have one at our house. We haven't used it yet but I will get it out in a couple days so they can go crazy again.

Stickers, stickers everywhere

It looks like Brye got tired of putting stickers in her book. A sticker covered Abigail is the result...

Pretty Kitty

A New Toy

Today Peter and I did a little shopping. We got the girls dressed all pretty and then we went into Sanford to do some shopping at the mall. I was looking for clothes but I didn't really find anything like I was looking for. Peter needed some tools for his shop and some other supplies. After we finished at Seminole Towne Center we headed over to the Mall of Millenia because they have an Apple Store. We went last week too when we were over that way to go to my sister's but we didn't get anything then. Peter and I were just given Adobe Suite CS3 extended version new in the wrapper but my old computer can't handle it. We had talked about upgrading my system for a while so that Peter's shop could buy my old one well today we bit the bullet and I got a new computer. I don't know much about computers so I pretty much let Peter pick it all out. The only thing I wanted was to be able to do my Photoshop work on it and of course it had to be a Mac. We ended up buying a 20" iMac. I can still have dual monitors but since this one comes with a built in screen Peter can take one of my old monitors to the shop with him. I haven't used it yet, I am actually using Peters laptop (a Mac powerbook) to put this up while Peter sets up my new system. I have had my old computer for about 4 years and it still works great, there is no way I would ever buy anything other than a Mac again. After we left the mall we stopped over at Michael and Angella's since they were on the way home. The girls watched Monsters Inc. while we just talked and hung out and ate cheesecake, yummmm.