Our littlest daredevil

Landrie continues to be a daredevil...being little supergirl on mommy's feet. She sees Jenna and Kylie getting lift off, so she has to have her chance to.
Ever since Jenna and Kylie got their bunk beds, she wants a piece of that action too. This one is in the form of climbing the ladder, which she does pretty well. We have to watch her very closely, as we think she is about as accident prone and clumsy as Kylie. Her problem comes in if and when she gets to the top. Then, she has to scream out...but we usually catch her before she gets to that point!
Up the ladder she goes...
This doesn't fit the daredevil theme, but after taking her out of dangerous predicaments, Landrie must be distracted. She is a little high strung:)!! She loves to close and snap the cover on Kylie's little learning computer. We open it and she closes it, and every time she closes it, we tickle her neck. She loves it, and forgets about being taken down from the ladder.

The Dallas Zoo

This past weekend we had a visitor. Grandy flew in to spend the weekend with us. Kylie got to stay home Monday and spend the day with Grandy and Jenna had a surprise when Grandy showed up for lunch with her at school on Tuesday. We had a great visit. We spent Sunday at the Dallas Zoo. It was perfect weather and we all enjoyed ourselves.
Jenna and Jed getting up close with the penguins.
Jenna and Grandy waiting for a sting ray to swim by. This was a touch pond. It was neat.

Here we are on the monorail.
I love this picture! This gorilla was really watching us. He sure knows how to pose.

For those of you wondering why I have all sorts of pictures of Jenna at the zoo near animals and not Kylie...the reason is that Kylie is more of an "enjoy the animals from the wagon type of girl". You never know when a penguin or a sting ray might brake loose...as for the gorilla, I wouldn't have sat there either!

A good book before bed.

Landrie LOVES to read. She usually turns the pages faster than a person could read, but we have time to work on that.
Here are a few pictures of her getting ready for bed with Jed and I.

Warning: If you are at our house and sitting low to the ground you will find Landrie in your lap armed with a good book.

The other day Jenna was sitting on the floor reading. To Landrie, that is an open invitation. She got so excited she climbed right onto her lap and plopped down right on top of the book.

The Frog Prince...Starring Jenna Eisel!

Last Friday Jennas class did a performance of The Frog Prince. She read the part of the Queen. Of course like every other school event it took place in the middle of the day. I am just glad that Jed works in the same building because he can usually get away from what he is doing to snap a few pictures so I don't miss out entirely.
I hear it was quite a performance.

New Beds, Curly Hair and more!

After seaching and watching Craigslist for the perfect bunkbeds, we found them! A few weekends ago we borrowed Auntie Jamie's truck and headed towards McKinney, Texas to pick them up(north of Dallas). The man selling them had hand made them years ago for his daughters and we love them. They are sturdy and strong and we loved the railings on the top. We got them home and Jed worked very hard sanding, priming and getting a fresh coat of white paint on them. Getting them in the house was probably the biggest part of the job. Anyway, now they are in and the girls have worked out a two night rotation. So far so good!
Here are the girls one morning after sleeping in curlers. They looked like two little Shirly Temples. They truly had big "Texas" hair on that day! All smiles as you can tell.

We recently dusted off the bike and decided to try it out with a passenger. It really did not go over well. Landrie HATES the helmet. I am really quite surprised that we got these pictures because most of the time she was on the bike she was thrashing around trying to yank the helmet off of her head! Oh yeah, did I mention how hard it is to ride a bike with someone flailing about on the back of it?!
I know from these pictures it looks like she really enjoyed herself...she has you all fooled!

Daredevil and Lover of Sammy

The 15 month old Landrie is quite a character. She just had a well visit with a few shots, which as you can guess, she did not love! She is in the 50th percentile for weight and 75th for height.
She is also getting more and more hair...finally, and is saying more and more words. You can tell she understands a lot more lately too. We will all be happier as she builds more vocabulary and uses the screech/scream a lot less to tell us what she wants:)
Besides having those positive milestones, she is also quite a daredevil/risktaker/messmaker. Oh, and she loves her bedtime friend, her sheepie...
Here she is using sheepie as if she is a matador in Mexico, if only he were red and we had a bull for her to tease. Maybe Sammy would be the bull?
Here is some of the risk-taking, not sitting in the chair...standing and climbing, using it as a stepstool. She was up on that table this afternoon!
All of this craziness aside, Landrie sure does love Sammy. She is not saying Sammy very well yet, it is always "PUPPY". Here she is giving him a little hug.
A nice gesture, a smile and why not share your food, right? She is always giving him food, or teases him with it and then he "chases" her around. Really it is just following her, but to a 15 month old, I bet Sammy has some speed skills too:) He does good putting up with the harassment from all three girls.

Pj's with Heels?

Jed was getting out the 18-24 month tote and came across these. They have quickly become the favorite. I know it is because of the click that they make on the floor. So, we will be wearing them with skirts, shorts and yes Jammies. The funny thing.....Kylie got mad because she does not have any shoes that are as fancy as Landries.

You might be able to see Landries newest tumble in the picture. We were over at a friends house and she fell and got the corner of a little shelf with her eye. Poor thing. She is a trooper.

A Morning at the Zoo

Neither a level orange air pollution warning nor 93 degrees will keep us from a morning at the zoo. We are fools.

Even though all of the animals were too hot to move Landrie loved the petting zoo. Here she was trying to call the piggy over to the fence.

Kylie hanging with the monkeys.
Jenna posing with her otter friends.
Now, lets play a game.......what is wrong with this picture? How about that Landrie walked more at the zoo than either of her sisters! Man they had it made in the shade.
We always end the day with a carousel ride. Evil looking tiger.

This was after their ride. I had to get one of the triceratops...really....who is going to choose that one?

We had a good time and ended up buying a membership for the year. I think if we go one more time we got our money out of it. The nice thing is that it is only a 12 minute drive from our house. I am sure we will be back once it cools down a little.

First Day of School

Get ready Pre-K, here comes Kylie! Here she is so excited...nope not about school, about her pop-tart in a fancy baggie.

Here's the whole gang. The were both so excited about these sparkling butterfly t-shirts that they HAD to wear them on the first day.....no we did not plan it of dress them alike on purpose.

This was a very special 1st day for Jenna. Over the summer she took the 1st grade CBE (credit by exam). Because of her scores we were given the choice to put her into a 2nd grade classroom instead of a first. Jed and I went back and forth on the decision for a while, but when all was said and done we felt that that would be the best for her. Jenna was not keen on leaving her first grade friends behind, but decided to give it a try on a trial basis of course. Jed and I both knew that if the first day went well, she would be fine. She loved it! She was actually upset at the end of the day because she wanted to stay longer. I think it is safe to say that she will remain a second grader.

A Weekend at the Lake

A few weeks ago we joined our friends Deanna and Jodi for a weekend trip to their lake. We had a great time swimming, grilling and relaxing.

Here is Jed and Jenna out for a spin on the jet ski. They have such a beautiful place on Possum Kingdom Lake. It is about a two hour drive west from our house so not bad at all.

Kylie and I out for a ride.

Here is what Kylie liked the best. She was a little timid about being in the water, so spent a good part of her days tooling around the yard on this toy that she is about 2 years too old for. Even gave her sister a few rides.

I love this picture for a couple reasons....no...myself in the background isn't one of them. First of all every picture we have of Andrew he has these superman PJ's on....I love it. And also, how grown up does Landrie look? Sitting at the table with all the big kids.